Food and activity are the main sources of health. Where these are improper, disease comes. Untimely eating, eating in excess, eating stale and unsuitable foods are some of the improprieties of diet. If a week man subjects himself to laborious work or if strong and healthy one abandons work and the normal functions of the body for sleep and inactivity, a transgression in activity has occurred. By these improper diet and activities the equilibrium of air, bile and phlegm is distributed and the body becomes diseased.
Further, special needs are to be met. Men engaged in worldly affairs exhaust their energies and must replenish themselves. Ordinarily regular diet and activity will do the trick, but sometimes the body has a special craving arising out of special need. Sometimes a craving for sweet is felt, sometimes for sour, etc. Such cravings are generally the result of specific exhaustions in the body, and should be satisfied.
When the body suffers loss of energy, the nervous system calls for restoration by demanding a make-up in the form of nutrition or food. If in- take equals out-put, the health generally stays stout. Sometimes it is difficult to chose the right diet. We sometimes observe a hungry man calling for food again just after he has eaten. This is probably a symptom of coming disease or an acute symptom of disease already present. It is an indication of some unbalance of in air, bile, and phlegm. Food should not be taken by him at this time. Food should be eaten only upon hunger after full digestion of previous food. Generally food digests within two or three hours, but heavy foods like spiced curry, pasta, pudding etc. may take four to five hours. Too much eating is not good. If we eat in excess, we feel the heaviness in our stomachs. We should try to understand clearly what our bodies need, how much, and whether our hunger is true or false. It is difficult for healthy men to select right foods, it is even more difficult for patients to do so. We should select foods for them, considering the condition of their stomachs, their strength, the cause of their illness, the peculiarities of their systems, the stimulation of appetite, etc. Age, strength, trait, and stomach are always primary considerations. Generally we take food that is pleasing to our taste. When food contains sweet, acid, and salt in proportion, it lessens the gas element in us. When food contain better and astringent things, it normalizes phlegm. Bitter, sweet, and astringent foods regularize the bile or heat. Conversely sweet, acid, and salt will tend to increase cough or phlegm; bitter, pungent, and astringent foods will exaggerate a gaseous condition; and sour, pungent, and salty things increase the bile. It may here be stated in a generally way that pungent foods are more powerful than astringent, bitter ones more powerful than pungent, salty more than bitter, acid more than salty, and sweet than acid. So sweet things are generally the most strength-giving foods, other considerations aside. A man should observe the following rules of diet and health:
(1) In the early morning a man should get out of bed as soon as he wakes, and wash. The teeth must be brushed well at this time. Small portion of stale food consumed the right before have rotted in the mouth and will cause indigestion if swallowed.
(2) Oil should be regularly rubbed on the body. In this tropical climate oil is an excellent means of soothing the body and normalizing bile and phlegm. In winter it is specially good. Noon should bathe after meal; this cause indigestion. A bath just before meal is good for digestion.
(3) Old physicians say that before meal one should drink the water of soaked, uncooked, sun-dried, rice.
(4) A hungry man should eat nutritious, protein, easily-digested food. Until the food is digested, he should not eat again. The scriptures declare against two feedings in one hunger.
(5) Water drinking is good during a meal, not before or after.
(6) Food for the thirsty man and water for the hungry one are not at all good. The former causes ulcers, the latter ascites.
(7) Sweet foods help to temper the amount of air and bile. Bitter and pungent ones temper the phlegm.
(8) Taking too little food and fasting make the body weak. An over-heavy diet also weakness. A diet can become over-heavy in three ways: overdoses of light food, naturally heavy foods like meet and maskalai, and foods which become heavy due to the mixtures they contain or when mixed with other foods; e.g. cakes. Heavy food should comprise half the diet; light food should make up the remainder or until the hunger is satisfied.
(9) The diet should be according to one’s taste and standard.
(10) Exercise is essential. Exercise makes the body light, reducing fat and building muscle. It makes for a furious appetite. Too much exercise, however, reduces the health. One should avoid long laborious works that exhaust the body or mind. Exercise has the principle function of stimulating the action of the heart. Through exercise the blood circulates more rapidly and breathing becomes faster. Without exercise the lungs do not get a full in-take of fresh air. Walking is the easiest and best exercises. A morning walks cheers the mind and gives the lungs oxygen from the waking trees and flowers. Whether sixteen or sixty, anyone suffering from indigestion, rheumatism, improper bile secretion, etc. is not to exercise. Exercise in the winter and spring seasons is best. In other seasons the exercise may be less. After exercise oil massage is fine. Exercise should be stopped when the heart beats fast and perspiration appears on the forehead and joints.
(11) After exertions depleting the energy in the body, sleep is most essential. It wipes out the depression caused by exertion. Sleep should be undisturbed, profound, dreamless, and pleasing. The curing of ailments, nutrition, thirst, virility, strength, weakness, impotency, wisdom, ignorance, etc., all lie under the domain of sleep. Untimely dozing, too little or too much sleep, spoil the health and prevent the cure of disease. Remaining awake at night make the body hot and restless. Many spending sleepless nights, like to make up by daytime sleeping. But this is a delusion. Sleepless night cannot be made up by day sleeping. One should sleep at least half the night and get up in the morning as usual. Our experience tells us that those who spend sleepless nights suffer from hazy memory and lazy brain. Youths and ordinary laborers should sleep 6 to 7 hours. Heavy laborers should get 8 hours, and children 10-12 hours. Ordinarily a man in good health should go to bed at 10p.m. and get up at 5 a.m. Students, synnyasis, brahmacharies, etc. should of course rise early to perform their special practices. But remember that too little sleep makes us nervous, restless, irritable, etc. with a consequent loss of appetite, brain power, and destiny. To maintain health we should know as much physiology and anatomy as possible. If we cannot attend dissection classes, we may at least read the subject with an alert mind. All food goes to the stomach; after digestion a whitish, watery substance is produced. This substance passes to the gall-bladder. After it has mixed with bile it becomes tannish in color. From this mixture blood is formed, and then, through a series of additions and process in the following order: flesh, fat, bone, marrow, and semen. Being the end -product, semen or procreative fluid is of prime importance. It is linked with the vital force. Its proper preservation, utilization, and production are main factors in health. The ancient scriptures laid special emphasis on the preservation of this material in the body and extolled what is called a brahmachari or celibate life specially useful in youth. Young men and women were encouraged to rise early and translate their youthful energies into progressive activity.
(12) Ai, bile, and phlegm are cornerstone conceptions in Ayurveda. According to our science they must be kept in balance if health is to be maintained. They have been compared with the creative, destructive, and stagnant phases of creation, or with the balanced, restless, and listless temperaments. Unassimilated elements of these come out of our bodies in excreta, cough, perspiration, and gas. Men should have the goal of keeping these three aspects of balance. By irregular diet and improper activity the balance gets upset and disease result. Ayurveda aims to keep them balanced. Thus Ayurveda is a science of health as well as a means of removing disease.