The *Unbelievable* Story Of the 185-Year-Old Yogi (& His Exact Longevity Protocol!), How To Fully Cleanse The Body In 28 DAYS, Enema Science & More With Dr. Chiti Parikh

My name is Ben Greenfield. And on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life podcast.

For 1 year, he entered a hut that was specially constructed for this process, which did not let any sound or light in. So, it was supposed to mimic being in mother's womb. To activate stem cells, you have to significantly reduce your basic metabolic rate and significantly stimulate your vagus nerve. This is what he essentially did for 1 whole year. Mimicking being in the mother's womb, complete sensory deprivation, meditation, prolonged fasting. And when he emerged, he had new teeth, hair, skin. He looked about 30, 40 years younger when he emerged.

Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life Show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Ben Greenfield: I am holding a book right now. It's called "Intentional Health: Detoxify, Nourish, and Rejuvenate Your Body into Balance." And, I don't want to tell you how many books I get every week that have yet another detox body reinvention, follow this plan and your life will change forever. And, I usually make it through a third of them and realize it's just a giant echo chamber but I do have several podcasts that I've done on Ayurvedic medicine. And, I paid attention to this book because I saw that it was written by a doctor who has a background in integrative health and wellness and incorporates some elements of Ayurvedic medicine in her practice. Her name, and she wrote the book by the way, is Dr. Chitti Parikh. So, if you aren't familiar with Dr. Parikh, she is a great integrative medicine physician. She's the founder of the Integrated Health and Wellbeing at Cornell Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She wrote this book and it was a page-turner for me. Inside baseball, I'll show you all the pages that are— I should say a page folder for me. That should be my word because all those pages are folded over. And, Dr. Parikh, when I interview somebody on my podcast, I just like to ask all those questions that really related to topics I found really, really interesting in the book. And, I think probably the most important thing or at least the most interesting thing right off the bat was this 185-year-old yogi that you talk about. So, do tell.

So, it was April 2020 when all of our worlds were turned upside down with COVID I was on the front lines in New York taking care of really sick patients. And I got COVID. I got pretty sick, but I had to go right back to the front lines. A month later, I realized that my hair was falling out, I was losing weight, I was getting short of breath just going up a flight of stairs. At that time, no one even knew what COVID was, but what I was experiencing was long COVID. I scoured every medical journal I could find, no answers. And fortuitously, I was on Amazon buying toilet paper as everyone else was at that time,. And a book about a 185-year-old yogi popped up on my feed. To this day, I have no explanation for how that happened. It was an out-of-print book with one copy. I don't even know where it was coming from. And it caught my eye, right? 185-year-old yogi. I want to know more. So I ordered the book. I read it within, you know, as soon as I got my hands on it. And in the book, they described this ancient science of Kaya Kalpa. Kaya Kalpa translates into body transformation. So this is an ancient science that yogis use to extend their physical physiological life or age or reverse the physiological age so that they could continue their spiritual pursuits without body being a barrier. And I had extensively learned about Ayurveda, which is traditional Indian medicine going back thousands of years. So, that inspired me to do the ancient detox ritual called panchakarma, which is detoxification of 5 elements.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, panchakarma is an element of Kaya Kalpa. Kaya Kalpa isn't the name for the detox. Panchakarma is the name for the detox that you do if you're doing this Kaya Kalpa program.

Jessica Marchegiani: Exactly. Kaya Kalpa is more so for the yogis, people who are way higher spiritually than we are. Panchakarma is for mere mortals like me. That's accessible to everybody.

Ben Greenfield: Okay, wait. So, you're saying kaya kalpa is a really, really intense detox and panchakarma is a more doable version of that?

Amieva Alston: Exactly. So, this is something that is part of Ayurvedic medicine that's recommended to many people if you get treated Ayurvedically. So, that's been around for a while. So, I said, "Okay, let me just start there." And Ben, within a week of doing this, my hair completely stopped falling. And, by the end of it, not just physically, mentally, I had never felt better. And, a couple months later, I was clipping my nails because nail salons were still closed. I was clipping my nails and I was like, "Wait a minute, I just did that 2 days ago." That's the sign of health with rapidly growing nails, right? It was shocking to me. So, I went from losing my hair in chunks as if I was going through chemo to cutting my hair, clipping my nails every few days because they were just growing. It was just a sign that my body was in the state of optimal balance, right? This is something I could see on the outside. I can't— I couldn't look into my liver, my kidneys, and my heart, but I knew a huge transformation had taken place. So, that just rejuvenated my passion of really bringing the best of Eastern and Western medicine to the masses. People need to know this science. This is not a myth. This is not a miracle. It is as scientific as it gets and people need to know about it. And that's what inspired me to write this book.

Ben Greenfield: What'd you do? What is the panchakarma cleanse?

So, I'll walk you through. And that's what the 28-day reset in the book is inspired from. It's something to just bring your body back to balance. So, the way it works is first week, you are simplifying your diet, you follow something called a mono diet where you're sticking to one carb, one protein, one fat. So, in Ayurveda, it's something called a khichdi. So, it's rice, lentil, mung beans, yellow mung beans. It's a complete plant-based protein, has all essential amino acids, and ghee, which is extremely rich in something called butyrate or short-chain fatty acids, extremely gut healing. So, that's what you do. And then, you actually start drinking ghee. Just pure ghee on empty stomach in the morning and you don't eat anything until that ghee is digested.

How do you know if it's digested? Are you just waiting a certain period of time or?

When you get hungry. So, you actually pay very close attention to when your true hunger returns. That's how you know how strong your digestion is. And, what the ghee does, it penetrates deep into the tissues to pull out a lot of fat-based toxins that we hold onto. And then, you do these extensive oil massages, sweat therapy, heat, saunas to mobilize the toxins. And then, you take some castor oil to poop it all out because now you're pulling all those toxins into your GI tract while eating a very simple diet. So, your body actually has metabolic power to digest the toxins in the gut. You purge them and then you do about a week of enemas with different herbs that are customized to your body constitution, the doshas, which I talk about. And then, so that's the whole month. It is extremely intense. It is not for the weak. It really needs to be done under an expert care because it has to be curated to your constitution. The herbs, the dosage of the ghee, everything is customized to you.

Yeah, I would imagine that. I mean, I've seen online order a kitchari cleanse kit type of things, but this sounds like something a little more of, I guess, something that might require a little bit more medical management. Is that the case?

Exactly. So, that's why for medical reasons, like what I was doing it for, it required this sort of intense thing. And, I typically do a shorter version about 12-day version of it at least once a year now. And, that's what the 28-Day Reset was inspired. So, I simplified it to make it more accessible to everyone that everyone can do it more comfortably, take out the challenging parts.

Yeah, because I was going to say like this is not what I read in the book. What you just described is like is not the 28-Day Reset.

It's not the 28-Day Reset. So, I want to be very clear. So, I, as a doctor, I always believe in making it simple and safe for everyone. So, I was able to do that because I already did a lot of fasting, intermittent fasting, herbs, things like that were generally part of my sort of regimen. So, I was able to do something like this. But, someone who's extremely new to all of this, it can be very intense. You really have to ease into it.

What's the science behind the one carb, the rice, the protein, which I assume is the beans and/or the lentils, And the one fat, the ghee?

Very good question. So, in Ayurveda, mono diet is a treatment diet. The reason is the idea is that our digestion takes up a significant amount of our energy, our metabolic power, right? So, the idea is when you're detoxing, you want to conserve energy, not use it to digest a big piece of steak and bucket of ice cream, right? You want to simplify your diet to a point where using minimal energy to nourish yourself still, and conserve that and revert that to detox because the same digestion, your gut, your liver can either process food or process toxins, not at the same time. So, if you restrict your diet to what your body really needs to not go into breaking down your muscles, right, you don't want to do an intense fast but nourish your body, but use your liver, use your kidney, use your gut microbiome to actually focus on detoxification.

I've never heard that your liver can't process a food and a toxin simultaneously. What's the reason for that?

The reason is our circadian rhythm. So, our biological clock dictates what the job is for liver at any given time. So, studies have shown that the genes that are responsible detoxification, repair, regeneration actually get activated at night after certain hours of fasting. So, the liver always prioritize digestion. And once that is done, that's why fasting is so important because then your body can switch in metabolic gears into detox and repair instead of just metabolizing food.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, digestion and metabolism is not necessarily conducive to, I would imagine, detoxification and also cellular autophagy. I think I'm suspecting that there probably could be a small amount of detoxification that occurs. I wouldn't imagine the liver's detox pathways are completely shut down in a fed state, but probably it sounds like suppressed significantly.

Yeah. So, if you really want to amplify detoxification, repair, regeneration, the liver needs all the time to focus on it, right? So, that's why the more toxic our diet is, the more medications we take, the more food we overeat, processed foods we eat, it just consumes the liver's capacity. So, the last thing on its list is detoxification. But, if you're eating while you're exercising, you follow a very clean diet, you're fasting properly, then your liver has all this capacity to detoxify and repair and regenerate.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. Elephant in the room here. If what you did, that panchakarma that you just described, was so intense. I just have to ask, what is the Kaya Kalpa?

Let me just tell you a little bit more about the yogi so we know who this person doing the Kaya Kalpa really is. So this yogi was actually a prince, and he gave up his royal life to pursue, you know, to become a monk.

This supposed 185-year-old dude.

Exactly. And there's actually pictures, and we know which kingdom he was part of, and there's records of him. We even have pictures of him.

Birth records, other birth records.

So these are records, these are royal records because he was part of the royal family. So there's lineage as to which king when. So we know who this person was and he was alive until in the— I think he passed away in the '50s or so. So we actually have pictures of this person.

Wow. That's crazy that, you know, because you no doubt know this, like a lot of people say longest-lived person on record is— it was like 115, maybe 117 now. I think Jeanne Calment of France was on that list for a while. But nobody talks about this person.

So, Ben, I took a year off before medical school and I traveled all through Asia and I went to some of the most remote parts of the world. And the people I met and the stories I've heard and what I've actually seen, you know, in Europe and America, we had birth records starting, say, in the 1800s. My grandma grew up in a small town in India where there was no plumbing, there was no electricity. We had no idea what her birth date was. My dad grew up in a small town in India where they didn't have electricity. My dad used to study under a street lamp for his exams. Right. So when you talk about a big part of the world where this science really comes from, we're not going to have birth records, Social Security information to track down and say, you know, this is when the person was born. This is how long they've lived. But, but the But when you go out in the world, you see what— and even in America, I've taken care of a Chinese patient who came to me who the family claimed she was 125. And she looked— I mean, she definitely looked it, but they had no birth records to prove it, right? She grew up— she was born in a small town in China, and they basically guessed a date to get her a passport. But her whole family, 4 or 5 generations who were there, they're like, no, she's 125.

Okay, you're raising the bar for all these biohackers like Bryan Johnson and Dave Asprey and Peter Diamandis and all the people going for 160. But, if they listen, they might be a little bit crestfallen at what it takes, I suspect, if you describe the Kaya Kalpa. So, I'm curious, what is it?

Yeah. So, what the yogi did, so this was a yogi who did intense meditation practices. So, he would actually spend months sitting out in blazing Indian hot summer sun, just directly in the sun and meditating. Then he would spend in the Himalayas, in the mountains, wearing a loincloth in sub-zero temperature, would meditate for months at a time. So what he did for Kaya Kalpa, for one year, he entered a hut that was specially constructed for this process, which did not let any sound or light in. So, it was supposed to mimic being in mother's womb, right? To activate stem cells, you have to significantly reduce your basic metabolic rate and significantly stimulate your vagus nerve. So, he was basically in this sort of hut, this cave, no light, no sound, simply meditating. The only person allowed in there was an Ayurvedic doctor who would put together some herbs and just fresh cow's milk he would drink for nourishment. And prior to entering Kaya Kalpa, he actually did the full panchakarma. Then he entered the hut, and this is what he essentially did for one whole year, mimicking being in the mother's womb, complete sensory deprivation, meditation, prolonged fasting, surviving essentially on a combination of herbs that was curated by the Ayurvedic doctor. And when he emerged, he had new teeth, hair, skin, you know, everything was— he looked about 30, 40 years younger when he emerged. But he actually went through this process 3 times in his life. And that's how he was able to— and of course, as he got older, he couldn't do the full year. So the subsequent kaya kalpas were a little bit sort of trimmed down. But that's what allowed him to be in that physical shape to continue spiritual practice. But, I mean, again, not for us mere mortals, but it gives you hope that there is a way to activate our stem cells. We're doing this in our lab, right? We're doing research in our hospital, in our medical school where we're regenerating body organs like liver from stem cells, right? So, this is not myth. This is science. They just figured out how to do it. We're still figuring it out, right? We're still trying to make sense out of it all.

Ben Greenfield: Tell me more about that research.

So, what we're trying to do is take stem cells and figure out how to activate certain gene signaling pathways to almost direct the cells in certain paths. So, if you take stem cells, they can become essentially any cell in the body. So, what we're trying to figure out is which genes, which signal do we need to activate to make that cell, say, into a liver versus a heart versus a cornea of your eye. So, that's what the science is really focused on. We're already using stem cell therapies to cure certain types of cancers. So, we are getting closer and closer to a point where we'll be able to extract stem cells from someone's body and give the cells the right signals to turn into essentially any cell we want in their body.

Ben Greenfield: When I interviewed Dr. Adil Khan of Eterna Health down in Cabo, he described how they're doing a sort of genetic reprogramming of stem cells to achieve something very similar to what you've described. Is that what they're doing? Is it genetic programming?

Exactly. So there are some genetic sequences you can activate and also external cell signaling pathways you can trigger that can optimize this process of converting stem cells into actual, you know, cells that we want. But this process is going to be a game changer, not in just in the field of cancer as we're seeing right now, but organ regeneration. There's a recent study out of China where they have actually cured diabetes using stem cells. They were able to regenerate pancreatic cells.

Wow, it's incredible. This is so cool. And, it's interesting how we are possibly in a way despite a lot of people I know kind of have this sense that you must climb to the top of Mount Everest in order to get the results, but with science, we might be in a way able to simulate with a little bit more ease and less time in a cave what this yogi got with the Kaya Kelpa approach.

The medicine is within all of us. It's just a matter of learning how to activate it.

So, let's talk about the 28-day reset because from what I understand, that is kind of a way to achieve this type of activation.

Yeah? Mm-hmm. So, it still follows the fundamental principles of panchakarma and kaya kalpa. The step 1, so 28 days are split into 4 stages. The first stage, most important is preparation. So, we can't go from drinking beer, eating junky food, and then just going straight into detox. That's not how the body works. You need to prepare. The way you prepare is you start easing and simplifying your diet, your lifestyle, so your body can start conserving the energy and shifts gear into detox process. So week 1, we're cutting out all the foods that are heavy to digest. Does not mean that these foods are bad for you. Things like dairy, gluten, meat. It's not that they're bad, it's just they're very heavy to digest. So let's simplify it, get closer to that mono diet as much as possible. And then week 2, we amplify the detoxification by sticking to a mono diet and adding some of the herbs that can help with the detoxification process. And then week 3, we ease out of the detox by slowly, methodically reintroducing the foods based on how easy they are to digest because we have to wait for our digestion to shift gears out of detox into digesting food. If we mess up and if we do that too quickly, we're just, you know, we're just reaccumulating the toxins because in Ayurveda, there's a saying that food that is metabolized properly becomes nutrition. Food that is not metabolized properly becomes toxin and root cause of disease. Food is the same. So throughout this process, we have to be very mindful of eating according to what we can digest. So, week 3 is slowly reintroducing the food as we are waiting for digestion to kind of kick back into full gear. And week 4 is rejuvenation. This is where you take some of the herbs that really amplify the rejuvenation process. But if you take that stuff before detoxing, it's not going to work, right? It's like trying to paint a car that's still dirty. It's not going to work. You got to clean the car, then you paint it, the paint's going to stick. So, rejuvenation allows your body to really— it's a clean slate. So, you're selectively putting in the herbs that are extremely transformative, rejuvenating, adaptive. So, they're going to build a strong foundation for you for years to come, right? This is where you start reaping the benefit and you continue to see those benefits even months out from the 28-day reset, as I did with my hair and skin, everything sort of rejuvenated within a matter of a month.

So— Ben Greenfield: That all makes really good sense. And I know that you get into way more details in the book. And if you want to try this program, took my wife out to dinner last night and I was telling her I was going to interview this morning. She's like, "That sounds really cool. I would like to try that and see what happens to my body." And I said, "Well, me too. I'm actually intrigued by it. I haven't done it yet. Probably should have to do ample research for this podcast to ask you questions about, I don't know, what kind of poop came out or something." But, the interesting thing, the herbs that rejuvenate, what are those?

So, in Ayurveda, there's a whole class of herbs that are adaptogenic and rejuvenating. So, rejuvenating herbs help us regenerate, rebuild cells. Again, it triggers those pathways that help us activate the stem cells. So, one of the big ones we often use is amla or gooseberry. So, gooseberries, they traditionally grow in Southeast Asia, have one of the highest antioxidant contents It's almost 10,000 times, I believe, compared to like a blueberry. So, extremely high antioxidant content. So, it makes sense, has tremendous rejuvenation potential because if you take these antioxidants, you protect your body against oxidative stress that comes from wear and tear and aging, right? So, that's one of the main things that it's this herbal jam that you have to eat. It actually tastes delicious that you eat during the rejuvenation phase. And, one of the key ingredients is this gooseberry or amla.

Oh, it's a jam?

It's a jam. So, it's a concoction of about 30+ herbs that are mixed with some honey, with some ghee.

This sounds delicious. Where do I get it?

It's absolutely delicious. I have to actually prevent my husband from eating too much of it because he just puts it on an apple or something. He'll just eat the whole bottle if I don't stop him. It's delicious. The herbs you take for detox are not delicious. They taste like dirt. So that's a little reward you get after you finish your detox.

Okay, where do you get this mysterious amla gooseberry jam?

So one of the companies that I use for this is Banyan Botanicals. They— Oh yeah. Yeah, so they do a really good job at curating high-quality Ayurvedic herbs. They are very mindful of how they make their products that are clean, they're ethically sourced. So, they actually put in a lot of effort. And making this jam is a long process because you have to cultivate the right herbs at the right time, put it together, you have to store it for X number of time, and then it's sort of ready for consumption. So, there's a lot of work that goes into making it.

So, we've got the rejuvenative herbs and the detoxifying herbs. And those are at different parts of the timing of the 28-day cycle. The timing thing is really interesting. Because you have a couple of clocks in the book. You show the Chinese medicine clock and then you have another clock. I don't know if it's one that you developed. I forget which page it's on, but it kind of goes through some of the ways that you incorporate some of this Ayurvedic typing into a circadian rhythm or a daily rhythm. I realize it's a little bit of a complex question that might rabbit hole a little bit, but walk me through what a typical day would look like following the body's clocks. In a somewhat ideal manner?

Yeah. So, the first thing I focus on with my patients even is synchronizing your clock, your circadian rhythm with that of the nature, right? When those things are synchronized, everything works effortlessly. So, the first thing is figuring out when are you going to bed, when are you waking up, and when are you eating your meals. So, the ideal time to wake up is actually about an hour and a half before sunrise. And understand, in extreme, like, hemispheric zones, the sunrise sunset times can vary significantly, but we're talking about more sort of equatorial time zones, right? So, let's say the sun comes up at 6:30. So, ideal time to wake up would be around 5 o'clock. In the time between that hour and a half before sunrise, in yoga, it's called Brahma Murat, which is God's time. So, this is the time when your brainwaves are in optimal theta state. So, this is peak creativity time. So, this is the time if you meditate, the results are almost 10 times stronger.

Ben Greenfield: Can I ask you real quick? I think someone explained to me on the podcast, I believe it was when I interviewed Joseph Anu, he talked about why he meditates in the morning. And, he described how there's a very high amount of, I believe, theta brainwave production in the morning. So, you almost wake up in a meditative state.

Exactly. So, if you wake up at that time, your cortisol changes throughout the day, your pineal gland changes, your melatonin, your growth hormone, everything changes if you wake up during that time and maximize theta brainwave state. So, that's sort of the golden hour for creativity. And then, the idea is then you go about your daily business in the sense the first thing you do is drink a big glass of warm water. To activate your GI tract. That should instigate, you know, that should stimulate your bowels. You have your bowel movement. After that, you exercise, you know, some physical activity. Then you eat your breakfast. And then between breakfast and lunch is your peak productivity when it comes to your work, right? This is when you don't want to be in a boring Zoom meeting. This is when you actually want to get work done. And then lunch should be your biggest meal of the day. This is when your metabolism, your digestion is the strongest. This is when you can metabolize some carbs if you're eating carbs. This is when you want to get bulk of your calories in.

Can I ask you a question about lunch? Because I think there might be a little bit of a nuance here between what's ideal and what results in more life satisfaction and happiness, like what's ideal and healthy and life satisfaction and happiness. What I mean by that is if I make lunch my biggest meal of the day, I'm a little bit tired, I'm a little bit sluggish, I go to sleep. And then, when the big time for a family gathering in the evening arrives and family dinner, it's kind of like you've used up your calorie allotment earlier in the day. And because of that, for me, even though it's— I've admitted this before on podcasts, ideally I'd stop eating earlier, I'd have a smaller meal in the evening, but that's the time when everybody gathers. And, that happens to a lot of people. All the social stuff happens in the evening. So, do you ever adjust that at all?

So, what I always say that you can still partake, you can still enjoy evening meal, just make it something easy to digest, right? So, don't even think about the calories. Is it easy for me to digest? Because the last thing you want your body to do as you're going to bed is still working on your last meal because that will affect whether you go into ketosis at night, whether you go into that detox phase.

Okay. So, would it be fair to say then if you were going to have a bunch of heavy fats, proteins, red meats, oils, et cetera, move those to lunch and then dinner could be more like berries, fish, rice, sweet potatoes, roasted vegetables, things like that. And, you could still enjoy what seems like a big family dinner or social outing, but you're not doing spicy heavy super high protein or high-fat foods.

You got it. Exactly. So, this is where you can still enjoy a plate full of food but not weigh you down in a way.

That makes sense. I should try that. Okay, got it.

And, it's a little bit of a different concept because we're so used to thinking about calories and carbs, but in Ayurveda, it's all about what's easy to digest and what's going to take a lot of energy to digest. So, that's how you time it. It's like a big piece of meat, I'm better off doing at lunch. That's when my digestion is the strongest. I can break it down much more easily than at 9:00 PM. So, it's all about the timing and kind of capitalizing on when your digestion, your metabolism is the strongest.

So, on the clock, what happens after lunch?

So, after lunch, it's your siesta time. So, they actually recommend because it's your biggest meal, you do need to give your body a little bit of break and rest to optimize digestion. And then, comes the peak time for actually coordination organizing.

What do you say to patients who have a job where they have a lunch break from noon to 1:00 and you tell them eat the biggest meal of the day? But they can't climb under their desk in a sleeping bag after lunch.

I know. That would be the ideal, right? If we were in Spain, we would all be having a siesta, but we're not.

That's true. There are areas of the world where you don't even have any stores, restaurants, anything open from 2:00 up to sometimes 4:00 PM. I've seen that in Spain before when I toured Northern Spain. I set up my own protocol actually to where I tell my team I don't take any calls. Between 2:00 and 4:00 because that allows me to get reactive time, emails, work done before I jump back into more creative work or connecting with people after 4:00 PM. But, it also allows me time for 30 to 45 minutes of downtime after lunch. So, I just program that in, but I own my company, so I'm kind of in control of that. I would imagine there are some employees who just aren't.

No, exactly. And, this is where You try to control your schedules the best of your ability, right? So this is where you might not want to schedule a super important meeting, but just keep that in mind that this just, you just know that your productivity, your focus is going to take a little bit of a hit after lunch. So schedule your day as best as you can around that and respect that. If the companies were smart, they will actually give you a longer lunch break. Cause guess what? You actually going to be more productive after that than trying to make it work through your lunch break. So, but like you said, a lot of other countries follow that and guess what? They're healthier, right? They're healthier for it. So, but that's sort of the ideal, that's how our body works. And, we try to fit that into our schedule the best we can. And, I'm glad you mentioned socializing because in Ayurveda, there is a time for happy hour and that's right around 4:00 or 5:00.

Oh, it's early.

I like it. Yeah. So, it starts around 4:00 or 5:00, but ideally that late afternoon, early evening is a great time for socializing and getting out there, meeting your friends, connecting with your family. Family. And then comes dinner and then again bonding with your family time. And then, you hit the sack around between 10:00 and midnight. That's sort of the ideal time to go to bed to capitalize on the growth hormone surge. So, that's what a typical day would look like in the Eastern and Western clocks.

Ben Greenfield: It's really interesting. Maybe it's because I've interviewed so many Ayurvedic practitioners, My own protocol besides probably breaking that lunch is the biggest meal, dinner is a lighter meal rule kind of closely simulates what you've described. I wake up, I've got meditation, prayer, journaling. I drink a huge glass of water. I move around and bounce and shake a little bit. Then, we have family meditation. Then, I go do my poo and then I work out and then I have my first meal and then I jump into my most productive work of the day. I have lunch, I siesta, I work more, we break for family social time around 6:30 or so, we have dinner at 7:00, and then we wind down with songs and games and hit the sack. So, I feel like I'm kind of close.

And, you know what, when we follow that, it feels so natural. You're not swimming upstream. So, when we listen to our body and synchronize our clock with that, what our body is entrained to do over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, it works effortlessly. So, what you did intuitively is exactly what we should be doing is listening to our body and work with it, not against it.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. I don't know if I did it intuitively. I just talked to a lot of smart people like you who have the science behind this stuff. There's some interesting things that you said when you were describing the 28-day reset and the panchakarma that I want to ask a couple of quick questions about. The oil massage, I also read about this in your book. It sounds fantastic. I've never done it, but can you describe that?

It's the most relaxing and sort of invigorating at the same time. So, the idea in Ayurveda, we use skin as a way to deliver herbs because skin is our biggest organ, right? And, the beauty of delivering anything to the skin is that it bypasses the gut because remember I said the gut has to do a lot of work, digest food, digest toxins. So, the idea is during detoxification, we're using skin as a way to get some of the herbs in and mobilize more fat-based toxins. So, use certain oils, especially something like sesame oil, almond oil, and then you infuse them with certain herbs depending on your constitution. And, by doing the oil massage, you, A, increasing circulation, lymphatic drainage, very important for your immune system, 2, delivering these herbs through the skin, and 3, getting ready to sweat out the toxins the same way the herbs are going in. So, that's the overall purpose and the medicinal benefit of actually doing the oil massage besides obviously makes you feel good and relaxed.

Ben Greenfield: So, you're doing this on your own. You're not going to a massage therapist and giving them the oil. You're able to self-apply.

Jessica DiRosa: Exactly. So, I teach most of my patients to do it on their own. So, there is certain ways of doing it like head to toe, certain strokes just for the direction of lymphatic drainage you want to keep in mind. But I sometimes treat myself. So, I'm lucky I'm in New York. I have a really good panchakarma clinic here. So, when I'm doing panchakarma for 3 or 5 days, I'll just go every day for the massage there. And, it's just one of the most relaxing calming things. But, the rest of the times, I typically do this on my own at least 2, 3 times a week. But, I find it to be a very grounding practice in itself.

Yeah, I've never actually given myself an oil massage, but I did do 3 weeks in India a few months ago and I think I got some kind of an herbal oil massage almost every day and it was fantastic. I hadn't read your book yet. I didn't realize these medicinal benefits. But the company you mentioned earlier, Banyan Botanicals, I think they have oils that are already infused with some of these herbs, don't they?

They do, yeah. And they're also dosha-specific. So, you can actually take a quiz in the book or online on their website to figure out which dosha or which body type type you are, and you can pick the right oil to match yourself. And then, you can use that. And sometimes, I even tell people, like some of my patients have anxiety and insomnia issues. So, I'll say, "Before you go to bed, take some time to do some deep breathing, some meditation, put some of the oil on your feet and your hand, just massage." And, that in itself stimulates the nervous system beautifully, activates the vagus nerve, and really helps them fall asleep. So, you can also pick an oil that has some of these herbs infused in them that promotes sleep and relaxation. So, I'm telling you, the oil massage is a great tool that is often overlooked to infuse yourself with those medicinal properties without having to just pop pills all the time.

That's awesome. I actually do massage rose or lavender essential oil onto my feet and on either side of my neck, kind of by the vagus nerve before I go to bed. So, I guess maybe I do kind of do a baby miniature oil massage.

Yeah. And, it really works. And, if you do the traditional Abhyanga, which is the oil massage, because of the lymphatic drainage, when I was doing Panchakarma, the last time I did it just a few months ago, I probably lost about 4 or 5 pounds in the 3 days I was doing it. And, it was all water weight. I was just peeing nonstop. So, I know it wasn't fat or anything like that. The amount of lymphatic fluid that just sits there because of inflammation, oxidative stress, environmental toxins, and everything we're exposed to. This is a great way to dump all of that. And you can feel it. I'm telling you, 3 to 5 pounds, and I'm pretty thin, so 3 to 5 pounds is a significant amount for me. And I know it's all of that water weight that I'm just— weighing me down.

Speaking of drainage, the other question I was going to ask you was about these enemas. Believe it or not, I have a pretty motivated audience, maybe not Kaya Kalpa stock, but they're willing to do quite a few things to get healthier or live longer. And, I've talked about coffee enemas before, even written articles about them, and I actually do a coffee enema once a week. But, you mentioned these other herbal enemas. What are some of those and how do you do those?

So in Panchakarma, they say 50% of the therapeutic benefit is actually from the enemas because ultimately what you're doing is you're pulling all the toxins into the gut and dumping them out. But then the enemas reset the gut, repopulate the gut microbiome, and create a strong gut barrier. So it protects you for months and years to come. So that's the whole idea behind enema. And the way it's traditionally done is you start out with an oil enema to actually lubricate the colon so it doesn't dry out. And then, you alternate that. So, day 1, you do an oil enema. Day 2, you do an herbal tea enema.

Wait, I'm going to stop you there for a second. What's an oil enema? How do you do that?

So, oil enema is basically— usually, traditionally, sesame oil. So, it's just sesame oil, about 50 to 75 cc you start with and you typically do it after you eat, usually after dinner. And then, you insert the oil in the rectum and then you should be able to retain it. So, most of the times, What I suggest, you just go to bed with it and then the oil would just get absorbed.

What delivery mechanism are you using for something like an oil enema? Is the same like bucket that you hang or are you using just like an enema bulb?

Yeah, you can use a bulb. That's probably the easiest because the quantity is very little. So, bulb is probably the easiest way to do it.

Yeah, it's a very small amount.

Yeah, it can be messy. But, with the syringe or the bulb, it's much easier. And then, the second day, you do the tea enema. So, the tea is customized to your constitution. So, you'll pick 3 or 4 different types of herbs, boil it, reduce it down to about half the amount so it's concentrated, strain it, and then you put that in a traditional enema bag and just— that one you typically retain for about 20 to 30 minutes. Most people can't go that long. Most people after 10 minutes, you might have the urge to empty. But, with practice, you're able to retain it for 20, 30 minutes. So, oil rejuvenates the colon lining and the tea detoxifies. So, you kind of go alternate this, one day oil, one day tea for about 7 days. And, for some patients, depending on what you're doing it for, if you have underlying conditions, sometimes Ayurvedic doctor might even recommend for about 15 days, especially if there's severe gut microbiome disruption or gut health issues or autoimmune issues or things like that. But it is a profound— has a profound long-lasting impact on your gut microbiome.

Some enema critics, yes, those exist, will say that enemas could strip the body of minerals or dehydrate you and/or strip the— I believe the way it's described is somehow remove good colonic flora or reduce the bacterial population in the colon. Do you think there's anything to those ideas?

I personally don't think so. I think enema therapy has been around for thousands of years and it's been used to deliver the benefits of many herbs. So, I don't think— as long as you're doing it in the right way with some medical oversight and understanding, too much of a good thing cannot be a good thing. So, I'm not saying you do these enemas every single day. We're doing it in a certain setting by preparing your body, coming in and out of it very gently, that has a tremendous therapeutic benefit. So, I don't want people to put enemas, all enemas, no pun intended, in the same bucket because you literally have to understand that this is a treatment that's been around for thousands of years.

So— Well, this is not based on science. This is based on intuition and the my knowledge about the existence of butyric acid and flora in the colon, I put a big dollop of homemade yogurt and a couple capsules of butyric acid in my enema. So, when I do a coffee enema, there's also probiotics and butyric acid in there.

Extremely important. So, in Ayurveda, they always say some sort of fat is very important when you're doing enemas to help you absorb some of the nutrients because some herbs and some nutrients are fat-soluble whereas some are water-soluble. So, having that balance is is key. And you're not stripping your gut microbiome, you're actually enhancing it with the yogurt. The butyrate does wonders for your colon lining. That's why sesame oil, ghee, these things— ghee is one of the highest, richest amounts of butyrate, butyric acid. And that's the reason when Ayurveda, we use ghee as part of kancha karma. You drink ghee on an empty stomach to coat the entire inside of your GI tract. And, we're actually using butyrate enemas as part of treatment for inflammatory bowel disease with Crohn's disease, with ulcerative colitis. Tomatoes, tomatoes, we're doing the same exact thing thousands of years later, right?

Yeah. I'm prone to IBD and I rarely get any issues as long as I maintain that weekly coffee enema. I do sometimes add, not to overload people with too many recipes, I do sometimes add a little bit of olive oil to it. As well. I don't use ghee or butter for the butyric acid because, and this is just practical experience, it can kind of afterwards harden up in the enema tube. I use a stainless steel bucket because I don't want to use plastic, but then you got to figure out a way to melt the butter or the ghee out of there before the next enema. So, that's why I use the butyric acid capsules that I just break open.

Yeah. And, that's why butyric acid or even sesame oil has— sesame oil, especially if it's— so Ben Greenfield does this where they cure the oil a little bit for enemas. So, some of their oil is cured and that makes it much more absorbable. So, that's why ghee is traditionally ingested. We don't usually add ghee in the enema. Sometimes, we'll actually add honey in the enemas too depending on certain doshas. But, you're absolutely right. The reason why we don't use coconut oil, ghee in the enemas because it can harden depending on the temperature. Whereas sesame oil has very similar therapeutic benefits but much easier to work with.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. Another important question moving on from enemas. This is related to water temperature, by the way. Do make sure your enema is at the correct water temperature. Don't make that mistake. But the thing about water, you see this a lot in Ayurvedic books. I think yours was the third book where I read this. Don't drink excessively cold water. With meals and preferably don't drink water with meals, period. Why is that?

So, in order for food to be digested properly, remember, food that is not digested properly becomes toxin, right? We want the food to be digested properly so it becomes nutrition. And, the best way your body can digest food that you're eating is with acid and enzymes, right? The pH of your stomach has to be below 4 to activate enzymes to break down the proteins, fat, carbs, and fiber in your diet. When I drink a big glass of water with my meal, the pH of water is 7 and the acid is 2 to 4. So the more water I drink, the more it dilutes the acid. And once you get above a pH of 5, those enzymes don't work properly. So when you do that, the food does not get broken down properly, which will lead to gas, bloating. Guess what? That partially digested food, as it's making its way down, the bacteria in your gut will start fermenting it and cause even more gas and bloating. So then, we are feeding the bad bacteria, not the good bacteria.

Does the volume of the water matter though? Because a lot of times, I'll have some apple cider vinegar in water before a meal for blood glucose management or digestion, or I'll even have fluid in the form of a glass of wine with dinner. How much water are we talking about to avoid?

So usually about, if you're just doing say 8 ounces of water with some apple cider vinegar, that's not a big deal. I'm talking about the traditional American giant bucket of ice water that you get served. When you sit down to eat, most people are like, oh shit, I didn't drink any water. I got to drink all of that now.

Right?

So, that's the problem. Is a little bit of water not a problem, especially if you're doing something with apple cider vinegar or an herbal digestive tea? So, when you go to an Asian restaurant, you sit down, they give you those tiny little cups like a little ginger tea, right? So, if you hydrate with some of these herbs like ginger, it will actually stimulate your digestion. And, one of the teas I mentioned in the book is CCF tea, cumin, coriander, fennel. That's your digestion powerhouse, those 3 herbs.

I love those herbs and ginger. You've got on page 78, I have this page folded over, key Ayurvedic tips for digestion. Aside from avoiding excess water and especially cold water and also considering herbs like fennel, coriander, cumin, or something like ginger with a meal, are there any other big wins in the digestive-enhancing department?

Yeah, mindful eating. I cannot stress that enough. You got to chew your food. Your stomach does not have teeth, right? The easier you make for your body to digest the food, the slower you eat, right? It won't spike your blood sugar as much. It will digest the food better, allow for better insulin management. So, the list goes on when it comes to just chewing your food, slowing down when you're eating. And the third thing I'll say, always eat to about two-thirds of your capacity, right? Your stomach needs about a third of it to be empty to allow for all these gastric juices, to do its magic. If there's not enough space, the food gets pushed out of the stomach prematurely without getting digested. It's like a washing machine. When you're throwing your load of laundry, you don't fill it up completely with clothes, right? The water's got to go somewhere. The detergent's got to go somewhere. Same thing with the stomach. I would say about 50% of a lot of health ailments can be fixed if we just eat about half of what we normally do. So that's why We have to be very mindful about how slowly we eat and how much we eat at any given time.

Let's say I'm at work and I'm ordering in and I'm pretty good. Maybe I've got, I don't know, some vegan Mexican seed oil-free restaurant. I've got a salad with some salmon or whatever, but I don't necessarily have an herb closet full of cumin and coriander and fennel and ginger. Is there a case to be made for enzymes or do you have any hacks for travel using Ayurvedic digestion-enhancing tactics?

Absolutely. So I typically tell my patients to keep some of these teas or capsules. So one of my go-tos actually by a company called Gaia, they make this gas and bloating capsule. So I never travel without those, especially if you're on a plane travel. Those work like magic. So some of my patients who have digestive issues, I typically have them travel with that. I might have them take apple cider vinegar capsules or gummies with them. Digestive enzymes are very, very helpful. So, when you're on the go or when you're struggling to digest certain foods, then it's so important you take some of these digestive aids so that that food gets processed properly, metabolized properly, and doesn't cause issues down the road.

Ben Greenfield: Okay, that's helpful. Another question that's related to Ayurvedic medicine that I'm very curious about because I hear all sorts of different opinions on this Is there something to the idea that when you wake up at different times during the night that that relates to a specific organ or part of your biology?

Yeah, it's fascinating stuff. So, when I talk to my patients, I typically ask them, "Okay, are you sleeping through the night? If not, when are you waking up? What time are you waking up? What kind of dreams you're having?" All of that can actually give us an insight as to which dosha might be out of balance. So, typically, if you're waking up around, say, between midnight and 2:00, that's when Pitta dosha is very active. So, this is when the liver is sort of detoxing and purging. There's a lot of heat in the body. There's a lot of inflammation in the body. That's typically the time when you would wake up. And, the types of dreams you might have are more sort of anger, frustration, those type of dreams. If you have something called Vata imbalance, you typically wake up, and this is very common when women go through perimenopause, menopause. They have— they enter a vata stage of life. So, vata imbalance typically manifests those wee hours in the morning, so between 3 and 5. Like, if you're waking up around like 3 or 4 o'clock and having dreams that are more like anxiety-ridden, like you're trying to— you know, someone's chasing you, that's typically indicative of like more of a vata imbalance. So, when you wake up can definitely give us an insight as to which dosha is your body trying to process or having a slightly harder time doing.

So, you describe the doshas. Are those different than being hot, cold, damp, or dry, the other constitutions you describe in the book?

Yeah. So, doshas are very similar. So, in Chinese medicine, we often categorize a constitution as hot, cold, damp, or dry. In Ayurveda, it's vata, pitta, kapha. It's very similar concepts. So, the idea is that we are made of the 5 elements as everything else in nature. So, some of us have more of one element versus the others, or sometimes in our lives, one element could be out of balance compared to the other. So, if we recognize those signs, we can bring it back to balance mindfully. So, for instance, it's middle of summer, right? And I love spicy food. So, if it's summertime and I'm indulging in all this spicy food, there's going to be a lot of heat in my body. So, that might manifest as some oral ulcers, some acid reflux, some diarrhea, some rashes on my skin, right? So, that's the sign of a lot of heat in the body. So, I'm like, "Oh, too much heat in the body. It's also summer. I need to ease off on the spicy food. Maybe I need to have some watermelons, some cucumbers, some cooling foods that are in season to balance off the heat that's in the environment, that's in my body." So, a lot of this is an intuitive process. So, the more we understand how nature works, how seasons work, we can kind of work with it.

So, in very simplistic terms, this could make a case for say eggs and bacon and avocado off the skillet for breakfast in the winter and a nice cool smoothie in the summer.

Exact. And intuitively, that's what we crave, right? So, if it's middle of the winter, I want a big bowl of porridge, something warm, right? I don't want a green juice in the middle of winter. But, in July right now, I want to start my day with a nice fruit, whatever freshest fruits I can get my hands on. I don't want a hot bowl of oatmeal. So, listening to your intuition is also going to very much mimic what nature intends us to do.

And I could be mistaken here, but if hot, cold, damp, and dry comes from Chinese medicine and some of these other clocks and doshas that you described come from Ayurvedic medicine, you've kind of researched and incorporate both Chinese and Ayurvedic?

Exactly. So, I'm trained in acupuncture. I've studied Chinese medicine extensively as I have Ayurveda. And they're very, very similar. It's just they're using slightly different words. Like they might talk about meridians versus doshas, right? So, it's saying the same thing using different words. So, that's what I love about the work I do. It's like I get to learn all these ancient sciences and figure out the connection with Western medicine. I can interpret it in the Western terms. So, I'll just give you one quick example. In Chinese medicine, The kidney meridian is responsible for your bones. And it was just fascinating to me that only now in the last 30, 40 years, we recognize the kidney actually produces a hormone that helps your body metabolize vitamin D better. So the kidneys are actually responsible for mineral management, for vitamin D and calcium especially. So in Chinese medicine, they knew kidney meridian, very important for bone health. And now we're like, oh, okay. That makes sense. So, it's just fascinating to find these correlations and say, "Wow, they really kind of figured that out a long time ago." Ben Greenfield: That's really interesting.

Has the landscape changed as far as acceptance of these principles? Because I still get a sense that Western medicine kind of frowns on these ancient Eastern principles steeped in thousands of years of blah, blah, blah without double-blinded human clinical research. Do you still run into that?

I still do. And definitely things have changed a lot in the last 10 years because of, you know, people like you spreading the message, getting it to the folks who are really wanting to take their health into their own hands, right? And be proactive versus the traditional Western model. Like, you know, the doctor says this, you do that, right? We're kind of moving past that. And this is where I'm really seeing an interest from general population in understanding their body from both Eastern and Western medicine. So, I think Western medicine has to open its eyes. And, I am seeing the change because one of the big components of NIH is NCCIH, National Center for Complementary Integrative Health. Their budget in the '90s was $2 million. And, as of 2021, I believe their budget is $130 million to research things like acupuncture, to herbs, herbal medicine, things like tai chi, yoga, qigong. And that's the reason why Medicare actually 2 years ago or 3 years ago now approved coverage for acupuncture for low back pain.

Oh, wow.

Incredible. So in our practice, we see Medicare patients, we treat them with acupuncture, you know, so tide is definitely turning, not fast enough in my opinion, but who would have thought that acupuncture was going to be first-line treatment for low back pain and Medicare was going to pay for it?

I've seen it completely eliminate seasonal allergies in my teenage son, like literally almost overnight.

It is such a powerful medicine that right now we think that it's only for musculoskeletal stuff. No, it's a complete medicine. Acupuncture is there to treat pretty much everything. We're starting with back pain. Fine. That's a good place to start. But I hope we recognize the true potential of these ancient healing methods.

What I'm going to do is I'll link to the book, everything else we talked about. I'm going to hunt down some of that fantastic gooseberry jams. Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/IntentionalHealth. BenGreenfieldLife.com/IntentionalHealth. Check out the book, this book right here, Detoxify, Nourish, and Rejuvenate Your Body into Balance because obviously, Dr. Parikh gave an overview, but if you actually want it all laid out there in front of you to just follow the program and see the steps of each day of that 28-day protocol, highly recommend it. I just got to find a time to actually do it and maybe a cave to climb into when I decide to upgrade to the kayak. But, Dr. Parikh, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

Alright, folks. I'm Ben Greenfield and Dr. Chitti Parikh signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com/IntentionalHealth. Have an incredible week.

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