According to Chinese Medicine, digestion is more than just breaking down your food. This is indeed miraculous; your body takes a sandwich and turns it into usable fuel, in a matter of hours! But we also think about digestion as the larger intelligence of assimilation and discrimination; what do I absorb, and what do I leave behind. So some schools of thought attribute all health fundamentally to your ability to utilize such intelligence. Several of my teachers have said "just get the patient to eat and sleep, the rest will take care of itself." This is a vast topic. But for now, here are ten quick and easy ways to support your body's ability to nourish you. Do not underestimate the power of the simple; what we practice every day matters more than anything else!
1."Rest and digest": breathe, smell, and taste slowly, enjoying your meal, and those with whom you eat, even if that is simply yourself!
2. Stick to healthy daily staples
3. Eat "breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper", eating an early dinner (avoiding big meals 3 hours before bed)
4. Eat regularly and rhythmically: around the same time each day, before you get overly hungry
5. Stop eating before you are too full
6. Refrain from drinking water with meals, allowing your digestive enzymes their full capacity 7. Choose "real food": whole, organic, fresh and local over processed, refined and packaged goods
8. Indulge in the creativity and joy of cooking, whenever you have time 9. Incorporate lacto-fermented/probiotic "condiments" into regular meals (non-vinegar sauerkraut and pickles, kimchee, yogurt, kefir, kombucha, beet kvass)
10. Drink soup broth: more healing and nutrition than any vitamin, easier to absorb
