Click one of the buttons above, or cut and paste the following link to share this page with your network.
This link will automatically track your referrals to Joyful Belly:
Get the 45 minute presentation 'Balance My Excess Heaviness (Heavy Guna)' given by Joyful Belly founder and director John Immel.
This presentation will show you Ayurvedic essentials on fixing this imbalance, including diet, lifestyle, and herbal tips from Ayurveda.
Price: $15.95
Elements: Water, Earth
Balanced by 'Light', 'Bitter'.
Heavy is identified by sedation, sluggishness, or increased weight.
Heavy is one of the eight important healing qualities of nature in Ayurveda. Heaviness describes an important experience that our bodies need for health. This quality also frequently shows up in our bodies to communicate illness. Heavy is the opposite of light quality and can be used to treat an imbalance of light. Conversely, light treats imbalanced heavy quality.
When balanced, heavy creates steadiness and stability, keeping our bodies grounded. Fatigue is heaviness in the muscles, encouraging you to rest when you are exhausted or sick. Sleep and relaxation, essential to your health, are heaviness in the mind. Fat is heavy and bulky, protecting your organs and keeping you warm. Heavy emotions such as grief, depression, and sadness help you slow down, giving you time and space to reorganize and reconnect to what's important.
Food is classified as heavy if it does at least one of the following:
Coats, covers, congests, or clogs vessels and tissues
The Lost Art of Tonics
Many heavy foods are also tonics. Tonics are foods that increase resiliency and strength. The use of tonics to strengthen the body is a lost art in modern medicine, perhaps because industrialized nations suffer from high rates of obesity. Foods with sweet taste, including proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, increase heaviness and, when used properly, can help debilitated patients rebuild strength after illness.
Rich Food
Some foods create heaviness because they are too rich. Rich foods including carbs, fats, and proteins lull the nervous system into peaceful slumber. They include wheat and bread, dairy and cheese, pork and beef. When the blood is rich and a person content, motivation evaporates and the body feels heavy.
Food Stagnation
Other foods, like beans, may be too difficult to digest. They may sit and churn in the stomach for a long time. Gooey foods like cheese buffer stomach acids, causing food to stagnate in the upper GI tract. As long as food is churning in the stomach, the stomach will draw energy from the rest of your body, leaving you in a sedative food coma.
Warning Signs of Imbalanced Heavy Quality
Thick coating on the tongue
Tiredness after eating
Heaviness in stomach
Slow, heavy digestion
Difficulty waking up and getting out of bed
Difficulty exercising
Causes of Heaviness
Garlic, nutmeg, romaine lettuce, oats, beer, hemp seed, turkey, and pumpkin induce heaviness with their sedative effect on the nervous system. Salty foods induce heaviness by creating water retention. Soy beans increases heaviness because they are estrogenic. Lifestyle habits, including lack of exercise, late night eating, excess sleeping, sleeping on a full stomach, and emotional eating may induce heavy quality. Hot, humid weather can make a person feel heavy, as well as sad news and depression.
Elements, Gunas, Tastes, & Doshas That Increase Heaviness:
Anti-diuretic (astringents that bind the kidney): licorice root, valerian
Estrogenic/Nutritive: shatavari
Thyroid lowering: brassicas
Complications of Heavy Quality
Changes in weight retard the rate at which we think, speak, and act. Heaviness creates gravitational stress in the knees and lower back. Heaviness, especially when coupled with liver heat and low thyroid, makes tissues and tendons lax, which decreases joint stability. Muscle tone may become lax as well. Excess heaviness slows metabolism and the rate of digestion, causing sloth and sleepiness. Obesity is stubborn, resistant to change and exercise.
Treatment of Heaviness
Waking up early
Fasting: kitchari mono-diet
Exercise and sweating: yoga, sauna
Pranayama breathing exercises
Pungent spices: black pepper, cayenne
Aromatic spices: cardamom, mint
Bitter foods: kale, arugula
Elements, Gunas, Tastes, & Doshas That Reduce Heavy Quality:
Ojas is the essence of healthy tissue, immunity, stable energy and happiness. Substances that improve ojas are recommended after long-term illness, debility, emotional and physical trauma, and even sadness.
Sattvic foods promote awareness and a refreshed mind by nourishing the body without taxing digestion. Sattvic foods do not stimulate desire or nervous energy. They create clarity instead of drowsiness or heaviness.
A tonic herb restores function through strengthening tissue. This can happen through a combination of nourishing the tissue, and invigorating tissue metabolism. The tonic should not be withering, as in caffeine.
Encourages feelings of stability and heaviness. Makes you feel settled, mentally relaxed. Mildly sedates the nervous system to ease stress. Can bring a spacey or anxious person back to earth. Reduces agitation, irritation, stress and racing thoughts.
Sedative herbs create a sense of calm in the mind and body by specifically calming or quieting the nervous system. Excellent for anxiety, stress and chronic pain.
In Ayurveda, oily refers to anything moistening. More specifically, oily refers to building substances that increases fat, or are themselves fatty. For example, sugar is Oily.
Bland means doesn't have much taste. In Chinese medicine, bland taste refers to afood without little macronutrients, such as cabbage, radish or bok choy.
Herbs or spices with volatile essential oils that present strong aromas. Aromatic oils shock, refresh and numb tissue, with the end result of relaxing, opening and clearing stagnant fluids in tissues.
Geriatric conditions typically involve low agni / metabolism, poor circulation, weakness & debility, muscle weakening, poor digestion, a drop in sex hormones, and connective tissue degradation in bones & skin.
Ojas is the essence of healthy tissue, immunity, stable energy and happiness. Substances that improve ojas are recommended after long-term illness, debility, emotional and physical trauma, and even sadness.
A tonic herb restores function through strengthening tissue. This can happen through a combination of nourishing the tissue, and invigorating tissue metabolism. The tonic should not be withering, as in caffeine.
Encourages feelings of stability and heaviness. Makes you feel settled, mentally relaxed. Mildly sedates the nervous system to ease stress. Can bring a spacey or anxious person back to earth. Reduces agitation, irritation, stress and racing thoughts.
Sedative herbs create a sense of calm in the mind and body by specifically calming or quieting the nervous system. Excellent for anxiety, stress and chronic pain.
Sattvic foods promote awareness and a refreshed mind by nourishing the body without taxing digestion. Sattvic foods do not stimulate desire or nervous energy. They create clarity instead of drowsiness or heaviness.
In Ayurveda, oily refers to anything moistening. More specifically, oily refers to building substances that increases fat, or are themselves fatty. For example, sugar is Oily.
Herbs or spices with volatile essential oils that present strong aromas. Aromatic oils shock, refresh and numb tissue, with the end result of relaxing, opening and clearing stagnant fluids in tissues.
Bland means doesn't have much taste. In Chinese medicine, bland taste refers to afood without little macronutrients, such as cabbage, radish or bok choy.
Geriatric conditions typically involve low agni / metabolism, poor circulation, weakness & debility, muscle weakening, poor digestion, a drop in sex hormones, and connective tissue degradation in bones & skin.
John Immel, the founder of Joyful Belly, teaches people how to have a
healthy diet and lifestyle with Ayurveda biocharacteristics.
His approach to Ayurveda is clinical, yet exudes an ease which many find enjoyable and insightful.
John also directs Joyful Belly's School of Ayurveda,
offering professional clinical training in Ayurveda for over 15 years.
John's interest in Ayurveda and specialization in digestive tract pathology was inspired by a complex digestive disorder acquired from years of international travel,
as well as public service work in South Asia.
John's commitment to the detailed study of digestive disorders reflects his zeal to get down to the roots of the problem.
His hope and belief in the capacity of each & every client to improve their quality of life is nothing short of a personal passion.
John's creativity in the kitchen and delight in cooking for others comes from his family oriented upbringing.
In addition to his certification in Ayurveda, John holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University.
John enjoys sharing Ayurveda within the context of his Catholic roots,
and finds Ayurveda gives him an opportunity to participate in the healing mission of the Church.
Jesus expressed God's love by feeding and healing the sick.
That kindness is the fundamental ministry of Ayurveda as well.
Outside of work, John enjoys spending time with his wife and 7 kids, and pursuing his love of theology, philosophy, and language.
* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
The information and products on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any
disease.
On MeWe
On Pinterest
On Facebook
On Twitter
On WhatsApp
On Email
