Tis the Season for Cleanses by Melissa Camacho

Happy Spring, everyone! Tis the season to cleanse! In Ayurveda, April is the ideal time to let go of the accumulated dosha from winter and late winter. Furthermore, in Chinese Medicine, it is time to cleanse the Liver or wood element. 
Right about now, we all feel the natural pull to cleanse, reset, reconnect, pay attention, nurture, and revitalize the body. As the temperature increases and the sun strengthens, we feel the urge to lighten up. 
So how to do this? There are a couple of different strategies and variations of weak to strong cleansing methods. Customized cleansing is what I suggest for my patients. There are a variety of different programs, changes of diet and lifestyle that can meet this goal. If you are interested, let me know, and we can discuss further. Some simple things that can be done include following simple Ayurvedic lifestyle and diet regimens such as eating at the same time every day, not overeating, eating less in general. Something simple I can suggest here is to pay extra attention to your digestive metabolism, or agni. The following recipe is a tea you can drink if you feel sluggish digestion, loss of appetite, or overall heavy upon eating. 
Enjoy!


Cayenne Agni Tea
4 cups of water
1/2 cup of freshly squeezed or store-bought lime juice 
1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon of trikatu
2 pinches of cayenne
1 pinch of pink salt


Boil the water, fresh ginger, trikatu, cayenne, and pink salt in a pot for 7 minutes. Take it off the heat to cool. Add the fresh lime juice. Drink before meals 1-1 ½ ounces at a time.    


I’d also like to add—I know many of you are receiving your vaccination shots as of late. I’ve been asked my opinion about which one is most advantageous, and I’m happy to share with anyone who asks. The decision to get a vaccine is a personal choice, and as we all know, everyone has an opinion as to what is the right thing to do. I’d like to add to this discussion a bit. But from a more Ayurvedic point of view. Everything we “take in” with all senses, including that which we take into our body via our skin and blood has to be processed via agni.  This would include the vaccine which would get processed via our dhatu Agni or tissue metabolism. The number one advice I have is, when you schedule your vaccine is check-in with yourself. Ask yourself, “How will my body digest this?” 
“Am I strong enough right now to process this?” “What can I do to help my body digest this better?” If you are already weak, stressed, or dealing with a mild health issue, you may want to just wait a short while until the agni is stronger. We are what we can digest, and I want you to set yourself up for the most positive experience possible for your own health and equanimity. Of course, I realize that many have had or have no choice of the timing of receiving the vaccine. I also realize that those in the most compromised or weakened states need the vaccine the most. So they have no choice but to get the vaccine to protect themselves. In these cases, we all do the best we can with what we have, and the body is magnificently attuned to adjusting accordingly.