If your digestion feels sluggish, according to Ayurveda your body might be holding onto too much heaviness or struggling to process food efficiently. What is Ayurveda? Holistic, preventative, individualized health from ancient India. And it’s based in the idea that digestion is the root of all health. The solution? Rekindle the fire! Here’s how:
🌿 3 Main Causes of Sluggish Digestion (And How to Fix Them!)
Cause #1: Too Much Heavy Quality in the Body- this doesn’t mean that you feel overweight, this means that the quality of heavy appears in your physiology more than the quality of light. Think of the difference between a jar of lead versus a jar of feathers. You’ll know this one applies to you if you feel tired, lethargic, and sluggish, especially after eating, or have trouble getting out of bed in the morning regardless of how long you have slept. You might also be holding onto water (think swelling, or mucus and congestion) or feeling unmotivated (especially to exercise) and your thoughts tend towards sadness or resistance to change.
Why this happens:
Your body has likely accumulated this heavy quality from rich, heavy, cold foods in—like cold dairy, fried foods, or excess carbs. I know, I know, you love your pastries- but they aren’t serving you or your health goals. And don’t get me wrong, we all need a little bit of the heavy quality to keep us grounded and reminded that are feet are on the earth, but as we anything in Ayurveda, too much of any one quality leads to imbalance. And we balance with the opposite quality (light).
How to fix it:
Eat light, warm, and easily digestible foods (think broth and veggie based soups, steamed veggies, and cooked grains). Swap oats and wheat for buckwheat, corn, barley, and rye. We want to avoid dense, rich, and heavy foods. You’ll need less oils and healthy fats than other digestive types. Eliminate processed sugars.
Use warming spices like dried or fresh ginger, black pepper, cumin, cayenne and chili powder (in moderation), fenugreek, and mustard seed.
Get moving after meals! A short 10-minute walk after eating can work wonders. Exercise in general will definitely be your friend here, even if you feel unmotivated. It will move your prana around and actually give you more energy!
Cause #2: Low Digestive Capacity- you’ll know this rings true if your food sits like a stone in your stomach after a meal, it seems to take forever for your food to digest, or you feel sleepy or groggy immediately after eating. You may also notice that you never feel overwhelmingly hungry, but you never quite feel full, either. In Ayurveda, we liken our digestive capacity to a fire. We want the fire to burn hot, clear, bright, and efficiently. When your digestive capacity is low, a tenuous small flame burning over some kindling is vulnerable to being overwhelmed by large logs or just burning out.
Why this happens:
low digestive capacity can be caused by a variety of factors. It could be eating too late at night, eating lots of cold/frozen foods, eating lots of leftovers, or overeating. All of these habits can weaken our digestive power over time. Ayurveda has a lot to say about the ART of eating. HOW we eat is JUST as important as WHAT we eat.
How to fix it:
Avoid eating late at night. Can your kitchen be closed by 7:30pm?
Limit snacking as much as possible, and focus on giving your body time to digest between square meals. For folks feeling this heavy, slow, sluggish digestion, intermittent fasting may be especially beneficial for you.
Avoid drinking cold beverages, especially with meals! Sip on room temperature or warm water or tea, but limit it to about 6 oz.
Increase ginger consumption. Chew on a slice of fresh ginger root before meals. Cook with fresh ginger, make ginger tea, bake with dried ginger- make ginger your friend.
Cause # 3: Feeling Stuck- Ayurveda takes a holistic view on health- which means the body and the mind can’t be separated. So our mental game absolutely can and does impact our digestion. Do you feel no motivation to move or make healthy choices? Does life feel lackluster? When the mind is sluggish, the body follows. A lack of mental clarity and motivation can slow digestion and metabolism, making you feel even heavier.
Why this happens:
Sometimes, our natural constitution tends towards inertia. As with everything in Ayurveda, we need some of this quality, but in balance. We need the ability to hold things together, to feel steady and intact. But too much of a good thing can have a destructive quality. Too much heaviness in the mind leads to repression of emotions, or even sadness and depression. Similar to the above 2 categories, eating heavy, oily, rich, dense foods, not partaking in regular exercise, and leaning towards too much stillness can cause this imbalance
How to fix it:
Eat fresh, nourishing foods instead of processed, frozen, heavy, or leftover meals.
Start your day with movement (even just 5 minutes of stretching can wake up your system. Although some vigorous movement will do even better for you. Going for a jog or doing some sun salutations will work wonders)
Get sunlight in the morning, and even more importantly get up early, with the sun. I know this will feel awful and unappealing at first, but it really is your best medicine.
Find creative or intellectual pursuits that inspire you and breath new life into what might be feeling stagnant.
Final Thoughts: Listen to Your Body!
If you’ve been struggling with sluggish digestion, heaviness, and low energy, it’s time to reset your system and stoke your digestive fire. By making small, consistent changes, you’ll feel lighter, clearer, and more energized every day. This is Ayurveda- it’s not quick fixes and it doesn’t ask you to take a pill to minimize your symptoms. It’s real, lasting, lifestyle change. It might seem daunting, but I ask- if what you are currently doing working?
💡 Want my tip sheet of my top 10 tips for stoking your digestive fire? Let me know in the comments below!
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