We’re going to stay in the college all day today, and camp out there all night. No, we’re not on strike. Today is the third day of a ten-day fasting program arranged by our college, SDMCNYS, as part of our third year BNYS syllabus.
For the last two days, we have been systematically working into the fast by slowly reducing the amount of food we ate. Today was the first day of the fast per se. We are going to drink lemon juice with honey today, and nothing else. To celebrate not eating anything, we donated some of our blood – apart from the routine donation to mosquitoes – for an ongoing research project. The morning walk on the lawn watching the sunrise was amazing, as always.
We have been divided into two groups. When I say we, I’m talking about the students with normal BMI who are fasting. One group gets an extra set of Naturopathic therapies like hip bath, spinal spray, immersion bath and massage, to assess the difference between the two groups at the end of the fast.
I am in the group that does get the additional treatments. That’s actually an advantage, because we have a lot of free time during the day to practice our skills.
Have you heard of Naturopathic Diagnostic methods? In the olden days, before diagnostic machines were invented, doctors diagnosed their patients by looking for clues in the patient’s body. Arts like pulse diagnosis, iris diagnosis, tongue diagnosis, etc., were used. We are lucky to learn all of these ancient sciences in BNYS (Bachelors in Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences).
We practiced looking at each other’s tongues and irises, trying to see through the patterns and signs to understand the internal condition of the body. Our seniors and teachers have told us that the patterns of the iris will change and morph as we fast. Crypts and lesions will close and the iris will become denser, they say. We’re really excited about this, waiting for these changes to happen!
In the afternoon, we had a talk by Dr. Praveen Jacob from Nisarga hospital, Sirsi. His confidence and faith in Naturopathy and Yoga was really inspiring, as he told us stories and facts about how the major portion of deaths in India were due to preventable diseases like heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. He told us how prevention is very easy when it comes to these diseases, and Naturopaths were the only doctors who can do this effectively.
Apart from the one research study I told you about, there’s another one we students are conducting by ourselves – we are assessing the effect of mud therapy compared to acupuncture for relieving acne. We had super fun covering our friends’ faces with mud! I am one of the subjects in the acupuncture group, and got pricked all over my face in return.
The highlight of the day was Mouna. Many of us stayed in silence the whole day. Silence is an essential part of fasting. All religions have fasting and silence as an integral part of their practices. Of course, the rest us, being the monkeys that we are, tried all we could to make the silent ones break their mouna. With some of them, we succeeded, hehe! 😀
On the first day of the fast, I feel physicall slightly weak, slightly giddy. But I feel an inner energy that is keeping me energetic and active throughout the day, despite not eating anything. I hope this energy stays with me for the rest of the fast. Looking forward to some more days of lemon honey!
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This article is written by Shreenidhi SK. Shreenidhi is currently studying third year BNYS at SDMCNYS, and is an avid learner. She can be contacted at nidhisuresh000@gmail.com.
i love to read this post.