The Importance & Benefits Of FASTING 

It is a gateway to bliss and health. It not only purifies the body, it also purifies the man. In a way, it tones up, fortifies, purifies and sublimates body and mind. To say that fasting is simply a way to starve the body is merely an attempt to deride and underrate it. Its importance lies in the fact that most, if not all, of the holy books laid stress on fasting and rightly eulogised it as a gateway to heaven. It corrects and tones up the entire digestive system. It also is a great purger of toxic elements, a great cleanser of filth, normaliser and restorer of health, renders body agile and light. Moreover our tired and overtaxed body and organs do get a well deserved rest. Benefits of fasting have been delineated in Anushasan chapter in the legendary script ‘Mahabharat’: 

“Whoever fasts is blessed in every way as he draws the benefit of great medicines. All the diseases are cured and he becomes strong and virile.”

Who Should Not Fast : 

Following categories of persons should abstain from fasting.

1. Pregnant and confined mothers before, during and after delivery and more particularly who are anaemic, emaciated, and run down and can’t afford well-balanced and nutritious food.
2. Mothers who are breast-feeding their infants.
3. Persons suffering from T.B., epilepsy, ulcers, labourers doing arduous manual work.
4. Persons during the course of actual travelling.
5. Old persons who are bed-ridden, unable to move, stiff and immobile and eat far less than their actual requirement – in a way under and malnourished ones.
6. Weak, emaciated and starved children who are in their growth stage and also ladies belonging to that category.
7. Persons suffering from low blood pressure and low sugar levels in their blood.

Who should take to fasting: 

1. Persons who often overeat, are gluttons and always continue to eat one eatable or the other.
2. Whose bowels are either impacted or often get loose motions.
3. Who suffer from dysentery, diarrhoea, colic, locking, up of gas, rigidity of joints  and other limbs.
4. Diabetics whose blood sugar level is generally high.
5. Habitual drunkards of alcoholic drinks, smokers, fast food eaters, spiced food eaters and sedentary persons who eat too much but shun physical activity.
6. Children who are easy-going, who travel in and relish foods prepared outside their homes.

What to do during Fasting :

1. Take a tsp each of lemon water and honey in water (cold or lukewarm) early in the morning. It will provide energy to the body. 
2. Do not remain stuck to a chair or bed but attend to your daily chores, including physical activity.
3. Fasting does not construe protracted divorce from diet or any ingestion of food. Even while on fasts, you are allowed to take permissible eatables / drinks.
4. except when medically advised / necessitated, no medicine should be taken during fasting, not even well exhorted tonics. Let your physician be your guide in this respect as far use of medicine is concerned.
5. No toxic food should be taken during fasting.
6. Fasting must not be utilised as an occasion and excuse for consuming fat-enriched alcoholic, spicy, meat-based preparations or any other eatable which you have been forbidden.
7. avoid alcohol and tobacco, drugs and toxins, at least during the course of fasting.
8. Due care must be given to health status, to age, sex, weight, work schedule and its demands on your energy expense. If you ignore such and any other viable factors, you will only expose yourself to problems which may lead you in a position of ‘No-Return’.

Fast, if stretched beyond your sustainable capacity, can be more harmful than the ‘no-fasting’ approach.


Other good articles – 

https://www.baliyogaschool.com/benefits-of-sun-bath-and-normal-bath/

https://www.baliyogaschool.com/imbalanced-diet-and-food-fads/

https://www.baliyogaschool.com/naturopathy-a-natural-physcian/

https://www.baliyogaschool.com/naukasana-boat-pose/

https://www.baliyogaschool.com/what-is-shatkarma-write-the-name-of-all-types-of-shatkarma/

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