According To Ayurveda,
“yat kincillaghavakaram dehe tallnghanam smrtam” – Charaka samhita strasthana22/9
Whichever karma that brings about lightness and thinness to the body is called Langahana.
Upavasa - fasting is one among all Daivavyapashraya (spiritual) therapies and one among ten Langhana (that which produces lightness of the body) therapies.
‘Upa’ means “near” and ‘Vasa’ means “to stay”. So fasting means “to sit or stay near (the Lord)” to keep the Lord close to your heart and mind.
Fasting is defined as “complete voluntary abstinence from taking any kind of food for a particular time, in order to give rest to the digestive system”.
Fasting is a break from ingestion. The main source of energy is glucose. It is used by various organs for different bodily functions. However, the excess glucose gets stored in the adipose tissues and liver. It is this unused excessive glucose that gives rise to metabolic diseases like diabetes, thyroid and obesity. When we fast and stop eating, your body wipes up all the glycogen that is in the liver and the muscle and when this excess glucose is used up , your level of glucose will be maintained and therefore, it brings a balance to the functioning of various organs.
Fasting is common to just about every major religious tradition. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates believed it helped the body heal itself. Besides religious practice, there are a number of health reasons.
It is a very ancient wisdom based approach towards ailments reversal and age reversal. Fasting creates a lot of space and allows your body’s coping mechanism to get unburdened from the day to day food, digestion, absorption, assimilation and elimination. The lag which builds up gradually creates the burden of toxins, which we call ‘amavish’, gets harboured in organs and creates cellular inflammation. This cellular inflammation becomes the root cause of every ailment. Ailments eminate from the stomach. When the body is not digesting food, there are miracles happening to the body. So when you allow your stomach a break, we allow a system reboot, a digestive system reboot, organ system reboot, but most importantly the endocrine system. Typically, an 8 – hour gap between meals is very good., it allows the body to recover and digest absolutely well and eliminate everything unwanted out so technically keeping you disease free.
Some benefits of fasting are better insulin control, detoxification of the body, stimulation of the digestive fires, removal of toxins, anti-aging effect, improved metabolism, cell rejuvenation, feeling light and healthy, feeling more energetic, better weight management, better concentration and focus. It also increases our mental energy and makes us disciplined.
When you eat only once a day, you go a few notches higher in excellence of health and health means healing, healing means allowing your body to come back to wholeness again. Just allowing it space, so balancing of ether. This balancing of ether typically allows your body to reorient itself in terms of the elements. Because we are made of 5 elements and ether is the universal, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient element of all. Ether is present in every other element and it is the pacifier, the equalizer and the regulator.
The Science
Macrophagy is typically the first defence mechanism of the human body where the body immediately responds with the consuming when under attack by the bacteria, germs and viruses. Autophagy (cellular “self-eating”), a recycling and cleanup process that rids your body of damaged and misfolded proteins sets in. The well-fed cell isn’t worried about being efficient and recycling its components – it’s too busy growing and dividing. This macrophagy to become autophagy is normally when people attain with intermittent fasting Fasting is the most effective way to trigger autophagy. When the body is low on sugar through fasting it brings the positive stress that wakes up the survival repairing mode. Autophagy starts from 18 hours. However, its max level is achieved at 3 days fasting.
That becomes a larger coping mechanism or rather a potent coping mechanism to heal the body, eliminating all the kinds of impurities within because the body has the mechanism to consume all the toxic wastes generated within.
So autophagy is the biggest healer because it makes the body wholesome, clean and gets our system integrated, our bodily functions well-orchestrated and to the optimal capacity. People who cannot fast should start the practice by eating only one meal a day and then gradually progress to being without food for the entire day.
This also should be done keeping in mind the circadian rhythm of the body and its not that any 16 hours for autophagy dependent intermittent fasting is good enough. Yes, any 16 hours will do, but for excellence, the last meal should be in the evening before sunset. That makes a huge difference because our energies rise with the sun, and they end with the sunset. So when the energies are ending, then to burden the body with the meals could be contraindicatory It can have its own contraindications and thus ideally the last meal should be before sunset.
The spiritual significance? Because fasting is a cleansing, the system becomes vibrant. This helps the meditator to sit up with eyes closed and still be fully alert. To create this vibrancy, it is important to observe how we eat, what we eat, how much we eat. Fasting purifies the mind and the body and allows it to divert and think beyond. It strengthens one’s conviction and teaches you self-control. That’s when you can meditate, focus, concentrate.
Fasting helps in the development of the body, mind and soul. It helps to destroy the tridosha (phlegm, bile and wind) of the body. I recommend supplementing the fasting ritual with some deep self-reflection, meditation and swadhyaya to unravel different layers of our being. Also exposing yourself to sunlight, fresh air and water will help the process of fasting better.
We live in a society of abundance and fasting is self-imposed scarcity but so what when it brings about so many health and well-being benefits. Fasting is not starvation. it is a beautiful system. We must do it the right way.
Fasting initialized…
Healing optimized…
Life Mickeymized!!!
