morning ritual: lemon and cayenne

We've had some heavy rain yesterday in Nice. I love being in a cosy, warm place while it's raining outside. Museums, cafes with dimmed light and my sofa with my cat on my lap are just made for that. Yesterday I've spent the day with a friend in the Modern Art Museum, the MAMAC in Nice. Almost all museums in Nice are free to enter all year round. They tend to have bad (if any) descriptions of the art pieces, but as you don't pay you can also pop by for a 30 min. stroll.

I drink warm lemon water and cayenne pepper first thing in the morning on an empty stomach

Today the skies are blue again thus waking up has been a pleasure. Everybody has their waking-up rituals. Being a detox fan as I am, the first thing I do in the morning is the Ayurvedic practice of oil pulling (more on this in another post). The second price in my morning routine goes to a special drink (also Ayurveda-rooted), which I deeply fell in love with. It was not love on first sight, but the warm, comforting feeling in my tummy is well worth the preparation of my lemon cayenne water: I drink lukewarm water to which I add some lemon or lime juice and a bit if cayenne pepper - I mix it with a teaspoon and drink it in several pours.

Despite that it sounds as if it might have an acidic effect on your body, both the lemon juice and cayenne are alkalising superstars!

Apart from being an amazing alkaliser, here are other lemon water benefits:

• Lemons are antiseptic
• Lemon juice contains calcium, magnesium and potassium
• Lemon water has great digestive properties and can ease heartburn, bloating and other digestion problems
• Lemon water cleanses and stimulates the liver and kidneys
• Lemon juice is a great skin cleanser
• Lemon juice has been known to relieve asthma
• Lemon water (warm) offers relief from cold and flu symptoms while providing some much needed Vitamin C
• Lemon water ignites the metabolism early in the morning - great to help loosing a pound or two

The cayenne pepper on the other hand helps speed up your metabolism promoting circulation and a greater release of toxins from our bodies. Loaded with capsaicin, it is pain-reducing and helps prevent stomach ulcers. Cayenne stimulates digestion and muscle movement in the intestines, which helps restore deficient digestive secretions and aids absorption of food nutrients. Sounds pretty promising so far.

I don't go crazy with the cayenne pepper in the drink. I sometimes find that too much cayenne makes me feel too hot around the tummy, which is fine in winter. In summer I like to put more lemon and a bit less cayenne pepper into my drink.

I also read that you can add Turmeric into the drink. Might try this for a while, as I know that Turmeric also has incredible health benefits. It also makes the teeth yellow - but hey, the oil pulling shall fix this.

If I don't get my cayenne lemon drink in the morning something is really missing. I even throw in some lemons into my suitcase when I'm traveling. Actually this ritual has a good chance to be part of my morning routine until the end of my days. What a mountain of lemons this will be.