Episode 114
Shivani Gupta:
The Ayurvedic Approach: Transformative Daily Rituals for Autoimmune Warriors
In this episode, we have Dr. Shivani Gupta joining us. She is an Ayurvedic practitioner with a keen focus on integrating Eastern and Western practices for ultimate body equilibrium. With her vast expertise in both Ayurveda and Turmeric, she enlightens us on their profound benefits for those with autoimmunity.
First Aired on: Nov 20, 2023
Episode 114
Shivani Gupta:
The Ayurvedic Approach: Transformative Daily Rituals for Autoimmune Warriors
In this episode, we have Dr. Shivani Gupta joining us. She is an Ayurvedic practitioner with a keen focus on integrating Eastern and Western practices for ultimate body equilibrium. With her vast expertise in both Ayurveda and Turmeric, she enlightens us on their profound benefits for those with autoimmunity.
First Aired on: Nov 20, 2023
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
The Foundations of Ayurveda:
- Ayurveda as Preventive Lifestyle: Ayurveda focuses on body, mind, and spirit alignment, promoting a preventive lifestyle.
- Doshas Explained: Dr. Gupta talks about the significance of understanding individual doshas for personalized health optimization.
Circadian Rhythm and Lifestyle:
- Syncing with Nature’s Clock: Adapting to circadian rhythms is crucial for systemic health and regeneration.
- Establishing Sleep Routines: Emphasis on the pivotal role of sleep, specifically between the hours of 10 PM and 2 AM for detoxification of the body.
Dietary Wisdom from Ayurveda:
- Seasonal Eating: The conversation highlights eating seasonally for nutrient diversity and absorption.
- “How You Eat” Matters: Dr. Gupta stresses the importance of being present during meals, which aids in effective digestion and nutrient uptake.
Turmeric: A Superfood with Impressive Benefits:
- Versatile Healing Properties: Turmeric as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant with immense healing benefits, Dr. Gupta’s main research focus.
- Bioavailability Insights: How turmeric is effectively absorbed by the body with the help of healthy fats and black pepper.
Fusionary Formulas: Integrating Ayurveda and Western Medicine:
- Supplement Quality Matters: Dr. Gupta discusses her mission to offer potent and pure turmeric-based supplements as an adjunct or alternative to NSAIDs and painkillers.
Other Resources:
Connect with Shivani Gupta
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Dr. Shivani Gupta, Ayurvedic practitioner and expert in fusing Eastern and Western practices that help our bodies achieve equilibrium. She completed her master's in Ayurvedic sciences and her PhD in turmeric, and she's the founder of Fusionary Formulas.
Julie Michelson: In our [Page//00:01:00] conversation, Dr. Shivani shares about Ayurveda, how living an Ayurvedic lifestyle according to nature's rhythms supports optimal health and healing. We discuss the importance of not only what you eat, but how you eat and how you sleep and the powerful Ayurvedic herbs as super foods.
Julie Michelson: Shivani, welcome to the podcast.
Shivani Gupta: Thank you for having me.
Julie Michelson: I am so excited to, to dig in. I already have way too many questions percolating in my brain, but first I would love for you to share a bit of your journey with listeners. How did you end up, did you share any part of it between the Ayurveda, the PhD intern, like there's so many, so many things you're doing that none of us ever woke up and said, Oh, let me, let me study this.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. Yeah. Well, for me, it all started, started with a health journey, and I think that's most of us in the health and [Page//00:02:00] wellness space is we had our own big issue. We had to climb this mountain to fix it because we finally fixed it. We became this crazy evangelist who said, Hey, everyone should do it. You guys should understand that there's a different way that you could feel.
Shivani Gupta: And so that was certainly my story. I grew up in Houston, Texas to this immigrant family, and I grew up in Houston, Texas, living one way. Where whenever I got sick, we'd just go to the pediatrician. They'd give us a script. We would take the antibiotics. We'd run to the drugstore, take a few medications and eventually get better in 10, 12 days.
Shivani Gupta: But I did that probably 50 times more than any normal person. And so by the time I got to high school, I was taking really heavy dose antibiotics. every month for my cold. And I couldn't understand. I was like, why, why am I the only sick person? Why is it that all my friends can go out and go to movies and have fun?
Shivani Gupta: And I'm just always left behind. And through that time, we were going to India every year to see my cousins and my grandparents. And when we went to India, I would get [Page//00:03:00] disastrously sick. Like I'd end up nearly hospitalized. And so then again, they'd use these really crazy strong antibiotics. blow up my gut.
Shivani Gupta: And so finally, by the time I got to college, I got really frustrated. And we were sitting in front of this Dr. Gupta, this man I remember. And he's like, well, here's your prescription. And it was like 12 medications. And I looked at the list and I was like, you know what? No. No, I don't accept any, my whole family's like, excuse me, you're about to die.
Shivani Gupta: I think you should take the prescription. And I was like, I don't think that this has been working. We need to go find a new way forward. And I told my parents we're in the land of yoga and Ayurveda. Like every time we travel through India, we can see Ayurvedic services and Ayurvedic herbs. Like what is this thing?
Shivani Gupta: And could we try this new toolkit? And we did and I was so impressed, but I went with a discerning mind because I'm American and I'm Indian, so I was like, well, let's make sure your stuff works. Let's make sure even though it's ancient, it's valid. And so I went with this [Page//00:04:00] really scientific mind and just open to what was possible.
Shivani Gupta: And I healed my gut, healed my health, learned that gut is immune health, learned that Ayurvedic herbs are powerhouses and superfoods that we just don't think of as superfoods. I learned that Ayurvedic, the Ayurvedic lifestyle is a preventive lifestyle. And if I can live that way, I can hold this incredible immune system and health that I want.
Shivani Gupta: So that's why I'm the biggest fan of it. And then I went and did my master's in it. I did my PhD in it, and now I just love sharing it.
Julie Michelson: Which I love is amazing. And it is so interesting. We have, I mean, whether it's food, medicine, all the things, because food is medicine, right? We've gotten so far away from these brilliant ancient approaches that work and that work with our bodies and not as band aids.
Julie Michelson: And, and I'm guessing you're not. saying either, like if you needed to go to a Western doc for something, you would, [Page//00:05:00] I always say like, if I need surgery, I am definitely going to a Western trained physician for sure. But I love this idea that, and this is why we have these conversations, right? Because many of my listeners are looking to reclaim full health and, and a good amount are looking to prevent an autoimmune diagnosis, or they want to know.
Julie Michelson: How to age healthily. So I love, I love the topic and yeah, I'm just excited to learn from you today. So can you give a, just kind of a broad or however detailed you want, but an easily digested for people that are like, what is Ayurveda? I've never heard of it. Or maybe they've heard the word in a spa, they might've had a spa treatment once or something.
Julie Michelson: Tell us a little more about it.
Shivani Gupta: Sure. So under the umbrella of complementary and alternative medicine here in the [Page//00:06:00] West, one of the modalities listed is Ayurveda, but unfortunately, Ayurveda is like the last door anyone goes and finds when it comes to their health. So it's my mission to bring Ayurveda, like, into the forefront of understanding.
Shivani Gupta: That it's very valid. And Deepak Chopra did a great job of that. He's been a big proponent of sharing the message of Ayurveda. So Ayurveda is a system of health, healing, and medicine from India. That's over 5, 000 years old. So just like we have traditional Chinese medicine that includes acupuncture in India, we had this ancient system running alongside.
Shivani Gupta: called Ayurveda. And it's basically a preventive lifestyle that shows us how to live in a way that brings body, mind, and spirit into alignment. And what we teach is if there's ever disalignment there, we're not going to have true health or vibrant health. And so under the umbrella of Ayurveda, within the ancient scripts, like I even have the ancient scripts here in my office, they already spoke about all the different subspecialties of medicine, like obstetrics, [Page//00:07:00] surgery.
Shivani Gupta: All these things were talked about centuries before what we think is now Western medicine. So there was this acknowledgement that we have these systems, we must take care of them. Ayurveda teaches us to live according to circadian rhythm, which is nature's clock and nature's rhythm. That's what keeps us in alignment.
Shivani Gupta: Ayurveda teaches us how to really honor gut health and that gut health or the digestive Fire is the center of all health and that above all must be revered. So it's cool that in modern science, we talk about gut microbiome, gut brain access. We're putting a lot of scientific terminology and we're proving scientifically what Ayurveda already said, which was your entire immune system, your entire vitality all comes down to your gut health above all.
Shivani Gupta: And then what's beautiful is we have a whole other toolkit. We have herbs and spices we use. We make teas and different solutions for people. We teach that sleep is paramount. We teach that reducing inflammation is important. We teach about [Page//00:08:00] how, how you eat is almost important, more important than what you eat.
Shivani Gupta: So we obsess a lot about what we eat in the West, but we forget that We shouldn't eat standing up and we shouldn't drink ice water five seconds before we're going to eat a meal. And so we have a lot of guidelines that show people how to take the food you're going to eat and really receive it in a entirely new way.
Shivani Gupta: So you absorb the nutrition and build that vitality from the inside. So I really think of it as a rhythm and a way of life that we can all incorporate and then powerful super foods and tools that we can reach into when we need them. Amazing. And then one last thing I forgot, Ayurveda teaches a major concept called the doshas, which is our individual mind body constitution.
Shivani Gupta: And knowing your constitution is important because then you can leverage and utilize and balance your individual constitution to build the health that you want as well.
Julie Michelson: Which I love because we know that, I mean, you, you hit on so many things that to me is [Page//00:09:00] again, we're coming back to, especially in the functional medicine space, it's lifestyle medicine.
Julie Michelson: That's why they call it that. And so I want to dig in a little bit to some of those. Ways that we can be living, even if somebody just wants to dip their toe in. I hope everybody does want to learn more about Ayurveda. It's amazing. But with the doshas, it's also, which is we see every day. It's not a one size fits all.
Julie Michelson: We aren't all identical and it's not eat this way, sleep this way, move this way, and you'll be great. And so again, it's like the wisdom. Of this system is, is brilliant. And I love that as science catches up, we're, we're returning to that. And it's like, Oh, this stuff really works. I want to start with.
Julie Michelson: Digging in a little bit about living with honoring circadian rhythm, optimizing circadian rhythm, limit this idea of living [Page//00:10:00] with nature, especially if the timing of this recording is, is perfect, because depending on where you live, you may have just gone through daylight savings time, which is so not, again, we're trying to manipulate and control things that we maybe ought not be.
Julie Michelson: I know. So, so how in modern day life. We've, we've had conversations on the podcast about, and I always love when things come up again, right? Like sleep is so important and, and circadian rhythm is so important, but how in modern life. Do you support people in actually living in that rhythm when people are working?
Julie Michelson: It's, it's an interesting, especially nor heading into winter. And so daylight is short. So I'm guessing you're not necessarily saying everybody has to be going to sleep when the sun goes down and getting up when, I mean, I know that's ideal, but we don't [Page//00:11:00] necessarily live that kind of life anymore.
Shivani Gupta: Correct.
Shivani Gupta: And right now it's getting dark at 6pm, which is just ridiculous. It's a shortening of the whole evening, shortening of the opportunity to go move in nature when the weather is stunning. Yes. So, when I have time, I shouldn't even say that, in this lifetime, I want us to all band together and band Daylight Songs.
Julie Michelson: Oh, please.
Julie Michelson: It is so harmful.
Shivani Gupta: I think we need to petition and just make that one happen. It is harmful because it completely screws up the entire rhythm I build for myself. It really drives me nuts. But the topic of circadian rhythm is really powerful because circadian medicine, chronobiology, this concept Nature is what we are from nature is what we're going to go back to and nature dictates all we live on Mother Earth.
Shivani Gupta: This is the planet we're on. And the rhythm of this planet is what is dictating what's happening in our bodies and in ourselves. And so basically circadian rhythm [Page//00:12:00] circadian medicine, which has been proven by Nobel Peace Prize winners to be true. I already taught about it 5000 years ago, but we have science that validates its trueness, circadian medicine is just saying that our cells are going to reflect nature's clock.
Shivani Gupta: And so we can battle against that or we can work with that. All that to say that when you look out at animal kingdom, the animal kingdom is going to rise. Like you can hear the birds chirping in the morning when the sun rises, you can set tell that everything settles down for the nighttime because it's dark.
Shivani Gupta: And so we are meant to do the same thing. We're not meant to synthetically create these new schedules just because we want to biohack and use neurotropics and I don't know, intermittent fasting. I think a lot of these tools are effective. I actually like playing with everything, but I think it's so important to realize for your body, for your constitution, for where you live, how you can live.
Shivani Gupta: According to the moon cycles, the sun cycles and the seasonal cycles and [Page//00:13:00] even your own annual, if not decade cycles. So really taking that moment to tune into where do I live? I personally live in Florida. It's burning hot here. We don't usually have a real fall or Real winter according to the rest of the country, but can I still honor that October means we're in fall?
Shivani Gupta: So I'm gonna transition to fall foods I'm gonna recognize that a fall seasonal diet is more nourishing to my system more well received and has a Specific purpose for my health same with winter winter season We're meant to really eat warmer foods those foods that are comforting soups and stews the foods that grow in the winter Those are better absorbed by the body and better utilized.
Julie Michelson: So even when you're living in South Florida, where it's still hot in winter, just less so.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. Yeah. So you, you might not overdo it. I might not drink hot, hot chocolate every day. It's a little warm for that, but on the cooler days really incorporate those things. And [Page//00:14:00] also making sure that we're not bypassing the seasons completely.
Shivani Gupta: A lot of us keep a very mono diet year round. I meet tons of people who are like, I eat salmon and salad 365 days a year. And I'm like, guys, seasonal nutrition, nutrient density, and nutrient variety has so much power for our health. So that's something to really acknowledge. And then the next piece is sleep.
Shivani Gupta: A lot of what we talk about with circadian rhythm is nature's clock tells you that 10 to 2 on that clock, according to Ayurveda is the most optimal time to sleep because 10 to 2 is when 10 o'clock is when the melatonin is released for our body. And during that time frame, Lymphatic system, glymphatic system, regeneration, all these processes of the body are most supported because on the Ayurvedic clock we call that time Pitta, time of day.
Shivani Gupta: So Pitta means that fire.
Julie Michelson: And that's V I T T A for those who want to spell it in English.
Shivani Gupta: Yes, people here in the West, we pronounce it Pitta. [Page//00:15:00] So the Pitta Dosha allows you to really clean and cleanse and purify. So for those people who are waking up tired and lethargic and fatigued and joint pain and achy, I really invite everyone to move their bedtime back 10 to 15 minutes at a time and really learn to honor sleep as the most important health habit we put in place.
Shivani Gupta: Even before we think about diet, even before we think about exercise, sleep is like the anchor cornerstone to our health. And to honor that builds the rhythm strongly. Then we can talk about our next day schedule and building that rhythm into the next day. And I like to teach different self care habits that build rhythms into our lives.
Julie Michelson: I love that. That's amazing. And we, we, we are creatures of habit. We need, not only do we have all of these rhythms of nature, but I, I do think everybody, well, I shouldn't say everybody. You can get a lot of agreement that babies thrive on routine, right? Little kids [Page//00:16:00] thrive on routine. Why do we think we don't?
Julie Michelson: Like, it's really, we're still human, we're just larger humans. So,
Shivani Gupta: I think. And a lot of times I bring up that analogy of, when you go to put a baby to bed, you get real strict about the series of rituals you do to ensure that baby will sleep. Mama gets real serious about we close the blinds, we turn on the essential oils, we turn on the right music, we do the bath.
Shivani Gupta: What if we as adults treated ourselves like that? Do you know how epic your sleep could be if you treated yourself like that? So that's what I teach is Ayurvedic self care rituals for bedtime. And the sleep you can get is so profound. I find I'm twice as smart. And like incredibly capable on those days when I do those rituals because my sleep is by
Julie Michelson: the time you then hit the bed, your body is there.
Julie Michelson: It's like, okay, we know it's sleep time. And I love that you say you feel [Page//00:17:00] smarter because I'm like, of course you do. Cause your brain detox better. And you're all the things, the healing, the repair, all of those wonderful things. Essential foundational things that we tend to think that modern times we can do without, and we can't.
Julie Michelson: Wow. Amazing. Amazing. So I want to talk a little bit about, cause I can't help myself. These are some of my favorite topics. How you eat. So you touched on eating seasonally. And I do think again, this is where those modern gifts. Also give us an opportunity to fall away from nature, right? Because you can go to the store and get salmon and salad every day of the year, pretty much no matter where you live, if you have somewhere where they're bringing food in.
Julie Michelson: So what, let's talk a little bit about the how you eat. We already know not standing up, but I bet it's a little more than that.
Shivani Gupta: Sure. Yeah, it is. And there's so much [Page//00:18:00] controversy around diets, the ketogenic, the carnivore, the Mediterranean, the this, that, and the other. I think that most of us who are in the functional medicine, lifestyle medicine space agree it's about variety.
Shivani Gupta: It's about nutrient density. You could follow the blue zone diet. You can follow the Mediterranean diet. A lot of these are pretty standard, known to be good. And each practitioner has their own preferences as well, based on your specialties.
Julie Michelson: And each person, I think, again, that's another does better. People are always asking me about things and my, my background into functional medicine is through biohacking.
Julie Michelson: And so people always bring a lot of questions about intermittent fasting or how do you feel about keto? And it's like, I feel like it can be great for some people and it can be great for some people in certain periods. And not others. And so I, we are really all individual, no matter, I think all practitioners can agree a processed food, high carb diet is not great for anybody.
Julie Michelson: But when we talk about real food with a [Page//00:19:00] lot of nutrient density, then it's, it's just shifting. How much of what you're eating, correct?
Shivani Gupta: Yeah, that's so true. It's such a good point because we all have different hereditary backgrounds, geo targeted backgrounds. Like we, we come from different places. So we need to look at that bio individually.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. I love that. How to eat from Ayurveda is actually so interesting. It's about honoring the fact that this digestive system is a digestive fire. So if you can imagine it like a campfire, If you had a campfire because you were actually out camping in the forest, you would tend to that fire. You would build the fire.
Shivani Gupta: You would use big pieces of wood, medium and small. You'd ignite that fire. And if you were actually living out there, you wouldn't just, like, shut the campfire down at night by messing it up or throwing water on it. You would maintain it. So in the same way, every morning. when you wake up, ignite the digestive fire because you're going to use it for the day.
Shivani Gupta: So that's where habits like ginger lemon tea [Page//00:20:00] come in. Ginger lemon honey tea or ginger lemon tea in the morning is a beautiful way to put ginger into your system. It's warming. It's going to ignite that digestive fire. Tell that fire, let's go. We've, we're starting our day. Now, whether you eat soon within that timeframe or you intermittent fast and do all your other liquids all morning, that's your choice.
Shivani Gupta: But by the time you hit lunchtime, we want lunch to happen between 10 and two in that same part of the pie on the clock, because that's your fifth time of day. And that fifth of fire is there to support your digestion. So you actually have the ability to eat like a more nutrient dense meal, more variety in that meal.
Shivani Gupta: But we want you to eat the meal sitting down. We want you to not be in your pair, in your sympathetic nervous system. We want you to be in the parasympathetic rest and digest. A lot of us sit down to eat. I just did it. I was between interviews and I was like, I've got 10 minutes, fried some eggs, threw it on a tortilla, ate it.
Shivani Gupta: Reading my iPhone.
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:21:00] No!
Shivani Gupta: We're not digesting that beautiful, healthy, organic protein with that healthy, gluten free tortilla. Why? Because we had zero consciousness about the meal. So even I catch myself and I'm like, alright, listen. Bone down. Three deep breaths. That's all it takes. Just, like, tune into here and now and honor that the food you're about to eat is to nourish you.
Shivani Gupta: You're not just throwing food in a garbage can in here. It's meant to, like, figure out what to do with it. You're really trying to nourish self. And so Honoring that time, focusing on the food, and it's funny, I held an Ayurveda conference many years ago, and one of the practitioners said, I would rather you eat a cheeseburger than eat kichadi while driving.
Shivani Gupta: And I always think of him when I eat food in my car, because I'm like, do you understand that? I only sit down and sit still when I'm driving. Otherwise, I'm moving between meetings and in motion. But khichdi is a beautiful dish out of [Page//00:22:00] Ayurveda that we use when we want to do gut healing. So it's like a very simple porridge that you make out of rice and lentils.
Shivani Gupta: Anytime I need someone to go real simple on the diet and do a gut healing protocol, we recommend khichdi. And so it's just funny to say something so complex. Versus Kichidi, what he's basically saying is we can't be in motion when we eat.
Julie Michelson: We're asking the body to be still. Or even literally in motion even mentally.
Julie Michelson: So if you're in that sympathetic state and you're sitting and you think you're, you've stopped, but. You haven't if you haven't shifted into the parasympathetic state and I, I love that and that is where it is more important how you eat for sure, because you can eat the best food in the world but if you're not digesting it and absorbing it, it doesn't matter.
Shivani Gupta: Waste of time, like you're just good job for consuming something good over bad, but you're not going to get all the benefits so here we are investing time, money, effort. All this mental energy on eating [Page//00:23:00] better, but we're doing it in the front of the tv in front of the iphone in front of netflix unconscious eating and then that's why we're later reaching for chips and crackers and sugar because we didn't even realize or acknowledge what we did and what we ate.
Shivani Gupta: And so our goal from Mayra Vida is. Really find food that's nourishing, understand that what we consume impacts our mental health, it impacts our emotional health, bring consciousness to it, don't microwave your food, store it in glass, even some of these basic things are the how you eat, they're the around the food process, and are equally important to what we're eating, because otherwise we're just poisoning our food, and Poisoning it as we're consuming it instead of nourishing self.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And I, and I have to highlight and commend you because I, I try to share people forget we're human too. We can know all the things and try to really live in that lifestyle. [Page//00:24:00] And we still have to like, Oh gosh, look what I just did. Right. And so I love that you shared that because I do think it's important.
Julie Michelson: I joke with people. People think I've been eating the way I eat my whole life. And I'm like, no, I wouldn't have gotten sick had I been probably. So I love that. I want to shift. You mentioned Ayurvedic nerve, not nerves, herbs, Ayurvedic herbs as superfoods. And since you have a PhD in turmeric, I would love for you to share, touch a little bit just on that idea.
Julie Michelson: And then I want to talk about turmeric.
Shivani Gupta: Sure. So the thing is, we in the West think of superfoods as like salmon and blueberries and spinach and Maca powder and all these super powders that people are now incorporating into their morning smoothie. And I think that's wonderful because I think the superfoods are powerful.
Shivani Gupta: But when I looked them all up, most of them were taking because [Page//00:25:00] they are anti inflammatory and antioxidant. And I thought, okay, great. That's awesome. But I'm not eating so many gross things that I don't like in the name of those two traits. And so when I was doing my master's in Ayurvedic sciences in herbology class, They were talking about all the spices that we as Indians actually eat every day.
Shivani Gupta: We have a masala box, a spice box, and in that spice box, it's got coriander powder, red chili powder, cumin seeds, fenugreek. We've got turmeric, of course. We have garam masala, which has black pepper, which activates the turmeric. We've got this whole plethora of spices, and I realized that these all have the same benefits.
Shivani Gupta: as the superfoods. So we have that ability, ginger for example, to use these super spices and leverage them, flavor our food better, try different flavors and things as well, um, but also to get their benefits. And for me personally, having gut health issues all my life, just cumin and hing and turmeric from Ayurveda and ginger have [Page//00:26:00] been so powerful.
Shivani Gupta: And so when I learned about turmeric, I was like, wait a minute, This thing is that well received by the body and turmeric is not only anti inflammatory, powerful antioxidant, to the point that it goes and prevents oxidation in the system. So it's not like, Oh, I had this one consumption of it and it reduced, but it also goes after the things causing the oxidation.
Shivani Gupta: Talk about preventive. Then it's an immune modulator. Turmeric is antibacterial, antiviral. Antifungal. So basically at that point also it had me sold because I needed an immune system that worked and a defense system that I could actually rely on in this life. And then also I read about longevity and disease prevention and I was like, whoa, okay, so.
Shivani Gupta: We're all inflamed as a society, my whole family struggles with diabetes growing up every year when I went to India, someone else was dealing with heart attacks and quadruple bypasses and all these heart issues and health issues from the advanced stages of diabetes, even [Page//00:27:00] amputation, which was really traumatic to.
Shivani Gupta: experience and watch. And I thought, guys, what are we doing as a society that we work so hard to have this great life, give our kids a great life. And you're telling me at the end of it, I'm going to spend 20 years doing disease management and it's going to be horrific. No, no, no. There has to be a different way.
Shivani Gupta: We have to find it. And so when I discovered the benefits of turmeric. I decided to do a whole Ph. D. on it, which basically turned me into an evangelist. I really do think we should all take our turmeric. I think we should cook with it more. We should use it more. I think we all need to be taking supplemental doses of it so we get therapeutic doses.
Shivani Gupta: It's just so well received by the body. And now that I've been working with it all these years, I built my own product around it. I'm working on the clinical trials. I want double blind placebo controlled trials in America on knee osteoarthritis. And I'm already working with a team on why is it so well received?
Shivani Gupta: Like we're doing a nutrigenomic study to understand why on earth is the spice so well received [Page//00:28:00] compared to most things by this body? We don't know, but I just, I figured. It's a gift from mother earth. We happen to receive it well, so we should just use it because, because it is benefiting us.
Julie Michelson: Well, and I love that you say that because, and I want to just touch on this lightly if you can, because I always hear, oh, bioavailability, bioavailability, turmeric is really hard for the body to absorb and we don't use it well.
Julie Michelson: And here you're saying the absolute opposite is true.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah, so curcumin is not bioavailable, like not very well bioavailability wise for the body, it doesn't absorb well. But that's because it's an extract. So turmeric, we know, is well received by the body. Turmeric plant in its raw form was not oftentimes used in the Indian culture.
Shivani Gupta: We use more of the spice. So when you take the raw and you dry it, you get that potent spice. Turmeric, when you consume it, use a healthy fat. Or a black pepper to increase its absorption 2000%. [Page//00:29:00] So even turmeric itself as a spice without the activators is not as well absorbed, but isn't it beautiful that any Indian kitchen, the way we cook is we put oil in the pan.
Shivani Gupta: We put our human seeds and hang in the pan. And we always have got a masala or black pepper as part of the cooking process. You wouldn't skip your, your black pepper or red pepper in this journey. And certainly we don't cook without oil. So we always had the intelligence. In the cooking. The problem is now we're living in modern day society where there's a hundred different ways to inflame us every single day between the environmental toxins, the stress, the food quality, the package foods, all the different things that drive our system nuts.
Shivani Gupta: And so when we extract curcumin from turmeric, we again. just have to do the work of giving ourselves the ingredient that will increase its absorption. And I find it's very well absorbed by the body because I developed something around it eight years ago. I wanted to prove to Western medicine that they could offer this adjunct solution for pain and [Page//00:30:00] inflammation.
Shivani Gupta: Instead of always giving us NSAIDs, NSAIDs are great. I use them too. I used to use them when I needed them or in surgical situations. But now if we could offer a natural tool to people. then maybe they can reduce their use of those other things that have side effects and take turmeric instead. So my experience is it's very well absorbed as long as you're doing it the right way and putting it together the right way at the right potency.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And I love, and this is where we're, I would like to go next people. And again, it's habits and it's our health current healthcare system and, and just doctors living in their boxes. Right. And orthopedic surgeons are always, and rheumatologists, historically throwing NSAIDs and higher, higher doses if, if not opioids and, and things beyond that.
Julie Michelson: And I remember after healing my body and being on and prescription painkillers, I mean, I and muscle, I mean all the things. I was on 10 prescriptions. After I [Page//00:31:00] had healed and learned and was like, Oh my gosh, no wonder. Like I was pounding those NSAIDs for years. Um, I broke my shoulder about almost seven years ago.
Julie Michelson: And the doctor, I saw the PA and know my orthopedic surgeon very well. Our kids grew up together. And, and so, and I knew something was wrong when I broke my shoulder and I didn't want to go to the ER. I figured I'd just go straight to the source and get good x rays. And of course they wrote me, they wanted me to have a prescription for painkillers and they wanted me to take NSAIDs and they, and I didn't.
Julie Michelson: I did turmeric and I did the other things I know how to do to support my body. And it wasn't a matter of pride. Um, I have filled the prescription because I thought I haven't broken my shoulder before. I have no idea. And I know how important sleep is. I never had to take a thing. And so some of it is just our programming of, Oh my gosh, we need these things if this happens.
Julie Michelson: Um, [Page//00:32:00] and I love that you're focusing on knee arthritis because it's so common. And what I see going on in the orthopedic world with clients and friends, and they're just jumping to replacements like way too fast.
Shivani Gupta: I know it's terrible. Yeah. Yeah, and the thing is, if you look at that orthopedic toolkit, I'm married into an all MD surgeon family here in South Florida, so I get to watch the insides of what these practices are.
Shivani Gupta: Practitioners are kind of, like you said, in a box. They have to practice according to their standard of care. They have malpractice. They have certain rules. They actually can't function too far out of the box in the structure that they are part of. And so within that structure, the conversation I had eight years ago with one of my in laws was, In orthopedics, when the patient comes in pain, you're going to give them NSAIDs or PT, because that's the level they're at.
Shivani Gupta: Okay, they have to go beyond that, injections or stem cell or PRP. Okay, if they go beyond that, we're talking about surgery and joint [Page//00:33:00] replacement. And nowadays we have partial and robotic, and there are a lot of options in there, but you have to be careful because your, your replacements only last so long.
Shivani Gupta: Right. Then you have to do a revision. So time that aging right for yourself, but also don't wait so long that you lose so much function. Right. But my point was, I am one of those people. I threw out my back and they gave me the muscle relaxants and the opioids and everything. I took them, they all helped, they said NSAIDs 24 hours a day for 7 10 days, I did it, I listened, and then all of a sudden once the back pain was gone, and I did the injections, I did the whole entire thing.
Shivani Gupta: But once I was better, the PT said, just don't exercise, you should not exercise. Is that the solution? I'm still in my 30s back then. Most kids, I was like, that's not a good plan. So I went and found a trainer who taught me how to build a core. And once I had a strong core, I was better. But the problem that I saw was after I did that, I had such bad stomach aches after I ate.
Shivani Gupta: And I kept saying, guys, like every time I eat food, it hurts. What happened? They're like, oh, that's [Page//00:34:00] probably the NSAID. Yeah. And that's when I got mad. I was like, okay, so you guys give me solutions that have punishments. Right. What if we could have solutions that didn't have punishments? Wouldn't that be an interesting world?
Shivani Gupta: And it's just that matter of belief, like you're saying, like if you knew that you could build new toolkits. Right. I call it a pharmacy, F A R M. If you could have a pharmacy at home that could constantly support you, then you wouldn't reach for those tools anymore because they cause side effects and pain.
Shivani Gupta: And I still like to have them around. Like we said at the very beginning, I'm not anti Western medicine.
Julie Michelson: There's no either or. This is an and. And the goal is all of these things that we can incorporate in for healing. As you said, are also preventative. And so let's save like that heavy hitting toolbox for when we really need it.
Julie Michelson: And thank goodness it's there, but let's take a little power back and live full lives. So tell me a little bit about the supplement company, [Page//00:35:00] because I know you're not just making the same stuff everybody else's and putting a different label on it. So tell me what you're doing.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. So eight years ago, I finished the PhD and literally anyone who I would meet who had a problem, I would say, you could take two work for that.
Shivani Gupta: Oh, you have a cold? You can take two work for that. Oh, your knee hurts? You can take two work for that. And my family looked at me like, are you really, really going to say that for the rest of your life? And then just send them to the like Whole Foods and you don't, you're not even recommending which one to take.
Shivani Gupta: So I took a big deep dive. I read everyone's labels. I found it very confusing and I decided to create my own. And I worked with a factory and our goal was how can we create a replacement to end sets for orthopedics? So I went after the toughest door not realizing how long it might take me to get through that door But i've been calling on orthopedics for eight years because they Have the most joint pain that they see in their offices all day.
Shivani Gupta: Someone's coming in with acute pain And so now they offer my [Page//00:36:00] turmeric as an adjunct solution, and they've had a lot of patients come off of NSAIDs, come off of the stronger prescription NSAIDs, and they've been able to cut their opioid use in half out of their practices post op. So to me, that's like, my whole life is made.
Shivani Gupta: I achieved my whole goal. I am so happy with it. And then now I get to take it and see where else can we support the most. So functional medicine, rheumatology. I really want to show all of medicine that anytime you're going to say something has, someone has something itis, that something itis, we could be offering two tools.
Shivani Gupta: Offer your tool that you're going to offer. but offer a natural potent tool. And so when I was building Fusionary, my supplement company, my factory was like, these are not ingredients you can use. These are very expensive. This is, this is not how supplements do it. You can't do this. And I said, you know what?
Shivani Gupta: Try me. I'm one of those people. I just want to prove my point and we'll see later how we make that business stuff all work out. I'm not so worried about that part. And so we did build Fusionary and it's taken [Page//00:37:00] me. six years to get to this point where everything makes sense now with the numbers. But to me, because we were so driven by impact first, now I've held a lot of, I've held all the factors in fusionary the same over the eight years.
Shivani Gupta: And I can now start those clinical trials and get a lot of science published, also proving what we've been saying the whole time. So. So to me, my whole life is going to be about turmeric forever. I know that. I was meant to talk on this topic and I was meant to show people that we just, we don't have to always take other things for pain.
Shivani Gupta: We can take natural things for pain. We can also just address the root cause of inflammation. Maybe not have all the problems my family has. It's very personal to me that I stay healthy and I don't have diabetes like my family. And then all of us who suffer with immune issues. I've had leaky. I finally learned that I had leaky gut and that's why I had no immune system in my opinion.
Shivani Gupta: And so now that I [Page//00:38:00] have healed that. I need tools to, to stay strong and vibrant. So that's why I have Fusionary. And within Fusionary, not only do we help with joint pain, which is a big deal in inflammation. I realized if people don't sleep, they're not going to clear their inflammation. So I created sleep teas and sleep formulas.
Shivani Gupta: Then people got very loud about menopause. So I made a menopause tea. So to me, I'm constantly playing with teas, herbs, and supplements and seeing, can you make teas as functional as supplements? And then where out of the Ayurvedic toolkit can you pull the adaptogenic herbs or herbs that can create the biggest impact?
Shivani Gupta: And I will not create a formula until I know that I literally caused the change that I need to see.
Julie Michelson: I love it. And I'm so excited that because you were, when you, I was like, no, when you said, Oh, I've reached my goal. Well, of course, but there's new bigger goals than they, I'm excited because of my personal experience.
Julie Michelson: That you're also incorporating focus and rheumatology, because I remember [Page//00:39:00] that when I went to an appointment with my rheumatologist and I, and he said, Oh, do you need a Vicodin prescription? This was even before now they use Norco instead, but which is the opioids we're talking about. And I said, Oh, Oh no, I don't take that anymore.
Julie Michelson: And he just looked at me. And he's, and he was a progressive at the time in rheumatology. He was very open minded and progressive. And he said, well, nobody ever takes themselves off opioids. They just need more like, this is so unusual. Unfortunately, he didn't follow it with. Share with me what you've been doing.
Julie Michelson: Right? One step closer. But, so, having tools, I mean, they're effective tools. They really are.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah, and there's, there's so many of us who already get it, because we've either had those health traumas or health issues, so all of us in like functional, integrative, holistic. Sure, this is why we're here. Yeah.
Shivani Gupta: We're here to say all [Page//00:40:00] this stuff, but over here, seeing Western medicine and open their minds now, a lot post pandemic, my goal is really to say, look, guys, you are offering great tools. If you could trust a supplement to be pure and potent and made in the U. S. and third party tests and all those things, would you consider offering it and just seeing what it does in your patient?
Shivani Gupta: So that's where I find we can really open that door and have those conversations and say, look, there's, there's options. Don't say to the, I've, I've seen, I've been to multiple practitioners who are like, of course. There's nothing you can do with diet to impact thyroid. Oh, there's nothing you can do with diet to impact autoimmunity.
Shivani Gupta: And I'm like...
Julie Michelson: Any sentence that starts with there's nothing you can do, that might not be the best practitioner. Keep looking. Keep searching.
Shivani Gupta: Exactly. Please, anyone who listens to this, keep searching. There's always something we can do. Always.
Julie Michelson: And for our listeners, Shivani has been so generous. If you are intrigued, which I hope you are.[Page//00:41:00]
Julie Michelson: Hope you are brave and smart enough to at least pop on the website and see which of the products speaks to you. I highly do recommend this is the approach that works. I know it does. It's, it's a, it's an incorporation and adjunct, if you will, even if you're not all like, Oh my gosh, I'm changing it. Um, but incorporate some of these really, really true, powerful.
Julie Michelson: Supplements into your routine. And if you use the code inspired living, she's giving you 15 percent off, which is quite a deal. And, and I'm just so excited for effective tools that we can access directly to. Sometimes it's hard to find that practitioner that has what you're looking for. So I love that you're also allowing consumers to, to take the control and, and try some of these things themselves.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. That's what we do. We're, we're doctors only, and we're on our website only. And that's it. Perfect.
Julie Michelson: That's how you, that's how you [Page//00:42:00] keep the quality up. So that's great. That's great. So we're at that point in the podcast where I am not to throw you under the bus, but listeners know to expect could be something you've already said.
Julie Michelson: It could be something new. What is one thing one step listeners can take today to start to improve their health?
Shivani Gupta: A simple one is using a metal tongue scraper. It's an Ayurvedic self care habit. We teach to use a copper tongue scraper.
Julie Michelson: I was like, you said metal. I hope you say copper.
Shivani Gupta: Yes, copper is like the most antibacterial of the metals and it's like a self cleaning tool pretty much, but please rinse it.
Shivani Gupta: And you take that copper tongue scraper and you gently scrape the tongue from the middle to the front seven to 14 times every morning. And what that's going to do is it's going to ignite the digestive fire. It's going to gently detox all the organs of the body because we teach that all the organs of the body are reflected on the bottom of the foot.
Shivani Gupta: That's what reflexology teaches. And same in Ayurveda, we teach that they're all reflected on the [Page//00:43:00] tongue. It's also going to give better oral health, cleaner oral health, which is cleaner oral microbiome and gut microbiome. So it has a lot of benefits. And you can do it right after you brush your teeth every morning.
Shivani Gupta: It just takes a few seconds. But it's a gentle way to detox the body every day, which supports us in our annual detoxes and reducing our toxic burden overall.
Julie Michelson: So I love tongue scraping. Once it's a habit, like you, you can't not like it just, you don't even feel, I don't even feel like I'm, my mouth is clean enough if I haven't scraped my tongue.
Julie Michelson: And I have, I think my copper. The, the one I have now is from 2016. So, I mean, they land and they're not expensive, they're inexpensive to begin with, but also unless you lose it, like they're, do you have it forever? So I love it.
Shivani Gupta: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: Amazing.
Shivani Gupta: That's one of my favorites.
Julie Michelson: That's a great one. So where is, and we'll have all of these. wonderful links in the show notes, but, but for people that [Page//00:44:00] are listening on the go, hopefully they're listening while they're driving and not eating while they're driving. Where's the best place to find you?
Shivani Gupta: Sure. So my website is my name. shivanigupta.com S H I V A N I Gupta. I'm on Instagram as @dr.shivanigupta. And then the supplement companies, fusionary formulas, F U S I O N A R Y formulas. com. And then it's on Instagram, Facebook and everything as well. And I made the fusionary health podcast. That's where I talk about health topics like this as well.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. So amazing. Dr. Shivani, thank you so, so much for sharing such just incredible information.
Julie Michelson: We could, we could do five episodes and still be just scratching the surface. I know of what you could teach us about. So appreciate it.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. Thank you so much
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living. show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
Julie Michelson: I'll see you next week. [Page//00:45:00]
Julie Michelson: In our [Page//00:01:00] conversation, Dr. Shivani shares about Ayurveda, how living an Ayurvedic lifestyle according to nature's rhythms supports optimal health and healing. We discuss the importance of not only what you eat, but how you eat and how you sleep and the powerful Ayurvedic herbs as super foods.
Julie Michelson: Shivani, welcome to the podcast.
Shivani Gupta: Thank you for having me.
Julie Michelson: I am so excited to, to dig in. I already have way too many questions percolating in my brain, but first I would love for you to share a bit of your journey with listeners. How did you end up, did you share any part of it between the Ayurveda, the PhD intern, like there's so many, so many things you're doing that none of us ever woke up and said, Oh, let me, let me study this.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. Yeah. Well, for me, it all started, started with a health journey, and I think that's most of us in the health and [Page//00:02:00] wellness space is we had our own big issue. We had to climb this mountain to fix it because we finally fixed it. We became this crazy evangelist who said, Hey, everyone should do it. You guys should understand that there's a different way that you could feel.
Shivani Gupta: And so that was certainly my story. I grew up in Houston, Texas to this immigrant family, and I grew up in Houston, Texas, living one way. Where whenever I got sick, we'd just go to the pediatrician. They'd give us a script. We would take the antibiotics. We'd run to the drugstore, take a few medications and eventually get better in 10, 12 days.
Shivani Gupta: But I did that probably 50 times more than any normal person. And so by the time I got to high school, I was taking really heavy dose antibiotics. every month for my cold. And I couldn't understand. I was like, why, why am I the only sick person? Why is it that all my friends can go out and go to movies and have fun?
Shivani Gupta: And I'm just always left behind. And through that time, we were going to India every year to see my cousins and my grandparents. And when we went to India, I would get [Page//00:03:00] disastrously sick. Like I'd end up nearly hospitalized. And so then again, they'd use these really crazy strong antibiotics. blow up my gut.
Shivani Gupta: And so finally, by the time I got to college, I got really frustrated. And we were sitting in front of this Dr. Gupta, this man I remember. And he's like, well, here's your prescription. And it was like 12 medications. And I looked at the list and I was like, you know what? No. No, I don't accept any, my whole family's like, excuse me, you're about to die.
Shivani Gupta: I think you should take the prescription. And I was like, I don't think that this has been working. We need to go find a new way forward. And I told my parents we're in the land of yoga and Ayurveda. Like every time we travel through India, we can see Ayurvedic services and Ayurvedic herbs. Like what is this thing?
Shivani Gupta: And could we try this new toolkit? And we did and I was so impressed, but I went with a discerning mind because I'm American and I'm Indian, so I was like, well, let's make sure your stuff works. Let's make sure even though it's ancient, it's valid. And so I went with this [Page//00:04:00] really scientific mind and just open to what was possible.
Shivani Gupta: And I healed my gut, healed my health, learned that gut is immune health, learned that Ayurvedic herbs are powerhouses and superfoods that we just don't think of as superfoods. I learned that Ayurvedic, the Ayurvedic lifestyle is a preventive lifestyle. And if I can live that way, I can hold this incredible immune system and health that I want.
Shivani Gupta: So that's why I'm the biggest fan of it. And then I went and did my master's in it. I did my PhD in it, and now I just love sharing it.
Julie Michelson: Which I love is amazing. And it is so interesting. We have, I mean, whether it's food, medicine, all the things, because food is medicine, right? We've gotten so far away from these brilliant ancient approaches that work and that work with our bodies and not as band aids.
Julie Michelson: And, and I'm guessing you're not. saying either, like if you needed to go to a Western doc for something, you would, [Page//00:05:00] I always say like, if I need surgery, I am definitely going to a Western trained physician for sure. But I love this idea that, and this is why we have these conversations, right? Because many of my listeners are looking to reclaim full health and, and a good amount are looking to prevent an autoimmune diagnosis, or they want to know.
Julie Michelson: How to age healthily. So I love, I love the topic and yeah, I'm just excited to learn from you today. So can you give a, just kind of a broad or however detailed you want, but an easily digested for people that are like, what is Ayurveda? I've never heard of it. Or maybe they've heard the word in a spa, they might've had a spa treatment once or something.
Julie Michelson: Tell us a little more about it.
Shivani Gupta: Sure. So under the umbrella of complementary and alternative medicine here in the [Page//00:06:00] West, one of the modalities listed is Ayurveda, but unfortunately, Ayurveda is like the last door anyone goes and finds when it comes to their health. So it's my mission to bring Ayurveda, like, into the forefront of understanding.
Shivani Gupta: That it's very valid. And Deepak Chopra did a great job of that. He's been a big proponent of sharing the message of Ayurveda. So Ayurveda is a system of health, healing, and medicine from India. That's over 5, 000 years old. So just like we have traditional Chinese medicine that includes acupuncture in India, we had this ancient system running alongside.
Shivani Gupta: called Ayurveda. And it's basically a preventive lifestyle that shows us how to live in a way that brings body, mind, and spirit into alignment. And what we teach is if there's ever disalignment there, we're not going to have true health or vibrant health. And so under the umbrella of Ayurveda, within the ancient scripts, like I even have the ancient scripts here in my office, they already spoke about all the different subspecialties of medicine, like obstetrics, [Page//00:07:00] surgery.
Shivani Gupta: All these things were talked about centuries before what we think is now Western medicine. So there was this acknowledgement that we have these systems, we must take care of them. Ayurveda teaches us to live according to circadian rhythm, which is nature's clock and nature's rhythm. That's what keeps us in alignment.
Shivani Gupta: Ayurveda teaches us how to really honor gut health and that gut health or the digestive Fire is the center of all health and that above all must be revered. So it's cool that in modern science, we talk about gut microbiome, gut brain access. We're putting a lot of scientific terminology and we're proving scientifically what Ayurveda already said, which was your entire immune system, your entire vitality all comes down to your gut health above all.
Shivani Gupta: And then what's beautiful is we have a whole other toolkit. We have herbs and spices we use. We make teas and different solutions for people. We teach that sleep is paramount. We teach that reducing inflammation is important. We teach about [Page//00:08:00] how, how you eat is almost important, more important than what you eat.
Shivani Gupta: So we obsess a lot about what we eat in the West, but we forget that We shouldn't eat standing up and we shouldn't drink ice water five seconds before we're going to eat a meal. And so we have a lot of guidelines that show people how to take the food you're going to eat and really receive it in a entirely new way.
Shivani Gupta: So you absorb the nutrition and build that vitality from the inside. So I really think of it as a rhythm and a way of life that we can all incorporate and then powerful super foods and tools that we can reach into when we need them. Amazing. And then one last thing I forgot, Ayurveda teaches a major concept called the doshas, which is our individual mind body constitution.
Shivani Gupta: And knowing your constitution is important because then you can leverage and utilize and balance your individual constitution to build the health that you want as well.
Julie Michelson: Which I love because we know that, I mean, you, you hit on so many things that to me is [Page//00:09:00] again, we're coming back to, especially in the functional medicine space, it's lifestyle medicine.
Julie Michelson: That's why they call it that. And so I want to dig in a little bit to some of those. Ways that we can be living, even if somebody just wants to dip their toe in. I hope everybody does want to learn more about Ayurveda. It's amazing. But with the doshas, it's also, which is we see every day. It's not a one size fits all.
Julie Michelson: We aren't all identical and it's not eat this way, sleep this way, move this way, and you'll be great. And so again, it's like the wisdom. Of this system is, is brilliant. And I love that as science catches up, we're, we're returning to that. And it's like, Oh, this stuff really works. I want to start with.
Julie Michelson: Digging in a little bit about living with honoring circadian rhythm, optimizing circadian rhythm, limit this idea of living [Page//00:10:00] with nature, especially if the timing of this recording is, is perfect, because depending on where you live, you may have just gone through daylight savings time, which is so not, again, we're trying to manipulate and control things that we maybe ought not be.
Julie Michelson: I know. So, so how in modern day life. We've, we've had conversations on the podcast about, and I always love when things come up again, right? Like sleep is so important and, and circadian rhythm is so important, but how in modern life. Do you support people in actually living in that rhythm when people are working?
Julie Michelson: It's, it's an interesting, especially nor heading into winter. And so daylight is short. So I'm guessing you're not necessarily saying everybody has to be going to sleep when the sun goes down and getting up when, I mean, I know that's ideal, but we don't [Page//00:11:00] necessarily live that kind of life anymore.
Shivani Gupta: Correct.
Shivani Gupta: And right now it's getting dark at 6pm, which is just ridiculous. It's a shortening of the whole evening, shortening of the opportunity to go move in nature when the weather is stunning. Yes. So, when I have time, I shouldn't even say that, in this lifetime, I want us to all band together and band Daylight Songs.
Julie Michelson: Oh, please.
Julie Michelson: It is so harmful.
Shivani Gupta: I think we need to petition and just make that one happen. It is harmful because it completely screws up the entire rhythm I build for myself. It really drives me nuts. But the topic of circadian rhythm is really powerful because circadian medicine, chronobiology, this concept Nature is what we are from nature is what we're going to go back to and nature dictates all we live on Mother Earth.
Shivani Gupta: This is the planet we're on. And the rhythm of this planet is what is dictating what's happening in our bodies and in ourselves. And so basically circadian rhythm [Page//00:12:00] circadian medicine, which has been proven by Nobel Peace Prize winners to be true. I already taught about it 5000 years ago, but we have science that validates its trueness, circadian medicine is just saying that our cells are going to reflect nature's clock.
Shivani Gupta: And so we can battle against that or we can work with that. All that to say that when you look out at animal kingdom, the animal kingdom is going to rise. Like you can hear the birds chirping in the morning when the sun rises, you can set tell that everything settles down for the nighttime because it's dark.
Shivani Gupta: And so we are meant to do the same thing. We're not meant to synthetically create these new schedules just because we want to biohack and use neurotropics and I don't know, intermittent fasting. I think a lot of these tools are effective. I actually like playing with everything, but I think it's so important to realize for your body, for your constitution, for where you live, how you can live.
Shivani Gupta: According to the moon cycles, the sun cycles and the seasonal cycles and [Page//00:13:00] even your own annual, if not decade cycles. So really taking that moment to tune into where do I live? I personally live in Florida. It's burning hot here. We don't usually have a real fall or Real winter according to the rest of the country, but can I still honor that October means we're in fall?
Shivani Gupta: So I'm gonna transition to fall foods I'm gonna recognize that a fall seasonal diet is more nourishing to my system more well received and has a Specific purpose for my health same with winter winter season We're meant to really eat warmer foods those foods that are comforting soups and stews the foods that grow in the winter Those are better absorbed by the body and better utilized.
Julie Michelson: So even when you're living in South Florida, where it's still hot in winter, just less so.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. Yeah. So you, you might not overdo it. I might not drink hot, hot chocolate every day. It's a little warm for that, but on the cooler days really incorporate those things. And [Page//00:14:00] also making sure that we're not bypassing the seasons completely.
Shivani Gupta: A lot of us keep a very mono diet year round. I meet tons of people who are like, I eat salmon and salad 365 days a year. And I'm like, guys, seasonal nutrition, nutrient density, and nutrient variety has so much power for our health. So that's something to really acknowledge. And then the next piece is sleep.
Shivani Gupta: A lot of what we talk about with circadian rhythm is nature's clock tells you that 10 to 2 on that clock, according to Ayurveda is the most optimal time to sleep because 10 to 2 is when 10 o'clock is when the melatonin is released for our body. And during that time frame, Lymphatic system, glymphatic system, regeneration, all these processes of the body are most supported because on the Ayurvedic clock we call that time Pitta, time of day.
Shivani Gupta: So Pitta means that fire.
Julie Michelson: And that's V I T T A for those who want to spell it in English.
Shivani Gupta: Yes, people here in the West, we pronounce it Pitta. [Page//00:15:00] So the Pitta Dosha allows you to really clean and cleanse and purify. So for those people who are waking up tired and lethargic and fatigued and joint pain and achy, I really invite everyone to move their bedtime back 10 to 15 minutes at a time and really learn to honor sleep as the most important health habit we put in place.
Shivani Gupta: Even before we think about diet, even before we think about exercise, sleep is like the anchor cornerstone to our health. And to honor that builds the rhythm strongly. Then we can talk about our next day schedule and building that rhythm into the next day. And I like to teach different self care habits that build rhythms into our lives.
Julie Michelson: I love that. That's amazing. And we, we, we are creatures of habit. We need, not only do we have all of these rhythms of nature, but I, I do think everybody, well, I shouldn't say everybody. You can get a lot of agreement that babies thrive on routine, right? Little kids [Page//00:16:00] thrive on routine. Why do we think we don't?
Julie Michelson: Like, it's really, we're still human, we're just larger humans. So,
Shivani Gupta: I think. And a lot of times I bring up that analogy of, when you go to put a baby to bed, you get real strict about the series of rituals you do to ensure that baby will sleep. Mama gets real serious about we close the blinds, we turn on the essential oils, we turn on the right music, we do the bath.
Shivani Gupta: What if we as adults treated ourselves like that? Do you know how epic your sleep could be if you treated yourself like that? So that's what I teach is Ayurvedic self care rituals for bedtime. And the sleep you can get is so profound. I find I'm twice as smart. And like incredibly capable on those days when I do those rituals because my sleep is by
Julie Michelson: the time you then hit the bed, your body is there.
Julie Michelson: It's like, okay, we know it's sleep time. And I love that you say you feel [Page//00:17:00] smarter because I'm like, of course you do. Cause your brain detox better. And you're all the things, the healing, the repair, all of those wonderful things. Essential foundational things that we tend to think that modern times we can do without, and we can't.
Julie Michelson: Wow. Amazing. Amazing. So I want to talk a little bit about, cause I can't help myself. These are some of my favorite topics. How you eat. So you touched on eating seasonally. And I do think again, this is where those modern gifts. Also give us an opportunity to fall away from nature, right? Because you can go to the store and get salmon and salad every day of the year, pretty much no matter where you live, if you have somewhere where they're bringing food in.
Julie Michelson: So what, let's talk a little bit about the how you eat. We already know not standing up, but I bet it's a little more than that.
Shivani Gupta: Sure. Yeah, it is. And there's so much [Page//00:18:00] controversy around diets, the ketogenic, the carnivore, the Mediterranean, the this, that, and the other. I think that most of us who are in the functional medicine, lifestyle medicine space agree it's about variety.
Shivani Gupta: It's about nutrient density. You could follow the blue zone diet. You can follow the Mediterranean diet. A lot of these are pretty standard, known to be good. And each practitioner has their own preferences as well, based on your specialties.
Julie Michelson: And each person, I think, again, that's another does better. People are always asking me about things and my, my background into functional medicine is through biohacking.
Julie Michelson: And so people always bring a lot of questions about intermittent fasting or how do you feel about keto? And it's like, I feel like it can be great for some people and it can be great for some people in certain periods. And not others. And so I, we are really all individual, no matter, I think all practitioners can agree a processed food, high carb diet is not great for anybody.
Julie Michelson: But when we talk about real food with a [Page//00:19:00] lot of nutrient density, then it's, it's just shifting. How much of what you're eating, correct?
Shivani Gupta: Yeah, that's so true. It's such a good point because we all have different hereditary backgrounds, geo targeted backgrounds. Like we, we come from different places. So we need to look at that bio individually.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. I love that. How to eat from Ayurveda is actually so interesting. It's about honoring the fact that this digestive system is a digestive fire. So if you can imagine it like a campfire, If you had a campfire because you were actually out camping in the forest, you would tend to that fire. You would build the fire.
Shivani Gupta: You would use big pieces of wood, medium and small. You'd ignite that fire. And if you were actually living out there, you wouldn't just, like, shut the campfire down at night by messing it up or throwing water on it. You would maintain it. So in the same way, every morning. when you wake up, ignite the digestive fire because you're going to use it for the day.
Shivani Gupta: So that's where habits like ginger lemon tea [Page//00:20:00] come in. Ginger lemon honey tea or ginger lemon tea in the morning is a beautiful way to put ginger into your system. It's warming. It's going to ignite that digestive fire. Tell that fire, let's go. We've, we're starting our day. Now, whether you eat soon within that timeframe or you intermittent fast and do all your other liquids all morning, that's your choice.
Shivani Gupta: But by the time you hit lunchtime, we want lunch to happen between 10 and two in that same part of the pie on the clock, because that's your fifth time of day. And that fifth of fire is there to support your digestion. So you actually have the ability to eat like a more nutrient dense meal, more variety in that meal.
Shivani Gupta: But we want you to eat the meal sitting down. We want you to not be in your pair, in your sympathetic nervous system. We want you to be in the parasympathetic rest and digest. A lot of us sit down to eat. I just did it. I was between interviews and I was like, I've got 10 minutes, fried some eggs, threw it on a tortilla, ate it.
Shivani Gupta: Reading my iPhone.
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:21:00] No!
Shivani Gupta: We're not digesting that beautiful, healthy, organic protein with that healthy, gluten free tortilla. Why? Because we had zero consciousness about the meal. So even I catch myself and I'm like, alright, listen. Bone down. Three deep breaths. That's all it takes. Just, like, tune into here and now and honor that the food you're about to eat is to nourish you.
Shivani Gupta: You're not just throwing food in a garbage can in here. It's meant to, like, figure out what to do with it. You're really trying to nourish self. And so Honoring that time, focusing on the food, and it's funny, I held an Ayurveda conference many years ago, and one of the practitioners said, I would rather you eat a cheeseburger than eat kichadi while driving.
Shivani Gupta: And I always think of him when I eat food in my car, because I'm like, do you understand that? I only sit down and sit still when I'm driving. Otherwise, I'm moving between meetings and in motion. But khichdi is a beautiful dish out of [Page//00:22:00] Ayurveda that we use when we want to do gut healing. So it's like a very simple porridge that you make out of rice and lentils.
Shivani Gupta: Anytime I need someone to go real simple on the diet and do a gut healing protocol, we recommend khichdi. And so it's just funny to say something so complex. Versus Kichidi, what he's basically saying is we can't be in motion when we eat.
Julie Michelson: We're asking the body to be still. Or even literally in motion even mentally.
Julie Michelson: So if you're in that sympathetic state and you're sitting and you think you're, you've stopped, but. You haven't if you haven't shifted into the parasympathetic state and I, I love that and that is where it is more important how you eat for sure, because you can eat the best food in the world but if you're not digesting it and absorbing it, it doesn't matter.
Shivani Gupta: Waste of time, like you're just good job for consuming something good over bad, but you're not going to get all the benefits so here we are investing time, money, effort. All this mental energy on eating [Page//00:23:00] better, but we're doing it in the front of the tv in front of the iphone in front of netflix unconscious eating and then that's why we're later reaching for chips and crackers and sugar because we didn't even realize or acknowledge what we did and what we ate.
Shivani Gupta: And so our goal from Mayra Vida is. Really find food that's nourishing, understand that what we consume impacts our mental health, it impacts our emotional health, bring consciousness to it, don't microwave your food, store it in glass, even some of these basic things are the how you eat, they're the around the food process, and are equally important to what we're eating, because otherwise we're just poisoning our food, and Poisoning it as we're consuming it instead of nourishing self.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And I, and I have to highlight and commend you because I, I try to share people forget we're human too. We can know all the things and try to really live in that lifestyle. [Page//00:24:00] And we still have to like, Oh gosh, look what I just did. Right. And so I love that you shared that because I do think it's important.
Julie Michelson: I joke with people. People think I've been eating the way I eat my whole life. And I'm like, no, I wouldn't have gotten sick had I been probably. So I love that. I want to shift. You mentioned Ayurvedic nerve, not nerves, herbs, Ayurvedic herbs as superfoods. And since you have a PhD in turmeric, I would love for you to share, touch a little bit just on that idea.
Julie Michelson: And then I want to talk about turmeric.
Shivani Gupta: Sure. So the thing is, we in the West think of superfoods as like salmon and blueberries and spinach and Maca powder and all these super powders that people are now incorporating into their morning smoothie. And I think that's wonderful because I think the superfoods are powerful.
Shivani Gupta: But when I looked them all up, most of them were taking because [Page//00:25:00] they are anti inflammatory and antioxidant. And I thought, okay, great. That's awesome. But I'm not eating so many gross things that I don't like in the name of those two traits. And so when I was doing my master's in Ayurvedic sciences in herbology class, They were talking about all the spices that we as Indians actually eat every day.
Shivani Gupta: We have a masala box, a spice box, and in that spice box, it's got coriander powder, red chili powder, cumin seeds, fenugreek. We've got turmeric, of course. We have garam masala, which has black pepper, which activates the turmeric. We've got this whole plethora of spices, and I realized that these all have the same benefits.
Shivani Gupta: as the superfoods. So we have that ability, ginger for example, to use these super spices and leverage them, flavor our food better, try different flavors and things as well, um, but also to get their benefits. And for me personally, having gut health issues all my life, just cumin and hing and turmeric from Ayurveda and ginger have [Page//00:26:00] been so powerful.
Shivani Gupta: And so when I learned about turmeric, I was like, wait a minute, This thing is that well received by the body and turmeric is not only anti inflammatory, powerful antioxidant, to the point that it goes and prevents oxidation in the system. So it's not like, Oh, I had this one consumption of it and it reduced, but it also goes after the things causing the oxidation.
Shivani Gupta: Talk about preventive. Then it's an immune modulator. Turmeric is antibacterial, antiviral. Antifungal. So basically at that point also it had me sold because I needed an immune system that worked and a defense system that I could actually rely on in this life. And then also I read about longevity and disease prevention and I was like, whoa, okay, so.
Shivani Gupta: We're all inflamed as a society, my whole family struggles with diabetes growing up every year when I went to India, someone else was dealing with heart attacks and quadruple bypasses and all these heart issues and health issues from the advanced stages of diabetes, even [Page//00:27:00] amputation, which was really traumatic to.
Shivani Gupta: experience and watch. And I thought, guys, what are we doing as a society that we work so hard to have this great life, give our kids a great life. And you're telling me at the end of it, I'm going to spend 20 years doing disease management and it's going to be horrific. No, no, no. There has to be a different way.
Shivani Gupta: We have to find it. And so when I discovered the benefits of turmeric. I decided to do a whole Ph. D. on it, which basically turned me into an evangelist. I really do think we should all take our turmeric. I think we should cook with it more. We should use it more. I think we all need to be taking supplemental doses of it so we get therapeutic doses.
Shivani Gupta: It's just so well received by the body. And now that I've been working with it all these years, I built my own product around it. I'm working on the clinical trials. I want double blind placebo controlled trials in America on knee osteoarthritis. And I'm already working with a team on why is it so well received?
Shivani Gupta: Like we're doing a nutrigenomic study to understand why on earth is the spice so well received [Page//00:28:00] compared to most things by this body? We don't know, but I just, I figured. It's a gift from mother earth. We happen to receive it well, so we should just use it because, because it is benefiting us.
Julie Michelson: Well, and I love that you say that because, and I want to just touch on this lightly if you can, because I always hear, oh, bioavailability, bioavailability, turmeric is really hard for the body to absorb and we don't use it well.
Julie Michelson: And here you're saying the absolute opposite is true.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah, so curcumin is not bioavailable, like not very well bioavailability wise for the body, it doesn't absorb well. But that's because it's an extract. So turmeric, we know, is well received by the body. Turmeric plant in its raw form was not oftentimes used in the Indian culture.
Shivani Gupta: We use more of the spice. So when you take the raw and you dry it, you get that potent spice. Turmeric, when you consume it, use a healthy fat. Or a black pepper to increase its absorption 2000%. [Page//00:29:00] So even turmeric itself as a spice without the activators is not as well absorbed, but isn't it beautiful that any Indian kitchen, the way we cook is we put oil in the pan.
Shivani Gupta: We put our human seeds and hang in the pan. And we always have got a masala or black pepper as part of the cooking process. You wouldn't skip your, your black pepper or red pepper in this journey. And certainly we don't cook without oil. So we always had the intelligence. In the cooking. The problem is now we're living in modern day society where there's a hundred different ways to inflame us every single day between the environmental toxins, the stress, the food quality, the package foods, all the different things that drive our system nuts.
Shivani Gupta: And so when we extract curcumin from turmeric, we again. just have to do the work of giving ourselves the ingredient that will increase its absorption. And I find it's very well absorbed by the body because I developed something around it eight years ago. I wanted to prove to Western medicine that they could offer this adjunct solution for pain and [Page//00:30:00] inflammation.
Shivani Gupta: Instead of always giving us NSAIDs, NSAIDs are great. I use them too. I used to use them when I needed them or in surgical situations. But now if we could offer a natural tool to people. then maybe they can reduce their use of those other things that have side effects and take turmeric instead. So my experience is it's very well absorbed as long as you're doing it the right way and putting it together the right way at the right potency.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And I love, and this is where we're, I would like to go next people. And again, it's habits and it's our health current healthcare system and, and just doctors living in their boxes. Right. And orthopedic surgeons are always, and rheumatologists, historically throwing NSAIDs and higher, higher doses if, if not opioids and, and things beyond that.
Julie Michelson: And I remember after healing my body and being on and prescription painkillers, I mean, I and muscle, I mean all the things. I was on 10 prescriptions. After I [Page//00:31:00] had healed and learned and was like, Oh my gosh, no wonder. Like I was pounding those NSAIDs for years. Um, I broke my shoulder about almost seven years ago.
Julie Michelson: And the doctor, I saw the PA and know my orthopedic surgeon very well. Our kids grew up together. And, and so, and I knew something was wrong when I broke my shoulder and I didn't want to go to the ER. I figured I'd just go straight to the source and get good x rays. And of course they wrote me, they wanted me to have a prescription for painkillers and they wanted me to take NSAIDs and they, and I didn't.
Julie Michelson: I did turmeric and I did the other things I know how to do to support my body. And it wasn't a matter of pride. Um, I have filled the prescription because I thought I haven't broken my shoulder before. I have no idea. And I know how important sleep is. I never had to take a thing. And so some of it is just our programming of, Oh my gosh, we need these things if this happens.
Julie Michelson: Um, [Page//00:32:00] and I love that you're focusing on knee arthritis because it's so common. And what I see going on in the orthopedic world with clients and friends, and they're just jumping to replacements like way too fast.
Shivani Gupta: I know it's terrible. Yeah. Yeah, and the thing is, if you look at that orthopedic toolkit, I'm married into an all MD surgeon family here in South Florida, so I get to watch the insides of what these practices are.
Shivani Gupta: Practitioners are kind of, like you said, in a box. They have to practice according to their standard of care. They have malpractice. They have certain rules. They actually can't function too far out of the box in the structure that they are part of. And so within that structure, the conversation I had eight years ago with one of my in laws was, In orthopedics, when the patient comes in pain, you're going to give them NSAIDs or PT, because that's the level they're at.
Shivani Gupta: Okay, they have to go beyond that, injections or stem cell or PRP. Okay, if they go beyond that, we're talking about surgery and joint [Page//00:33:00] replacement. And nowadays we have partial and robotic, and there are a lot of options in there, but you have to be careful because your, your replacements only last so long.
Shivani Gupta: Right. Then you have to do a revision. So time that aging right for yourself, but also don't wait so long that you lose so much function. Right. But my point was, I am one of those people. I threw out my back and they gave me the muscle relaxants and the opioids and everything. I took them, they all helped, they said NSAIDs 24 hours a day for 7 10 days, I did it, I listened, and then all of a sudden once the back pain was gone, and I did the injections, I did the whole entire thing.
Shivani Gupta: But once I was better, the PT said, just don't exercise, you should not exercise. Is that the solution? I'm still in my 30s back then. Most kids, I was like, that's not a good plan. So I went and found a trainer who taught me how to build a core. And once I had a strong core, I was better. But the problem that I saw was after I did that, I had such bad stomach aches after I ate.
Shivani Gupta: And I kept saying, guys, like every time I eat food, it hurts. What happened? They're like, oh, that's [Page//00:34:00] probably the NSAID. Yeah. And that's when I got mad. I was like, okay, so you guys give me solutions that have punishments. Right. What if we could have solutions that didn't have punishments? Wouldn't that be an interesting world?
Shivani Gupta: And it's just that matter of belief, like you're saying, like if you knew that you could build new toolkits. Right. I call it a pharmacy, F A R M. If you could have a pharmacy at home that could constantly support you, then you wouldn't reach for those tools anymore because they cause side effects and pain.
Shivani Gupta: And I still like to have them around. Like we said at the very beginning, I'm not anti Western medicine.
Julie Michelson: There's no either or. This is an and. And the goal is all of these things that we can incorporate in for healing. As you said, are also preventative. And so let's save like that heavy hitting toolbox for when we really need it.
Julie Michelson: And thank goodness it's there, but let's take a little power back and live full lives. So tell me a little bit about the supplement company, [Page//00:35:00] because I know you're not just making the same stuff everybody else's and putting a different label on it. So tell me what you're doing.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. So eight years ago, I finished the PhD and literally anyone who I would meet who had a problem, I would say, you could take two work for that.
Shivani Gupta: Oh, you have a cold? You can take two work for that. Oh, your knee hurts? You can take two work for that. And my family looked at me like, are you really, really going to say that for the rest of your life? And then just send them to the like Whole Foods and you don't, you're not even recommending which one to take.
Shivani Gupta: So I took a big deep dive. I read everyone's labels. I found it very confusing and I decided to create my own. And I worked with a factory and our goal was how can we create a replacement to end sets for orthopedics? So I went after the toughest door not realizing how long it might take me to get through that door But i've been calling on orthopedics for eight years because they Have the most joint pain that they see in their offices all day.
Shivani Gupta: Someone's coming in with acute pain And so now they offer my [Page//00:36:00] turmeric as an adjunct solution, and they've had a lot of patients come off of NSAIDs, come off of the stronger prescription NSAIDs, and they've been able to cut their opioid use in half out of their practices post op. So to me, that's like, my whole life is made.
Shivani Gupta: I achieved my whole goal. I am so happy with it. And then now I get to take it and see where else can we support the most. So functional medicine, rheumatology. I really want to show all of medicine that anytime you're going to say something has, someone has something itis, that something itis, we could be offering two tools.
Shivani Gupta: Offer your tool that you're going to offer. but offer a natural potent tool. And so when I was building Fusionary, my supplement company, my factory was like, these are not ingredients you can use. These are very expensive. This is, this is not how supplements do it. You can't do this. And I said, you know what?
Shivani Gupta: Try me. I'm one of those people. I just want to prove my point and we'll see later how we make that business stuff all work out. I'm not so worried about that part. And so we did build Fusionary and it's taken [Page//00:37:00] me. six years to get to this point where everything makes sense now with the numbers. But to me, because we were so driven by impact first, now I've held a lot of, I've held all the factors in fusionary the same over the eight years.
Shivani Gupta: And I can now start those clinical trials and get a lot of science published, also proving what we've been saying the whole time. So. So to me, my whole life is going to be about turmeric forever. I know that. I was meant to talk on this topic and I was meant to show people that we just, we don't have to always take other things for pain.
Shivani Gupta: We can take natural things for pain. We can also just address the root cause of inflammation. Maybe not have all the problems my family has. It's very personal to me that I stay healthy and I don't have diabetes like my family. And then all of us who suffer with immune issues. I've had leaky. I finally learned that I had leaky gut and that's why I had no immune system in my opinion.
Shivani Gupta: And so now that I [Page//00:38:00] have healed that. I need tools to, to stay strong and vibrant. So that's why I have Fusionary. And within Fusionary, not only do we help with joint pain, which is a big deal in inflammation. I realized if people don't sleep, they're not going to clear their inflammation. So I created sleep teas and sleep formulas.
Shivani Gupta: Then people got very loud about menopause. So I made a menopause tea. So to me, I'm constantly playing with teas, herbs, and supplements and seeing, can you make teas as functional as supplements? And then where out of the Ayurvedic toolkit can you pull the adaptogenic herbs or herbs that can create the biggest impact?
Shivani Gupta: And I will not create a formula until I know that I literally caused the change that I need to see.
Julie Michelson: I love it. And I'm so excited that because you were, when you, I was like, no, when you said, Oh, I've reached my goal. Well, of course, but there's new bigger goals than they, I'm excited because of my personal experience.
Julie Michelson: That you're also incorporating focus and rheumatology, because I remember [Page//00:39:00] that when I went to an appointment with my rheumatologist and I, and he said, Oh, do you need a Vicodin prescription? This was even before now they use Norco instead, but which is the opioids we're talking about. And I said, Oh, Oh no, I don't take that anymore.
Julie Michelson: And he just looked at me. And he's, and he was a progressive at the time in rheumatology. He was very open minded and progressive. And he said, well, nobody ever takes themselves off opioids. They just need more like, this is so unusual. Unfortunately, he didn't follow it with. Share with me what you've been doing.
Julie Michelson: Right? One step closer. But, so, having tools, I mean, they're effective tools. They really are.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah, and there's, there's so many of us who already get it, because we've either had those health traumas or health issues, so all of us in like functional, integrative, holistic. Sure, this is why we're here. Yeah.
Shivani Gupta: We're here to say all [Page//00:40:00] this stuff, but over here, seeing Western medicine and open their minds now, a lot post pandemic, my goal is really to say, look, guys, you are offering great tools. If you could trust a supplement to be pure and potent and made in the U. S. and third party tests and all those things, would you consider offering it and just seeing what it does in your patient?
Shivani Gupta: So that's where I find we can really open that door and have those conversations and say, look, there's, there's options. Don't say to the, I've, I've seen, I've been to multiple practitioners who are like, of course. There's nothing you can do with diet to impact thyroid. Oh, there's nothing you can do with diet to impact autoimmunity.
Shivani Gupta: And I'm like...
Julie Michelson: Any sentence that starts with there's nothing you can do, that might not be the best practitioner. Keep looking. Keep searching.
Shivani Gupta: Exactly. Please, anyone who listens to this, keep searching. There's always something we can do. Always.
Julie Michelson: And for our listeners, Shivani has been so generous. If you are intrigued, which I hope you are.[Page//00:41:00]
Julie Michelson: Hope you are brave and smart enough to at least pop on the website and see which of the products speaks to you. I highly do recommend this is the approach that works. I know it does. It's, it's a, it's an incorporation and adjunct, if you will, even if you're not all like, Oh my gosh, I'm changing it. Um, but incorporate some of these really, really true, powerful.
Julie Michelson: Supplements into your routine. And if you use the code inspired living, she's giving you 15 percent off, which is quite a deal. And, and I'm just so excited for effective tools that we can access directly to. Sometimes it's hard to find that practitioner that has what you're looking for. So I love that you're also allowing consumers to, to take the control and, and try some of these things themselves.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. That's what we do. We're, we're doctors only, and we're on our website only. And that's it. Perfect.
Julie Michelson: That's how you, that's how you [Page//00:42:00] keep the quality up. So that's great. That's great. So we're at that point in the podcast where I am not to throw you under the bus, but listeners know to expect could be something you've already said.
Julie Michelson: It could be something new. What is one thing one step listeners can take today to start to improve their health?
Shivani Gupta: A simple one is using a metal tongue scraper. It's an Ayurvedic self care habit. We teach to use a copper tongue scraper.
Julie Michelson: I was like, you said metal. I hope you say copper.
Shivani Gupta: Yes, copper is like the most antibacterial of the metals and it's like a self cleaning tool pretty much, but please rinse it.
Shivani Gupta: And you take that copper tongue scraper and you gently scrape the tongue from the middle to the front seven to 14 times every morning. And what that's going to do is it's going to ignite the digestive fire. It's going to gently detox all the organs of the body because we teach that all the organs of the body are reflected on the bottom of the foot.
Shivani Gupta: That's what reflexology teaches. And same in Ayurveda, we teach that they're all reflected on the [Page//00:43:00] tongue. It's also going to give better oral health, cleaner oral health, which is cleaner oral microbiome and gut microbiome. So it has a lot of benefits. And you can do it right after you brush your teeth every morning.
Shivani Gupta: It just takes a few seconds. But it's a gentle way to detox the body every day, which supports us in our annual detoxes and reducing our toxic burden overall.
Julie Michelson: So I love tongue scraping. Once it's a habit, like you, you can't not like it just, you don't even feel, I don't even feel like I'm, my mouth is clean enough if I haven't scraped my tongue.
Julie Michelson: And I have, I think my copper. The, the one I have now is from 2016. So, I mean, they land and they're not expensive, they're inexpensive to begin with, but also unless you lose it, like they're, do you have it forever? So I love it.
Shivani Gupta: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: Amazing.
Shivani Gupta: That's one of my favorites.
Julie Michelson: That's a great one. So where is, and we'll have all of these. wonderful links in the show notes, but, but for people that [Page//00:44:00] are listening on the go, hopefully they're listening while they're driving and not eating while they're driving. Where's the best place to find you?
Shivani Gupta: Sure. So my website is my name. shivanigupta.com S H I V A N I Gupta. I'm on Instagram as @dr.shivanigupta. And then the supplement companies, fusionary formulas, F U S I O N A R Y formulas. com. And then it's on Instagram, Facebook and everything as well. And I made the fusionary health podcast. That's where I talk about health topics like this as well.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. So amazing. Dr. Shivani, thank you so, so much for sharing such just incredible information.
Julie Michelson: We could, we could do five episodes and still be just scratching the surface. I know of what you could teach us about. So appreciate it.
Shivani Gupta: Yeah. Thank you so much
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living. show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
Julie Michelson: I'll see you next week. [Page//00:45:00]
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My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Shivani Gupta
Shivani Gupta
Dr. Shivani is an Ayurvedic practitioner and expert in fusing Eastern and Western practices that help our bodies achieve equilibrium. She completed her Master’s in Ayurvedic Sciences and her PhD on Turmeric. Inflammation is a root cause for many health issues in our lives and we have the power to overcome it. Her passion is teaching at-home remedies to reduce inflammation naturally will help you enjoy more energy, less brain fog, less pain, and ultimately achieve vibrant health! Dr. Shivani Gupta has practiced Ayurvedic medicine for over 20 years and her approach is to show you the tools in your toolkit, so you can reach for them every time you need them. She is also the founder of Fusionary Formulas, an Ayurvedic company that helps people with inflammation and pain.
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