Short and regular fasts are easier, safer and more
effective to be tried by anyone according to his or her capacity. There are no
hard and fast rules about fasting. It can be practiced for a day once a month,
once for a fortnight (or occasionally) depending on your requirement. You must
not eat any food during the day of fasting but drink a plenty of pure water
that will help a lot to wash away the impurities from your body. When your body
has switched over to using its stored supply of food, your fast will not be
uncomfortable. This condition may not arise if you feel artificially hungry
because of your greed of food.
However, in the beginning if you find it very difficult
to hold your fast for a full day, in the evening you may take some milk, fruit
juice like papaya, grapes, orange etc that are easy to digest.
Take as much rest as you can and avoid hard physical
work during your fast. If you like, you may practice some relaxing yoga
postures or meditation to further relax your body-mind. Also, to break your
fast, always take some easily digestible food as mentioned above, and avoid
hard and solid foods until your body systems come back to normaley.
Fasting for longer periods should be tried (if one
wishes to do so) only when one has mastered the art of short fasting.