As I drive through the beautiful north coast scenery to my work every morning, I love to listen to Life Matters, an ABC (Australian public) radio program about life, family and children. Lately there have been many discussions about the rising incidence of childhood obesity, diabetes, and consumption of junk food and drink. This is a sad thing in our modern times when we have so much information about good nutrition and healthy life style. Why do we continue to do things that are not good for us? Is this habit? Well certainly part of the reason we may not take care of our health is due to the habits we have.
Most children and adults will like and do things they know. So how can we change our health habits?
Firstly let’s take a look at the shopping trolley. What goes into yours? Do you write a list before you shop? How do you know what to put on that list? One way to know what to shop for is to plan in advance what you are going to eat. A simple and helpful tool is to draw up a table something like the one below.
Fill in the boxes with your favourite healthy meals and habits as shown in the illustration. Put in any healthy habits that you like, including drinking water and smiling a lot. Make boxes the size you need. Colour in, draw pictures, involve the whole family and have fun. Put the chart up in the kitchen. Guess what? Now you have your shopping list. Buy only the ingredients needed for meals and snacks on your plan. You will also always have great ideas during the day of foods to eat. This will stop you from grabbing just anything because of not knowing what to eat. This on-track chart has helped many to change to great habit diets.
To see whether it is a priority to look at your habits you may ask yourself/your family:
Do you ever
• wake up tired, even after a good night’s sleep?
• feel lethargic?
• have a coated tongue?
• don’t feel real hunger, even if you haven’t eaten for several hours?
• have generalised aches and pains?
• lack mental clarity and energy?
• feel tired and unenthusiastic?
• are more reactive than you would like?
• experience frequent indigestion such as gas, bloating or heart burn?
• feel blocked anywhere in the body — this includes constipation, sinus congestion, difficulty in breathing, heaviness in your abdomen?
• crave things which you know are not good for you?
These are some common signs that toxins are accumulating in your tissues. To have good health we need to create good habits around digestion.
Tips to enhance digestion
• Select wholesome foods full of life force.
• Prepare your food in a relaxed and loving way.
• Digestion begins in the mouth — chew your food slowly with awareness.
• Eat in a pleasant, relaxed environment.
Rekindle your ‘digestive fire’ (digestive enzymes)
• Chew a slice of fresh ginger sprinkled with lemon or lime and a little rock salt before meals, or
• Take ½ teaspoon of triphala with a little ghee or
• Take ¼ teaspoon of trikatu with honey before meals.
• Do not drink with meals, except a very small amount if eating dry foods.
Eating to enhance wellbeing
- Select foods that expand consciousness, foster a calm and clear mind, provide vitality and strength: Fruits, (fresh and organic where possible), vegetables, whole grains, beans (in moderation and soaked), nuts, seeds, plant-based oils — sesame, olive, sunflower, ghee, dairy products (organic and fresh and not homogenised), natural sugars.
- Reduce intake of foods that create agitation and an outward seeking consciousness:
- Sweet sauces, alcohol, coffee, tea, chillies, pickles, sour cream, vinegar, excess salt, excess meat.
- Avoid denatured foods, foods that lack life-force and create inertia, confusion, lethargy and sluggishness:
- Processed foods, artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, stale old food, recooked food, refined sweets, white sugar and flour, greasy deep-fried food, canned foods, frozen food, hard cheese, microwaved foods.
Simple cleansing practices safe for most people:
- Sip plain hot water
This practice is so simple and yet it is a wonderful cleanse in itself. The hot water liquefies toxins, which are clogging your system, and starts to gently eliminate them. This practice can also be used for easy weight loss (try it and see).
Boil pure, clean water and drink a half to one cup as warm as you can, three to six times a day.
Best times to drink your hot water are:
— first drink of the day after you get up and before breakfast
— between or before meals
— last thing at night before bed
Do not add anything to the water. Simply sip plain hot water and notice the results. If you are very clogged it may take a week or so before a big difference is noticed.
- Scrape your tongue
During the night our body cleanses and eliminates toxins and pushes them out to places like our nose, ears, bowels and our mouth. By scraping our tongue as soon as we get up in the morning (before taking anything orally), we are aiding our body in its natural elimination process.
Also, tongue-scraping stimulates energy lines in our body which begin and end in our tongue. In this way it stimulates our metabolism and is a great preparation for breakfast.
The toxins, or ama, our body layers on our tongue need to be scraped off before we have anything orally which would wash it back into the body. It is best to use a copper tongue scraper (but stainless steel is fine too).
Method: Start at the back of your tongue and with 2 to 4 scrapes remove the layer covering your tongue.
Notice the colour and amount of ama here each day. Over time this layer can give you information about the state of your body. Start to notice what the layer looks like when you are really stressed or after you’ve been partying, coming down with a cold or stressed.…
Most of us have some level of stress in our lives these days, every day. Tongue-scraping, and many other simple Ayurvedic/naturopathic lifestyle techniques, help our body even though only in a gentle cleansing manner, deal with some of the effects of stress.
If you would like to know more of these techniques after experiencing this one then please ask us…
- Clean up your diet
Give yourself a set time span (for example 1-2 weeks) and for that time be strict and follow a gentle cleansing diet. Eat only organic food in this time.
Have no alcohol, caffeine, fizzy soft drinks, white sugar, white flour, yellow cheese, cigarettes, peanuts or peanut butter; no prepackaged potato or corn chips, deep-fried foods, red meat and no canned foods.
Instead of these, eat fresh foods cooked on the same day, steamed vegetables, vegetable soups, whole grains, well ripened fruit, herbal teas, soaked almonds (a great protein source), well cooked (pre-soaked) legumes like mung beans, small amounts of organic fish and small amounts of organic chicken.
Once you follow this for 1-2 weeks and start to notice the difference in your energy levels, the clarity in your mind, your improved eyesight, your improved bowel function etc, you may not go back to all your pre-cleanse junk food/bad habits.
- Take aloe vera
Aloe vera is a gentle yet wonderful cleansing food/herb. If you have it growing in your garden then wash it and juice a portion of a whole leaf (you do not need to peel first as the yellowish substance under the skin is also an active cleansing constituent). Make sure it is aloe vera though!! Take the juice, 4-5 teaspoons (20-25mls), 1-3 times daily before meals.
- Ginger, lemon and honey drink
This is a wonderful drink to start your day with. Use fresh ginger, one teaspoon grated or a few thin slices. Then add boiling water, freshly squeezed lemon juice and honey to taste.
The ginger stimulates the metabolism and digestive system, improves circulation and acts as a catalyst for the other ingredients. While the lemon juice further aids our body, gently cleansing, by cutting through toxins and helping in the elimination of them. Honey should never be cooked as it changes its molecular structure and makes it toxic to the body. So add the honey at the end when the water has cooled a little and is no longer boiling.
For any questions etc check out our website at www.mullumherbals.com
Published in byronchild/Kindred, issue 18, June 06