Even after eight hours of beauty sleep, do you still feel sluggish? Has the stress of your life made your digestive system start to act up? Ayurveda says that both physical and mental health depend on how well you digest your food. To reduce ama, which is the buildup of toxins in the body, and to raise ojas, which is the result of good digestion, you need a strong agni, or digestive fire.
Imagine doing your dirty clothes. Not the most fun thing to do, but the clothes come out clean, smelling good, and looking good. Think about your body in the same way. You can compare the ama in your body to the dirt in your clothes. With a little holistic cleaning and the right detoxification, the bright, vital essence of ojas shows through. Oh, really?
Before we move on, let’s learn more about what ama is, why it builds up, and why we should do everything we can to keep it out of our bodies. (Hint: to live long.)
Amas, Ojas, and Agni
As was already said, Ayurveda says that your health is closely tied to how well or badly you eat. When the digestive fire is weak, toxins from food that hasn’t been eaten start to build up. This slows down the metabolism and makes it easier for infections and diseases to take hold in the body. When ama is high in the body, neither energy nor ojas will be present. Ama stops the body from mending itself and makes it less able to do so. It also hurts your immune system, while having more ojas will make you live longer and keep you healthy.
What are some signs that your body has too much ama?
Fatigue
Bloating/constipation
Sleeplessness
Problems with the skin, such as spots and acne
Long-term inflammation
Stinky breath
Body odour
Not clear enough
Leaky gut
Weight gain
Ojas: The Honey of the Body
When your digestion is working well, all three doshas are in order, and your diet and way of life are in line with your body type and the changing seasons, ojas, also called vigour, starts to show up. Ojas is made up of the sap from all seven dhatus, or tissues, and is said to be the best part of every kind of food. It is where our energy comes from. Simply put, your ojas will stay high if you live in harmony with nature, eat well, do regular gut detoxes, and have good digestion.
Ojas is also known as the pure thought that has been distilled. When ojas is present, it calms the mind and is the most important link between our bodies and our awareness. In other words, if we want to move forward on our spiritual path, we need to improve our ojas and lower the amount of toxins in our ama through spiritual, mental, and herbal cleansing.
Some signs of high ojas are:
Patience
Resilience
Contentment
Clarity Enthusiasm
Glowing skin Energy
Better immunity
Balance in feelings
Smarter thinking
Start a fire
So, how do we make our stomach fire (agni) stronger? In Ayurveda, a strong gut fire is seen as a sign of good health. The agni principle is about how food is digested, assimilated, and turned into energy. When the stomach fire is strong, digestion is good, food is completely assimilated, and very few toxins or ama are left behind. Your ojas stays high, and you feel healthy, light, and clear.
Agni does more than just break down food. How strong one’s agni is also has a lot to do with how much knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual power they can take in.
Detox cleanses that are recommended by Ayurveda are very important in this case. Cleansing rekindles and restores agni to its best levels by using a mix of personalised therapies, treatments, diet, yoga, and lifestyle changes based on your unique bio energies, or doshas. Cleaning your body gets rid of ama, which is the cause of many illnesses, tiredness, and lack of energy.
Some signs of weak agni, which could cause more ama to build up, are:
Poor appetite
Trouble dealing with feelings
Fatigue
Constant stomach problems, like acidity, bloating, and being unable to go to the toilet.
Excess mucus
Tongue covered in yellow
If you have weak agni and too much ama, Ayurvedic treatments can help cleanse your body in a number of ways. Here are some to get you going.
Diet
Changing your food is almost always the first step to getting more energy. Here are a few things you should remember:
Eat foods that are fresh, sweet, juicy, soft, locally grown, and easy on your stomach. Do not eat foods that are raw. Clarified butter, dates, nuts, green veggies, avocados, whole grains, sweet potatoes, and yams are all foods that are high in ojas.
Don’t eat food that is raw, undercooked, cold, deep-fried, or old.
Stay away from white sugar, refined bread, processed foods, colours, and additives.
Only eat when you’re hungry and with care.
Chew your food until it turns into a liquid.
Don’t eat when you’re upset or worried.
At least three hours before bed, don’t eat anything.
While you eat and drink, sit down.
Get your body moving.
Massage or Abhyanga
Most Ayurvedic cleanses include abhyanga, which is a full-body deep tissue massage. Here, the therapist massages your whole body with warm oil mixed with fresh herbs that are right for your issues and body type. The atmosphere is very calming and relaxing. These massages also stimulate and refresh the circulatory system, feed the nervous system, calm the body, and make the immune system stronger.
Nasal Therapy
In Ayurveda, nasal treatment is also called Nasya. It cleans out your nasal passages. It lessens headaches caused by the sinuses, calms nervousness, gets rid of extra mucus that builds up in the respiratory system, and makes the body have more ojas.
Tongue Scraping & Oil Pulling
Some of the best ways to get rid of ama deposits every day are to scrape your tongue and pull oil through your teeth. These practises help digestion, improve ojas, stimulate salivary glands to help digestion, and speed up the metabolism. The fact that it gets rid of bad breath is just a plus.
De-Compress
Stress is bad for your health and strength. Some of us may think that we work better under some stress, but we may not see the long-term damage it does to our mind-body complex. Stress is the new smoke, and to get more ojas, the body needs to get rid of the toxins that come from stress. This can be done through powerful practises like deep diaphragmatic breathing, SKY breath, meditation, forest bathing, connecting with nature, service, artistic hobbies, gardening, and even playing with your kids or pets!
Sense of Touch
This is a strange loop in which sensory control makes ojas better and ojas makes you have some sensory control. Pratyahara is one of the ways to save energy that Saint Patanjali’s yogic work talks about. It means being in charge of our feelings, not overindulging beyond what we can handle, and being disciplined.
