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5 Points of Yoga | Proper Diet | 3 Gunas


5 Points of Yoga is one of the core teachings under Sivananda Yoga practise. It is a wisdom created by our Teacher, Swami Vishnudevananda who condensed the essence of how we can bring Yoga practise into our daily lives by cultivating the 5 points of Yoga for a healthier living. These 5 points are :

Proper Exercise

Proper Breathing

Proper Relaxation

Proper Diet

Positive Thinking and Mediation

I try to deliver some of these 5 points of Yoga in my Yoga classes. However, due to the time limit in class, there are many things I'm unable to cover. I will use this blog to recap or even add on new notes regarding these 5 points of yoga. Hope these series of post will help everyone to cultivate better Yoga practise on and off the mat.

 

PROPER DIET

In yoga practise, there is a common recommendation to move your diet from meat based diet to vegetarian diet. However, I notice this transition is always a tedious ones for most people. Before we think about changing our diet completely, there are a few things we can and should practise to help us transit gradually. Even if you didn't become a vegetarian ultimately, it still doesn't matter. It is more important to eat healthily.

"Besides being responsible for building our physical body, the foods we eat profoundly affect our mind."- From Sivananda.org

In a modern city life, most of us are rather "fast-eater". We have this habit of eating and think about what happen previously or planning about what we can do after the meal. We are constantly trying to be more efficient by multi-tasking. Eating and thinking has become a very bad habit in our contemporary world. We believe this will make us more efficient and thus less stressful.

On the contrary, if we are able to catch the bullet train mind and consciously slow down during our meal time, it is a way to help our mind to release stress. If you are someone who finish eating in 5 mins, then it is a recommendation to slow down and think about finish eating it in 15mins. Given the extra time, you can chew the food longer and relish the taste of the food. If you really notice and observed, rice actually taste sweet! This is because rice is a starch. When it mixes with our saliva (a form enzyme), it will break starches down into sugars. However, we are all so busy thinking or talking that most of the time, we are unaware of what we eat.

Next we can practice eating 70%-80% full. Mindless eating tends to make us over-eat. Do you know your mind takes about 20mins after food consumption to notice the food in the stomach. If we can slow down and eat mindfully, chances of us over eating will reduce tremendously. And we should target to stop eating when we are 70%-80% full rather than 100% full. When we are 100% full, we will tend to feel bloated and uncomfortable and the most undesirable effect is putting on extra pounds that none of us like.

In Yoga, we are also taught this concept of 3 Gunas. They are the fundamental qualities in every aspects of our lives. The 3 Gunas are : Tamas, Rajas and Sattva. You can read more details about these 3 Gunas from here. The food we consume have all these 3 qualities. Tamas foods include heavy meats, overcooked, spoiled, chemically treated or processed food. Rajas foods include overly fried, spicy food. It is always recommended to avoid food that are overly tamasic and rajasic. Sattvic food are recommended. Sattvic foods include whole grains and legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables that grow above the ground.

Below is a table to help you have a quick understanding of the 3 qualities and how they affect our mind.

There is also a concept in Ayurveda about 3 Doshas (Constitutions or body type) that are found in all human. Understanding your own Doshas is extremely helpful for you to choose the type of food to eat.

There are 3 types of Dosha. Pitta, Vatta and Kapha. There are a couple of interesting test you can take to determine exactly which body type you belong to. Interestingly, the 3 doshas not only showcase your body type, but it also reveal your innate personalities.

You may take Dosha test from Yoga International website or Deepak Chopra Center.

When you find out about your body, you can refer to this chart below for a closer reference to what type of food works better with your body.

The guide below is not a hard and fast rule for everyone. We are all embodied with 3 doshas, but one or two of them tends to be higher. So it doesn't mean you have to avoid all food stated below. Use this as a chart to verify what you have been suspecting, food that are not suitable for you and choose wisely by observing how you feel when consuming different types of food. Your body is the best adviser, listen to it.

Proper diet not only helps the body. Most importantly, diet plays a big part to assist our mind to function at its optimum. I have recently brought a book, Ayurveda and the Mind by David Frawley. The book is an excellent guide to how food affects the mind. Below is a very good summary on the different taste of food.

Extract from the book :

" Ayurveda recognizes six tastes, each of which is composed of two of the elements :

Sweet ..................... earth and water

Salty........................ water and fire

Sour ....................... earth and fire

Pungent ................ fire and air

Bitter ...................... air and ether

Astringent ............. earth and air

Sweet is the primary Sattvic taste because it is nurturing and harmonizing, reflecting the energy of love. Pungent, sour and salty are Rajasic (stimulant-irritant) because they activate the senses and make the mind extroverted. Bitter and astringent tastes are Tamasic in the long term because their effect is to deplete the vital fluids.

However, we need all six tastes to various degrees. The right balance of tastes itself is Sattvic. This consists of food that is pleasant, but not overly sweet, in taste like grains, fruit and sweet vegetables, along with moderate use of spices, salt and condiments, and taking only bitter and astringent articles for necessary detoxification. Sattvic diet is mild and even in qualities, not going to any extreme of taste.

Pungent taste irritates the nerves by its stimulating and dispersing property. Sour and salty tastes aggravate the emotions through heating the blood. Bitter and astringent tastes can make us ungrounded and dry out the nervous system.....

Bitter taste helps open the mind because it is composed of the same basic elements of air and ether (space).

Too much of any taste becomes Tamasic or dulling. This is particularly true of sweet taste, which is heavy in nature. We have all experienced the dulling effect of eating too many sweets. Complex carbohydrates are better for the mind than raw sugars. Pure sugars overstimulate the pancreas. They require the pancreas to work hard to keep blood sugar level up. This can cause mood swings and emotional imbalances. Because sweet taste is Sattvic or love-promoting, we indulge in it in order to compensate for lack of love in our lives.

Excessive eating is Tamasic, while light eating is Sattvic, though light eating can be Rajasic if food intake is not adequate to ground the mind. Overweight is a Tamasic state, causing dullness and heaviness in the mind, while underweight is Rajasic, promoting hypersensitivity and hyperactivity. "

I have a growing interest in exploring ways to eat raw and fresh. So i've been experimenting with my breakfast. Trying out different ways of ingredients to see how it works. To my surprised, it is indeed helpful to create fresh vegetable mixed into my sandwiches as breakfast. Every time I eat a good breakfast, my day becomes much lighter.

I have been posting some of my breakfast experimentation on my Instagram. Do take a look. Hope it will inspire you to find ways to eat better for yourself.

We are merely touching a small part of a huge topic on diet and food. Hope this article will inspire you to find out more about food. Research and experiment! The process can be enriching and extremely useful in your daily lives.

Happy practicing!

P.s.

The 3 Gunas we learn here goes beyond the food we eat, the gunas can also be used to describe the state of our mind. An online article by David Frawley gives a very comprehensive account how we can use this concept to understand our thinking and behaviour. Click on the link below to read more.

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