TONGUE SCRAPING, MY DAILY AYURVEDIC RITUAL

Before starting to learn Ayurveda I heard once about the tongue-scraping ritual but never dared to try it out. I thought it was time-consuming and something extra to care for in my busy mornings. It was until April last year, as I spent a month in Greens Ayurveda, my Ayurvedic clinic and school in India, that I decided to give it a try. 

I was amazed by how easy and practical it is. It takes about 30 seconds to completely scrape my tongue. I started my daily ritual and in a couple of days, I got used to it and it became an automatic behavior after waking up and going to the toilet. The feeling of cleanliness and freshness that tongue scraping gave me was a strong motivator to keep me continuing it until today when I cannot imagine my life without doing it. 

According to Ayurveda, some signs indicate we are accumulating toxins in our bodies:

• A white coating on the tongue

• Bad breath or body odor

• General body aches

• Lack of appetite

• Constipation or diarrhea

• Bloating

• Fatigue or lethargy

• Mental fog or confusion

One way to help is tongue scraping every morning as soon as you wake up and before drinking or eating anything. This ritual helps remove all the toxins, or ama in Ayurvedic terms, resulting from the metabolic and digestive processes. If not cleaned up, they are absorbed back into the system and can lead to diseases and weak immunity. Not also toxins but also plaque and bacteria are accumulated on our tongue as we sleep and they can be a detriment to our oral hygiene and health when not cleared up. 

If you feel tongue scraping might benefit you or you are curious to try it, here I tell you how:

1. Take the tongue scraper with both hands.

2. Extend your tongue and place the tongue scraper on the surface of the tongue, as far back as is comfortable.

3. Pull the scraper forward removing all the coating.

4. Rinse the scraper and repeat 2-3 times more.

5. Be gentle and don't put so much pressure on it as you can hurt your tongue.

6. Rinse well the scraper with hot water.

I advise you to get a good tongue scraper, preferably a cooper one. It will last you a few months and as you are going to use it every day you want to make sure it is a good one. In Germany or Europe, you can order it online from a brand I love and recommend: Veda Naturals. And you can get a 10% discount using my code: THEMINDFOODIST10 :) Or you can also find alternatives in pharmacies and cosmetic stores such as DM.

Happy to share part of the Ayurvedic rituals that have impacted my health in the last months. I'll tell you more in the next posts!