Salila SukumaranFounder/ Ayurveda Wellness Concierge, Ayurgamaya · Founder, CEO | Ayurveda lineage-based wisdom keeper | Podcast Host guiding women to heal burnout and thrive in high-pressure lives

Bad sleep? Restless nights? The sleep hack nobody's talks about.

17 Jun 2026 · 1 min

Open source

Actionable Ayurveda with Salila

17 Jun 2026 · 1 min

0:00

In this podcast excerpt, the host explains an Ayurvedic sleep remedy that involves applying a small amount of sesame or almond oil to the soles of the feet before bedtime. The rationale is that the soles, rich in sweat glands, are major sites where bodily energy and hydration can escape, especially for individuals with Vata dominance, which manifests as dryness, restless legs, and nighttime discomfort. By coating the soles with oil, one 'shrink wraps' the area, soothing Vata imbalance, reducing energy loss, calming restless legs, and thereby promoting more restful sleep.

Chapters

Sleep before bed. Sleep before bed, pada bhyanga, 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, that's— 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 and 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, kind of shrink wrap it, and make sure that our energies stay inside our body and are protected, and we go to sleep.

More from Salila