How Ayurveda Heals Bloating Balances Hormones and Reduces Inflammation with Salila Sukumaran

Inflammation. Do you have a remedy that people should consider?

Piper Lee is a very good remedy for inflammation. Piper Lee is a cousin of pepper and it's called long pepper. If people can add a little bit of Piper Lee to triphala before bedtime, take half teaspoon of triphala with a large pinch of pipili powder with some honey and a little bit of ghee. Have that for about 10, 15 days and you will see the change in inflammation levels.

All right, well, welcome Salila to Rooted in Wellness. I'm so excited to dive in with you today. It's actually people like you and the work that you're doing that were the entire inspiration for this podcast. So welcome.

Thank you so much, Mona. Thank you for having me. Such a pleasure and an honor.

Well, before we dive in, I want to set the stage and especially for new people who might be joining so that they know what this podcast is about. This podcast really is about becoming rooted in ancient wisdom and acknowledging. Acknowledging that ancient wisdom is available in our modern world and it can actually be used to help us feel more rooted. That's rooted in our health, in our self, in our life, in our inner wisdom that we all have to heal. So let's start off the episode by asking, you know, I'd love for you to share, what are three things that help you feel more rooted in yourself and in your life?

Love is the first thing that helps me feel rooted. As soon as I wake up, I offer love to whoever is around me, my doggie, my animals, and just place my hand on my heart. I do this thing where I place my hand on my heart and just stay there for a couple of minutes. You were talking about how important the heart health is and how stress can really wear us down. I see love as the antidote to stress. So love is definitely the first way I bring myself into my center. The second is grabbing a cup of hot water, something that is warm, hot, drinking that slow sipping in the morning, that's another way to root me. And the third way is to apply oil on my body and to just feel that, you know, that sensual intelligence of the skin awakening that is so important for us women to feel grounded. So whether that's oil on my face if I don't have time or doing a full on abhyangam which is a oil massage of the body, these are the my three non negotiables to start my morning.

Effy, that's beautiful. You're the first person who on this podcast so far who said that they have the same morning Ritual with hands over heart. Obviously, this is a more personal story for me, but every single morning, my hands go over my heart. And I love that you align with the feeling of love in terms of just the vibration. Because I think so many of our listeners, myself included, we wake up and we feel stress.

We.

We rush off to our day. We're constant or we're. We're. We're pushed into that sympathetic mode and overdrive. But starting with love is a game changer. So those are beautiful shares. We're gonna talk about Abhyanga today, so stay tuned for more of that. Yeah, so on the flip side, you have an incredible Instagram page. I see the comments that people have today. I think the understanding of wellness is that it's very complicated. And so much so that we might even have these rituals that might seem like they're healthy, but they might actually be uprooting us. So for you, you've been so anchored in these rituals for so long. Do you notice when you get uprooted and what are the things that cause you to feel uprooted?

Stress is definitely the number one thing. You know, stress and trying to get that to do list. And if you are doing any work in this world, then you are drawn outside your body. You're constantly demanded. Your time is demanded by others. And because you're empathetic and you want to be helpful, which healers like you and me are, we naturally want to keep going out, offering ourselves. And that is what really pulls us outside of our body and our energy. Stress is what is in our environment. All pervasive.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that we might have become accustomed to living with higher levels of stress than we're used to. So it's a good. Call it. To remind us of that one. And this is actually a really good segue when we think about Ayurveda. Right. I think that this is a philosophy that really recognizes stress as the instigation of all disease. And people, I have a feeling, just they either feel that Ayurveda is too complicated or that it could be another fad that's trending these days. But let's really anchor in the fact that this is something that's been practiced for over 5,000 years and that this is a practice that teaches us about harmony. So the antithesis of stress. Right. Which is harmony not only within our bodies, but our connection to nature. And I think that our bodies these days, as we're kind of understanding embodiment practices and somatic practices, can you not recognize that your body is a mirror of the exterior world and what's happening? Right. And ultimately, you know, in a world that's so obsessed with quick fixes, the way that I was, I think it's time that Ayurveda really took center stage as a return to rhythm and nourishment and healing from within to get back to that state of harmony to prevent disease. So, you know, let's dive into this first. What are some key principles that you think that people need to understand about this ancient wisdom?

Yes, you spoke about complexity and Ayurveda being complicated and not being able to, like, keep up with stuff. And then on the other hand, we have these three things to do and five things. Let's, you know, knock this off the list and you'll be fine. I look at Ayurveda as one. For the person who is practicing Ayurveda for themselves, all they need to do is anchor into their own intuition. And whatever they do from that place of balance is always Ayurvedic for their. And then this other piece that comes in is that of a vaidya, of that of a healer, of somebody who is healing others. Now that person has to study for that person, Ayurveda, it's complicated because they are studying all the subgroups of the population, the doshas, the vikriti, the prakriti, everything, right. The entire cosmos. They're literally trying to decode the cosmos. For them, it's complicated. So what I tell my clients is Ayurveda is simple. If you are anchored in your intuition and your aim is to heal your body and to heal everybody around you.

I guess on a bigger question, and you tell me from your audience, do you feel that people, are they ready for that? We use the words intuition. And for me, it takes time to coaching my clients and understanding what that intuition is most likely. And I think it's largely because Western medicine has taught us to look for solutions that are outside of ourselves as opposed to within us. So would you say, is that like a big difference between Western medicine and Eastern medicine?

Right. You know, as. As soon as somebody makes something complicated, that is a little flag that says that our power has been given away to others who are authority figures over us and who now will tell us what to do. But we are human and we've been humanoids from what, 6 million years? And the Homo sapiens, the hominins, they all walked the earth six million years ago. And Ayurveda says that it is from the Yugas from treta yuga from 3 to 6 million years ago. So just the way a monkey knows what to eat when it's sick, or a snake knows what to do when it's not feeling. So we also have that intuition. It's just that we live in a world where we are constantly pulled out of ourselves. We are constantly made to feel. Not enough. You're not centered. So we don't really drop into that intelligence within ourselves, but we have these tools. Then we know how to quickly drop into that intelligence.

I love that word so much because I believe that we all have the intelligence to heal. Can you maybe. How would you describe Ayurveda in your own own words?

Ayurveda for me is grandmother's love. It's grandma's love. It's ancestral love. You know, if I. I tell my community, if our grandmas loved us so much, just imagine how much our grandma from 60 generations ago loved us. And we see that in our books, the endearments they use in the books, you know, everything starts with a dear and a darling and a beloved. This is how you must do it. So all our teachings come with that love. And when we go deep into that, it's like a fountain that just nourishes us so deeply the more we drink from it.

I love that so much. You're making me think of a question that I ask all of my clients, which is, you know, who do you have as part of your care team? And more often than not, they say, well, gosh, you, because I started working with you. But when we think about this concept of being cared for as adults, we don't really have access to it or we don't think about building a care team around us. And when I think about that analogy of a grandmother's love or even your mother, you know, for many of us, we just. When we're enveloped in that love or care or nourishment, all the problems seem to dissipate. We all know it's a feeling, right? It's like it's something that we all know inherently within us that feels so incredibly good. And I love that you put that lens over it, over something incredibly scientific, which I think is so important. And I think that this is exactly why Ayurveda is still continuing this rise up again, because people are looking for another solution. I think people are sick and tired of a system that is causing us to feel disconnected from ourselves. And they want to look and they want to feel this intuition and love and connection again in a World where we're so disconnected.

Right.

Okay, so let's get started. Let's talk about some key principles that someone needs to understand about Ayurveda to get started. Right. So I know this is a really big topic, so maybe can we start with. Let's start with digestion because I think that that's a massive pillar. Maybe I'll let you lead, I'll guide you, but I have a feeling you'll go into everything.

Yeah. So the first thing I teach everyone is to look at your tongue and see what your tongue is telling you. So if you look at your tongue in the morning, first thing, just, you know, open your mouth, look at your tongue. If it is nice and pink, it means that the digestion is good and you have permission to eat anything and everything as you feel because you are balanced, your tongue is pink, you're starting with balance. If your tongue is white and it looks like it's dry and white, then it's more like a vata imbalance, which is the air and the space, which means that there will be. Sometimes you will be hungry, sometimes you won't feel hungry. You will feel overwhelmed and stressed and spaced out. So go easy. We need nourishment, but it has to be digestible. So we avoid everything. I love acronyms because that's how I learn things and I love teach people acronyms. So stay away from crts, which is cold, raw, dry and stale. So C, R, D, S. And you've taken care of your any kind of vata disposition in the digestion, which means irregular hunger. Irregular digestive fire. Irregular digestive capacity. Then if we see our tongue is like bright red or bright pink and there is a bluishness to it, then we know that it could be tikshna agni, which means that really sharp fire, really high digestive fire. So even if we feel like I'm really hungry, the food wouldn't get digested, it would simply burn through. So even a person who has like really sharp hunger may develop nutritional deficiencies down the line because their body is burning through the food. So then what we do is we eat more cooling foods. These kind of people can do a little bit of raw food, a little bit of salad. They would look for SOSs, which is spicy, oily, salty, sour, which includes fermented foods as well. So when they avoid spicy, oily, salty and sour throughout the day, their body would naturally calm down, their fire would balance and it would be the right proportional to the food that is being eaten. It's just the Way we wouldn't increase the volume of our stove and have like this major fire and then put a dish on top, put a saucepan on top to cook something. We will burn the food through and it would be not usable. Then the third one is where the tongue is maybe whitish or yellowish and slimy looking. That would show a state of kaha aggravation where the digestive fire is predominant in the earth and the water element and therefore it is lower. Our stove isn't working so well. The fire is on the low. And if we eat anything that is dnss, which is dairy, nuts, sugary and slimy. So when we say slimy, it's food that has that slimy mouth feel. So oats, spinach, lotus roots, what else? Anything that is slimy is denser, is more nourishing. So the kapha people will stay off Gary, nuts, sugar, slimy foods, and then their fire would balance naturally and they will be able to have a pink tongue maybe the next day, maybe the day after. And when they have that, they know, okay, I'm balanced.

Can you see me taking notes? I love acronyms. I think acronyms are more like a love language for me actually. I've never heard these before. These are so good. Okay. And I love that. So first thing in the morning, you are starting with love. You're going to the washroom, you're doing a little bit of cleansing, looking at your tongue to help you see self, direct your choices for the day. And with digestion being so pillared to health and disease prevention, you mentioned not being able to absorb nutrients or symptomatic symptoms of feeling more stress or worry or anxiety throughout your day, or feeling sluggish and tired. Most people wouldn't associate those two. We would want to put blame on something else in our life. So let's take this awareness and wisdom and, you know, with the people that you work with, do you see shifts that happen over time? Do you think that it takes a while to correct these imbalances? Do people, are they able to move from, you know, more of a vata imbalance to more of a kapha imbalance based on changes that they make?

Yeah, I see that it all depends on the, the foundational body of the person. Right. If the person is younger, very strong willed, and is determined to make it happen, I've seen it happen within days. For some, I've seen it happen, take about two years, but they do get there. I'm thinking of this lovely girl I work with. She was like, damn it, my tongue is Never pink. And you know, and then two years down the line she was like, my tongue is pink every day.

I love it. I love it. A true indication of what's happening inside. Okay, so let's maybe break this down a little bit more. So you're mentioning these doshas. If someone listening is understanding this and now they're going to go to Dr. Google and self diagnose, you know, dosha balancing foods for pitta and kapha and vata. It tends to feel overwhelming or I think when I'm putting an ancient lens over it, there's a lot of preparation and soaking and, you know, tinctures that you can make and stuff like that. Do you see a modernization happening with protocols like this? I mean, on your Instagram you give so many simple and easy tangible tips. But maybe on the air of caution. And I'm asking this question because I know so many people who, they get inspired from talks like this, oh my gosh, this is amazing ancient wisdom. Let me go and try to fix myself now. But then they get this protocol that is so complicated and takes so much time and effort. How do we prevent that from happening?

I think practitioners have to work with people, have to meet them where they are at. You know, most of my clients are high profile executives and we don't have time and we don't have domestic health the way we have in India where, you know, there's somebody who's dedicated to taking care of our nutrition. Right. We don't have moms, so we have to take care of ourselves. And the way I work with this with my clients is you look at what they're already eating and then you enhance with Ayurveda, instead of bringing this entire new blueprint and trying to force fit into their life, look at what they're already doing and then take away things that might be not Ayurvedic or that might hinder them from becoming healthier and add in things that is going to make it more Ayurvedic. For example, if I have somebody who loves a steak for dinner, I'll say chop up that steak, steak and make a stew out of it. Drop it into your, you know, the, what's it called, the slow cooker in the morning with some garlic, some onions and some carrots and, you know, potatoes and come in the evening and you have a stew, you can have that stew as dinner instead of steak and maybe some carrots and some peas, those kind of things have to be done. Add in some turmeric in there, some cumin. In there make it tastier.

I get it. So you're looking up resources, but you're kind of taking with the lowest point of entry would be so something that you're already doing that you could just enhance. Okay. All right. So I hope people are intrigued. Do you have a dosha quiz that you love?

I have my own dosha quiz website. Yeah, I feel like a lot of dosha quizzes, see, the books were written in such a way that they're. They're like SMS from our ancestors. So they pointed out all the problem things, right? They were not like very. They did not give us like, you're all right, girl, you're doing well. That's not the language. It's like, this is the problem. This is the problem. This is the problem. Right? So when people make dosha quizzes based on the Ayurvedic original text, it looks like everything about me is a problem if I'm a vata person, right? Like the Kapha person is the only person who gets a little love for that. My vata girls like me. I'm now more of a vata kapha. My vata girls get the love. They get to see that they're not just broken and, you know, spaced out and anxious and doomed for life, but that they are visionaries. They are, they are people who can. Who have that access to sattvic intelligence more than other body types. The Pittas are not just angry, rash prone and all that, but they are the ones who are the discipline and the planners of the world, the CEOs of the world. And the Kaphas are not the lazy couch potatoes, but they are the earth mothers of the world and the beautiful.

Okay, can you shout out your website quickly just in case for listeners if they can go do that right now.

So it's ayurgamaya a u a y u r G a m a y-a.com and there's a blog on there, there's a body type quiz there and I can drop the link later. You know, part of the show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll include all of that for sure. Okay, so I'm typically, whenever I do these quizzes, I'm always Vata Pitta and I'm the white tongue girl. First thing in the morning I have the anxious blueprint where I feel like my thoughts are all over the place. So let's break it down even more. So when we think about vata, it's air and ether, right? It's light, cold, dry. We can become anxious and Scattered. We're prone to a little bit more instability if we don't feel grounded because of that airy quality.

Correct? Totally. And on the positive side, you are different. You're creative. You do 15 things. Others may be just getting their head around two and you've already done 15 and you're like, what's next? Right? And you're the person who is out there looking for new things to do. You're the one who's calling up your girlfriends and saying, hey, let's go do this, right? What are you all doing in the house? Right? Let's go, let's go. Who love to move, right? You are the soul of the party and you are a creative force. And it's easy for you to do all this, but on the other side, you have major spikes and crashes of energy. So you have to take care of that. You have to build in rest during the day. You don't have to explain yourself because that is the unique pattern that your body loves. And you have to bring in that antidote of oil, Sneha, which really translates as love. So lots of oil in the body, on the body, in the hair, lots of ghee in your diet. Spices, digestible food. Our body doesn't do very well with dense nutrition. So it has to be in a light digestible format. So soups, stews, smoothies, cooked things in the smoothies, you know, oranges, these. These kind of foods are more conducive, more friendly to the vata body.

Look at what I did. I've been conditioned to point out the things that are bad. Thank you for that correction.

That's where the texts come with, right? The text from the admonitions. So yeah, we have to turn that around and say, no, no, no. We've heard the admonitions for enough thousand years.

Enough.

Let's turn to the good things.

I love that so much. Okay, let's break down pitta then. So this is where I tend to drift. This is fire and water. This is hot and sharp and intensity and movement and focused and strong metabolism. You give me the positive spin.

Yeah, the positive spin is the CEOs, the doers of the world, the disciplinarians. These are the people. You give them a project and they will see to the end. You can hold them to their word. They are strong willed. They will power through mountains to get things done. So just the elements that make up Pitta, fire and water. So when the fire is blazing too much, what do we bring in? The cooling of the water. So simply A glass of cool water with some cucumbers thrown in will calm a pitta down. Perfumes will calm a pitta down. Like lavender, rose, sandalwood. These are all beautiful perfumes. Pittas have a sharp nose. Because the nose, the eyes. Pittas are visually very intelligent. So if we have cool, calm features, water features in the house, calming colors in the bedroom or in the living room, beautiful things, Pittas immediately calm down because that's the way to get them to calm down.

These are like astrology readings.

Yeah. Sometimes I talk to clients and you know, sometimes, you know, the wife will ask me to speak to the husband and then I talk to the husband and the husband is like, well, she's speaking on me. You can take, take this just these two aspects of like the fire and the water. So I stay. If my fire is burning too high, my pitta is going too high, then I stay away from anything that causes more fire in the body. So smile. Fruit and vegetables that are orange colored and red colored, which will increase pitta. Where do I go towards white colored things, pale colored things, green colored things, sweet things. Sweet is an important thing for pitta. So pittas must eat sugar, Right.

They need all that energy. Beautiful. Okay, so let's not leave out kapha. And our constitution is made up of all of these prakritis, right? We just have one or two which tend to be more dominant, correct?

Totally, yes.

So kapha, you mentioned we've got our earth and our water. Our heavy, stable, slow, nurturing mother, earthly father, earthly types of. They're grounded, they're compassionate. But we see them as being sluggish. Right. Or slow. They might gain weight easily. Your turn.

Rest. Might not want to leave their couch. They might not want to participate in things. It'd be difficult to get them out of the house. We have our kapha friends. When they are going through a downturn, they don't want to leave the house. They want to stay in their pajamas. They want to stay cozy because they want that softness. Kaphas tend to run cold and clammy, so they always want to stay warm. So again, if a kapha is going out of balance, it's the earth element and the water element. So to stay away from what? Over hydration will affect kapha, Overnutrition will affect kapha. So if they're doing workouts, if they're doing meats, dairy, that the slimy foods which are really dense in nutrition, they're doing more of that. Like black, black lentils. You do a lot of black lentils you said you're Punjabi, so Punjabis love black lentils a lot. And it's, it's got that slimy quality. So it's good if you're a pitta or a vata with a good digestion. But a kapha doing black lentil kind of food, which is slimy and dense and heavy in nutrition, their bodies will start to get sluggish. So kaphas need to move. Kaphas are the easiest body type vikruti to imbalance, to fix because all they need to do is start to move. Go get some sauna, get some heat, add some spices, go dance, wear bright colored clothes and the kaphas would start feeling more like a vata. They have to bring, we have to bring the kaphas more towards vata spectrum.

Beautiful. And this is something, you know, once you have your dominant prakriti, do you notice? Is this within you? Is this for life? Do you typically stay around having the same imbalances? Can it change completely?

We are dealt the cards. We are dealt with when we are born, the way we are born. But we all have the ability to balance our prakriti and our vikti. Once the vikti is in balance, then we are in our prakriti. Then the imbalances would be more closer to our prakriti. For example, I am a vata pitta by birth. But now that I'm perimenopausal, I am more veering towards kapha. So I'm tending to gain weight. So once my kapha is in balance, which is my imbalance, which is my current vikriti, once I balance that, then I am in my prakriti, my natural disposition, which is savaprita. So now when something happens, when stress hits, I'm not going to gain weight, I'm going to get more anxious or I'm going to get more upset and angry. So now I can balance what that I have known to balance all my life, which is my prakritic imbalances.

Oh gosh, I love this so much. Okay, we're going to go into this. Okay. So understanding your prakriti is your original constitution and your vikrati is your current imbalance, which could be fixed. Okay. Okay. Now you said something different about the stage of life that you're in. Because right now we're going through an era where we are blaming our age, we're blaming our hormones for perimenopause and menopause. And right now women are being told to go fix it. Go on hormone replacement therapy, go fix it, find something, find the solution to fix the broken hormones. And I think that this is where we need to invite a little bit more of a love language again. And how you beautifully said, it's a transformation transition in Prakriti. And if you were able to understand that and asking instead, where does my body and my life need more balance? Where can I restore the imbalances within me? So can we talk about that in terms of, you know, with you working with your clients, you're understanding what their vikti is, you're helping them come back into balance. What does that mean? Are you seeing people lose weight? Are you seeing symptoms disappear? Can we reverse disease this way? Like, I really want to own in on the importance of this word balance that has such an elusive kind of concept for so many people. But what can happen if we balance our doshas?

We come into harmony, we come into that state of I can handle life. I'm sure of where my life path is leading me. I trust myself, I love myself, I am important, I am full of creative power, which I call shakti, which every which the Vedas called shakti, right? I am the manifestation of the divine feminine or the divine masculine, or I'm holding divine masculine, divine feminine imbalance within me. Then once I'm in balance, I'm no longer worried about should I be adding spinach or flaxseed to my smoothie. But I'm more worried about what's my purpose, how am I conducting myself, how am I moving through life, who am I loving, who is my care team, who is my tribe, who is my community, how am I raising others, how am I turning into a. A matriarch, a tree, a river, offering love to others, offering life force to others, energy to others.

It's so refreshing, isn't it? And I think the beautiful thing about that is that we can pull back from focusing on our symptoms. I know for a lot of our listeners we have these symptoms that we suffer from. And I remember when I was sick, just constantly thinking about what was wrong with me. My body was too heavy, I felt too heavy, my heart was out of balance, I had anxiety every single day. And we stayed. We get so focused on this. It's like we're spinning in our minds constantly looking for things to fix, to fix, to fix. Which means that we're not ever present in the feeling of harmony or even self love. Right? So thank you for hovering on that a little bit. Let's dive into the hormone side of things, but let's just recap again because I know a lot of people are going to be just okay. They're doing their test when their vata is out of balance. There are these symptoms that you mention, but the foods to kind of counteract that. So you talked about warm grounding, oils on the skin, lots of cooked foods and soups and stews, things that are much easier to digest.

Right?

Okay. Yeah, yeah. You take on pitta and kapha, things that they can start doing.

Bringing love into our life self love, love from friends, asking for help. Because we are spinning. When we have that anxious vata kind of a stage, we try to look at like who is taking our energy away from us, who is giving us energy? And we become very protective of that energy because at that time our flame is flickering, our intelligence is flickering. We cannot bring in all kinds of people into our life. That is the time to protect that flame with affection by just keeping a few people close to our heart. This is the time to call up our kapha friends. We have to call mb like, give me that love, that grounding, that nurturing. Give me your hugs. Go camp out with your kapha friends. Because when we are vata, we use kapha to come back to balance. When we are kapha, we bring our vata friends to come back to balance. So this we not only look at our ahara, which is diet, we look at vihara. What are the lifestyle rituals that I'm doing? Who am I hanging out with? Ahar, vihaar, bahar, my behavior, the people in my life, my relationship, which are my thoughts. So I have to take responsibility for what's going on between these two points, right? So meditation, grounding, walking, bringing sensual intelligence. So this perfumes, walking on fresh green grass in the morning or pebbles, ahar, vihar, Vihar, which are sanskar. The things that we do day in and day out have become sanskars because they've become these grooves in our brain. They've been wired and fired, those loops, those, you know, the way our brain is now conditioned to think in certain circumstances. We have to take ourselves out of that circumstances so we can rewire and re pattern all of that. So that's important as a vata person, even for a pitta or a kappa person. All this works, right? Person who is, let's say, getting angry and upset and yelling and screaming and getting short and feeling like everybody's stupid and they've got it all figured out and nobody can keep up with them again, bringing that. What is my dominant element, my fire element. So how do I cool this fire? Cooling foods, cold water. Pittas are the only people who can have cold stuff. Raw stuff, right? Cucumbers, watermelons, perfumes like sandalwood, rose, lavender. The company of a friend who is cooling and calming. A kapha friend who says, it's okay, you're all right. I still love you. Right? So that immediately calms us down. So it's not always about an herb or a pill or a. Or a food. It's also about relationships. It's about thoughts. It's about going for a moonlight walk with a girlfriend or a boyfriend. It's as simple as that. Those are beautiful Vedic ways of healing, which we don't think about. It's about going and buying a water fountain and installing it in the bedroom and saying, all right, I'm going to have this little water feature in my bedroom. So it calms me down.

Oh, I love that one. That's a good one. Yeah, I want to hover on that because I often say to people, when my health was at its worst, I was on the Atkins diet. So just protein, lots of animal protein. No carbs, no starch, no happiness, no joy. And my health was at its worst. I was fiery. I was working out for two hours a day at the gym sometimes, and, you know, I was in pain. My weight was going up. I felt heavy all the time. And then when I went to the ashram to heal, I started eating more carbohydrates than ever before because there's lots of starch that's there, lots of fiber, lots of cooked foods, very little animal protein, but lots of protein from lentils and tofu and stuff like that. And honestly, Salila, the weight melted off my body. And to your point, and this is what I want to land, it was a combination of everything that was happening there. It was my environment, it was my daily practices. It was me moving towards acts of self love every day through yoga and breath work and time with others and connecting with other people who were kind of just going through the same things in life. There was connection and purpose involved in all my conversations. So this is why healing, we want it to be so linear, but it's not. It's so multifactorial. And when we tune into those things, like putting the water fountain in the bedroom, I love that. If that's going to help you shift your state, when your state is shifted, you make better decisions and better choices for yourself, then it's less about eating to diet and lose weight. It's like the shift that Comes with eating like you love yourself and no one's driving through, you know, drive throughs or eating terrible food when they eat like they love themselves.

Mona, you talked about how when you were spinning in your space, your energy was creating that loop and you were blocked and you were locked in that energy. You couldn't get yourself out. But when you went out into an atmosphere which was satwik and high vibrational, the people there brought your energy down and then you were able to calm and then choose for yourself all the right things.

I love that. And that ties into a big concept I have with my clients is I wish everyone here could experience ashram life. But to build the ashram in your bedroom, in your kitchen, in your home, and just bringing components of that sattvic lifestyle to you as an anchoring feeling and an emotion. And again, it's like the simplification. We don't have to go somewhere and spend a lot of money. They're so simple. So thank you for owning in on that. Let's go into some more of those daily practices. So a joke that I have with my clients is that I cannot live without my tongue scraper. Like, if I was to, if I was stuck on a deserted island, the one thing that I would want is my tongue scraper. It's a, it's a ritual for me every single morning. And I really feel the difference. So can you talk to us about the benefits of tongue scraping? And you mentioned warm water also and abhyanga. Can we talk about a few of these in depth and the power behind them?

I'd love to. Tongue scraping is something everybody learns back in India, as you know. Right. This is the first thing, like along with brushing our teeth, we are also taught how to tongue scrape when we are sleeping at night. Naturally, there's a lot of bacteria in the mouth that our mouth, you know, kind of kills them off. And then our mouth has a cleansing process. This is all the debris that is left over from that cleansing process. And in the morning when we scrape our tongue, we are removing all that dead debris. Otherwise what would happen is this would go into our gastric, in our, into our elementary canal and some of that DNA might escape and enter our bloodstream. And then the viruses and bacteria and all kinds of the nasties down there, they might have new DNA, RNA to do more harm to our body. So if we clean our mouth, then we are not only removing this debt debris, we are also helping the digestion process to kind of kick start a little bit. Right. Digestion is sluggish in the morning, it needs that little fire. So we give that fire by first cleaning the tongue and then drinking a cup of hot water. No more than 100 to 150 milliliters. I know a lot of people who drink like a liter of lots of water. If your fire is already sluggish, then it is same as pouring water on a bonfire. It's out. It won't work so well. Then come the snana rituals, which are the bathing rituals, which is applying oil on the body, keeping that oil on the body for at least 10 minutes. So if somebody is in a hurry and they have meetings to attend and only have about half an hour, then it's perfectly okay to get up, go to the bathroom, and then apply the oil on your body and then tongue scrape, brush your teeth as the oil is kind of nourishing the skin. This is especially important if somebody has prediabetes or diabetes in their family or they feel like they are prone because their skin starts to lose that it develop that. What's it called? The. I'm blanking on the name for a neuropathy, you know, develops that. You know, that issues with nerve conduction. So applying oil is important because oil is not just nourishing. Oil is also a cleanser. It's a mask. And it is also kind of a gentle exfoliant. So it is renewing and regenerating the skin cells as well. So once this is done, then we can use aloofa to kind of slow off a little bit or use a bath towel to take that off. Because if you're in a place like California, then you have old plumbing and there's a clogging. Right. I think Californians, we are all always worried about our plumbing.

Oh, my gosh. And water here, of course.

Yeah. So it's better to wipe that off and then step into the shower, take a warm bath. After that, there is a very important ritual. It's called nasya. We do nasya. You can do nasya with sesame oil or almond oil if you don't have any allergies towards nuts. Just one drop in each nostril after about half an hour of taking bath is very beneficial and important for our sinus health because we are out, we are stressed, we are out in traffic. We breathe all kinds of things. We are in AC environments. We are breathing in canned air. It is so important for our nasal passages to stay open because when we come to our office desks, we are expected to be on like 100% from the word go. So we require that clarity of the mind and that intense focus. And nasya is a very important ritual for that. Those were our morning rituals and then we start the day with that.

Is there nasya oil that you prefer over another?

Okay, so there are two basic nasya oils that everyone can use almost every day of their lives. Anutayla is one. Anuthayla has slightly spicy ingredients. Anutayla is spicy because it likes to go irritate the sinus passages and open up. So there will be a little bit sneezing. There might be slight discomfort. So it's not good for someone who is just starting out and doesn't know because it'll make you feel like your nostrils are on fire. So shad bindu is the other one. Shad Bindu taila. It's much more gentler and it's great for people who have headaches and migraines.

Beautiful. It's such an important part of our immune system. Also we want our nasal system to be lubricated throughout the day when so often it's just. It's not. That's a good entry point. I'm happy you called that out because I think think a lot of people might go purchase an asya oil and it might feel a little bit too intense. It's just, it may not be a ritual that they can stick with. But sesame and almond are the other options that you said, which I absolutely love. Let's talk about two other important pieces that really were so powerful for me at the ashram. One was eating your largest meal earlier on in the day.

Yes.

And science is now understanding this. We're calling it circadian rhythm. But again, this is an ancient ritual that Ayurveda has known all along. Can you talk to us about the benefits around that?

Yeah, I always talk about like front load your day with food because as the sun is going up, our internal sun, our jataragmi, our digestive fire is also mimicking this motion. So as the sun is going up, our fire is also supposed to go up if we've tuned our to the sun. So an important ritual in the morning is to go out and get some sun on the face. So as soon as I wake up, I try and go out if possible and just get that sun on my face. Look at the sun a little bit like through a slightly closed eyelids so that my jitter agni can tune itself to the sun. And if we eat the largest meal for lunch or brunch, then as the sun is going up and reaching solar noon, the Midpoint, it is able to metabolize it much better. And as it starts going down, four o', clock, four, five is the max. We should eat a large meal. And then by 6, 7, when the sun is already on its way down, if we want to eat a large meal that has more meat, cream cheese and stuff, it's going to keep us up because our liver, our stomach will be struggling to digest that. Then poor quality sleep, waking up foggy and anxious, and then the next day is not going to feel so good.

I love it and it's such an important part because I think the people who, when I start working with them, I think the concept of having dinner at 4 or 5 o' clock is foreign. And I can hear all the parents saying, how is that possible? My kids have sports and all of these things. Sometimes it is impossible or not. If you can shift your day around, scheduling earlier dinners and then eating before you take your kids to practice, as an example, you feel so much better. And the biggest improvement that I see is in my sleep. My sleep is so fantastic. You're starting fasting earlier on in the day. You said something important front load your food earlier on in the day. And this is so pillar, and this is something I focus on with my community because it's almost like society is telling us to skip breakfast. You don't eat breakfast fast for as much of the day as you can eat your dinner later on. But we're breaking up with the connection of food. Food is information, it is energy. It's supposed to energize our day, give us focus and productivity. And I think for a lot of my clients who don't feel hungry in the morning, is it not an issue of metabolism?

And metabolism, Totally, totally. They have to retune themselves with sun exposure, sunbathing, and starting to help that digestive fire in the morning with hot water with a little bit of, you know, spices and seeds like coriander with cumin, black seeds, anise seeds. All this will help them.

Beautiful. I want to shout this from the rooftop for people to hear and for, you know, I have a lot of people who love fasting who listen to this podcast. Just experiment. What would it be like to start fasting earlier on in the day and using breakfast as food for you? I have one client who's making this transformation right now and he is thriving and he's consuming this, you know, he's consuming a lot of food. His glucose is incredible. His labs are incredible. So just by simple tweaks like this that are so Supportive to our system, support the system, then everything comes into harmony. I love that.

Very adaptable. So they. If we've done something for several years, our body will adapt to it, but it doesn't mean that that adaptation is working for us. It could be a maladaptation. The person might say, you know, people say things to me like, I feel fine, I feel great. And I'm like, Yeah, I hit 40, you know, menopause. Then you'll see what's breaking loose.

Okay, there it is. We have to go back to this question. I know, I have so many listeners. So can we put an Ayurvedic lens on perimenopause and menopause? Then in the Western lens, you know, everything that you used to do might stop working at this age. So you've got to go fix it with hormones. Can you put an Ayurvedic spin on that and maybe some takeaways for perimenopause and menopause that you're seeing work?

Yeah. For me, everything that happens with this body that is natural and driven by nature is an act of love. The body, a woman's body is not just one body. It's like five different bodies through every decade. As a child, as a teenager, as a young, 20s, as a 30s, 40s, 50s. Each decade, our body becomes, changes and molds itself to fulfill the aims of that decade. So mother's body is very different hormonal cocktail than a perimenopausal body or a menopausal body. During perimenopause, a woman has to absolutely step into leadership roles. She cannot be in the frontline or the sandwich supervisory roles. She has to step into leadership roles. She has to start her own. So a woman has to plan her life this way. I would say that this should be mandatory education for every girl in her teens that, look, a man will have the same life till he's 90 or. But a woman, every decade she's going to be having a different life that itself will bring us peace. Because what are we trying to do? We're trying to live that 20s life with a 40s body, and we're trying to do the work that we did in our 20s in a 40s body. That's when the body breaks down, because it's not meant to be brittle and be, like, bombarded with stress at this time. This is the time to take a step back. This is the time to rely on that nest egg that we've collected over the years and say, I'm on a holiday. I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm going to take a break. I'm going to take those sabbaticals and then plan my next version 2.0. That's how a perimenopausal woman should be looking at her life. The long term hundred year life. I'm going to be a matriarch. What. What is the wisdom I've collected over the years now I'm going to teach the next generation that.

Oh my gosh, that is the most beautiful outlook that I've seen or heard. Thank you for that. And I agree with you. Can you imagine the power that would happen if women were taught that all stages of her life need to be treated differently? The sense of relief and calm that would come with that? For me, the greatest shift physiologically, mentally happened in my 40s. And you can feel the overdrive of my 20, 30 year old self wanting to go back and doing things as intensely, but then the body's just not having it. It's just. There's no acceptance to it. But I feel a tremendous sense of peace incorporating a lot of the rituals that you're speaking to, and they're simple. It's not about the hardcore diet or workout anymore. It's about that morning sun. I use CCFT in the morning and I put a massive dollop of honey in it, which feels so good grounding and therapeutic for me and supportive also, and just noticing how my metabolism is, but without judgment. So more of a sense of self inquiry as opposed to judging myself for not doing it the right way, which is being depicted by social media and doctors and practitioners out there and finally owning my personal constitution. So thank you for that lens. That was just beautiful.

It's also about like being at peace with the way our libido goes during this time. Being at peace with the way we become very assertive and we become very choosy about relationships. Right. There's a certain way that women's images are bombarded to us through media, that if you are this, then you are desirable. If you are this, you are no longer so coming into peace with that. Like this body needs to go on for another 50 years. And that is the strength I'm acquiring. It's almost like I'm revving up my engines to go the long haul. Yeah.

Oh, that's so good. Okay. This is another spin on longevity. Do you agree? Right now what's happening in the world of wellness is there's such a spin on fear. Fear of getting older, fear of dying young, fear of getting Disease, fear of being part of this chronic illness epidemic that's happening. And if that's the inspiration for you to go out and do things that are good for you, you're doing it from an essence of fear within your body, which is alive versus what you just described. I'm preparing for another 50 years. Imagine the sense of being that I can come into, the maternal sense of leadership that I can, the wisdom that I can have to impart on other people, the energy, the stamina. Like that. For me, I'm smiling just speaking about it. But I think that this is also a big shift where Ayurveda can really step in and help us understand the wisdom and joy that comes with aging instead of this doom and gloom which media is representing very loudly.

Effy. Yeah, relationships. Being in relationships and partnerships is kind of a disempowered state because half our happiness is outsourced to somebody else. But once we are in our 40s, we know that we've done the family, we may have a partner or not. But now my happiness is entirely in my own hands. So I am in an empowered state to create my happiness, to create my joy. And yeah, I see nothing wrong with that. I come from a matriarchal tradition, and for me, that is the absolute right worldview.

I love it. All right, let's go. Are you cool with some rapid fire questions on rituals? Okay, so when we think of something like inflammation, right? If you were to think of remedies or practices, you've covered a lot of them already. But let's just go through the big topics that are trending. So the first one is inflammation. Do you have a remedy that people should consider?

Thipoli is a very good remedy for inflammation. Thipoli is a cousin of pepper. It's called long pepper. If people can add a little bit of Piper Lee to triphala before bedtime, take half a teaspoon of triphala with a large pinch of pipili powder with some honey and a little bit of ghee. Have that for about 10, 15 days, and you will see a change in inflammation levels.

I swear, I thought you were going to say either aloe vera or turmeric. This is amazing. Okay, so on the flip side of that, pipili, where do you trust getting these herbs from? Because so many of them are loaded with toxins or they're not quality resources. Do you have a suggestion?

Banyan Botanicals does a great job.

Yeah, love banyan. Okay, next one. So digestion specific herbs for digestion specific.

Well, cumin is the best for digestion. Cumin's name itself means digestion jeeraka, meaning that that which creates digestion. So adding cumin. Another unsung hero is asafoetida hing. Not a lot of people know about it, but activate it in warm oil, add a little hing to every savory dish you make. It can substitute as onions. It's very, very good for health. It has a property called vata anulomana, meaning it moves the peristalsis downwards. If there's any reverse peristalsis due to long time sitting due to eating not so good food, it will restore that balance and it will help the bowels move downward and eliminate better.

Beautiful. And I've yet to see. I did. I saw it a lot in Toronto because we have so many Indians in Toronto and South Asian grocery stores, but I had to do a little searching for that. So asafoetida, that's great. So mixing it with a little bit of oil first, that's. I've never done that. Okay, next metabolism. We hear about things like ginger tea or dry brushing.

I would say sauna. Do a sauna, a dry sauna, if you are kapha. But for vatas and for pittas, steam saunas are great. That's such a good way to improve the metabolism.

Beautiful. For sleep before bed.

Sleep before bed, pad with a little bit of sesame oil or almond oil on the soles of your feet. A lot of people apply the oil on top of their feet. The place from where the energy escapes is the soles of the feet because that's where the sweat glands are. So wherever we have large amount of sweat glands, those are places from where energy escapes. Those are the places that evaporate. A lot of our hydration goes out of the body through that. So those are vata dominant places. So when we have a lot of vata dominance in these limbs, then we have restless legs and, you know, we're not comfortable in the night, we feel dry. So when we apply oil, we soothe that down, we kind of shrink, wrap it and make sure that our energies stay inside our body and are protected and we go to sleep.

So, Leela, do you have a solution for the impact of the oils on our sheet? That and clothing and stuff like that?

I. I have an extra sheet right there where I have my feet. But in spite of that, sometimes I see that it does look grubby by the. After, like six months of use.

It just is what it is. Accept it. All of the rewards are so worthwhile. Just accept it. Yeah, Keep A little towel. And keep all of these remedies bedside too, so that you don't forget to use them. Keep them in plain sight. So it's a ritual.

Yeah. My friends know that my bathtub is going to be oily, my bedroom's going to be.

Can you debunk ashwagandha also? Historically, whenever I've worked with an Ayurvedic practitioner, this is one of those herbs that I think is trending, but I don't think I know. Maybe correct me if I'm wrong, I've never worked with a practitioner that has ever said you should be using ashwagandha on its own and every single night as a remedy forever. Because it might not be for everyone.

Ashwagandha can produce a lot of heat in the body. So if you are pitta dominant or having a pitta imbalance in your body, you have gastritis, you feel hot, you feel smoky in your body, then having ashwagandha will backfire. It's better to Ashwagandha and shatavari. Ayurveda does not have gender specific herbs. It works for everybody. It's just that the Western or even Indian marketing has made it gender specific. So shatavari is a more cooling herb for creating that same kind of benefits if libido was in question or metabolism was in question. Yeah, and we don't really need to go to ashwagandha. I don't really ask many people to do ashwagandha unless they were like actively trying to have a baby or something like that. Most people with triphala pipili, simple, the ccf, you know, black seed, all this.

Works beautifully and they're much more palatable, easier to use and you can get them at your grocery store also. Yeah. Okay, so bloating is a big one.

What about bloating for bloating? One of the best ways to relieve bloating is by drinking buttermilk. Buttermilk helps with. So bloating happens because of the reverse peristalsis. So we have to do vata anulomana. And vatanulomana is making sure that the vata moves in the right direction. Asafoetida is another one. So any of the spices will help with bloating. Ginger is amazing for bloating.

Buttermilk. So let's go through this. So dairy is being villainized. And often in the US there is a lot of dairy products that should be. This is such again, another ancient ritual from the way that cows are treated and the way that dairy works. In Ayurveda for the body. Is this something that you would use seasonally?

Seasonally for bloaching.

For buttermilk? Yeah. Is it something. Because I can imagine that it's heavier in cooling. Also.

Buttermilk can be had in the afternoons any day.

Okay.

Buttermilk is a lunch thing. So if you have buttermilk for brunch or lunch, we can have it all year round.

How interesting, the concept of using it therapeutically. Right. And especially well this time of year with mango lassi and stuff like that would be so yummy. Yeah, yeah.

So we can use buttermilk recipes as aphrodisiacs, as digestives, as pick me ups, you know, so add a gin, add ginger. And it has a different property and. And it has different property. Add onions. The properties change. Beautiful mangoes. It's so yummy. It should be National Valentine's Day drink.

Buttermilk is like comfort food for me. It's like. It's one of those things that we had in the house growing up that we would always serve with my mom's rice. It was.

Yeah.

It's comforting for me. All right, last one. Brain fog.

Brain fog. Brain fog. Having a good night's sleep. There's no way around in a good night's sleep. You can't eat your way out of brain fog. You have to. You could steam. You could do clove and steam to just get the stuff moving and NASA to get some relief. But getting a good night's sleep or making a 20 minute nap that day just to get that rest is a good idea.

And what do you think about all the supplements around that are coming up with brahmi and gotu kola and stuff like that?

These are all good ways to manage our symptoms. But what diet, sleep and movement. If diet, sleep and movement are not in the right place, we cannot supplement or medicate our way out of poor health. Thank you.

It's all about the foundation supplements. We're forgetting the entire purpose of supplements. And this goes for protein powder too. Protein powders are supplements. They're meant to supplement your way out of, you know, a diet that might be deficient. And so many people are so concerned with taking all the things now. There's been so many clients that I'm taking off of supplements that they hear they're trending. Maybe it's ayurvedic ancient wisdom that they should be taking without recognizing somebody who's been trained in Ayurveda like you. You have an understanding of the same synergy between all of those things and how they work. And for many people, if they're not working synergistically within your body, they could be backfiring and then you're back clogging your liver and your kidneys and your digestion and slowing everything down. So that's a beautiful lens. Thank you.

Just buying a little bit extra time by taking brahmi or gotu kola or something like that. We are not fixing our sleep.

You got it. That's beautiful. So, Leela, this has been incredible. Can you tell us about how you communicate with your clients the most, the community that you're building? You have so many incredible workshops also.

Yeah, I communicate through Instagram mostly. So if somebody wants to reach out through Instagram, I'd be more than happy to share what I do. I'm mostly focusing on my premium clients these days because I felt like doing just the diet, the herbs, the lifestyle over consultations doesn't really help. So I love to get people into a container of an eight week or a three week cleanse program. So we are focused and we are working on a daily basis and really moving all the furniture apart in the house and giving the house a good thorough cleanse so that the energies get balanced. And I'm someone who is very much result driven. So if my community, my clients, my students are not getting better, then it worries me and upsets me. I feel like a cleanse is where I can hold their hand and make sure I can take them from the entire journey and then say, look how healthy you are now. And it's the shortest amount of time. But that's what really feeds my soul.

Beautiful. For everyone listening, you have just a thriving, beautiful Instagram page. It's Salila Ayurveda go finder. There's so many tips and resources and recipes which I've just been loving looking at everything. So thank you for you. You are a wealth of information and thank you for putting such a refreshing, refreshing lens on what it takes to not only be a woman, but just to be alive in today's modern world and what it actually takes to heal without overcomplicating it. Thank you for that.

Thank you so much for having me. Mona, I want to quickly share something about the first fear thing you spoke about in the beginning. That fear. We see fear every day because we are being treated like consumers. And consumers have to be kept fearful to purchase products and things, supplements and all kinds of newfangled stuff that's coming up. But Vedic wisdom comes from the time where there was no consumerism. So it's empowerment. So when we bring in that wisdom, we bring in back empowerment.

I love that so much. That's the way that it should be. And if we can project anything for the future of healthcare, I hope that that's it. Yes. All right. You too. Thank you, my friend. Namaste.