Ayurvedic Cleanses: The Importance of Intention

Ayurveda is one of those obscure Eastern systems that is slowly making its way into the Western world. While it is not quite as popular as meditation and yoga, it is considered the sister school to yoga, and is quietly working its way through occidental culture. So, what is it? A basic and Americanized definition of Ayurveda is a “medical system…based on ancient writings that rely on a ‘natural’ and holistic approach to physical and mental health.” However, this is a very inadequate view. Ayurveda is not only a medical system, but a cosmology with a detailed theory of the origin of the universe. The medicines, remedies, and practices are based on Samkhya philosophy, which has its beginnings in the Vedas, the earliest known texts in existence. It is considered the “Mother of All Healing”, the “Science of Life”, and has been expanded and commented on by thousands of intellectuals, practitioners, and spiritual teachers. So, it is not an exaggeration when I say that there is an ocean of knowledge within Ayurveda. Don’t worry, I’m not going to attempt to dive to the bottom of the sea in this short blog. Instead, I’d like to stay on the surface of the waves and talk about a small (but important part) of Ayurvedic living: cleanses.

The Basics of Ayurveda

There are a few key principles to the system that are important to know before I go on further. Part of Ayurveda’s cosmology is the theory/belief that we, as humans, are composed of the 5 main elements – earth, air, fire, water, and ether. Everyone is born with a specific constitution, or dosha. There are three main doshas: pitta (fire), vata (air & ether), and kapha (earth & water). Sometimes, people will identify as bi-doshic (vata-kapha) with one element slightly dominating another. Despite the three subsets, our constitution is actually as unique to us as our own fingerprint. For an accurate Ayurvedic assessment of your dosha, I highly recommend seeing an Ayurvedic doctor, but there are also plenty of easy, free quizzes online if you are curious.

Throughout our lives, our dosha becomes imbalanced due to environment, mood, and other challenges we face. This is rather unavoidable and just part of the nature of existence. Nonetheless, the key to health and a happy life, according to Ayurveda, is doing our best to keep our constitutions in harmony. For example, let’s say you were born pitta, meaning you have a lot of fire in your system, and you decide to live in the desert. Because you were already predisposed to a lot of heat in your body, the heat from the climate can aggravate the fire in your system, creating an excess, which leads to pitta ailments such as heart burn, inflammation, and overactive digestion. It can also cause emotional imbalances, increasing anger, irritation, and an unhealthy sense of over-independence (click here for more physical and emotional diseases of imbalanced doshas). Because Ayurveda believes in bringing the macrocosm and microcosm into balance (as with out, so with in), it relies on the energy of the elements for remedies. Every herb, food, liquid, mineral, and treatment has an elemental quality to it, some of which is rather logical. In the case of the over heated pitta person living in the desert, some possible Ayurvedic “prescriptions” might include: cold showers, avoiding outdoor exercise or exercise at peak heat hours of the day, or cooling down with meditation. Less obvious remedies might include eating cilantro, which is a cooling herb, or yogurt, also cooling. Staying away from spicy food, and eating lots of salads and juices are other examples.

Ayurvedic practices should be implemented slowly overtime. I am not an Ayurvedic doctor, but I have been adapting an Ayurvedic lifestyle for the last ten years, and I am still learning new things all the time. I encourage you to learn more about the practices if they interest you, but I also invite you start with small digestible pieces. Rather than try to take on every suggestion and eat every herb for your dosha, it might be nice to start with something a little more basic – like a cleanse!

General Guidelines for an Ayurvedic Cleanse

Ayurvedic cleanses aim to detox the body and support the digestive tract. Cleanses are a routine part of an Ayurvedic lifestyle and will use herbs and food to support the detox process. There are, however, some intense practices (like panchakarma and purvakarma) that include things like purges, enemas and bloodletting, but all of these require the guidance and supervision of an Ayurvedic practitioner. If you are curious, click here for more information on these traditional cleanses. There is also an emphasis on cleansing based on your dosha and imbalances, but I’d like to keep this article accessible to everyone. To keep things inclusive, I plan to share some general guidelines & benefits, provide the four stages that all Ayurvedic cleanses have in common, and offer my favorite cleanse that can be done easily in the comfort of your own home. So, let’s start with some general principles of Ayurvedic cleanses.

As with most Western cleanses, Ayurveda does not recommend cleanses for the very young, elderly, emaciated, and pregnant/breastfeeding women. Something that is unique to Ayurvedic cleanses is that they are recommended to take place during springtime and fall, as this is when the Earth is also naturally detoxing; and Ayurveda seeks to harmonize the body and earthly elements. It is a big no-no to cleanse during the winter. This means those January juice cleanses that always get advertised around the new year are frowned upon in Ayurveda. This is because our bodies our bulking up in the winter, as they should. We need extra food and fat to protect and nourish us through the cold months. In fact, despite some fasting and extreme detox practices, most Ayurvedic cleanse encourage feeding the body, not depriving it.

Another part of cleansing particular to Ayurveda is the system’s stance on juice cleanses. Don’t worry! It’s not against them! Ayurveda just has a very strict way of preparing the juices. The first rule is that the juice should contain only vegetables, no fruit. This isn’t just a cleanse thing, this is a general rule in Ayurveda, that insists that all fruit must be eaten separately from all other food because the body is thought to digest fruit differently than everything else. Therefore, adding fruit to your juice to make it sweeter is dissuaded. Modern Ayurvedic practitioners are more forgiving of this rule and might allow for a green apple to be added, but for the most part, it is a pretty strict and solid stance. The second rule to juicing is that the juice should be at room temperature. This is also a general rule in Ayurveda that all drinks/liquids should be consumed at room temperature, or hot (no cold beverages). This is because the cold can be harsh on our digestive systems. The last rule when it comes to juice cleanses is that the juice should be consumed within 5 hours of it being made. This is a hard one for us busy Westerners who love the idea of meal prepping and making everything ahead of time. I know many juice shops sell a 3-day cleanse with all the juices pre-made and ready to go. Ayurvedic thought would avoid these juices as they are not “fresh”, and therefore, will not have the desired benefit. I am unsure if there is any science to back up whether or not a juice actually loses value after five hours, but I felt the need to share these very traditional Ayurvedic rules on juicing. They may not serve your journey, and that’s okay! Take what serves you, and leave the rest.

Benefits

Even if you want to cleanse with cold, fruit-filled, pre-made juices, there are still tons of benefits to taking the time to cleanse the body. Ayurveda cleanses have four specific stages that support not just the physical cleansing of the body, but also help to reset the mind, energy, and spirit of a person. There are many testimonies out there on how an Ayurvedic cleanse deeply altered someone’s mood and overall outlook on life. One article reports that the cleanse offered, “a sense of calm, lower agitation and distraction”, and “reset the nervous system” promoting “clarity and inherent, internal stability”. That’s not to say you won’t get a lot of other physical benefits. Banyan Botanicals, an Ayurvedic herbs, oils, and spices provider, states that, “Ultimately, an Ayurvedic cleanse is focused on drawing toxins and excess vata, pitta, and kapha out of the tissues and into the digestive tract so that they can be eliminated.” There are very real physical benefits to a cleanse, but I suspect what makes Ayurvedic cleanses so special is their ability to support and shift the entire person. I am a firm believer the reason for the intense emotional and mental shifts after an Ayurvedic cleanse are due to the structure of them, and the following four specific stages.

The Four Stages of an Ayurvedic Cleanse

The four stages of cleanses are pretty common knowledge in the world of Ayurveda. You can easily find more information on them with a simple google search. A lot of what I know from Ayurveda is from a week spent with my teacher Staraya McKinstry in Costa Rica with a school called SoulWork. I am forever grateful for her and all of my scribbled notes from that week, which I am referencing and revisiting for this section.

Stage 1: Preparation

This is the most important stage of the entire cleanse. This is where you set an intention for your cleanse, and commit to cleansing for healthy reasons, and in a safe way. A lot of people will have a weekend splurging on alcohol and sugar and then decide the following day that they are going to fast or cleanse the body. But this doesn’t have a very intentional or loving approach to it. It’s more an act of punishing the self for indulging. This is not the way to cleanse in Ayurveda. Instead, it is encouraged that one take the time to sit and journal out the real reason they want to cleanse. We want to cleanse from a place of self-love, not self-disgust.

Set an intention and give yourself 3-5 days to marinate on why you want to cleanse, how you are going to cleanse, and then prepare the space. When we cleanse, we’re taking away and/or changing our energy input and output. We must recognize that when we take away food, or shift our fuel intake, we are going to aggravate the root chakra, which holds feelings of safety and security. In psychological terms, this means we are going to activate the sympathetic nervous system, and it is easy to go into a “survival” state or mindset, and become irritable, and even inhospitable. As my teacher says, “we don’t want to rock the foundation so much that we crack it”. For this reason, Ayurveda proposes that you take the days leading up to the cleanse to clear your schedule, make sure you are in a place of ease, and ground yourself. I would recommend cleansing on a weekend or during a time when there is less attention needed from you at work or in family life. It’s important to clear your schedule so that you can detox not just your body, but all other stimuli that might be influencing the elements in your body. Choose a time when you aren’t working, and if you can, turn off your phone and take the time to go inward and be with yourself. This is how we amplify the benefits of the cleanse beyond just the physical body.

Lastly, for the preparation phase, give yourself a a good few days before the cleanse to start cleaning up your diet. It can be taxing on the body to go through big shifts. While it’s tempting to want to detox after binging on vacation, give yourself a good 3-5 days to eat healthy. It’s kind of like sliding into the cleanse, rather than shocking your system with a dramatic jump.

Stage 2: Active

This is the active part of the cleanse. It may be 3-7 days, but never more than 7. You might do an enema or a single day fast, which does not require 3 days, but you would still do the 3-5 day preparation stage. If you followed the protocol in the first stage, then the active part of the stage should feel spacious, restful, and full of ease.

It is recommended that you avoid exercise during this time. Your body will be adjusting to a different level of input and a different kind of fuel (depending on the cleanse), and we do not want to compromise our engines (the body) by running them on empty. Instead, this should be a time of journaling, reflection, and meditation. Strict Ayurvedic practitioners might spend their whole cleanse in silence. This might be a bit much for most of us. However, the cleanse should still be a time of introspection. Do your best to keep your environment peaceful. Think: a weekend of relaxing music, reading, watching your favorite movies, and sitting with yourself.

Stage 3: Reintroduction

At this point, the cleanse is over, but Ayurveda encourages the cleanser to stay mindful, and slowly reintroduce foods back to the body. This should be over a minimum of 3 days. One is invited to keep a simple diet and softly return to a normal schedule or routine. When it comes to what to eat, it’s important to be diverse with your food options to help buffer your system and rekindle the digestive fire. At the same time, we want to reintroduce food that we might have a sensitivity to one at a time. For example, if you think you have a potential sensitivity to dairy and gluten, you would eat gluten, and nothing else you might be sensitive to. Give yourself a full 24 hours to observe any reactions to the gluten before moving on to other foods, and do the same thing for dairy or any other suspect foods.

Stage 4: Rejuvenation

While most Western cleanses focus on the cleanse, the focus on Ayurveda is here in rejuvenation stage, which is where we really receive the benefits of the cleanse. If we jump right back into old habits or poor eating, then the cleanse is obsolete. In order to extend the benefits and create long term changes for the body, we must be gentle and mindful with what we put into our bodies for the days and months following. That’s right. The length of this stage is up to 3 months. If you do the math, that means it’s not really recommended to do more than 3-4 cleanses a year. It’s too much on our systems according to Ayurveda. Instead of doing multiple cleanses, it’s better to focus on one. Give it your full attention. Be intentional with it and take those three extra months to support the cleanse, and again give yourself the opportunity to produce long-term results.

During this stage it is recommended that you eat rejuvenating foods – foods packed with vitamins and nutrients. It’s also a time to indulge in restoring practices like yoga and meditation. Do your best to keep up those mindful practices you might have done during the cleanse: journaling, reading, and introspection. This is also why I think cleansing in the spring sets you up for success, as the 3-month rejuvenation period is during summer, which might help support this slow and sweet lifestyle. But if you are a busy summer person, try a cleanse in the fall (also recommended in Ayurveda) and have a sweet and slow winter. Either way, this period is of upmost importance in Ayurveda.

This mindful and intentional approach to cleanses amplifies the benefits, giving people that sense of mental and emotional calm as well as balancing the physical body. And, who doesn’t want that?

Below, I’ve offered my favorite Ayurvedic cleanse that I believe to be accessible, fairly safe, and easy to do at home. Of course, I still recommend consulting with a medical professional first, and please refer to the list of contraindications before proceeding with the cleanse.

Kitchari Cleanse

Most Ayurvedic cleanses work to support the digestive system, as it is through the digestive tract that we eliminate any imbalances in the body. Kitchari is a nutrient-dense staple in the Ayurvedic diet that can be used to help assist the digestive system in eliminating toxins, excess fire, water, or air, and repair the lining of the intestines and colon. This dish is made of rice, dal, and a variety of spices and is good for all doshas. Banyan Botanicals believes that, “The combination of rice and mung dal provides all the amino acids needed to form a complete protein. Eaten on their own, each of these foods is missing one or more of the essential amino acids that our bodies are not able to make on their own. However, together they make magic happen! The protein content of kitchari supports stable blood sugar levels so that energy and mental clarity are balanced during the cleansing process.” It is easy to digest, nourishing, and when eaten in a cleansing way can loosen and remove toxins. Cleansing with kitchari helps to reset the digestive system, but it also cleanses the mind thanks to the ghee in this dish. Ghee has been known to support memory and strengthen the brain.

This mono-diet cleanse is one of the easier cleanses to do in the sense that you still get to eat and there is low-commitment. You might choose to make a batch of Kitchari on a Friday and eat only that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner through the weekend. It would still be recommended that you follow the four stages and take the time to prepare and rejuvenate afterwards, but overall, I’d say this is a fairly “easy” cleanse with mega benefits. I encourage you to read up on the cleanse before doing it, and make sure that it feels aligned with you and your intentions.

There are hundreds of recipes online for kitchari, but I’d like to share the one that I’ve modified and tweaked over the years to my liking. Keep in mind, while there are spices, the dish is rather bland, and similar in texture to oatmeal. You might add salt and veggies to it for flavor, but for maximum cleansing benefits, I recommend keeping it bland.

Here’s my recipe:

Recipe

¼ tsp. Black Mustard Seed (Not for pitta)
½ tsp. Cumin Seeds
½ tsp. Turmeric
½ tsp. Cumin Powder
1 tsp. Rock Sea Salt
2-3 T of Ghee (Lots for Vata)
1 C. Split yellow mung dal (rinsed, soaked overnight, and drained)
½ C. Basmati Rice
4-5 Thin Sliced of Fresh Ginger
Optional: Add vegetables ( Carrots, Zucchini, Green Beans, Tomatoes)

Instructions:

Cook rice
In separate pan heat ghee on medium
Add Spices
Add Mung Beans
1. (Stir until it almost starts sticking to the pan.)
Add Ghee & Mung Spice goo to Rice
Add water for more soupy texture
Let simmer for 15 min

Cleansing is a wonderful thing to do for your body. However, when we cleanse in an intentional Ayurvedic way by aligning with the seasons, and taking the time to prepare ourselves for the cleanse, we increase the benefits. When we approach cleansing from a place of intention, self-love, desire for harmony, and commit to giving the cleanse our full attention, we create lasting long term change for the body, mind, and heart.

Article By Bridget Lavin

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