Time for Spring Cleansing!

Give Your Digestive System A Seasonal Ayurvedic Reboot

Just as all people are dominant in one Dosha or another, each season is associated with a predominance of a particular Dosha – Summer is Pitta, Winter is Kapha and Autumn and Spring is Vata.

Vata is the energy of movement and in Spring this energy manifests as wind and fluctuations in temperature create instability in the atmosphere. Spring is a time of transition and in Spring, the local environment is changing from cold to hot. And these transitions are exacerbated by the turbulent times we are all living in.

All transitions come with instability and the body doesn’t always know how to cope. To assist you in balancing your body and mind during this time – below are our recommendations for cleansing and detoxifying using Ayurvedic knowledge.

What Our Bodies Go Through During Seasonal Change

During times of transition, our digestive system becomes unsettled. The foods we eat or should eat, during Summer and Winter are different. The digestive system is readjusting and some metabolic functions become compromised – depending on our basic constitution and our current state of the health.

During Spring, the body naturally seeks to eliminate toxins that have accumulated over Winter. Even healthy people who have been eating seasonally appropriate foods in Winter will still accumulate some toxicity because no one has perfect digestion and the accumulation of undigested food substances is part of the digestive processes.

Common discomforts include colds, coughs, slight fever or hay-fever as the body is releasing the cold that has built up during Winter and eliminating toxins as our body naturally attempts to cleanse and adapt.

Seasonal Cleansing

Regular cleansing is a cornerstone of maintaining digestive health in the Ayurvedic system. In both Spring and Autumn – times of transition – we suggest you cleanse for four (4) weeks to eliminate and purge the body of toxins.

There are whole subjects devoted to cleansing in the Ayurvedic system. Panchakarma is a rejuvenating detox involving several stages of detoxification and can only be safely administered by an Ayurvedic doctor. For self-care, it is best to cleanse with a combination of diet, fasting and herbal remedies to assist the body to release and eliminate toxicity from the whole body.

Controlled fasting should be done one day a week. Either 12 hours (from dawn till dusk) or if you can manage a full 24 hours. Fasting must be broken with discipline and care. It is best to break a fast with a liquid meal such as kitchari (daal and rice) or over-boiled rice with yoghurt. In any case, a small cooked plant-based meal is best.

To help aid a seasonal cleanse we recommend our Trim Tea – this cleanses the digestive organs, purifies the blood, breaks down toxins that can crystallise in the joints, breaks down cholesterol, cleanses the lungs and can be taken during fasting days.

Also designed to aid detoxification and cleansing is our Digestive Tea – this improves all digestive functions balances the pH in the gut, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, and improves the absorption of nutrients.

Seasonal Cleanse Food Recommendations

For four weeks, a vegetable-based diet is best and facilitates our natural ability to efficiently process and remove the waste materials that have accumulated. Fat, sugar and salt should be limited or avoided. Meat is very difficult to digest as it is dense, fibrous and quickly putrefies in the body. During a cleansing period, meat should be vastly reduced or eliminated if possible.

Spring Food Recommendations

In Spring, we should eat light foods or foods that are easy to digest and avoid or limit heavy foods such as fats, sugar, acidic food, and raw foods. Anything from the ‘Nightshade’ family should be eaten in small quantities as they are acidic and disrupt the digestive tract environment.

If you have weak digestion, we suggest you avoid raw vegetables and raw fruit as they are much harder for the body to break down. Try cooked vegetables and stewed fruit instead. If we eat seasonal foods that are grown in our local environments, we will automatically be directed to seasonally appropriate food sources.

To assist with this process throughout Spring our Cleanse Gift Pack which includes 1x Trim Tea, 1x Digestive Tea and 1x Vigoris Super Tonic is $77 and comes with FREE shipping to anywhere in Australia – Promo Code: CLEANSEME

If you have any questions about our products or the processes mentioned here, please email us on australerba@bigpond.com