By Sriram Sarvotham┃Posted: May 28, 2019

Yoga is usually translated to mean union; union of the body, mind, and spirit. It’s the union of all aspects of our existence. When this union is absent, the resulting disharmony arises in several areas of our lives, including our relationship with food.

Most of the ailments and unhealthy habits around food can be traced to a root cause: disharmony, or lack of union, between different instruments of the body and mind. For example, consider the conflict between the sense of taste and the body’s intelligence. Whereas the body requests nutritious food for its nourishment, the tongue demands delicious food for its titillation. Unfortunately for most of us, delicious food and nutritious food are two entirely different things!

Another way this disharmony is made manifest is when our awareness is elsewhere while consuming food; we’re neither sensitive to the body intelligence nor to the tongue. Perhaps while dining we’re also watching TV, scrolling through our phones, or gossiping. Eating becomes a mechanical process. Our awareness is not united with the body and we don’t sense the body’s response to what is ingested.

Three things we can do for healthy food habits

The good news is that with intention and awareness, we can cultivate healthy habits that promote the alignment of our body’s intelligence, our sense of taste, and our awareness. This isn’t an arduous process at all; it doesn’t demand mighty determination. Here are three simple things we can do to introduce healthy eating habits, based on the principles of yoga:

1. Regular practice of yoga (or any form of exercise):

We greatly benefit our relationship to food by introducing practices such as yoga daily. This helps in two important ways. First, it unites all the instruments of the body with the body’s intelligence. Second, it allows the organs of the body to function at their peak level.

Let’s look at the first benefit. Yoga helps unite the instruments of the body, including the instruments of perception, with the body’s intelligence. Specifically, it aligns the sense of taste with the body’s intelligence. So whatever is good for the body (nutritious) is also enjoyed by the tongue (delicious).

For many, nutritious food isn’t particularly delicious. Conversely, one of the causes of addiction to junk food is that we do find some unhealthy foods delicious, although they don’t nourish the body. This is an example of what Maharishi Patanjali terms “angamejayatva” (in Yoga Sutra I.31), which means lack of coordination in the body, a lack of “victory” over instruments of the body (in this case, the tongue). Patanjali says that angamejayatva is one of five indicators of the presence of obstacles that prevent the experience of harmony. (We’ll look at the other four indicators in another blog post!)

One way in which we can attend to this conflict between the tongue and body intelligence is by invoking strong will and discipline, by resisting temptations to indulge cravings of the tongue. Yet, a more sustainable approach that doesn’t punish the tongue is to align the sense of taste with the body’s intelligence. That way, we allow the sense of taste to perform its intended function – namely, to guide us towards food that’s beneficial to the system.

As we saw before, one of the benefits of asanas (yoga postures) is to resolve the divisions/ conflicts between the different parts of our existence. Specifically, postures bring the sense of taste to serve the greater good of the body. Attachments to junk food subside, and we’re naturally drawn towards nutritious food. As a yoga teacher, I’ve seen this happen numerous times among those who begin to practice yoga!

The wisdom discussed here can be succinctly expressed by the following equations:

Lack of harmony between tongue and body :  delicious ≠ nutritious ≠ sumptuous

Presence of harmony between the two: delicious = nutritious = sumptuous

Practicing yoga also has a second valuable benefit relating to food: it helps the instruments of the body to function at their peak form. Patanjali says in the Yoga Sutras that when we sharpen the senses and become keenly aware of sensations, we can remove obstacles to harmony (Sutra I.35). In the context of food, all aspects of digestion, starting from the functioning of the tongue to the entire digestive process, are made healthy.

2. Being mindful while consuming food:

Often, we’re multitasking while consuming food. We distract ourselves watching TV, gossiping, etc. When we do, we’re blissfully ignoring valuable guidance that comes from the cellular community of the body. Unfortunately, the bliss is ephemeral; we soon find ourselves having to deal with the consequences of consuming foods that don’t benefit us! On the other hand, when we’re aware of how the body is responding to the food, we listen and take appropriate actions to honor its indications. If we truly listened to the body’s guidance, we’d never overeat!

A wonderful way to strengthen awareness and promote healthy, harmonious living is by regular practice of meditation. In fact, meditation is an integral part of the practice of yoga; it forms the 7th limb of the 8 limbs of yoga taught by Patanjali. In meditation, we allow turbulence and restlessness to settle down, and transform them to move towards rising awareness.

3. Consume food when the body and mind are in harmony:

It’s wise not to consume food in a hurry, or when we’re angry, or in the grip of any intense negative emotion. A famous maxim of ayurveda says that sattvic (nutritious) food consumed when the mind is rajasic (restless) is treated as rajasic food when processed by the body. Likewise, sattvic food, consumed when the mind is tamasic (dull, lazy) is treated as tamasic food when processed by the body. Therefore, it’s recommended that we consume food when the body and mind are in harmony (sattvic), to make the whole process harmonious.

Applying this advice in general

The wonderful thing about the 3 recommendations is that they can be applied to any activity, not just our relationship to food. So let’s restate the recommendations in more general terms:

1. Regular practice of yoga (or any exercise for body/mind wellness) helps to tune the body, mind and soul in harmony so that our habits and tendencies are in alignment with our higher good. Just as the sense of taste can work in harmony with the body’s intelligence, every aspect of our existence starts to align with the body’s (and soul’s) intelligence. I find this incredible, because one solution lays a foundation to solve almost all problems! Rather than dissecting different areas of our life and fixing them one by one, we attend to the one root cause of all of them! (Note: I should mention that “yoga practice” refers to anything that takes us to a place of deeper harmony with our true self).

2. Being mindful of what we’re doing makes us check our inner guidance to sense whether our actions are spreading harmony. By being more aware, we steer clear of actions that may have unintended negative consequences. When we elevate our awareness (perhaps through regular practice of meditation), we allow benefits to percolate to all areas of our lives.

3. Offering actions/words only when in a state of harmony prevents us from regretting actions taken under negative states of being, such as anger, frustration, or laziness. Not only that, by being in harmony, we leverage the power that comes with action; our actions are many times more powerful when inspired harmoniously.

Wish you all a wonderful day, week, month, and year!

This article was originally published on Sriram’s Blog and is re-posted here with the author’s permission.

Shriram Sarvotham, a yoga teacher since 1991, holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Rice University, Houston, TX. He works in the tech industry in Silicon Valley California.