Digesting The Core of Wellness (3)

Yogic Vajrasana pose
improves digestion

Improving the digestive system
can be a long course of rejuvenation.

It involves an overall revival of one's vitality
(ie Life Force Building as taught in Advance Nutrition and Healing Course)
in the perspectives of
- wholesale changes in lifestyle
  and
- management of diet, nutrition and herbs.

When one's vitality is revived,
the digestive system naturally improves.
A good digestive system will also
improve one's overall vigour
which in turn kicks off a spiral up effect.

Hence, we discuss here,
a spectrum of measures to improve digestive system,
that targets both the digestive system specifically
and the overall health generally.


(A) Lifestyle Improvement

In line with life force building and hence the revival of digestive life force
it's recommended that one:

1. sleep latest by 10.30pm daily
to harvest the benefits of human growth hormones (hGH) designated to secrete 11pm-1am every midnight. hGH is a versatile hormones that repair, reverse, regenerate, restructure in our body. It is the ultimate holy grail in medicine, that preserve youth and rebuild life force. Failing to sleep in time every night, is likened to missing the pay cheque of the day, causing a lot of destruction to our body including our digestive system.

2. do kneeling yoga pose after meal
to increase the blood flow to the digestive system, for improved digestive fire.
How to do kneeling yoga pose (Vajrasana):
http://www.yogicwayoflife.com/vajrasana-the-thunderbolt-pose/

3. perform abdominal exercise 3-4 times weekly
as abdominal exercises like crunches, sit-ups tone the muscle of the digestive tract, prevent stagnant gas in the channel.

For beginners, crunches is a better option because it is less risky in term of physical injuries.
How to do basic crunches:
http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Crunches

Other than crunches and sit-ups,
trampoline rebounding exercise also helps massage digestive tract internally.

4. empty the mind during meal
so that the communication between the digestive system and the brain is not disrupted.
It is an established textbook-fact that we actually digest under the command of the brain. During a meal, the stomach senses the degree of softness of the food and 'consult' constantly with the brain, which command on how much gastric juices and enzymes to secrete. When we are eating with a troubled or occupied mind (due to work, stress, TV etc), the communication between the stomach and brain will be compromised, rendering improper digestion.

5. nurture pro-digestive eating habits
e.g.
i. sipping hot soup or hot water
     before, during and after meal,
     to help up-regulate digestive fire.
     But there is a restriction of maximum ~80ml.
     Larger volume of soup (that will put off digestive fire)
     can be taken 30min before or 1hr after the meal.

ii. chewing foods slowly and thoroughly,
     to improve digestibility of foods in the gut.
     Chew at least 30times on each side,
     until saliva lubricates the bolus in the mouth
     (and amylase begins to work).

iii. eating with hands (as per Ayurvedic teachings)
     to invite digestive agni (fire).
     This is because the hands can sense
     the softness/hardness (digestibility) of food
     and send signals to the brain
     for it to justify how much gastric juice will be needed
     before food arrives in the stomach.


Next, we will discuss about the dietetic and nutritional maneuvering
in order to increase digestive power and
to maintain a high performance digestive system.



Happy digesting =)
Kee Yew
pureland2012-at-gmail.com

{Learning Holistic Wellness for Wisdom and Compassion}