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Drink this Ayurvedic Tea NOW

Apr. 13, 2020

Like so many of us, I’ve been watching this wild unfolding we are collectively experiencing in our world with a constant feeling of being on edge. Of stepping into the unknown and not knowing what is to come.

In fact, it has taken me the last few weeks to begin to arrive at a place of acceptance of our current reality and with that, I’ve come to realize that I need to show up NOW more than ever to share whatever tools I’ve gained from years of studying Yoga, Ayurveda and being committed to natural healing practices, so that I can offer help.

Which brings me to what I want to share with you today.

It’s a concept that is key to Ayurvedic living and I hope will help you to stay strong and vibrant especially right now.

It is something I call Ayur-Immunity.

In Ayurveda, your immunity is directly connected to the health of your gut. In fact, disease in Ayurveda is always seen as a manifestation of imbalance in your digestive system and whenever we want to improve our vitality, our metabolism and the overall feeling of ease in our bodies, mind and spirit, we look at the state of our Agni, or our digestive fire.

A good way to think about Agni is that it is the intelligence in every cell, tissue and system in our bodies that helps us to properly ingest, digest, and eliminate what we take in.

Why is maintaining good Agni important especially right now? 

Good, balanced Agni helps our body to experience its ultimate state of vitality. We don’t feel depleted, we don’t feel sluggish and we are able to eliminate waste matter efficiently out of our bodies, which helps to keep our immunity functioning at its optimal level, thus allowing us to keep flus and viruses more easily at bay.

How do we keep our Agni happy? Here are a few tips.

  • Choose simple, wholesome foods and eat them ideally lightly steamed or cooked. Cooked food is easier on our digestion than raw foods, especially in cold weather aka the flu season.
  • Eat diversely and what is in season. Eating what is local and in season is essential to maintaining more harmony with our larger environment, which is what we are trying to do to maintain healthy gut flora.
  • Eat unsprayed, organic foods as much as is possible – the toxins in soil and pesticides leaks directly into food grown in this way and right into our bodies. But I know you know this.
  • Eat moderately:  The Ayurvedic maxim is to eat 1/3 solid food, 1/3 liquid food and to leave 1/3 of your stomach empty so that your Agni has room to function well. i.e. It is not crowded.
  • Avoid cold water and especially ice water. This is akin to throwing cold water on a smoldering fire. It will put it out. Instead sip warm water and digestive teas to gain the opposite effect.
  • Do not snack all day.  This is hard, especially with so many of us at home and close to our pantries and refrigerators. When we eat constantly through a day, we add undigested food to digested food already in our stomach, which confuses our body and slows down our metabolic fire, just as if we were adding wet logs (new food) to a burning fire (previously digested food).  This creates sluggishness and slows down our digestion. Our bodies and our bellies love routine; and we learn how to secrete stomach acids according to when we are most used to eating a meal so we prime our body to digest food well. So during this time of being at home, focus on creating a routine and stick to it. Ideally, eat a light breakfast that lasts you until lunch. Make lunch your most substantial meal. If you are starving at 4 p.m., have a  light snack – possibly a handful of nuts or maybe some fruit; and then eat something stewy or soupy at dinner so your body does not have to work too hard at night to digest your food.
  • Finally, pay attention to how you feel after eating. Notice if your food gives you a sense of energy and vitality vs. making you feel tired.

And when you need a boost to kindle your digestive fire, here is a simple tea I have been drinking daily all through this Pandemic. This tea is simple to make and delicious to drink. I hope you will enjoy it. And it has the healing benefits of specific herbs that will help to balance your Agni and keep your digestive fires burning bright. Traditionally this tea contains the herbs cumin, coriander and fennel, three digestive herbs which I explain more in detail below. However, I’ve added in some fresh ginger slices as well as a good pinch of cinnamon to help detoxify the  digestive canal and clear out our respiratory passages.

Read on for the recipe and the incredible herbal benefits of each ingredient.

Ayurvedic Immunity Tea

Ingredients:

  • 2 tsp cumin seeds or 1.5 tsp cumin powder
  • 2 tsp coriander seeds or 1.5 tsp coriander seeds
  • 2 tsp fennel seeds or 1.5 tsp fennel seeds
  • 2″ thinly sliced fresh ginger root
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 – 6 cups filtered water

Method:

Bring all the ingredients to a boil. Allow the tea to simmer until it reduces by 1/3. Sip 6 oz along with meals or after meals and through the day. You can make double the amount and keep it in the fridge for tomorrow, but please drink it warm or at room temperature.

Benefits of each ingredient:

Cumin: This warming, aromatic spice offers digestive support and is considered balancing for all the three doshas or elements that make up our constitution of air, water and fire.

Coriander: This detoxifying spice stimulates the appetite, warms the body from the inside out, yet does not aggravate our fire element. It also acts upon the lungs and helps to clear mucus out, which make it essential I think in a supportive tea right now.

Fennel: This sweet and cooling herb balances all the doshas and warms our Agni. It is also soothing to the nervous system and helps to move excess Vata or air element out of the body. Fennel is a lovely anxiety reducer.

Fresh Ginger: Rejuvenating and healing; ginger stokes our digestion and clears circulatory channels in the body.

Cinnamon: Bitter, sweet and warming, cinnamon detoxifies the gut, improves the absorption of our food and clears our respiratory tract. Its sweet taste also helps to balance out our blood sugar levels.

I hope that you enjoy this tea. Please make it and share it with the hashtag #yogue on social media. I would love to know how you feel after drinking it.

Namaste + Peace,

Insiya

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Category: Ayurveda, Blog Tags: ayurimmunity, covid19, healing, holistic health, modern ayurveda, recipe, wellness

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About Insiya Rasiwala-Finn

Yogini + Ayurvedic Coach, Writer and Conscious Mama. Believes in regenerative, slow living, holistic design and living mindfully every day.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Shelley Moynihan says

    April 14, 2020 at 2:20 am

    What a delicious tea, so easy to make. Smells divine while boiling and doesn’t take long to brew. It’s a little spicy, a little sweet and warming to the body, so fantastic for today’s chilly weather.
    2 cups down and the rest is in my hot/cold drink bottle to sip throughout my day! Happiness in a cup
    I

    Reply
    • yogue says

      April 14, 2020 at 2:24 am

      So happy to hear!!! Thanks beautiful being

      Reply
  2. MANSUR RASIWALA says

    April 14, 2020 at 3:52 am

    Wow excellent great uplifting of energy and calmness in these difficult times
    Brings good Cheer to one heart

    Reply
  3. Amanda says

    April 14, 2020 at 5:03 pm

    This sounds so lovely! Thank you for sharing ❤️

    Reply

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ABOUT YOGUE  Hi, I'm Insiya. Journey with me as we live slow, scatter beauty and tread lightly on the planet.

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insiyafinn

Yesterday was so life affirming and heart filling! Yesterday was so life affirming and heart filling!!! 

We got out on a hike in sooke and I’m so proud of my mama for traversing some steep climbs and even more steep and rocky downhill paths. I felt energized and so happy to be outside in a forest that smelled cool and fresh and pine-resin-y… @theblissologist and lion even got into the icy cold glacial streams and then we picked up grandma @carolefinnartist and enjoyed some delicious pizza on the deck @stokedpizzeria near sombrio…

My family kept cautioning me to not push myself - but honestly and truly I think I was just high on feeling alive and being amidst the waterfalls and green of what has turned into a very hot spring (climate change is real friends…)…

Yesterday was such an affirmation of how much we all need to be outside to reconnect within to what really matters…

Thanks ananda lion for making me a mama 12 years ago and thanks to my mom @sararasiwala for your love always… also it made me so happy that eoin got to see his mama too! Life is short. Keep those you love close and fill it with beauty and kindness.

Ps. I did wear a dress hiking (just because) and I am very tired today but was it worth it? YES ❤️

#yogue #mothersday #family #familymatters #healing #healinsiya #healcancer #cancerthriver
Photo sprinkles… Stepping out into spring. L- Photo sprinkles… 

Stepping out into spring.

L-R: A Saturday picnic w @yogalink + Carole + dingo the bali dog and my mom. Thanks for the chai @sararasiwala 😁 and the pic @theblissologist ✨
Blossoms on the hill.
Blossoms inside :)
Homemade spinach and mushroom quiche.. so good 💫
Pakoras by mom… aka delish chickpea fritters 
Daisies :)
And
Apricot nectar and strawberries yesterday… 
/ shadows and sunshine :) 
Heart shaped flowers…

Feeling all this golden light and springtime goodness. :) 

🌺💕☀️

#healingjourney #wholefoods #growth #changes #shift #insiyafinn #healinsiya #healcancer
So I decided to share this picture here because fi So I decided to share this picture here because firstly today was so special. I got to see a dear dear friend who I haven’t seen since before the pandemic and we got to finally connect a few steps away from home. Yes this is currently Victoria (or it was this morning when the sun was bright and warm)…

And yet this morning was hard won. Yesterday after weeks of things going relatively well I had what is called a partical blockage with my ileostomy. I think it was caused by my not chewing my lunch as slowly as I normally do…(I will blame this on both being v hungry and that my dear mom’s cooking is dangerously delicious) 😁 when my girlfriend came to see me yesterday, I had low energy and a strange cramping sensation in the stomach and lower rib area. This progressively got worse and worse until my body with all its wisdom tried to push my lunch out of me. In other words I threw up. Consistently and continuously.

Meanwhile life at home continued on. My son arrived home after a canoeing weekend. I needed back rubs w tiger balm or whatever would help in the moment; and tried to help organize dinner. And my friend later that evening shared how she felt the privilege of being here to help and to witness the rough stuff. Which just felt so dear and real and loving.

And this is why I want to share this story today. It feels scary to put all of this out into the world but I have been thinking that when we hide the hard things behind walls of fear or worry about what others will think, I think we curtail our capacity to be loving, compassionate humans. After all at our core we want the same things. To live and love well. I feel like I share a lot here but I have found it hard to write about the really gnarly moments. There have been so many. What I will say I am so thankful for however is that because I have experienced so much with the ileostomy, I knew I had to ride the waves of pain out until they stopped. And they did and I finally slept last night and stayed out of emerg at the hospital.

And awoke to a new day. And a new opportunity to make the most of this precious moment.

Thanks for being here!

#healcancer #healinsiya #viclife #oakbay #friendship
It’s three weeks post my big surgery. The last f It’s three weeks post my big surgery. The last fortnight has been a wave of highs and lows. It felt like every time I felt a little better something new would happen again that I needed to understand and navigate. 

Meanwhile my inner mind has been a whirling w so so much. I have so many thoughts and so many ideas every day. And having to still be quite still has forced me to pay attention to them. 

The word that keeps coming up is reclamation - reclaiming who I am and how I want to live my life moving forward… life seems a little less like I’m on the edge of a precipice - except in the middle of the night - but things still feel urgent - like I will run out of time before I get to do all the things I would like to. And I have been trying to stay true and listen to the emotions that come up as I continue to navigate the journey beyond - which as yet is a big unknown! 

Today was an easy day to reclaim how much living in harmony with our seasons means to me. How much I love being outside. This afternoon mom and I went for a glorious walk in the sunshine and then lion, our pup and I had some weeding fun in the garden. 

A friend asked me how I am feeling earlier today. I guess the answer today is so happy and grateful to be here and to live in such a beautiful place to call home close to the ocean and sea lions and the meadows and flowers and forests. I am cherishing these little moments. They feel big these days.

Thanks for being here. Xo 

#healing #gratitude #gardening #healinsiya #healcancer #coloncancercanada

📷 @sararasiwala 💖
Today is a reminder for myself and possibly you as Today is a reminder for myself and possibly you as well to not get discouraged… 

Recovery takes time.

there are moments of feeling on top of the world and there are others where I feel flat and tired. 

There is my mind trying to propel me forward beyond the constraints of my body; and my body then signaling with a sharp outcry - you cannot do X, please rest. 

There is life with all its chaos and wants and needs coming at you, because you don’t live in a bubble, the ones you are in relationship with also have needs… 

And so you remind yourself that all you can do is keep showing up now, in this moment, in the best way possible… don’t do more, it’s not necessary- especially right now…

Be gentle today. Happy Sunday.

🙏🏼❤️✨

#journal #healing #recovery #cancer #healcancer #healinsiya #slowlife #yogalife #mentalhealth
Home again. Short - very short and slow - walks do Home again.
Short - very short and slow - walks down our street.
Strawberries at breakfast.
So many Hugs from my son.
Back rubs from my husband
My mom’s continuous kindnesses that keep the day humming.
Friends saying hello and bringing food and tinctures.
And flowers that I cut from our wild garden tonight which is coming alive with all sorts of surprises.

I had tulips in my hospital room the entire 11 days and I can tell you how much they inspired me. As their petals opened up slowly I grew stronger and more able every day after surgery. I saw the colors shining against the dull hues of the room when I awoke each morning and in the sunshine they glistened.

Flowers have healing powers say researchers, apparently patients who can see trees and flowers from their hospital windows vs those who cannot, take less pain medication and have shorter hospital stays… and yes they both relax and uplift us. 

I’ve always loved flowers. Only now I understand why.

Happy weekend!
#grateful #flowers #healingpowerofflowers #healcancer #healinsiya #natureheals #holisticwellness
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