Ayurveda and Law of Hunger
Ayurveda Blog No 2.
Click here for 1st Blog in this Series.
The Blogs on Ayurveda have been contributed by Dr. Nikhil Mehta. In case you would want to contribute to Bandra Blogs please feel free to write to us.
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In the last article we saw, that one must learn the art of remaining healthy, remaining balance. And for that knowledge from an experience, your own experience is important. Now I will give one example of how experience helps us to remain healthy.
A professor from a college came to me with the complaint of severe headache since three months. He had already done all the modern investigation about it including scan of the brain. Nothing came out of that. I took his detail history. The cause came out was very simple, logical and most important was experiential. Since last three months his job timings changed. Previously he used to get time to have proper lunch but with new timings it was not possible to him.
So he used to have not so heavy breakfast, just a tea or coffee at the time of lunch and a good dinner. But his body was asking something different. He was not hungry at the time of breakfast, had a good hunger at lunch and moderate hunger at dinner. Naturally he was not getting a appropriate food at the time of lunch. And now his experience starts. His headache starts after the lunch time and gradually becomes severe till evening. On Sundays when he was at home and eats properly at the time of lunch, he was free of his headache. His experience was his master, my job in this case was just to direct his attention to this experience. And then everything was simple. He knew what to do. He actually started doing that, taking out some time for good lunch and he got the results. No need of a doctor, no need of medicines, just looking towards oneself and learning from the experience. Every time it may not be so simple but most of the time it is like that only.
Now an exercise for you:
Start getting friendly with yourselves, your body and your mind. Start becoming aware of different experiences happening to you. May be you can note down this experiences in book or you can keep them in your memory. See that whether this are happening again and again. Like above example, a person was hungry, not having food and headache begins, Or you are getting exposed to sun and headache begins etc. If it is happening again and again start correlating cause and effect relationship. Verify it.
You are eating chilly and getting acidity and not having it and not getting acidity. Then yes, you have diagnosed your problem. You are started becoming your own doctor. Let us talk about many experiences in next article. Share your experience with us. We will move together on the road of health.
Law of hunger
Let us move ahead. So we are just trying to learn from our experiences, what is good and what is bad for our health. To derive proper meaning from our experiences we must take some help from the theoretical part of Ayurveda. We must know the basic principles of Ayurveda and certain other things. In previous article we learned that the spices like red chilly, black pepper increases heat within our body. Like this there are so many laws which helps us to balance our health.
These are laws of daily routine which indicate when to have most important meal?
when to sleep?
when to exercise?
there are laws about food, when to eat and how much to eat?
Ways to know you have overeaten or have eaten less food, which food type should be taken in a large quantity and which should be taken in a small quantity?
Which food varieties give good strength to the body?
How much water one should have?
Which fruits are good for health?
There are laws about seasonal cycle, in which season what type of food should be consumed?
What to avoid?
What are the rules about exercise & sleep in each season?
What medicines and treatments are of use in particular season?
There are laws about cooking food, there are laws about mixing the food types and so many other laws.
The knowledge about these laws will help us arrive at correct meaning from our experiences. Let us take example of the law about hunger. The law says you must have the food when you feel good hunger. The very first question arises here. What is good hunger?
Most of us eat on time. We do not consult our body but we follow the instructions of the watch, we look at the time. We have forgotten the real hunger. When one feels hunger, he starts feeling little restless, a feeling of emptiness in the stomach, a lightness in the body, he gets burps without smell etc. Everything may not happen but some of above will happen to him. Today we don’t have time to wait till we feel hungry. Eating when one is not hungry can lead to indigestion. And this indigestion can create so many other problems.
Now suppose one has very good hunger and if he eats on proper time he will really enjoy the food. May be the food is very simple, still he will enjoy the food. He will get to know the taste of the food in real sense. If he eats properly he will feel satisfied. The body was demanding food and you have given it to body in appropriate amount, at appropriate time, body gets satisfaction and you can experience it. If you put more, what will happen? Rather than pleasantness, you will feel heavy and dull.
Yes, of course, after meal one feels little dull. That is obvious. And that is why one should not immediately indulge in active work. Body wants you to take little pause. As the dullness goes away you can start with active work, active physical work. If one overeats then he will feel extreme dullness and he will feel sleepy. He will feel that the stomach is tight, he may feel some restlessness also. Remember your experience when you eat at some party or marriage functions.
Another experience to learn from over eating is that one will not feel hungry for the next 6 to 8 hours. So that’s about overeating. And if one eats less food than required by the body then what will be his experience? Yes, he will not feel satisfied after eating His mind will keep on asking him for this or that food items. He will not feel energetic as he has not fulfilled the demands of the body. As the body has not got what it wants, he will not feel energetic. Or in other words he will feel tired or even fatigued after the meal.
Also he will get hunger within 2-3 hrs. If he is eating less every day deliberately then he is surely going to suffer from so many things. He will feel tired & energy less every day. He cannot perform his daily duties and work well. And slowly his body will show all the signs of wear and tear at a very early age. Simply he will become old at an early age. He will experience wrinkling of the skin, hair problems, teeth problems, eyes and ear problems and different bone problems.
Unfortunately today people either over eat, eat at wrong times, not eat properly or eat less. A very strange phenomenon. Mind you, most of the diseases originate at this point. Actually over eating is a problem for us since ages. But today everyone knows so much about overeating and problems shoots up from it that they are going to other end of eating less which can also lead to same amount of diseases. There is a fear regarding eating in every one’s mind. That is why we must learn to eat rightly, in right quantity. Neither less nor more. This is the art one must master.
To be Continued….
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September 8th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Hello, I am Franchise Manager of Manas Krushiudyog industries Ltd. We are working on the food as per season according to ayurveda.I like your blog on summer diet.I would like to have your contact number for our work.