The benefits of a chakra diet
Be on your way to wellness through food.
Discovering which of your chakras is out of balance gives you with the opportunity to journey into wellness. ELENA IACOVOU uncovers the foods to eat for mind, body and spirit.
According to yoga science, a pulsing energy field, also known as your energy body, surrounds your physical body and is created by the collective vibration of seven chakras – a Sanskrit word meaning ‘wheel’. Invisible to the human eye, these seven wheels of energy interconnect along the axis of your spinal column, in a straight line, beginning from the base and finishing at the crown of the head.
The job of the energy body is to help maintain the health of your physical body by taking in and sending out energetic vibrations for which the chakras act as the ‘conductors’ that keep the energy flowing freely throughout your whole body. Our health is determined by this flow of energy from the chakras through the energy circuits and into the metabolic network of the body, as it keeps our vital organs functioning optimally. Moreover, our body uses this energy on a cellular level to maintain homeostasis of the body’s systems.
According to Dr Deanna Minich, nutritionist and author of Chakra Foods for Optimum Health, in addition to protecting your physical health, each of these seven chakras represent different core aspects of your personality and patterns of behaviour. On a spiritual level, your chakras relate to your sense of safety, your emotions, your personal power, your feelings, the way you communicate, your intuition and your higher spiritual self.
What’s more, Dr Minich states that identifying which of your chakras is out of balance and eating plant-based foods to strengthen those chakras can aid your overall health and wellbeing. “By following a chakra-based diet, [you can] expect more than just better digestion; look forward to personal growth and change throughout your whole life,” she says.
The food–chakra connection
It’s believed that because of the way these seven chakras intercommunicate, if one of them is out of balance, all the others will ‘know about it’ and will also be in disharmony. Similarly, if an imbalance is eliminated in one of them, the energy will flow freely to all the others, balancing them out – and this is why food plays an integral role to balancing our chakras.
Each chakra has its own vibrational frequency and colour, so by eating foods with similar frequencies and colours, any blocked chakras will open and the energy will flow harmoniously throughout all of them, also affecting all seven core aspects of your life.
“For example, if you find you’re imbalanced in the fire (solar plexus) chakra – yellow in colour representing your personal power, everyday actions, and energy – it may be because you’re eating too much sugar and not enough legumes or yellow-coloured foods,” says Dr Minich. “By changing your eating habits to eat foods resonant in colour and vibration to the fire chakra, you can begin to feel more powerful, energetic and have more self-esteem. Conversely, this will create a ripple effect, impacting all the other chakras and their core aspects, where you may start to notice physical changes, or experience mental shifts in how you perceive the world, also altering the way you make choices.
“In other words, purely by balancing what you eat based on the chakra you find you’re most out of balance with, the ‘energy’ of the food will begin to spiral through to all the others, creating personal transformation and keeping you healthy holistically.”
The benefits of a chakra diet
As this diet works on a spiritual level, you’ll begin to experience more harmony, a better relationship with yourself, better sleep patterns, a sense of grounding, and you may even notice relief from physical pain. And according to Dr Minich, becoming more conscious of the foods you’re consuming and eating mindfully can aid those who are trying to shift weight. “Weight loss happens because how you eat begins to change; you begin to slow down and become more mindful of what you’re eating and you become more intuitive of how your emotions impact on your cravings,” adds Dr Minich. “When you are not feeling your emotions, you can bury them into food and eating. By becoming more intuitive of how your moods compel you to eat in a certain way, and by choosing to eat foods that balance your third eye chakra, this will allow you to begin to release the strong emotional response of eating just to fulfil a craving and to also heal food addictions. Flexing your intuitive muscle is an important skill to develop with respect to what truly nurtures you because you’ll be able to separate truth from illusion about what you eat and why.”
Balanced intuition enables you to realise who you truly are as a spiritual being by connecting you to your inner knowing, which allows you to be more resolute in your thoughts and actions. When this shift in energy happens, the domino effect it has on your throat chakra impacts on how you communicate, making you more vocal about your needs.
“If you have a hard time expressing emotions, thoughts and feelings through sound in a way that is authentic and true, this is an indication that you have not been able to find your inner voice, but look outside of yourself for validation,” says Dr Minich. “When you activate your throat chakra, your words will become congruent with your heart, you’ll be able to speak your truth from a place of wisdom and grace and you’ll release all fear, doubt and control regarding the decisions you make in your life. Connecting to your throat chakra will also enable you to create a more enriched relationship with food. The throat chakra is connected with the act of tasting, chewing and swallowing food, making it accessible to the rest of our body in a way that is needed for your highest good.
“And when all your chakras begin to balance, you’ll be able to give and receive more love, life will become more colourful, you’ll feel more confident and capable to follow your dreams and you’ll serve as a conduit to the flow of universal energy and peace.”
How to identify an imbalanced chakra
To help her clients determine which of their chakras is out of balance, Dr Minich created a quiz that focuses on your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual patterns and behaviours. “Answering these five questions for each chakra will be sufficient to help you begin to determine which of your chakras is out of balance,” she says. “It’s also adequate for you to repeat this quiz every month so you can monitor your progress and find which chakra you need to work with next.”
