Love Your Guts
healing indigestion
Your digestion is supported by your digestive fire. In Ayurveda, this is referred to as Jathara Agni. Learn how to keep your fire burning bright and strengthen your digestion with simple routines, practices, and recipes.
Agni is the Sanskrit word for fire. Fire has been worshipped throughout human history and the Vedic culture that yoga and ayurveda came out of revered it for its light, warmth, its ability to cook food, and its power of transformation. It is often referred to as digestive fire, but it is so much more. It is the intelligence that governs all transformative processes including the digestion, absorption, and assimilation of foods, sensations, and experiences into energy. It maintains bodily tissues, gives our skin its luster, and our eyes their sparkle. You often feel agni as hunger. When agni is imbalanced, ama (undigested food/goo) forms. Ama becomes toxins in the body that sludge up the cells and systems. Agni can be too hot or acidic, it can be slow or damp, it can be weak of fluctuating. Learning to balance agni can boost your health.
The etymology of agni comes form the word ignite. Think of your digestion as a fire, if you put a few logs in ever few hours, you will have a smooth burning fire. If you continuously put sticks on it, you may smother the fire. If it doesn’t get enough air it will smoke out. The same goes for your digestion, it needs to be rhythmic, the amount and qualities of the food matter, and the energy you put into it matters too. The following are simple recommendations for healthy digestion that anyone can avoid to strengthen their agni. These lifestyle and herbal recommendations come from doctor Vasant Lad. They are in hierarchical order. Notice that how much, when, and how we eat has a bigger effect than what.
- Overeating
- Eating without real hunger
- Emotional Eating
- Drinking fruit juice or excess water or no water during a meal
- Drinking chilled water at any time
- Eating when constipated or emotionally disturbed
- Eating before 7am or after early evening
- Eating too much heavy food or too little light food
- Snacking on anything except fruit between meals
- Eating incompatible food combinations, such as fruit with a meal
choosing a balanced lifestyle
Having a balanced lifestyle is key to regulating your agni. The body likes rhythm. It is part of a macrocosmic rhythm that moves in pulsation (spanda) from the seasons, day to night, cold to hot, dry to wet, and these rhythms flow through your body. For example rest and digest to waking and taking in, waking to sleeping, and hunger to deep satiation. The more we can live aligned to these dynamic rhythms by regulating our sleep, food habits, work stress, and bowel movements, the better we will feel. This balance helps maintain the integrity of the doshas and keeps you in good health.
relationships, integrity, and meditation
recipes for enhancing agni (digestion)
Pre-meal stimulants
Ginger is one of the best herbs to kindle agni. About 20 minutes before a meal slice up some ginger, throw some rock salt on it, and suck on a slice of lime or lemon. Eat 2 slices and save the other pieces for later. Alternately you can just do ginger with rock salt and chew that. I make this as a small jar and let it ferment in the fridge for ease of use later.
This is another pre-meal stimulant for your digestion.
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp trikatu
- 1 pinch of rock salt.
- (Trikatu is a mix of ginger, black pepper, and Indian long pepper in equal proportions.)
This is another pre-meal stimulant for your digestion.
- 1 clove of chopped garlic
- 1/4 tsp cumin powder
- 1 pinch of rock salt
- 1 pinch of trikatu
- 1 tsp lime juice
post-meal stimulants
Crush 1/2 tsp of bay leaf in a cup of hot water for 10 minutes, add a pinch of cardamom and enjoy after eating.
Dry roast the following on a heavy bottomed pan over low heat for a few minutes stirring frequently. Roast until fragrant. Allow to cool then store in a small tin or jar. Chew a spoonful after meals.
- 1 tbs fennel
- 1tsp sesame
- 2tsp shredded coconut
- Generous pinch of pink salt
anytime stimulants
CCF and CCFT is often used in Ayurvedic cooking. These spices improve digestion, absorption, and assimilation. You can make these into a tea or cook with them to promote detoxification, digestion, and clear skin.
- 1 tbs whole coriander seed
- 1 tbs whole cumin seed
- 2 tsp whole fennel seed
- 1 tbs grounder turmeric
Dry roast the coriander, cumin, and fennel until fragrant for a few minutes on a heavy-bottomed pan on medium0low heat. Allow them to cool in a wide bowl completely. Grind the seeds with a mortar and pestle, then stir in the turmeric. Store in an airtight glass jar.
fasting
Fasting is a method to heal indigestion. It stimulates autophagy, allowing the body’s natural detoxification systems to do their job. Different types of fasts are recommended depending on your body type, the season, your lifestyle, and current needs and wants. Join Suzanne for the Healthwise 1 Week Ayurvedic Intermittent Fasting Challenge to learn about how to fast for your body type. The next challenge tutorial is on April 10th, this is the perfect reset for spring. Register here it’s totally FREE. If you’d like to upgrade for a deeper connection to consciousness try the Refresh Upgrade – this will add 2 more weeks to your challenge.
types of agni
There are four varieties of jathara agni (digestive fire). Vishama, tickshna, and manda are from imbalanced doshas.
- Sama Agni (balanced metabolism).
- Vishama Agni (irregular metabolism).
- Tickshna Agni (sharp; hypermetabolism)
- Manda Agni (dull; hypometabolism)