Now we have to consider still another level of self-healing by cleansing and purification. Learn home remedies to remove your toxins.
What if you haven’t taken the opportunity to develop awareness, to modify the cause, or to apply opposite qualities to restore balance, and you have begun to get sick? What to do now?
… Efficient ayurvedic home remedies…
The principle of opposites is almost universally valid and helpful at any stage of disease. This principle is to cure with opposites qualities.
But once disease has begun to develop, it will not be sufficient. At this stage it becomes necessary to use techniques for cleansing and purifying your body of excess doshas and accumulated toxins.
The creation of Ama: toxins
As we have seen, when the doshas are aggravated because of poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, negative emotions, or other factors, they first affect agni (the body’s biological fire, which governs digestion and assimilation).
When agni becomes weakened or disturbed, food is not properly digested. The undigested, unabsorbed food particles accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract and turn into the toxic, sticky substance called ama. In the third (“spread”) stage of the disease process, ama clogs the intestines, overflows through other bodily channels such as the blood vessels, and infiltrates the bodily tissues, causing disease.
Ama is thus the root cause of disease. The presence of ama in the system can be felt as fatigue, or a feeling of heaviness. It may induce constipation, indigestion, gas, and diarrhea, or it may generate bad breath, a bad taste in the mouth, stiffness in the body, or mental confusion... Ama can most easily be detected as a thick coating on the tongue.
The roots of diseases : know the roots for healing and purification
According to Ayurveda, disease is actually a crisis of ama, in which the body seeks to eliminate the accumulated toxicity. Thus the key to prevention of disease, once ama has begun to build up, is to help the body eliminate the toxins.
To remove ama from the system, Ayurveda employs many internal cleansing programs.
One of these, most widely known in the West, is a five-procedure program known as panchakarma (“five actions”). The panchakarma programs used at Ayurvedic treatment centers include prepurification methods to prepare the body to let go of the toxins, followed by the purification methods themselves.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Panchakarma is a special, powerful procedure requiring guidance from a properly trained medical staff, not just someone with a modest amount of ayurvedic training. It is performed individually for each person, with his or her specific constitution and medical condition in mind, and it requires close observation and supervision at every stage, including post-panchakarma support.
Both for periodic prevention (to reverse any buildup of ama) and to deal with a specific health problem, panchakarma is a highly recommended art of cleansing and detoxification. If you are not near a center where panchakarma is available under the supervision of a trained Ayurvedic physician, you can do an effective purification program at home. An efficient home remedies by yourself.
Should You Use Ghee?
The use of ghee for internal oleation is recommended for most people. It’s an excellent home remedies for many imbalances. However, individuals with high blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and sugar should not use it. So before you begin your home treatment, see a doctor and have your blood tested for these factors.
If they are within the normal range, there is no problem. If they are high, then instead of ghee use flaxseed oil, which provides effective oleation and also contains fatty acids, which help to reduce cholesterol levels.
Take 2 tablespoons of the flaxseed oil three times a day for three days, fifteen minutes before eating.
A Simple Home remedies for purification
Begin your home detoxification program with internal oleation with ghee. See here how to make ghee.
For three days in a row, take about 57g of warmed, liquefied ghee early in the morning.
If you are a vata person, take the ghee with a pinch of rock salt.
And for a pitta individual, take the 57 g of plain ghee.
Kapha individual should add a pinch of trikatu (a mixture of equal amounts of ginger, black pepper, and pippali, or Indian long pepper) to the ghee.
The ghee provides internal oleation and lubrication, which is necessary so that the ama or toxins begin to come back from the deep tissue to the gastrointestinal tract for elimination.
After your three days of internal oleation
Another home remedies : It is time for external oleation.
For the next five to seven days, apply 200 to 230gr of warmed (not hot!) oil to your body from head to toe, rubbing it in well.
The best oil for vata types is sesame, which is heavy and warming; pittas should use sunflower oil, which is less heating; kaphas do best with corn oil. You can do this oil massage for fifteen to twenty minutes.
After the oil is well rubbed in and absorbed (wait minimum 20 minutes before shower), take a hot bath or shower. Then wash with some Ayurvedic herbal soap, such as neem. Let some of the oil remain on your skin.
The ancient Ayurvedic textbooks recommend rubbing some chickpea flour over the skin to absorb and help remove the oil. This works very well to remove the oil, but it is more suited to a culture in which individuals bathe outdoors.
Today, if you use chickpea flour, be aware that oil, flour, and hot water combine into a formidable mass that can easily clog your plumbing. Flushing the drain with extra hot water immediately following your bath can help.
Use of triphala
During your home purification, every night at least one hour after supper take ½ to 1 teaspoon of triphala. Add about half a cup of boiling water to the triphala powder, and let it steep ten minutes or until it has cooled down, then drink it.
Along with its many healing and nourishing properties, triphala is a mild but effective laxative. It will provide the benefits of a more potent virechana or purgative treatment, but more gently and over a longer span of time. Triphala is safe and can be effectively used for months at a time.
Basti: another best home remedy to clean and purify
This procedure was well-known by our past generations and useful if you want to complete your home panchakarma treatment. On the last three days perform this ayurvedic medicated enema, or basti, after your hot bath or shower.
Use dashamoola tea for the enema (or basti).
Boil 1 tablespoon of the herbal compound dashamoola in 1,8 L of water for five minutes to make a tea. Cool it, strain it, and use the liquid as an enema. (How to to it here).
Retain the liquid as long as you comfortably can. And don’t worry if little or no liquid comes out.
For certain individuals, particularly vata types, the colon may be so dry and dehydrated that the liquid may all be absorbed. This is not harmful in any way.
This snchana (oleation both internal and external with ghee and oil), swedana (sweating using a hot shower or hot bath), and virechana (purgation) using triphala, followed by basti using dashamoola tea, constitute an effective panchakarma that you can easily do on your own at home.
During this entire time it is important to get plenty of rest, and to observe a light diet.
From day four to day eight, eat only kitchari (equal amounts of basmati rice and mung dal cooked with cumin, mustard seed, and coriander, with about 2 teaspoons of ghee added to it). Kitchari is a wholesome, nourishing, balanced food that is an excellent protein combination. It is easy to digest and good for all three doshas, and it is also cleansing.
Be your own healer
Do this simple home remedies for purification and cleansing, preferably at the junction between seasons. Take responsibility for your own healing.
You will start to experience a great change in your thinking and in your feelings, and you will really fall in love with your life!
More tips for your health here.
References
Ayurveda and Panchakarma: Measuring the Effects of a Holistic Health Intervention – PMC (nih.gov)
Ayurvedic management of female infertility due to tubal blockage – PubMed (nih.gov)