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You are what you eat in Ayurveda and healing your acid reflux is just a few modifications away!
According to Ayurveda, pitta is the heat or fire energy within every cell and mainly located in the stomach area. This means that eating too many heat producing foods like tomatoes, sour citrus fruits, spicy chillies, and alcohol can aggravate the digestive tract to overreact with an increase in acid production. And with increase stomach acid, even in Western medicine, it presents as symptoms indigestion. This could lead to more serious conditions such as peptic ulcers and even inflammatory disorders if the imbalance continues and changes aren't made to diet and lifestyle.
Here are 6 simple tips to help reduce your acid reflux with Ayurveda.
1. Avoid triggers and the Pitta aggravating foods.
These foods include hot and spicy foods such as chilies, cayenne, jalapeno peppers, sour and salty tastes such as vinegar, alcohol and acidic foods and fruits like grapefruit, orange, fermented soybean products like tempeh, and vegetables like tomatoes and tomato sauce, radish, beets, spinach, raw onions. Even dairy such as yogurt, salted cheese (especially aged and such as feta or blue cheese), sour cream, cream cheese and ice cream should be completely avoided until the acid level is brought into complete balance.
2. Don't skip meals: It is crucial to not skip meals if you suffer from acid indigestion.
Eating breakfast is especially important. Even if you are not that hungry in the morning, it is important to at least eat something light like stewed fruit, warm milk, or a delicious date shake. Skipping breakfast has the effect of aggravating a subdosha of Pitta called Sadhaka Pitta, which governs the emotional heart. It is responsible for contentment and feeling bliss. As lunch time approaches, the agni (the digestive fire) increases as well as acid production of the stomach, so an empty stomach is not ideal! It may result in irritability, anger, impatience, and a feeling of "hangry" (over hungry) so that when lunchtime comes around, you tend to eat too much too fast and create a vicious cycle for your stomach.
3. Try to avoid high-stress situations, and practice stress-management techniques.
Enjoy natural beauty. Meditate and find balance of life.
4. Favor cooling drinks such as fresh coconut juice.
You can also have fresh aloe vera gel straight from the leaf which is balancing.
5. Favor astringent, bitter, and sweet tastes in your diet.
Split moong dal, green leafy vegetables, grains, watermelon, honeydew melon, lettuce, mangos, and spices such as fenugreek seeds, coriander, cardamom, and mint should be included in your daily diet. You can also have baked fennel seeds to help settle the stomach and balance digestion. You can eat ¼ teaspoon of the baked fennel seeds 3 times a day after meals. Drink Pomegranate juice or eat and pomegranate chutney which can also help balance the acid in the stomach. Even though it tastes sour, it is actually both astringent and bitter, which help balance pitta.
