How “Rest” & “Digest” Work Together

My last post was about the energy of late summer, the time of the Earth element in Chinese Medicine. Earth energy is the energy associated with digestion and nourishment, and community support.

In the last post I touched on the nourishment of social connection, and in this post I will focus a bit more specifically on how to better digest and absorb the food you take in.

Acupuncture theory can offer us some seemingly very basic but also very helpful advice about HOW to eat. WHAT we eat is important, and it’s also a highly-personal choice that I address in my practice person-to-person depending on their particular needs. 

HOW to eat is an often-overlooked element of digestion and absorption that has a few simple guidelines which I will outline briefly here. 

1. Chew. There’s a saying: “chew your drinks and drink your food.” Taking the time to chew your food properly will help you digest and absorb. It might be obvious but digestion begins in your mouth. Not only what you eat but how you eat it. Slow down and chew and enjoy your meal. Give your body the time and space to digest what you take in. 

On a spirit level, the advice here is to “chew things over.” Take your time making 

decisions, and feel free to “mull it over.” Slowing down and being intentional can help us 

have time to digest AND assimilate both food and ideas. 

2. One pot meals. This is one of my favorite tips from Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine theory. Have you ever felt sick and only wanted to eat toast or crackers? That’s because bland food is highly digestible and easy for the Stomach and its partner the Spleen (a digestive organ in Chinese Medicine) to break down. I’m definitely not telling you to live off of toast (please don’t!) but consider having simpler meals that have had time to meld.

The Chinese Medicine equivalent of toast and crackers (bland easy food) is congee, a rice porridge with endless variations. I will be totally honest here and say that I’ve never mastered the art of congee-making but many of my patients know that I’m obsessed with soups and stews. Any dish where the ingredients are cooked slowly together is soothing for the Stomach in that the ingredients have had a chance to melt together and meld, thus making them easier to assimilate and digest.

Bland food is “bland” not only in taste but also in terms of digestibility. Simple food cooked together takes on a relatively “bland” quality when it has time to meld. 

The Ayurvedic system (Indian classical medicine, a system EVEN OLDER than Chinese Medicine and which I approach from my yoga training) has its own brilliant dish Kitchari, which is a perfect blend of rice and lentils and veggies. 

You can read my past newsletter on how to make Kitchari here. This is a dish I make often and enjoy year-round, often adjusting the vegetables to reflect what’s in season. 

3. Breakfast. Every organ system in Chinese Medicine has a high-point and a low-point throughout the day. The stomach’s best/brightest time of day aligns with what might be a “typical” (depending on your life rhythms) time frame for breakfast: 7-9am. This doesn’t mean you have to eat breakfast at this exact time (though eating at this time can be beneficial for good digestion), but eating breakfast at some point will definitely set you up to continue nourishing yourself throughout the rest of the day. 

In general, breakfast and lunch should be your largest meals, with dinner being a bit more scant as most of us don’t need the fuel in the evening when we’re winding down for bed. Because the Stomach’s peak power time is 7-9am, that means its low point is 7-9pm, meaning that eating dinner a bit earlier in the evening can set you up for better digestive results. 

4. Fluids. Chinese Medicine does emphasize the importance of hydration but also advises that you avoid drinking large quantities of liquid (even water) with meals. Drinking a lot with your meal can easily dampen your digestive fire (in Western Medicine terms drinking a lot with your meals can dilute the stomach acid needed to break down food, especially protein) so it’s best to avoid slogging a lot of water while you eat. 

On a similar note, iced or very cold beverages also dampen your digestion so enjoying mostly (or even exclusively) warmer or room-temperature liquids are best, especially if your digestion is weak. I begin most days with warm water and at most restaurants I often ask for water without ice.  

5. Relax and sit down. It happens that sometimes we eat in the car, or on the go, or seated but in a rushed stress response, only to feel later that the food we consumed is “sitting” in our stomachs like a brick. 

When possible, please try to sit down and relax before eating. When we’re relaxed, we can more deeply receive. 

It can be a great ritual to give thanks for your food before eating or to simply take 2-3 breaths to admire and connect with our food (the sight, the smell, the person–including yourself–who prepared it) before we begin eating. These rituals will slow us down and help us avoid shoveling it in so that we have an opportunity to be grateful and thereby truly nourished. 

If you regularly eat with others, start the habit of taking three breaths together before diving in. Or say a prayer. Or go around the table and name 1-3 things that were a blessing in your day. 

Or take a moment and thank the people who grew your food, picked your food, delivered your food, allowed you to purchase your food. 

We’re all woven together in an endless chain. Taking the time to zoom out and take a look at the conditions (sunshine, rain, seeds) that allowed this food to appear on your plate can help you relax before you begin eating.  

It’s also a great practice to keep electronics/devices off the table and even across the 

room. Turn that phone on silent if you can. Be with your food and with the people you’re 

eating with, and eat slowly if you’re able to. 

The parasympathetic nervous system aids relaxation and digestion. When you’re able to 

relax and enjoy your meals you’ll be supporting the slow, steady power of the digestive 

process. 

Do you have favorite gut health tips I didn’t cover here? Drop me a line and let me know. 

And, if you’re looking to harness more relaxation and to increase your capacity for rest, my autumn restorative yoga workshop on Friday 10/3 at 7pm at Studio 34 is designed to help you soothe your nervous system and truly unwind. 

There’s still space to sign up and the early bird sale ends 9/23 (tomorrow!) so please register ASAP! 

As always, reach out with questions.

Bon Appétit, 

Monica