Actionable Ayurveda with Salila #1, Gut Health

Welcome to Actionable Ayurveda with Salila, your go-to podcast for diving deep into the timeless wisdom of Ayurveda. I am Salila Sukumaran, your host and guide on this transformative journey. With a lineage rooted in Ayurvedic practices, I am here to empower you to thrive and flourish through the ancient principles of Ayurveda. Today's topic is gut health. Good morning. Namaste. Good evening. Wonderful to see all of you. So the questions that I'm going to take today, I have 4 questions. One is Ayurveda's thoughts on juicing by Aarti, especially green juices. Second one is, Dr. Radha, can a gut that has been compromised by years of painkillers and bad food be brought to normal? And Mansi wants to know foods for constipation. Arthi also had another question which I think is really interesting and important for us, which is specific causes for leaky gut and how it can be healed. So we are together for about 45 minutes and I am going to make my best effort to make sure I'm answering these questions in a way that you guys can walk away with a lot of value. Let's begin. So we are all here for Actionable Ayurveda with Salila Sukumaran, part 1, and we are going to talk about gut health. So gut health is central to our well-being, right? This session is for anybody who is looking to add some rituals, some tips, some hacks, some Ayurvedic ways of looking at gut health so that you can find some relief, whether you are suffering from gut health yourself or your family members. Somebody around you has been complaining every day, I don't feel so good, I have constipation, or I have diarrhea, or my digestion is really baggage. So you are going to walk away with some perspective shifts today. That's my goal. Stick around because I'm going to be talking about how I do healing when somebody comes to me as a client. The framework that I use, I call it Ayur Gamaya because it just came to me in a meditation. And the word Ayur Gamaya means Ayur, Ayur, life, Gamaya, I go. So whatever leads me to life, whatever leads me to life is Ayurghamaya. By the end of this session, you will have a more expanded view of what Ayurvedic healing entails, what it looks like, and why is gut health so central to Ayurvedic healing. You will be able to look at your gut, your diet, your lifestyle, and say, hmm, maybe I've not done this before. Maybe if I try this now, this might be of help, right? Okay, so everybody is here because gut health is a major issue. The one shloka I want everybody to think of as we are going through this session is Ajirnam Sarva Roga Moola. Ajirnam means indigestion, Sarva means every, Roga means disease, Moola means the foundation. So this Sanskrit shloka from our Shastras is Ajirnam. Not being able to digest food properly is foundational to all diseases. They did not say one disease. They did not say gut-specific disease. They did not say maybe headache, maybe this, maybe that. They said Sarvaroga. And when they say these sweeping statements, It's pretty much true. So any disease you see in any human being, think of any disease in your head, definitely that disease started with gut health issues. That for sure we know. Now the other word to look here is roga. Ragaadi roga is another Sanskrit verse that is foundational when Ayurveda physicians go studying. The first shloka they are taught is Raga Dhiroga. What does that mean? Raga means attachment. Raga means that which we grasp and do not let go. That is our raga, right? So if I have raga towards somebody, I am attached to that person in such a way that I am not able to take care of myself, right? I'm not able to be independent in myself. So whenever our bodies have raga, we are going to have roga. Roga meaning disease. So what are the conditions in which we get attached? How many of you know about the body types? Vata, Pitta, Kapha. There are the 3 fundamental energies. Vata, the energy of circulation and movement. Vata, the word itself means movement. Pitta, the energy of of metabolism, of transformation, of catalyst, of things changing shape from one form to another. And Kapha, the energy of cohesiveness, of constructions, of things holding shape. So which of these energy is Raga? The energy of Kapha, right? So there is an increase in the energy of— there is an increase of stickiness in the body. There is an increase of sticky things in the body like ama. Ama is a toxin that is produced when there is incomplete digestion. Whenever digestion is not optimal, we have byproducts of our food inside our body which goes and gets stuck in our capillaries. These are called ama. Why does Ayurveda call this a toxin? Because in the modern way of speaking, a toxin is something that is a poison and has that skull and bone sign, and it is dangerous, and it might hurt you and kill you. For Ayurveda, anything that takes us away from life is a toxin, is a bad thing. Anything that brings us to life, restores our health, restores our joy and vitality, our prana, our tejas, our ojas, Prana meaning our life force, Tejas meaning our magnetism, and Ojas meaning our ability to be fertile, our ability to keep diseases at bay, our immunity. Anything that reduces our chances of having Prana, Tejas, and Ojas is a toxin. Therefore, they call it a toxin. They call it an Ama. Why? Because when this Ama, when this undigested food matter goes and gets stuck in our capillaries, then we are going to have something called khaava vekunya. Sorry, I'm throwing a lot of Sanskrit words at you. Is everybody okay with me using Sanskrit words? Because this whole exercise is about helping you understand these terms so that you have better knowledge. So khaava vekunya is whenever there are these obstructions in our capillaries, vata, pitta, and kapha energies The 3 doshas which are always working with each other and always compensating and balancing and playing with each other, these come to a dead stop. So 'Kha Vaygunya', 'Kha' meaning space, 'Vaygunya' meaning a distortion. There is spatial distortion in that region, naturally, right? 2 days ago, my garden pipe just suddenly exploded and there was water everywhere. What is that? Kave gunya. The capillary got destroyed because of sun, pressure, cold, some frozenness, something happened, capillary got disrupted and the water was everywhere. Similarly, all our body's capillaries, when they get obstructed, there is going to be a, either a visible or an invisible health issue. So we started with Ajirna Sarvaroga Moola, which is indigestion is the basis of all disease. And then we moved on to Ama, which is that sticky kapha quality residue which is created by lack of digestion, lack of optimal digestion. And now we are at Kava Gunya, which is distortions in space created by this sticky kapha. And this sticky kapha is in all capillaries of the body, whether those capillaries are micro channels or major blood vessels, or like plaque in our teeth. Some people will tell me, Salila, I tend to build up a lot of plaque even though I brush my teeth very well. What's going on there? Their metabolism has slowed down a little bit, which is why they are visibly seeing the deposition of ama in their mouth. If somebody has their insulin levels are not optimal, their insulin sensitivity is lower, and they are gaining more weight, they are gaining more fat, they are gaining more cholesterol in their body, what will happen? Their visible capillaries will start to get obstructed, right? And when they eat sugar, their body is not going to be able to manage it so well. They are going to be moving into a pre-diabetic stage much faster than other people. Right, so how do we now bring healing? So the framework that I use, I look at 5 important aspects of healing. One is Ahara, obviously diet. So we have to look at the body type to understand which energies do you have in predominance. Are you a Vata body type? Are you a Pitta body type? Or are you a Kapha body type? If you're a Vata body type, your body will naturally have a tendency to circulate things very fast. Your body will not be able to withdraw nutrition from the food very well. Your metabolism would be variable, your digestive fire, your Agni, will be variable. So sometimes you will have good digestion, sometimes you will not have good digestion. Your body will look drier, your body will look skinnier, and you may be facing constipation a lot. Now if you were a Pitta body type, if your metabolism was really high, if you tend to get sunburnt very easily. If you tend to have very expressive, abrupt sort of a dealing with others, you get upset, you express it right away, you're very short with people, then we know for sure that you may be an athletic Pitta body type. You're very goal-oriented. You're going to have diarrhea if you eat a lot of spicy food, heavy food, foods that are dairy-based. You may have diarrhea. So when we have some kind of Leaky gut usually will have a lot of diarrhea. Irritable bowel syndrome will have more of a Vata and a Pitta constitution moving between constipation and diarrhea. Now, what if you had the prevalence of Kapha body type? Your appetite would be very low, your digestive function would be very much slower, and you will not go so frequently. You'll have a specific routine that works for you. If you eat something that's heavy, it'll just sit in your gut uncomfortably for a very long time. So that is the major challenge of a Kapha person. Now, how does our diet come into play when it comes to indigestion? Once we understand our body type, whether we are Vata, Pitta, or Kapha, we look at the diet we are eating, and then we optimize our diet to our body type. So if you are a Vata, you are going to avoid— I love mnemonics because mnemonics help me remember things, it helps me teach things better. You're avoid CRDS. What is that? Cold, raw, dry, stale. If you're a Pitta person, you're going to avoid or reduce, minimize SOSs. That is spicy, oily, salty, sour. Sour also includes fermented foods. And if you are a Kapha, you are going to avoid dense foods. D and— anything that is dense, which grows under the ground, which is heavier to digest, for example, like dairy, you are going to avoid that. And that is going to— nuts, dairy, nuts, and what was the S for? Anything that is overly sweet. Yes, DNS. So dairy, nuts, sweets. You avoid these 3 things or reduce and minimize them, you'll be in a lot better shape. Okay. Vihara. Now, one thing we need to understand about our indigestion is the gut-brain axis. So gut-brain axis, mind-body unit, all these are the latest terms research is finding out, and it's all in the world as if it is this, oh my God, this new cutting-edge discovery. Ayurveda said this 5,000 years ago. When you sit down to eat, make sure that your mind is calm. Make sure that your mind is not in any of the anger, anxiety, fear, or shoka, sadness. Make sure that you are not feeling any of these emotions before you sit down to eat. Balance yourself and then sit down to have a meal. Why? Because anger is going to provoke our pitta. Fear and anxiety is going to provoke our Vata. And if we have sadness, if we are literally crying and sad, somebody broke our heart, and our friend says, "No, don't worry, come and sit down and have this meal," that meal is not going to be digested properly. First, we have to get our mind in order. If we have an appetite, then we have to eat. The third thing is vyabhara, our behavior towards others. If you and I are using behaviors that increase vata in other people, increase vata in our body— anxiety, anger, sadness, it is going to directly affect our food, which are our thoughts. If my internal thoughts, my internal mindscape is always thinking anxiety-provoking, fear-provoking, anger-provoking, sadness-provoking thoughts, I am directly affecting my gut health. Finally, samskaras. Samskaras are our tendencies. So this is the framework I use. Every time a client comes to me, I put them through this framework. I check their Ahara, I check their Vihara, their lifestyle. I check their Vyavahara, their behavior with other people. I check their Vicharas, their thoughts, and I talk to them about their Samskaras, their tendencies. So what are— when we die, our Ahara, Vihara, Vyavahara, and Vichara do not go with us. Our Samskaras go with us. Samskaras are what we have created over lifetimes through Action and inaction. All of us are born with samskaras. If you think back of a child or your niece or nephew, your parents, they just have this particular way of handling things. They will either shrink from something or they will expand and say yes to something. So if our samskaras are also fear-causing, anger-causing, sadness-causing, oh, I am the victim of everybody, everything bad happens to me, or how dare somebody do that to I am going to now go and pick a fight, or, oh gosh, everything is going to fall apart. You know, do we have a samskara of being in a Vata, a Pitta, or a Kapha state? If we have those samskaras, then we've got to work on those. And the samskaras are the most difficult. Why? Because they have been ingrained in us for generations over lifetimes. So when we talk about samskaras, we are also talking about the things we are carrying from our past generations. So I had a client, a very interesting case. She was very nervous about ever fasting. So when I would talk to her about fasting, she would be like, "No, I don't think I can get hungry. It's going to affect me too much. I have never fasted. It is fear-provoking for me." So what is that? I told her, you live in the Bay Area, There is a DoorDash at 30 minutes. If you reached a point where you are like, I can't take it anymore, food will come to you in 30 minutes. So try and see how much you can push. And then we talked about it and I said, what happened in your family? And she remembered that this was something her mother had ingrained in her. Why? Because her grandmother, her grandparents went through war and famine and they suffered so much. That just the feeling of hunger provoked intense anxiety in them. And once she figured this out, she figured her samskara, she was able to start to keep a fast, and she was able to progress in her gut health. All right, dears, now I'm going to go through the questions quickly, and then we're going to close down this, and then we'll meet again for next Wednesday. All right, so the specific cause for leaky gut Arthi is asking us, how can it be healed? So leaky gut is directly related to our Agni, our digestive fire. So think of Agni like a fire burning in the center of this body. The more this fire burns optimally, not brightly, not too much, but optimally, it will keep all the microbiome in the right manner. So specific cause of leaky gut is this Agni going either variable or going down. Due to high Kapha, high Pitta, or high Vata. All three can affect us. When this Agni starts to go low, what happens? The microbiome starts to shift. Just like if a street lamp was on in the center of a town square, all the bad elements would stay out of that area. And as the street light starts to flicker or starts to go out, all the bad elements will start creeping up. Because now they feel safer. Similarly, when this Agni starts to go low, bad bacteria starts winning. We have worse outcomes, not just in our gut, but also in our mouth, in our genitalia, everywhere, on our skin. The bad bacteria starts winning, and the good bacterias that are made— supposed to maintain balance, that are supposed to help with all these activities in our body, create additional widgets and parts that our diet is not providing us, or help us to get over nutritional deficiencies, all that starts to get imbalanced and then our body is going to be affected. So the first thing we do when somebody comes with a leaky gut is we improve the Agni. And then because the gut lining has been compromised, because the gut lining has lost that nice thick lining which keeps all those pathogens from the food away from our body, away from our blood vessels. And there are places where it's been breached and there's bleeding and stuff like that. The skin is raw there. We need to create more short-chain fatty acids there for that body part to get covered nicely. So usually ghee is a very good medicine for that. So if you know anybody or if you're suffering from it, add ghee to your diet and you will definitely have a lot of healing. What is Ayurveda's thoughts on juicing? Aarti is asking, especially green juices. So Ayurveda does not say don't drink juices. For a kapha body type, too much fiber is not a good thing. So kapha body type should have juices. When our digestion is low, when vata is very, very high, for example summers, Ayurveda recommends panakas or juices. But Juices are not recommended for people who need fiber, people who need their gut microbiome to be healthy, because that fiber helps create short-chain fatty acids. And green juices, the way we see in social media, the way we see in modern diet, is not acceptable to Ayurveda because we are adding different kinds of foods and just tossing it together, and we are drinking too much. Because if we put that food on a plate, our mouth would get tired chewing. So we just put it into a mixie, we blitz it, and we eat it. I had a client, a lovely, lovely woman, very, very smart, literally a rocket scientist. She took a whole bag of spinach and she juiced it and drank it. And she had vata issues for the next like 3 weeks, 4 weeks. Constant vata, high gas. She already was high on vata, had a very highly stressful lifestyle. On top of that, when she did that, her body went for a toss. So that's what will happen if we drink green juices. The other point is a lot of people who do green juicing, they're using frozen greens. If it's not local, if it's not seasonal, you eat it, it's going to naturally increase your vata. Vata is going to affect digestion, it's going to create constipation, gas, bloating. Dr. Radha is asking, can a gut that has been compromised by years of painkillers and bad food be brought to normal? Radhaji, I have seen miracles happen because of Ayurveda. I do something called as a guided cleanse where I help people do a Panchakarma cleanse to themselves in a mild manner. That itself I have seen being very effective. But if that is not possible for someone, or somebody wants to go to India and do a proper Panchakarma, that's another way I have seen miracles happen. We have to clean out that toxins, those amaas from the body. Years of painkillers, meaning it would have made all the nerves very hard. So the nerves will be all in a high Vata state. Bad food, again, those capillaries will all be blocked with ama. So the only way to clear all this out is through Panchakarma therapies, either at home with a practitioner or in a center, just retreating for 21 to 28 days. I had a client who had From the childhood, she had gut issues and she thought her gut issues were so bad. She was getting weekly vitamin injections. She would just be bleeding all the time. She was getting blood infusion. She did Panchakarma in October. By February, her body was strong enough to be fertile. She was a young, beautiful, gorgeous girl. She gave birth to a lovely little girl after that. So I've seen miracles happen. Amansee is asking for foods for constipation. You know that constipation happens because of Vata. We have to look at foods that are— what is a Kapha food? Any food that is dense and slimy. What are some slimy foods? Think about some slimy foods. I'll start you off. Urad dal, black lentils, fenugreek, spinach, okra, oats. These are all slimy foods, right? Right, Soumika. Okra. So whenever you see any food, you Chomp on it and then you feel like, mm, what is this? Does this feel slimy in my mouth? That's good for managing constipation. Anything that grows under the ground that is dense, you boil it and then it becomes goopy. That is all good for constipation. One of the best medicines for constipation is suran. Suran meaning taro. Boiled taro is excellent for constipation. Things high in fiber, seaweed salad, onions, just roast onions and have it with a little dressing or just Sauté a whole onion, eat it up. That also will help you with constipation. Niharika wants to know, how do we handle excess Pitta in the gut? Do we add more Vata foods or more Kapha foods? We add more cooling foods, foods which are lower in that S.O.S.S. I spoke about. Sauce, spicy, spicy, oily, sour, salty. We are going to reduce that and the Pitta will get reduced. Can you repeat the abbreviation for CRDS? Cold, raw, dry, stale is CRDS. This will increase Vata. So if we avoid this, our Vata will get balanced. Other than khichdi, is there another food that balances all doshas? All traditional Indian foods are tridosha balancing. All traditional Indian foods. Anything that grandma cooked is tridosha balancing. Anything you eat at a traditional feast is Vata balancing. Thank you, Krishnaji. I'm happy that you follow the Dinacharya and you find it beneficial. Yes, chia seeds. Absolutely. Chia seeds are great. In India, in summers, my mother says that when she was little, they would have basil seeds, sabza seeds with lemonade. And that makes so much sense because in summer, Vata is high, digestion is low. When we add sabza to our food, it cools. It also keeps hydration in the body. And it's kapha, right? Barley, perfect. Sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes. Yes. Kidney beans. You're so right. Very kapha. Arbi. Prunes are very kapha. Raisins are very kapha. Excellent. I love all this. Okra. Perfect. This is wonderful. You know where to find me. You have my number. You're all on in the Ayurveda webinar group. If not, please join. If you have any questions, if you want to work with me, Please reach out, salila@suryagamaya.com, that's my email. I will drop a poll for next week's get-together. I love that all of you showed up. Well, thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of the morning, rest of the evening. We'll see each other soon. Blessings.