Ayurveda and Menopause: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Women’s Health

Introduction to Ayurveda and the Guest 0:00

So in Ayurveda, we talk that we have a gut digestive fire, and we call that Agni. Ag ni means fire. And so if you look at your gut health as a campfire to be honored and respected and built with a lot of care, then you start to see the importance of managing our gut-health over time. Because we know as we're aging, we are going to get more and more inflamed. We're going have more oxidation. I spoke a few years ago at the A4M Longevity Conference and I sat and pulled research for months to do that presentation.

And as I read about what aging does to us, I thought, oh my gosh, this is profound. This is not fair. We're trying to like stop this decline that's happening and that happens as we know now with estrogen as well. And so the awareness around the conversation of bringing estrogen on board earlier for its brain protective health aspects, for full organ health aspect, I think is so important. What Ayurveda said is everything is gut first. You must build good gut health. Have you made it past menopause or are you going through it now?

I'm Dr. Pat McShane and on the Women's Health Span Voices podcast, I'll guide you through the menoppausal transition and beyond. helping you to thrive in this powerful time of your womanhood. Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Pat McShane and our guest today is a novel practitioner for me and I am hoping to learn a lot more about her specialty. She is Dr Shivani Gupta and she is Western and Ayurvedic medicine functional practitioner and has a PhD more on the research side of things with the herb turmeric.

And she can tell us a little bit more about that. Her practice currently settles around inflammation, thyroid disease, brain and gut health, and overall vitality. That should match up nicely with our goal here on Women's Health Span Voices. Dr. Shivani, great to have you with us today.

Ayurveda, Life Stages, and Menopause 2:06

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. So much to talk about. Tell us a little bit more about what Ayurvedic medicine is in general and how Ayurevedica medicine sees menopause, the menoppause transition, and then the third of our lives that we live in our menopsis if we're fortunate. Absolutely. So Ayurveda is an ancient system of medicine from India that's over 5,000 years old. Just like we have traditional Chinese medicine, which encompasses acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. In India, we had our own holistic, integrative, preventive health system going alongside as well.

They actually have different similarities that I love to see and different understandings in common. And so when we look at Ayurveda, the goal of Ayyurvedha is to show you the science of life. That's what Ayirveda means, this science, of understanding of how to navigate life, keeping longevity in mind, prevention in the mind. And when you need those interventions, we have them. We use different herbal solutions, different lifestyle solutions to come back in and bring the body into balance. And so Ayurveda is very much a teaching of the fact that we are meant to live in rhythm with nature.

And when we have a disharmony with Nature and with our body, that's when you create dis-ease. So I am actually in my mid 40s in the middle of perimenopause and I've become very obsessed with the topic of menopausal and post-menopasal health because I do think as women we're very underserved when it comes to this topic. Absolutely. Yeah. And so when I dove deep into the research of where does Ayurveda approach menopause and what does ayurvedic have to say, Ayurevita says, look, we go through many transitions in our life.

When we are born and building our bodies, We call that a gaffa time of life, guffa means earth energy. It's like an earthy time. You're building your bones, building strength. We called the middle phase of Life Pitta, in the West we pronounce it Pita. So that bit that time of life is fire. You're going to build your career, work, potentially get married, potential have your children, career. Everything happens in that middle face. And then there's a certain point, could be 40s, 50s 60s when we transition into the last third of life.

And that last 3rd, we call the Vata time of Life. Here in the West, We call it Vatta. Vatta time is actually a big transition. I've been really thinking about how we totally do not serve our body and our health in that Last 3RD of LIFE because we lack an understanding of what VATTA means. It's a time of airiness, of lightness, it's the time letting go and releasing. It is a times where the body has big shifts and I think Ayurveda has such profound tools that show us how to stay grounded and healthy and nourished in that time period.

And so in Ayurveda, we teach that we have three different mind-body constitutions or body types. And, so understanding yourself and your own original body type is important, and then understanding the circadian seasons of life is also important. And so we can talk so much further about it, but just the understanding that that season of life is all about needing to bring in so many more grounding

Inflammation, Aging, and Chronic Disease 5:30

and nourishing can be the first step to understanding how to honor ourselves for the last third of our life. I like that both Chinese and Ayurveda, Chinese medicine and ayurvedic have a different view of menopause than we have in Western medicine. I interviewed a Chinese Medicine practitioner who said it's called the second spring in Chinese medical, and I love that. In Western medical it is like you lose your estrogen, you loose your bones, your arteries get stiffer, shrunken, you know, etc. And that's not a very useful approach, I think, and I like the way that you frame it so much better.

So one of the things that interferes with this healthy balance is inflammation, And I know a lot of your materials and the supplements that your work with address inflammation and mental inflammation as well. Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about that. For sure. So I grew up in a household where every single person in my family was diabetic. All my grandparents were diabetic and so growing up In Texas, I'd go to India every year. And when I went to visit my Family, all I saw was what the last third or quarter of your life can look like if you've had diabetes running rampant the whole time.

And I started to ask the question, why? Why is this happening? why does grandma need a quadruple bypass and grandpa just passed away of a heart attack and my other grandpa had his leg amputated and he has Parkinson's? What is happening here? And is that my future? Like is, is what's going to happen at the grandparent generation level and then the parent level because the parents all have diabetes across the board and are we all destined for the same destiny? And when I started asking questions and researching, I realized these are lifestyle diseases.

And we know the root cause of so much of our chronic metabolic disease is inflammation. So then I asked, why aren't we just addressing the real cause? Like, how are we not winning at inflammation? We're living in a modern day medicine moment. There must be a pill, there must a plan. After further research, we are all, nowadays, running to Western medicine, myself included, I did that for decades. I'd go to the doctor, they'd prescribe something, and I would take it. In my case I took a high volume of antibiotics growing up, which is what led me to finding Ayurveda.

But I also realize we aren't understanding that when we go to the doctor and they say you have somethingitis, itis means inflammation. And so we're all running around getting these diagnoses. We're taking our NSAIDs for our joint pain. we are taking different medications. But we never pausing and just having the conversation of what is an anti-inflammatory lifestyle? What are the pieces we need to put in place? And I honestly think some of us don't even understand what inflammation is. There's acute inflammation and then there's chronic inflammation.

And acute is the obvious one. It's when I run into something with my elbow and there is swelling and redness and my body has a reaction that I can visibly see or the pain I experience. But the part of inflammation that we don't really acknowledge or understand is this chronic low-grade persistent inflammation, that I think over 90% of us are suffering with worldwide at this point, That's causing damage and it's like a forest fire in the body affecting our organs, affecting everything, brain, thyroid, I mean you name it, everything is affected by inflammation.

A theory I have is when we are approaching, and it's not even a theory, I studied in a lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston under the researcher who discovered that turmeric with black pepper is the most effective way to absorb the turmeric. When I sat with him and learned from him during my PhD dissertation, He shared with me, the problem is we are opening up these pathways of inflammation. We're flipping on these light switches of information in our 20s. Go through stress, go through different career changes, different moments.

Fast forward to your 30s, even more. Eat poorly, sleep poorly. Yeah. No circadian rhythm. Yes. Exactly. Pulling all-nighters and eating the sad American diet. Then you get your 30s, more of that, piece more that. And all of a sudden in our 40s at least for women, we're seeing the body is getting louder. The messages are getting loud, the signals, and the fire alarms are going off. 50s? 60s. What are we seeing in 60, 70s and 80s in post-menopausal women? We're Alzheimer's, autoimmune, cancer, heart disease, so many different struggles that we're having, but why didn't we have the anti-inflammatory conversation way earlier in the whole spectrum of, or women's health span as you call it?

And so that's what I'm trying to highlight is we so much power when it comes to reducing inflammation. It is diet, it is circadian rhythm, It's addressing that sleep and really sleeping in the best windows. So our brain and body detox. In Ayurveda we teach that on the circadian clock that's from 10 to 2. And so many of us, I meet so may women who are post-menopausal who book consultations with me. They're like, yeah, sleep really late. You know, just I sleep at midnight. I'm like guys, your sleep before midnight is twice as valuable as your asleep after midnight when we are talking about brain health and clearing that glymphatic system.

We have to choose ourselves first. Choose that sleep that's going to regenerate and heal and rejuvenate the body. And so sleep is one example.

Gut Health, Agni, and the Estrobolome 11:30

I got really passionate about sleep times. But it's also detoxification, diet, gut health, amongst other things. Let's focus a little bit more on the gut. You talk about the estrobulome, which I think I pronounced that correctly. It's kind of a newish concept that our gut changes dramatically when our estrogen levels drop after menopause, and we have a whole different population of different bacteria and viruses and other organisms in our guts and how that impacts on our inflammation and our health in general.

So maybe you could enlighten us a little bit more about that. Absolutely. So in Ayurveda, we taught that we have a gut digestive fire, and we call that agni. Agni means fire. And so if you look at your gut health as a campfire, to be honored and respected and built with a lot of care, then you start to see the importance of managing our gut-health over time. Because we know as we're aging, we are going to get more and more inflamed. We're going have more oxidation. I spoke a few years ago at the A4M Longevity Conference and I sat and pulled research for months to do that presentation.

And as I read about what aging does to us, I thought, oh my gosh, this is profound. This is not fair. We're trying to stop this decline that's happening. And that happens, as we know now, with estrogen as well. So the awareness around the conversation of bringing estrogen on board earlier for its brain protective health aspects, for full organ health aspect, I think is so important. What Ayurveda said is everything is gut first. You must build good gut health. And so if you take the campfire analogy for a moment, if, you went camping, which I've never gone camping but I learned how to build a fire in the wilderness class I took once.

If you were going to built a camp fire, You would find small, medium and large branches. You'd find a way to surround that camp and protect it so it doesn't go spreading across the forest. So that's gut diversity and that your gut lining. You would build the fire with care, you'd layer those different branches, You'd start that fire, use it three times a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner. You wouldn't let it just run and burn through all day long, which we tend to do right now with all of our snacking and munching because we have so much access to food.

And we really focus on what does it take to build a robust fire. It's on Ayurveda, we teach a lot of different ways. One is building a circadian rhythm, one is eating three meals a day and really honoring what those complete meals look like. We teach about intermittent fasting, really like once you put the fire out, you're done, no more snacking and munching until it's time to open that fire up the next day. We talk about how to build a more robust gut digestive fire. So that could be ginger, lemon tea in the morning.

It could aloe vera juice. it could using spices and spices in herbs, which we'll get to. Ginger and turmeric are powerful gut supportive herbs as well. And so our job is to really show that the more we honor the gut as the center of all health, the better off we are in terms of building vitality, supporting great detox, and supporting the body and healing itself. Because we talk, you're right, we talked about menopause right now as this decline. And, the body is just like in a horrible state of decline when in fact, The body's just shifting.

Menopaus can be a time of thriving. We think of it as wise, your wisdom time. Your time to really dive into your spirituality and learning and time, to just be more at ease and be grounded in the world and share your Wisdom. Not a Time of Decline. That's a wonderful perspective. I really appreciate it. Talk about herbs and dietary herbs, and supplement herbs. For sure. So I was studying Ayurveda. I studied it in India. And when I study it India, the researchers, professors, physicians, they would take us out back behind the school and they'd show us the gardens.

Why is someone showing me a garden? That's so weird. We're supposed to be in class and learning. As they walked us through the garden, this is tulsi. Tulsi is adaptogenic. You can make a tea out of tulsa. It's very calming to the nervous system. This is turmeric, and I'll explain all the benefits of turmeric in a second. Ginger. You have cilantro. Cilantro is a heavy metal detoxer. This has cinnamon. It helps diabetics. Helps with blood sugar management. And so as they walked me through what these herbs did, I thought, whoa, hey, am American.

I live in America. When I think about superfoods, i'm told about salmon, spinach, blueberries, maca or matcha. No one ever says to me that my spice cabinet is the ultimate superfood, superspice cabinet. And so that's when I got really passionate about what is it in these herbs that can give us exactly what we need. So when i go to the doctor and they say you have somethingitis, you've plantar fasciitis Shivani, I could instead say, well, i'm going to use an herb for that. And so as I dug into it, I realized we don't trust herbs.

We think of them as just plants. It's just food. How can it possibly have such a profound impact? Now we do have quite an understanding of the fact that food is medicine, but I ended up doing my PhD dissertation on turmeric because I thought, well, if I have to find the one thing that's going to help us win it inflammation, let me see if this one can do it for us. And, so turmeric is anti-inflammatory. And it's one of the most potent natural sources from Mother Nature as an anti-inflammatory. So there's over 17,000 studies, papers, and clinical trials, research sitting inside of PubMed just on curcumin, the active ingredient from turmeric.

which gets me really excited. When I did my PhD, it was 10,000. So there's this exponential global study of it to understand how can this thing possibly be so anti-inflammatory but not give us the side effects? This is incredible. It's anti inflammatory, antioxidant, anti viral, antibacterial, antifungal. When it comes to our gut health, it really functions like this super janitor. It comes into the body and cleans house. it causes cell apoptosis, so cell death of the cells that are in our body that aren't going.

Turmeric, Ginger, and Herbal Support 18:00

Get sort of zombie cells, which are aging us. Zombie cells are running around causing damage in your body. Curcumin clears that. Helps the gut lining instead of harming it. And it clears out the bad bacteria while keeping the good in place. And so when I saw that in the literature, I thought, this is incredible. Like, why are we not all taking turmeric every day? And as a society, we are. We are taking tumeric in its fresh form, and we're juicing it. Were taking it in it's dry form. were cooking with it The problem is, out of the entire turmeric plant, only three to five percent of it is the curcuminoids.

And those are the most effective at reducing inflammation. Curcumin being the MOST effective. And so that's when I realized it's so important to extract the highest potency curcumin that you can get and then deliver that in a form that'll be the most effective solution for people. And that where my research led me to go and I actually did create my own formula because people kept asking me who should I take? And I realize I cannot even tell you on the grocery store shelf whose is actually built for potancy because I didn't build them.

So I built my own, third party tested it, made it in the United States, did all these things so I could bring it to doctor's offices and said, hey, when someone comes in and says they have pain, could you just say you can take tumor for that? That was my whole dream, was just the idea of physicians who are our most trusted resource when it comes to our health offering a natural solution alongside the solution they're already going to offer us. And that's been a game changer. For 10 years, I've had physicians recommending it.

And then all the patients reach out to me and are like, oh my god, i don't have pain anymore. This is insane. So I think turmeric is my number one. I know turmeric's my No. 1 favorite. Right afterwards is ginger. Ginger's so, so powerful when it comes to digestive health, healing the gut, supporting us. Then I go on from there into all of the super spices that are available to us Are you a cook besides being a healer? You know, you have to be nowadays. It helps. How can we not cook nourishing foods for ourselves?

I have a pretty big obsession with food actually, so I ensure that in my household we are eating fresh, we're eating organic. In Ayurveda we believe that leftovers are actually dead food that lacks prana or pranic energy. And in our Western culture nowadays, we're big believers in, I don't want to waste my time cooking daily. I'm just going to meal prep on Sunday and eat that food all week, or it's too much work to cook. We've really culturally shifted out of prioritizing the time it takes to Cook nourishing food.

And so I make sure that in my household, I'm always pushing for like, let's eat steamed broccoli, sauteed spinach with garlic. How do I pack in nutrient density? In Ayurveda, we teach eating circadian, so eating on the circadian window. Eating seasonally is very key, eating local is key. It's really about doing the best you can. No one's perfect. But the more we can shift into that circadian lifestyle, the More our body aligns with the circadian rhythm of the planet and the healthier we Can be. We teach this idea that when you are fighting against your own circadian clock, you're going uphill.

It's almost like trying to swim uphill, upstream. And when we follow our circadian rhythm, it's like we're swimming downstream with the rhythm of life, and thus our body knows how to be in that rhythm and stay its healthiest. I did a video recently, a podcast on circadian rhythm and I was astounded at how much impact it has on every body system basic and every cell has its circadian rhythm. So if we're fighting that by. staying up too late, not eating any breakfast, eating an enormous dinner, and then trying to go to sleep.

You know, it just is disruptive to so much of our body physiology, our health. And I was a little surprised at how impactful that is. I presume by circadian, you mean trying eat within a window that's not 18 hours a day. Again, a few hours between dinner and sleep, Exactly. Those kinds of things. And intermittent fasting, you mentioned that earlier, how would you recommend that from an Ayurvedic perspective? For sure. Intermittent fasting. For Sure. In my book, The Inflammation Code, I have a whole chapter on circadian lifestyle, because circadian rhythm came from Ayurevita.

There were three Nobel Peace Prize winners who proved that in the 1970s, I believe they proved the circadian clock to be true. And in all of IRVVAL we were like, yep, we already taught this for 5,000 years now. We've already known that the Circadian Clock is the key to health. So yes, We teach that rising with the sun, setting with sun is important. we teach that finishing dinner three hours before bedtime is important. We teach about a lighter dinner, so soups or stews, not the hard-to-digest foods.

Which is that lunch should be the biggest meal of the day, and anything that's hard to digest or very nutrient-dense should been eaten closer to lunchtime. So nuts, seeds, anything the body needs more time to process, put it in the middle of a day. We also teach don't skip breakfast. I know nowadays people are moving to the one meal a day and all these ideas. There's also a good conversation around how women are different than men. And older women, the intermittent fasting in older woman has different metabolic impact than in younger women.

Again, so much, what we started out talking about is so, much of what, we know in Western medicine anyway, is based on younger people and often on men.

Circadian Rhythm and Intermittent Fasting 24:00

And so we need more work to be done on what's really right for menopausal women. Correct. And if you take it back to that beginning point I made around Vata season of life, when we are working with Vatha women, we say that the importance is three grounding meals a day. Grounding means with healthy fats, with the carbs and proteins. So not these light meals where, you know, over 10 years now, I've been speaking on stage and when I get off stage, the first thing someone comes up and asks me is, do you have something for menopause?

Can you help me? I'm having this weight gain and I haven't changed my habits and i'm really struggling. And when that started I was about 35 and had zero reference. Now a decade later I sympathize. I understand now what you meant. this shift in the body, this visceral fat shift that can happen where you all of a sudden have to recalibrate in your workouts and your approach. And I'm bringing in so much more walking in yoga, I am being less harsh to the buddy. I can't just do HIIT training anymore.

That evaporated all the sudden. It was kind of shock that that tolerance didn't exist in body. So what we call Vata is Eating, yes, you can intermittent fast, but a gentle intermittent, fast like a seven to seven, just a 12 hour is enough. You could go to 14, But really if you have a healthy body and you're not struggling with too much inflammation or obesity or these issues, Just hold gentle at the 12. three grounding meals, really honoring sleep. But the transition, the symptoms of that are the negative symptoms are insomnia, constipation, dryness, it is anxiety.

So it's interesting when we talk about menopausal symptoms right now or postmenopause, Those line up. Those seem to be pretty much the same, yes. Exactly. And so our counter pose to that is oiliation. Let's bring body oil massage in. So for Vata, I recommend to my clients at night, put down a towel, warm up some food grade oil and give yourself a full body massage up to the neck. You can also do a head oil message. We do that a lot in India for thicker, healthier hair. But that oil is going to create oiliation of our joints, oilation of skin.

It's going settle that vatha energy, which is that air ether energy and really ground us. Oil just on the tops of your feet will increase and improve your sleep quality significantly. Vatha massage also will do that. So we really teach this thing called Dhinnacharya, daily self-care rituals. that as you build these rituals throughout the day, they help you to build a rhythm, and that rhythm that you built will be so grounding that the nervous system feels safe, the body feels more grounded and settled.

We've brought more healthy fats and oleation into the system. And so you have less of that dryness, anxiety, energy in the, body and you feel settled and grounded, more nourished. And that's really the goal is why are we entering a season of life where Western medicine and honestly Western societal norms are not serving us. We're not meant to look skinny, thin, light and eat nothing going into this season. Ayurveda says instead do the opposite, and you'll see how vibrant and thriving and resilient you can feel.

Talk to us a little bit about protein, because protein is kind of having a moment, especially for older women and people who are trying to maintain muscle mass. And it's totally important. You mentioned protein with each meal, so give us more detail, please. You know, I'm watching the menopause movement, watching protein movement. I really think 10 years from now, we're going to roll back a little bit on the level of protein conversation we are having. What I see is this protein first, protein stuffing type of idea.I try everything.

Being a guinea pig,I have tried to hit 150 grams of proteins a day, 100 grams. My body says no. Absolutely not. This doesn't work for your body type. We need to work on gut digestifier being robust before you protein stuff into the body. If you're not lifting weight and trying to build muscle and you are still protein stuffing, thinking it's going to give you a result, that's a conversation to be had. So the Ayurvedic perspective is very middle road. And whenever I see these extremes of like, you need do this or else, I always look at it and think, is that the most balanced approach?

We are women. We're meant to be much kinder to our bodies and our body receives that better. And so I myself am struggling with the protein conversation because my mind wants to do it because it's what's being sold to us as the thing to. But my body and intuition says, this doesn't make sense. How about moderation? How bout, yes, you should lift, but where's the walking? And where is the yoga? Yoga will build muscle as well. And so there are ways to approach it, and it's important to customize to your body type.

So the Kaffa people who have the kaffaa body types, they can lift stronger and do those things, But they need support on the gut digestive fire side. versus if you're a vatha, light body type, you are not going to easily build all that muscle. So let's talk about a more gentle approach. And then the vitha bodytype, which is the fire body, actually has a lot of resilience and strength built in. We do have the gut digestifier to consume a But again, moderation. I don't think we need to be so extreme with it.

And on my website at drschvani.com, I have a quiz that people can take. When you take that elemental design quiz, it tells you your primary body type. Once you know that, you actually understand how to navigate these ideas, these health trends that come along with more of an understanding of self, so you're customizing to yourself. Because for example, we're told right now, everyone should sauna and everyone shouldn't cold plunge and every one should do protein and everybody should

Protein, Body Types, and Personalized Nutrition 30:30

everything the same way. That can't be true. We have different body types. And so having it, having an understanding through your own lens of your body type can really illustrate to you how you approach these things. And just your experience, how does it make you feel if you're eating protein three meals a day, you know, but not 30 or 50 grams three miles a days? So, yeah. Yeah. Look, look back at how you felt. That's typically a good thing to be doing. Exactly. Yeah. And in fact, 90% of us are metabolically unhealthy by the time we hit 60 years old, maybe even 40 years.

So we do need to make some changes. But with a little bit at a time, for many, many people, you can't just blast in there and do everything. Yeah, and pay attention to how it feels. So you've given us so many great suggestions and examples today. You mentioned in your materials three non-negotiables. And I could make a guess of what those would be, but maybe you could just get me off the hook here and tell me what are your three not negotiables for menopause. You know, in menopause, I would say number one is do whatever it takes to get great sleep.

We know that in perimenopausal, our sleep starts to shift. Menopasal women who approach me, and I know the sleep issues. I've had many clients come through my programs. And so my sleep tips are walk three miles a day, Use a sleep tracker to understand that sleep and what's happening and, what shifts you make result in better sleep. I, in my own product line that I'll talk about, created a Sleep Tea and a sleepy gummy, because to me, if we are not sleeping well, we will not win at inflammation. Because I can give people turmeric all day, but then in the poor sleep, they're not going to clear their inflammation, and so to, me sleep is paramount and I know we have quite an epidemic around sleep issues.

And so I'm a believer and take whatever it takes to fix the sleep cycle. And then you can try to wean off it and move into more natural solutions. So sleep is my number one. Number two is live according to a circadian rhythm throughout your day. That's with your meal times, your lifestyle. I teach one self-care habit called tea time is me time, where I pause four or five times a day and just take a moment to go inwards. and ask my intuition questions like how am I doing today? What do I need to do for today to be better?

what do i need shift? and half the time my intuitions like please drink some water please take your supplements you're forgetting all the things that you need for you because as women oftentimes we're so focused on taking care of everyone else We're running on fumes. I know that my post-menopausal crew, in my case, my mom, for example, 72, but chasing after her grandkids and still in her career and doing things. It's very much a circadian rhythm that's grounding and honoring to you is another powerful non-negotiable for the menopause woman.

And then my third one, in my case, because I have a pretty big obsession with turmeric, would be take your turmeric. Because I think the regular addressing of inflammation consistently is going to serve us. We're talking so much nowadays about neurocognitive health, heart health gut health. we know that we are getting more inflamed and we're having more oxidation as we age. And so I'm a big believer in what do I have to do right now to prevent what's coming? I want to have profound brain health.

I wanna have a brain that's working and focused all the way through. And that comes from addressing inflammation as soon as possible and very consistently. Well, I would have gotten two out of three. If I had to do that I won't tell you which ones. I do have a podcast on sleep by a sleep expert. It's a marvelous podcast, so I recommend it to our audience. Most people, typical sleep hygiene will do the trick, but there are a few people who need extra measures, and she does address that. And she made the point that sleep tracking, a sleep study, should be routine, like a mammogram or a cardiogram, or something like that, so you have a lot of good backup on your recommendation for good sleep.

It's so, critical. Anything else that we haven't talked about that you would like to let our audience know about today? I would just highlight this idea around grounding, because vata energy means air and ether. And just to explain vat a little better, if you are a vatha person or a Vatha season, vatta energy, air, ether, could be a beautiful breeze.

Sleep, Grounding, and Final Takeaways 35:30

Let's say we're walking through the forest and there's a beautiful breeze that feels good. That's some balanced, healthy version. There's also a version called a ceiling fan, someone who's always spinning and never stops, always in motion. feel settled and be settled. And then there could also be a tornado, like fall over and just such high energy and motion, but never finishing what they start or never feeling settled in grounded ever. That is affecting their digestion, their sleep, And so if any of those explanations resonate with you, then really taking the understanding from Ayurveda of vata means if vat the energy is movement, the counter pose to that is grounding.

Grounding means simple rituals. It could be waking up the morning and putting your feet in the grass. I do that because I need more grounding my whole life as kids and work and travel and speaking on podcasts all over the country. So The only way to balance that energy is feet on earth. I do circadian walks as well, where morning and evening, I'll take a 30 or 45 minute walk and I will do nothing. No phone calls, no podcasts, No clicking into social media and whatever else. Just tune into nature.

And I take just a few minutes. My best way is to say, what are three beautiful things in nature you can admire? And usually by the third one, I'm in this blissed out meditative mode where I am like, wow, thank you, God, creator, universe. This is beautiful. Why don't I walk more in nature just to settle my nervous system? And so, so much of what we're teaching in Ayurveda is grounding. nervous system support. And so the more we can incorporate that, not to give more homework or things to do, but just the way we build that rhythm into our life of these rituals, the most we start to see how the body shifts.

The shift that it will have will be anti-inflammatory, it'll be the feeling safe, reduction of cortisol, better detox because the bodies can do its job and heal itself. And so that final message of grounding is really this idea that as we are in post-menopausal, as were in our post menopause phase of life, can we bring in all the grounding and nourishment for self that maybe didn't exist for us in those first two thirds of. And, so now that feeling of nourishments and vitality and resilience can finally be the peace and inner peace that we craved all along.

I love that. That's so beautiful. I really think that's a great message to send to our audience and what we're trying to do, obviously, with this podcast. So, thank you so much, Shivani. This was great information. And I knew nothing about Ayurveda and did a little research, but you had such a good way of explaining it and the parts that are really important for most of us to know. And for our audience, if this is the kind of information that you treasure, and we hope to see you again soon. And please let your friends know and like and share this information.

So, thank you so much. Great to chat with you and hope do so again sometime soon! For sure. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And if anyone wants more information, they can find me at my website, shivanigupta.com. My Instagram is at doctor.shivanigupta, and then the supplements are at fusionaryformulas. com, F-U-S-I-O-N-A-R-Y formulas. I made a special code for your audience. Pat, P- A-T, will give them 15% off on their first order on the teas and the turmeric and everything else. Excellent. Thank you so much.

Take good care, everybody. See you soon. If this episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend ready to take charge of her health and please leave a review. It helps more people to find us.