Ayurvedic Medicine’s Role In Parkinson’s Care

Trupti Gokani, MD

Thank you so much for having me in that beautiful introduction. I am so excited to be here.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, before we dive into Ayurvedic Medicine, tell me a little bit about your journey as a neurologist. I know you have some passions, including Ayurvedic. Because, if you are me, I went to Emory. I studied at Vanderbilt, which is very traditional. I spent years prescribing the pills. That is a very valuable tool in our toolbox, of course. But there is so much more. Tell me what yours has been.

Trupti Gokani, MD

The journey into neurology was a journey for me because I started in the family practice primary care world, moved my way into psychiatry, and then eventually made my way into neurology. I was fascinated with how the whole system worked as a whole, and I am very curious about the mind and the effect of the mind on the body. I found that neurology was this beautiful blend because the nervous system affects the entire body and the mind, and the brain operates so much of who we are. This idea of being able to delve into that was what drew me into neurology. I loved that it was somewhat practical and yet esoteric at the same time, and then eventually I got into Eastern medicine after I did neurology.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, there you go. I had someone say to me one time that schizophrenia was the ultimate neurological disease, and it is a shame that sometimes we think things that have to do with the mind are somehow different than the things that have to do with the brain that even gets us a little bit into what we talk about often in functional medicine, saying things that have to do with the gut are often related to the brain, but they are the same or are they? 

Trupti Gokani, MD

That was, I think, one of the most profound revelations that I had. In training, I was studying psychiatry and then shifted over to neurology, thinking that those are two different disciplines that have their place and their own space. Then, as I started to see more patients in the traditional neurology clinic and I focused a little bit more on migraine early on, I found that, wow, there is this interplay between the mind and the body. I am happy to share how I first found out about Ayurveda because it was when I was in medical school.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, tell me about that.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes, because it ties into after I started practicing. I went back to Ayurveda. My initial entry into Ayurveda was as a first-year medical student who was stressed, busy, stressed and busy and going nonstop, and I started to develop sleep problems, which happened pretty early. Within my first month, I was having problems falling asleep, and then it was problems staying asleep. Then I was not sleeping at all and got very desperate and tried some different things, and I was prescribed Ambien, a medication to help sleep. Unfortunately, I had gotten into a car accident, and that was not a good direction for me. I thought, Okay, I have got to figure out why I cannot sleep. At that time, as a 27-year-old, I went to see a therapist, and she asked me if I was feeling stressed. I said, I was stressed, but can I tell you, when I was in my twenties, I did not think that that stress was the cause of this? This is a world where everyone’s running around, and this is just what life is. Then, and so walked over to then down the hall to the psychiatry office and said, Let us make an appointment here. 

A good friend of my father’s was a physician, and I was, I am going to get to the root of this problem. I go see the psychiatrist and figure this out. In about 10 minutes, ask the questions. The questions are still probably to this day used to diagnose depression on your phone, said, Do you have insomnia? Do you have any guilt, low energy, low concentration, or anhedonia? I would say yes to a lot of these questions because I have not been sleeping well. That led to me not concentrating well, having low energy, or having a long mood. At the end of that, he made a very quick visit, and this is why he is a very kind, sweet gentleman. He said to me, You have a major depressive disorder. Here are some Prozac. 

I was in my first year, and I thought to myself, Here I am. This is interesting. I am playing the patient right now, and the patient is not agreeing with the doctor. I and a doctor are a good friend of my father’s, and there are a lot of things that were going on in my mind at that point. I thought that I did not think this was The beauty is that I think you and I can both appreciate the gut, the voice of the gut, and that intuitive voice, that intuitive gut signal that was telling me, do not take it, do not take it. This is not what you are going to do. I had no idea what the next step was. What I did know was that it was not to go down that path.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes.

Trupti Gokani, MD

I was a first-year student. I did not even know what lay ahead of me. Even though I am of Indian origin, I did not. I was not raised learning and understanding Ayurvedic medicine, which does come from India. I am very American; I grew up in the States. I was born in Africa and brought over here when I was young, so I did not have knowledge of Ayurveda. I went to my car, ripped up that prescription, and went to a bookstore, where I started reading books on mind, body, and spiritual health. I came across Deepak Chopra and his work, Perfect Health, which was the very first book that I read. I did my quiz, and I found out my type in each other, the specific type. We can go for that. I was like, Wow, this makes sense. What the other doctor said to me did not make sense, but this makes sense now.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

What did you see? What resonated there?

Trupti Gokani, MD

What resonated as we were chatting about earlier was the emotional component of the physical ailment, meaning that there was an interplay between my thinking and my thoughts and my physiology, and I did not quite buy into that before reading that work. I thought there was something very different. The mind does not affect the body either. The mind and body were separate. Ayurveda, very clearly explains that the emotions are very much into playing with the physical, and the emotions drive the physical, and if we do not tap into the emotions and the thoughts, we will not then fully understand what is going on at the physical level. 

The gut is the origin of most diseases. That was something that was talked about in our Ayurvedic medicine and talked about by Hippocrates and many other, brilliant thinkers. All this begins in the gut. I was just fascinated with my gut, my digestive system, and what is not to do with how I sleep—that I cannot have anything with my sleep. There, the journey began, and I followed some principles. honestly, I was sleeping within a month, fast asleep, sleeping great. I am 52 now. I have been sleeping well; no pills. I am just so thrilled that that came to me at that time because I think I would have taken the other path had it not been open to reading some other points of view.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

What are the principles of Ayurvedic medicine?

Trupti Gokani, MD

It is so incredibly rich and deep, yet so simple at the same time. The meaning of Ayurveda is that we break it down as Ayur, A-Y-U-R which means life. Veda.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Okay.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Sure. Ayur; means life. A-Y-U-R. Veda. V-E-D-A is wisdom. If you have heard of the Vedic civilization that traveled the earth thousands of years ago, the Vedic civilization in southeast Asia made its way north and created traditional Chinese medicine as a system of healing. Homeopathy was created and then traveled south to India and created Ayurveda. These are all sister sciences. They are all coming from the same base of this wisdom, this Vedic wisdom. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes.  

Trupti Gokani, MD

It is so interesting. There is this ancient wisdom packaged in a way based on where you are into these different principles and so on. Ayurvedic wisdom thought that we are all made up of five elements, a little different than the Chinese elements. These are the five things supported by the air, space, fire, earth, and water that create every living being at birth. This is the interesting part. At birth, each one of us has a dominant nature dictated by our elements, meaning that at birth I could be dominated by the air and space elements. Vata, V-A-T-A the Vata types, or my dominance could be in the fire and water nature, which is the Pitta, P-I-T-T-A type, or the earth and water elements of nature, which is the Kapha, K-A-P-H-A type. Vata, Pitta,  Kapha which is known as your Dosha, D-O-S-H-A, Dosha. 

The idea is that at birth, you are born into a type. That is where, as different as we all are, we all have something in common with these five elements. But then it gets even more interesting because you can look around a room and say, Which one is like me? Who has more Pitta dominance to them? Who has maybe more Kapha? Who has more Kapha? When you start to understand your nature, you can start to understand how you become imbalanced and how the system gets pulled out of alignment, because that is what happens in life: we do not stay in alignment with nature, fortunately.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, it is so interesting because, and I am sure you have observed this too, as a student of holistic medicine and sciences, we often encounter, experts who have developed a framework or a principle, and then they write about it, they speak about it, and there is a lot of wisdom there. At the same time, sometimes they think, Well, that is the same as X, is the same as Y. They are just reframing it differently. For example, as you were explaining this, I am thinking about and I know you have a background in coaching and mindset. What coaches and mindset coaches often do is talk about personality strengths and things like that. 

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes, 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Various tests. You can do an online quiz and find out your type. It sounds like that, because these are like, to use your words, I suppose, ancient wisdom.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

They just get translated almost like Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth. There are just a handful of great stories that define all of humanity. Folks, if you have not watched or read Joseph Campbell, the great interview that was done in the mid-1980s, shortly before his death, is in the most profound media footage ever captured. I highly recommend it. It is called The Power of Myth. But he talks about the monomyth, of course, because there is this idea that all of human history, all of human civilization, civilizations that have never even, for those centuries, existed between the Chinese and that part of the world, and then the European, Westernized was part of the world before, the days of trade and things that, that we still had the same stories, defined us. They did not; they helped us understand the world around us. But these stories are so hardwired into our biology as well. I love my patients. 

I agree with you so much. I have thought about even needing to learn more about psychiatry because we as neurologists are board-certified and about a third of our examinations are in psychiatry. It is flipped for the psychiatrist. But, the more I learn about root cause medicine and things like that, it takes me to the limbic system and the stress response system of the body, studying cilia, and studying Walter Cannon and all the other important people. What homeostasis? Here is another, how is it that the Indian culture has been saying this for thousands of years? This is, again, ancient wisdom. then you have Walter Cannon go, This is homeostasis, who is he going to? This is one of the pioneers of modern neuropsychology. But this is where it came from.  

Trupti Gokani, MD

Beautiful.  The idea is just that it is these stories that are told with different lenses, the stories that are the perspectives from the space that we are in and where we are coming from, and how the stories have the same base but then can be translated in different ways. The beauty of Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine or these ancient wisdom sciences is that the base is all about alignment; it’s about homeostasis, about coming back into yourself, coming back into who you are, and figuring out who that is because when disease sets in, that is because you have not been living as yourself for a very long time. I am here to try to stop people from going down that path. It is magical because if we can do that, we can truly prevent disease. 

We can truly be ahead of it. We do not, you and I, as physicians, we can write the pills. We could do that. I have tried to do that, and I am willing to at some level, but with some hope I have for my patients, they are going to want to know why, look at that, look at that misalignment, and try to figure out how they can bring themselves back into alignment. Are you just one of those sciences that helps you figure it out and allows you to get a sense of: if I am having symptoms, what can I do? What exactly can I do in terms of what I can eat and how I can sleep differently? Who can I spend time with? Then maybe there is someone in my life who is not helping my nature. Maybe it is my job. Maybe there is something at work you can do to figure out so many things about your life. It becomes super interesting because you become your detective. You are right, I started getting that symptom. I know it comes from an imbalance here. What can I change to align myself? As you learn the science, you become your healer. Yes, that.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

That is awesome. This is so empowering for folks. Being that this is the Parkinson’s Solution Summit, how can we relate this then? I am excited because, again, I have been speaking to a lot of folks, and recording these interviews, and there are some emerging themes, and I have learned so much. I’m excited to hear from your perspective and am wondering if, again, this is going to be the recurring theme of the summit that has come up organically from the ground, if you will.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes, that is how to do Parkinson’s. Such an important area of study and research because it is so disabling. I have a couple of family members who were diagnosed in the last few years. When you start to look at even the Western data and the research, which I know, you know a lot better than I do, the two things that have come up in the literature have caught my eye. Number one is constipation starting a couple of decades before the first symptom of Parkinson’s, and the second is anxiety being higher in those with Parkinson’s. How do we tie this together with Ayurveda? Let us bring it back to Ayurveda. When you look at our other five elements, we talked about the Vata Dosha, Pitta Dosha, and Kapha Dosha. When I had my sleep, I chose to make a practical, I promise, falling asleep, initially. Falling asleep, if you look at our Ayurvedic medicine, that is wind energy. When you are a Vata personality, you are somebody who likes to move and go and is always busy, always taking things on, and very fun to be around because you love to talk. They are very creative. They tend to be very artistic, spiritual, and musical. They are fun to have at a party. If you are with a Vata, you are fun. They are always engaging and talking. The Vata, you give them something to do. I am sure they will say, I will do it. 

But the problem with too much Vata is that they do not get it done. Because they are in that wind energy state. It can distract them. Balance, the power of Vata, the person had a water imbalance. It is creative, artistic, musical, very good at speaking to different people, and loves to try different things. That is the power, the powerful ones. The one that becomes disempowered, the one that, with a Vata of states, goes out of alignment when the Vata energy is too high. They are moving and going at such a pace that they forget to eat; they forget to go to bed on time. They are skipping meals or skipping situations. They may forget a phone call, or they may forget to respond to an email. Vata in that energy becomes like ADHD and anxiety and fear. When that energy picks up, what happens is that it can lead to a mind that is spinning, which leads to a mind that does not fall asleep at night.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Hmm.

Trupti Gokani, MD

When I started doing that quiz on myself, I was like, Oh gosh, I am so wind. I am carrying so much Vata energy. Then, if you are staying asleep, that is too much fire. That is the Pitta. Pitta is balance-driven. They are very determined. They can see what needs to get done and get it done. They are very determined, great at running a group or running a meeting, competitive, great among sports, level one on the athletic side, and great at speaking, and putting on a stage. They will get their message across to everybody in the room. Fire individuals in balance is amazing. Out of alignment? Think of hot-headed. What happens to fire out of alignment? Hot-headed, irritable, angry, the wind out of alignment, air-headed. It was just doing what you were saying? When you think of Vata, think of what is airheaded. Think of Pitta, I think of hotheaded in terms of a misaligned emotional state or get to the digestion of that. You start to get more irritable and edgy, and you start to feel short-tempered. That is the fire that has gone a little bit too in that energy state. You feel hot physically in your body. It is a very interesting thing to observe and see how many people have that. That is a very classic from migraine or classic inflammatory autoimmune diseases, any inflammatory skin when there is a lot of skin rashes, and any disease that involves the inflammatory system to go on to high alert. You are thinking of that. 

Now, back to back to the sleep and back to Parkinson’s. Also, to Kapha real quick, and then I will go back to Parkinson’s. I will get more into that, and to Kapha just to conclude the whole story. Kapha in alignment. Great. Nice solid frame. Not heavy weight, just a bigger frame, solid. Kapha is very introspective. They are not going to be talking a lot; most of the party is probably quiet looking around, curious when they speak. They have got something pretty interesting to say because they have been observing. Kapha is a very deeply intellectual person who thinks about things, binds on to information, and holds on to it. They have a great tendency toward compassion and love. They love to hug, and they are connected. In balance, is a great state; out of alignment, too heavy. Yes, we can come on congestion, heavy, depressed. 

Each state has a superpower state, and then they go into an out-of-alignment state back to Parkinson’s. When you think about Parkinson’s, you think about the volatile wind, and you think about my early issues with problems falling asleep, and then I have problems falling and staying asleep. The wind picked up, and just in a campfire, the wind could blow on the fire. The Vata can push the Pitta, which is why I had those two kinds of things going on. After Parkinson’s, when you start to see that anxiety at a young stage of the disease way before the first, maybe motor function, you see, what happens there is that the wind energy is too much in their lives, meaning that they may be excessively moving, going, doing, saying, yes, maybe, please, your personalities. We want to find out what the personality behind that is—what is the behavior? Because the wind energy brings on anxiety. 

The anxiety is oftentimes generated by being in that state of disconnect with the circadian rhythm. Moving, going, doing too much, violating, or just eating patterns—even something as simple as, Hey, if you are anxious, eat three meals at the same time every day—can bring anxiety down. because it creates a sense of regularity. You see, the brain does not have uncertainty, and it does not have to be spun all over the place. I still just know I’m going to get up and have breakfast at noon as a lunchtime hunger signal. The hypothalamus signals the gut, making them digestive enzymes. Let us eat. We get circadian rhythms intact. We feel calmer cortisol and better alignment. We know, but when we are off task, we go into a state. What is fascinating—ready for the mind and body part of this is where it gets cool: when you look at the physiology of too much wind, what happens is you go into a frozen state. What does Parkinson’s look like?

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes, freezing.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Exactly. It is freezing. We use that word in the context of gut constipation, which goes into small spasms. That is why constipation and anxiety happen before the motor because in the river, it is all energetic before it’s physical, and the gut is always involved years before you and I both know anything gets severe, isn’t it that interesting?

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Yes, it is. I hope a lot of the folks watching this are going, That is me.

Trupti Gokani, MD

That is me. Yes. The beauty is that at any stage, I have had coaching clients and patients who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. At any stage, I want people to feel like, you can improve your state; you can improve your energy body. Just because the first symptoms have occurred, and just because you have had constipation for 20 years or anxiety does not mean you cannot improve it now? I have just finished coaching a client who has Parkinson’s, and we just did six months of work together, it was beautiful because there is so much that he had worked on to help reduce what we are hoping for, is that we hope that he reduces the disease progression and we hope that the manifestation of the symptoms do not come as quickly because that is what we can do. We can give hope for that. Maybe the medication during that time was working on him, and he started to produce his medications, which is nice. It is nice to see that. I would not say that works for everybody. That was one case, one situation, and one individual who was willing to put a lot of time and energy into this. But I will say that there is hope that we can use these ancient principles. It just starts with being aware and making some simple changes. But do not take it so fancy. Nothing has to be that complicated.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

I a hundred percent agree with you. I think we love the work that we do. As much as we sometimes see our colleagues occasionally, and in the conventional world, who are perhaps not taking the time to listen or are not considering options outside of, Hey, quick script, here we go. See you in six months thing. On the other side of the spectrum, unfortunately, I see a lot of unrealistic claims. But what we can say, I think very confidently, is that by integrating these principles, we very often see a very different trajectory for those individuals. They are living their best life every day. The overall trajectory is so much better than it otherwise would be if they had not adopted these principles and made changes in their lives.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Absolutely. I think that is what we’re here for to empower individuals and give them faith and hope that there are things they could do. It is just allowing yourself to believe that at any stage, wherever you are, you can still use these tools. whatever tool works for you. Everyone is unique, and it is just about exposing yourself and being aware that there are just different options. To some degree, it is just looking at that Western model, and some are at some degree saying, Well, why is that happening if a medication is given, medication is increased, or something is breaking through? What can we do over here? 

Then maybe the medication can even be more effective. Maybe the side effects will be lessened because, as I see this all the time if a migraine medication starts and someone has digestive issues, they stop the medication. I said, Well, you have got chronic, severe daily migraines. We have got to, and I would love everybody to fix it, but we know that there are only certain limits to what these things can do. I say, Well, we are going to recommend a medication. How about we also work on your digestive system? How about we also work on your mind and your stress? There is no reason you cannot blend. Why are we not all doing that? Every single person should be doing something that baffles me. That does not happen.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, the reasons for it, of course, are probably multiple. But we also have to recognize that the success that comes with this approach first and probably foremost requires an openness to the ideas. 

Trupti Gokani, MD

That is very strong. 

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

When we come to this, how often do you hear? Well, I have this because my mother, father, or family had this and this, and I do not want to stereotype anyone. I know I am just going to mention the things that are associated with obesity because there is so much morbidity. But I do not want to blame someone for being obese. But I had a patient not too long ago, and she was probably well over 300 pounds. She told me that she was diabetic and hypertensive because everyone in her family had that. I thought, Well, that often implies that what you are telling me is that it is genetic. But what I often think when I hear that is that families teach us thoughts. Families teach us how to express our feelings or how we are feeling. Families eat together. Families do many things together. Share your life. Your family is also your culture. There is much more than just a gene involved when those things happen. But if we are not ready to step out of that mindset, then we are not ready for these ideas either.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes, it takes being open and ready on both sides.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Just because we, even though I am not an Ayurvedic doctor, think in the end that we probably have a fairly similar approach, maybe translate into words or hear it slightly differently. But I would love to hear from you if I came to you, maybe I do not even have the diagnosis yet, but I have been having some falls. I have noticed that maybe my left arm feels a little stiff. People say that I am not moving my arm when I walk, shuffling my gait. I  have that blank facial expression. They say, Look at these pictures from five years ago. You are smiling. There is a lot of light in your face now. It is blank. Of course, probably from across the room, you are already formulating your diagnosis because that is how we are as neurologists. Parkinson’s is a very visual diagnosis for the most part. But tell me beyond that, as an integrative, holistic neurologist, what is going to happen if I come and see what the steps look like?

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes. Generally, it is a lot of conversation about what the individual I am working with wants to work on. I broke it down. I have this three-brain approach, and I just do this simplicity when I am speaking with others, and I say three-brain in this concept of, when we are as neurologists, we are trained, we are focusing on the central nervous system. The spinal cord is the main operating system for the body, and I have embodied that within that first brain part of the conversation is about the brain—the structural brain. Then also you are getting into that thinking brain. What are your thought patterns? What are your programs that may not be working for you? To the person I am working with, do you want to work on that part? How open are you to exploring that? That is the NLP hat that I wear, which goes a little bit more into that. Maybe someone’s,  Yes, I have certain ways of speaking, thinking I am not wanting to go there. Maybe I am a second brain. The second brain is the enteric nervous system.

I think we just did not spend enough time with that beautiful, very complex neuronal system, 206 million neurons in the gut that are operating that, neurotransmitter production, helping with the microbiome, with manufacturing, different metabolic byproducts, and just connecting back up to the brain, to the vagus nerve, and signaling what is going on down there, and that enteric nervous system. Very often I find is affected by our emotional baggage for holding on to things that we may not want to connect with. But if we do, we can start to clear some early thoughts, traumas, and feelings around things that we are holding on to. Second-brain work is more: What are you holding on to emotionally? Do you want to go into that? There are breath techniques, and some argue that there are even yoga poses that can help with that. If that is not something someone’s open to, let’s work at looking at your third brain, the microbiome. Then what can we alter? 

The easiest thing to do is start looking at your diet and what you are eating. When you are eating, are you having lunch every day at the same time? Are you having three meals a day? What food are you eating, and what are you about? It’s a six-taste. Are you getting sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, or astringent in your meals? Maybe we need to work on diversifying our diet so we can diversify those bacteria. Because you look at the studies, for most neurodegenerative diseases, there is a problem with the microbiota, and oftentimes it is a lack of diversity. That we are finding, and then other pathogens and things that we’re looking for. But what can we do with the gut? I take it where someone’s at and oftentimes will layer it based on where they are. I have some patients who will come in or coach clients. I will say, they will just want to work on gut function. Some of them, the one that is starting to have symptoms, starting to have the actual true clinical presentation. I would encourage working on a couple of areas. Could we work on your diet a little bit?

Are you feeling some thoughts that are coming up, maybe I can do both techniques that will give you something to reframe every time that comes up, and maybe try a little hypnotic technique I used when I was a mental patient just to help, and it is just, figuring out, and it is all this is an art, It is all. All of us have different tools and different ways of painting that picture. It is just how we are going to approach this, what do you want from me and what can I offer you? That is part of my toolkit. At least we are finding novel ways. Oftentimes, I do have those clients come to me because the Western medications have stopped working, they are not working, or they do not want to take them. I am in this space where I am trying to either get them to be responsive to the meds or have fewer side effects from medications, or maybe see what I can do to stabilize things, knowing that this is a neurodegenerative disease. 

But we do know that alpha-synuclein involves data showing it’s coming from the gut. It is moving the vagus nerve into the basal ganglia. As we stabilize that imbalanced inflammatory gut, my goodness, I know you have a lot of tools for that, but that is to me very important, though I often say if I am thinking negatively, my gut is going to react. Unfortunately, I can create more pathogens because of my side. There is an interesting study in which I found that pre-surgical stress if I am thinking stressful thoughts before I do surgery, I am more likely to have pseudomonas increase in growth after surgery, and it will be a little bit more challenging for me to recover because of my thoughts. It is amazing how the thought effects are top-down and bottom-up.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

There is a loop, and I do not know if you have ever seen this. I have mentioned this in the summit before, but it is a great little movie. You can watch it for free on Netflix. It is called I Am, and I love this movie. I think Deepak might be in it, but it is a movie that was made by a Hollywood director who did a lot of very funny slapstick comedy movies, made millions of dollars, and thought, I have made it. I have got, top of my game, movies with Jim Carrey and all this stuff in. Then he has a mountain biking accident, and he has a traumatic brain injury. In the end, he cannot do the things that he wants to do. He spends a year recovering using holistic methods. That is not so much part of the movie. 

But then he said, I got to do something serious now, so I am going to talk to some of the great thought leaders of the world and ask them what is wrong with the world and what you can do about it. In the end, it shifts from that negative: What is wrong with the world, to this positive, joyous feeling that, ultimately, the most important thing that we need to be doing is connecting. In the end, he ends up in the Heart Math Lab in California, and they do this little experiment where they EEG wires from their heads into a beaker that is full of yogurt. Yogurt has lots of live cultures. Then they do this thing where he shifts his thinking, and it shifts the electromagnetic fields coming from the bacteria in the yogurt, which is the coolest thing. I have to say that it is this experiment that demonstrates exactly what exactly

Trupti Gokani, MD

Wow. It is empowering to know you can go in whatever direction you want; just move in some direction of mind encouragement.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, you have written a couple of books. Well, one book, and then I understand another one is coming out: The Mysterious Mind. That sounds thrilling. I am going to pick up my copy that came out in 2015. I understand you have a new book you are working on. Tell me about that story.

Trupti Gokani, MD

The first book was just practical written because I was in patient care mode, busy with my practice, and trying to explain, Ayurveda to every single person I met. Grabbed time I said, Let me write a book, maybe a little short one for my patients, which ended up becoming The Mysterious Mind, which is an understanding of how you can use Ayurveda. How do I use this knowledge to understand pain, specifically migraine-based pain? I think anyone can benefit from it, but I am a little bit more focused on headaches. But it is a journey of my daughter. I have a chapter on gut brains and early testing with her when she had headaches when she was 5, she is 21 now. There are no headaches. It is just nice to see the journey of not only the stories of my family and what happened with me using these tools at that early stage of my career but also how I implemented Ayurveda and how you can implement Ayurveda in your life. That was book number one. Well, book two was missing. What is missing in book one? Was a deep dive into the mind. It was after I did the NLP training that I got a little bit more comfortable discussing how our emotions and thoughts affect our physical nature. It goes more into that. The working title is The Stress Rx: A Neurologist Prescription to Happiness and Health. We will see if that is where it stays. Yes, it is being edited now, so I am hoping for early spring next year for that.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Wow. Then, if people want a little taste of that, I understand they can go to your website and take a little quiz. Is that correct?

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes, the quiz is just that little extra piece to just go into words, because my encouragement for everyone is just to start a journey with them. If this is the first time you have heard of Ayurveda or if you have heard it many times before, take a moment and assess where your Ayurvedic nature is now. How imbalanced are you in the birth state we talked about? In that quiz, it is a quick little quiz. It gives you an assessment of whether you are windy, fire, or earthy, and it is on my website, TruptiGokanimd.com. The quiz is there just to provide a little extra. Let me look at myself. Let us go into my being and assess where I am, and then whatever tools you use, be it Ayurvedic or non-Ayurvedic, it doesn’t matter. But just try to get a sense of where you are, because that can be the first step in the journey.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

To know where you are. Yes, spell that for folks, because I know they are going to want to write it down. T-R-U-P-T-I-G-O-K-A-N-I-M-D as in medical doctor dot com I want you to go there and take the stress quiz. You are going to learn something very insightful, and can they work with you if they want to. Is that something that you do?

Trupti Gokani, MD

Yes, I have. I have coaching clients. I work on one thing, and I tend to share my work with others. For example, if someone is seeking medical care, I often tell them that the medical doctor is good to have on board. If they want more of a deeper dive into functional medicine, someone yourself would be great to partner with because my coaching is a little bit more looking at the Ayurvedic model, looking at how we can affect the mind and emotional body, and yes, I go into the microbiome, yet there is a lot of pieces that I know in functional medicine that I do not address in my program simply because there is only so much time and so much work we can do. I tend to work in that fashion. I find that we get great results, and we are all working together in that way.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

That is super. Well, I for one am going to take the stress quiz not only because, I am going to admit that the last couple of nights were not good sleep, but last night was better. I am a little caught up. I am feeling much better today. The smiles are back again.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Back again. God bless you! You are doing fabulous work, and I just want to thank you so much. Thank you so much for all you are doing.

Kenneth Sharlin, MD

Well, thank you, Dr. Trupti Gokani, a Neurologist and Ayurvedic expert, an expert in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a Health and Mindset Coach, a true expert, and a gift. Thank you so much for participating in the Parkinson’s Solutions Summit.

Trupti Gokani, MD

Thank you for having me. Be well, everyone.