The benefits of a Sattvic yoga lifestyle are enormous and everybody who lives this healthy way of living agrees on this matter; once you have felt the lightness in body and mind, you irradiate from the soul! But… there is always a ‘but’… ‘Do I really need to give up drinking coffee?’
The answer is simple: yes. People who live this way of living for quite some time, instantly feel that coffee is ‘heavy’. It has a heavy smell and taste. The effect on the body is great; it gives instant inner restlessness. And even the decaf variant is not very healthy for your body; it is not only the caffein that makes this drink rajasic. Besides the fact that the process to take out the caffeine of the coffee is highly toxic and unhealthy; the strong taste and rajasic properties are still present in decaf. Strong taste, means larger particles and so heavier and harder to digest. Every food that has a very strong flavor like union and garlic too, they have to be avoided to be able to live the light Sattvic lifestyle. And this is amazingly hard in a society in which almost everybody drinks coffee during the whole day and mostly every meal contains union and garlic!
When quitting something in your life, like a bad habit, it is always good to give yourself a break and work with substitutes. To help your body to get rid of the addiction to caffein it is recommended to drink tea of the Ginkgo Biloba tree. It has the same effect as caffein but it is not addictive at all. So the first months it could be nice for you to switch over to this tea to get rid of the caffein addiction and then slowly start to reduce that too. This will be much easier!
If you are the person that ‘just loves to drink a capuccino’ somewhere with a friend or family; you can always try the Indian Chai with milk. Nowadays it is available at many healthy places and coffee bars. It has a lovely taste and it is very healthy. Even regular tea can have some caffein in it too, but the Indian Chai has not; it is made of pure herbs.
It is perfectly possible to make this at home yourself: boil the dried herbs for Indian Chai (cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and black pepper) for at least 20 minutes. Then let is rest for 10 minutes. Heat some almond milk and use the regular machine to foam it. Then sweeten the milk with honey. First put the milk in a glass, then pour in the chai and finish it with a touch of cinnamon: enjoy!
Namasté
YOGA LIFESTYLE 