Tips to Avoid Toxins Over Xmas & Silly Season (& Still Indulge) | Dylan Smith #125

The holiday season is upon us, bringing with it a myriad of delicious treats and tempting delights. In this episode, I delve into some Ayurvedic tips for you to indulge in the festivities while still taking care of your health.

Did you know that over 99% of us are likely to break the rules and indulge during this time?

And guess what?
That's okay!

Join me as I explore ways for you to enjoy the festive season guilt-free, while supporting your digestive system to navigate the culinary delights of this silly season.

Discover the wisdom of Ayurveda as we uncover the importance of maintaining a strong and balanced digestive fire (agni) at this time.

Learn how to keep your Agni burning efficiently, ḥelping you transform as many morsels of festive delight as possible into a nourishing substance called "Ahara Rasa" – the essence of the food, as much as we can.

Tune in for practical tips and Ayurvedic insights on how to prevent the accumulation of Ama (indigested food toxins) with big meals, heavy dinners, lots and lots of sweet and sugar, and amongst all this… keep your body in balance throughout the entire holiday season. 

From understanding the weak spots where Ama tends to accumulate to fostering a thriving digestive system, this episode is your guide to navigating the festivities with well-being in mind.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
🎄 Understanding Ama
🎄 The Six Stages of Disease (Shat Kriya Kala)
🎄 Maintaining Digestive Fire (Agni)
🎄 Practical Tips for Balanced Agni
🎄 Ayurvedic Detox Practices
🎄 Balancing Activities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Christmas is here, silly season is here, festive season is here and with it an abundance of delight which inevitably will be causing a toxic accumulation within the body. But you can mitigate these toxins to some extent and enjoy the festive season. Welcome to the Vital Vaders Show. I am your host, dylan Smith. I'm an Ayurvedic practitioner and holistic health educator and I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy New Year, happy festive season. Whatever you are celebrating, and even if you're not celebrating, with this collective consciousness celebrating and that shift in the Gregorian calendar, inevitably there is festivities around, there's a lightness in the collective consciousness and, with that, an abundance of edible and even perhaps not so edible delights just about everywhere. And the point of this podcast episode is to mitigate the to be honest, for most of us, inevitable toxic accumulation and we're going to be breaking some quote-unquote rules or breaking our normal patterns of diet and digestion and what substances we're putting into our body. So the point of this podcast is to somewhat, to some extent and to a significant extent if you do it well mitigate these toxins and enjoy them guilt-free and in moderation. This is the Vital Vader podcast and this is a show where we explore the Veda. The Veda means the laws of nature, how nature's mechanics operate, to live in harmony with whoever chooses to align with those mechanics of nature, to those laws of nature, and included in that are the laws of digestion, the laws of fire, of transformation, which is a function of the digestive tract. It transforms whatever comes into contact with it. And, for those who are eating from nature, how to live in tune with nature so that you are optimizing your digestive health, with which, in Ayurvedic medicine, aka the mother of medicines, digestion is the root of disease and the root of health. So healthy digestion is a huge factor for positive health and it's said in Ayurveda that low digestive strength is the cause number one cause of disease manda-agni, mandu-analaha. So this is some aspects of Ayurveda as the root of disease, and it's not hard to over-indulge and accumulate this undigested toxic material during this season, and I'm going to share with you how to mitigate it.

Speaker 1: 2:47

So the word I'm going to teach you a Sanskrit word if you don't already know it. The word is called amma, and amma is a Sanskrit word for the toxic, sticky waste product of incomplete digestion, this sticky, thick, mucus-like substance that gets produced in the body from food or from drinks or from any substance if number one the substance is not so harmonious and not so healthy, not so real as any real whole food, and also if the digestion can't metabolize it and transform it into nutrients and energy. So in that case, if it can't do that, it can't transform and metabolize it doesn't matter what it is. It could be crap, it could be healthy food. If the digestion can't do it, you will turn to amma, which is the sticky waste product of incomplete digestion.

Speaker 1: 3:36

So how do we prevent this amma from accumulating? Because this amma, this sticky substance basically, can lodge anywhere in the body. If it's not cleaned out well, it can clog the biological channels and vitiate the weak part of the body, and everyone's got their own different weak part in. Over there we call it kavyaguna, which means what part of the body, which part, is weak. So where is this amma going to go in you? Yeah, I'm talking to you, listening who's getting ready around silly season festive time? Where is the amma that you produce from either knock good quality food and or by knock good quality digestion? Where is that going in your body? Because it's unique for everyone, but there are some common places where amma lodges. It can be in the joints, because it gets to this bend around the joint and it can't get through. It can be in the lungs, because the lungs have a lot of space, and it can be in the sinuses, which is the upper respiratory tract as well. These are typical weak spots where amma first accumulates and then will vitiate different tissues and different areas of the body. So in every other, this amma, this toxic accumulation of the thick, sticky substance from food, instead of getting the thin fluid which is what actually is the good stuff from food, and that's what we call rasa. That's kind of the antagonist of amma. Rasa is what gives the nutrients and the energy.

Speaker 1: 5:05

But amma? So it might go to your blood, cause a dermatitis. It might go to your muscles, cause some musculoskeletal disorders. It might go to your joints, inflame the arthritis. It might go to your gut, inflame the bowels. It might go to your lymphatic system and cause some swelling. It might go to your fat tissue, cause weight gain. It might cause headaches, ulcers, stress, bloating gas, whatever this amma is always the cause of disease. It's the number one, most common primary cause of disease and it really starts with what you ingest. So in Eirveta we have six stages of disease called Shat Kriya Kala, and that's a whole other topic of going into the pathology of disease. But eventually this amma manifests. It manifests why, initially, the amma is in the very early stages of the disease and you can mitigate it. And this is what this podcast is about.

Speaker 1: 5:58

The number one key, the number one principle for this Christmas time, amma, or this festive season time, amma, is to keep your digestive fire burning and balanced. This digestify, this metabolic fire, primarily in the gut, but within different tissues of the body and even within different areas of the body. But this fire, this metabolizer, this fire which transforms anything that comes into contact, whether it is food, a drink, air particles, pollution, even stress from outside. You need the fire to metabolize and transform anything that comes into your body and in contact with you, whether it's emotionally, physically. But today we're especially talking about the physical digestifier burning in the gut and we want that rasa, we want it to turn. Whatever it is. Even if it's the beautiful Christmas cake or the Pavlova meringue, mango and blueberry Pavlova which we love in Australia full of sugar, how can we turn that into rasa, which is the thin, nourishing nutrient fluid? No, guarantee, 100% turn to rasa. But how can we extract the nectar from that and digest and transform the armor as much as possible to be eliminated out the body in the most efficient way to prevent that fluid from being the beginning stages of disease by lodging in the body. So tips for less armor and more rasa, tips for less toxins and more nectar.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Rule number one eat seasonally. This is one where we're not all going to get, because Christmas is Christmas. Wherever you are in the world, you're going to eat heavy. But good news on the Northern Hemisphere you're in the winter, your digestion is stronger. Bad news in the Southern Hemisphere your digestion is weaker in summer.

Speaker 1: 7:55

And I'm going to quote one of the authoritative texts of Avera de Ostranga, samgraha of Vagabata, and that is a chapter on winter, on Hemanta Rithucarya, the chapter four on how to live in tune with winter. And it demonstrates through a beautiful verse why is the digestion stronger in winter. And so it says the temperature of the body, beaten by the cold wind, goes deep inside gathers like a lump in the stomach, increasing the digestifier Hence in winter people have the ability to digest foods which are hard by nature. So good news, northern Hemisphere folk your digestion is huddling in it's gathering like a lump inside the stomach to keep the fire burning and warm, and hence you may know, listening, that your digestion is actually stronger in winter. If you're someone who maybe eats two meals a day, you've got to a medibubly comfortable state where you don't need so much food for energy. But notice, in winter you need a bit more, and that's because the fire is roaring. So perhaps if you listen to this and you're in the Southern Hemisphere, you're in the hot seasons. Pay more attention into what I'm about to share in this episode. Give extra attention to your agony, to your digestive fire.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Modern science also shows this increase of digestion in the winter because there's an enzyme called amylase and that enzyme is responsible for increasing our digestive strength and the studies show that amylase enzyme increases in our body in the winter and it decreases in the summer. Amylase is also important for digesting proteins like gluten and wheat, and also the parasympathetic nervous system, aka the rest and digest nervous system, also increases in the winter and decreases in the spring and the summer. So we have greater digestion in the winter. Diffuse of fire is hot, it's fiery, it's acidic. We don't want that in the summer, we want that in the winter to give us warm and insulated, breakdown heart and digest high protein, high fat and dense foods like grains, nuts and dairy that nature intelligently organizes to be harvested and to be available at winter. So if you look at nature's diets, you will find heavier food, more protein, more dairy, more fatty foods in the winter and lighter foods in the summer, like fruits.

Speaker 1: 10:19

So if you are in the southern hemisphere, perhaps go favor fruits for your party foods or for your festive foods. Fruit have been ripening all year long and that helps dissipate and assists the heat removal out of the body. Fruits are also easy to digest. They're more appropriate for a weaker summer agony and, ironically, what we do in Australia and in the beaches in the summer, we eat barbecues with meat and fat dripping on the gas and causing some carcinogenic substances, and we eat ice cream, and that, ironically, is more appropriate for winter time if you have to choose. So stick to light foods if you're in the southern hemisphere. This is another big one. This second factor to help reduce armor and increase russa ie help reduce toxins, increase nectar is one which is very achievable and a great one which you can implement, and that is eating your main meal at midday.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Schedule your food celebrations at midday. Airvett is all about living tune with natures and rhythms, with nature cycles, because it recognizes that our human biology runs on clocks. It runs on rhythms. And what is the number one rhythm of human biology? Sun. We are diurnal beings. We live by the day and night. Our digestifier, our Agni I think I've translated enough. I'm gonna stay with Agni Our Agni is regulated by the Sun. When the Sun is the strongest, our digestifier is the strongest. Lunchtime we have a stronger Agni, it's more robust.

Speaker 1: 12:01

So have the big meals, the parties, the celebrations then Okay. So have the social events. Have the Christmas lunch earlier. Try and bring it around midday or before 2 pm. Okay. Even if you having a party in the evening, have it earlier while the Sun's up, perhaps around five, six o'clock, so you have sufficient time to digest the meal.

Speaker 1: 12:23

If you have a big dinner, if you have a heavy dinner, if you have that pavlova at dinner after a turkey roast, then your body is gonna have to send a lot of blood to your gut. It's gonna have to have all the blood flow go to the gut to digest this and that is going to disrupt the essential biological regenerative mechanisms which occur during sleep. We know sleep is important. Why? Because we are restoring Sun biological functions. How? Because we're asleep and our body does it like detoxifying the liver, regulating hormones, to name a few. So our body's doing so many important things at night. If we digest a big steak and chips and ice cream and Christmas cake, then our body's gonna neglect that liver detox, that hormone regeneration, all those important mechanisms, and have to attend to the gut. So we want to give our biological attention to the sleep regenerating mechanisms rather than digesting food. Furthermore, if we do it in the day the big meal we're gonna be able to have a better chance of digesting it and producing less armor. Try that yourself. And even if you are eating at night, better not go to sleep soon after. Try stay up a bit, even if it's past your bedtime. Allow it to digest a bit, and we're gonna speak later about herbal support and different remedies to help digest.

Speaker 1: 13:51

The third technique and the third recommendation is avoid snacking. Stick to three meals a day, no snacks. This is gonna allow your digestion to rest in between each meal and this is gonna allow your body to have a break. Give your body a break. Let it metabolize the fat, which is gonna increase a more stable fuel, long, lasting, calming, non-emergency, detoxifying fuel. If you're eating all the time, even if it's healthy, like carrots and nuts and organic chocolate, organic nuts and organic dried fruit every 30, 45 minutes, one hour, your body's gonna just get used to using that as fuel and it's like your brain knows the menu. Yep, I'll just have a coffee. I'll just have organic dried chocolate. Yeah, I'll just have a vegan sweet treat. Give me some nuts. Give me some figs. Your brain has the menu of giving these quick injections of stimulant and it's lost the ability to tap into your own internal source of fuel. So, my friend, reduce the snacking.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Try six to three meals a day, no snacks, even two meals, if you're metabolically comfortable and give your digestion a rest and you can do the herbal support. You can do the digestive tea which I'm gonna share in between meals to help digest Digestive support. How can we get some digestive support? Because 99% of us listening, including myself, are gonna break the rules and indulge Sugar. Yeah, give me chocolate. Yeah, give me. I love it, in moderation, as much as possible, enjoying it once a year at this time in this way. Fine, if you can, if you have the capacity to digest it, and doesn't mean you're gonna fully nourish it. There's gonna be some ama. But I'm gonna share with you some herbal support, some things you can do to mitigate the ama. So the first one I can't not share it the most.

Speaker 1: 15:41

The number one herbal formula that I've prescribed in my clinic, the number one herbal formula that is on our website, the number one herbal formula that my teachers have given to literally thousands of thousands of patients. It is called shodana vati. Shodana means purification and vati means tablet. This is a whole body cleansing, elixatonic. It is a detoxification agent for every tissue in the body, for every what we call dosha, which is the mitigating elements or the elements which vitiate the body. Rather, and it is the best free radical scavenger antioxidant. It's an immune modulator, blood purifier, good for the gastrointestinal issues and so many more things like allergies and tooth and oral problems, for female hormonal imbalances, cholesterol issues, cough and eyes. It's very good for eyes, addictions, skin health, so much more. Shodana vati is very effective to ensure of regular elimination and cleansing of the body. It's not something that pushes your body to cleanse or cleanses for you. It actually activates the intelligence of your innate detoxification pathways.

Speaker 1: 16:59

A lot of people come to me and say I want to do a cleanse. I want to do a seven day cleanse. I want to do this, but they're not even cleansing on a daily basis, on a regular basis. So this is the number one thing we need to do is can you actually cleanse every day? Is your body getting rid of waste products daily? Use your detoxification pathways optimal state and functioning well and cleansing? But then we can talk about doing a cleanse because these more intense cleansers they're going to require your detox pathways to be opened, so we're going to be squeezing some extra stuff out.

Speaker 1: 17:33

So show nobody is that thing which helps every day. And the reality is, even if you're on a pure diet and not eating the Christmas cake, we live in a time where toxins are absolutely prevalent. In the USA, four billion pounds of toxins are being dumped into the environment each year and 72 million of those pounds are cast on the genetic. You can see the references in show notes of this article. Even your organic kale in your Christmas salad has probably got some mercury or glyphosate on it, because these things are inevitable everywhere. If you cannot get show nobody, I highly recommend it, and for the spelling of these herbs you can go to the show notes that show the Navati. The inferior version is, you may have heard, trifla, and trifla is three fruits in Ayurveda. It is a good detox, good cleansing, good for the eyes, the main ingredient in show nobody, however, show nobody has 20 or 30 other herbs on top of that, which enhances an entourage effect and makes it way more effective.

Speaker 1: 18:28

Another formula is a digestive tea that I have formulated with my teacher in India. It's called Tridosic digestive tea and it's a combination of 22 herbs blended into a coarse powder. You can just put that into hot water when you're experiencing digestive discomfort. This is something that is super helpful and always my number one recommendation for Christmas time Just a little tea you take and after your feast or one hour after feast, believe me, everyone will be asking you for it you just pop the powder in a cup of boiling water and sip it in it. It helps digest the armor that you just assigned to produce after that heavy food. And also, if you are about to go to Christmas dinner you had a second dinner or something, but go on a Christmas lunch and not that hungry even still from the night before have the digestive tea, the Tridosic digestive tea, beforehand and that will help incandle the ugly or help stimulate the appetite. So that's Tridosic digestive tea by Vital Beta 22 herbs blended. I've got a homemade digestive tea recipe as well, if you can't get that, and just a few ingredients like cumin seeds, ajoin seeds, fennel seeds, ginger, and you can see the recipe. And some salt. You can see the recipe of that on the show notes, the homemade digestive tea.

Speaker 1: 19:45

Another thing is just sip plain hot water. This is an extremely powerful technique to melt toxins and flush them out the body. Just like we use hot water to wash grease off dirty dishes, a similar thing happens in your intestines. And, believe me, any heavy Christmas or festive food and you will after just sip hot water, you'll feel how much that helps. Don't underestimate that powerful tool. I've written an article, extensive article, on siping hot water, plain hot water.

Speaker 1: 20:12

Fasting Now this is a big one in Ayurvedic, which Ayurveda talks about, and I'm going to speak. Fasting is a very dynamic subject. We've got a whole lesson on this in our course, essence of Ayurvedic Nutrition, because fasting is very it's a non-prescriptive thing. It depends on the person where they're at metabolically and where they're at in their current diet, how often they eat, how comfortable they are to fast. It's a very dynamic thing but I'm going to share with you a very key way that Ayurveda talks about armor In the Essence of Ayurvedic Nutrition course, which is a course on vital weather, teaches you the principles of nutrition and applying that to any environment, climate, person.

Speaker 1: 20:57

But we're going to speak about one thing in fasting and Ayurveda says if you eat heavy or you get a lot of armor which is going to happen everybody says skip the next meal. So if you had a really heavy lunch, ideally you're eating that lunch, you're going to skip dinner and not eat. Or if you have a huge dinner, you're going to skip breakfast and wait to lunch and give extra time for your agony to metabolize that armor. So you can skip completely. You can sip hot water, you can sip the digestive tea. If not, you can even just have a hot milk for breakfast or for dinner if you're hungry, or just very little bit of one fruit at a time. So that's just one aspect of fasting. There's so many other ways to fast. That's a whole other topic. But this is just the kind of Christmas version of fasting and if you can have a day, a week or one day without food during Christmas only if it's rhythmically though. Well, basically I kind of just got into it, but with fasting one of the key principles, it has to be rhythmic If you're going to adopt a fasting routine, but with the Christmas time, definitely skipping the next meal is a good thing.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Another thing is avoid agony destroying foods and drinks. So I've ever to states that some foods are not only hard to digest, but some can really put out your agony, put out your digestive fire, and that is basically especially cold foods. So cold drinks have an ice cold martini or an ice cold beer or water from the fridge. That is going to put out your digestive fire and that's going to diminish the agony and that's definitely going to contribute to the accumulation of the umma. So drinks and especially if you're in the hot summer, don't drink cold. It will actually constrict the channels and prevent property hydration. When you sip room temperature water, it's going to soften the tissues and hydrate on a deeper level. Other foods that are going to reduce the agony is leftover foods. Okay, these are heavy, these are tamasic, which means heavy and lacking life force. They're left over, they're heavy energy, they're going to oxidize and create umma.

Speaker 1: 23:05

Deep fried foods. Of course, how to digest raw foods as well. You know why make your agony Do the work, let the kitchen do the work and the cooking and let your internal agony have more ease and less work to do. Already you're putting it under strain, and ice cream, of course, is a cold food and also that heavy, cold, dark, dull qualities and a lot of water. I don't have too much water or liquids with your meals.

Speaker 1: 23:31

Sipping hot water or a thin buttermilk is very good Buttermilk. I'm feeling just hot speaking about this and it's hot as well when I am recording this right now, in the Australian spring. But lassi, which is a drink called Takra, t-a-k-r-a is a type of buttermilk. It's a very simple, very easy recipe and you can make. On our website we have a digestive lassi. That's a wonderful recipe to have, especially for in this hot season, to help digest the Christmas umma and also hydrate deeply and cool down. I've also done a whole episode on this drink called Takra. It's called Takra the divine beverage, something like that. It's a divine beverage, but it's also physically health beverage as well.

Speaker 1: 24:14

These are some things. Some other things I'll mention is a herb or form called swagani, s-w-a-g-n-i, and those are drops maybe easier than the tea, because you just put those drops straight into your mouth. Same thing After food, especially to help digest the food. And if you're about to eat and you still haven't got a strong agony and you're like, wow, I'm about to have this big lunch with my family or friends and my agony is not that roaring at the moment, or take that swagani, it will help you kindle it. Another home remedy to enkindle the agony, if you need to, is what I call ginger coins and you can simply slice the ginger like a coin size, a ginger root, sprinkle a bit of lemon juice and salt on it and chew that about 15 minutes before a meal to enkindle your agony. And not only for Christmas time. But if you're someone who struggles with appetite, with increasing or having good hunger when it's meal time, you can do that ginger remedy as well as the swagani remedy, as well as the Tridoshik digestive tea remedy. So these are some tips for Christmas to avoid toxins and over the silly season and make more nectar out of them.

Speaker 1: 25:25

When it's summer you have a weaker digestion. When it's winter, you have a stronger digestion. That also means adhering to local foods. Number two eat your main meal at midday. Eat with the sun. Number one key principle of nutrition in the laws of nature Eat with the sun. Number three avoid snacking. Give your digestion a rest. Four use herbal digestive support. Use the support of therapeutic herbs, use the support of kitchen spices. Number five sip hot water. Melt those toxins. Number six implement some fasting, even if it's resting in between meals or skipping the next meal. And number seven avoid agony, destroying foods and drinks. So these are some factors we can also add in as well.

Speaker 1: 26:12

After Christmas, perhaps you need a bit of a cleanse or a bit of a detox, and you can see on our website we have a free cleanse called the Vital Short Home Cleanse, which is five days. It is a big PDF I made once when I got asked by Vogue Magazine to give a five day cleanse and I created that. So that is now available for everyone Vital Short Home Cleanse. You can get that for free on our website. So I hope you have got value out of this.

Speaker 1: 26:40

I hope you can enjoy the festive season because, as my teacher says, even when you eat ice cream, enjoy it, enjoy it with gratitude, enjoy it with love, especially if someone who loves you is preparing food for you, which is a lot of the case in Christmas time. That is a very powerful ingredient which you can then metabolize. That Internector doesn't mean it's gonna hundred percent turn to nectar. There's sure gonna be some armor. But when it's cooked with love, when it's eaten with love, when it's eaten guilt-free, then that will help a lot. The mind plays a big role in digesting the food. I mean want to digest that food for it to turn to rassa, that thin nutrient, energy Giving liquid, rather than turn to armor.

Speaker 1: 27:23

So if you want to learn more, you can check out vitalvedacomau. We have a whole lot of resources on food, on nutrition. Of course, as I said, the essence of Ayurvedic nutrition course is a very powerful, very foundational course on Learning about Ayurveda in general, because we introduced Ayurvedic anatomy and physiology, ie the doshas, the elements and many other aspects. But it also empowers you to come across any food, any circumstance related to nutrition, whatever's at the Christmas table. You can Understand the doshas, the elements, the effects, how that affects what certain conditions, what people. This is what this course is about. It's not about eat this, don't eat this. It's about how can you understand the laws of nature in regards to nutrition and Understand what every substance does, even if you've never come across that substance by tasting, touching, smelling it, observing it you can understand what effect that creates. So that's the essence of Ayurvedic nutrition and if you enjoyed this, please leave a review.

Speaker 1: 28:30

If you want to go deep with me on your personal health journey, I do online consultations and my intention with you is to make you self-sufficient in balancing your physiology, to teach you, empower your tools that you can navigate whatever health condition, whatever health imbalance is present, and Let allow that to dissolve by enlivening your health and focusing on Enlivening your health so any imbalance is dissolved and treating all areas of life. So you can book a consultation with me if you want to go deep on your health at vitalvedacomau Ford slash bookings, where I'll give you a in-depth Lifestyle and diet plan as well as a herbal ready prescription, and all this is for you to integrate in a way that suits you. So we work together to make it achievable and to make it so it's not a strain or a discipline that is strenuous, but it is a regime where it feels good. So many people Will say to me after their consultation and be like oh, it's not too much, you need to integrate it. Like that. I'm like no, no, no, it feels good, although it was a lot of information and a lot of things to refine perhaps. But because the advice that I give is based on natural law and it's already innate within you. It's structured within you. We just have to enliven it.

Speaker 1: 29:55

Typically, my patients will report that, yeah, it feels right, it feels good, I can do it, and that's the point. It should be there in a effortless way, a little bit of discipline and devotion to your higher self and to the health of yourself. But it flows and it's sustainable. It's not a fact. This is what I read is about. It's the laws of nature, so it is eternal, it is everlasting, it's Multi, multi, multi, multi generational. It continues. It's not a fact which lasts a few decades. All right, hope you enjoyed this episode, much love.