Animals with injury or illness will abstain from food until their health is improved. Most people have experienced loss of appetite with malaria or typhoid fever and other infections. Many with the more severe chronic diseases lose their taste for food. This is a natural intuition to fast seen in both animals and human beings in the course of ill health. Surprisingly, unconscious fasts (as when people have been stranded without food) usually cause notable advancements in the health of the people involved.
Fasting promotes natural healing of many conditions.
One amazing benefits of fasting is the vast array of physical conditions that show improvement with fasting. Fasting affects us wholly or holistically, meaning all aspects of our being is affected.
Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual changes can be felt when fasting. A kind of rebalancing takes place. Places where we have gotten out of kilter begin to realign when we take away the over-stimulation of over-eating.
Conditions improved by fasting include:
Acne, chronic fatigue, adult onset diabetes, autoimmune illnesses, allergies irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, arthritis, asthma, benign tumors, digestive disorders, atherosclerosis, chronic back and joint pain, colitis, deterioration of the musculoskeletal system, eczema, hypoglycaemia, headaches, heart disease, insomnia, high blood pressure, hyperactivity, high cholesterol, lupus, migraines, obesity, osteoporosis, recurrent infections, rheumatoid arthritis, sinusitis, skin infections, substance abuse/addiction/misuse, tension, weight loss and uterine fibroids.
It has been shown that the physical conditions listed above do show improvement with fasting. In some cases, the condition has vanished. Certainly, the list is by no means complete. Of course, there are no guarantees that you will experience a particular improvement, a lot depends on you and your faith but certainly a advantage of fasting is that you will notice an improvement in your overall health.
The changes that occur in the physical body can be quite pronounced. A host of minor health issues will improve as internal healing begins. From pains and aches to hearing improving, anything is possible when the body system is permitted to tend to itself. Healing of some rather severe disorders can also take place. These changes may not necessarily be stable, moving forward with better eating habits is necessary. You may need to make lifestyle changes in order to preserve your health. Irregular fasting is mostly recommended to keep yourself in good condition and maintain your spiritual health. One day per week, three days per month and or 10-40 days per year is considered good for this.
Fasting also creates a space for emotional healing to commence
A striking benefit of fasting is the impact it has on our emotional status. You will feel more emotional in the course of and maybe right after a fast. But this is not a negative but actually a positive thing because it is an opportunity for an emotional cleansing. This is the reason it is so important to slow down during a fast, to be free of some of your usual obligations. It allows time for inner discovery. If you are rushing out the door to make some commitment, you may miss the opportunity to gain a new perception, to see things more clearly, to let go of some emotional baggage, to experience the release of some long term pattern. The emotions that come up while fasting often appear with more force than usual. The actual process and details involved are unique to each of us.
Guidelines for breaking a fast
Introducing foods gradually and carefully is the key. Care needs to be taken when breaking a fast in order not to overload your digestive system. The best benefit of fasting is realized when a fast is broken rightly. Taking it gradual and easy is not only kind to your body, but permits you the opportunity to blend your new-found precision on your relationship to food. During a fast, the body undergoes several biological changes. Enzymes produced by the gastrointestinal system have ceased to be produced or have been diminished greatly, depending on the kind of fast done, introducing food slowly allows the body time to initiate this enzyme production again. The protective mucus which lines the stomach may also be temporarily diminished, making the stomach walls more susceptible to irritation before it also returns to normal. Gentle re-introduction of foods, beginning with the simplest and easy-to-digest foods for example pap, supports this process. Substances known to be irritating to the system such as and spicy foods and coffee must be avoided in the course of the breaking process.
Due to these biological changes, overeating immediately after a fast is worse than overeating at any other time. Your body system requires time to adjust back to normal digestion and absorption. Not taking the proper steps can lead to vomiting (emesis), nausea and stomach cramping. The adjustment time necessary is based on the length of the fast. Some people fast for 7 days without taking any food or water. 4 days is considered adequate for any of the longer fasts periods, 1-3 days for shorter fasts, and a day for one-day fasts.
Necessary foods to use for breaking a fast
The nutritive and easy-to-digest foods are used to break a fast initially, slowly adding more variety over time. The type of fast employed will determine the type of foods you use to break it. Though fruit or juice are good for breaking water fast, they are not very helpful in breaking fruit or juice fasts. In order to assist you determine when to introduce the various food groups, use the following list. It begins with those that are easiest on the body system and can be initiated early on and progresses to those that should be added later. You may go through the list in one day or in four days depending on the length of the fast. And you certainly do not need to eat everything on the list. It is just a general guideline.
Raw fruits, pap and agidi
Fruits and vegetable juices
Well cooked beans and grains
Vegetable or bone broths
Yoghurt or other living cultured milk products, unsweetened
Lettuces and spinach
Cooked vegetables and vegetable soups
Nuts and eggs
Milk products (non-cultured)
Meats and anything else
Any of the above first two items is good for the initial breaking of fast.
More pointers for breaking a fast
You have to pay close attention to your body’s responses to these new foods. Lookout for any unfavorable reactions, maybe signaling a mild allergy or that you have gone too far, so quickly. Perceive the sensation of fullness and stop eating at that time. Train yourself to watch for that signal, so you will always know when your body is fully nourished.
When you want to break a fast, start with several small meals, every two hours or so, progressing gradually toward larger meals with more time in between them till you reach a normal eating pattern such as three meals and two snacks in a day’s time.
Chew foods well. This will aid immensely with proper digestion.
Strive to add live enzymes and good bacteria to your system. Fresh, raw foods contain living enzymes that are good for the body and digestion. Probiotics or good bacteria can be found in pill form and also in naturally cultured and fermented food products such as yoghurt, ugba, and miso.
Breaking a fast properly is so important to our overall health and to obtaining the full advantages fasting can create.