115. Dr. Shivani Gupta: Heal Inflammation Through Ayurvedic Science

Most of us think inflammation is something we can fix with supplements, lab tests, or the latest diet trend. But what if the real solution comes from ancient wisdom that modern science is finally catching up to? In this episode of Extend, we sit down with Dr. Shivani Gupta, Ayurvedic practitioner, author, and founder of Fusionary Formulas, to explore how Ayurveda bridges timeless principles with modern longevity science. We break down how your dosha or "elemental design" shapes digestion, energy, and stress, and why aligning your daily rhythm with your biology can lower inflammation and optimize performance. We also explore the science behind Ayurvedic rituals that calm inflammation from the inside out, from cooking with healing spices like turmeric and ginger to grounding, tongue scraping, and creating simple routines that support recovery and resilience. Dr. Shivani Gupta is an Ayurvedic expert and founder of Fusionary Formulas, a modern supplement line combining ancient herbal medicine with clinical research. Her upcoming book, The Inflammation Code, reveals how to decode inflammation through food, lifestyle, and ritual to live longer and stronger. What's Discussed: (06:15) The hidden link between chronic inflammation and modern lifestyle (10:40) How Ayurveda defines balance through the three doshas (14:20) Understanding your "elemental design" and what it means for digestion, stress, and sleep (18:45) Why syncing your habits with circadian rhythm lowers inflammation (23:10) The science behind turmeric, ginger, and other Ayurvedic anti-inflammatories (28:00) Rituals that regulate your nervous system and calm "mental inflammation" (33:25) How to integrate grounding, tongue scraping, and oil pulling into your daily routine (38:00) Ayurvedic detox principles for modern longevity (43:10) Common myths about Ayurveda and how to apply it practically (47:30) Dr. Gupta's top daily habits for inflammation-free living Thank You for Our Sponsors: IM8: Try IM8 today with a 30-day money back guarantee. You can get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://im8health.com/discount/DRSHAH. Vitaboom: For supplements you can trust and wellness solutions tailored to your health, visit https://vitaboom.com/ Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram:@darshanshahmd https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/ Learn more about Dr. Shivani Gupta : Website : https://shivanigupta.com/ Instagram: dr.shivanigupta https://www.instagram.com/dr.shivanigupta/?hl=en Linkedin: Dr. Shivani Gupta https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivaniguptafl/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What if the key to lowering inflammation and feeling your best isn't found in another lab test or new dietary trend, but actually found in ancient wisdom that modern science is finally catching up to? In today's episode of Extend, I'm joined by Dr. Shivani Gupta. She's an Ayurvedic practitioner, author, and founder of Fusionary Formulas. We're going to explore how Ayurveda helps us live in alignment with our bodies instead of constantly fighting against it. We break down how your dosha, or your elemental design, as she calls it, shapes everything from your digestion and your energy to your stress and sleep, and how knowing your type can change completely the way you eat, move, and recover.

• 1:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Dr. Gupta shares how simple daily rituals, like cooking with healing spices, grounding, tongue scraping, and using turmeric as a natural anti-inflammatory, can calm inflammation, restore balance, and support long-term health. Because when you live in rhythm with your body, not against it, you're going to tap into more energy, clarity, and vitality than you ever thought possible.

• 1:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Dr. Gifford, thanks for joining me today. I'm so glad we finally made this happen.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

• 2:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, all the way from Florida, right?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Your practice is out there?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Amazing. And you've been a physician for how many years now?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I have been practicing Ayurvedic medicine for about 20 years. And then I did my PhD in it. So it's been a long journey, but I'm happy I did it.

• 2:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, you have a PhD in Ayurvedic medicine? That's incredible. For some reason, I didn't realize that.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow. Okay, so this is amazing because my dad practiced Ayurvedic medicine in India.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And he was a physician in India. I think probably the same thing, like an Ayurvedic physician, right? And he told me a lot about how Ayurvedic medicine functioned. And what was really cool about what he said was that everyone, basically, in India has two doctors. They have their Ayurvedic doctor.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then when they get really sick, they go and see their doctor of medicine, right? And get prescriptions or surgery or whatever. And I thought that was just a really cool model.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still true now. A lot of times, if you go to India, you'll start with homeopathic medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, that solution. And then if it's real serious, you need a drug, you need surgery, you need a procedure, you go to that allopathic medicine solution.

• 3:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Do you work with a lot of patients that come in and out of like the medical system or work hand in hand with their medical doctors?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  For sure. A lot of times, people come along who say, you know what? I'm really frustrated. I didn't get the solutions I wanted. I still have a lot of symptoms. When I go to the doctor, they say my blood works fine. I don't know what to do. I still feel like crap. And I say, look, that's what's going to happen a lot of times when we're talking about those chronic issues, those bigger autoimmune issues. And that's where I think Ayurveda really serves because we come in with the full lifestyle so that, yes, we'll build a result, but we'll teach you the lifestyle to hold the result.

• 3:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And it's so important because the way my dad described it to me was like, if you get really, really sick, you go to the hospital.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But your Ayurvedic doctor is there to maintain health.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And if for some reason, something bad happens, you get sick, you go to the hospital. But when you get out of the hospital, your doctor refers you back to your Ayurvedic doctor to maybe reverse the chronic disease, reverse the inflammation, reverse the problem that caused you to go to the hospital in the first place.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  True, very true. It's beautiful. Synergy.

• 4:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it really is.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Hospitals that have both in them in India. And I think that's so cool. That understanding of Eastern and Western can work and coexist together and support the patient from both sides.

• 4:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I think that's the way we need to rebuild the medical model in this country. Basically, it's right now. Everyone just waits until they get really, really sick and they use just the regular Western model.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But there's very little that comes before or after that. I mean, you have the gym.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  If you're lucky, you've found a good nutritionist. But I think having that second practitioner in your life. And I think like the evolution of that has become functional medicine now.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 4:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Which is basically like Ayurvedic medicine.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hundreds of years ago is now term functional medicine.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  You're right. It's like your health optimization specialist. It's your partner on the journey who's actually there for optimization, not just for the disease management piece.

• 4:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I think both work so well together. And I can't wait to dive in today about all the things that Ayurvedic has available to you. Basically, that can really help you like reduce prescription medications, reduce visits to the doctor. And you know, I'm really curious. You're practicing Ayurvedic medicine in 2025, right? It's so different. There's so much more science behind it. I think a lot of people have this perception of some of these ancient medicines, like Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine is just kind of being old school. Not a lot of research and data, maybe.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But that's not true right now in 2025, right?

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not true at all. We have such a beautiful modernization of all that wisdom. There's so much science being published that proves each and every piece of Ayurvedic wisdom to be true. So it's actually the most beautiful moment to live in because there were so many doubts about it. Like, oh, why do you think body constitutions are different? Or circadian rhythm, for example, the entire biohacking movement has picked up circadian rhythm and said it's valid. And then there's so much science around it. So piece by piece, each and every pillar, I think, out of Ayurveda is being proven true by science. And so it's kind of irrefutable in a sense. Because if your gut health matters more than ever, and Ayurveda said that, if circadian rhythm matters, sleep matters, using super spices,

• 6:13Speaker 01

  which I talk about a lot, turmeric, ginger, and all these spices have so much science, then. Each piece is kind of irrefutable.

• 6:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love that. And you had a lot to do with that with your PhD in curcumin, right?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I tried.

• 6:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I mean, obviously, like, you know, when I, growing up, my, every time I hurt myself or fall or something, my, my mom would like, rub curcumin on it.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  To help with the inflammation.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 6:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, you know, it was considered like this old wives tale in India before, but now it's like proven, right?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  It is. It's very proven, you know? I think it's interesting that in olden times and back in the day, they would make us turmeric milk, or they would rub turmeric on anything, and they just knew from eons of using turmeric, that it was antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, anti-inflammatory. And I've even gone to IRV, the conferences where the doctors are like, isn't it funny? We said it was good for everything? We were laughed at 20 years ago. And now, all of a sudden, the science proves day after day how effective it is for joint pain as a potent anti-inflammatory. So to me, it's really exciting. And I want to be part of publishing more science on turmeric in this lifetime to keep proving disease after disease how powerful it is.

• 7:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's incredible. I mean, like, you know, traditionally, when you had like low back pain, for example, your doctor would be like, take Tylenol, take Advil, both have severe side effects.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  I know.

• 7:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Whereas curcumin can be just as effective.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And have the only side effect are good effects, right?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 7:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It could help heal your gut. It could help reduce inflammation, a lot of things, right?

• 7:41Speaker 01

  And that's been my experience. I was told by an orthopedic surgeon a long time ago, I was having a lot of plantar fasciitis and pain.

• 7:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  They said, take Advil 24/7 for the 10 days, you'll be fine. You'll knock out the inflammation. And this was over a decade ago, and I did it. And afterwards, all I had was stomach aches every time I ate. So I went back and I said, you know, now you've given me a gut problem. Don't you know the work I do to have good gut health? This is completely backwards. And they said, well, you know, that's just a side effect. And I said, that's unacceptable. You guys need a different toolkit. And so after I studied turmeric and realized its power, I thought, what if I went back to every doctor and showed them that they could say you can take turmeric for that? And then we have that healthy anti-inflammatory support right there, ready.

• 8:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  And so that's been my work for a decade now. And it's gotten easier post pandemic. Everyone's Much more open minded, but each doctor I meet is like, yeah, you're right. Why can't I offer turmeric for pain? It is the natural solution and the patients are asking for it.

• 8:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. Whenever I see patients now that are suffering from any kind of pain, I always switch them over to turmeric with some pepper in it, which increases absorption, right?

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. It increases the absorption 2,000%.

• 8:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  2,000%?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  So it's very important. So I tell people, take it with black pepper. You can also take it with a healthy fat. Both are good. If you want it to cross the blood brain barrier, take it with the healthy fat and get those benefits.

• 8:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. So then when they switch over to that, most of the people, they completely stop their non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or they use it just for breakthrough pains every once in a while. And it's a game changer for people.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Correct. That's what I've seen is people tell me all the time, I don't have to take Advil. I don't have to take Celebrex. I don't take any of those things anymore. I'm pain free on turmeric alone.

• 9:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wow.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Which to me is a big deal. Like, talk about longevity. If we're chasing pain all the time with things that have side effects that are harming the gut, how are we truly going to win at our health?

• 9:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly, exactly. So, you know, already in this podcast, like major life-changing takeaway is if you're on any type of long-term pain medication, try the turmeric and give that a shot and it'll definitely, for most people, decrease the dose of that. Maybe even like help you get off of it completely.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 9:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, that's awesome. So let's go back to Ayurveda in general. For the listeners that have maybe not heard of it before, can you give us like a big picture overview of what it is?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Sure. So ancient Ayurvedic medicine is this beautiful system of health and healing from India. Ayurveda means the science of life. So it's truly the scientific wisdom that explains how you can live a lifestyle to win at inflammation, to truly win at health optimization overall. And so in ancient Ayurveda, we have a lot of pillars around how to build that. One big pillar is gut health. Another big one is circadian rhythm. And so the goal of the lifestyle is to teach you a rhythm to live your life every day. So you're truly nourished. So you're truly grounded. And the end goal is really body, mind and spirit in alignment. And a lot of times nowadays, we're living in such unalignment, disalignment, and that dis-ease is created because we're flowing up. Pill upstream against the tides of life.

• 10:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  And if we would flow downstream with life and allow the body to be healthy, then we could have that health result that we want.

• 10:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I mean, I think our bodies want to be in a state of health. We just flood it with so many toxins, whether they're environmental toxins, medications.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Even just stress and emotional toxins, right?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 10:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Traumas and things that our body is unable to catch up sometimes. And Ayurveda has a lot of tools in the toolkit.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  To give your body those catch up moments, right?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  True. I mean, our goal is to help you seasonally detox, annually detox, even daily detox. So we teach a lot of simple self-care rituals that you can build into your life and gently detox the body throughout the day. Then we teach self-care rituals that'll help support you building a rhythm throughout your day. So you're tying self-care to your circadian rhythm.

• 11:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  It's a beautiful lifestyle of ritual and support to give you that health that you want.

• 11:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love the word ritual. You know, I think of, I always say, health is a habit. Like, it's not something you do once a year when you go visit a doctor and they do some blood tests on you and they say, everything looks good. Come back and see me next year. That's going to lead to less health over time and disease.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 11:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  If you make a daily ritual, like you said, you know, seasonal rituals in your life, you can maintain health so much better.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  True.

• 11:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  True.

• 11:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And Ayurveda teaches that for sure.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, our goal is to show you that there is a circadian clock and your body wants to live on that clock. The problem is in modern day times, we're completely breaking the circadian clock, completely defying it. We want to lay around in bed all morning, don't want to get up. We don't want to see the sun, put our feet in the grass. We want to eat our biggest meal at dinner. Ayurveda teaches to have it at lunchtime. We want to completely push sleep back because we want to do more and be more, forgetting that there is a circadian clock that wants us to wind down from six to 10 and then be asleep by 10 o'clock. And so the fact that we create rituals in Ayurveda really helps support the mind to be cued, the body to be cued, to make those shifts. So in the morning, you can have a set of rituals.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Midday, evening self-hygiene, sleep hygiene rituals to ease into bedtime. All of those things add up. Up to making it easier because otherwise you're kind of battling with yourself versus if you have, for example, I set alarms on my phone all the time. I have an alarm to queue each thing every couple hours. And then I remember, okay, it's time to invest in self care. It's eight fifteen. Okay, it's time for deep sleep tea and going to bed now. It's nine o'clock. And so there's ways to even queue ourselves to remind ourselves about these rituals that are so good for us.

• 13:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, I'm curious like about the alarms that you set throughout the day. So it's not just like a get ready for bed alarm.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Or a wake up alarm. There's other alarms in the day.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have like a morning one at ten thirty, I have hydrate and take your supplements. Because once I've started my business day, I'm gonna forget.

• 13:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  At lunchtime, I have one called stop and eat lunch, please, because I'll forget that too. I'll just keep going and through my Zoom calls. I have a three thirty one that says high tea and snack. So that I'll stop for a minute, enjoy a cup of tea, have that ritual with myself and eat a snack, which will lead to a better dinner. Because if I don't stop and eat something, I will totally eat twice the dinner I need to eat. And then I have an eight fifteen PM and nine PM. Because by eight fifteen, sometimes we're ramping up. Like I could just start follow up and emails and work and go till ten, ten thirty and not realize the time was lost.

• 13:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  And so those alarms make me pause and realize.

• 14:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And when is your dinner time normally?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  I normally eat by seven.

• 14:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  I want dinner completed three hours before bedtime. Yeah, and Iyurveda said that Iyurveda taught intermittent fasting five thousand years ago. And right now, we're making it so popular. We're like intermittent fasting is the key. And Iyurveda always said, you should be eating by seven and never eat before seven in the morning.

• 14:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hmm, interesting. And what about movement and exercise? Like, when do you work out? Or what does Iyurveda say about working out?

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Iyurveda says move in the morning. You have that fresh energy to move then. You're supposed to get active for the day, get the brain active for the day. It's interesting. Every time I've stayed in Iyurvedic detox centers in India, they're like, it's yoga and walking and breathing. We're not meant to weight lift and do all these things you do now. And so I've, I've tried that. I still believe in weightlifting and building muscle the way we teach now. But I think back in the day, they achieved it through yoga itself. So it's interesting to see the different philosophies.

• 14:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and the main learning there for me too is your circadian rhythm. Isn't just about your sleep wake cycle. It's about when you eat.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 15:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  When you move, when you even practice like these self-care rituals to detoxify your brain and your stress levels as well.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All of those fall into the circulating pattern of your day.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think what we underestimate is our brain needs us to structure our day. And we wonder why we have what in IRV that we call a vata mind. And we'll get into the constitutions. But a vata mind is that mind that's overwhelmed, scattered, running at 100 miles an hour and so stressed out. And IRV that says, look, you have the power to put the brakes on this throughout the day and set yourself up for bedtime where in the evening you put the brakes on it as well. So that you can have that eased, relaxed, clean sleep. Because even in IRV that we taught, you know, the lymphatic system is going to clear our brain at night. We know that now. That's the modern terminology. But IRV that always said, like, your sleep is when the mind is cleared, lymphatic system is cleared, gut health and everything's cleared.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  So you have to honor that, but you can't go like racing into bedtime at 200 miles an hour and expect the brain to give that to you.

• 16:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. I think I did that last night.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  We do it sometimes, but imagine if you did it every day.

• 16:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I know. It does build up.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It builds up and it leads to poor sleep, which then is like a, unfortunately, it just snowballs from there, right? And so having that sleep ritual is so important.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So you had mentioned the constitutions. So I'd love for you to kind of dive into that major piece of IRV that we talk about all the time.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  For sure. You know, the doshas are so unique to IRV. And when I was writing my book, The Inflammation Code, I really wanted to show people how to build it into their lives and utilize it all day as a calibration. And so in IRV, I renamed the doshas Elemental Design. So people could get it and really bring it into their lives. So there's three types of constitutions. The first one is vata. And a vata person is someone who's typically thin and wiry. So their body constitution is their whole frame is either leaner, skinnier than most people. They tend to be taller or shorter than most people in the demographic. And a vata person, personality-wise, is tense towards anxiety. Tends towards overwhelm, but this is your busy body. This is someone who has so much energy. They're always on the go. They're creative.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  You know, it's a Vata person if they run through their whole day and forget to eat. So they're very much like the green juice coffee. They'll have some chips here or there, some celery, and they get to their dinner. And they wonder why they're out of fumes. They're exhausted, all of that. And so a Vata person also can have a tendency towards insomnia, poor sleep, disrupted sleep. Vata as a constitution, the element is air and ether. So imagine if wind was moving too fast. It causes dryness. It causes all of this frantic energy. And so a Vata person's homework is how do we ground them? How do we support them? So they don't have constipation and all these different issues.

• 17:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So for the listeners, as we're going through these doshas or elemental, elemental design, you called it?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yep. Try to imagine which one are you? Because as we go through this conversation,

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  we're going to talk about different nutritional techniques, all different, maybe spices and herbs and things that we can apply them more towards your constitution.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it can kind of accelerate your journey through this, through health and wellness, through Ayurveda.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  True. And you know, the constitutions are so beautiful because then you're really customizing to your body type.

• 18:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Your mind type and even your reaction type. And so you're able to really customize your plans that you're doing further and understand why some work better for others, but not for you.

• 18:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  So that's where it's also powerful.

• 18:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So Vata, the way I look at that person, like that air frantic energy, the wind blowing.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  To me, like if I were to put like a face on it, Jim Carrey. What do you think?

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah, you could. Yeah, all over.

• 18:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, Jim Carrey.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Cause thin and

• 18:49Speaker 01

  That energy.

• 18:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Just crazy energy kind of a guy.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All right. So that's, that's that avatar for Vata.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, when you're imbalanced.

• 18:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  He seems a little imbalanced when he's speaking sometimes.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 19:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Awesome. Okay, so what's the next one?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  So the next one is Bitha. Bitha is dominated by fire and water. And so this is someone who is medium bodied, tends towards reddish skin or reddish hair. They have tendency towards early graying as well. They're right in the middle, so they're not on the thin and wiry side. They're not on the heavy and heavy set stronger side either. They're right in between. Personality wise, a Bitha is sharp, passionate, ambitious. This is someone who's driven, who's a go getter. They're very organized in their mind. They're even sharp in their speaking. This is someone who has a powerful digestive fire. So they also have quite an appetite. And if they don't eat, they get hangry. So if you have people in your life who get hangry, it's usually a Bitha person.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  And so when imbalanced, a Bitha person tends to explode, erupt like a volcano on the people around them. The people around them are kind of collateral damage. And so a Bitha person needs to stay cool, calm, collected. They need to manage the nuclear reactor that is that fire within them. Otherwise, it can go overboard, they can burn out. So every word around fire describes a Bitha.

• 20:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  And so Bitha people need to really pay attention to their food, the timing of food, how many cooling foods they're eating. And their tendency is to eat fried food, spicy food, everything really hot, when in fact, they're supposed to be using cooling things to stay more balanced.

• 20:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it, okay. Oh, that's so important.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, so that avatar of that, to me, is like Gordon Ramsay. What do you think?

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Does that kind of describe the Bitha person?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 20:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Good, okay, awesome.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm just trying to give people a visual of like, here's, here's these different avatars and where they would fit in Iyurveda. And to be clear though, not everyone is just one of these all the time, right?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Correct. So what's interesting is you can be predominantly one, secondarily another. Some people can be balanced in all three, three dosha, because what we call that. And then what I find interesting is when I meet people and we go a little deeper, you can be a Bitha body with a Vata mind and a somewhat Gafa nature too. Like you can have different elements of yourself that are reflected in all three. Typically takes sitting down with a practitioner to get to that level of depth. But that's why I love teaching it, because if you understand physically how to manage... Manage yourself better. And then you understand with your mental, emotional health, how to balance yourself better. You're that much farther off in your day around how to manage your health, how to calibrate to yourself. So in any given day, I'm a Bitha person and I have a tendency towards Vata mind.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  So if I reach for my phone and I'm on social 18 times, then I know why my brain is scattered and unable to focus. So then I'm like, well, get off social. Let's make a change, put that down. Let's go ground ourselves again and then move forward.

• 21:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, got it. And then let's just the last.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Constitution, if you don't like Kapha.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  The last one is Gaffa. So a Gaffa person is usually bigger bodied, stronger. This is someone who's very solid. Their energy is earth plus water. So this is someone who their nature is very loyal, very one thing at a time. They talk a little slower. They move a little slower through the earth. It's earth energy. So in a man, it's a very mountain grounded energy. In a woman, it's that grandmother loving energy, that person who wants to cook for everyone and serve everyone. This is the best friend, that friend who always wants to serve and take care of everybody. When you have a Gaffa person, they have a tendency towards a sluggish metabolism. They have a tendency towards low digestive fire. And so our job is to really support them in eating foods that are more cooked, easier to digest, to support them in getting their energy moving at the beginning of the day.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  You know you have a Gaffa person if at the end of their day, once they sit on the couch, they cannot get off the couch. Like physically, they're glued to it. And so that person always kind of chastises themselves because we're in a culture that says we should all hustle, go work, you know, day and night. And so when I sit with someone who's Gaffa, I say, honor your nature. Let's move your energy in the morning and when you're done, you're done. Enjoy your evenings. Like that's how you're meant to be.

• 22:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hmm. Interesting.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So what would be an avatar for Gaffa?

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 22:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Who would be?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  I don't know. Someone really big and strong and solid who serves and loves everybody.

• 23:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oprah Winfrey?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, could be Oprah.

• 23:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  She could be Oprah. Okay, good.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Because she loves and serves so many.

• 23:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes. And she seems like when you talk to her, which I have not talked to Oprah, I'm sorry. When I hear her talk to other people.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Maybe one day I will have her on the podcast. That'd be amazing. It seems like she's very focused on that one conversation and she's really in it. Yes, very present.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Amazing. Okay, so now that people can kind of picture themselves in one of these three categories, how would they maybe adjust their nutrition? For example, how would they change their dietary pattern?

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Easy one. So if you're a Vata, you have a tendency towards not eating enough and eating things that are drying.

• 23:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So it's like Jim Carrey?

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Yes, they reach for their crackers, their hummus, they eat too light, they're not actually supporting the system to have groundedness or nutrition. And so the first homework for Vata, which is impossible to them at first, is three regular meals a day on a schedule. Build rhythm through food. And I always say eat half an avocado with the meal, add in healthy fat. Because a lot of times nowadays, especially with women, they've cut all the fat out of their lives.

• 24:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  And the Vata person needs that groundedness in their life. So three square meals, healthy fat, and all of a sudden, everything changes for them.

• 24:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a big one.

• 24:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So you're almost creating a diet that gives them the opposite of their personality. So it gets them grounded.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Maybe they're like, maybe they're, like you said, they're all, they're very dry.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So are they also dehydrated sometimes?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 24:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  They focus on drinking water a lot?

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, drinking water, obviously electrolytes, but even the healthy fat piece brings in that nourishment that the system needs.

• 24:36Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, I see.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Undoing the dryness. We're big fans of oil and healthy fat and Irvata, we use ghee and all those things.

• 24:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so they need to have more of that in their diet.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. And what about, okay, so let's talk about Gordon Ramsay.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 24:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The Pita.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  So a Pita person is all fire. And I am a Pita, we love our fried food, hot food, spicy food, you name it, anything that's bad for us, we want it. So Pita people need to eat cooling foods, we need our regular meals, probably the fourth meal. So even though we teach only three meals a day, with Bitas, I add in that healthy hearty like snack in the afternoon.

• 25:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  So you can survive till dinner, because the mind and body are so active, it needs a little more. But typically, summer foods are the best way to balance a Pita person fast.

• 25:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, okay.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  And what's interesting is nowadays, most of us are so stressed and somewhat anxious. And so everyone's reaching for sweet foods because it cools the body down. And so Pita people especially tend to have a sweet tooth, they want their chocolate, they just want something to cool and like cool the nervous system down. And so I teach them, look, you can have rice, you can have coconut water, you can have water with electrolytes, find a different way to get that feeling of cooling down rather than reaching for the sugar.

• 25:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Oh, makes sense. Okay. And what about our Oprah Winfrey crowd?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  So Guffa people, nowadays, we teach a lot about eating raw foods, salad, cold things. Irvita said the Guffa person needs cooked foods. They need really those three meals a day to be easy to digest as they heal the gut, support metabolism, then move forward. So it's almost a counter, a counter pose or an antithesis to how we're eating nowadays.

• 26:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Ah, makes total sense. Yeah. I think I heard one of your podcasts where someone was saying that you changed your life because she was just trying to eat a bunch of salads every day to lose weight.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And she could not digest it. And then once she started eating cooked foods, it completely changed her life.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's so beautiful to see when that happens. I've met so many people and it's fun because Irvita can solve a problem so fast. So I met a woman who had hives and she came to me and she's like, I get hives every summer. I don't understand why my whole body, I'm so healthy, I'm vegan. And I looked at her, she was all red and I was like, you are a pitha. So what are you eating exactly? She's like, oh, I make my own nut, you know, cashew sauce for my pasta, my own almond milk in the morning. And I said, in Irvita, we teach that nuts are a winter food. That's not a summer food. It's gonna warm the system. And so she was a hot pitha, adding only heating things all day long at a high volume. So I said, cut everything nut for a few days, bring in a very cooling food like lassi and coconut water and watermelon, and let's see what happens.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  She goes, done, all my hives are gone. I didn't know that I couldn't eat nut sauces all summer long. So Irvita has very simple fixes for things. And the fact that we can align to our constitution and our elemental design easily, I think is the greatest gift from Irvita. Because it makes it easy.

• 27:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Totally agreed. So if a listener out there wants to figure out like, what is their elemental constitution? I know you have a website with a test on it, right?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have the quiz. It's on my website at drshivani.com. And they can take it and then they get the immediate answer of their primary. And then I'm adding the bigger quiz as well. So if they want to understand mind versus body versus reactionary tendencies, they can understand that as well.

• 27:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then will they also get like a dietary pattern to try if they take the quiz? That's such a great.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it gives the recommendation right there immediately with a video because I really want them to get it and start practicing it.

• 27:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the foods I think about with Ayurveda, which is like, I think it's like a cornerstone of Ayurvedic cooking is Kichdi.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Could you talk about Kichdi a little bit?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  For sure. When you mentioned warm foods, I was like, well, that's usually Kichdi from us. So Kichdi is a very simple recipe. It's basically white rice, white basmati rice, and then mung beans. And when you take that mung dal, that lentil, and cook it in a pressure cooker, you add very minimal spices, cumin seeds, we have a spice called hing that we love so much, and salt. All of a sudden, you've got this porridge. And porridge almost makes it sound gross, but it's a delicious porridge-like dish that's simple and easy to digest. And so anytime someone's having a serious gut issue, our protocol is take a day and eat Kichdi. Take three days and eat Kichdi. Just give the gut a break while giving it simple nourishment. And you can put ghee on top, but it's a very comforting dish.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  So I have a lot of people who've done detoxes with me, and once I showed them how to make Kichdi, it's their comfort dish and their reset that they use every single week now. And they'll send me pictures years later that they still make Kichdi. And it's so cool to see that because it's a simple dish, but it allows the gut and body to heal.

• 29:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's so amazing to me how many of my friends have discovered Kichdi, and now it's like a cornerstone of their diet.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Right?

• 29:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Especially like you said, when they're having gut issues.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, they'll go travel for like a week in France or Italy or whatever. They'll come back and just eat Kichdi for a week because they're like, I need to give my gut a rest.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's so interesting. And if you're Indian, you think of it as like a boring food because that's what you eat when you're sick.

• 29:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  But that was the ancient wisdom of, hey, let's give someone something easy. Let's allow the immune system to reset and heal, and then they can move forward.

• 29:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 29:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hi, Dr. Shaw here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics, I've actually seen 30-year-old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60-year-olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their telomeres are breaking. Your cells, you see, are like phones and they have limited cellphone battery. Poor sleep, stress, processed foods, all of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with IMA. IMA powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. It's a comprehensive 92 ingredient formula designed specifically for cellular health and longevity.

• 30:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

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• 31:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Most people are aging twice as fast as they should, unfortunately. You don't have to be one of them. Try IMA. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to drshah.com/ima or go to imathhealth.com/discount/drsah and you can get 20% off with my discount code, DrShah. You can also find the link below.

• 31:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You mentioned hing and we've talked about curcumin a little bit. You know, this brings up the topic of spices, right? It's such a major part of our Indian diets. My mom put a ton of spices in our food all the time. And not just like spices to make things hot, but also spices for flavor. And it turns out all of these spices, I think people know this, have incredible medicinal benefit, right? And so I'd love to hear kind of like your top four or five spices that you recommend in your kitchen for people to try.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  You know, I love so many spices. My favorite above all is turmeric because that's my whole dissertation. I think turmeric is miraculous in that it can do a hundred things for us. When people say, I've got 99 problems, but you know, what solves all of 97? I think of turmeric in my life because it does that for me. It's immune, supportive, gut healing, such a powerful longevity tool and all those things. So turmeric first. Second would be ginger. Ginger is very powerful for gut health. It is also an anti-inflammatory. It's easy to add into our mornings as a tea. And the fact that it's so beneficial to gut health, I think, makes it really special. My third would be fennel seeds.

• 32:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Fennel seeds.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Anytime gut is off, we say, just eat some fennel seeds. When you leave an Indian restaurant, have you noticed they always have fennel? Why? Because they're trying to cool the system down. They know they put too many spices in there for you. The typical American person walking in, it's going to hurt afterwards. And the fennel just cools things down, supports digestion. So I love fennel seeds for that as well. Gosh, hing is one of my favorites. It's not as popular here in the West because people have not heard about it. But when people have a stomach issue, a recipe that my own grandma created was hingga bani, which is hing and a purple salt that we have in India. I made it as a tea last night because my stomach was upset and it heals everything. Like I have changed hundreds of people's lives, just bringing them those two spices to their home.

• 33:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hing and what was the other one?

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Kala namak, which is our purple salt.

• 33:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. How can people find these?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  You can buy them on Amazon now. Thank goodness.

• 33:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And hing is just H I N G?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And kala namaks, K A L A N A M A K.

• 33:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Great. So if you're having a gut health issue, buy those two spices, put them together. And in a tea and just drink it.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, pinch of each, cup of hot water.

• 33:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No, I remember like when my mom would cook, she would take some hing, some curcumin and oil.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:55Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then she would put like vegetables on it. Is that another way to get hing into your diet?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's another great way. So we always start with ghee as our base. We put whole Cuban seeds in there, maybe half a teaspoon, pinch of hing, not too much. It's a very potent, pungent spice. And then you can put any of your spices in there. Then that's going to release the aromatics, it's going to release the benefits of them. And then you start cooking your food on top.

• 34:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  So yeah, it's, it's beautiful that ancient wisdom and ancient Ayurvedic wisdom built that into the Indian cooking. And people say they want to eat more spices. I'm like, just look up an Indian food recipe and you'll get those spices in there.

• 34:28Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, it's not as hard as you think. Like you just get some oil, you put the, or ghee, right? And you put the spices in and just cook your vegetables in it.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 34:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It gives it an incredible flavor and you get the benefits of the spices, not just for the flavor, but also for your health.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Correct. And you can add fresh ginger in there, you can add garlic. So there's so much you can pack into that.

• 34:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  To get all those benefits. And it doesn't have to be Indian. It could be you're cooking your chicken that way that day.

• 34:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, exactly. Yeah, to your point, you could also put chicken in there or meat in there as well.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. Get your protein and your super spices.

• 34:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You know, I think in the Western world, there's not a lot of spices used. People just don't know how to use them.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  When to use them. And I think unfortunately, people are not gaining the benefits of them because they're just kind of like, if you go to any like household now, the only spice they have is salt, pepper, maybe oregano or basil, right?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went to a friend's house and I was really shocked. I opened her cabinet to pull some spices because I need black pepper and red chili powder on everything. And it was just basil, salt, pepper. And I thought, how can you live like this? Because I have a spice drawer, I have a spice cabinet, I have backup spices, then I have the large spices and a fridge of spices.

• 35:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Like that's the level of spices we use in a typical Indian household, or maybe I'm just a little crazier. So there's a lot more spice in my life because I love them so much. But yeah, I invite everyone to open their palate up. And especially nowadays, when we're having such a protein first conversation, which can get really boring and really annoying because I'm trying to get those 80 grams in a day. I think spices are the perfect way to change those flavors up, add all those anti-inflammatory benefits, give us the longevity benefits, but also change that palate.

• 36:01Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I think you're right. Like eating, trying to get enough protein in every day is really difficult.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  It is.

• 36:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It doesn't taste that great. Eating the same piece of protein over and over and over and over. You get bored of it, but the spices can change everything. Especially with fish, like with salmon or white fish, the spices can make a huge difference too.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  For sure. Even cinnamon has a lot of benefits, controlling blood sugar. So if you want to sweeten things, but not have that sugar bump, you can use cinnamon as well.

• 36:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What's a good recipe, I guess, for people to use curcumin?

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Ooh, you know, I use turmeric in everything. So you can cook any vegetable with it. You can cook any lentil with it. I think the Kichdi dish is a great way. You can add turmeric into that with, you know, cumin seeds, black pepper, and get the benefits that way.

• 36:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I have my layered coffee here with layered curcumin turmeric creamer in it. And it's actually great with coffee, which is incredible.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  That's awesome. Yeah, that's great.

• 36:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. Any other spices you recommend that people should maybe add to their spice cabinet?

• 36:57Speaker 01

  You know, there is a lot of spices we have in IRV that are not really food. So like the, all the adaptogens, we have ashwagandha, we have brahmi, shatavri. I like to play in that world of adaptogens. I typically put them into a tea because they're not going to taste as good in your food. You can drop florals on them in tea form and you won't notice. But ashwagandha is a good example of the power of super spices. It is an adaptogen. It helps if you're stressed and anxious. It calms you down a few notches. If you're feeling depressed and low, it'll lift you up. So it's such a powerful tool and we have science that's proven it's as effective as 14 psychoactive drugs. So when people are anxious or depressed, you can reach for this natural solution that gives you the support you need. And if you're just running your regular day and you're stressed all the time,

• 37:42Speaker 01

  it can be that balancing support in the system. And that, I think, is so powerful that Mother Earth gave us these plant solutions. The body knows how to absorb and take it and use it. The body knows where to put it to get the benefit. And that's just so beautiful to me that we have that synergy with all the super spices.

• 37:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, and I think what's incredible in adaptogens is they're not just to calm you down. They can also raise your spirits too.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 38:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So they're good. It's just like, it helps you adapt to your current environment.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 38:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. Is ashwagandha, is that like a plant or a flower or what is it?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Typically, we pull the roots of the ashwagandha. We pull the branches of the ashwagandha. So you have to be careful who you're sourcing from.

• 38:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  I was in India recently, meeting with different teams and suppliers. And they said sometimes people just take everything and crush it together and then sell that to you because it's higher volume. But you want to go to those people who know how to pick it properly and take the right forms of it to use it.

• 38:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:32Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And, you know, I'm hearing a lot about shilajit lately. Can you talk about that?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, shilajit has a lot of beneficial properties. It's very much of a rejuvenating. Rejuvenating plant solution. It's a gum. And I actually didn't use it in my product line because it's very hard to source it properly. So there's so much, we have to be so careful with adulterated ingredients, especially if we're supplying from abroad. So I only source ingredients that I know we can third party test and be careful with. But there are some people doing Shilajit and I want to try their products because I know how rejuvenative it can be.

• 39:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  A lot of people are talking about it now, but I think there's not many good sources out there.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  There's a couple that I think are, you know, getting good product. And I think you've got to do your research with any supplement. Obviously you have to do your research.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. For me, if it's not third party tested here in the United States, I want to see third party testing pre, mid and post-production. Do you know your suppliers? So I'm watching the Shilajit people and I'm waiting to see who do I trust to take the product.

• 39:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And what could be the benefits of taking Shilajit?

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Shilajit, I believe is very energizing. It's very good for our mitochondrial health, good for optimization overall. It's like what we consider good for all systems, like a rejuvenative tonic. Shitavari is considered that too. Shitavari is good for female reproductive organs, good for menopause, which is a big conversation right now. Just like ashwagandha, adaptogenic. So does what you need.

• 39:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Shitavari.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And how can you find that?

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Shitavari is another one of those ingredients like ashwagandha. So you'll typically find it in tea form or in supplement form. But it's considered the queen of reproductive organs. Like it really supports us through the perimenopause, menopause transition. And gives the body the support it needs, reducing hot flashes, night sweats and things like that.

• 40:11Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So great information. What about if you're feeling sick? Like, so you're coming down with a virus or a cold or something. I know there's a ton of Ayurvedic solutions for that. What is your solution for that?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  My favorite is turmeric. I do reach for turmeric. I'll start high dosing my turmeric for a day. And I'll kick out whatever the problem is because it is a powerful antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal. So anytime anything starts up, if my kids are sick at home, I'll say, you know what? I'm just going to take six a day. And I'll totally win at this. And I always do, which to me is really exciting.

• 40:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How can you get turmeric into your kids?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  You know, for them, I open capsules because regular turmeric, what most people don't realize is out of the entire turmeric plant, only 3% of it is those curcuminoids. And so if we're taking regular turmeric as a kitchen spice and we're using it in our food and we're only getting in about half a teaspoon at a time, it's not enough to get those significant health benefits. So that's where supplementation comes in. And I'm a big believer in how do you get that significant result and get the difference that you want? And so I'll take full-on supplements, high-quality turmeric that I make, and then I'll open it in their food for them.

• 41:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Got it. So turmeric itself is like a spice for cooking, but only 3% of that is curcumin.

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 41:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Curcuminoids, right?

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 41:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that 3% that's a curcuminoid is what's, I guess, boiled down into a supplement form, right? And are there different curcuminoids?

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yes, so there's three different curcuminoids, and we know curcumin is the most effective at helping reduce inflammation, but the proportion of those three really matters. And so a lot of times, people are just extracting in the cheapest way possible for speed or for affordability. But if you work with the right partners, you can extract that 3% to mimic Mother Nature and keep the proportion correct. That's where I've seen people feel the best difference.

• 41:52Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Really? Okay. And you have a curcumin supplement that you make?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  I do.

• 41:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That is sourced very responsibly, I assume, and has the right proportions of everything in it, too.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I built it 10 years ago, and my dream was to show doctors that they can offer us turmeric when we need it.

• 42:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And you have a PhD in this. I think you know what you're talking about.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  I'm obsessed with it, yeah. I knew my life's work was going to be around turmeric once I read all that science. And I thought, gosh, I can't wait to even create more science around it. So that's the journey I'm in.

• 42:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And that has a pepper in it, too, that helps absorption? Got it. Great. What's the name of the supplement, by the way? How can people find it?

• 42:25Speaker 01

  So it's called Fusionary Formulas, because I'm fusing east and west in the same formula.

• 42:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. Great. Let's move on to just sleep and recovery. Are there different sleep patterns that each one of these doshas should be in?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So a Vata person has a tendency towards disrupted sleep and insomnia. They're bad sleepers. The goal with Vata is show them how to have a day where they've moved their body enough because they have so much energy. We need to exercise enough in our day. Maybe it's walking for three miles a day. That's usually my homework for them is move. And then, once they get to bedtime, really wind down. So no devices right before bed. Make sure you eat a real grounding meal. And then, when you're going to sleep, either use a sleep tea with these adaptogenic herbs that we're talking about. Use the tools you need to get good sleep. Maybe you're taking melatonin. Maybe it's GABA, L-theanine. Like, look at what you need to take for your sleep and invest in it. And then, Vata people tend to be in overdrive. So even for myself, like, work is always on my mind.

• 43:24Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  And so, same thing. Move your body enough to move your energy for the day and be tired enough for good sleep. Really focus on that sleep hygiene, cutting the day off before you start your nighttime, which most of us have a bad habit and we'll just work. For me, if I'm on Instagram to relax, I'm also working because there's so much to do there.

• 43:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  So I have to say, you're reading a book before bed or else because that's the only way to kind of create that barrier between day and bedtime. And then, for Gafa, they already sleep like the dead. They get the best sleep, best slumber. They sleep their 10 hours. They're hard to wake up. So typically, a sleep is not the issue for the Gafa. They are getting the best sleep out of all of us.

• 44:02Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. But I think for Gafas too, though, like, having to wake up at a specific time, like, 7:00 in the morning can be really disruptive to their sleep.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Correct. It's better if they've built a lifestyle where they get their complete sleep and then they wake up and start their day.

• 44:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right, right. And then, you know, you talk a lot about recovery rituals or self-care rituals throughout the day. Can you talk about what those can kind of look like as well?

• 44:24Speaker 01

  For sure. So my favorite ritual that I created is called Tea Time is Me Time. And I created it because I needed a circadian anchor and a mindful moment in my day. So I wouldn't just keep going at 200 miles an hour and forget the pauses. So that's why I have those alarms on my phone. It reminds me, pause, have a cup of tea, take a moment with yourself. And the interesting thing about tea is it's hot. So you actually can't chug a cup of tea.

• 44:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  And then nowadays, we teach a lot about Vegas. Nerve and just drinking a hot beverage and slowly drinking it is going to help soothe the vagus nerve, get us out of sympathetic, which is where we're normally residing, drop us into parasympathetic, help us calm down. And so I take a moment when I have a cup of tea and I'll say, how are you doing today? What do we need to do today for today to be better? Are you structuring today so you get to eat? And a lot of those answers could be no, because it could be a really, you know, rough day that you've built for yourself. And so it's just that, that moment of intention of pausing to say, okay, I'm going to change how I'm doing today. I'll build 15 minutes here, here, I'll cancel this thing. And as soon as you start adjusting your schedule, all of a sudden, things get better.

• 45:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  And so that pause, I take that pause about five times a day. And then that helps me just relax.

• 45:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean, I'm guilty of this too. Like, I'll go straight through the day at a million miles per hour. And then, to your point, I mean, one of the words you use is mental inflammation, right?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, you feel like your brain is on fire, is so inflamed, you have a, even like a headache towards the end of the day.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Because you haven't taken a break.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Correct. The brain is on fire. We're going 200 miles an hour, and we're not even allowing or understanding that our brain needs breaks. And so that's the thing that I'm trying to teach with Tea Time is Me Time, or Collect Peace. Just go outside and breathe in nature for a couple minutes, and allow nature to soothe you and calm you down. If you're not able to do it yourself, leverage nature. You can do that. And so it's, it's simple things, but these simple tiny rituals are what add up to having the quality of life we want, and the longevity we want.

• 46:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Because if we're going to go 200 miles an hour and constantly be in a state of mental inflammation, fight or flight and stress, which is where most of us are residing. If we're not stressed, we're chilling out by getting on social media, and social media is not exactly relaxing.

• 46:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  No.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  It's not nourishing. And so what Ayurveda said is, look, you need breaks in your day. I know you're in modern day times, but build those breaks in so that you can reduce that mental inflammation, because we forget stress alone will cause inflammation.

• 46:47Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yes.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  So so many of us are biohacking and doing so much for our health, and we're being so rigid on ourselves. Even I myself do that. I'll get really strict in the diet, strict on the schedule. And then my system's stressed. Anyway, so you're going to create inflammation anyway. And so that's why when I was writing my book, the term mental inflammation came to me. And I thought, gosh, that's it. That's the thing as a society, we're not getting that I can control inflammation. I can reduce inflammation through food, through sleep, through self-care, through detoxing. I can win on every front and the stress, that'll get me in the end. That one thing. So that's what I wanted to teach in the book was how can you use Ayurveda as a rhythm and reduce that stress?

• 47:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So ideally five times a day, in fact, might be a good number of breaks taken during the day.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And these breaks are what 20, 30 minutes or?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Five, 10 minutes.

• 47:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Five, 10 minutes.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, simple.

• 47:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, you know, I talk a lot about that as well. When I do, I do a lot of talks for CEOs of businesses. And I say, your employees are going to be so much happier. If every 45 minutes, you just get them to get up and walk around for five, 10 minutes.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Like, don't make them work four hours in a row before they get up.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:58Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Build in breaks throughout the day. It can make a massive difference in number one, how they feel, how healthy they are. But also their productivity improves.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  True.

• 48:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  When you have those breaks built in.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  True, I've taught so many women, tea time is be time and walk in nature after lunch.

• 48:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  And they said those two things alone changed their whole life.

• 48:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Those are great pieces of advice.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Amazing.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Simple.

• 48:19Dr. Darshan Shah?

  How do you feel about the mental health in Ayurveda? You know, so many people right now are struggling with depression, with anxiety. How can Ayurveda help them?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  You know, Ayurveda always said, nature heals all. And building our circadian rhythm is to build a rhythm with nature itself. And so typically depression, we're going to talk about moving in nature first. A lot of what we speak about in the biohacking community. Wake up, put your feet in the grass, face the sun, align yourself to the sun's rhythm to support yourself. Move your body more, address gut health. That gut digestive fire needs to be churning and burning if we want to get out of depression in these states. If you are optimizing your agni, what we call digestive fire. If you're addressing mental inflammation and the stressors of your life and moving in nature more. Ayurveda said, there's no reason to have that depression. Because you are supporting every single system of the body to not have that anymore.

• 49:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so true. And then, you know, I did this big Ayurvedic one week long course with Deepak Chopra down in San Diego.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And one of the biggest things that he focused on for mental health was meditation and yoga. He said, you know, meditation and yoga could be completely change how many people are on psychoactive medications right now.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 49:37Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And so, you know, I know meditation is also a big part of Ayurvedic medicine. How do you work that into people's routines as well?

• 49:45Speaker 01

  You know, we talk about the 12 Ayurvedic self-care rituals to do in a day.

• 49:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, yeah, let's talk about these.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  And so when we talk about the morning, the morning is that first time you have to really leverage getting yourself on the track you want for the day, no matter what your constitution is. And so we do talk about waking up, touching the ground, touching your forehead, and setting an intention for the day. And what's interesting about that is when we said touch the ground, it's also going to compress all your organs, which is going to help you go to the bathroom first thing in the mornings. We're pretty obsessed with gut health, right? Then we talk about really taking a moment to meditate, whether you do that in bed or you get up and find your space for meditation. Do your breath work. We call that pranayam. We're really building in the pranic force and energy we want to have for the day. Then we talk about that morning yoga practice. We want you to do the yoga moves. They're so good for every organ. They're detoxing to the whole system. So for me, I did yoga teacher training,

• 50:34Speaker 01

  which just built my love of yoga even more deeply. And I encourage everyone to do that because then you really understand how to practice yoga.

• 50:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  And then we go forward with like, okay, start your day, but we also want in the morning tongue scraping. So tongue scraping with a copper tongue scraper is an easy, simple, takes about 30 second habit. You basically scrape the tongue gently seven to 14 times. So I brush my teeth, scrape my tongue, and then do something called oil pulling, which is actually becoming pretty popular nowadays. People are talking about it. You basically take a food grade organic oil and you swish around about a tablespoon to two tablespoons for five to 20 minutes. And that sounds like a long time, but you can totally multitask it. So you can do it while you're taking your morning walk, while you're making your morning coffee, but just make sure you spit it out in the trash, not the sink, toilet, or shower. So you contain. You maintain the pipes of your home. But that's an example of a morning that's detoxing,

• 51:25Speaker 01

  supporting of gut health, supporting of oral health, which supports gut microbiome health. Isn't it beautiful? Five thousand years ago, they already knew gut health is tied to oral health. That's insane that they knew that. And so putting all that together is really powerful.

• 51:39Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. So those, that was about six of the 12 ayurvedic principles of the day. So what are the other? Can you give us the other ones?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they take those and then they keep going. But I find in modern day times, we don't all have time in the morning for all of them. So I move the rest into the evening.

• 51:54Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  So those include dry brushing, move the lymphatic system. They include something called abhyang massage, full body massage using food grade oils. And abhyang massage is just a self massage. You can put down a towel, take this oil, rub it into your body from your feet all the way to your neck. You can also do your hair because we teach how to have healthy, thicker hair. But what this does is it's very grounding. So anyone who has a vata constitution or a vata mind, this is going to help them soothe and calm the entire nervous system. It helps you have really beautiful, healthy skin. I have a lot of women who do this every single night and they say, you've reversed my age, Shivani. I look 20 years younger than I used to. And I'm always so impressed with how they look. So abhyang is a very good one because especially nowadays,

• 52:38Speaker 01

  we're kind of running at 200 miles an hour. And so it's a good one to really calm and ground the system. Because we might not always be able to ground ourselves. I can go put my feet in the grass, but if I'm still thinking about a million things, I might not get grounded. And so that one really helps ground the system as well.

• 52:53Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Abhyanga massage, self massage with an oil.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then the rest of it is really like, how do you build ritual into your day into the evening? So that's, you know, reading a book, gratitude journal, these kinds of things. Another meditation pranayama in the evening can really help set you up for better sleep.

• 53:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I mean, this is such an incredibly well thought out structure.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It's been in ayurveda for centuries.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And these are all the things we talk about when you talk about routine, all the biohacking routines.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 53:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  These are them, they've been around forever.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And we just got to do them.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think we're skipping over them a lot because the tech is more fun. I have an infrared. Sauna, I love having all these tools in my home. But if we skip the basics, we're not going to win at the big stuff. That's why I like to teach the rituals of Ayurveda. Say, look, it's simple. It's a copper tongue scraper. You're going to own it for life. But it's going to gently detox all the organs of the body. We teach, just like in reflexology, all the organs are reflected on the bottom of your feet. In the same way, all the organs are reflected on the tongue. And so by gently scraping the tongue, you're massaging all the organs of the body. You're igniting the digestive fire and you're detoxing. So it's very multi-dimensional. You get multiple benefits for doing one simple thing.

• 54:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, I tongue scrape like twice a day.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 54:05Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And beyond the Ayurvedic benefits.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  It just feels so much cleaner to have your tongue. Like the first time you do it, you'll be surprised. Like all this gross stuff comes off your tongue. You're like, oh, my God, I've been living with this in my mouth all the time.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 54:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And then you do it and then you just get addicted to it because it feels good. And it's like, it's, if anyone out there has like halitosis or bad breath or oral hygiene, a lot of that's from your tongue. And so that can, to your point too, scraping your tongue and doing oil pulling can actually heal gut health issues.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 54:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  As well.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Isn't that crazy? Like, we think gut health is all about the probiotics and the food. And it is, but oral health contributes to that. And then there's oral health, like communication.

• 54:45Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Between oral and gut. So if we need our mouth to communicate what's, what we're putting in there and our taste buds to know, oh, she's eating protein, I need to release the correct enzymes. And ancient Ayurveda taught us that, that what you're putting here and how you're handling your mouth is how the gut is going to communicate.

• 55:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, so true. You know, as an Ayurvedic doctor, you're seeing a lot of people that are struggling with their health usually, right?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's when people get, unfortunately, people kind of come to Ayurveda when they're struggling.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Yes, we're usually the last door.

• 55:15Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Exactly. Like, I've tried everything else. My doctor's not helping me. I'm going to go see what Ayurveda can do here.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:21Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But really, Ayurveda is a lifestyle. We're preventing you from getting sick.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  In the first place.

• 55:25Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In the first place, right? And so, you know, I'm curious, as an Ayurvedic physician, obviously you want people to live this Ayurvedic lifestyle. They find you through illness. When you see a patient, how do you take them through this journey? Like, what is, where do you start them? And what do you kind of add on to it as time goes on? Goes on.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  You know, it starts with a really big health history. So you have them fill in a questionnaire, but really the whole initial process is understanding them. Cause I need to understand what is it that led you to where you are now? And so I'm just digging and sorting through and trying to understand that. Then we do the constitution quiz, like we, I need the elemental design quiz in grand detail. And I need to understand it from when you were born and now. Cause you were actually born with a constitution. And it's usually life traumas or different things that happened to you that led you to the imbalanced state you're in now. Like you could be a pitta born, but right now you're in guffa. And you feel like, oh gosh, where's my mojo? I don't have my energy. I don't feel right. So most people who find me say, I don't feel like myself. And it's usually they had a surgery, they took antibiotics, got, became dysbiotic. And they don't know how to walk themselves back.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Or their elemental design is so way off and imbalanced. And they need help walking themselves back. So we usually sit there and start with that. And that's going to take an hour, hour and a half in an initial consultation. But what I'm trying to ascertain is where's the issue? Where's the imbalance? How am I going to help you walk yourself back home? And where do I find the leverage point? Cause usually we have habits and they're pretty ingrained. And we don't want to change our habits. When I sit down with my functional medicine doc and they give me that plan, I kind of look at, I'm like, okay. But I don't really want to change everything. And so as the practitioner, my job is to see, how can I break this down into simple slices? Tiny self-care habits that take just moments of your day. And once we structure that rhythm in, then you want to do more because you feel great.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  And I think that's the power of IRV, that's this perfect synergy with biohacking and with functional medicine. That says, look, they're going to fix a lot, but you still need the lifestyle piece to hold those results.

• 57:20Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And I love the comment that you made about making structure around their lives. Cause once you have a structure.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I would say 90% of my patients have zero structure in their life at all.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right. And so once you have a structure, you can build upon that.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it starts with like a morning routine, then the afternoon routine, then the evening routines. And then you can build like five times a day, you can put something in.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 57:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah, absolutely. It's so ridiculously powerful.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  It is. It's a system. And once you've built a system, you just execute that system. A lot of times people. We'll say, you know, I always Netflix and chill in the afternoon, the evening. And now the moment I go to Netflix and chill, I have a little Shivani on my shoulder. And she comes out and she says, please do self-care instead. And so now they've made those shifts into doing a self-care ritual, an evening ritual. And once you start doing that, you actually find a way to open time. I call it bending time, where when I sit down to do dry brushing up young, I'm like, you know, I could do an Epsom salt bath. You know, I could do my gratitude journal, you know, I could listen to a meditation on my phone. So you learn to expand that time and do so much more for yourself, which is that much more nourishing and grounding and rejuvenating. And that's really the goal of Ayurveda is to help you feel that way.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  So I'm trying to show people how to take slices of time and open them up wider and do so much more for yourself.

• 58:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's incredible. You mentioned that because when I talk to my patients about, you know, one of the biggest things they say is I don't have time.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 58:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But you can physically create time and expand time by breaking up the day in the way that you talk about.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 58:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And it's mind blowing because now all of a sudden you, when you come home from work and you're like, don't even remember the day. These little breaks in the day create moments to remember. And then you actually remember your whole day and it can expand time for you.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 59:04Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In a way that just gets you to enjoy life more too.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's so much more joy we have access to and so much more vibrancy we have access to. And we've resigned ourselves to the fact that we're just inflamed. We don't even think of it as inflammation. We think we're aging and that because we're aging, this just sucks, we're tired. Every woman around me says, you know, I guess this is just aging. I'm like, no, that's perimenopause meets inflammation.

• 59:26Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  And that combination is causing you to think it's aging, it's inflammaging. So let's just talk about how to reduce inflammation and build ritual. Once you win at that, you don't have to feel that way. And so expanding time to me is the most exciting piece of it all because we can feel incredible and we can actually do more. We think of it as I don't have time, but if you made five minutes of time, you could probably gain 30 minutes more time of focus and energy.

• 59:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Absolutely. And you know, like people are coming to doctors like myself for longevity, right? And they're trying to live to like 120, 150, but my. Retort to that is always like, why don't you just live right now?

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And enjoy the time you have right now and expand the time that you have right now.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That when you have your health, when you're not older and gray and can, you know, become a little old man, a little old lady.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:00:13Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Now is the time to expand time and enjoy. That's longevity to me is how much health spent can we put into your day and how much, how much can you break up your day with self-care routines so that you actually feel like you had a great day every day?

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  True. You know, I think that goal of living to 120 is interesting. You know, it sounds really catchy. It sounds really cool. Most people I see don't want to live till 120.

• 1:00:34Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  That's not the level of health they even have right now. And then if you build health to be a job where it's your full-time job to build that health, are you really enjoying the present?

• 1:00:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Right.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  And so in IRV that we talk about moderation, like there's no perfect. You can have your wine and cheese and your happy fun foods and those things, and you can be really healthy and clean. And where can you meet in the middle on that? So you're actually enjoying the present while you're going through it?

• 1:00:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love that. Can I ask you, you know, you're deep in the Ayurvedic world and Ayurveda is considered like an ancient religion. Is there still innovation happening in Ayurveda right now?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  It's a great question. Ayurvedic wisdom is so timeless because it built for allowing itself to like evolve with the times. And so there is this understanding that yeah, there's some things that will be outdated and those will have to move, you know, to the back burner. They'll be archived. But as we move forward, Ayurveda can evolve. And then what's great is modern science is proving every facet of Ayurveda to be true. When I was writing the book, I was pulling citations, even the doshas, the constitutions can be tied to diseases. We know bitas will have more cardiovascular risk. We are more inflamed. And so I think we're going to see so much more science that just proves Ayurveda to be true. Gut health is gut-brain axis and microbiome. Circadian is factually true. So

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  as we move forward, I think Ayurveda will be true, maybe 90, 95%, whatever's 5% that was just, you know, old, ancient, that wasn't going to fit will fall away.

• 1:02:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Yeah. And then it become more and more a part of people's daily health routines and lives, which I love.

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:02:06Dr. Darshan Shah?

  That's awesome. So you wrote a book?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:08Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You're in other books too. How many books have you written by now?

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  I've written two. So my master's thesis was the, it was called Conscious Pregnancy. At that time, I was very obsessed with how can we live an Ayurvedic lifestyle to help produce a Zen baby. So that was my first book. And then, once I did the turmeric PhD, I've been obsessed with turmeric since. Been obsessed with inflammation. How do we win at inflammation? So this new book is called The Inflammation Code, and it's how to use your elemental design, super spices, and circadian rhythm to build the lifestyle we all need to win at inflammation.

• 1:02:38Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Can't wait. When does that come out?

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Comes out February 3rd, 2026.

• 1:02:42Dr. Darshan Shah?

  All right. Hopefully, I can preorder a copy.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Yes, it's ready. It's ready to go.

• 1:02:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I love it. It's called The Inflammation Code?

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  The Inflammation Code.

• 1:02:49Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Okay, great. Can't wait to get that. And how else can people learn more from you?

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  So my website is drshivani.com, so S-H-I-V-A-N-I. And on that website, I have everything. And the book is theinflammationcode.com.

• 1:03:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Great. And you're on social media as well?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  Yes, I'm at Dr.Shivani Gupta. And I have a podcast as well that people can listen to.

• 1:03:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  What's the name of your podcast?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  It's called The Fusionary Health Podcast.

• 1:03:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Wonderful. I love it. I can't wait to be on your podcast.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  Yes, for sure. I can't wait to have you. I'm so excited to chat with you.

• 1:03:17Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Awesome. Well, this was such an incredible conversation, an incredible introduction to Ayurveda.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:23Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The Ayurveda of the past, and the now, and the future of Ayurveda, and how it really ties into modern medicine, and specifically around inflammation. And so, to learn more, I can't wait to read your book. And hopefully, we can have you back on after your book is out, and we can talk about the book.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you.

• 1:03:40Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Gupta. Thanks for coming.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:46Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Before we wrap up, here are five key takeaways I had from today's conversation with Dr. Gupta. Number one, ancient wisdom meets modern science with Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurvedic medicine is an outdated, modern research has now shown that the benefits of ancient practices like turmeric, circadian alignment, and detox rituals all work. It's where timeless wisdom meets evidence-based health. Number two, turmeric can replace long-term pain meds. Science has confirmed that turmeric, especially With black pepper and healthy fats can be a powerful anti-inflammatory, offering pain relief without gut damage or side effects like taking medications like Advil or Ibuprofen.

• 1:04:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Number three, know your dosha, know yourself. Your Ayurvedic body type, Vata, Pita, or Kapha can explain everything from your sleep habits to your cravings. Once you know your type, you can eat, move, and rest in ways that truly support your biology. Number four, spices can be medicine. From turmeric to ginger and cinnamon and fennel, spices do more than flavor your food. They heal your gut, balance your blood sugar, and calm inflammation. Start by cooking with ghee and adding healing spices daily. Number five, rituals can heal the mind and body.

• 1:05:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Small daily Ayurvedic rituals like tongue scraping, oil pulling, grounding, and taking five-minute mental breaks help reduce inflammation, regulate your nervous system, and bring back balance into your day. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you liked this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying

• 1:05:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.