How you can boost your metabolism with Ayurveda
With almost 75% of the American population either overweight or obese, this challenge is becoming seemingly more insurmountable every day.
One of the main reasons for not being able to manage our weight effectively is because the body’s metabolism is not up to speed. As we age or hit menopause, this becomes even more problematic. Many people look for metabolism boosting foods or metabolism workouts, but Ayurveda has a different approach.
According to Ayurveda, the body’s main digestive fire, or Agni, is responsible for the digestive and metabolic processes at various levels. Metabolic disruption in any of these can impede weight loss and overall health.
Agni, is the element of fire and leads to transformation. Your Agni’s primary function are digestion, absorption, assimilation, and the transformation of food into energy.
To reactivate the Agni or fire of our metabolism, various Ayurvedic therapies can be used.
4 Ways to Boost Your Metabolism With Ayurveda:
1. Add Triphala to Your Diet
Triphala promotes the main digestive fire (Agni) which them helps to stimulate metabolism throughout the body. They also help to metabolize remnant toxins in the digestive system. Triphala aids digestion, improves skin texture, boosts immunity, and supports bowel functions like nothing else will. Studies have shown Triphala can lower blood sugar levels, helping in avoiding fast storage and consequential weight gain. Triphala can be found in our Metabolism Boost Tea.
2. Use a Tongue Scraper
In Ayurveda, tongue scraping has a great significance. Though it is a small routine of daily life really add to our health. Now, what is tongue scraping? You take a metal tongue scraper and gently scrape the tongue 7-14 times in the morning to remove content over the tongue’s surface.
Usually, the tongue surface contains bacteria, food particles and old saliva. We require to remove all of these for below reasons:
Scraping tongue helps in activating saliva glands to produce more saliva which helps in digestions. It also removes many toxins which can enter into our digestion tract or say blood stream. As per Ayurveda, tongue cleaning ignites digestion fire or in other words our metabolism to consume and digest more food.
In Ayurveda, a coated or discolored tongue is treated as a symptom of certain diseases. Or if we dig deeper it is usually the accumulation of certain bacteria on the tongue that leads to some diseases. Removing them is the only alternative.
3. Practice Dry Brushing
Dry brushing is a massage technique where you apply a dry brush to your skin. This stimulating practice is useful for refreshing your body, circulation, lymphatic system and skin. Dry brushing invigorates your mind and warms up your body. As the heaviness of sleep falls away, you'll feel refreshed and alert. Take a natural bristled dry brush and use gentle strokes to brush the body upwards from the feet towards the heart.
Dry brushing reduces springtime heaviness & oiliness. The bristles stimulate circulation in your skin, muscles and fat tissue, dislodging any toxins. It's a great way to detoxify and cleanse your lymphatic system, whose fluids get thick, sticky, and congested whenever kapha is out of balance, and especially in springtime. As you start your dry brushing routine, you'll notice your skin becomes pink and flushed as stagnant blood is flushed by fresh blood.
Dead skin cells will come off on the brush, leaving your skin vital and clear. As the largest elimination organ of the body, your sweat glands are constantly releasing toxins. Dry brushing aids your skin's natural detox functions. Reducing stubborn cellulite is another desirable benefit of dry brushing. As you work with your diet and internal metabolism, dry brushing is a great way to begin to melt away cellulite from the outside.
4. Drink Hot Water
One of the simplest, most inexpensive, and effective ways to increase metabolism is to drink plain hot water. You can also spice it up by boiling the water for a few minutes with ginger, clove, cardamom, cinnamon and black pepper. Keep a hot flask of this water readily available in the kitchen or office. Clear green tea is also good or taking a ceremonial grade organic matcha tea can superpower your metabolism. Our Metabolism Boost Tea combines Gymnema Sylvestre which turns off cravings for carbs and sugar with other natural metabolism-boosting ingredients from Ayurveda to give you the perfect daily boost on your journey to a healthier metabolism.
Ayurveda has a number of ways to internally and externally boost the metabolism, digestive fire, and our overall health so we can have the Vibrant Health we crave.
Having Vibrant Health is about how you feel. We all know that eating the right foods is essential for a beautiful body, good skin, a clear mind, and energetic balance. What we may not be aware of is that healthy eating is not enough. The best food on the planet can’t help you if you don’t have the digestive fire to transform and assimilate what you are putting in your body. Practice igniting your digestive fire and boosting your metabolism today so you can feel your best.
Dr. Shivani Gupta is a pioneer who redefined the health and wellness industry by bridging the gap between ancient and modern medicine. She holds a Ph.D. in Ayurvedic Studies, a 5,000-year-old philosophy that prevents disease and illness through the connection of mind, body, and spirit.