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 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. This is what he essentially did for one 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. 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 well Being 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 I found 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 feet. 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 yogi. I want to know more. So I ordered the book. I read it within as soon as I got my hands on it. And in the book they described this ancient science of kaya culpa. Kayakalpa translates into body transformation. This is an ancient science that yogis used to extend their physiological life or age or reverse the physiological age so that they could continue their spiritual pursuits without body being a barrier. 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 five elements.

Okay, so panchakarma is like an element of kayakalpa. Kayakalpa isn't the name for the detox. Panchakarma is the name for the detox that you do if you're doing this kayakalpa program.

Exactly. Kayakalpa 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.

Okay, wait, so you saying kaya culpa is like a really, really intense detox and panchakarma is like a more doable version of that?

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 two 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, like 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 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 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. That's what inspired me to write this book.

What do 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 kitchri. 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 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 penetrate 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, you know, 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, which 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 week. 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 like 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 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, 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 its metabolic gears into detox and repair instead of just metabolizing food.

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.

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 kayakalpa?

Let me just tell you a little bit more about the yogi. So we know who this person doing the kayakalpa 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, are there 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 the, you know, because you, you no doubt know this. Like a lot of people say, longest livid person on record is it's like 115, maybe 117. Now. I think John 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, India, where they didn't have electricity. My dad used to study under a street lamp for his exams. 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 this is when the person was born, this is how long they've lived. But. But when you go out in the world, you see what, 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. But they had no birth records to prove it. Right. She grew, she was born in a small town in China. And they, they basically guessed a date to get her a passport. But her whole family, four or five generations who were there, they're like, no, she's 125.

Okay? You're raising the bar for all these biohackers like Brian 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 Kayakalpa. 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 Caya Culpa 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 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 kayakalpa, 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 three 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 kayakalpas were a little bit sort of trimmed down. But that's what allowed him to be in that physical shape to continue his 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 all.

Tell me more about that research.

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. If you take stem cells, they can become essentially any cell in the body. What we're trying to figure out is, with 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, right? 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.

When I interviewed Dr. Adeel 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 a 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 cells that we want. But this process is going to be a game changer. Not 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 kayakalpa 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.

So it still follows the fundamental principles of panchakarma and kaya kalpa. The step one. So 28 days are split into four stages. The first stage, most important is preparation. So we can't go from, you know, drinking beer, eating, you know, 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 one, 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 two, 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 three, 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 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 three is slowly reintroducing the food as we are waiting for digestion to kind of kick back into full gear. And week four 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.

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 that traditionally grow in Southeast Asia have one of the highest antioxidant content. 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, you know, 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 plus 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, like 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. 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 this 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 hemispheric zones, the sunrise sunset times can vary significantly, but we're talking about more equatorial time zones. Let's say the sun comes up at 6:30. So ideal time to wake up would be around 5:00 o' clock in the time between that hour and a half before sunrise. In yoga it's called Brahmamura, which is God's time. This is the time when your brain waves 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.

Can I ask you real quick, is that due to the. 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 like 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 pre 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 pre 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. 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 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 like 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. Right. 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 9pm, right. 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 like a job or they have a lunch break from like noon to one and you tell them eat the biggest meal of the day but they can't like climb under their desk in a sleeping bag after lunch.

I know that would be 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 like 2 up to sometimes 4pm 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 two and four because that allows me to get reactive time, emails, work done before I jump back into more creative work or connecting with people after 4pm but it also allows me time for like 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.

Exactly. And this is where you try to control your schedule to 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. And if the company's more smart, they will actually give you a longer lunch break because guess what, you actually can 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 or 5 o'. Clock.

Oh, it's early. I like it.

Yeah, so it starts around four or five. But ideally that late afternoon, early evening is a great time for socializing and getting out there, meeting your friends, connecting with your family and then Comes dinner and then again bonding with your family time. And then you hit the sack around between 10 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.

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 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. Right. You're not like 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, and 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.

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, 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. Two, delivering these herbs to the skin and three, 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 it makes you feel good and relaxed.

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.

Exactly. So I teach most of my patients to do it on their own. So there's 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 there I'm lucky I'm in New York. I have a really good panchakarma clinic here. So when I'm doing panchakarma for three or five 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 two, three 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 three 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 typ 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, you know, 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 promote 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 four or five pounds in the three days I was doing it. And it was all water weight. I was just peeing nonstop. So I know it wasn't like fat or anything like it. Just 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. To dump all of that. And. And you can feel it. I'm telling you. Three to five pounds. And I'm pretty thin, so, like three to five pounds, 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 Chaya Calpa 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 one, you do an oil enema. Day two, you do a 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 is 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 bucket that you hang or are you using just 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 three or four 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 like a traditional enema bag and just, you know, that one you typically retain for about 20 to 30 minutes. Most people can 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 glycol lining and the tea detoxify. So you kind of go alternate this one day oil, one day tea for about seven days. And for some patients, depending on what you're doing it for, if you have underlying conditions, sometimes the 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, in with some medical oversight and understanding, you know too much of a good thing cannot be a good thing. So I'm not saying you do these enemas every single day, Right? We're doing it in a certain sense 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.

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, you know, some herbs and some nutrients are fat soluble, whereas some are water soluble. So having that balance 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, you know 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 conscious karma. You drink ghee on an empty stomach to coat the entire inside of your GI tract. So, and we're actually using butyrate enemas for treating. 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 this is just practical experience. It can kind of like afterwards harden up in the enema tube, or 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, you know, sesame oil, especially if it's. So Benny botanical does this where they. 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 do. We don't usually add ghee in the enema. Sometimes we'll actually add honey in the enemas too, for. Depending on certain doshas. But you're absolutely right. The reason why we don't use coconut oil ghee in the enema is because it can harden depending on the temperature. Whereas sesame oil has very similar therapeutic benefits, but much easier to work with.

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, like, I'll have some apple cider vinegar in water before a meal for blood glucose management or digestion, or I'll even have like fluid in the form of a glass of wine with dinner, like. Like how much Water are we talking about to avoid?

So usually about, you know, if you're just doing like, say 8 ounces of water with some apple cider vinegar, that's not a big deal. I'm talking about like the traditional American, like, 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 gotta 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 like an herbal or 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. So that's sort of. And one of the teas I mentioned in the book is ccft, cumin, coriander, fennel. That's your digestion powerhouse. Those three 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. Like 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 what we normally do. So that's why it's very. 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 like 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 to is actually by coming Gaia, they make this gas and bloating capsules. 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.

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, so typically if you're waking up around say between midnight and two, 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 the entra stage of life. So vata imbalance typically manifests those wee hours in the morning. So between three and five, like if you're waking up around like three or four o' clock and having dreams that are more like anxiety written 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.

So you describe the dashas or 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 like hot, cold, damp or dry. In Ayurveda, it's like vata, pitta, kapha. It's very similar concepts. So the idea is that we are made up of the five elements as everything else in nature. So some of us have more of one element versus the others. Where 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, you know, 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. 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.

Exactly. 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 like 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 are 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 a one quick example. In Chinese medicine, the kidney meridian is responsible for your bones. 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. The kidneys are actually responsible for mineral management, for vitamin D and calcium, especially 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.

That's really interesting. Has a 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, definitely. Things have changed a lot in the last 10 years because of people like you. You're spreading the message, getting it to the, 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 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 and 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 two years ago or three 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 Emedicare 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 book gooseberry jams. Go to BenGreenfieldLife.com intentionalhealth BenGreenfieldLife.com intentional health 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 Kayakalpa. But Dr. Parikh, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right folks, I'm Ben Greenfield and Dr. Chitti Parikh signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com intentionalhealth have an incredible week. Do you want free access to comprehensive shownotes, my weekly radio roundup newsletter? Cutting edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life and a whole lot more. Check out BenGreenfieldLife.com it's all there. BenGreenfieldLife.com See you over there. Most of you who listen don't subscribe, like or rate this show. If you're one of those people who do, then huge thank you. But here's why it's important to subscribe, like and or rate this show. If you do that, that means we get more eyeballs, we get higher rankings, and the bigger the Ben Greenfield Live show gets, the bigger and better the guests get and the better the content I'm able to deliver to you. So hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review. If you got a little extra time, it means way more than you might think. Thank you so much. Foreign. With the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links, of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items. But the price is the same for you, and sometimes I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion llc, the makers of Kion branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support and with full authenticity and transparency recommend. In good conscience, I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first product priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body and spirit. And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So there's your fancy legal disclaimer.