Lately, we are all looking to increase our clarity in order to hear our messages and receive our guidance in a timely fashion. Often, as spiritually-focused people, we go to our practices to try to address things like this in our spiritual bodies—it’s our comfort zone.
However, there are some very simple things that we can do within our physical bodies to clear and unclog the channels so that we can more readily receive. Cleaning our tongues is one of those things. I know it sounds strange and unrelated. You might be wondering what on earth I mean by tongue scraping!
Hear me out.
You know that coating on your tongue when you wake up in the morning? In Ayurvedic science, this is called ama. It’s the toxins, the undigestible materials, that your body encounters each day. Pushing out the things that we ingest physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually, that can't be processed naturally is the way our bodies detox themselves.
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As we sleep, the body pushes these toxins out through the tongue. This is the coating you see in the morning. It might be white, yellow-ish, or dark brown, depending on what you’ve ingested as well as the imbalances in your system that your body is attempting to address. Seeing this coating is a good thing because it means that the body is detoxing itself properly.
It’s important to remove this coating first thing in the morning, and there were a few reasons why. First, there are areas on the tongue that correlate to all of the organs in the body. When you scrape your tongue, you're stimulating those points and waking up the corresponding organs. Because you're waking your body up, you don't want to be scraping your tongue at night or right before bed.
Your body has done the work of pushing out all of the undigestible materials for you. The last thing you want to do re-ingest your own waste. If you don't take the ama off of the tongue that's exactly what you’ll be doing.
People often ask, “I brush my tongue. Does that count?” To a degree brushing your tongue is good, because it does stimulate all of those organs. But you're getting all of those waste products into your toothbrush, brushing your teeth with them, and scrubbing them back into the tongue. So it's not ideal. Removing them is far more effective than massaging them back in.
Image © Antoni Shkraba/Pexels
There are several different kinds of tongue cleaners out there for every budget. No matter which one you choose, be gentle. You don’t want to scrape too hard and injure your taste buds.
Here is how you do it:
• Open mouth and gently stick out tongue.
• Lightly scrape from back to front, gently.
• Pass the tongue scraper under running water and rinse the ama off.
• Repeat this process approximately seven times.
• Rinse mouth.
• Thoroughly cleanse tongue cleaner.
• Brush teeth.
If you want to try this but don’t want to commit to the purchase of a new piece of equipment, you can simply use a spoon. Turn it upside down and follow the process above. You’ll want to use a dedicated spoon for this job.
You might still see visible coating once you finish. That’s ok. Don't increase the pressure or scrape harder in order to try to remove it. This could indicate deeper toxins that aren't ready to be processed. If you continue to scrape your tongue each day, you'll see improvement over time.
You'll find that several things happen over the course of a very short time if you commit to daily tongue cleaning:
• You'll feel more energized.
• You’ll be less fatigued.
• You’ll experience less brain fog.
• Your sense of taste will increase because your food is actually able to hit the surface of the tongue unimpeded.
• Your cravings will start to subside.
You'll need to eat less to feel full and fulfilled. Being able to taste your food, lets you meet the need your body has for that specific taste.
When there is a coating on your tongue, you’ll be tasting these undigestibles all day long, which will cause you to crave the exact things that your body found toxic in the first place. By taking it off, you are interrupting that cycle and eliminating those unhealthy cravings. You will have clearer communication with your body and what he/she/they actually need
For example, if you ate a lot of sugar or something that you know your body is sensitive to yesterday, chances are you woke up tasting it. If you don't get it out of your mouth, you’ll taste it (maybe unconsciously) all day long and crave more. So if you want to address cravings, this is a fantastic way to do so.
Cleaning the tongue reduces the undesirable bacteria that live in our mouth. These bacteria affect the health of our teeth, gums, and overall oral hygiene. When clearing them out, we're also freshening our breath by reducing odor-causing bacteria.
Tongue scraping supports digestion by stimulating the digestive organs and reducing the cloudiness that prevents the mouth, stomach, and brain from communicating with each other. Once we've tasted food, our bodies should start working to transform this food into energy. When we can't taste food properly, the messages don’t get sent to the stomach, and it is not prepared when the food hits it. This also means that the stomach will not be ready to send a message to the brain once it is sufficiently full and that the brain won't send the cue to stop eating. It makes our digestion sluggish, and the not-properly-digested food becomes toxic to the body.
When we are able to receive our internal communications clearly, we are able to access our internal wisdom and become receptive to communication from our Angels, guides, and higher selves. Having undigestibles in our systems—whether they are physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual—clouds us by adding layers of god that prevent us from receiving our own body's messages and the memos our Divine Teams are sending us.
The body naturally seeks to remove ama. When we follow the body's lead, and actively take the next steps (like scraping our tongues), we tell the Universe, “I want to be clear, and I'm taking these steps to do so. Bring me more information. I am open to receiving clear messages AND I’m clearing my vessel to hold the vibration of something beautiful and new.”
As caretakers of others and the world, we often find ourselves overwhelmed and stretched to capacity. This is why, when we have the opportunity to bring incredibly simple and effective things into our daily lives to increase our energy, we should really consider them! We are setting the intention for what comes next—ease and grace.
Tongue scraping literally takes 30 seconds, and will dramatically impact your health and happiness by improving the quality of your life.
I want you to be as fulfilled, happy, and healthy as possible. So try scraping your tongue and let us know how it goes in the comments below!
How is it working for you? What's changed? How are you feeling?
Can’t wait to hear from you.
XO,
Theresa
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