Try This For A Week: An Ayurveda Healing Turmeric Ritual for Hormone Balance, Clear Skin & Calm Nerves

Hey there, sister friend. Now, if you are going through perimenopause and are experiencing hot flashes, then you could be doing this one thing to manage your inflammation, and that one thing is hurting you so bad and making your hot flashes to go through the roof. Welcome back to Actionable Ayurveda. I'm Salila Sukumaran, generational Ayurveda practitioner based in California, and we are here to unlock your Ayurvedic intelligence, your inbuilt AI, so you can have a juicy, glowy body and a life of purpose. And you are listening to the Sacred Herbs series. The herb we are speaking about today is already sitting in your kitchen cabinet. It is golden, it stains everything it touches, and in our tradition, we offer it to the Naga snake gods. No wedding is complete without a bathing ritual where the bride and the bridegroom are covered in this herb spice. And it is cooked into many an Indian savory recipe, and it is written about in the texts so ancient they predate modern medicine by thousands of years. And today's herb takes me back to my earliest memories of my grandfather Vijayan's herb garden. Grandpa would gently loosen the sticky clods to reveal knobs and tubers when he was digging around in the garden, and I remember picking one, and Grandpa broke it into two and held it under my nose, and oh, the bright shade of yellow it was, like the setting sun, and the smell just divine— earthy, aromatic. The herb The spice, you guessed it, is called turmeric, and it's called Haridra in Sanskrit, which means that which improves and deeply cleanses the skin. So you already know it's not just a spice, it's also a cosmetic. But that barely scratches the surface of what this amazingly brilliant root can do. The ancient texts give it many names, just as you know, the Sanskrit synonyms, each one encoded with information about what the healing power of this herb is. And my favorite, the one that almost makes my heart skip because it's so pretty, it's Yoshitapriya, and that means beloved by women university. The sight of fresh turmeric is powerful, and one look and we know we are looking at a healing herb. The smell is so inviting, and instinctively we want to rub it all over us. Our DNA carries the knowledge that this is potent. Now contrast that with your usual morning. Maybe 3 snoozed alarms, you checked your phone before your feet hit the floor, You had a meeting at 8:00, you skipped breakfast again, but because you love to do yoga and you believe in a little turmeric shot in the morning, you had that. Now you're behind your desk and your shoulders are up to your ears, your skin is tired, and somewhere underneath all that productivity in your morning, your body is quietly, persistently asking for help. And you are going, not now, and behave yourself. This is classic Pragya aparadha, a criminal lack of common sense. Pragya means knowledge that has the power to enlighten us, and aparadha in Sanskrit, the ancient tongue, is a crime. So Pragya is our life-preserving Ayurvedic intelligence. Once it is activated, we know the answer begins in our kitchen pantries and on our stovetops. So here are 3 remedies from the ancient lineage for your body, your skin, your prana, your life force, so that you can start applying these remedies today and see a difference in a week. So the first tip is The evening golden milk. Everybody drinks the evening golden milk on the Western hemisphere these days, and we all know it's for inflammation, mood, and sleep. But if you do turmeric too much during perimenopause, menopause, or during a higher fiery Pitta phase, it is going to backfire and make your symptoms worse. So the thing to watch out for is Is my inflammation causing heat in my body? If it is causing heat in my body, then I should not be having an herb or a spice that produces more heat in my body, which is ushna. So the ancient texts called turmeric Vishodhini. Vish means poison, Vishodhini means that which contains the properties of a natural detoxifier. And Veep Shotha Chit. Shotha is inflammation in Ayurveda. This is the metabolic byproduct of incomplete processes in the body, digestion in the body. So shotha is something that creates inflammation, swelling, discomfort, blockage. Achit means to win over. So this is a natural anti-inflammatory. And if you've been listening to my previous episodes, you know all this means that these synonyms are holding a key to the healing properties of turmeric. Modern science has spent decades confirming what grandmothers already knew, that this herb powerfully quiets inflammation. And inflammation is not only physical. When you're running on cortisol and caffeine, you sleep deprived and you're overstimulated, your nervous system is on fire. Turmeric cools that fire from the inside, like ibuprofen, like an NSAID, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, to reduce pain and decrease inflammation and lower fevers. If you think I'm exaggerating, check out the show notes for research by Harvard University on the effects of curcumin on arthritis. Now again, reminder, inflammation which does not create a lot of heat in the body. If your body is already on a Pitta overdrive, then turmeric is not your herb as much as you love it. We'll talk about what will be better for you next week. Turmeric also actively regulates dopamine and serotonin, the neurotransmitters of mood and calm. If you're menopausal and wake up at 3 AM like clockwork, and if that blue feeling really lingers on Sunday evenings, this is your medicine. Again, another word of caution: no more than a teaspoon of turmeric a day, and always be mindful to never have it on an empty stomach. Especially when you are going through a Pitta imbalance like acidity, heartburn, H. pylori infections, hot flashes, or you're on blood thinners. Alright, my dears, now let's come to the golden milk recipe. It will just take 4 minutes to prepare. All you need is a cup of warm milk. It can be dairy or oat, whatever suits you. Half a teaspoon of turmeric powder. Or freshly grated turmeric, and about half a teaspoon of ghee. Ghee is not optional because turmeric is fat soluble, and the Acharyas, the great teachers of Ayurveda, understood what we now call bioavailability thousands of years before this word existed. Fat carries turmeric deep into your tissues. It is yoga vahi. Vahi means that which carries yoga It carries the properties of turmeric. So whatever ghee is added to, ghee will carry the properties deep into the tissues. Without it, much of the nutrition that we eat, whether it's through medicine or food, will simply pass through our system. Now we need to also add some grated nutmeg and a few strands of saffron if we are feeling fancy. A bit of honey after the milk cools down, because the acharyas teach us that honey should never meet heat. It will become a sticky toxin in the body. And if you know Ayurveda, then we don't like anything that is sticky, meaning that which remains in the body. Everything must always be circulating. The human body is capable of cleansing itself. And healing itself as long as it's always eliminating, circulating, nothing is stuck in the system inside. So warm milk mixed with half a teaspoon of turmeric powder, cooked for about 5 to 10 minutes, add a pinch of grated nutmeg, a few strands of saffron, and top it up with half a teaspoon of ghee. And once it cools down till it's bearable to touch, then you add your honey. You need 1 cup every evening for 1 week, and then you come back and tell me what shifted for you. What I've noticed in my clients is that many of my clients who have trouble going to sleep, sleep peacefully after drinking this because this is higher on the kapha. It helps open up the channels in the body. Plus, it helps the body stay asleep past that 3 AM witching hour. Now on to my next tip, but I'm curious to know, when was the last time you did something purely, unapologetically nourishing for your own face? This tip is all about face care. A nice little facial, or when you have 5 minutes for yourself, the text called turmeric, kanchani. Kanchani means that which brings golden luminosity to the skin. This is why the turmeric or haldi ceremony exists across every Indian wedding tradition. Turmeric is applied generously onto the bride's skin, not just for beauty, but as an ancient cleansing and toning ritual. Long ago, Bathing with turmeric paste was a daily ritual among Indian women, whether they were queens or just everyday beauties. Now here is the 2-minute luminosity mask recipe. For this, we need a teaspoon of turmeric powder or paste of raw turmeric tuber, 1 teaspoon of raw honey, about a tablespoon of any flour— this can be chickpea, rice or oats, depending on whether you are allergic. Some of my clients are allergic to chickpea. Uh, if you have really dry skin, stick with the oats. If you have really oily, large pores, then use the rice flour. A few drops of rose water or any milk to bind. All you do is mix it all up and apply it to clean skin and leave for about 10 to 15 minutes. And then rinse it off with warm water, tepid water actually. Now make a batch and you can leave this in the fridge. You can use it within a week and apply after you shower every night, and your skin will be clearer, calmer, and golden. And if hormonal breakouts arrive uninvited every month, then this is your most gentle, most ancient ally that Indian women have been using in their beauty rituals for God knows how many thousands of generations. Now, one important note for those of us with morning meetings: turmeric will temporarily tinge pale skin yellow. So this is an evening ritual, and be careful with accidental spills on bathroom tiles and white bed linen. Here is a secret the women of South India have kept for centuries. Applying turmeric regularly after hair removal slows regrowth. This is not folklore, this is not stories I'm coming up with. This has already been tested in research that the phytochemicals in turmeric genuinely inhibit follicular activity over time. So when I was little, I remember seeing women who would do, um, waxing on their jaws, and then they would immediately apply turmeric paste to their face, and they would walk around just like that all over the place. Like, they will walk around with their face mask on. It was like totally done. It was totally normal. I don't see that anymore in the rural parts of India. All right, my dears. Now I want to introduce you to a concept that will change how you think about how you feel every day. So if you've been listening to me, you know that we speak of Agni, the Sanskrit word for fire. It sounds a lot like ignition, and really it comes from the root word. If you listen to Sanskrit carefully enough, we can figure out a lot of the meanings because it's all coming from the same root words. So Agni is the name given to our digestive and our metabolic fire, and when Agni is strong, we digest food, we are able to digest emotions and our experiences very well. We are able to transcend what is difficult and move into a more settled state of being. When Agni is weak because of stress, irregular meals, too little sleep, the body begins accumulating what the text called as Ama, which are toxins or residue from a weak metabolic or digestive fire. We walk around feeling foggy, heavy, not feeling quite so well in our bodies, and we've been told that it's completely normal to feel this way all the time. But Ayurveda says no, it's not normal. It is Ama. Ama needs to be cleansed from the body. And turmeric is one of the most powerful herbs that can melt the ama and clear it out of the system. The ancient texts describe turmeric as shodhana. Shrotas are the channels, and shodhana is cleansing, that which opens and cleanses the body's channels. The shrotas through which nutrition and energy flows, And those channels are clear. You feel like a room whose windows have been opened after a long winter. And this remedy is going to be the easiest remedy of all. Just add 2 pinches of turmeric to whatever you are already eating. A listener recently asked me, is black pepper required for turmeric to absorb? The answer, is both a yes and a no. Let me explain. The Acharya teachers never made black pepper a requirement, so the answer is no. The fat, the ghee, the milk, the oil for tempering, the heat of the cooking fire, all this matters far more. However, modern science has found through multiple research papers that black pepper does enhance bioavailability. Now, this is an addition by manufacturers of curcumin pills who wanted a shelf-stable method to enhance bioavailability without using traditional methods, which are not helpful when you're trying to sell a pill with an extract, right? My own perspective is that it's actually the heat which activates turmeric, whether it is heat as in the spice level of something like a black pepper or a ginger or a cayenne pepper, or the heat of a cup of warm milk from the cooking fire, heat from hot oil of tempering, and also the presence of fatty medium because turmeric is lipidophilic. And before we wrap up, this one interesting factoid from the ancient texts. Turmeric is called Nehagni or the destroyer of diabetes-related conditions. The Acharya teachers described a condition called Prameha, where the channels, the body Shrothasus that we spoke about earlier, get clogged with sweet sticky substance, exactly what modern science now calls as insulin resistance. Thousands of years before insulin was discovered, the sage scientists of Ayurveda figured this out, and turmeric was their first line of defense. If blood sugar is a concern in your family, or if you have a high stress, high sugar, simple carb, not enough fiber, modern diet, then that couple of pinches on a daily basis, every meal, is a consistent ancient prevention. So sisters, So those were the 3 remedies from one golden magical root. 5,000 years of what Indian women have known and have used to heal their families, their loved ones. Ayurveda is not about asking you to overhaul your life. It's not asking you to become someone who wakes up at 4 AM, meditates for 2 hours, and then does Bhastikriya for another 2 hours. The women In my lineage who carried this knowledge were also busy. They cooked, they worked, they cleaned, they raised children, they held families together. But in spite of all that, they still found time to care for themselves in small, daily, consistent ways. And that is how we take care of ourselves on our busiest days. So start where you are, start with one little change, and this is the point where you say, "I am healing my sacred self." It's not in some grand gesture that costs a ton, but it's in the daily loving consistent self-care, slowing down and pausing to hear our bodies speak back to us. Now I want to hear from you. Did my golden milk recipe help you sleep? I wanna know. Did the Luminosity Mask surprise you with its glowy benefits? And have you been using turmeric in a way your grandmother has taught you that I haven't mentioned? I would love to know that. Leave a review on your listening platform and share one way turmeric has shown up as medicine in your life. I read every single one of your messages that reach me, and maybe your stories will find a way into this show that we have here. Send me your questions. We would love to feature you. Next week we meet neem in our Sacred Herbs series. Neem is like the childhood girlfriend who gives you the bitter truth your body has been craving. She is nature's most fierce and loving purifier. She will cool the fires of inflammation, of toxins from our skin and our ego alike. And until then, carry on with your golden medicine. Stir it into something warm. Let it do what it has done for thousands of generations, from my lineage to your lifestyle. Shubhamastu.