Sadghuru's Take On Coffee

[Osaid]

I thought this was a nice holistic take on a somewhat controversial beverage, so I wanted to share. I found it on the community section of Sadghuru's Youtube channel.

[Yarco]

Dude also says not to eat garlic and onions. Apparently raw onions make you too angry, and cooked onions make you too horny... or vice versa?

As well chili and eggplant for some reason are also negative pranic foods? I don't get why he says eggplant is bad for you but other nightshade vegetables (tomato, pepper) aren't.

Anyway I agree with what he said above about coffee though.

Isn't it?

Hello?

Isn't it so?

Edited October 7, 2022 by Yarco

[Osaid]

2 minutes ago, Yarco said:

Dude also says not to eat garlic and onions. Apparently raw onions make you too angry, and cooked onions make you too horny... or vice versa?

As well chili and eggplant for some reason are also negative pranic foods? I don't get why he says eggplant is bad for you but other nightshade vegetables (tomato, pepper) aren't.

Yeah, typical prana-based stuff.

Whether something is positive-pranic or negative-pranic seems fundamentally random, although I haven't looked too deeply into it myself. 

His approach on food seems to be very spiritual and intuitive, which is not something I entirely dislike. I think there is a lot to be learned from his perspective on food, and I personally find it very interesting. I think he is perhaps correct on a lot of different things, but the way he describes it might come off as unorthodox or unscientific. He will even say some foods will make you heat up and make you feel "overheated". All you really need to do to test what he says is to try eating them yourself and pay close attention to how it affects your body.

Fundamentally, he tries to teach you to pay close attention to how your body responds to food and how to become in tune with the innate intelligence of your body and how it balances itself.

Me personally, coffee and caffeine in general affects me very differently than how it affects normal people. I can drink coffee for 6 months straight and come off it cold turkey with absolutely 0 withdrawals. I only drink it for taste. Caffeine doesn't even give me an energy boost per say, all it does to me is that it maintains my baseline level of energy. The only way for me to notice any energetic effect from caffeine/coffee is if I am extremely tired or sleep deprived prior to taking it.

All in all, certain foods will affect certain people differently, pay attention to your body.

 

[Leo Gura]

He's spot-on about coffee. Although on me coffee virtually doesn't work even if I never drink it (which is the case).

Edited October 7, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Tyler Robinson]

I love coffee and I appreciate his holistic take. 

Coffee helped me get out of my worst times. 

 

[Osaid]

22 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Although on me coffee virtually doesn't work even if I never drink it (which is the case).

Same. I do drink it daily just for the taste. But I can come off it cold turkey and have 0 withdrawals. The only way for me to perceive any energetic benefit is if I am extremely tired or sleep-deprived prior to taking it, otherwise it just maintains my baseline level of energy.

[Arthogaan]

I stopped drinking coffee 3 months ago and only now I start to not have to nap two times a day. Giving it up for me was far more difficult than giving up alcohol, sugar or cigarettes. Not even comparable.

I had headeaches for a month. The consensus that withdrawals last 2-9 days is bullshit for many people. There are many stories of people getting back to themselves only after 1 year with no caffeine.

It's a drug. And chances are you are sensitive to it. Unlike Leo or my Mom which can drink it and immiediately go to sleep.

 

 

[mmKay]

The only way i found to incorporate coffee in a healthy and productive way in my life is no more than 2 times a week and never back to back to avoid feeling withdrawal, + take it 1-2 hours after L-theanine to avoid feelint jitters snd anxiety. 

It makes me feel blissful and super energetic and enjoy life more. 

[Kshantivadin]

Thank you for sharing 

Personally, people underestimate coffee. It's a drug, and if you're sensitive to it, it's a helluva drug ;). I'm on a "detox" right now you could say - because I don't intend to quit it given how it's one of the things I LOVE about life, yet I find it surprisingly difficult to strike a balance with cycling the substance. It's so easy to cope with it, so easy to fall into back-to-back loops with it. I aspire to strike a balance of moderate consumption in the near future and not have to abuse substances in order to cope with emotions. May it be so! 

[Osaid]

2 minutes ago, Kshantivadin said:

Thank you for sharing 

No problem. I usually don't start my own topics but I especially liked how holistic and spiritual Sadghuru's take on coffee is, it really stuck out to me among the many other opinions you find on coffee or addictive substances.

I think the ending sentence is a good summary: "What you do to yourself should always be by choice; don't do it in ignorance. Even if you walk into your death, you must do it consciously, that's all I'm saying."

[Optimized Life]

Coffee is really bad, I can't stop drinking it though because I'm dependent. 

I would need to become quite successful and be in a good position to quit coffee, because I know when I quit the weeks after will be obscenely unproductive & I just can't afford that right now, but after the withdrawal period my life would be a lot better, fuck coffee. 

I tried L theanine & out of all the supplements I tried, it gave me the worst reaction ever, a lot of anger, anxiety & other strange psycho reactions. 

After L theanine I just gave up on supplements because I've tried many & even if they have some benefit, the unexpected side effects always end up ruining me for days, same thing with weed, even alcohol to an extent and lingering mental side effects also with gluten, grains, noodles ect.. but no way near to the same extent as weed, nootropics or supplements. 

I'm recently getting "intuitive eating" sense like you guys alluded to with peanut butter, and just feel I should stop eating it even though it's very healthy on paper & I eat 100% fresh peanut butter but something just feels wrong with it, but I never get this with other nuts, I always feel good eating brazil nuts, peacon nuts, also grapes I feel awesome. 

However I have no opinion on the matter & can't answer whether intuitive or empirical scientic approach is best, of course ideally we need a holistic mix of the 2, but also learning an intutivie understnading for the individuallist & idisyncratic nature of health is really cool, I wish as a 5 year old I just though "Ohh some people diewhen they eat peanuts", this has big picture significance for how I should restructure my entire outlook on human health, ect.. extrapolate that out to people need & respond to different stuff, which is fucking annoying & tricky to deal with tbh. 

 

[Osaid]

2 hours ago, Optimized Life said:

However I have no opinion on the matter & can't answer whether intuitive or empirical scientic approach is best, of course ideally we need a holistic mix of the 2, but also learning an intutivie understnading for the individuallist & idisyncratic nature of health is really cool, I wish as a 5 year old I just though "Ohh some people diewhen they eat peanuts", this has big picture significance for how I should restructure my entire outlook on human health, ect.. extrapolate that out to people need & respond to different stuff, which is fucking annoying & tricky to deal with tbh. 

My intuition tells me that something as basic as food shouldn't be this complicated. I feel like we are too logical when it comes to food, if that makes sense, which is why Sadghuru's take intrigues me so much.

I'm not sure if it is from hindu or pranic culture or not, but I've even heard this idea that certain types of people will require different types of food for energy. Like for example, someone who is very logical might have an affinity towards a certain type of food. And there is also this idea that the fruits and vegetables which are cultivated during certain seasons are the types of food which you need to eat during that season. For example, during winter time, certain foods will be able to grow and certain foods wont, in this theory it says that you should optimally only eat the things which will grow during winter and that will fuel you the best during that season. Very interesting stuff.

There are definitely outliers when it comes to how people respond to certain food, probably more than are accounted for. I don't think waiting for conclusive empirical evidence to come out in order to start eating healthy makes sense. Are you really gonna delegate the entirety of your health to scientific studies which you will have to wait for? I think we need to go back to a more basic and intuitive approach. We didn't have scientific studies when we lived in jungles.

However, I have to admit, society has made it very hard to understand what is healthy and what isn't. If it weren't for scientific studies, I probably wouldn't be able to untangle myself out of those ideas about food which society pushed onto me. I would probably be eating much worse right now, so I have to give credit there.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Osaid

[Thought Art]

I avoid coffee ☕️ 

I do drink a lot of Pu’erh and green tea but even then that’s a stimulant. 
 

Ive been more and more herbal based.

[Carl-Richard]

On 7.10.2022 at 2:06 AM, Yarco said:

Dude also says not to eat garlic and onions. Apparently raw onions make you too angry, and cooked onions make you too horny... or vice versa?

As well chili and eggplant for some reason are also negative pranic foods? I don't get why he says eggplant is bad for you but other nightshade vegetables (tomato, pepper) aren't.

Onion, garlic and chili have stimulant effects, so it has the same reasoning for why you should avoid coffee. Eggplant has natural toxins in it.

[Clabber Girl]

Green tea is a good alternative to coffee, it has more antioxidants and keeps your teeth white!

[UnbornTao]

Pretty reductionistic, imo.

He seems to be referring exclusively to the effects of caffeine, not coffee as a drink in itself. Cocoa, tea and energy drinks also contain caffeine, so enough quantities would produce similar results as coffee. And yet he doesn't mention those.

Coffee is among the healthiest beverages along with water and tea. Also, it is made from beans, if that's useful.

Of course it can also lead to poor sleep and anxiety, among others, when too much is drunk. And being addicted to anything is generally no good. 

On the other hand, why superimpose a cosmology, in this case the Indian type (pranic, sattvic) onto these subjects? For nutritional advice, better ask a nutritionist.

Edited October 13, 2022 by UnbornTao

[Tristan12]

On 2022-10-07 at 4:23 PM, Osaid said:

No problem. I usually don't start my own topics but I especially liked how holistic and spiritual Sadghuru's take on coffee is, it really stuck out to me among the many other opinions you find on coffee or addictive substances.

I think the ending sentence is a good summary: "What you do to yourself should always be by choice; don't do it in ignorance. Even if you walk into your death, you must do it consciously, that's all I'm saying."

I agree, I saved that last paragraph that he wrote. I love how he basically says that you can do whatever you want and he’s not telling you whether you should drink coffee or not, just be aware of what coffee does to you and make sure you do everything you do consciously. This leads to a person making the right decision through their own understanding and conscious choice rather than just because they are blindly listening to someone.

[Michael569]

I don't think it is all that bad but of course it depends on how much you drink it, why you drink it and the quality, purity etc.

Men who drink coffee regularly are less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and Parkinson's so I'm sure that's not a completely negligible benefits once we get a bit older. But you got to balance it out with your sensitivity to it and of course for anyone prone to anxieties or GERD, coffee may not be suitable.

Many naturopaths will say coffee can lead to adrenal fatigue - I think if adrenal fatigue was a thing, liver fatigue, pancreatic fatigue and heart fatigue would be a thing as well which clearly isn't. It's just another one of those things floating out there. 

I just don't like an absolutistic reductionism such as "nobody should eat/drink this" especially when the reason for exclusion is argument like "pranic foods" which I am more and more convinced is just meaningless. A lot of foods NOT  considered Pranic such as mushrooms, garlics, onion, chillies and coffee lead to better health outcomes for men and women when consumed in abundance.

All this nonsense is simply introducing yet more complexity, more polarity and even more sub-division to a topic that is already incredibly messy, polluted and corrupted by selfish individuals, organisations, quacks and motivated reasoners. If you want to be healthy and delay occurrence of the first onset of chronic disease (the ones that kill 8/10 people today), eat in accordance with the most robust evidence which is basically the guideline diet based on a Mediterranean diet with mild modifications. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/528193/Eatwell_guide_colour.pdf . This style of eating is based of hundreds of millions of people's worth data looking at the most severe, the most aggressive and the most deadly health conditions such as Alzheimer's,  Colorectal cancer, coronary heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes. As of today, we do not have more effective way to delay or prevent occurence of these throughout one's lifetime. Most people don't die from SIBO, allergies and bloating. 

Individual variations for (short-term) therapeutic (e.g. FODMAP, SCD, keto or low-histamine) , ethical (e.g. vegan) or environmental (e.g. only local produce) purposes are totally possible but severe modifications of the above are unlikely to lead to better long-term health outcomes despite short fleeting gains (e.g."I went keto and lost 20 kg in a year")

Any disputes of the guideline type of diet by doctors and influencers is usually based on mechanistic speculation, , rodent data, poorly controlled trials or motivated reasoning. 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Michael569

[Ima Freeman]

Many people have depression or chronic fatigue these days, coffee is often times self-medication

[Arthogaan]

3 hours ago, Ima Freeman said:

chronic fatigue

Chronic fatigue may be caused by over-consumption of caffeine and sometimes is alleviated by simply quitting it.

Edited October 13, 2022 by Arthogaan