The Hindu Business Line : Diet, the sure way to joy

When the body digests food perfectly, it is said to be in a state of joy — ojas in Sanskrit. Quite different from feeling full or satiated, it is beyond the mere feel-good to a more feel-true experience. A realm of blissful brightness, tiptoeing lightness...

Interestingly, it is when a person recovers from acute indigestion that she discovers this state of refreshing joy. When Rumi was appearing for her MBA finals, she felt `horribly uptight' with her heart pounding and a burning in the stomach. Fearing a heart problem and ulcers, she rushed to the doctor, was assured she was just stressed out and advised, "Eat only curd and rice for a week.''

Seven days later, she emerged elevated, alert... "Magic!'' she marveled. ``I feel I'm a good person!''

For sure, digestion does influence disposition! On a day when she's had her favourite pastry, instead of purring like a cat who has licked all the Black Forrest cream, my student Malvika complains incessantly through her workout session — even about the compliments she receives on her new sleek look!

What fascinates me, however, is Rumi's transformation from bilious to benign. While studying, she "gave into every craving'', she rued.

But, during her discomfort, the thought, sight, smell of the same sweet and salty foods now turned her stomach. It shows the mind-senses-body connection.

For, when Rumi's mind shifted from indulging taste-buds, and senses stopped salivating to cravings, the duo focused wholly on returning the body to a state of comfort. This healing intention is what we must connect to attain and maintain our ojas-joy.

Knowing one's digestive strengths and weaknesses helps. Broadly, digestion falls into three categories:

The delicate digestion, while it hinders you from eating several foods, however, makes you a discriminating eater, rarely makes you ravenous, so, prevents binges and weight-gain. It's pretty ojas-sensitive.

The strong digestion blessed with excellent metabolic powers adapts to whatever and however much you eat. On the negative side, you could feel enormously hungry, eat indiscriminately and feel sick. It ignores ojas-needs.

The slow digestion helps skip meals without feeling weak or faint, but gains weight with discouraging quickness. It cannot discern between satiated complacence and ojas-contentment.

In a semi-conscious way, we form and live by a self-image based on our eating abilities — "I can never say no to food!'' laughs Rumi; ``I can finish loads of wafers in one sitting!'' grins Malvika. The digestive system emits a hunger call three times a day. Then, for three hours silently extracts nutrients from the food eaten. By snacking between meals, we ignore its `not-hungry' silence, upset its rhythm and reduce our ojas to sluggish joylessness.

The lack of ojas-joy emerges clearly through myriad signals subtle or strong — heartburn, acidity, fluttering stomach, zero or excess appetite, constipation, diarrhoea, aching joints and muscles, dullness, obesity, flatulence, indifference, irritability, depression. It is important to take notice of the slightest disturbance now, awaken that healing intention immediately to avoid the rising discomfort and emotional slide.

Ignore cravings, concentrate on the body's discomfort however slight by adopting the no-more-food-for-three-hours approach. This ensures a quick turnaround towards ojas in body and emotions. How food affects emotions is explained by nutritionist Anne Marie Collin. Foods are either contractive or expansive, she explains. Fat and salt, which are contractive, when ingested excessively, pull you tighter and cause stress in mind, muscles, nerves. That's why a stress-headache feels like a squeezing imploding pressure where you are unable to take in any information because you are already closing yourself in. Excess sweets and sugar on the other hand, being expansive, cause a ballooning, bursting kind of headache where you feel pulled outwards, scattered and confused. That's how you automatically tend to reach out for salty and sweet snacks-hoping to balance feelings as much as taste. Moreover, excess fruit and vegetables being expansive create an `uncentredness', and due to their fibre-content cause bloating and gas. These constant pulls and pushes explain Rumi's need to escape. "I wanted to throw up my MBA course, my job... Nothing seemed settled...everything seemed to crowd in. I wanted out,'' she told me. For, juggling between contractive and expansive foods is like seesawing between uppers and downers — you end up more confused.

Enter the curd-rice therapy. While Ayurveda considers it sattvic — that which leads to a clear, pure state of consciousness, the Duke University has selected the rice-with-fruit combination as a carbohydrate diet that raises serotonin, the brain's calming chemical, with the fruit-fibre aiding elimination. Rice is seen as the most ideal food — except if you're allergic to it — for its easy digestive qualities and its energy-boosting starch content.

Whether a delicate, strong or slow digestion, the curd-rice diet works. Try it for two days and on the third day, experience the revitalised buoyancy of ojas.

The writer is co-author of the book, `Fitness for Life'.

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