Nature's Healing Qualities: The Gunas

About Heavy

Elements: Water, Earth
Treat 'Heavy' with 'Light', ''Bitter'.
Show me 'Heavy' ingredients.

Includes foods with any one of the following properties:

• Causes weight gain, nourishes all tissues especially muscle and fat
• Suppresses metabolism & causes sleepiness
• Clogs or Coats channels in the body (Gross)

Weight & Activity

Changes in weight affect the rate which we think, speak and act. Balanced heaviness creates steadiness, groundedness and stability. Excess heaviness slows metabolism and the rate of digestion causing sloth and sleepiness. Obesity is stubborn, resisting change and exercise.

The Lost art of Tonics

Heavy foods are used in tonics because they increase muscle mass, fat tissue, and strength. The use of tonics to stengthen the body is a lost art in modern medicine, perhaps because industrialized nations suffer from high rates of obesity. Foods with sweet taste, including proteins, carbohydrates, and fats increase heaviness and, used properly, can help debilitated patients rebuild strength after illness.

Types of Heaviness

Some foods create heaviness because they are highly nutritious. Other foods, such as garlic and nutmeg directly affect the nervous system causing sleepiness. Heavy foods, because they digest slowly, are sometimes also interpreted as 'difficult to digest'. On Joyful Belly, we've moved difficult to digest foods under a new guna called 'difficult'. Excess sleep causes obesity and aggravates Kapha.

Heaviness creates gravitational stress in the knee and lower back. Heaviness, especially when coupled with liver heat and low thyroid, makes tissues and tendons lax decreasing joint stability.

Treatment of Heaviness

Foods that are difficult to digest but provide little nutrition help in obesity. Fasting, exercise, pranayama breathing exercises, waking up early, sweat, pungent spices, and bitter foods help alleviate heaviness. Use Ayurvedic techniques to reduce food cravings, herbal blood thinners like turmeric, diuretics such as punarnava, and formulas such as Weight Away. Honey helps weight loss and is the preferred sweetener for Kapha.