3 Anti-Inflammatory Rituals That Changed My Life (Do These Before Bed!) l Shivani Gupta l Ep #410

Introduction and guest background 0:00

Hi, I'm Natalie Nidam, your host. Welcome back. Inflammation doesn't usually announce itself loudly. Quite often, it whispers. My guest today, Dr. Shivani Gupta, learned that the hard way after watching her grandfather's health unravel before her eyes and realizing that most of it was preventable. That moment set her on a path through Ayurvedic med school, modern research, and eventually a PhD focused on tumeric and chronic inflammation. In this episode, we unpack why inflammation is at the root cause of so many age-related issues, how mental stress creates physical inflammation and what daily rhythms like sleep and movement have to do with longevity.

Now this episode is brought to you by Level Up's Ultimate Liver Complex, Oxford Health Span's Primadine Spermidine Supplement, and Just Thrive's Gut Bundle, all with special offers for you. And guys, if you love this episodes, make sure to check out Dr. Shivani Gupta's new book. We'll have that link in the show notes as well. Check out the Show Notes for details on all this stuff. Now let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Dr. Shivani Gupta. It is, well, it's just a total pleasure to finally be recording this episode.

For sure. Thank you for having me. This is long overdue. I mean, what you first gave me? You first give me and I'm not going to say the name of the product that I want. We're not gonna talk about it yet. But you First gave mean your product for my dad when his back was really bad. And I'll never forget the call I got like a week or two later going, wow, this made me feel better. This made my pain go away. And of course, my mom's a bit of an addict of your sleep gummies, as am I. Anyway, but what we're talking about today, well, will be related to what my, to my dad's experience, we are really going to be talking but inflammation and that is your, what call your zone of genius.

So thank you for being here and thank for taking the time because I know you're on a book tour right now. Yes, for sure. Well, it's always awesome talking to you, Nat. You're the best. We are part-time roomies when we travel together. Which is so nice when we room together. I was like, I am getting to stay with the ultimate biohacker. This is going to be so much fun. And then it was so fun to see you pull out your different tools for sleep and everything. So much in the process. Well, learned plenty from you too, as you pulled out, your bags of herbs and, and teas and you know, anyway, you, guys you'll learn, figure it out.

We're, we're just having a moment here. Let's, let's go back to your health story because And actually, in the book, I think that it goes back beyond even your own health story when this whole issue of inflammation and the body really became real for you. Was it that moment with your grandpa? Yes. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? That was such a hard story, really. Yeah. I flew into India, like I used to do every year or every other year, to visit my grandparents and visit, my cousins and India is a second home to me.

So I would land and be like, oh, this is home. And I got to my grandparent's home and my grandma was like come in, come say hi to your grandpa. He's here. I thought that's weird. You guys should be asleep. It's the middle of the night, but okay. So I go in and I'll never forget I stopped at the door and in the room is my grandfather in a hospital bed. His eyes are glazed over. He has a pipe up his nose and he's missing a leg. Wait, you had no idea? No. They had told us there was an accident. He wasn't well.

Things were just, he needs to get better. No one was clear to me. I was still a kid. It was between high school and college, right around high-school years. And they didn't want to scare us. But what's horrible is you should inform people so they are prepared and they run. We would have run to India had we known what was happening. So I walk in and I go to touch his feet. There's one foot because when you're Indian, you touch feet to get blessings and show respect. He couldn't speak. he couldn' communicate, but he kind of nodded at us.

And I left that room thinking we are in big trouble. this is all horrible. Who's going to reverse this? This is going be really hard to rehearse out of because my dad growing up had already reversed my grandfather's Parkinson's, diabetes, my grandma out her quadruple bypass. So I knew that with the right tools, biohacking tools and Ayurvedic game plan, you can win at health. But this group called My Family in India had just let this keep going way too far.

Grandfatheru2019s illness and family health wake-up call 5:00

And what was this? What was going on with your grandpa? I mean, you know, where he was at that point was because of an accident. But beyond that, what what is going with you? Everyone was diabetic in my family. Every single grandparent, every single adult across both sides is diabetic. And so decades into their lives, just letting that uncontrolled diabetes exist and inflammation and everything else, we were seeing those last end stages of that. Parkinson's, Alzheimer's dementia ran across all the grandparents, heart attacks, stroke, quadruple bypasses.

They were all ticking time bombs. And so with my grandfather, we had reversed the Parkinson and diabetes symptoms and everything. But when we sent him back to India, they all reverted back their original diets, sweets and fried foods and whatever they wanted to eat. In India when you're successful, you are served hand and foot. So nobody gets up, no one walks, nobody exercises. We don't even walk to the fridge. Yeah, we don' walk the kitchen. The kitchen is a dirty place and the cooks are managing it.

So it's interesting. This culture of success there means sedentary. And they're finally learning since pandemic that the opposite is true. Actually, you need to walk for hours a day, yoga, pranayam, and exercise, or we do have true health. That's a new concept, I think, to India that's just coming online in the last few years. Well, do you think it's new or do think its coming back? And there's a lot that I want to unpack about what you said a minute ago, like that whole reversing Parkinson's thing is intriguing to me.

But don't you that traditional Indian culture would have been healthier than modern day Indian Culture? for sure, any day of the week, because it was more farm-based and it more active and people actually did things physically. But as we've hit modern industrialization, there's so much convenience. Everyone just drives everywhere. There's no walking. So before, yes, they were these more ancient practices, the self-care tools from Ayurveda, And so now just coming back to that is life-changing. I can see it in my family now because they do walk, yoga, all these things.

That's so interesting, right? Because I've always thought of traditional Indian culture as being more prone to health in the sense that you have Ayurvedic medicine, which is thousands of years old. The ethos. Right? Would be one of self-regulation and peace, the yoga, all the things that you're describing come to us from Indian culture. And yet what's probably happened, I guess, is this transition through into modern life. So many people have just lost contact. Well, also the system kind of switched.

So there was a period where once British occupied India, then all of a sudden it was the Western medical system is correct. English is taught in high school. There was big period, where everything Western became the mode. And then it's when they lost touch. It's all been turning back really hard into, let's look at naturopathic, homeopathic. Let's really look Ayurveda again and bring the practices in that always worked for us. So it's fascinating to watch. Like I've been invited by so many people to go back to India and teach Ayurveda because they're like, we need someone trustworthy to teach.

I'm like okay guys, I'll come. It's fine. That's amazing. Okay. So let's talk about reversing your grand. We're a little off topic, but I am curious about this. You talk your dad. Is your Dad a doctor? No, my dad was an engineer and he just watched what I watched, which was his family and his parents devolving into horrible diseases. And he, with an engineering mind, anytime he saw a problem, he's like, every problem is solvable. You just have to break it down into pieces and do your best research.

So he was actually pretty obsessed with doctors and health. Everyone he met with, he just picked their brains and learn. So it's funny that I now have a podcast and get to do that. And so he created what I consider the first biohacking suite and I still remember it. I was in middle school. He built it in the family room. he bought what was previously probably the precursor to the power plate. so I remember him making my grandparents vibrate. I remember green juice, fresh pressed, cold pressed green, juice being made in the house, boxes of supplements.

And he was researching, he's like, you need vitamin D, You need Vitamin A, this is what these vitamins do. So he looked at it as, okay, we have to reduce their cholesterol. This is bad. We have To completely eradicate this diabetes, they need to lose weight, They need To get healthy, build in every practice he could, get them moving, Get them walking, hire a trainer, He did everything. And they looked so good and healthy and vital again when he said, okay, we're complete. I've reversed everything.

My grandfather came from India, unable to hold a cup with a straw. So he was not independent enough to eat by himself. He'd been actually diagnosed with Parkinson's? Correct. And his gait wasn't... He was too frail, so he had a cane, but he didn't want to use the cane. We were very scared about a fall with him. By the time we sent him back to India he perfectly fine and he was eating independently. So he'd improved. Yeah, he had improved dramatically functional. To be able to think again and function again, and run your company again.

And not be this extremely debilitated Parkinson's patient was really huge. Hey, folks, I just wanted to throw a little message in here for those of you who are sending me all these incredible questions on social media or through YouTube or even on Spotify, wherever you're listening to the podcast. I wish I could get back to each one of your personally, but unfortunately, And because I cannot, I created, about a couple of years ago now, a membership community where I get to hang out with people just like you.

I do live weekly Q&As, almost weekly anyway. We also do have podcast guests come in to answer everybody's questions and do presentations, you get to interact live with those podcast guests. We will sometimes do challenges with some of the partners. Like in 2026, we have a mitochondrial enhancement challenge coming up where we're going to be testing mitochondria function. we are going be to testing people's deuterium levels. If you haven't heard about deutereum, We've got podcasts coming down the pipes on that.

And then people will be invited to follow a personalized protocol and then retest their mitochondria on the other side. We offer that in the membership community and we do it at incredible discounts that you just can't find anywhere else. So if you're interested in hanging out with me and other like-minded people, which actually happen to include some pretty awesome practitioners and even some previous podcast guests who've come and joined the community, then I invite you to check it out on my website natnidam.com slash the dash longevity dash community or just go to natnim.

com and look for the longevity community tab at the top of the page. Click on that. and see if this is right for you. I would love to see you there and we could make 2026 our best year ever together. So once again, that's natnidam.com. Just look for the longevity community tab at the top of the page. Now let's get back to the show. Okay. So now fast forward, goes back to India and he has this crazy bike, motorcycle accident, right? He, I mean, it wasn't even an accident. It was that he was not, anyway, you explain.

I could sit and tell it, but you tell. He was heading to a meeting to meet with someone. And in India you have these things called three wheelers. So it's like one wheel in the front, two in back. And he was so diabetic by that point with so much neuropathy, his foot started hanging off the side and he didn't even notice that it was cutting into his own foot. So, it harmed him. It took him time to tell the driver, please stop. He ended up in hospital. Whatever happened to that foot and leg must have been infected and so damaged and they chose to amputate.

Well, with diabetes and neuropathy. Yeah. So then everything transpired. The next morning I woke up and my sister and I go downstairs to have breakfast. They're cooking breakfast, doing all these things. And we are going to go say good morning and namaste to our grandfather. Someone walks out of the room and says, he has passed away. My sister How did this happen? He was just healthy last year when he sent him here. My father wasn't with me. And I was like, this is, it was the worst moment. I thought, you guys have no idea how to reverse disease.

This is ridiculous. That I am losing a grandparent. He lost his life and vitality. All of us lost him. Because no one here respects what diabetes and disease means. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to find a way for everyone to understand that this was all preventable. And that's your moment? Yeah. That's a big moment. And how old were you at the time? I must've been like 10th grade. Yeah, yeah. So you were young. Okay. Fast forward. When did you figure out for yourself? Cause you know, now you're 10 grade, you are like, okay, I'm going to solve this.

You go back home, go through school, do all the things. Did you study Ayurvedic medicine right out of college? How did that journey happen? So I went to college for business. My parents were in business and they were like, let's keep this girl focused. If we leave her to her own devices, she'll be a yogi in the mountains of India. So keep her on a lane. I end up in Business School and of course I'm still trying to find my lane and I found something called Social Entrepreneurship. A professor of mine put me in this class.

He says, you belong in his class, obviously you're a do-gooder.

Ayurveda, India, and the path into healing 15:00

Let's put you there. And then I found my people, like people who want to impact the world by creating great things and reduce our burden on the planet. So that was kind of my thought process. But I went to India in college and was so sick. I'd get so second idea. The doctor thought he should hospitalize me. And I was sitting in that doctor's office, sick as a dog, that no one knew what to do with me. And the doctor goes, I have this prescription for you. You should take these 13 medications. I looked at him and a voice in me screamed and said no.

That voice was so loud. Can you dumb down your probiotic a couple notches? Let's not explode my gut again. What are those other 12 meds for? He goes those are for your symptoms. And my mind was like, no, you guys have screwed this up too many times for my family. Everyone in my families typically on 10, 12 medications. So I immediately said, No, we're not doing this. I'm not taking anything you give me. And that's when I made the decision. and I told my parents were in the land of yoga and Ayurveda.

need to go study this, I need To find a different alternative path for My health, because none of this is working. And that's when they were like, okay, sure. They were very burnt out entrepreneurs by then. West, East, South India, we detoxed. And I said, you know, this is it. This is ancient wisdom. this Is pure truth and wisdom, look at everyone in these centers, they're here because they reversed all their diseases. Take this wisdom and bring it forward. none of us have to suffer the way my family suffers.

This wisdom needs to go west. How come none us in America have heard of Ayurveda? That's weird. So that's when I chose to study it, go much more in depth fortuitously. All these people put me into Ayureveda schools in India, taught me, poured their knowledge into me. I started going to conferences, planning whole conferences on Ayura Veda. And then I did my master's and PhD in it. Wow. That's, that's crazy. So, all right. When did you realize, because this is great, right? You're moving along, you're getting trading Ayurveda, but you get to a point where you are like, I'm not just stressed and tired.

I am inflamed. This kind of moment where inflammation really crystallizes for you because that is your sweet spot. Well, post kids, I had plantar fasciitis and I didn't know what it was. I just thought every morning I'm walking on glass and someone needs to stop breaking glass in my house. And so I started having these daily pains. So I went to orthopedics and was like, hey, how do you fix this? And they're like oh, that's just bursitis. You're just having like inflammation. We'll fix it for you.

And they said, all you need to do is take NSAIDs, high dose, 24 seven for 10 days. And this was, I was still in my masters, hadn't studied tumor yet. I did it, took it and right afterwards I had such severe stomach aches and I told them, what did you do? Do you understand I've studied Ayurveda? I put a lot of time and money into a healthy gut. That's my entire life is to have a gut and immune that works. They're like, oh, those are just side effects. Don't worry about it. And I got so angry. I was like, this system is broken.

The fact that you can all day flippantly give us medication and not recognize that the side effects can be catastrophic to some of us means you don't understand. There are much better options on the table. And when I in my master's class of herbology at the time, the professor was explaining ginger is anti-inflammatory. You have all these amazing herbs and spices. They're super spices that do all of these things. I was like, that's it. If I just took turmeric and it worked and I wanted inflammation, then every time I've thrown my back out and taken all sorts of drugs for that set of times, when my knee hurts, my feet hurt, I get pains and aches like everybody else.

Then I can have a natural tool that doesn't harm my gut, doesn' harm whole body. And so that was where I decided to go deep into my studies on I did the PhD on tumor purely over that reason, because I thought, how can you try to solve one problem, but you're causing harm on the other side? Oh, for sure. Aren't there studies that show, I just remember this from when I was in school, aren't their studies, that compared tumoric to NSAIDs and showed that tumor, like the right tumor supplement is as effective as NSAIDS at reducing pain and inflammation.

Correct. Without poking holes in your gut. Exactly. We have plenty of studies, we have double-blind placebo-controlled trials that prove it all day long that curcumin is as effective as NSAIDs. So that's the easiest category to say unequivocally when we go to orthopedics, chiropractic, anyone for our pain, They should say, oh, you have pain. You can take tumor for that. And that's my whole dream is just to train doctors to say you can't take too much for. I'm not trying to take away their existing toolkit.

They love their. But I have trained a good set of doctors. To say that phrase so that the patient then considers it and takes both because patients nowadays know this thing has side effects. This thing is natural and usually want to get off the solution with side-effects. sooner. And so that's been my whole body of work for a decade now is just that switch. But what's cool is curcumin has a lot more studies now, like so many have come online. British Medical Journal published a study saying curicumin is as effective as PPIs with less side effects and less harm.

So when you go to GI and you're going to take a PPI, you could take this instead. And it's unequivocal. It's a double-blind placebo-controlled trial in the British Medical Journal. So let's explain to people what PPIs are, just for people who don't know what Ppi stands for. This is for when people, when go into the doctor, GI, and your taking like Prevacid and all these medications to calm down your acidity. Those are proton pump inhibitors. Yeah. Exactly. So when you're taking these, you are trying to calm down the gut, trying turn off certain processes.

And when it comes to curcumin, natural solution, it's going to go in there and cause the same solution but without the harm. So will it shut down? So because the proton pump inhibitor actually shuts down, the production of acid in the stomach, which, I think, from what I've read and learned is sometimes the opposite of what people need. Sometimes people are not making enough. digestive enzymes. And so they're getting the acid reflux, which is what they get the PPI for because of an insufficiency of digestive enzyme, Which causes the food to just sit there, ferment, and then they Get the reflex.

So when we're bringing turmeric into the picture, so obviously it's anti-inflammatory. It's going to help to calm the inflammation, but is it actually restoring the body's ability to produce enough Stomach acid or? Good question. I mean, we know that curcumin is supportive to the gut microbiome. We know it helps with healing leaky gut. It's supportive of the lining as well. You know its antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral. So it has that positive effect on its anticanadida, anti-H pylori. A lot of bad gut bacteria it removes while leaving the good bacteria in place.

I have not specifically read about its impact on digestive enzymes and stomach acid. So I haven't read that, but I've seen that everything that we want to happen in the gut positively, it is doing. Yeah, without shutting down your production of your own enzymes. That's really interesting. I didn't realize that it could be used for that. So in the inflammation code in your new book, which is, by the way, guys, one of the most beautiful books. It's a gorgeous book. Shivani, if you're on YouTube, Shivana is holding it up now.

You frame inflammation as the true root cause behind a huge percentage of chronic diseases and accelerated aging. which we know, inflammation has become one of the twelve hallmarks of aging, right? So if you had to rewrite the standard stories that most doctors tell about aging and disease, what would you change first? What would shift in that story? You know, I know that we are aging and I have a cellular decline. I've read all about it. What people don't realize is inflammation is this low grade forest fire that's happening inside of us.

wreaking havoc, causing damage. But the problem is the fire alarms are turned off. We're not really hearing the signals. And they start really quiet. So for so many women who are my clients and who I work with, they're saying, you know what, I just have some brain fog. Can't remember things, can't recall information as fast. I've got some aches and pains, not a big deal, but I wake up really stiff and I'm tired and want to sit down more. Fatigue starting in the afternoon, they're tired. They don't want get up and do as much.

Maybe it's frequent headaches. discomfort. And so unfortunately, when we go to the doctor, and we complain about these things, they say, Look, there's nothing to do for you. You're fine. Your numbers are labs. Yeah, the labs look good or are normal. They typically aren't even testing our CRP to see our inflammation levels in our body. We have to ask for that kind of test. With a beg for a vitamin D test because it's a more expensive test to do. So we're asking for things, but the results we are getting are showing some elevated levels, But not enough to really have alarm about it.

But the problem is those are all indications of inflammation and we're just taking them lightly.

Discovering inflammation through personal pain 25:00

We call it inflammation. And we think, okay, well, it's just not a big deal. So what I think is if we just start paying attention to, all right, these are adding up to issues. we know there's a forest fire brewing in almost all of us. Three out of five people are affected or disastrously affected. by inflammation and chronic inflammatory disease, then why wouldn't we, when we're talking about longevity and health, go back to the root? The root is inflammation. We just don't want to do the work oftentimes, or we don t know the works, to put the anti-inflammatory plan in place.

So my homework is always understand what the issue is, and then let's break it down into the pillars of health that we can bring in to win at inflammation I mean, there's got to be places where conventional medicine is getting inflammation, right? Obviously. And I think it's maybe it when the fire's burning a little hotter. Um, so, yeah. So where do you think a dramatically underestimates the impact? Is it this in this kind of low grade inflammation that you're talking about that doesn't really ring any alarm bells?

I think so. I mean, when I've gone with women to the endocrinologist, the androgynologist will say, you know what, You are not full blown Hashimoto's yet. When you are, I have a medication for you. Until then, just wait, because you're going to end up here anyway. And I'll raise my hand and say okay, is there anything she can do to change in her diet that will prevent this pathway you were talking about? They're like, no, there's nothing to It is what it is. The numbers are trending that way. And that's where I get really enraged because I do think that there's a much bigger education component that we should bring in earlier on.

But yes, you're right. I'm in a big family of physicians. They are wonderful at surgery, procedures, treatment when we've got the real big serious stuff and we need the big guns. There's no question there. Uh, I've had a family member in the hospital this week, like, thank God for modern medicine and modern hospitals. But I think in this milieu, this like mixture and chaos where most of us live, we're starting to stack up, but we may not catch that it's inflammation. So even for myself, when I start to say, you know what, maybe this is just aging.

That's my sign. I immediately stop and go, no, there's no aging. You're only in your mid 40s. Yeah. Change something. What did you change? Is your sleep bad this week? is it that you're not moving enough? Have you missed working out and walking in nature? Where did the diet change. Did you have way too much fun last weekend? Like, where's the change, are you not taking your supplements? So I think it's about going down our own checklist consistently and asking where was there a shift and where do I need to bring it back?

Because according to the ancient wisdoms of Ayurveda, we're not meant to live on any extreme. We don't need to be, you know, the biggest CrossFit bodybuilders, all of us. we don t need t be the leanest vegans ever on earth. Like there's a beautiful, happy medium. And we are also bio-individual. like in Ayureveda I teach elemental design that we each have our own constitution. Yeah. But where do we need evaluate where we re at and then adjust from there? Yeah. No, I love that. So for someone who's like crazy busy.

Yeah, you know, we've got a busy midlife person. What do you think? You know what are the the simple daily rituals like maybe three simple, daily, rituals that they could start that might really move the needle for them? My number one is sleep. We know sleep is when we clear inflammation. And Ayurveda taught us the circadian clock and that we are all circadian beings. we must live on our circadan clock if we want to swim downstream with life and have an easy time of it. If we wanna fight and go upstream and defy the Circadian Clock, that's our choice, but that what causes dis-ease.

And so in Ayurveda, I would focus on sleep first. And on that circadian clock, 10 to 2 on the clock is what we call the bitha time of day, when the fires come out to clean and clear everything. So if you sleep 10-2 on a clock that's when you're going to clear out inflammation, clear the lymphatic system, the glymphatic If you are not sleeping 10 to 2, if you were like an 11 o'clock midnight post midnight person, which many people are, you're just giving up your body's time frame to best clear out inflammation.

So can you sleep is free? Sleep is easy. Maybe it's not easy for some, but trying to move your sleep clock back as close to 10 as you can is the first piece of homework. And if that's hard, I totally get it. I go through seasons where I push bedtime to 11, But then I don't wonder why I'm dealing with inflammation symptoms. It's one of those things. So I'm a big believer in take whatever tool you have to take. I have a ritual, I progesterone, my deep sleep tea, sleep gummies, a heating pad, take a hot shower.

Like I go through the song and dance to guarantee that whatever sleep I am going to get, even if it's at 11, maybe I sacrifice one hour of detoxing, but at least that sleep is going be deep, it will be good, high quality. And I know you talk a lot about sleep, so your audience probably knows a ton about it. But sleep would be the first step. This is interesting, right? Because in traditional Chinese medicine, they break up the clock a little bit differently, but still, it also speaks to that clock and different things happening at different times.

So, okay, so 10 to 2 is inflammation clearance time in the body, in So then after 2 a.m., you can still get sleep. We call that the more Vata time. So we need sleep and sleeping sleep here to seven, two to six, to eight, whatever you're going to do. But when you are in that sleep state, it typically is a lighter state of sleep, so it's not what we consider that detox time Right, right. So it's not your deep sleep time. It's your more REM sleep. But you just mentioned vata. What happens during the hours of vato sleep?

Vata time of day is what we call the air and ether time So in that time of day, everything is lighter. Everything is about more movement. So you're going to have more like movement in the mind, movement and the body. Two to six during the daytime is when we consider, imagine two to 6 in afternoon, you are less focused. You're gonna do your last deep work. you can do like your light tasks, lighter, easy to do things. In the same way, You are just not expecting the deep sleep to happen in two or six window.

Okay. All right. So it's a little less specific than TCM, because TCMs assigns different times to different organs. It's very, very specific. You've created elemental design as a way to translate Ayurveda's doshas into a modern personalized blueprint. So for someone who lives by data wearables, you know, they've got their, actually, my earring is recharging right now, but they got the wearable, the data, and the lab reports. Are you able to explain the elemental design as something as tangible as a biomarker?

Do you think? Or can you put it in those terms a little bit so that people can line it up? For sure. Because I love the wearables too. I loved the data and understanding we can get on ourselves right now. The way I explain elemental design is this is an ancient understanding. In Ayurveda, we teach that you are born with your constitution. And I took the ancient doshas and I renamed them elemental designs. We're in modern day life, I can't throw too many Sanskrit words at all the people. But actually, let's talk about the three doshas.

Let's explain the foundation that the elemental design came from. For sure. A vatha person is made up of air and ether, and this person tends to be leaner than anyone else in their demographic. Leaner, lighter, taller, or shorter than everyone in the demographic, This is someone whose personality is like air, air ether, so their physical appearance can be dry and brittle. Their personality can kind of be like a beautiful breeze on a day, just a balanced thing. Could be a ceiling fan, always in motion and never ever stops.

It could be, like, a tornado. That's also wind energy, but could kind be all over the place and really strong and agitated. And so you take that understanding of that element and now apply it to the person. A Vata person is this joyful creative light being who loves to run around and be in motion. This is someone who never wants to be stuck sitting down because they have so much momentum and energy. this is Someone who personality wise is so joyful, always creating new things, Always running after the next new idea.

Physically, they can have a tendency towards insomnia, constipation, and anxiety. These are the overdry things that can happen. If you're too dry, you can be constapated. if you are racing like a ceiling fan or tornado, anxiety, all these kinds of things. They have disrupted light sleep. And so if you're a Vata person, you also tend to not eat all day. You're so light, You can just keep running around. Green juice, coffee, some celery. you never need a meal. And it's a classic Vat thing that by the end of the day, they're like, wow, I didn't eat today.

That's so weird. I'm tired. and you need to kind of feed them and ground them again. And so if you're a Vata person, the homework is eat three square meals a day, add in healthy fat, ground that energy and balance that. Because Vat people start so many things, but oftentimes don't finish them. So they look kind of flaky or they feel frustrated with that, and so that template is so important to understand if that's your original constitution, because then you can learn how to really balance yourself and then to have the level of groundedness that supports you in your constitution.

And then we teach about it that it is fire with some water. So this is someone who's medium bodied tends towards reddish skin redish hair tends toward early graying in their hair.

Inflammation as the root of chronic disease 35:00

This is Someone whose personality is fired so ambitious passionate sharp organized go getter. There are people who have big fires in their digestive fire. So big appetite, they get hangry if they haven't eaten. This is someone who has to eat their three meals a day or you don't want to know them. Someone who loves hot, oily, spicy foods and fried foods, all the foods that they shouldn't And this is someone who can just run 100 miles a minute, but when imbalanced, they're like a volcano. They erupt, They explode.

they take their anger out on everyone around them. The very fiery. So tend towards inflammation, heartburn, these kinds of things that we were talking about. And so my homework for pit that people is cool your jets and treat yourself like a nuclear reactor. So all summer foods are very cooling to the nervous system. You'll see pit. Those are constantly trying to reach for sugar because sugar has a cooling effect on the inside. When people say to me, I'm a chocoholic, sugar-holic, no, it's just you're soothing anxiety and stress with sweet things.

And it does do that a lot as well. That's like one of the simple things you can do is coconut water, cucumbers. anything that's cooling and soothing to the system. And then the last one is guffa. Guffa is earth and water energy. So this is very mother earth. This is someone who's sturdier, stronger, can lift heavier than the rest of us. They have round features, so round face, round eyes, oily curly hair, oilier skin. this your person who is so grounded and loyal and loving to everyone around them.

they're that best friend who takes care of everyone else first. In a woman, it's this grandma caretaker energy. They want to feed and love everyone. In man, It's a very mountain grounding energy, they're very one thing at a time. So one step at at time, even when they are speaking, one decision at the time And so with guffas, some of the things that hold them back health-wise is a sluggish metabolism or congestion, that water element. They can be, if they're imbalanced, they have depression. they feel stuck, They feel low.

That's kind of, the tendency of that earth water energy. When balanced, there are just the most loving kind human on earth. And so Guffa people, the homework is warm cooked meals. And even though the trend right now is protein shakes and salads and let's get raw in, that's actually the worst for Gaffa. We need them to eat cooked, easy to digest meals, they get the deepest lumber. So this is your crew who sleeps eight to 10 hours in the deep asleep on earth. So our goal is to let them have their sleep, but as soon as they're up, get their energy moving so that they have that energy for the day to get going.

And then once they finish their day, you know you're a kaffa when you sit on the couch and you cannot get off the coach again. Right. So in Ayurveda, we teach that you are all made up. We're all make up of a primary and a secondary dosha constitution. Nice. It can be balanced in all three. But once you know your primary secondary, it's about getting yourself back to home because oftentimes life, trauma, different changes in our lives can shift us out of being balanced with our main constitutions.

And we just want to walk ourselves home. so we feel like our most balanced, aligned self. You have a worksheet in the book, is it in? The book where people can sort out their own doshas. So let's go back to the original question there. Are we able to use this elemental design kind of like as part of our mix of biomarkers that we're looking at on a regular basis? Absolutely. I think it informs. So for example, I have an aura ring and I am a Pitta, but I've a Vata mind. And most of us in modern day life have a vata of mind so on any given kind of area and flaky and air area like a but the mind is always in motion and imagine social media is the perfect creator of a mind that's just always emotion and never just pauses and stops.

and just absorbs the peace and stillness. And so what I think is if you understand yourself better, then you can use the same understanding and apply it to the biomarker tools. So as a pitta, I just want to eat all the time. I should wear a CGM because then I can watch what my behaviors do and self-correct much faster. i have a tendency towards a vata mind. As soon as sleep is disrupted and I could see it in my aura ring, i can understand, okay, What am I going to do to calm my Vata mind? That might be the source.

It might more journaling, might mean more walks in nature. I can give myself the right homework quicker because I have that self-knowledge and understanding that I may not have had before. Yeah. And I wonder if once you put it in the context of a person's elemental design, there's less beating yourself up over stuff. There's maybe, you know, a bit more acceptance of saying, okay, well, this is my nature, how am I going to work with my nature to kind of get the best out of myself, right? And so, and so to that end, when you're working with a client, When you are mapping their elemental design, what are the biggest aha moments that they experience when they start to get an understanding of this kind underlying programming that's influencing For sure.

What elements in their lifestyle might be putting them at odds with their biology? It's fascinating. So when you sit across from someone energetically, you could tell what their constitution is once you start to understand these. Sometimes I'll sit from across a Vata and I'm like, oh my God. the tornado energy, how do I settle this person? It's not easy. I'm a pretty grounded pitta. And so I have to sit there and just slowly start unfolding with them. Like, what are the changes we're going to make and how to I get leverage with to them make those changes?

The pittas are usually going so fast inside of themselves. You have kind of catch them and say, look, I am going ask you for just one homework, an avocado a day. I'm asking for a gig in your day, just asking you to eat a real breakfast. Let's not run out of the house, fasting. So you have to really baby step them in. But once they start, I have had clients who feel grounded, centered, they can focus again, their productive again. They finish their work, that can do big launches in their companies again because they understand They're all over the place, ADHD, unfocused, unable to sit still energy, was really tied to the diet they were on that they thought was great.

Because we're taught right now, do one meal a day. That doesn't apply to Avatha. Avotha moves their meals. Now, the Guffa crew, that's a great idea. Gaffa needs to do everything they can to move that metabolism, move energy. They can tolerate the bigger fast compared to rest of us. So that's where it's really cool. And then when you have Guffa people sometimes, they're like, yeah, the whole world says I need to side hustle work all night, work, all day, run around. If you show Gaffa, look, you are actually the most grounded human out of all of us.

You are the magical friend and family member who keeps the world together. Once you sit down in the evening, that's it. So honor what your day is and then honor yourself. Honor how you are, honor that your sleep is the most important thing. And they have such peace with that once they understand it, because before it was a battle of why can't I get myself up? Why can I do more? It's like, no honor your true nature, Honor your gifts. So in a corporation, your CAFA would be your chief operations person, maybe?

Yeah. Because they're the ones that are keeping the wheels on the bus. They're are the one that's are making sure everything's working properly. Exactly. And they want to stay behind the scenes. The want stay in the office. they don't want be forward-facing. So that why when I meet podcasters, I'm sure of this because I've been on hundreds of podcasts, over 90% of podcaster are PITAs. Am I PITA? I think I am Pita with some CAFAS. Yeah, it's just interesting, right? Who wants to go on camera and teach and has the personality for it?

Kind of like the fiery will bring that aspect of themselves into camera. It's more fit that personality, sometimes but that. But Guffa is like, I want to work behind the scenes. Don't put me on the camera, don't pull me out there. I wanna keep all systems running beautifully. And that brings me the joy. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know about Kafa then maybe. I mean, well I have to do the thing. You handed me the questionnaire and I haven't done it yet because I'm too much of a pitta. Alright, let's move into mental inflammation, the hidden driver behind burnout and the dreaded brain aging.

So you talk about mental information, you write about it and it's not just stress. right? You're talking about cognitive overload and self-pressure and how that actually causes inflammation in the brain. You want to talk about that a little bit maybe? For sure. So I was writing the book, I got to the end. I taught all my pillars of Ayurveda. Let's fix circadian clock, Let's all learn how to detox Korean Ayurveda, let's learn the ayurvedic diet, Let us learn to fix our guts and adjust our digestive fire.

Let all learned the natural remedies, mindful medicine chest. I teach all the spices you can use in your life. It's amazing. And I was so excited about it. Love the spice. All the spaces, which our cultures use, but not everyone's culture, brings in like cardamom and coriander and cumin and fennel and fenugreek. and I just love all that cinnamon. I just love all the spices, obviously, I get real excited about people using them. I need to create like a cooking class series now and just teaching people how to use spice.

Anyway, let's stay on topic. And maybe that'll dovetail with brain inflammation, because I'm sure that spices can be helpful. But let us define mental inflammation in a way that kind of helps people to think about, oh, maybe that's an issue for me.

Sleep, circadian rhythm, and daily anti-inflammatory habits 45:00

For sure. So I got through all those topics. And then at the end, I was finishing the book and I about to talk about stress. Okay, guys, we can win at inflammation, but our stress alone will cause this physical inflammation at a level that we still can't win in our health. Because I'm part of the biohacking longevity space. I love it. But if we're going to freak out and stress out all day about what we are not doing for our That is a baseline chronic stress that we're putting onto ourselves. Life itself can cause a lot of stressors.

And from the Ayurvedic perspective, one piece we forget about is this concept called Amma, or this toxin residue that exists inside of all of us. We're living in modern day life. It has environmental toxins. So we have this toxic burden, and we a life that's oftentimes so stressful, we are knocking out our own digestive fire, which we call Agni. And so what we're left with is we've pretty depleted people. And then when life's stress has come along, they can have such a significant impact. It's like this mental inflammation overload of life is causing the physical inflammation, overload that we are dealing with that's causing our chronic diseases.

And so that's where I decided to coin that term, it came to me, mental inflammation, because I think people underestimate that the stress alone will cause all your diseases. We think of stress as just stress. But if we're not doing things to build our resilience, our digestive fire, to detox the system so it's not carrying these burdens, then of course mental inflammation will have that much more of a toll. And I've seen that many times. People have gone through divorce and then found me and I'm like, you produced an autoimmune condition in that moment of severe stress.

The next time you go through severe, I need you to simultaneously say, this is horrible and i'm going to take care of myself physically, mentally, emotionally, so I don't generate a disease in this time. or when someone's passed away in my life, my hair falls out. I'm like, oh, okay, that's my body responding to stress. That's the physical repercussion to the mental stress I went through at that time. And so my hope is everyone reads the Mental Inflammation Chapter and understands we have so much opportunity to build stress resilience in our day.

we can build a self-care rhythm according to our circadian clock. We can pick up little habits like my addiction called tea time is me time, where we pause and have tea as an anchor throughout our day. But it's really an opportunity to pause, tune in, check in. Ask yourself some basic questions. How am I doing today? And sometimes I find myself stressed out, hungry, tired, burnt out. I'm like, oh, OK, what are you going to do about it? Go walk in nature for five minutes. That's a free, simple antidote.

Or do five-minutes of breath work as you're driving. Listen to yoga, peaceful music or spiritual music, or whatever calms your nervous system down. And keep practicing the regulation techniques until those become second nature. Then that's the state we're living in, so we are not creating inflammation. Yeah, you can almost imagine that that piece, that self-regulation piece the calming piece. That's the part that I think a lot of people are missing. Like they've got their diet dialed in. They've biohacked their sleep to death.

they have got the supplements and yet they're like, okay, I got it. I've nailed it and then is it possible that they could still be suffering from this mental inflammation because that one piece hasn't been brought in just yet. Correct. And the ancient wisdom said, taught us yoga is a sister science to Ayurveda. So meditation is part of what we teach pranayama, deep breathing techniques is what you teach. I mean, so much of our teaching is calm down, collect your peace and hold that peace. But oftentimes in the space, like you said we're completely bypassing that part.

Have you heard of a comedian, she's Indian, her name is Zarna? Yes. Zarni Garg? Yeah. Did you see her, have you seen her bit on yoga, on how the West has taken over yoga? And she said, Oh my God, it's, She's so funny. And I'm just going to share this quickly. She talks about how, you know, I see all these Westerners in their $200 yoga tights with the holes in them and their bag and this, and they're rushing, rushing rushing. rushing to yoga. And she turns around and looks at the audience and says, let me tell you something.

If you're rushing to yoga, you get, and you doing it wrong. And it's so like, it you saw this like in, in that. First of all, it made me laugh out loud, obviously, because you can see her and she's rushing around the stage. She's hilarious. But it really gets to the center of where modern life and these traditional practices that are so imbued with wisdom and value and modern approach comes in and takes it and turns it into something that is going to cause you mental inflammation. Correct. Correct.

I do that too. Sometimes I'll rush to yoga because it's on Sunday morning. It's my favorite thing. And it like 8.30 and I'm pulling in the parking lot at like... Glasses at 830? Yeah. Glass at eight thirty, I am pulling into the park lot, full speed, hit the curb, run in. Guess what? You need yoga more than ever and your job was to show here up here 30 minutes early and breathe in nature before you walked into yoga That's how much you need. Yoga right now, but I agree with you We're in this modern day life work where we're kind of jamming self-care in we are jammin in health and we re doing it in a way that is such the counter pose or the antithesis of what it is we're seeking.

And that's why I wrote the book. I wanted everyone to understand it's simple. It's free. Let's make the space to walk in nature. Nature is the ultimate biohack. Move in, nature, breathe in. Mother nature will give you everything. Even though I own a supplement company and I teach a lot about turmeric, I don't want you taking tumor forever. You shouldn't need to do that. The goal of IRV that is to show you a daily preventive lifestyle. And the goal there is body, mind and spirit and alignment. So you can have that just by bringing in a rhythm, that rhythm of, Oh, I do some moving in nature in the morning.

I do my tongue scraper every day and I clear the toxic burden out of my body. I have tea a couple times a day with powerful herbs that heal me. I sleep because I honor sleep as my most important gift to myself. And then we have a completely different experience of life. That's my goal is how to bring the joy back to health and wellness. So it feels like ritual. It feels Like an honoring of self. Feels like a gifting to self because lately it started to feel like torture. Or a job. Yeah, exactly.

Like a really tough job, okay. So let's move into turmeric because that's your PhD. so turmeric and super spices, you know, so we, we in your work, it's like taking this ancient remedy that has so much wisdom around it and bringing it into an evidence-based tool. You've built this research based supplement line around this one. Ayurvedic herb. So now, is turmeric considered an herb or spice? Because it's a root. It's root, it is a rhizome. They actually don't call it herb and then we call a spice because we dry it into the spice.

Okay, great. When you did your research, what did it reveal about turmeric that even you didn't fully appreciate before you dug in? Was there something, because you obviously went into turmeric saying, okay, this stuff's amazing. But what did you learn when you really did your deep dive that you were like, who would have thought? You know, the number one thing that I fell in love with was immune support. I historically was someone who was sick all the time. And I took antibiotics all through high school, all throughout the years and damaged my gut so badly.

So IRV, that was my number-one tool to heal the gut. But I underestimated the power of turmeric as a powerful antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal. There's a whole big crew of humans with myself who use it very strategically as our antiviral support. Anytime anyone's coming up with a cold or a sneeze, I just double down on turmeric. And I have not gotten sick, knock on wood, for years. Like the last five years, the colds and stuff that everyone suffered with, i did not get. So I felt very lucky on that front.

Then secondly,I really loved it for neurocognitive support because I saw Parkinson's dimension, these things in my family. family of all diabetics, I realized, okay, if we can support and protect the brain, then we're all smart people, we are all productive. We're trying to do great things in life. How is it that the last quarter we lose our brain capacity and ability to really manage our lives independently? That was to me catastrophic because my grandparents were titans. They built great thing and how could you lose that?

So curcumin has a powerful effect in Alzheimer's because it has an effect on tau tangles and BDNF. and amyloid plaques. It has a powerful effect for neurogenesis and it has powerful effects on neuroinflammation. So to me, curcumin knows how to cross the blood brain barrier and get in there, protect me and create new brain cells and reverse any of the damage I've done just living life. That's exciting to be. Wow, that is exciting. There's so much confusion on turmeric between the powders and the capsules.

Like, is it from the root extract or do we want a full spectrum formula? Do we, things like absorption enhancers, like black pepper. I mean, people get all bent out of shape about black peppering. Is it bad? Is good? So what are the biggest myths you want to just kind of squish right here? So number one, everyone's juicing turmeric in the yoga world, especially.

Elemental design and the three doshas 55:00

They're like, I juice my turmeric. I'm like that is so great for you that you can swallow burning turmeric and ginger shots. This is the most painful obnoxious health habit I've seen. But some people do feel benefits from it. Like I feel better, my joints feel. Is there a reason why you shouldn't juice turmeric, do you think? You know, in ancient India, they had fresh turmeric and they didn't use it. They just chose to pickle it occasionally. That used it as a garnish, a radish, but they did use as it a food source.

It was a very heating food. Mm-hmm. they took it and dried it into the spice because that was so much more concentrated form to use. And then they use that in all their cooking. Right. So I've always leaned on trusting the ancient traditions for how they've used things. I take that dried kitchen culinary spice, I am Indian, so we use in it all the dishes we cook. And they did find in India, that's where the interest for tumor came from, was they were like, why do people in the have less Alzheimer's?

Oh, it must be their curry, must it be there spice. So then the science on tumor exploded. But when you take tumor, the spice, only three to 5% of it is the curcuminoids, which we have to date studied to be the most effective part at reducing inflammation. So when people tell me, oh, I sprinkle turmeric on my chicken, that's great. A sprinkle is not going to do anything because you need that three to five percent at a higher dosage. Now, if we weren't living in a society where we knew how inflamed we were, the kitchen spice should be enough.

And I do think for the eons that we used to work, it was enough But now we're in a new time period and we are chronically inflamed and, we know it. So that extract, a lot of times now, were extracting it and putting it into supplements. But the problem is the labels are confusing. Supplement companies really vary in their quality and how you extract matters. And so the supplement world at this point is really built for high profitability. You make a supplement for a few bucks, you sell it for 20 bucks on Amazon.

you make the money in between. What's the consumer getting? The consumer is getting junk because you have no idea of the potency or the quality or really what's in there at all. They're saying up to a third of supplements on Amazon do not even have what they say they have, which is really scary to me. And that goes for big box retailers as well, over 50%. They are saying it doesn't have the active ingredient. And so when I studied turmeric and my dream was, okay, let me show orthopedics that they don't have to give me my NSAIDs.

They can say, you can take turmeric for that as well. Then I really needed to build something for such a high potency. So there are turmeric supplements and supplements in general built for the functional medicine space, integrative medicine, space and these very high quality supplements go after efficacy. In my case, I extracted curcumin at a 95% grade standardization. That's what you should look for on a label. And then you can add black pepper or a healthy fat for absorption. In our case, we actually extract to mimic mother nature and reach above the 97% line.

And so that one thing we did, it made it a very expensive ingredient, but it caused the thing that I wanted. It caused everyone to say, Whoa, I actually feel that. I feel different. This is amazing. And so that was really exciting to me that we have that potentiality to have level of potency. Then I added turmeric back in because turmeric with its extract has a synergistic effect and then black pepper. So you added the full turmeric root. Yes. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Because there's other components in there that work with the curcuminoids, right?

Exactly. You have tumorones, you have the oils inside of tumor, and you benefits inside the tumor. And we also know, as I learned this in my PhD and found it so interesting, there are non-curcuminoid tumoric benefits. Yeah. So it's not like the plant is garbage, the plan is phenomenal. We just know in this moment called 2025, 2026 that this one extract can do so much. And I hope in my lifetime, I get to learn the other cool extracts we can pull from it and learn from and impact people's lives. Okay, great.

So let's talk about the black pepper though, because this is one of those things that people will come to blows over. Some people won't claim that. Oh my God. Black pepper is going to destroy your liver or your gut. And then it is very often a component, a key component of some of these supplements. Do you want to talk. Why you chose to use it? Sure. So I chose Black Pepper because I worked in the lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, where the scientists discovered that Black pepper increases the absorption of tumor by 2000%. I studied in his lab in high school, had no idea that I would go fall in love with the same plant 20 plus years later.

And I saw that science and research happening in front of me in a big lab. And he and I sat down and talked about how all the herbs from Ayurveda, all of the phyto botanicals have such power. And the fact that we could find black pepper to do this, and saw the research happening there, I thought it was so compelling. Now, we also have wonderful science that healthy fats, liposomal, curcumin is effective in the body. There's a whole crew of people who are like, �I am not touching blackpepper. I want the lipasomel.� What's good about healthy fat with curcumin is it will cross the blood-brain barrier and give you those effects as well.

So what I tell people is I didn't feel comfortable dealing with liposomals. I was worried about it aging. As worried, about oxidation, even with fish oil, I have those concerns like, am I going to give something that's truly self-stable and healthy or will it be inflammatory? Because I can't fully control it shipping in the heat, you keeping it in heat. All these issues. So to me, I aired on the side of safety and went with black pepper. And then I say, take it with a meal so that you get those benefits.

With healthy fat. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, that makes sense. In your experience and research, the black pepper is not a negative. No, I mean, it's four milligrams blackpepper extract. I eat more red chili powder that would blow a hole into my gut than I could ever do through black Pepper in my supplements. Like there's no way I've seen this guys. Shivani travels with her own hot spice. All right, so what about turmeric in the context of a person's elemental design? Are there in three doshas, are there people that should maybe have more turmeric or less turmeric?

Does it work differently for the different dosa? It actually does. So vatha is always running a little cold, a Little dry. And so any warming spice is beneficial to them. The tumeric, the gingers, all these things are great for the vata crew. the guffa crew also, they need that rev up of metabolism and gut digestive fire. so the warming spices, turmeric, ginger, All these are good for them, but the crew needs to be a We're all fiery. We are already running hot. I run hot as a human and have to turn the air down constantly everywhere.

In the summer, when we might be out in the heat more, we should watch our tumor intake. If we're going to really rely on it for pain, inflammation, immune support, all these things, have it with something cooling. That's your yogurt, coconut water. Cooling number salad exactly a salad But when people tell me, you know, a lot of people understand that in Ayurveda We look at what's heating and what cooling in terms of foods. I always say look we're living in modern-day life I live in an air-conditioned house with an Air-Condition office with with in air conditioned car.

So generally we are mitigating for it But yes, we should watch out because it as a bit that I'm gonna take it because of my inflammation and tendency towards inflammation But do I need to make sure I am hydrating electrolytes and other things to mitigate the warmth? Yes Yes. So you've said, and I honestly also believe as a nutritionist, although I didn't specialize in Ayurveda like you, that spices are nature's pharmacy. And then even simple kitchen habits can rival complex protocols. So how would you guide people?

And this is where I think you want to, your next iteration, maybe your book is a cookbook, but how do you wanna guide? How maybe can we help guide into this and ease people who are not used to using spices into incorporating these powerful spices? What would be the core of the spices you would encourage people to take on? You know, my number one would be, I'm not going to start with turmeric because I always start turmeric. I would start cumin. Cumin seeds to me are amazing. Yeah. Almost at the point where I want to travel with cumin as well.

So when you feed up cumin seeds in ghee or oil or butter, you're going release the aromas and start to release their benefits. In Indian cooking, we let them start dance in the pan. Then whatever else you are cooking you start cooking on top of that. And it has so many benefits. We call it a pre digestive. So it helps you better digest anything you're going to eat. Because sometimes we're eating green beans. Sometimes we are eating kidney beans, any bean you are going eat in life. Cumin seeds will help you digest it better and not get gas or bloating after or any discomfort.

So that's my number one, is if you're going to cook anything hard to digest, meats, vegetables, anything, cumin seeds are great. It's used in Mexican cooking, it's use in Indian cooking. Is ground cumin also good or just the seeds? Ground cumin is also a good. We typically don't grind our cumin. we like the whole seed form. You know, It is interesting, the Indian kitchen and the Ayurveda kitchen keeps all spices in their whole form and we grind them small batch and then we use them. But sometimes that is a lot to ask from people.

like these are extra steps and extra work, but I keep a whole fridge called lentils and spices and then we put them in glass jars and we grind them and use those glass jar for a couple of weeks, a week or two and do that whole process again. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that is a better approach. But you know, if you think about it, people will have herbs and spices in their cupboard, and I'm guilty of this too, for years and years.

Mental inflammation, stress, and resilience 1:05:00

And don't realize that a lot of the beneficial compounds are gone. Yeah, like basil, thyme, rosemary, these are not my normal spices. So they'll just sit there for five years and I'll look at them. I'm like, that's a waste, Shivani. You're not going to get any benefit. And they're powerful. Like the aromatics are very powerful, but that all that power has dissipated over the years. That's really interesting. Okay. What would be the top three super spices for longevity that you think people should start to think about how to incorporate?

And turmeric is going be at the of the list. Curcumin is my number one always, for sure, because it's my most studied and most favorite. Right behind it is ginger, which is totally cheating because they're sister plants and they have similar effects. But I love that ginger is so good for digestion. We want great digestion, we want greater absorption. Sometimes we're not even absorbing our food, were health nuts. If the gut has leaky gut and inflammation, or not getting the benefits, even though I invest a lot in organic, fresh, local, all these things, you want to make sure your gut health is on point so you get those benefits.

So ginger, having ginger tea in the morning can ignite the digestifier. We use ginger a lot in Ayurveda. My number three cumin is like an ultimate hack. So you absorb and benefit from your food. And my number four would be cinnamon. Cinnamon is pretty ubiquitous right now. But it helps with blood sugar levels. It is anti-inflammatory, it is antibacterial. So a lot of these things we're looking for from a superfood, you can get from cinnamon. And then because a lots of us do crave sweets, we can turn things sweet.

You can take your green yogurt and turn it sweet or whatever it you're eating and get the craving fixed while also benefiting your blood-sugar levels, which is good. Love it. My Ayurvedic teacher in school used to talk about, and I don't know if people actually do this. I think it would be pretty intense, but he would talk, about taking a bolus of ginger before the meal. Correct. To get the digestive juices going. Yes. Which would pretty be intense just saying. Maybe you might put that in a shot glass with some water and shoot it back.

Totally we do teach that because ginger will just turn on the fire. So if someone like has a lack of appetite Maybe someone's had a surgery or or been sick and you're trying to bring them back to vitality One way to do that is use ginger open up that fire and then get you craving the meal or eating the whole meal and back To digesting properly It'll wake you up, I'll tell you that. Okay, so now on a slightly more cautious note, is there anybody who should be careful with curcumin? If they're on certain medications, are there any cautionary notes that people should keep an eye on?

Absolutely. So anyone who is on a blood thinner, do not take a potent curcumin supplement. That's problematic. Curcumen is a vasodilator. It does increase blood flow in the body. We love that for hair, skin, and nails. But if you're on a blood thinner, don't touch turmeric. You really do have to talk to your doctors. And then secondly, if have a history of kidney stones, it's also something to watch out for. Then if your have low iron, keep an eye on it as well, because it is thinning to the blood.

So sometimes my doctors sit down with me and they're like, are you ODing on turmeric? I'm like no, I am normal on my turmeric, but then we have the whole conversation around low-iron aswell. It can cause low irons or in the presence of low ion you'd want to stay away from it? In the presence of low iron, you want to watch your consumption. Okay. All right. So maybe use a little less of it. Let's talk about the looking ahead a bit as we're closing up. If we are going to look ahead 10 years, what breakthroughs do you hope to see in how mainstream medicine understands and treats inflammation, particularly in the context of women's health and midlife?

You know, my dream is, like I said, every doctor's office you walk into for any issue, for them to say you could take tumor for that. And just open up that possibility in the patient's eyes. Because typically when we're going to the doctor, we are saying, oh my gosh, I have low energy, brain fog, everything's going off kilter. They're like, Oh, you have something, itis. Itis means inflammation. So as we're talking about huge conversations around perimenopause symptoms, menopausal symptoms aging, how women are more affected by Alzheimer's, we know insulin resistance is going up, insulin sensitivity is weight gain around the middle is tied to all that insulin resistance and inflammation.

I think the super spices, especially turmeric have a key role. And so as we have so much science getting published, it becomes irrefutable that Western medicine should mention this opportunity, this idea of like, Hey, there are natural tools here. They can be an adjunct support on top of what I'm going to recommend. I know in Western medicine, they have great tools. They're going to recommend them. But what if they also opened up that other door? And working with orthopedics, for example, I have orthopaedic offices who've cut their opioid use in half.

Turmeric research, supplements, and spice wisdom 1:10:00

Just by saying that one statement, you can also take tumor pre and post surgery. You can take also tumor for that joint pain. And so that's my dream is how do we keep creating these micro shifts that eventually become a macro shift across the entire system of medicine. And once we do it domestically, how do I do that globally? How do we take all of Western medicine across all countries and say, let's start offering natural alternatives. The patient wants them. They just need your stamp of approval that they can take these.

Right. You mentioned pre-surgery, but you also mentioned that turmeric can be blood thinning. So I think it bears mentioning to the audience. If you are going in for surgery, turmeric might be one of those supplements you want to stop, what is it, like three days or a week before kind of thing? Oh, we want it to be safe. But after surgery would probably be great, right? Right, because as soon as you're outside the window, three, four, five, six days, depending on your doctor, that's where we can shift out of opioids, painkillers into turmeric.

Right. And if it's blood thinning, would it be, is there any evidence that it might help with clotting, inappropriate cloting, or is it not that strong? It's a good question. It is so nuanced. We don't have the data on it. So that's why I go doctor by doctor and each doctor has their own comfort level. it is interesting to watch because they'll start seeing the repercussions and they're like, yeah, of course it was part of my protocol for every event. Like I got seven days, we are starting to work and we're winding down.

Okay, so I think the message there is talk to your doctor because, you know, it's powerful. It might be just a spice or just an herb, but it is very powerful, okay. So if you could have medical students read just one chapter of the inflammation code, which one would it be? Oh my gosh, that's so hard. I would make it the elemental design chapter because that intro chapter explains the entire philosophy around personalized medicine. Ayurveda is the original creator of personalized medicines, looking at the person in front of you and really understanding where are they coming from in a constitution sense.

Because once you understand that, then everything else you can customize from there. Yeah. Okay. I love that. All right. Couple of quick fire questions to bring it home. So one habit you wish everyone would stop in midlife if they care about longevity. I would say trashing sleep. We have a habit of pushing sleep, saying I've got more work to do, more emails, social media. I just have more and more to and do. But that more, and is causing an inflammation pile up in the system. And then you have to go stop your life and chase the inflammation.

Got it. Perfect. One tiny ritual that delivers a surprisingly big anti-inflammatory win. In Ayurveda, we teach about using a copper tongue scraper. It's a small thing that you'll buy one time, but by gently scraping the tongue, you're actually clearing all the organs of your body and detoxing on a daily basis. And so clearing that lymphatic system is also supporting us at winning at inflammation. I love that. And guys, if you don't know this, in Ayurveda, the tongue is, you have a map, there's Ayurevedic maps of the time where every major organ is represented on the town.

That's what Shivani is referring to. It's actually really cool. Do you talk about that in your book at all? Do have that map? I didn't put the map in, but I do talk how we need to massage those organs gently, detox them, clearing oral health is supportive of gut microbiome and that communication. So yeah. I know the answer to this question. What's the super spice you take to a deserted island? as if you could have any other answer. It would have to be turmeric. I'm the biggest turmeric fan ever.

And then one belief about aging you'd love our audience to just hit delete on today. Oh, we believe aging is inevitable. We believe that aches and pains and joint pain and stiffness is inevitably. we believed that we have just to lose function and freedom and sovereignty as we age and all of that is BS. I consider aging in that way optional. We can win at inflammation here and now today and keep our sovereignty, our freedom, Love it. All right, Dr. Shivani, where can people find your book? Where can they get their hands on this amazing supplement?

Guys, there's two different formulas. One is much stronger than the other. And where they find you? So the website for the book is theinflammationcode.com. They can find me at shivani gupta. com, my name, S-H-I-V-A-N-Y, and at doctor.shivanygupta on Instagram and socials. And then my supplement company is Fusionary Formulas, F-U-S-I-O-N-A-R-Y, formulas.com. And we made the special code NAT15 just for your audience to give them 15% off. I love it. Thank you. Actually, there's one thing we forgot to touch on is that in the book there is a 21-day program that people can follow, right?

So it's not just You know what I love about this book is it's not just a book for the sake of a books. It actually is very actionable. And so that 21 day program, is just in the book or is this a program that you're offering people that they can then do? It's actually just for book people. So we have a whole page ready for them. When they get the program and then they apply this to themselves. I wanted to take all the wisdom, put it in video form so you can listen to it while walking, driving, wherever.

But you see for yourself how I apply this lifestyle and then you can make it actionable immediately. I love it. Oh, so there's an actual video program. So people can tap it and so what's the link for that or is that in the book? It's in book and it'll be, if they go to theinflammationcode.com and order the books, then they're going to get all that information. Amazing. Dr. Giovanni, as always, a pleasure. Thank you. And I'm going go find my tumor. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.