Science Backed Ayurveda: Use Brahmi for Hormone Balance, Focus, and Burnout Recovery

For every successful woman in her 40s and beyond who sits across me in the Zoom window, there's always one complaint. I feel tired even after 8 to 10 hours of sleep. I cannot focus. I barely think straight in meetings. Salila, I am going to be fired if I keep going this way. Hey there, sisters! I'm Salila Sukumaran with yet another episode of Actionable Ayurveda, where we learn new ways to reconnect to our Ayurvedic intelligence, our inbuilt AI, for a juicy, glowy body and a life of purpose, which is code for balanced Kapha, the energy of maintenance, balanced Pitta, the metabolic fire, and a balanced Vata, the energy of whim and Vigor. We continue with our Sacred Herb series, one episode, one herb examined as much as we can in the 20 or so minutes we have. What is this herb all about? What it does, why it does it, and how to use it in a life as busy and chaotic as yours. Today's herb is Brahmi. I want to begin not with the herb, but with you. Because Prami does not address one problem, it addresses several. And I want you to recognize yours before we go any further. Now, there is that person who cannot sleep past 3 AM. They're wide awake, tossing and turning, not from insomnia exactly. They could do go to bed and fall asleep right away, but it's that early morning time. The body is tired, but the mind will not stop It's relentless running. They're thinking about to-do lists, and by morning, even if they had slept a little bit, it just did not feel adequate. And there is that person who used to be sharp, a professional, maybe a student, a parent, somebody who moved through complexity with ease, and now finds friction where there was none. Meetings where you sit and wonder, wow, I forgot everything that was said right now. Sentences that dissolve before they finish. I personally have had this experience going through perimenopause, sitting in a podcast interview and having your brain drop things mid-sentence. Is not funny. All right, and then there is that kind of person who is running on the edge of burnout, still functioning, still producing, still showing up, but who knows the ground beneath them is thinner than it looks and Motivation that once arrived without effort now requires National Geographic level expedition efforts. And a feeling of a flatness where there used to be some feeling, now just blah. And then there is that person who is simply exhausted in a way that has no clean explanation. There is no diagnosis. They're not sick enough. But they're not well enough to feel like themselves. They're just carrying a weight that a good weekend has stopped being able to fix. 4 different experiences, 1 underlying pattern, named and clinically addressed in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years. And in our tradition, in the Ayurvedic tradition, these symptoms are not separate problems. They are all the expression of the same depletion in the same system. The system of the Majadhatu, or the origin of the nervous tissue of the body, the living medium through which every thought, every memory, every felt sensation must travel, and the Shrothasis, the channels through which this system communicates, is called Mano Vaha. Mana means mind, Vaha means that which carries, the pathways through which perception and understanding actually move. So when our Majadhātu is depleted and the Mano Vāshaṣrūtas, the channels of the mind, are congested, this is what it feels like from inside. Not one symptom, but many in different proportions depending who you are, whether you're a Vata dominant person, a Pitta dominant person, a Kapha dominant person, or maybe a little bit of everything. But I want to tell you, I want to assure you, you are not broken. Your nerves, your Majjadhatu, is just hungry for nourishment. The channel is clouded with Ama, which is that sticky toxin, and both these issues can be addressed with our sacred herbs. Now before Ayurveda reaches for any herb, it asks, 'Why?' Not, 'What are your symptoms?' And I've seen this done by functional medicine practitioners and, um, physicians, general physicians who have learned Ayurveda. And when my clients come to me and they show me what they've been prescribed, I can take one look and tell whether this is the handiwork of a functional medicine practitioner or a regular general physician who has prescribed them Ayurveda because now they are moving into, segueing into Ayurveda. And what they do is they take every symptom that the client is speaking of and then they give a remedy based on that. Ayurveda doesn't work like that. Ayurveda actually takes all the symptoms and then classifies them according to Vata, Pitta, Kapha. And then based on that, we arrive at the correct herb to be offered to the patient so that the patient can then heal with maybe 1 or 2 or maybe maximum 3. All right, dears, so the first question is your pattern. In Ayurveda, this is the dominant dosha, the constitutional quality that shapes how the imbalance expresses itself in you. If your imbalance comes with anxiety, scattered thinking, a wired by tired feeling, dryness, and a sense that things are eroding faster than they are replaced, this is a Vata pattern. This is movement without the anchoring, without grounding. If it comes with heat, irritability, and a mind that was once sharp but is now frayed, and the exhaustion of someone who has run their fire too hard for too long, this is a Pitta pattern. And if it comes with heaviness, a coating quality, low motivation, a mind that feels not scattered but sludgy, slow, this is a Kapha pattern. Observe the pattern in your body first, or if it's your client, observe the patterns. Identify what it is predominantly. It will show you how to select an herb, how to prepare it, to offer it in what vehicle, and at what dose. That's when healing happens. Then the second question you look at, the second parameter you check is the Agni, your digestive fire, and the presence of Ama, the residue that accumulates when the digestive fire, the metabolic fire in the cellular body runs weak, because digestion is growing weak, And here is what the Instagram wellness content consistently misses. You can feed a depleted tissue all day, but if the channel carrying nourishment to that tissue is blocked, the medicine does not reach the tissue. It simply is eliminated out of the body. So clearing the channel through a cleanse and feeding the tissue are both necessary. Doing them in the wrong order is why people try things for months and feel nothing. And which is why I focus predominantly on cleanse first. I do not offer consultations. I only offer cleanses because in my practice I have observed that nearly everyone who comes to me has Ama, has those sticky toxins. And I can offer herbs and that may provide relief, but without taking care of that foundational, fundamental problem, I'm just doing a disservice. So therefore, my focus is remove the Ama, nourish the body. A real Vaidya would always ask whether something external is driving this imbalance. Right? So I ask these 5 foundational questions to all my cleanse clients. The 5 foundations are: Ahara, Vihara, Vyavahara, Vichara, Samskara. And that translates to your nourishment, the fuel, your lifestyle, the way you move, your patterns, your rhythm, what you do in a day. Vyavahara, your behavior, how you connect with others, how you maintain relationships. Vichara, your thoughts, what's running in your head all day. And Samskara, what are the subconscious patterns that are driving your behavior, the way you fuel yourself, the way you move around through life, the thoughts that you keep hitting against. This is important. Without this, no amount of medicine is going to help. Back to Brahmi. And let's look at how Brahmi can help us, because we spoke about the Manovahashrothas. Brahmi is one of the major medicines for Manovahashrothas, cleansing and rejuvenation. It's a small, creeping, pale green, unremarkable to look at plant. The first time I saw it, I was like, what is this? It looks like a weed. Brahmi grows in the margins of rivers and the edges of paddy fields, the marshy lowlands. So by that, you know that she will need lots of water. And if she needs lots of water, then she will naturally be cooling. Because in Ayurveda, where a plant chooses to live is the first expression of its medicinal quality, its guna. If it is by the water, it is going to be hydrating and therefore cooling. If you grow her in a pot, remember to drench her in lots of water. Her 'Rasa', her taste is bitter. You know, if you've been a listener of my podcast, that bitter is the taste of clarification. So if Ama is present, bitter is a big thumbs up, because it clears, it opens, it shrinks what has accumulated beyond what the system needs. Her virya, her active potency, is cooling. This makes her particularly suited to Pitta patterns. But cooling alone is not what a Kapha or a Vata constitution needs, which is precisely why classical preparations always pair Pippali with a warming fatty medium. If your client, or if you are a Vata constitution, because you can't have a Cooling the herb to a Vata person, they are going to get imbalanced further. So it has to always mixed with something warming, something fatty. For example, ghee with trikatu, the 3 spices of pepper, piperli, and dry ginger in equal portions ground together. Now when Brahmi is mixed with this, it becomes appropriate medicine for a Vata body type. Also, for a Pitta body type, you would drop the ghee and just have the Trikatu. And you perhaps make that into a tea and offer that to a Kapha body type, because the Kapha body type, there's already quite a high percentage of fat in the body. So we don't need more ghee for a Kapha body type. The recipe is not tradition for tradition's sake. It is the exact formula marrying the guna of Prami with the guna of Trikatu, and like a good marriage, amplifying the healing powers of both Brahmi and Trikatu. A balanced mix of herbs are like a good marriage, it makes the sum greater than the parts. Brahmi's vepaka, the quality she settles into after digestion, is sweet. So by that we know that she is nourishing, building, and will not deplete further., and this makes her an excellent herb for a Vata who's already skinny mini and who's going pale during perimenopause, who's losing her muscle tissue during perimenopause. And her Prabhava, that special quality that texts identify beyond what the other 3 properties explain, is Medhya, a specific documented affinity for the Majjadhatu and the Manova Hashrothas. What Ayurveda calls Medhya thousands of years ago, modern pharmacies call neuroprotective, nootropic. Charaka Samhita, the foundational Ayurvedic text compiled from a tradition, names 4 Medhya Rasayana herbs, herbs that do not suppress a symptom. They rebuild the ground from which health grows. Brahmi is named first among them, most referenced. Most returned to across centuries of Vedic clinical observation for every condition in which the mind has lost its clarity and needs nourishment. Clinical trials in universities in Thailand and Australia have confirmed what Ayurveda has been shouting from the rooftops— measurable improvements in memory, attention, and anxiety response. A fascinating synonym for Brahmi is Unmada Vinashini, This is Sanskrit, the sacred language. The word means Unmada, destroyer of insanity. Based on Vedic philosophy, Madha, Moha, Bhaya, Krodha, Lobha— these are all emotions that are out of control. Madness, attachment, fear, unreasonable fear, anger for no apparent reason, greed and covetousness, delusion— all these are signs of insanity. The synonym points to Brahmī's ability to help us stay even-keeled in tough situations, restoring pravarasattva, which is an Ayurvedic concept describing a person with superior mental health and emotional resilience. Individuals with pravarasattva have strong willpower, they have excellent pain tolerance and a positive mindset, allowing them to cope with diseases and life stressors much more effectively than others. These are the kind of people who let things roll off their backs. Now let's talk about the remedies of Prami. One of the most important and commonly found remedy is Prami Krita. For this, we need about a cup of A2 Vedic pilona method ghee. You need about 4 cups of packed fresh brahmi leaves. We need 1 cup of water, a tablespoon of trikatu, and a tablespoon of cardamom powder. We grind the brahmi with water till a smooth paste is obtained. Mix in the belona ghee, the trikatu, and the cardamom powder. Heat over gentle heat and add the brahmi paste. Cook over a low flame, stirring constantly till the ghee separates and the cooked herbs form a ball when you roll them between your thumb and your forefinger. I still remember my mother showing me how to do this. So you have to be very careful. It'll be hot. You have to cool it down. Take the solid mass and gently hold it between your forefinger and your thumb and start to roll it. And as you roll it, it will start to come together and into a little ball. Take a cotton wick and dip into the ghee. Burn it to test for any residual moisture. So when the wick has any moisture, it will splutter, and we have to keep testing with fresh wicks till it burns clean without any spluttering noise, and that would tell us that all the moisture has evaporated, and what remains is the pure ghee with all the medicinal properties of Brahmi, Trikatu, and Cardamom. Extracted within it. Strain it through a metal strainer and store it in a dark glass jar. The cooked herbs that remain behind can be used as fertilizer or even a body scrub. Just do it outdoors so your bathroom doesn't get messed up. Have a teaspoon with milk or honey at night before bed. Brahmi is a nootropic. We talked about it. It enhances cognition, deepens sleep and focus. Children should not have more than a quarter teaspoon of this powerful, potent krita. This is an excellent remedy for vata imbalances of the mind. Adults can have about a teaspoon of this. Let's move on to our second recipe. I absolutely love both these recipes. The second one is brahmi buttermilk. For this, we need about half a cup of washed and chopped brahmi, 1 cup of thick yogurt, 1 cup of cold water, a 1/4-inch slice of ginger, about a tablespoon of chopped cilantro, 2 to 3 peeled pearl onions, a sprig of curry leaves. Roasted cumin is optional, but if you can add about a teaspoon, that's great. It will add to the digestive power. Himalayan salt to taste. Just pulse and blend all the ingredients coarsely. Leave in an earthen jug for about an hour or two to develop the medicinal properties. Serve it cold with lunch or as a refreshing drink to beat the heat. This is beneficial for diarrhea as well, healing any Pitta and Kapha-related imbalance because of its astringent properties. When my mother would point out brahmi to me, it was more as a versatile kitchen green than a medicinal herb. When food itself is medicine, We don't need medicine. I wonder how some quick wilted brahmi would do on a nice sandwich as a substitute for watercress with a dash of lime juice on top to cut the bitterness, or a summery egg salad, or a nice herby chicken salad. You know, I can see brahmi swapping out arugula or mustard greens. I don't get fresh brahmi here in California where I make these recipes, But next time I'm in Kerala studying, I should try this. If you do, write to me. And if you have enjoyed this episode, drop us a review. It always makes my day to hear from you. Your reviews help the podcast get discovered. Until next time, when we meet with Tulsi, the holy mother of all herbs. I am Salila Sukumaran. This is Actionable Ayurveda. From my lineage your lifestyle. Shubhamasthu.