127-What is Ayurvedic Medicine?

We're going to learn how to pay attention to gut health as well as circadian rhythms to dramatically lower our inflammation . Be sure , and stay through to hear it at the end . Our guest for this discussion is Shivani Gupta , phd . Dr Shivani is an Ayurvedic practitioner and expert , infusing Eastern and Western practices that help our bodies achieve equilibrium .

She completed her master's in Ayurvedic sciences and her PhD in turmeric . She is also the founder of Fusionary Formulas , an Ayurvedic company that helps people with inflammation and pain . If you are enjoying this program , please hit that subscribe button or , even better , leave a review .

Your support makes it possible for us to create the quality programming that we're continually striving for . Also , let us know if there is a certain topic that you would like to see covered or a particular guest that you would like to hear from . And now , please enjoy this conversation with Dr Shivani Gupta . Hey , shivani , welcome to the program .

It's a way of life that we can live every single day . It encompasses diet , nutrition , detoxification , circadian rhythm , self-care tools that are so profound for our overall health and detoxing of our body .

It covers how we should sleep , how we should eat , herbs and spices that I call the super spices that can help us really up level our health in a profound way . So to me it's like this treasure chest and I just want everyone to know it so we can pull tools from it as needed and build that vibrant health and that longevity that we all want .

You're a world expert on that , so I'm looking forward to doing that too . But maybe tell us a little bit about your background .

So I grew up in Houston , texas , to an immigrant family , like so many of us who have that American dream story , and my parents worked so hard to give us an incredible life , and we'd go to India every year to see my grandparents , my cousins , and every time I went to India I would get disastrously sick , Like that kind of sick that a lot of people get

when they go to India , because they ate the wrong thing or had a bite of chutney and it took you down . And so I remember growing up thinking why does everyone else have an immune system that works , a body that works , but I've been given this defective body . Something has to change , and I saw that and a lot of horrible family history .

So every time I went to India , people in my family would have diabetes and end up having like the end stages of that , with their leg being cut off , with heart attacks , like just too many bad signs . And so I kept thinking something has to be done , like I have to do something active for my health .

I'm not like everyone , and if that's the train wreck that's coming for me , I better create a change . And so , luckily , on those trips to India , I finally discovered Ayurveda and I was like , wow , there's a whole system around building gut health and building an immune system that works . I need this thing .

And once I applied it to myself and fix my gut health and built an immune system of steel , I realized , okay , this , this is my passion . Now Let me take it further . And so I did my masters in Ayurvedic sciences .

And then when I learned about turmeric which I know , turmeric is great but when I learned about how potent turmeric is for all of the issues I saw for immune health , for inflammation as a root cause issue I was like I have to study this thing . So now I'm a turmeric evangelist . I like to tell everyone turmeric is the best thing .

It arose in India , as you say , thousands of years ago , and now you , you , you have an advanced degree in turmeric and Ayurvedic studies , where obviously we talked before the podcast about your your husband is a medical doctor and you've many family members and medical doctors as well , so are , are you Veda in in India ? Is it ?

Is it like a parallel system , sort of like Chinese medicine in China where you have Western doctors and then are you Vedic doctors ? Is that ? Is that the way it it's done , and sort of the combination of those and the crossover ? Then yeah it's interesting .

And then now , in this last decade or so , you're seeing this huge resurgence of respect and following homeopathic medicine .

Again , looking to Ayurveda , so there are Ayurvedic hospitals , there are Ayurvedic medical doctors in India and there are hospitals that have the hybrid of both , and so it's really cool to see how much people are turning back and saying you know , yoga is so important , pranayama and breathing is so important , and Ayurvedic's wisdom , ayurveda's wisdom , and yoga is a

sister science to Ayurveda . So that same philosophy around who we are and bringing alignment to body , mind and spirit is in yoga and Ayurveda both .

And so circadian rhythm is chronobiology . It's the study of the fact that our cells have a clock . We are , we are living according to nature's clock and we believe that we are just free to live by any clock we choose .

But we're seeing so much disease that now people are studying and realizing , wow , nature's clock , the clock by which nature , animals , every other being lives by , also applies to us .

And so there's three Nobel Peace Prize winners who proved that the circadian clock is valid , and that's when it became that much more of a topic of study and understanding across the world . But IRVEDA always taught us we should sleep by 10 .

10 to two is the most important time on that clock for regeneration , for clearing out the old and bringing in the new , for clearing the lymphatic system , for clearing inflammation . They teach us how to wake up in the morning with the sun , how to eat when the sun is highest .

So there's a lot of tips and tools and guidance that comes from IRVEDA that very much is a longevity minded focus in our health that we can apply .

And then once we apply that rhythm like I really like to teach people how to build a rhythm in their life around their teas and their supplements and all the things that we can do our diet and once we have that rhythm , we're so vibrant in our health that the moment we get out of rhythm we can tell something's wrong and we quickly can calibrate and fix it .

Oh , I come up , I get up , when the sun rises , I go to bed when the sun goes down , but some people say , hey , I'm a night person , you know I'll sleep till noon , or is it something about that ? Is there a health benefit for all of us doing similar types of chronological or circadian landmarks in our lifestyle choices ?

But then our health symptoms stack up and we quickly realize we need to make some changes . Now in Ayurveda there's a concept called the Doshas , which are our individual mind-body constitutions , and so everyone does have a customization .

That happens in there , where not all of us are meant to jump out of bed at five , six in the morning and push straight through the day . Some of us have a more guffa nature , some of us are more pitas .

We have these three mind-body constitutions and it's important to know yours , honor yours , have that self-understanding and then run the rhythm of your day accordingly . So there is some customization there . But when people share that they're night owls . I usually say look , you're just harnessing , bit that energy , fire , energy , which is what's strongest from 10 to 2 .

And if you go past midnight , of course you're going to have a second wind to keep going . But it's our job to discipline ourselves and wind back the clock and move ourselves as close to a 10 to 11 bedtime as possible so that we can give the body that rest and rejuvenation we need , or we're never going to win at our inflammation and health .

play ? I mean , we all know how important gut health is , but what is the RUV , the perspective on gut health , and what is RUV to be able to contribute on that ?

And so gut health we think of it as a campfire in our center and that fire is to be tended , it's to be loved , it's to be managed carefully because it is the center of life , it's our immune system , it's our energy , it's our metabolism , it's all the processes that matter most . It's assimilation and absorption and excretion .

So it's something to be honored and revered and not taken for granted . So I love that about Ayurveda because we have tools , we have gut resets , we have certain spices , we use certain foods we use Based on the issue that comes to me . I'll tell people look , this is the protocol for three days , this is the protocol for a week .

But if we can heal our gut , then we've done the majority of the work towards having that vibrant health and that longevity that we want . So really , gut health is the most important central tenet that comes out of Ayurveda and I think we have one of the biggest toolkits to deal with it compared to a lot of the other systems .

Is that a tool there , and what is the viewpoint of fasting , or not necessarily what you eat We'll talk about that in a minute . But when you eat is what is the position there on that ?

So if you're done by seven and you don't start your day or start eating before seven the next day already a 12 hour fast is naturally built into the Ayurvedic system . You can push that further 12 , 14 ish .

The other thing about Ayurveda , though , is we believe in a more moderate lifestyle , so sometimes I see people taking concepts like fasting and getting really extreme with it . I think that really comes down to your constitution , your body , your digestion . So fasting for a day has definitely been part of Ayurveda and the Indian culture .

For a health standpoint , give the gut a rest is fine , but we don't believe in being so extreme that we are causing more problems Like we're putting a tax or stress on the body . So it's built in but respected . It's both .

Are we eating processed foods ? Don't microwave your food . Don't damage your food . Don't eat old food , cold food , don't eat leftovers that aren't good anymore , that are dead , that are lacking in prana . So there's so much wisdom around , like , if you're in my house , we have fresh food every day and I don't allow leftovers past a day .

I prefer that we only reach for frozen food in emergencies . Like food is honored as that nutrient density , seasonal food and love that we need to put into our body if we want our body to love us back . So there's so much there .

In terms of how you eat , I teach people never consume water within 30 minutes of a meal , before or after You're going to turn off your digestion . You're basically pouring water on the campfire , asking the campfire to do its job at the same time . It doesn't work that way . So if you want to optimize digestion .

There's simple habits that we can adopt from Ayurveda that will be a game changer , regardless of what you're eating , because in modern day times a lot of us are going to eat our fun foods , our inflammatory foods .

But Ayurveda also gives us powerful herbs and spices turmeric , ashwagandha , cumin there's so many spices that can support the digestive process , fix our digestion , fix our inflammation , and then let us move forward healthy .

So we mentioned the circadian rhythm a little bit and the importance of the rhythms of life , and then we've talked about gut health a little bit , and each time you've mentioned the word inflammation , and I think many of our guests have talked about inflammation as a fundamental underlying driver of almost all the chronic diseases that ultimately determine the longevity

for most of us . So inflammation is pretty important . How does , are you Veda , view inflammation and how we can improve it ?

You are eating a beautiful , nutritious diet that is blessed , that you have put , chosen to put inside of you . You are consuming healthy teas and herbs all throughout the day that assist with the digestion of your food . You are honoring that sleep is so important and you're sleeping on time .

So it's almost like if you build the rhythm , you shouldn't have the inflammation . But in this modern day society we're living in between the processed foods , the stressors , the toxins , the toxic burden the body is holding .

There's so many aspects that come into play and so the way I look at it is our body is under attack at all times between the chemicals that are produced , between the chemicals we're consuming , and between the mental inflammation caused by the sheer stress and work and burdens we take on as a society .

And so I educate people on we must actively reduce inflammation every day . We must actively take turmeric , take herbs , do things that are going to simmer down that inflammation , get it into check so we're not all running around with chronic , low grade , persistent inflammation that's wreaking havoc in our bodies . And then we're saying , oh , woe is me .

I have this stack up of symptoms , this is aging . A lot of people tell me I'm aging and I say no , no , no , that's inflaming , that is inflammation wreaking havoc in your body and you're complaining about it . But really , if you just reduced inflammation , you would see , all of a sudden things would feel lighter , things would feel better .

So that's how I like to teach it is let's all choose to live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle , to see what's possible when our body is in the right homeostasis and state .

It's really a system of health and healing that says if we could be in harmony with ourselves , with others , if we can understand our individual mind-body constitution and thus see that in others and understand how to work with them , if we could keep our spiritual health on point , then our mental health and emotional health will be that much better .

If we were eating foods that were sothic , we have this piece from within us created . If we're eating foods that are causing anxiety and stressors and angst , then we need to adjust our own diet to be healthier .

The gut , brain access was not mentioned in IRV , but IRV said heal the gut to heal all , and so when people tell me they have mental health issues , I'm like , of course there's lots of ways to handle it , but I would always just start with some gut health , because maybe we need to support from within while we do therapy and all the other modalities that

support it . So yeah , irv that said look , we have an ability to be in harmony with nature , with the world around us . If we're in disharmony , that's going to be causing that dis-ease and dis-alignment that happens with the world around us .

So I'm very curious , I'm perking up about meditation now and also , does meditation play a role in our UVeta and what does our UVeta say about meditation ?

We dive into yoga , we dive into self-massage , which is a pyong massage , which is very grounding . So there's these 12 steps .

I can't do them all in the morning because I have kids to get to school , so a lot of times I take them and I put them in the evening as my bedtime ritual , as part of my sleep hygiene and sleep ritual , to invest in better sleep .

But meditation , deep breathing , prana yam , all these things are meant to be daily and I think if we can build the rhythm of doing them at some point in the day , I teach everyone look , let's make it easy , let's make it doable , let's not make it about perfection .

I don't meditate every day , I am not perfect , but I make sure that at some point I could be blow-drying my hair and I forgot to meditate . In the morning , I'll say you know what ?

Right now I'm going to get to the next minute and tune in and re-center and ground and get that piece you need , or I'll be driving and I'll say , ok , I'm not taking any phone calls or music for this 20-minute drive , I'm just going to totally zen out and tune into my intuition . So a lot of IRV that's teaching us . Your own intuition has the answers .

You just need to train yourself and your intuition to communicate that with you .

We recommend copper because it's an antibacterial metal so it stays clean over time , not these like toothbrushes and modern plastic ones we're coming up with nowadays . Metal tongue scraper , please . It can be steel , it can be silver , it can be copper .

You take it and you gently scrape the tongue . Don't gag yourself . So you gently scrape the tongue seven to 14 times in the morning and on the tongue . Any IRV practitioner would deep dive into looking at your tongue and making sure do you have this white film on your tongue ? That white film indicates ama . Ama is AMA , but AMA means toxins in the body .

This accumulation of toxins that most of us have is they're sitting on the tongue , and so by scraping the tongue , we're actually gently massaging all the organs of the body .

Similar to reflexology on the feet is thought to impact all the organs of the body , and so when you do tongue scraping , you're massaging all the organs of the body , you're detoxing them and you're removing that toxin film that exists inside of all of us . So it's a very powerful self hygiene ritual . It's pretty much free .

You can buy that one tongue scraper and it lasts for life . It also ignites the digestive fire in the morning , so it opens up that campfire and gets it ready to churn and burn what we're going to eat and use all day .

I think I know what that is , I've seen it , and are you Veda practices before ? Is that something that you do yourself or is someone do to you ? Or what is the setup for oil pulling and what ? What do you recommend for that ?

You can buy sesame oil that's not been like there's like cooked sesame oil . You want like raw , filtered , clean sesame oil that's organic , which you can buy at the health and store . But basically you take about two tablespoons of oil , put it in the mouth and hold it in your mouth for five to 20 minutes .

Somewhere towards the end of that timing you're going to swish it around the mouth , so you're just going to move it through your gums , through your teeth , and what it's going to do is it's going to collect all those toxins .

Our oral microbiome ties directly to our gut microbiome and so the more you keep this clean , the more you're supporting your gut microbiome as well .

You're supporting how you eat , how well you taste your food , according to Ayurveda , and so I recommend every day if you can do it , but make sure when you spit out that oil you don't throw it in the sink , the shower or the toilet . Has to go in the trash because you will ruin the pipes of your home . You'll clog up the pipes .

So that's like a little pro tip . But oil pulling is very beneficial because we're going to take all that toxins and junk and accumulation and get rid of it . So we're thus reducing that toxic burden of the body .

Oil pulling to pull the toxins out , and I like the fact that , that that you spit it out at the end with the toxins , because , yeah , people who are concerned about seed oils and linoleic acid may , may not want to use , may not want to swallow some of those , but but , but either way .

So that's , that's great , and that's just in the morning , right Once a day . Is that what you recommend ?

This seems like a much more benign way of Giving your mouth health that doesn't destroy your nitric oxide production or the bacteria of your normal flora . So that's that's . That's really appealing there , so I'm gonna Put that on there as well on my list . Now , as far as anti inflammation , you mentioned several Possible things we can consume .

Maybe you could go through some of them and or maybe just start with ashwagandha . That's one of my favorite words , I love saying it and it's such an amazing , amazing compound . Anyway , tell us about , tell us about that one , then we can go to some of the other ones .

. So ashwagandha is an adaptogen , and adaptogen just means that the body knows how to take it and use it where it needs to go . So adaptogens like ashwagandha if we're stressed and anxious , they'll calm us down a couple notches . If we're suffering from the blues or Depressed , it'll lift us up a couple notches .

It truly goes in there and functions like a thermostat to do what it needs to do . And ashwagandha is like one of those Very powerful , potent adaptogens that we have available to us that supports people in different ways . For some people that supports their sleep because it's so calming . It helps them relax for sleep better .

For some , they can take it in the morning and it's going to calm you down a few notches to deal with the stresses of the day and help you stay focused and calm to get your list done . So everyone takes these things differently . I think ashwagandha so powerful , turmeric is so powerful , ginger is so powerful , so we can have like a mindful medicine chest .

I call it a pharmacy F-A-R-M , so this pharmacy that's available , that has all these natural tools in it , and then we can make a tea out of it . We can make this , you know , we can take a supplement for it . We can reach for what we need to , based on the phase of life where we're in or the week that we're dealing with .

How do those help with inflammation and what do you recommend ? What does our uveida say about those ?

And I bought all of them and they look kind of gross sometimes . So I'm always like , well , let me go look up the benefits . A lot of times it's antioxidant , anti-inflammatory , and I always read that and I was like , okay , I find , why am I taking 10 different things that give me an anti-inflammatory , antioxidant benefit ?

Like , what is one thing that can get me there ? So that's why , when I studied turmeric , I was like , okay , if this one thing will give us all that benefit , then we're winning . Just by taking the one thing Makes it easier because we can't always do every single health habit .

So turmeric the reason I'm so passionate is not only a very powerful anti-inflammatory and a very potent antioxidant , it's also antibacterial , anti-fungal , anti-viral . It does so much in the body . I'm part of a team that's researching . Why is it so well received from our body ? Like , why is it showing up that every receptor in the body can receive it almost .

But to me it does the job so well I just rely on the turmeric to do it . Then I don't have to do this whole superfood chasing thing that that a lot of us are Doing , putting everything in our shakes . So turmeric to me is a powerhouse . Ginger is another great powerhouse .

When people take their turmeric , I want them to take it with black pepper or a healthy fat for absorption . The way I I explain it is fresh turmeric has benefits . A lot of us are into the fresh solutions . But when you dry it and put it in spice form , it's more potent . And when you take the extract out of it curcumin it's that much more potent .

And so a lot of people are spending their time sprinkling turmeric on their chicken but not using black pepper , not adding the healthy fat consciously . So we're not getting the results that we want . Or there's this modern trend like make it a latte . Well , if it's a skinny latte , it's not absorbing . We're just wasting our time , wasting our effort .

So I really want everyone to know termics a powerhouse . You can totally win taking turmeric , but take it in that very potent form . It will drive the result you want reduce that inflammation , and then we're winning at our health .

So to me I loved diving into the science of how does turmeric impact wound healing , because then plastic surgery can use it . How does it impact our chronic joint pain than orthopedics can use it ? Okay , how does it affect a lot of the autoimmune people issues that people are dealing with ?

Okay , let's talk to rheumatology who , to me , I love understanding how , how we can push forward science to prove what I RV that already said thousands of years ago . I already said all this . We're just catching up with the science to validate what we've been practicing .

Sure , curcuma longa just means turmeric , it's the name of the plant . So it's funny if you really finally read the label , some people forget the black pepper . Some people are giving you curcuma noids and a lot of turmeric .

To me I was very focused on if we're going to take turmeric , let's take it in the dosage that'll like really drive a result , so that we're really going after the issues that we have in our lives and then we're truly going to prevent inflammation from running rampant .

Because what people don't realize is chronic , low grade , persistent inflammation is kind of like this forest fire , and if we aren't going to take a fire extinguisher and go after it , we're just going to leave this fire unchecked and then we've got this permanent damage and then we're trying to backtrack from it but it's too late .

Do you ? Do you follow , like see reactive protein or anything , or is it more subjective and how they're feeling that kind of thing ? So you know that the dose is right for the tumor , I guess , and the other , the other medications or the other supplements .

Like let's , let's be honest about what's happening here and understanding what's really going on under the hood . And what's interesting to me is , once you understand what's wrong , there's still an entire lifestyle practice that needs to be put in place or we will keep causing the problem . That's there .

We all come in with certain templates , certain genetic predisposition , certain habits that we've learned from our parents around sleep and food , and so I like to look at that and say , okay , you're inflamed , so let's start you on an anti inflammatory protocol . That's easy .

I can show you eat food , sleep supplements , herbs , tease , how to approach that , how to build the right rhythm , and then we can go from there .

So , for me , women come to me with all sorts of health issues a lot of it menopause , peri menopause , chronic joint pain , auto immunity and look , if you have the right tool kit , you can really resolve this and put your body back into homeostasis . But I like to do it in partnership , a lot of times with great practitioners .

Now if someone's dealing with massive joint pain , sometimes I'll talk to them and say look , you can increase , we can take . The literature shows that . They've done studies . We can take up to eight grams of curcumin a day safely . Eight milligrams , eight milligrams , eight milligrams . So because we can take so much 8000 milligrams we have wiggle room .

So , based on who I'm dealing with , if I'm seeing they want to keep their hand function , like their joint pain is so bad , they can take it up to three times a day or play with how much they're taking . But if you want to just be standard for everyone and be safe , you just start at the 1000 milligrams a day .

And then , once you know what's going on , we still have to address the root , which is that lifestyle that has to shift . And eight years ago I developed my supplement company , fusionary formulas , because I felt like , if turmeric is going to be the thing I want everyone to have , I need to go find it in a form that I trust , that I know works .

And so I went seeking like a really potent form of curcumin . And once I found it , that's what I've been doing is just sharing . Look , take it in the right form , in the right potency to drive that result that you want . And then let's also talk about that anti inflammatory diet lifestyle , because you can't just take a supplement .

You can use it to solve the current issue Fine , get that inflammation down , but let's put the practices in place to maintain that result . Now .

. But thanks for spending this time with us today , shivani , and thank you so much for all the great work you're doing .

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