Why I am Passionate about Ayurveda
As someone who is new to Ayurveda, I’ve always fascinated on every little aspect of how Ayurvedic wisdom and knowledge can help my life. Ayurveda has existed for more than 5000 years and is still in practice today. That alone is testament that this ancient medicine system has been giving continual benefit and helped so many.
The health challenges that I have struggled with since I was little are seen and treated holistically with Ayurveda. I never knew that my constant acne is related with my digestion system which is related with my Agni/Fire. Now that I am aware, the acne comes and goes depending upon how committed I am to improving digestion and decreasing the things that I don’t digest well.I’ve also never knew that the scoliosis that I have is related with my emotional and psychological imbalances. The more I am aware of my mind state and creating positivity the better my back feels. As Kimmana has explained Ayurveda to me and I better understand the reasons behind every imbalance – not just focusing on the instant way to get rid of the symptoms – true healing and longevity is the prize.
Yet, applying all of the wisdom and knowledge is not as easy as speaking or writing it. It needs commitment and discipline to slowly integrate all of these tools into our daily life as a habit. One of the biggest priorities that I feel has created a huge impact in my life is the knowledge of drinking water. It’s very simple, yet, we often forget about it or underestimate it!
The Pillar of Water is Second on the List for Vitality Seekers
Kimmana always emphasises the importance of seeing someone’s well-being from every factor that might effect their life. He created the Ten Pillars of Vitality so that people can easily remember and check through the most important parts of life that support our happiness and vitality. After oxygen, that is the main factor of someone’s longevity, water comes second on this list.
You are what you eat, or you are what you absorb? How water changes the way we digest.
Kimmana often talks about the fact that how our body is functioning is much more important than just what we eat or the medicines we take. It is the digestion and absorption of food that is a really important factor in whether we create toxins from our food or absorb food easily without digestive challenges. Therefore, these 7 Ayurvedic tips of drinking water become as important as the quality of the water itself because they influence how our body will digest food and liquids for the rest of the day:
The 7 Tips for Drinking Water
- To have a calm and relax state of mind is a key to strong digestion. Our busy mind often buzzing about unnecessary things can distract our body from doing its main job. When the mind is busy the circulation is not at the digestive tract and we won’t digest the food or drink we consume properly. Kimmana says to take three deep belly breaths before your meal and give gratitude to whatever you are about to consume will help with digestive function.
- Ideally, we want to drink in small regular sips throughout the day between meals. To just drink a big glass of water can overwhelm the digestive system and put out the fire.
- To drink warm water, or at least at room temperature, would be ideal for our health. Warm water helps our tissues expand and therefore digestive secretions flow easily. In the other hand, cold water causes the tissues to contract and it is then difficult to secret the needed digestive enzymes. In rare cases, cold water could give benefit to balance
Pitta dosha, that might occur during peak summer or if the person has a dominant Pitta dosha. To figure out what is your dosha, check out this article that Kimmana wrote.
- Ayurveda says that our stomach size is roughly as big as our four handfuls. Ideally, we eat two handfuls of solid foods (e.g soup is not all solid), 25% (one handful) water, and 25% (another one handful) empty space. The empty space in the stomach is used for the digestive process, in which food is partly digested and mixed with gastric juice then turned into what modern medicine calls ‘chyme’. This is also why we should limit the water intake before and after eating because the water upsets the digestive ratio of stomach juices and specific PH our body has made for those foods to digest properly.
- Ayurveda emphasises individuality on everything, because everyone is born different, and so drinking 8 glasses of water, like all the commercials told us to, is not for everyone. Drinking too much water (especially those filtered, demineralised water, which means our body doesn’t get any nourishment out of it) will have excess cleansing effect. Thirst is the best indicator our body could have regarding water needs; in other words, drink when you’re thirsty unless otherwise prescribed by a practitioner.
- Our excretion system can be used as another indicator of proper hydration. Urine is a secondary confirmation to find out whether we are well-hydrated. The best urine is clear or transparent, and colourless. If it’s coloured dark yellow, we can assume we need more water or the body is experiencing excess Pitta.
- Another indicator would be our lips; if it’s dry we might need more water. This sign may also indicate that we need more oil or that
Vata is aggravated in our body.
By adding all of these water clues together we can get a clearer understanding of our body’s true individual needs. This can greatly improve digestive function, make us cleanse easier, and get more nutrients out to the cells with greater efficiency.
How we use water is crucially important. The next most important factor is what sort of water is truly healing?
Other than how we drink our water, the other thing that contributes largely to our health is the quality of water itself.
“Clean, pure water is a cornerstone of good health. Your body is mostly water, so the ongoing intake of water is essential to your every function.” ~ Dr. Mercola
” ….most public water supplies are loaded with hazardous contaminants, such as disinfection byproducts (DBPs), fluoride, and pharmaceutical drugs, to name just a few.”
Kimmana would totally agree that many modern water sources including tap or bottled water are often not health promoting at all and not suitable for long term consumption.
According to many experts, including Kimmana, in order to have a healthy body, we would ideally consume water with alkaline quality instead of acid quality. From 0 – 14 pH range, between 6 – 8 is a normal range, below 6 excessively acid and between 8-10 is ideal alkaline levels for the body. If our diet is dominated by meat, fried foods and junk foods, or our lifestyle is excessively stressful, filled with pollution and we stay up late, we will produce large amounts of acid bi-products that contribute to disease. We can balance this through drinking alkaline water which corrects PH, increases detoxification, and protects our cells from ageing. Making healing alkaline water at home
One of the products Kimmana recommends can help us to keep our water clean of toxic impurities and create alkaline water in the home. After years of research and comparison through many products, Kimmana settled on a water filter called Ultrastream.
This product can powerfully decreases fluoride, that can have dangerous effects on the liver and nervous system. Remove dangerous heavy metals such as Hg (mercury), Al (Aluminium), and Cu (Copper), and also bacteria, algae, pesticides, and fungi.
Unlike many of the alkalising water systems available on the market. It re-mineralises and alkalises the water using needed trace minerals such as magnesium, calcium and more. But most importantly it has the highest ORP rating out of any filter on the market, making it the most powerful anti-oxidant water available.
Kimmana’s website provides international shipping too, if you’re interested check out the Ultrastream here.
It’s important to take all of life a step at a time so we can create a healthy habit. If you are thinking about taking a step then this is definitely an important one to consider.
If you have questions, or if you want to book a consultation with Kimmana please make an inquiry here.
Hope this has been helpful for you,
Zia Kusumawardini