An Ayurvedic Perspective on IPS, Reactive Hypoglycemia, and Post Meal Sensitivity

Ayurveda offers a completely different way of understanding the crashes, shakiness, dizziness, and hollow sensations that happen after eating. Instead of dividing symptoms into separate categories like blood sugar, adrenaline, digestion, or anxiety, Ayurveda sees the entire experience as a reflection of how your subtle energies move through your body. It explains why a person with normal glucose numbers can feel as if they are crashing, and why someone with reactive hypoglycemia can feel terrified even after eating something calming. Ayurveda looks beneath the surface and asks what is happening to your life force when you eat, digest, breathe, and interact with the world.

From an Ayurvedic perspective, IPS and post meal crashes often reflect an aggravated Vata dosha. Vata governs movement in the body, the nervous system, breath, digestion, circulation, and the subtle communication pathways between the gut and the brain. When Vata is balanced, digestion feels calm and rhythmic. Meals feel grounding. Energy feels steady. When Vata becomes disturbed, the body becomes jumpy and sensitive. This can show up as dizziness, hollow sensations, lightheadedness, shaking, adrenaline surges, chills, stomach dropping, mental fog, depersonalization, or sudden waves of panic that feel physical, not emotional. This is why so many people say their symptoms feel like a “windstorm” inside them. That is exactly how Ayurveda describes Vata when it is overwhelmed.

Ayurveda also recognizes that what you are experiencing can occur when digestion is weak or erratic. This is called impaired Agni, the digestive fire. When Agni is low, food is not broken down in a smooth, calming way. Instead, the process feels turbulent. The nervous system reacts more intensely. Even small amounts of food can feel like too much for the system. From this lens, your post meal symptoms are not only about glucose but about the body struggling to process nourishment in a stable way. This strain sends distress signals up the vagus nerve, which mirrors the Western explanation of post adrenergic drops but through a different language.

Another important Ayurvedic pattern behind these symptoms is a depletion of Ojas. Ojas is the deep vitality that gives you emotional steadiness, resilience, immunity, warmth, and calm energy. When someone goes through long periods of stress, illness, grief, viral infections, over dieting, or intense emotional pressure, Ojas becomes weaker. When Ojas is low, the body becomes sensitive and easily exhausted. Normal transitions such as waking, eating, or digesting can feel overwhelming. This perfectly matches what many people with IPS and reactive hypoglycemia describe. You are not weak. You are depleted. And depletion can heal.

Ayurveda offers supportive tools that complement Western approaches without replacing them. Warm, grounding meals support both the gut and the nervous system. Eating smaller portions more frequently stabilizes Vata and prevents the internal wind from rising suddenly. Warm water instead of cold supports digestion. Gentle herbs like ashwagandha, licorice, fennel, and ginger can soothe the gut brain axis when used carefully and in the right context. Resting for a few minutes after meals helps the body feel safe. Routines such as oil massage, warm showers, slow breathing, and early bedtimes rebuild Ojas and create the internal stability that your system has been missing.

What Ayurvedic wisdom does beautifully is remind you that your system is not malfunctioning. It is overstimulated, depleted, and trying to protect you. Nothing about your symptoms is random or mysterious. They make sense through the lens of Vata imbalance, weakened digestive fire, and low Ojas. And just as imbalance can accumulate over time, healing can accumulate too. Small, steady choices create profound changes when the nervous system and digestion have been sensitized.

If you have felt confused or unseen by medical explanations, Ayurveda offers a compassionate and holistic understanding that complements the science without contradicting it. You are not broken. You are in a state of imbalance that your body is fully capable of healing from. With warmth, rhythm, nourishment, and gentleness, the wind inside your system can quiet down. Your digestion can find its rhythm again. And that deep sense of steadiness you crave can return one day at a time.