Drink Like a Yogi

Digest your food and eliminate toxins.

What does it mean to drink like a yogi? We’ll come to that in a moment.

This article will give you a totally natural system for water-drinking, adjusted to the needs created by our unnatural ways of living. This system will enable you:

• to digest your food properly and

• to eliminate toxins from the various organs, such as the kidneys, pancreas, liver, gall bladder as well as the skin.

Most people are unaware of how burdened with toxins their organs are. They do not realize that this is, in most cases, the main source of their general tiredness, their dullness or agitation of mind, and beyond that is the source of most acute and chronic diseases. When we change and drink water systematically, we automatically feel much lighter, have more energy and a clearer mind.

Why you will benefit to drink like a Yogi

Now one more question before answering how to drink:

Do you need to drink water like a yogi?

If you are practicing yoga and/or meditation, surely you do need it. And if you are mentally active – intellectually, artistically, or spiritually – because of your own interest, work or study – it means you also need it. Lastly, if you want to restore your health and maintain it, you cannot ignore it.

Why? Because in human life, almost all physical and mental challenges, uneasy feelings and diseases – come from an absence of parallelism or lack of harmony between the body and the mind.

You need to have parallelism between your body and mind.

If you are practicing yoga and/or meditation, or if you are mentally active, your mind becomes subtle. This means that if your mind is subtle and becoming more subtle, i.e. if your mind is developing, becoming more refined – then your body also needs to become more subtle.

Water is one of the vital factors for enabling the body to be more subtle, so that it can work better with a refined, subtle mind.

(And just for your information and interest, not as a matter of  concern — physical death always occurs because of an extreme loss of parallelism of the body and mind – which can happen for any reason – physical injury, disease, old age, mental shock, etc.)

Of course, all the principles of yogic naturopathy are related to achieving this parallelism, but water is the most important of them all, because the body is more than 60% water. In particular, the brain and heart are 73% water, the lungs 83%, the skin 64%, muscles & kidneys are 79%. Even the bones are 31% water. So, the proper amount of water in the body is vitally important for health.

Water helps the digestive system

Water helps the digestive system to perform its functions properly, including the very important systaltic movement of the intestines. This process aids:

• in the metabolism of food as well as
• the absorption of nutrients into the blood stream, and finally
• to eliminate what the body does not need through the large intestine

Drinking water thus helps to eliminate constipation, a condition from which many people suffer without even knowing it. They do not recognize that too little excretion is happening too late. Waste products are remaining too long in their bodies, and create a perfect internal environment for harmful fermentation, negative bacteria, and, in many cases, infection.

The proper amount of water reduces the burden on various organs by:

• balancing our blood sugar,
• reducing blood pressure in the arteries,
• eliminating acid reflux, and
• by allowing the skin—our third kidney–to effectively eliminate toxins all day and night long.

The yogic system of drinking water

So, what is the yogic system of drinking water? Because the human body is mostly water, it is important that we are always properly hydrated, especially during the active part of the day, and especially if we exercise and the weather is warm. The brain, heart, lungs and other organs depend on immense water to do their job. Even the bones depend on sufficient water.

1. Quantity of Water

• Healthy people, in order to remain healthy, need to drink 3 to 4 liters of water every day, depending if we perspire more due to exercise or hot weather. Also depending on how healthy we really are!
• People who are unhealthy with an acute, chronic or degenerative disease or who are obese, need even more water, 4-5 liters per day.
• Those with skin disease, which means that the body is urgently trying to detox itself, and that the efficiency of the two kidneys is not enough for their work, require the most, i.e. 5-6 liters.

This sounds like a lot of water, but from our experience in our wellness centers, these amounts are giving very good results in creating health and in healing various chronic issues.

2. How Much to Drink at a Time?

Drinking no more than one cup at a time, and no more than half a cup if you are obese or have heart trouble – are the usual limits. Otherwise you will suffer from water retention, which brings its own host of problems. Aim to drink 2 cups per hour. This means if you drink half cup at a time, you will want to drink every 15 minutes.

3. Lemon Water

Lemon water is even more cleansing and can be drunk instead of water for its deep cleansing effects. It should be made using a strainer. About half lemon or less per liter, according to taste. Add a tiny pinch of natural salt to increase the alkalinizing effect of the lemon. Salt should be no more than 1 gram per liter (unless one is using it for purging which is not our topic here). Those who have mild health problems should best include at least 1 liter of lemon water in their daily total. Those who have serious problems should daily include at least 2 liters of lemon water.

4. What Time of Day to Drink?

When we eat food, the stomach needs an appropriate amount of hydrochloric acid in order to digest the food. Therefore, it is best:

• not to drink during the meals and
• not to drink within 30 minutes before the meal and
• to wait an hour after the meal before again starting to drink

It is best to wait an hour after the meal, so that the stomach has time to at least begin digesting the food and mixing it sufficiently with acids in the stomach.

5. About Soups

What about soup, does it count as water? Soup is very healthy and stimulates digestion, but it should not be counted in the above quotas because it is not helpful in cleansing or detoxing in the same way as water drunk outside of eating time.

Alternatives to Water: taste-inspiration

If you need some taste-inspiration to inspire yourself to drink more, there are indeed other drinks which are cleansing besides simple pure water. These are:

• coconut water

• herbal tea
• diluted pure juice — 20% juice and 80% water
• apple cider vinegar in water with a little honey
• lemon water with a little honey