The Ayurveda Experience Blog
In Ayurveda there are specific guidelines about how to incorporate conscious dining as a part of your routine. When we eat in the car, or at our work desk, or standing in the kitchen, or with the refrigerator door open, we create imbalance.
When we do not pay attention to the food we are eating, or gulp down in hurry we are telling our body that we are under stress. And,due to this our nervous system begins to shut down peristalsis.
Here it is important to realise that the food we eat in stress does not transcend into healthy energy in the body. Unfortunately it translates into ‘ama’ in the system. It affects not only our digestive tract and liver but eventually our body cells deal with the negative impact.
Under stress hormones are released in the system to help us manage stress. One of the important functions of liver is to remove the excess hormones from the system so that you are able to better tolerate the stress as you recover from the stress. The liver then goes into working overtime to rid the body of stress hormones in order to stabilize our body system.
We may find ourselves getting more stagnant, lethargic and overheated because the liver is responsible for maintaining so many different levels in the system and under constant stress it can’t do those jobs well.
When the stress hormones are released, it is likely that our body converts more of our sugars into fat. This excess fat then drives oestrogen dominance that results in PMS or other imbalances in the body. Weight management is of concern at this stage. So when you are under stress, in the short term you may avoid eating because you are not digesting. Short terms stresses when acute can cause weight loss.
Stress hormones that interfere with our reproductive hormones are called cortisol, oestrogen and progesterone. In the endocrine system the body produces cortisol. Cortisol is our stress hormone that’s produced when we are under stress.
One of the ingredient it uses to make cortisol is our progesterone. If we are constantly under stress we are robbing our reproductive system of progesterone that is going to drive us further into oestrogen dominance.
When we are under stress we drive both vata and pitta out of balance. Kapha is not as disturbed by stress because kapha dosha has lots of earth and water. Under stress vata dosha is disturbed by the lack of nutrition. It’s even disturbed by liver not being able to remove impurities from the blood. Weight gain is also a possibility because of stress that is not caused by lack of diet and exercise. This weight thus gained is difficult to lose as it can interfere with hormones production.
