With love from Shanti Yoga – Christmas 2025
December 23, 2025
The Rationale for Good Digestion
Optimal health begins in the digestive tract. When we consume nutritious food and digest it well, we create high quality blood. Digestive enzymes break down food into nutrients that are absorbed into the bloodstream and delivered to vital organs. Therefore, excellent digestion leads to better blood quality, stronger organs, and superior overall health.
Digestion is a metabolically demanding process, consuming up to 60% of our daily energy. The ancient sage (rishis) recognised its significance, viewing the digestive fire with awe and reverence, and referred to it as 'Agni.' While worship is not required, a healthy respect for our digestive organs is highly recommended.
The process of digestion transforms food into the very building blocks of our bodies. Good digestion promotes clarity, lightness, energy, vitality, disease resilience, joy, enthusiasm, and even beauty.
Poor Digestion and the Cause of Disease
Conversely, poor food choices and weak digestion prevent the creation of good blood. Even with the highest quality food, if you cannot digest it, you cannot extract the nutrients.
When digestion is weak, unabsorbed food provides a breeding ground for bacteria, leading to rapid proliferation, fermentation, gas, and bloating. The resulting toxic waste products and smelly bacterial faeces and urine, can turn the digestive tract into a toxic environment. This toxicity leads to nutrient deficiency and cascades into systemic issues.
Undigested food stagnates, and the body’s immune system must fight the resulting bacterial infestation and break down the poisons. This exhausts and over stimulates the immune system, increasing susceptibility to disease, food allergies, and autoimmune disorders. Furthermore, a weak digestive fire (stomach acid) allows ingested parasites to survive and infest the small intestine.
Ayurveda uses the term 'ama' for partially digested food and the subsequent poisons produced in the gut. Ama is often a silent cause of chronic issues, including skin problems, mood disorders, aches, and pains. Its buildup can also manifest as emotional disturbances, ranging from dissatisfaction and anxiety, to severe symptoms such as heart palpitations.
An Opportunity to Heal
The benefits of good digestion testify to the belief held by Ayurveda for over 5,000 years: that diet and digestion are the first steps to health. Ayurveda provides a body of wisdom to create harmony between physical, mental and spiritual health. It is not just a science of medicine to treat illness, but a vast science who teaches you how to live life, prevent diseases and restore balance without any adverse effects.
Influencing your food choices and digestive capacity is one of the greatest levers you have for improving your blood chemistry and overall health. Digestion is the most profound way your body interacts with its environment - be it food or medicine. Harnessing this can be a determining factor in your wellness.
The Ayurvedic Solution to Gut Health
As modern medicine often struggles with chronic digestive issues, Ayurveda offers a unique and effective approach to digestive support.
Healthy digestion starts with you. Simple, everyday observations and maintaining a food journal are essential first steps. This hands-on, home-based approach empowers you to heal your digestion without immediate reliance on complex medical interventions.
Your diet directly determines your digestive health. Ayurveda provides a time-tested system that prioritises diet. Since you can take Ayurveda into your kitchen, it offers a guide for making moment-to-moment choices, helping you understand cravings and select satisfying options.
Ayurveda asserts that good digestion is more important than good nutrition. When making food choices, the first consideration should be what you can digest, and only then should you consider nutritional value. Approaching health from this angle will allow you to feel the benefits of food more profoundly.
We are what we eat. Preventative medicine starts with great digestion. When you digest food well, your blood is rich, providing vitality and strength, and creating an optimum environment for organ function. By focusing on digestion, you actively work to prevent damage before sickness occurs.
Ayurveda’s unique perspective offers insight into the causes of digestive disorders, often providing solutions for chronic issues that may be deemed "untreatable" from a Western medical viewpoint.
Reset Your Digestion
To enjoy great health and address common digestive concerns such as gas, bloating, and acid reflux, the key is to build a strong digestive fire, or 'agni'.
Understanding Agni
The Sanskrit word 'agni' literally means 'fire' and can be compared to metabolism in Western medicine. It represents your body's processing power, vitality, and ability to 'digest' not only food, but also chemicals, hormones, physiological changes, and all sensory input and emotions.
A strong agni is crucial because disease arises when the body is unable to process change effectively. Ayurveda, therefore, pays careful attention to maintaining agni as the source of your strength, clarity, and enthusiasm.
Signs of Healthy Agni
When your agni is healthy, you will likely:
- Feel energised, light, fresh, and clean.
- Experience mental clarity and brightness in your eyes.
- Enjoy a good appetite and regular bowel movements.
In the GI tract, strong agni leads to good enzyme secretion, nutrient absorption, and timely waste elimination, freeing you from difficult digestion.
How to Strengthen Your Agni
Strong agni is built upon three main factors:
• Oleate: Adequate oleation and hydration produces plenty of digestive fluids.
• Exercise: Improved circulation energises the whole body.
• Detox: Digestive organs free of excessive mucus allow enzymes to break down food quickly.
While individual techniques may require expert Ayurvedic advice, the following practices generally help boost agni:
- Warm Water: Sip warm water with your meals.
- Spices: Use herbal teas with spices such as ginger, black pepper, fennel, cumin, cinnamon, and cardamom. Black pepper, which is clear, hot, and light, is especially effective at stimulating blood flow to the stomach. However, if your agni is low due to inflammation and irritation, ignore the stimulating suggestions and focus on soothing, anti-inflammatory foods instead.
- Appetiser: Try a wedge of lime with fresh ginger and a pinch of salt before meals.
- Aahar: Choose easy-to-digest meals such as rice and vegetable soups with spices.
- Avoid Overeating: If you have overindulged, skip a meal or fast until you feel true hunger. Heavy, cold, sticky foods such as wheat or cheese generally reduce agni.
- Practices: Include restorative stretching (Shanti Yoga) and daily use of Triphala.
Study
HEALTHY DIGESTION
The Ayurvedic Guide to Gut Health
HEALTH INSTITUTE AUSTRALASIA
Heal through Nutrition
Heal through Physical Therapies
Heal through Mental and Spiritual Therapies
Heal through Medication
