How to Sleep Better: The Miraculous Ten-step Protocol to Recharge Your Mind & Body with Deepa Kannan

YouTube interview (Feb 28, 2024) where Sachin Patel interviews Ayurvedic and functional-medicine practitioner Deepa Kannan about her new book How to Sleep Better: The Miraculous Ten-step Protocol to Recharge Your Mind & Body. Deepa describes marrying Eastern (Ayurvedic) and Western (functional-medicine) perspectives, recounts personal sleep struggles across three life phases, and explains the classical idea of 10 senses (five knowledge senses/Jnana Indriyas and five action senses/Karma Indriyas). She details practical sleep-support practices: karnapurana (drizzling warm oil into the ear, recommended warm sesame oil, 5–15 minutes per ear at vata times), vaginal/yonic oil application for pelvic lymphatic support (women-specific, practitioner caution advised), and abhyanga (oil self-massage) with a recommended 21-minute soak period before bathing. The book is available for pre-order and is stated to begin shipping in the US/UK on February 29; Kindle version is available immediately.
Questions this video answers
February 29 (pre-order changes to shipping/buy available then).
Warm sesame oil; lie on one side and drizzle warm oil for about 5–15 minutes per ear (do at vata times: ~4–6am or 2–6pm).
Wait a minimum of 21 minutes to let oil soak into tissues.
Chapters
Hello, my friends, and welcome, welcome, welcome. Today, I have a very special presentation from halfway around the world today. With me, I have a Ayurvedic practitioner and functional medicine practitioner who is a newly crowned author of a very powerful book that I know is going to change a lot of lives called how to Sleep Better. With me today, my guest is Deepakanan Deepa. Welcome. Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you, Sachin. And for the part that you played on the book's journey. And just to say that you have your section inside the book and also a paragraph acknowledging your support in the back of the book. So I'm very grateful to be here. I think it's always special when you come on the interviews of those who played the role before it came out into the world and before it was birthed in the world, so to speak.
Oh, thank you. It's an honor. And it's. It's been wonderful to play a small part in this journey. And I know this book, as we were talking about before we hit record, like all books have their own journey, I was on a, in a meeting today all about book launches. And one of the things they talked about was that when you birth a book into the world, you know, just like a child has their own journey, the book has its own journey. So all the best wishes on this launch and, you know, here's. Here's to many, many people finding a good night's rest, waking up refreshed, and feeling their absolute best again. So. Oh, you're welcome. So in the book, you talk about 10 senses, and this is really cool because in the west we talk about five senses, and in the east there's many more senses, because I feel like it's a much more evolved look at the human body and a more holistic look at the human body. In writing this book, I'd love to know, before we get into those senses, I'd love to know what were some of the things that shocked you the most? What were some of the things that just like, blew you away that you learned as you interviewed other people and researched the topic of sleep.
I think, you know, the strangest thing, Sachin, is that a lot of people have asked me and I got this question that, did you write the book after you interviewed a lot of people and did things pop up in your head? And I actually wrote the book about two years before I even launched my podcast. And the podcast itself was launched as building the author platform ahead of the book. So the book idea just came to me, really, in one Moment I don't know if you believe in intuition. And it literally. I was walking around my house and I said to my husband, what if we were to look at sleep through, through these 10 senses? And he replied just as flippantly that why don't you write a book? And you know, maybe we say these random things, but it doesn't always come into a state of reality. And maybe it had its destiny. But here in the east, for sure, we have this belief that ideas pop into your head and we don't know is it from a cosmic space or from your own deeper subconscious, but something makes them come and then we get to decide on which one of those we are going to act upon. And maybe we've been an instrument to bring some of that knowledge into the world. And I just felt that there's so much about sleep books but that intersection of east and West. I didn't want to create a divide, I wanted to create a bridge. You know, a lot of times I don't know if you've noticed that because I have this one step in both worlds. Sometimes I see as if this a little bit of rigidity can be there in both directions and non acceptance of the other side. And I didn't want that to be. I felt there was a lot of synergy and we can take the best of both worlds and how do we correlate some of the eastern concepts with Western science? And that's really what I set out to do. And I hope that people reading it have that aha moment for themselves. And I think I really want to say, Sachin, that I feel that it's the reader who completes the journey of the book. This, we play just that one part and every reader is going to have their journey and their aha moments. And it's been fascinating to me to have those initial reactions where I've had certain people tell me something which I never set out to do, but it created that effect in them. So I think going to create so many different realities.
I love that. I love, I love how you downloaded this idea, whether it's from within or from the cosmic ether and you acted on it. Because I think a lot of people get these downloads and they don't know if the message is for them. And clearly this message was for you. So one thing that comes up for me, you know, is did you have sleep issues yourself? And is that what, what kind of spurred you to write this book? Or is it something that you kept hearing over and over from your clients? I mean, was there a Material reality that, you know, inspired you as well to write this book.
I think my sleep journey was terrible, Sachin. At three different stages growing up, I mean, nobody probably discovered that I was predominantly vata, which I discovered later. So I would have this light sleep tossing turn, vivid dreams, bedwetting. These are all the signs of those root causes that are showing up in early childhood. The second phase I really struggled was when I was married the first time. It was a very difficult situation, physically and emotionally. And it was as if I had to be on high alert through the night for my own safety. And I wouldn't want anyone to go through things like that. But we definitely realized that we cannot sleep in certain situations and sleep is very intricately intertwined with how safe we feel. So there were eight years where I was going through this and I guess I was pumping out adrenaline and cortisol to keep me going through those times. And I only got the repercussions of that stage after I got divorced and came out of that marriage. And then the third phase was when I got remarried. And then son was born with this adrenal disorder and they don't produce cortisol and aldosterone, so they're critical hormones. So he's steroid dependent. But in that first year, every fourth day he was having seizures and he could potentially dehydrate and die under all those situations. So I had to race to the emergency room every fourth day for a whole year. And I just had to be hyper vigilant to ensure because I was told within three weeks that he can die under any number of situations. And we had to be extremely alert. And of course, over the years he stabilized. He's still on steroids and daily injections, but now we are better equipped with watching out for those emergencies. So for sure, I've had decades of poor sleep, but I never realized that it had serious implications on my health. So there was no way I connected that to why I was having frequent UTIs or why I was feeling anxious. It was all of that came much later when I started to study functional medicine. And that's when I started to think about how I've ignored my own sleep. And it's clearly been a factor in my poor health. And what was really sad was that I was teaching yoga when I was married for the first time. And people would ask me questions like, you're a yoga teacher, how can you be sick? And I had, I could no way tell them that I was in a situation where I can't sleep and I'm going through critical times and you know, I had these two worlds going on and one never really understands these things until, I mean, I'm so, so grateful to functional medicine. Later ayurved that all of these answers were revealed to me as to this, this history of my own timeline and what it had led to. And it wasn't small things. And therefore I just. That's why a lot of the book does peek into these more serious factors. But at the end of the day, it's about serving readers and helping people sleep better no matter what they're going through.
Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing. And I think you bring up a good point because sometimes as healers, there's a lot of pressure on us to be perfect. And you know, our lives aren't perfect, right? We're human just like everybody else. We bleed just like everybody else. We have emotions, we have situations, we have circumstances sometimes that are beyond our control just like everybody else. And fortunately we have the tools to help us manage those things that other people don't. And we can support them. But it's also comforting sometimes for people to know that you've been through challenges and you've overcome them so that it empowers them to know that they can get across to the other side, you know, with this bridge that you're building for them. So again, thank you. Thank you for sharing. I know it's not always easy to talk about these things and I'm glad that your son is stable and you're able to hopefully get good night's rest. I know our listeners may not realize this, but it's 4:30 in the morning for you and it's 6:00 in the evening for me. So we're doing this after hours for me and before normal hours for you. And for that, I'm also gracious as well that you were kind enough to wake up so early and coordinate our calendars and schedules together. So let's get right into, you know, some of these 10 senses. And I know there's 10. And you know what I'd love to do is maybe pick your favorite two or three. And then I want everyone to, I want to encourage people to pick up their copy of the book and have their own journey with the book, which I know will soon be available. So what are, what are your top three senses that you'd like to dive into?
Maybe I'll just quickly give a clarification of the ten senses sachinify me, because five other senses may be something new. So the Eastern Texts of Yoga and ayurveda talk about 10 senses. Five are called the Jnana Indriyas, which we are familiar with as sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. They're considered senses that go out into the world and bring information into our body through these senses. And the five other senses are what is called karma Indriyas, or the senses of actions which interact from inside to outside. So the sense organs of the action are the rectum, the genitals, the legs, the hands and the mouth. And what that does is the rectum is about the sense of excretion. And this is not me making it up, but it's there in the Eastern text. The genitals is about our ability helps us to have sexual activity and urination, hormones. So the reproductive system, the legs help us to have the sense of locomotion, which means they get us moving from place to place. The hands allow us to grasp and hold something. So there's a highly valuable instrument. Without the thumb, you can't do anything really. And today it's been shown that our grasp has to do with heart, health and so much more. And the mouth has to do with our ability to speak. So these are the five senses of action. So maybe I should pick three from there because they're a bit more unfamiliar and a new concept. So what I did was I looked at the rectum as the sense of digestion, detoxification overall, because the excretion is only the exit point of the entire digestive system. So I just started to look into how liver issues impact sleep and how certain genetic factors can impact sleep. And then the genitals, I looked at how sleep is linked to sexual activity, how urinary challenges, whether it's prostate issues in men or incontinence in women. And also looking at it as a bird's eye view into the sleep, sleep and hormone connection, because there's so many different connections over there. And then locomotion, I looked at that, our ability to move as a form of exercise and how exercise releases bdnf, brain derived neurotropic factor. And how BDNF helps with improving our ability to fall asleep and longer time in sleep, slow wave sleep. So we can talk about some of the, if you'd like, talk about the same senses in terms of some tips. But you might also want to look at the sense of sound as a way because maybe we can leave our listeners with something which is new, they may not have come across. So I looked at sound and I found fascinating connections that sound is the most Sensitive to adrenals and sound. In Ayurveda, the ears are considered home of vata dosha. Vata's imbalance is one of the primary reasons why sleep challenges occur. And we know that when there's adrenal dysfunction and cortisol is either elevated or it's having a strange rhythm during the day that we can't fall asleep. So I spoke about the sound and adrenal connection and that also went into my understanding of the adrenals through my son's condition. But as a whole. So one of the practices that your audience may maybe the Ayurvedic practitioners of course will be familiar but. And I also believe, Sachin, that when you put any information out, walk the path yourself first. So everything I experiment, I try out. So the practice of called karnapurana, I don't know if you've ever come across that where you start to drizzle warm oil into the ear canal and it calms down this air of vata inside the head zone. And it's pretty remarkable that just doing that can make you go from feeling anxious and hyper alert into a state of Zen. And I think it has a lot to do with using the ear cavity to get that calming down the brain. And so it's such a powerful tool that I've been able to use it weaning clients of medication. For example, somebody was put on schizophrenia medication to help him sleep because he wasn't sleeping no matter what. And he had been to sleep physicians, he had tried various protocols. And these are some of the practices that I use to successfully wean him off the sleep strong schizophrenia medication. So I just want to say again, which I tell everywhere, is that we can't always wait for research to catch up because it might take time. Yes, things are absolutely changing that 25 years ago when I started teach yoga, there's very little research on the benefits of meditation or a Shirshasana hat. Understand? And today there's a lot more coming up. But I think that's why I wanted to bridge this east and west, that not everything, if we need to wait for it to be science backed and research backed, that we might lose time in using some very potent remedies for helping us sleep or even just helping us to stay calm. That my approach is that try them, I mean, maybe they won't harm you. On the other hand, they could be immensely helpful. And let's hope that research catches up to many of these protocols so that we are able to use them with more reassurance and maybe more people take them up. So I just want to talk about sound in relation to that. And I'm not sure how we are on time if we can talk about other senses. So I'd like to tell me that.
Yeah, well, I'm fascinated by this protocol. So it's a warm oil you put into the ear. Is it a particular type of oil?
Yeah. So there are very specific oils if you somebody is going to severe anxiety, but those I think really need to be assessed by a practitioner. But however, safe approach is to use warm sesame oil. And so you lie down on one side with one ear facing the ceiling. And then you have a oil dropper and warm oil. So make sure you can put your finger if you can't, it's too hot. If it's too cold. Also, it's a problem, Sachin, because a lot of people, especially those who have these sleep challenges and who might be vata predominant or maybe they are having excess vata at that moment in time that cool oil can actually go, they'll be prone to wax, build up, those people. And if you put the cold oil, it will start to swell up and jam the ear and they'll feel extremely uncomfortable. But use the warm oil and then you lie down for anywhere between five to 15 minutes. And you just keep dropping warm oil slowly. You'll feel it oozing into the ear canal and you'll almost immediately feel a sense of calmness taking over. I'm sure if somebody does research, I can only guess it has something to do with the hypothalamus, pituitary, the pineal gland, some sort of a gentle stimulation. So you keep drizzling this and it'll start to fill the ear canal. And you keep filling until it's right up to the top. And after five to 15 minutes, you turn over and then you wait for a minute. You'll find it all flowing out and along with the oil, you'll hear it pop, pop, pop. So, like the air starts to come out. And guaranteed, after doing that, if you do it this morning, then by night you'll start to feel as if you've taken a sedative and you'll feel drowsy. Eyes will feel naturally like they're closing. And that night I'll ask you to experiment with your aura ring and I will tell you your sleep will be much, much better.
So this is something you do in the morning?
Yeah, I mean, typically you do it at a vata time of the day, which is 4am to 6am or 2pm to 6pm so that's the ideal time to do it at any of those windows. So I generally do it like before 6am at 5.30am but I also do it sometimes in the afternoon batha window like at 3pm where you can apply oil on the whole body as well. And then you can start to do this practice. And then once you turn over and the oil flows out, repeat it on the other ear and then make sure that you again turn over for the oil to flow out of the second year and just see for yourself. I would really love your input, Sachin, because you put out a lot of information on the aura ring and interventions that showed you. I mean, I'm not a huge one to track, but I would love to know from you how that showed up for you on your aura ring.
Okay, I'll definitely do that. And then do you put cotton in your ears or anything like that to keep the oil in there or you just let it.
No, no, not at all. So you let it ooze out. In a minute the whole thing will flow out. But it would have lubricated the ear canal and don't clean it with a earbud. Afterwards, just gently wipe the external ear. And you know, those who are prone to wax buildup, the reason the body is releasing that wax is because it's extremely dry and vata is drying up the passages. So when you do this practice regularly, you don't create the wax in the first place. So it's also a way that it addresses vertigo, dizziness, those who have car sickness. So sometimes when I have to go on a long journey, I'll do that before and after to just calm down. But if somebody's already got a lot of wax, I just add a caution that first go, maybe go to a doctor and you know, have it syringed out with water. But after that, if you maintain the practice, you can prevent that wax from building up. But again, just be very cautious. If there's unique challenges, please check with a practitioner before you try it. But it's definitely shown to be very helpful with sleep. And there are two people in research of sleep in India and I've been telling them, please pick out practices from my book and try them out because we really want to validate some of these things because I don't think anybody in sleep, like research or sleep physicians know about these kind of practices from Based on wisdom. But they're so potent that I would really. That's my aim. I hope I am a bit cautious, Sachin when it comes out in the US and the uk, there'll be some criticism perhaps, but. But that's also where new concepts are accepted. Once it goes through that period where it feels something uncomfortable to a population who's being used to speaking about it in a certain way. And maybe now it's a first this might happen and then maybe there'll be acceptance. So my journey is just to be that instrument and hope that more people are benefited from these practices.
Amazing. Well, it sounds like a very simple practice to do and I'm certainly open to trying it. So thank you for that. And you know, you mentioned the, the dosha vata, and there's vata, pita kapha. So I'm primarily pita. So would this benefit any dosha type? Or is there, is it particularly for vata?
No, it's absolutely beneficial for everybody. It's just that vatas the year is the home of vata. It's a zone of vata. But everybody has, I mean, even, in fact, it's probably easier for you to do it because you won't be prone to that wax buildup and it excess dryness in the ear. So you might find that it's very easy. It drizzles in easily, it flows out easily. Every single person with sleep challenges can use this practice. And even if they don't have sleep challenges such in, I think it's a great practice. As I said, I see a lot of benefit in myself and with my clients that if you're prone to racing thoughts, anxiety, not being able to slow down, it's a really powerful practice. And it can just leave you feeling a naturally Zen state. I know it's very difficult. You know, when you tell somebody meditate and if they're having palpitations and an anxious mind, it can be really difficult, which is what even in the east they say that, that, you know, the Bhagavad Gita says out of action and inaction and inaction and action, which is superior. And they talk about how you could be sitting in inaction, like a meditation pose, and having action in your mind, this racing thoughts. And you could be doing, you could be sweeping your house or cleaning your house, so you're moving in action, but your mind is in a meditative space. So the Bhagavad Gita itself talks about how it's superior to be bringing, to be feeling that Zen space in every action that you perform in life versus sitting still, trying to meditate with this chaos going on. So I think in these kind of situations where we are unable to slow down. Maybe we've had trauma patterns through life of being in a space where it doesn't feel safe. Or so therefore we programmed what today we are talking about as the HP axis. And it's this fight or flight predominant. I think, I don't. I cannot explain because no research has been done into these things, but for a fact that it calms down the nervous system and you feel you've shifted in a space of one hour, you shift from fight or flight to a parasympathetic state. So I'm hoping that research does show this. But yes, absolutely, anybody can do this.
Okay, great. Thank you. I love that. So tell us about another sense I.
Think maybe we can talk about. This is a bit more women specific. And sometimes I joke to my male clients that I wish you had the vagina to access because such a powerful tool. But again, Ayurveda has this practice called the Yoni Picchu, which is basically, you use warm oil in a cotton tampon, or not really a tampon, a cotton cloth which holds oil like a tampon used. But again, I have. There's no research to back this as yet. But I can tell you that every single female client tells me that after doing that last thing in the night, they've had the deepest sleep. So it calms down the entire system because we've got this way to access the pelvis. And you know that in the east there's a lot of talk about how we hold emotions in our pelvis. And recently we've been noticing that there's lot of lymphatic channels in the pelvis. And those who are prone to lymph congestion in the pelvis. Pelvis are also women who develop conditions such as endometriosis. So it's a way to detoxify the lymph channels via the pelvis. And so it's a practice where just like you oil the ear and funny things. Jim, is that what the ancients discovered? That when there's these sleep challenges for anybody, the answer is oliation. So you oil the body outside, you oil the body inside by eating more fats, and then you oil the body at every channel, which it has. So you've got the mouth, we know there's oil pulling, we've got the nose, we know that there's Jalaneti and Nastyam, we've got the year which I spoke about Karnapurna. So the ancients spoke that you can access every single passage in the body and use oil to calm down the system. And today we do know that the nervous system is predominantly fat, all made up of fat. And so for to keep healthy nerves, we want to provide the body with adequate fats. And nobody back then in Ayurveda might have described it as lipids or. But they knew that fats were the answer to calming down the nervous system. So this is the other practice that women can use very effectively to help them deepen their sleep. But I think that's a little bit more tricky because it's more dosha specific. And I think practitioners might need to guide them on what oil they can use because obviously we don't want to put something into the vagina which upsets the vaginal microbiome. So I would be a bit cautious to make those recommendations as a universal suggestion, but just to put it out there.
Okay, awesome. And then what would be the last sense?
Ah, my favorite sense. Connection. But I think I should move away from that. I will talk about touch, Sachin. And so I. In the book, I have spoken about two different aspects when it comes to touch and sleep. So the first I've spoken about is a huge connection between histamine and sleep and how, you know when somebody is prone to skin challenges. The skin can be a barometer to indicate what's happening inside the body. So to use skin challenges as a doorway to understand the body on a deeper level. The second thing I wrote about, which came from my personal experience in a way, but I do reiterate that nobody needs to have really deep challenges. What I said was there's a seesaw connection between oxytocin and cortisone. So oxytocin boost lowers cortisol. We talk a lot about cortisol and insulin interaction, but we don't talk so much about the cortisol and oxytocin connection. So for those who have this cortisol spike, maybe they've got this HP axis that's programmed in a way where they're always reacting to to stress and then they take longer to calm down. In my case, Sachin, I'll tell you that I discovered much later that as a mom, I'm a carrier of a defective gene, which is what gives condition. And carriers of this gene take longer to exit or shunt out cortisol after it's been released. So if I have a period of high stress, it can can spike it. And I doesn't come down for a few days, even if I am mindful, even if I do breath work. So it takes time for me to slow down. So if somebody is similar and maybe they take longer to lower that stress response, then boosting oxytocin is a way that they can quickly lower cortisol. And again, I would go back to oil, where the abhyanga, the oil massage. And I think that's something that was part of my life. My great grandmother and my grandmother lived with us and it was the done thing that every single week everybody would have an oil bath and oil abhyanga. And I don't think that's used as much. So I created this entire ancient abhyanga master class class which is just released this week and how you can choose the oil based upon your body, this moment in time, the season, the location. So it gives you these frameworks to do that. So using any the correct oil. And of course that is very tricky because there's no oil that's perfect for everybody at every point in time. So you're going to be influenced by the season if you move to a different place. So you have to learn how to use that the right, right way. But it's so powerful and studies have proven this, which I'm thrilled about, that oil massage and touching the body in massage boosts oxytocin and lowers cortisol. So I'm really happy that this has come up to validate some of these practices. So I would definitely say the easiest thing for all of us to do is oil abhyanga. We don't need anybody, we don't need to go to a massage center. We simply need to schedule or tell ourselves that we'll give that 20 minutes of self care. But I will say that no matter the oil that you use, there is a saying which was imparted to me by my teachers that when you oil the body, you have to wait a minimum of 21 minutes to soak before you go for a bath. And the reason is that it said that there are seven layers of tissues, Rasara, rakta, mamsamidas, timaja and shukra, which is blood, plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, bone marrow and the reproductive tissue. And it takes about three minutes to soak in each layer of tissues. Is the belief from the ancient text. It said if you wait 21 minutes, you allow the oil to penetrate all layers of the tissue and soften tissues. When you soften all the tissues, the tissues relax and release, release the AMA or the toxins which start coming back to the GI tract and get eliminated. So I actually write about how doing the abhyanga is a way that I improve my digestion Even without adding digestive supplements, because I was able to first of all shift into this parasympathetic state. And abhyanga has lot of benefits on digestion because if you use it the right way with the direction to massage, there's one vata in the abdomen called samanavayu, where you massage clockwise on the belly. So it gets the energy moving in the right direction, which then improves your digestive strength. So I think abhyanga is something that everybody on a healing journey should bring into their life because it just changes the journey all together better.
Okay, perfect. I'm curious as to what oil I should use now.
I think you said you are predominantly pitta. You're in missy soga. I'm assuming it's not really that freezing cold. So something like chamber chiadi, which is a hibiscus base, would be wonderful. Or something with sandalwood.
Good.
It's called like chandanadi. So those kind of cooling oils can be really good. I think for me, I would pick Chandana Di Thailam for your body if you're seeing predominant pitta. And it's also. It's such a beautiful smell, the sandalwood. And I think it's also women because when you start doing abhyangad, you're just so much nicer are smelling to everybody around you on a lighter note. And so I love that. It's a great practice. Yeah, yeah.
I have some pure sandalwood oil. Can I mix that with a carrier oil or is.
Yeah, absolutely. You could use like a coconut oil which mixed a little bit of the Sandalwood, like maybe 2 3rd Coconut, 1 3rd Castor and cherry. A sandalwood just to add the aroma to it. Something like that would be good unless the weather has tipped into feeling a bit chilly, in which case something more neutral like olive oil and then adding something into it. But I think there is benefit, Sachin, of using the herbal oils, even if it's once in a month or once in two months where they do have benefits because obviously they infused with the right combination of many herbs and they just allow the fat to reach deeper tissues in a much better way. And is there a particular brand? I think wherever in the world somebody might be, there is always Kotakal sometimes. But I think Kerala Ayurveda. So if you look up Kerala Ayurveda, they've got. They do sell ship all over the world. So a lot of good oil brands are there. Banyan has. But you will get banyan botanicals more as vata oil, pitta oil Kapha oil. And I think sometimes we can't box people like that because it might be a bit more nuanced. So it might not be somebody's predominantly kapha that they're going to be influenced by that same quality right through the year, wherever they go. And so I'm a bit cautious about that. But yeah, for sure it can be a great place to begin.
Okay, well, I, I love this. I, I see an Ayurvedic practitioner and so, you know, this is somewhat familiar to me, but this is, you know, an onion that we can keep peeling. Right. And there's so many layers to it and so many nuances to it. This has been such a fascinating, fascinating dive into sleep. I do have a question about the massage. So I know you said there's self massage that we could do, so we don't have to necessarily see a therapist. Certainly it's probably better if we have our spouse do it just to kind of create that probably increase oxytocin and connection with our partner. Is there a particular technique? Are we putting it all over our body, our head, our back, our shoulders, or is there a particular part that we're rubbing it on?
Well, that's what I go into in the ancient Abhyanga master class, which is like $99. I mean, maybe we can talk and I can give some discount code to your audience as well. We can figure that out. But I go into video on the right direction, which I feel is really important because there are five different VATAs and, you know, getting the energies. For example, pranavata in the church chest moving in a different direction is what can cause irregular heartbeat or palpitations or breathlessness. So when you move the vatas in the right direction. So if you like, and we have a lot of time, I can go into all of that. So there are those five vatas. So you go into particular directions so that you pacify the vatas and you get them flowing in the right direction. And also before the that, sachin. It's also important to know that all doshas, the body itself, requires even a different form of touch. For example, somebody is predominantly kapha and prone to water retention. They don't need a gentle touch. They want something a bit vigorous to stimulate them. However, somebody who's predominantly vata and prone to dryness and sleep issues, they need a very soft movement, slow movement, gentle touch. So you don't want to be vigorous with somebody. But you'll find that those who've got the excess vata will also be the Ones who tend to rub very quickly because they can't calm themselves down. So just as we train ourselves to breathe slower and deeper in, and I know you are passionate about breath, so I had to interweave that in that, you know, we are always retraining ourselves to breathe well, in a similar manner, we have to retrain ourselves. Helps to slow down our movement. So, for example, if you see somebody who's high bata scrolling social media, the finger will be moving so quickly. It will just be rapid finger going fast. So you really need to be conscious of these things and slow down. Think about how would you move your body in a Tai Chi session? Really like moving very, very slowly through space. That's really how you want to move your hand through the body. So these values are. They're five values. So let me know if you want, if you have time and if you want to go through that as well.
Okay. I love that. I'm, I'm so excited to read your book. I, I know that my copy is on its way, so, yes, fingers crossed I receive it soon. Because there's so many great nuggets that you've shared. Lots of things, things that I've learned. And I love that we explored the five other senses that we don't really hear much about, especially here in the West. And as somebody who, who likes data and sometimes maybe even obsessed with data at times, because I like to know tangibly if something works and measurably if something works, because telling someone I, I slept better is great, but showing them the evidence is, is so much, much is, you know, just adds a layer of power to, to that statement. So I'm so honored that we got to spend this time together. And I'm really excited to, to share this with our community because I know it's going to help a lot of people and open up a lot of people's eyes. Because, you know, I was having dinner the other day and there was men and women there, but I somehow got myself sandwiched in between a group of four women, and they started talking about some of their health challenges. And the number one topic that they were speaking about was something sleep. So I know that this is a huge issue, and sleep is one of the three dominoes that we like to address. The first one is breath, the second one is light, and the third one is sleep. And if we can get people doing those three things right, it just makes such a profound difference in their health. Not, you know, weeks, days or weeks from now, but literally the next day, people can Start feeling better. So thank you for the work that you're doing and this really inspiring and enlightening interview. I'm so excited for people to dive into the other their senses so that they can explore them further and you know, let's. Yeah. If you, if you have a link to the course, happy to share that with the show notes so that people can get access to that as well. And I'm certainly interested and curious to learn more because every experience for sure with Ayurveda has been extremely positive. And I know I'm deeply rooted in Ayurveda just culturally, but, you know, it's not something that we learn here in Western medicine. And I'm so excited that we're able to bring this to more people through the work that you're doing.
Thank you, Sachin. And I just wanted to also say, you know, the, that you're. When you said I'm obsessed with data and I'd like to show people that's totally a pitta side who wants that everything to be scientific and organized and you want to be able to show that it's validated. So that's absolutely that side of you. And I also want to just finish if you, if I might to say that one of the things that the reason I wrote this book and you know, I have, I have probably I might get criticized at some point about qualification because I do see a lot of sleep researchers putting out information as those unqualified in sleep. Sleep science should not be talking about sleep. And I really want to say that I found the sleep space a bit narrow, to be honest. And I felt that there was too much emphasis on just cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. And I see a lot of people in sleep talking about how physiology doesn't matter. You need to rewire the mindset. And I think the mindset is an important, important piece and it's absolutely important, but it's. We can't be so rigid that only one thing works. For me, it's all about whatever gets the person improved is wonderful. Maybe for somebody it will be practices from the east. Maybe for someone else it will be a nutrient from the West. But my goal is that I don't want to be rigid in either direction. I want to provide a large view so that people might, might get the very best to help themselves sleep.
I love it. I mean, I think everyone's a better version of themselves when they're sleeping better and they're better father, mother, brother, sister, you know, entrepreneur, all of those things. And it's just such a huge epidemic. And a lot of times we're treating the fallout of poor sleep, right? Like low energy, you know, poor mood, disrupted circadian rhythms and hormones and all of those things and we just end up treating the symptoms. But if we could just get people sleeping better and I say that lightly because I know it's not easy with all the challenges our modern society, but if people could start sleeping better, I think that so many other parts of their health would simply fall into place. So thank you again for the work that you're doing. Deepa. Where can people get the book? Book and when will it be out?
It's available for pre order. It's officially will start shipping in the US and UK on February 29th. That's the date it will change from pre order to buy now. So whoever's ordered it will go to their homes. But Kindle is available immediately so people have already bought Kindle version. I know somebody in the south of France also received a bundle book so I was surprised by that. But I can, we can put the US link in your show notes so that it's easier and any other time just go on Amazon, anywhere in the world, wherever someone's listening and just search Deepakan and how to sleep better.
All right. So that's how to sleep better. The miraculous ten step protocol to recharge your mind and body Body. Thank you Deepa. This has been such a blessing. I'm so grateful. I'm actually looking forward to sleeping today and I'm gonna, I have some sandalwood oil, I've got some coconut oil and I've got some castor oil. So I'm gonna give myself some self massage today and just incorporate that into my protocol tonight. So thank you for these wonderful tips. I'm also excited to put the sesame oil but it's too late for me now. I'll have to do that maybe tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon. So thank you, thank you, thank you and here's to good night's rest for me. It's. It's almost my bedtime and a wonderful, amazing, productive day for you.
Thank you Sachin and again very grateful for the role you played on this journey.
My pleasure. It's my honor and my pleasure. Thank you.
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