Ayurveda is without a doubt the King of Digestion, if you will. Never have I found more resources on how to improve digestion than within the ayurvedic diaspora. This short blog will focus on herbal digestive aids and easy home remedies for certain digestive ailments.
First, there should be some understanding of the different types of digestive ailments because not all digestive imbalances can be fixed with the same herbs or remedies. In ayurveda we have the three doshas or constitutions -- vata, pitta, and kapha. If you don’t know these terms, they are simply the three groupings of the five elements. Vata is the grouping of ether and air, pitta is the grouping of water and fire, and kapha is the grouping of water and earth. Each of the five natural elements express different qualities (think hot for fire, dry for air, and heavy for earth), and these groupings reflect a way to organize those elements that are most alike together.
For any imbalance in the body or mind these elements are at play, we either have too much of an element or too little of an element. As far as digestion goes, if we have too much vata (air and ether) our digestive system is too dry and we can present symptoms such as gas, bloating, and pain, which usually leads to constipation. If we have too much pitta (fire and water -- think of water in this case as an oil) we have burning sensations in the gut, pain, and heartburn, which leads to oily, hot, frequent, loose bowel movements akin to IBS or GERD. If we have too much kapha (water and earth) then we have a heavy digestion with slow, dense movements that also will lead to a different type of constipation.
In the case of vata-type digestive imbalances, you want to saturate your gut with more moisture. Diet wise this looks like avoiding any foods with dry, rough, or cold qualities such as raw vegetables, smoothies, chips, popcorn, rice cakes, crackers, cold drinks, or constantly nibbling and grazing. Herbs that are helpful for this imbalance are ginger, cumin, fennel, coriander, most italian herbs like basil, thyme, or marjoram, and eating more soups or warm oily foods. Placing a piece of fresh ginger on a spoon and adding a little squeeze of lime/lemon and honey on top and eating before meals can also aid in this type of digestion.
For pitta digestive imbalances, you don’t want to use herbs like ginger that are heating or spicy because it will only increase the oiliness and heat in your gut. In order to cool you down, avoid spicy, rough, acidic foods such as hot sauce, chili peppers, tomatoes, red meat, sour foods, or fermented foods -- even salads because they are rough on the digestive system and usually leave you feeling slightly nauseous or ravenous not long after. For herbal digestive remedies, mint, cardamom, coriander, and fennel are your total go-tos. These herbs are cooling or neutral and help cut the acidity in your gut. For pitta type digestion it is also important to eat something sweet with your meal because the sweet taste also helps cut acidity tremendously. Whether it is a piece of mint chocolate, a date, or a cookie it doesn’t matter, it will help calm your overactive over oiled gut. Teas that are caffeine free and contain herbs like mint, chamomile, lavender, marshmallow root, and rose are also very helpful digestive aids.
Lastly for kapha type digestion, your gut is damp and clogged with too many heavy and dense foods. You first want to avoid all foods with these qualities such as ice cream, smoothies, cold drinks, too much wheat, too much meat, too many sweets, nut butters, or overeating consistently. Kapha in this case can handle using more spicy herbs such as ginger, italian herbs, chili peppers, clove, cinnamon, allspice, and mustard seeds in order to heat up and dry up the mucus clogging your system. Teas that contain small amounts of caffeine or herbs like hibiscus, clove, rose hips, or fennel are helpful digestive aids.
One classic ayurvedic tried and true herbal digestive remedy is CCF tea. The combination of cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds are an ancient trifecta for digestive imbalances that have been used for centuries. It is not easily found at your local grocery store but there are plenty of shops online who offer this combo and you can easily find the bulk spices in stores and make it yourself!
How to make the tea and doshic adjustments:
Take ½ tsp. of each cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds and simmer in five cups of filtered water for ten minutes. Strain the seeds and sip in between meals. You can also take the same amount of seeds and steep in a cup of hot water like normal tea. It is that simple!
For vata, that combination of seeds is perfect. For pitta, I recommend replacing the cumin, which can be too hot and oily for pitta, with chamomile or just using fennel and coriander seeds. For kapha you can also add clove pods as this is a cooling pungent that helps scrape mucus beautifully.