This is our list of top tips to keep healthy during this challenging times both physically and mentally.
Strengthen your digestion: Having a strong digestion will make sure you get all the nutrients that your body needs to stay healthy and keep a strong immune system.
- Eat warm cooked foods and avoid salads & raw foods especially if it’s not summer in your country
- Have some ginger with your meals. You can make a ginger tea or our favourite is a slice of ginger with a pinch of salt after lunch and dinner. Particularly good for Vata or people with weak digestion
- Keep up a regular schedule of meals whether it is 3 or 2 meals per day
- Avoid snacking
Reduce heating or Pitta-increasing foods. Especially important if you are a Pitta person or tend to have too much heat.
- Avoid red meat, oily fish, seafood, tomatoes, alcohol and chilli which are the most heating foods
- Avoid any processed foods
- Reduce oily deep-fried food
Add to your diet cooling foods but have them at room temperature.
- Increase your intake of green vegetables
- Most coconut products are the ideal cooling foods such as coconut water, coconut oil and chewing roasted coconut
- Another of our favourite is rose petal tea or rose water
How to keep mentally and emotionally balanced?
Per Ayurveda, the biggest protection for our immunity is not just the diet but also our emotions.
Cultivate love and generosity around you. The main emotion associated with a strong immunity is love. Positive feelings of love create reactions in our body that protect us. If you can, volunteer to help the most vulnerable ones. Otherwise just sending loving messages and positive comments to your loved ones can do a lot for yourself but also for everyone else!
Avoid negative emotions such as fear and anxiety. This may be a bit more challenging for Vatas who have a very active nervous system. Try practicing some meditation, sing mantras, take a relaxing bath. Basically, avoid overstimulation of your senses through too much media and information and find a moment to disconnect during the day.
Let go of your need to control. This can be a challenge for Pittas. We feel powerless against this virus and our lives are all upside down without a plan. This is all part of our big lesson to stop living in the illusion that we can control everything. We must learn to surrender to the unknown and trust, only in this space we will finally find true peace.
If you are already in an Ayurvedic treatment, make sure to follow your own personalised diet advice and take all your prescribed Ayurvedic medicines.
Lots of love from the Ayurvedic Practice