5,000 Year-Old Optimal Routine, Ayurvedic Lifestyle Bioharmony, The Ultimate “SuperSpices”, & The Science of Life

Nick Urban [00:00:06]:

What are the very most important rituals you can do every day for your health, your performance, your longevity, and to just live an optimal life? Well, in this episode, we explore a perspective that has established and survived the testing of over 5000 years. Now you’ve probably heard me discuss Ayurveda on the show previously, and that’s because it’s one of the most powerful prevention based medical systems that have ever existed? Our guest this week helps us understand the Ayurvedic approach to herbs, to daily rituals and to overall health optimization? While the general Ayurvedic principles and philosophies are nice, They can be a bit impractical and hard to implement. So luckily, she’s solved this for us and given us concrete things that we can do every single day? Our guest this week is doctor Shivani Gupta. She’s an Ayurvedic practitioner with over 20 years of experience, and she’s an expert in fusing Eastern and Western practices that help our body achieve equilibrium. She completed her master’s in Ayurvedic sciences and her PhD specifically on one of the most famous Ayurvedic herbs and spices called turmeric? And despite this being a natural molecule, a natural plant, there’s actually a plethora of research on it compared to most other natural ingredients? Since inflammation is at the root of most health issues, a natural anti inflammatory like turmeric has a lot of potential? Doctor Gupta is passionate about teaching at home remedies to reduce inflammation naturally, which will help you enjoy more energy, less brain fog, less pain and, ultimately, to achieve vibrant health? Doctor Gupta is providing you with tools to put in your toolkit so that you can reach for them and apply them whenever you need them? She’s also the founder of Fusionary Formulas, in Ayurvedic company that helps people with inflammation and pain? And in this episode, you’ll learn about the Ayurvedic routines as I’ve already mentioned? The ingredients, the herbals, the spices, the super spices, teas and powders and other things that are simple to add to your life? You can find the show notes for this episode at mind body peak .com/thenumber133. And if you go to the Fusionary Formulas website at fusionary formulas .com? The code urban will save you 15% on your order. You can also connect with doctor Gupta on the socials. Usually, she’s at her name, doctor Shivani Gupta, or fusionary formulas.

Nick Urban [00:03:04]:

But to make things easy, I will put links to all these in the show notes for this episode. This podcast episode is not sponsored. But to keep the lights on? I did create a deals post of 70 plus of the best biohacking deals on gear, equipment, supplements, books, you name it, that you can find all with exclusive discounts? You can check that out at mindbodypeak.com/deals. If you have a question you’d like to hear answered on the show, you can go to mindbodypeakdot calm. And then at the bottom of the page, there will be a little banner that says ask a podcast question. There, you can either write a text question or you can record your voice or even record your screen, and I will answer it on a future episode. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode with doctor Shivani Gupta.

Nick Urban [00:04:01]:

Doctor Shivani Gupta, welcome to Mindbody Peak Performance.

Shivani Gupta [00:04:05]:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Nick Urban [00:04:07]:

I’m excited because today we are going to dive into the world of of herbs and spices and Ayurveda?

Shivani Gupta [00:04:15]:

Absolutely. It’s my favorite world.

Nick Urban [00:04:17]:

Yes. Okay. Let’s start out with an interesting fact that you think will help people and get their attention on why this is something that we should be interested in?

Shivani Gupta [00:04:27]:

Sure. Well, I think most of the world nowadays thinks that when they go to the doctor, they’re gonna get this prescription, and that prescription is gonna solve everything. It’s just gonna be this cure all, and they’ll be all set because the doctor’s handing them the prescription, and that’s the best solution. And I invite everyone to completely Flip that paradigm upside down and instead look at, thank you, doctor, for educating me on what the problem is. I love your assessment. But there’s this entire other toolkit that nature created that we could reach into first for our solutions That are as potent, as clean, as effective, and supportive to the body in a healing way as opposed to a masculine symptoms way. And so we can really approach our health from a revolutionary standpoint and with total sovereignty and independence, And that alone can change the entire trajectory of our lives.

Nick Urban [00:05:21]:

That’s a really good and important point. How do these natural tools go about addressing, like, the root causes and actually healing and bringing us to a better state of health rather than just masking the symptoms? And I’m sure there are some greenwashing products out there that, like, actually do just mass mask symptoms of course, in a sometimes in a natural and more healthy way, but how are these actually changing the the roots of a lot of common issues today?

Shivani Gupta [00:05:49]:

Well, the thing is we are made of mother Earth. We are made of this planet’s, Elements, really. The elements. We talk about elements a lot in Ayurveda. And Ayurvedic wisdom and medicine is this system that’s over 5000 years old. It’s tried and true. Everything that’s used is something that once it was discovered to be effective, they kept using it and kept using trial and error to Discover why and how it worked. So that’s why when it comes to the super herbs and super spices out of Ayurveda, we know that they work.

Shivani Gupta [00:06:21]:

And if we would just use them, we would see for ourselves how they work. But they’re plant medicine. These are phytochemicals. These are potent solutions That mother Earth nature has given us that get in there, and the body knows what to do with it. The body has its own intelligence. The body wants to be in homeostasis and in its most healed state. The problem is we’re doing a lot of things to get in the way of that. And so all of a sudden when the body’s in dysbiosis and dysfunction and struggling, when you put something as natural and pure and potent as plant medicine in, The body is able to say, oh, I know what to do with that because I really needed it.

Shivani Gupta [00:06:58]:

And sends it over to where it’s needed, maybe it’s your knee pain, maybe it’s your stomach, digestion. Go in there, fix the issue, get to the root cause of it, heal it, and then that’s it. The body has put itself back into its healing state, then we’re All set. Now the symptoms are gonna melt away. And the problem is nowadays, instead of addressing the root cause, we’re like, oh, I’ll just take a painkiller. Okay. You’re taking a pain killer. You’re gonna kill the pain, but are you killing the reason why it’s being caused every other day in your life? No? Okay.

Shivani Gupta [00:07:28]:

So that’s just gonna propagate. That problem’s just gonna get worse. It’s just gonna get louder. And so that’s my big invitation people is look at your health. Understand what’s happening all the time. Don’t blame it on aging. Aging is just inflammation. That’s just the stack up of inflammation that’s causing you to say, oh, I I have headaches all the time.

Shivani Gupta [00:07:48]:

I have joint pain. I’m fatigued. I don’t wake up the same way. Everything slows me down. These are all just indications of inflamed aging, and we could instead flip that upside down, heal the inflammation, and step forward winning.

Nick Urban [00:08:00]:

Yeah. And It makes a lot of sense to me that plants and botanicals and everything, they coevolve alongside humans, so you’d expect that they the human biology, the human system has a better ability to handle these compared to molecules that were just created within the last couple decades? And the body has no idea how to handilys? How to process them? And besides that, they don’t occur in nature. There’s a lot of, like, modifications that are done to make them more potent that can’t possibly happen, and so They create other issues upstream and downstream. But then there’s also a whole camp of people who are looking at, well, I guess, the kinda like the carnivore anti plant camp. They’re saying these substances have no real value. They are actually causing more biological stress, and they, like, avoid these herbs and spices at pretty much at all costs? Can you explain, like, your take on that?

Shivani Gupta [00:08:53]:

Yeah. I think, herbs, spices, Supplements, herbal formulations, tinctures, they’re getting a bad rap. Why? Because we’ve gotten this programming over the last century that said that Western medicine is the only solution? That solution’s valid. It’s scientifically proven to be true, and so we should just listen to this one new shiny modality. And and it’s funny because I’m married into an all Western medicine family of doctors, and so I just laugh sometime. I’m like, wow. Blinders, guys. Blinders on.

Shivani Gupta [00:09:32]:

That just your system is valid. No. Yours is beautiful. But just like a lot of People believe that multireligion is open factor too. Like, I believe that in Hinduism, we believe that all religions are right. So it’s like if you’re open enough to understand that there’s more potentiality or if you’re open minded enough to understand that there’s more possibility out there, Why wouldn’t you also acknowledge that there’s all these ancient we call them alternative. They’re not alternative. They are the tried and true ancient systems that have always existed and that have proven for 1000 of years? And it’s interesting.

Shivani Gupta [00:10:08]:

I even have the original textbooks from Ayurveda, And these textbooks talk about all the subsurgical specialties. You talk about obstetrics, orthopedics. These aren’t new concepts. These were ancient concepts already delineated to be systems of health and subsystems of health. And so when it comes to Ayurveda, the most ancient of them all, traditional Chinese medicine, which encompasses acupuncture And herbology, Chinese medicine, and, Qigong. Like, that’s all part of traditional Chinese medicine. Then you’ve got naturopathic medicine, so similar to all these. Homeopathic medicine, distilling plants into their purest potent form To create a change in the body? Reiki, chiropractic, massage.

Shivani Gupta [00:10:55]:

So under the umbrella of complementary and alternative medicine That the NIH has delineated, you’ve got all of these systems, beautiful tried and true systems that are incredibly effective for the body, And then you’ve got this one newer, younger system. And so it’s just interesting if we look even in India. India believed in Ayurveda, used Ayurveda and homeopathy all the time. Growing up, when I’d visit India, I’d see that. And then all of a sudden, there was a switch over, And now there’s this swing back. And so that swing back is just people saying, you know what? We’ve tried this way. This way is super good for these specific categories called acute Care and surgical care and certain things. But over on the chronic disease management and or preventive side, there’s entirely other really deep toolkits That have much deeper understandings of what we need to do to support the body from underneath and get it to get where it needs to go.

Nick Urban [00:11:50]:

Yeah. I have so much to say about all of that, including, like, the even the language around it. Like, these proven systems over millennia, They are called complementary and alternative medicines, even though they were, like, the actual the original medicines and they were they’re all mostly prevention based? Like, these are actual medicines versus masking of symptoms and palliative care. So it’s it’s interesting that the language around it Is that, like, diminishing? And then also I read a book called Outlive a while back when it first came out, and very quickly the author, doctor Peter Attia, describes medicine 1 point o, medicine 2 point o, and what he calls medicine 3 point o. And he calls medicine one point o the original forms of these medicines that we’re talking about. And he looks at some of, like, the more extreme practices and things that were eventually that eventually disappeared because they didn’t work or they were they were based on superstition, and he equates all of the original systems to this, like, archaic, ineffective, like, practice? And then he said medicine 2.0 is our current paradigm, which is lacking, and know what we need instead for a 3 point o. We need a personalized form of medicine. And if you actually look look back and you study these original forms of medicine, they’re mostly all personalized?

Shivani Gupta [00:13:10]:

Correct. Yeah. And in any system, think about it. They, of course, were in their discovery process of figuring out what works and what didn’t? And it’s so easy to look back and say, oh, you guys used urine. You guys used all that Weird stuff, that makes you backwards. Instead of saying, oh, wow. Y’all were experimenting with all sorts of stuff. Nowadays, look at what we’re doing.

Shivani Gupta [00:13:35]:

We’re taking, like, crushed red beetle beetles and putting them in our food. Like, we’re doing a lot of experimentation, but we don’t criticize ourselves now. But looking back, it’s like, oh, well, 90%, 95% of that science was still very powerfully valid and effective, But why are we discounting that and and throwing it all away over the few things that they were still experimenting with testing efficacy?

Nick Urban [00:13:57]:

Yeah. I mean, there’s a push away, like, more towards, like, the sterilization, the clean medicine, like, kill all the microbes and potential pathogens. And, like, if it’s not extracted and, like, a distillate, it’s not clean current medicine? And it’s interesting how backwards that appears because as we’ve already mentioned several times, like, the older forms of medicine did a great job at getting to the root causes of modern issues and, I guess, issues that have been there the whole time, but they’re becoming more common these days?

Shivani Gupta [00:14:28]:

It’s true, and it’s interesting you use the word sterile. One of my mentors today said to me, we are made of microbes, and we are living in an antimicrobial world.

Nick Urban [00:14:38]:

Yeah.

Shivani Gupta [00:14:39]:

And I saw that, and I was like, wow. Powerful statement. We’re building the sterile, pure, clean world, yet look at what the body’s doing. Body’s like, no. I I can’t take that drug. I can’t take that medicine. Please stop buying that over the counter stuff. I I don’t know what that is.

Shivani Gupta [00:14:53]:

I’m also not gonna absorb it. I’m not gonna use it.

Nick Urban [00:14:56]:

Yeah. I don’t think there’s a single sterile completely sterile area of the body. We used to think that the brain was completely devoid of all microbes, and that has even been, like, overturned and debunked?

Shivani Gupta [00:15:08]:

Yeah. A lot of things have. Even in Ayurveda, we used to teach that there’s this interconnected Like, just under the skin, we have what we now call fascia, but it described fascia. And everyone in modern medicine was like, oh, Ayurveda doesn’t know. Like, that there’s not this layer that exists that’s invisible that interconnects the whole body. That’s just wrong. And now look. Modern science is like, oh, yeah.

Shivani Gupta [00:15:33]:

Actually, there’s a thing called fashion. Actually, this interconnected all the way. Oh, wow. Or Ierveda said the digestive fire controls all. That fire is everything. Your brain health, your everything. Now what do we call it? Gut brain access. Circadian rhythm, 5000 year old concept, and now we’re like, oh, we have Proven chronobiology exists.

Shivani Gupta [00:15:54]:

And it’s like, thank you. Thank you, guys. You didn’t prove anything. You just, in your words, had to validate what Ancient wisdom already said. And so I do think that medicine 3 point o is really Ayurvedic medicine, the other integrative, we’ll call them, Original ancient intelligent health systems fused with the best of what modern medicine gives us because modern medicine is Fantastic. I’ve used it. I’ve had multiple surgeries. I’ve had lots of interventions in my health over the years.

Shivani Gupta [00:16:23]:

I really appreciate them. No. I’m not bashing them, but there’s there’s elements of theirs that are effective that fused with ours make for the best personalized care for us. And so can we all find those middle ground points? And that’s where I find functional medicine to be so effective right now. Functional medicine is getting in there, Testing our gut, deep dive in the blood, hormone testing, heavy metal testing, trying to get that picture, mold exposure. Like, they’re trying to get in there and get the snapshot on us, Understand what the issue is and then trying to give us the toolkit to support us. But what I explain to people is that’s great. Functional medicine will get you to a point, But then now you have to hold the result, and holding the result is not necessarily easy.

Shivani Gupta [00:17:06]:

Even I have a hard time withholding the results that I build, And then I I have to sit there and say, okay. Well, what what would you prescribe to yourself? If you were your own client, what’s the plan? And I’m like, okay. It’ll be and it’s always the Ayurveda lifestyle. It’s always gonna be, like, shift the lifestyle, shift the habit, and that’s how you get to hold your result.

Nick Urban [00:17:26]:

Well, that’s a perfect segue. But before we go on, Whenever I study something new, say, like, circadian rhythm, I’m, like, digging into the modern science. I’m like, well, this is all cool, and every paper is talking about, like this emergence of this new form of medicine? But then if you think about it, you go back, like, you actually study the old systems, they reference it first. Like, just recently, I wrote an article on doctor Ray Peet’s best ideas? And he’s all about bioenergetics and pro metabolism and everything. And I, like, really look into what he’s saying, and a big part of it is really just focused around optimizing digestion, which is the cornerstone of Ayurveda or one of the cornerstones. So it’s interesting to see, like, even these brand new earth shattering paradigms aren’t actually nearly as new as they appear?

Shivani Gupta [00:18:09]:

Exactly. And and part of my mission is just to Show and share that Ayurveda was the source because I think we should credit where it came from. It’s like yoga. You should credit that yoga came from India. You know? It it is an ancient system. So in the same way, Ayurveda is this beautiful system that’s just here to show us how to live, and I wanna just I just want credit Where credit is due.

Nick Urban [00:18:30]:

Yeah. Okay. So now that you mentioned that, what are the unusual or nonnegotiable Ayurvedic habits you’ve done so far today or in a normal day for your health, your performance, and your bioharmony?

Shivani Gupta [00:18:44]:

Sure. So Ayurveda teaches something called Dhinacharya. Dhinacharya means the daily self care rituals or rhythm that we build for our lives. Lives? And so that series of rituals that we teach is a way to build this, like, rhythm and this anchor into your day Where everything else in life goes around your self care. And so my job as an Ayurvedic practitioner is to show people that we can put ourselves first, Put our health first. Put our body, mind, and spirit first. Bringing body, mind, and spirit into alignment is the entire goal of Ayurveda. And once we do that, then everything else we want in life starts to happen.

Shivani Gupta [00:19:23]:

And I’ve seen that. When I bring into alignment, all of a sudden everything I want is coming at me Almost too fast. And I’m like, wow. I I didn’t realize I could be such a great manifester. Okay. I’m gonna have to do even more self care because I have to Hold this capacity to live at this new level. And so the self care rituals start with something very simple. In the morning, when you wake up, ground.

Shivani Gupta [00:19:47]:

Touch the ground. I usually touch the ground, touch my forehead, and set an intention for the day, one intention that I’m putting in the field for myself. Mine is typically peace because I want peace, but yours could be anything. But starting the day with grounding is so important, And it’s interesting because when you get out of bed, if you touch the ground, you’re gonna end up squatting a little bit. You’ll end up compressing your digestive system. That alone is your 1st step to increasing and starting off peristalsis in the body. So isn’t that interesting? We start there. 2nd habit, have a glass of water by your bedside, preferably in a copper cup.

Shivani Gupta [00:20:26]:

And so a lot of Indian families will have a copper cup with a little lid on it, And that water mineralizes all night long. And so drinking that water in the morning is also your first step to hydrating your cells, nourishing your cells, and kicking off the digestive process. I’m one of those people who likes to brush their teeth first before I do anything, so I usually get up, use the restroom. In Stroom, in Ayurveda, we wanna make sure everyone poops first thing in the morning. If you are not going to the bathroom first thing, we need to fix that first above all. I brush my teeth. I use my copper tongue scraper. We are big fans of the tongue scraper in Ayurveda.

Shivani Gupta [00:21:00]:

It came from Ayurveda. And so you take that copper tongue scraper. You can buy it for, like, $10 on Amazon, and it’ll last you your whole life. And copper is like an antibacterial surface. It’s Constantly gonna stay clean. But you take that copper tongue scraper and you gently scrape the tongue 7 to 14 times from middle of the tongue. Don’t gag yourself. But what’s beautiful about this is you’re gonna detox all the cells of the body.

Shivani Gupta [00:21:27]:

We teach in Ayurveda that all the organs of the body are reflected on the tongue Just like all the organs of the body are reflected on the bottom of your feet from reflexology, from Chinese medicine. We’re very sister sciences in in a lot of ways. And so you’re gonna ignite digestive fire. It’s gonna help, it’ll help you have a cleaner oral microbiome, helps your gut microbiomes. There’s a lot of benefits to this literally 5 second healthy habit in the morning. So if there’s anything I teach in the world, I’m, like, just just use the tongue scraper. There’s 50 more things I want you to do, but that one alone is a game changer because you’ll have better breath. And once you start that habit, you’ll miss it if you don’t do it.

Shivani Gupta [00:22:06]:

After tongue scraping, we teach oil pulling. Oil pulling is becoming more known now. Basically, oil pulling means you take any food grade oil. In Ayurveda, we were obsessed with sesame oil because it has a lot of beneficial properties. But truly, any food grade oil works if you’re willing to use coconut oil, almond oil, picking oil, Olive oil even, if that’s what you’ve got. But take that food grade organic oil, put it in the mouth, 1 to 2 tablespoons, And swish it around from 5 to 20 minutes. Now that might sound like a long time, but oil pulling is a good multitasking health habit. You can walk around and do it.

Shivani Gupta [00:22:41]:

You can start your morning coffee. You can get dressed for the day. You can shower an oil pull. You’re just holding this oil in your mouth, And then you’re eventually moving it through the teeth and around your gums and pushing it around. And with oil pulling, we say please don’t spit it in your sink, shower, or toilet. You will clog up the pipes of your house. So always spit it in the trash, to save your house. But oil pulling is very good because, again, a lot of toxins overnight or throughout the day even are gonna accumulate in the mouth and in our gums since we’re able to take all that bacteria and toxins that’s harmful and get rid of it, Again, clearing oral microbiome, forgot microbiome.

Shivani Gupta [00:23:19]:

But, also, you know, we’ve had recent science in the last 100 years that said our heart health Is tied to our oral health, our gingivitis and those things. People said, don’t have gingivitis. You’ll have a heart attack. So It’s interesting that ancient medicine 5000 years ago said, hey. By the way, oral health matters. We’re building this into your daily rhythm. It’s that important, like, top of the list even before most other things we talk about.

Nick Urban [00:23:45]:

Yeah. I actually I use both of those. I tongue scrape every morning? And I’ve noticed that, like, it also helps me control my appetite because I think I’ve read that when you tongue scrape, it also, like, sensitizes your taste buds so you and a better feedback signal of when you’re full? And then I also oil pull. And the way I do it is I take some kinda oil, usually either coconut or sesame? And then I will add a drop of drop or 2 of different essential oils to it, and then I’ll toss them in the freezer. And that way, it’ll have, like, little cubes that I can takeout and just pop my mouth and go about my day, make my coffee, drink my water, whatever it is? I mean, it’s not drink my water, but do the other routines. And then in at the end of, like, the 5 minutes or 10 minutes, whatever however long I’m switching it, then I can spit it out and go and do whatever else I was preparing?

Shivani Gupta [00:24:28]:

Nice. That sounds really nice. Like, tea tree oil would be a very powerful oil. Even others would smell and taste good. I really like that idea.

Nick Urban [00:24:38]:

Peppermint oil works great too as a replacement for your conventional antiseptic mouthwash.

Shivani Gupta [00:24:43]:

Exactly. Exactly. There are oil pulling oils out there, and they add peppermint. Because for oral health, we’re gonna usually crave minty or peppermint tea based on the toothpaste and things we use. And there’s even Ayurvedic toothpaste out They’re sold at sprouts and health food stores that are less toxic. So in my home, we don’t use toxic toothpaste. We don’t use mouthwash. Mouthwash is known to kill our nitric oxide and a lot of other things.

Shivani Gupta [00:25:08]:

So I really invite everyone to bring in the good habits, But also let go of the habits that are detrimental to us.

Nick Urban [00:25:14]:

Yes. And functional health, modern functional health also talks about how all health begins in the mouth, and I had a hard time believing that first, then I after I interviewed doctor Thomas Levy, and he mentioned all the things you are about, like, it affecting heart health and really systemic full body health? And if you have a poor oral health, every time you chew or eat something, Each bite is gonna be releasing that bacteria and other things you don’t want throughout your system. And if you have unhealthy gums, It’s going straight into circulation, which you also really don’t want.

Shivani Gupta [00:25:47]:

Exactly. Yeah. There’s so much there. We we underestimate, really, the importance of our mouth In our house, like, I’m we are always fighting with our kids. You have to brush your teeth at night. Nobody wants to listen. And I’ve converted them. I’m like, even children can adopt these habits Of using a tongue scraper? Why not? Because the sooner we’re building good oral health, the more we’re supporting that gut microbiome ecosystem Over our lung longevity, over our decade.

Nick Urban [00:26:14]:

Yeah. And there are plenty of good clean toothpaste brands. Actually, I think I have one called Himalayan or something like that, and it’s an Arabic toothpaste that I got? And I like to look them all personal care products up on an app called Think Dirty, and it tells you the things that are in there. And you look at, like, most products out there, and there’s, like, so many, like, seriously concerning chemicals and things that you don’t wanna be exposed to in any form, let alone in your mouth or around mucous membranes?

Shivani Gupta [00:26:40]:

True. I was just talking to Keshev Khan. He owns the DNA company, and he mentioned that he was working with a client who had so much of a toxic burden in their body due to chemicals, self care products, and makeup that the the prescription the recommendation was Give up makeup for 3 months. And I told him, I said, gosh. You know, for me, I’m I’m on camera every day of my life, so I I all of a sudden have this habit of wearing makeup daily. You know, sometimes you lose your focus in terms of your self care products. You’re like, oh, I’ll try this. I’ll try this.

Shivani Gupta [00:27:15]:

Forgetting to really look at, hey. What’s in there? Or your own cleaning products in your home. And so that toxic burden, that’s BPAs. That’s obesogens, endocrine disruptors? There’s a lot of harmful things, and and Ayurveda always promoted living this sattvic lifestyle. Sattvic means, like, a yogic lifestyle Of purity, of cleanliness. And so I really take that to heart and do an audit once a year and say, what things have crept in this house? Are we using Windex and not The natural cleaning products. And to your point, that app Think Dirty is very effective. Because if you go to Costco in different stores And you scan the clean, healthy brand, it’ll be a level 9 red toxic horrible thing, and you’re like, Dude, what am I supposed to buy then? If the clean brands are toxic, of course, the toxic brands are toxic.

Shivani Gupta [00:28:06]:

We’re just in trouble. So I feel like each of us as as people has to do our own PhD on what it takes to live a healthy lifestyle, Or we can just follow great people who find all the experts for us like you.

Nick Urban [00:28:18]:

Sadly, like, that’s now the case. And I also pro tip is is to look into the products you are currently using once or at least twice or at least once per year because sometimes, like, the manufacturers with less scruples will change the formula without announcing it? You would buying the same what you think is the same product. Really, they slip in other ingredients that you didn’t thing you are consuming? And it’s not probably a problem if you’re doing it that for a half year, but if you’re doing that for years, decades, It can certainly add up.

Shivani Gupta [00:28:50]:

Absolutely. It completely adds up. It it exponentially becomes more problematic over time. So yeah. And so the Ayurvedic self care rituals like I was going over, the first one was wake up and and touch the ground, but part of that is also waking up with the sun. Ayurveda teaches nature’s rhythm, circadian rhythm. So we’re gonna live according to nature’s clock. Of course, you can move that a little bit according to your individual dosha Our mind body constitution, but in general, waking up near sunlight time is so important.

Shivani Gupta [00:29:22]:

And then fitting in a morning meditation, whether you do it Before all those hygiene rituals or after, for me, I’m better off doing it before because once I’m too awake, my mind is activated, and that list of things to do is Is churning in there. So doing a meditation is very much a part of the Ayurvedic rituals because we you know, yoga is a sister science to Ayurveda, and part of yoga is meditation pranayama deep breathing, but also that that goal of bringing everything into alignment involves silence and tuning in. And so whatever form of meditation you can do that’s beneficial to you, a lot of times I say a walking meditation is a great way to start. I’m more able to walk in nature and completely zone out than I am to sit and meditate in silence? So it’s whatever whatever you need to do to meet yourself where you are. And so then once you do those morning rituals, drink your water, hydrate, preferably that mineralized Water, copper, and copper infused water in a sense. And then we also teach about ginger lemon tea in the morning or ginger honey tea, ginger lemon honey tea. A lot of people have talked about how you can’t put honey in hot water. The thing is, Ieravita teaches not to put it into, like, crazy boiling water.

Shivani Gupta [00:30:36]:

But just under boiling, like, a tea temperature, it is fine to add honey to your water. So we teach ginger lemon tea, which we know ginger is So gastro protective, it’s an anti inflammatory. It ignites digestive fire, so it’s gonna kick off all the support we need. If you haven’t gone to the bathroom and you have ginger lemon tea, you’re that much more supported to finally have your 1st bowel movement of the day, which like I said is very key. And then once you’ve done all that, before you caffeinate, finish the hydrating, and also if you’re like, a lot of times what I do, I’ll have my tea outside. I’ll just walk outside or I’ll walk outside barefoot and put my feet in nature. Grounding, earthing, connecting with mother Earth, Tuning into that morning sunlight is a big step in tuning into our circadian rhythm and and clicking into it for the day. And so that’s easy.

Shivani Gupta [00:31:31]:

If you’re gonna drink your coffee, just go get yourself outside in nature. And sometimes I do look weird. I see all these people walking their dogs, and I’m like, Yes. I’m the weirdo who’s barefoot in her grass. But if I don’t do it, I’m not supporting my health. So I figure everyone can just assume I’m weird, and one day they’ll all get on the bandwagon with me.

Nick Urban [00:31:50]:

Yeah. Exactly.

Shivani Gupta [00:31:51]:

And so then from there, it’s really about eating consciously, you know, starting your day. And then the rest of the Ayurvedic self care rituals, I actually put into the evening because it’s harder for me to just keep going with those rituals after that. By that time? I’ve gotta get those kids to school. I wanna get to my office and get my workday started. So the evening self care rituals that If you had time you would do in the morning are dry brushing, self massage. You can even add on an Epsom salt bath. Epsom salt baths are very detoxing, and then doing your different rituals to get to bed. And so when we talk about dry brushing, Ayurveda taught that dry brushing with plant based bristles, not like synthetic bristles, and moving from the feet up towards the heart is gonna move the lymphatic system.

Shivani Gupta [00:32:38]:

And it’s a great investment in our longevity, our immune support health, all those things, but dry brushing is gonna create that lymphatic flow. And when we sleep, according to nature’s clock In circadian rhythm, Ayurveda wants you to sleep from 10 to 2, the top part of the clock. And so when you sleep from 10 to 2, You are more supported to rejuvenate, to clear all the systems of the body. And the way I think of it is is like these little garbage trucks come out at night. I I imagine little green garbage trucks come into my brain and pick up all the waste, excess thoughts, any excess negative thoughts that I might have had, Any waste up there? Neuroinflammation, glymphatic waste sitting there. Then emotions, heart, any negative feelings, Feelings of others imposed onto me? Who knows what’s there? Anything there. And then digestion. I imagine these little garbage trucks are coming in to collect all that Toxic burden, anything I consume that was processed that didn’t work, all the junk.

Shivani Gupta [00:33:34]:

And then in the morning, its job is to flush it out. But the thing is, Ayurveda says that if we’re not sleeping 10 to 2, none of those processes happen. Our When you

Nick Urban [00:33:43]:

say sleeping 10 to 2, you don’t mean sleeping from 10 PM till 2 AM? You mean sleeping in that window or starting your sleep in that window.

Shivani Gupta [00:33:51]:

I mean that we should try to be asleep by 10 By 10, which is challenging for most of us. We should sleep from 10 to 2 and then on for our other 4 hours. Most of us need 8 hours of sleep. Some of us need 6, 7. So that morning wake up time can range, but getting your bedtime as close to 10 PM is a very powerful investment in Rejuvenating, clearing the lymphatic system, and clearing our inflammation overnight. And I meet a lot of people who say they’re night owls. The thing with being a night owl is according to Ayurveda, we have the 3 doshas. We have vata, pitta, and kafha.

Shivani Gupta [00:34:27]:

And so we call it the time of day when it’s 10 to 2 on the clock. And so during that bit that time of day, we have the fire energy, and that fire energy can be used for good or for bad. So in the good sense, it would go in there and clear inflammation, clear the lymphatic system, clear out the body, and support us for health and a clear focus day the next day. Or if you stay up too late, like, I’ve noticed if I stay up till midnight, I can just keep going because you’ve got the fire. You’ve got that energy. Your brain just clicks right Back on and is ready to go. And so it’s so funny. Anytime I’m, like, up at 11, I’m, like, stop.

Shivani Gupta [00:35:04]:

Go to bed. You are a fit that by nature. You’re like a fire by nature. If you stay up any longer, you’re just gonna, like, write a book from 12 to 3 or 4 in the morning. So I really just encourage everyone to look at that and move that time back. And then after dry brushing, our next one I mentioned was Abhyung self massage. So that one’s taking a food grade oil. It’s a really beautiful Ayurvedic self care ritual, actually, especially for modern day times.

Shivani Gupta [00:35:31]:

So a was taught as you can lay out a towel. I do this sometimes at night, not all the time, but it’s a really beautiful ritual. Take your oil, sesame oil, coconut oil, any food grade oil. You can warm it if you wanna be a little more decadent about it. I don’t do that, but it’s it is taught that way. And then you rub that oil from your feet all the way up to your neck, and then you can do a separate head oil massage if you’d like. So the thing with that is it’s so balancing. It’s so grounding.

Shivani Gupta [00:35:59]:

It’s so good as an oleation of the joints, oleation of the skin. It’s why Ayurvedic practitioners look so young and beautiful and vibrant because their skin is, like, holding this oil. We don’t dry out because we’re literally Physically oiling the body. Like, we never become a tin man in a sense. But it’s so beneficial. The the skin will absorb that oil And the benefits of that oil? So I always teach it, like, put it between your toes. Like, put it everywhere where the sun doesn’t shine. Like, get the oil in there.

Shivani Gupta [00:36:32]:

And then if you’re having any hair loss, hair graying, hair thinning, to do a head oil massage where you really put the oil into the scalp is also very beneficial. And then Epsom salt bath, we all know about. It’s remineralizing. It’s beneficial. It’s detoxing. And then take a quick shower. And One little hack from Ayurveda is putting essential oils or putting sesame oil on the tops of the feet will help you sleep better. So a lot of people nowadays have sleep issues, anxiety, all the things.

Shivani Gupta [00:37:01]:

So that’s a simple way when you do your up young massage. Make sure you get oil on the tops of the feet so So when you go to bed later, you have this, like, deep, profound, high quality sleep that leaves you waking up so rested.

Nick Urban [00:37:14]:

Yeah. There’s a heavy emphasis on fat and oils and ghee in Ayurveda for detoxification and self care across the board? How do you go about cleaning up after that oil massage? I’ve wanted to implement it for a while. I even have, like, a gallon of sesame oil, but I’m like, I don’t think I can just wash this down in the shower because it’ll clog it. So how do I clean this up effectively?

Shivani Gupta [00:37:40]:

So you use as much oil as it takes to really absorb well in the body. It’s not like at the spa where they use, like, a gallon of oil on you. So I lay down a towel. I do massage myself with the oil, and my skin soaks it up, and then that’s it. And I do get in the shower, and what we teach is don’t take Soap and just rub it all off. Acknowledge that you really do want that to soak in. But I have a habit of taking a quick shower and getting in bed, and I don’t Wanna feel oily in my bed. So and it heats me up.

Shivani Gupta [00:38:11]:

Like, I’ll be too hot going to sleep too if I have too much oil on me. So I usually hop in the shower And I lightly soak, like, real light, but just to get half or most of the oil off. And then I pat dry, so I’m Pushing the last bits of the oil in, and then that’s it. And then I get in bed. So that much oil, my pipes will have to take because I have to shower it off.

Nick Urban [00:38:34]:

Yes. Yes. The important part is you you’re not just dumping a whole gallon of oil over your a little bit, your skin absorbs it, than what’s the residual, what’s left over after you shower isn’t going to be enough to, like, destroy your whole house or, like, make it you need to buy new sheets every time you sleep?

Shivani Gupta [00:38:52]:

Correct.

Nick Urban [00:38:53]:

Okay. Okay. That makes a lot more sense now.

Shivani Gupta [00:38:55]:

Yes.

Nick Urban [00:38:56]:

And you also mentioned copper. That comes up a lot in Ayurveda also, and there’s some more modern backlash against copper? Because a lot of people are consuming not consuming enough zinc, and there’s a bunch of different mineral ratios, the matter in the body? And one of those is the zinc and copper. Do you see any issues with using copper, like tongue scrapers and consuming water that has been that has sat and steeped, I guess I’ll say, and had copper leach into it?

Shivani Gupta [00:39:24]:

Yeah. You know, it is Something to watch out for. I do think that because our food is so depleted, we aren’t getting balanced food. We aren’t getting the right balance of minerals. Most of us are mineral deficient. And so even I, at times, have had high copper in my blood work like it showed And in my heavy metal testing. And so I don’t really attribute that to my copper ton scraper because I have a copper one. I have a silver one.

Shivani Gupta [00:39:49]:

I drink out of copper and silver water glasses. We love both in Ayurveda. I’m a, so I’m I’m very benefited by using silver things as well, because it has a cooling effect. And it’s just part of our culture that people gift us silver cups and stuff, so we have them. So It’s interesting. I do think in modern day times, we do have to be a little careful. So I would stick to the copper ton scraper, and the copper water is one of those things where cycle in and out. Like any health habit, we should cycle in and out with things.

Shivani Gupta [00:40:17]:

We shouldn’t do everything that’s beneficial every single day because it loses some of its benefits. But, yes, I do think that so many of us are zinc deficient, and the copper zinc ratio can be off. And so we have to, like, Go to functional medicine and know what our numbers are if before we do every single health habit out there because what’s healthy for me might not be healthy for you.

Nick Urban [00:40:38]:

Yeah, that’s another important consideration that Ayurveda emphasizes, and that is like the seasonality and cycling and pulsing of different habits and on, like, a macro lens, like, throughout the year and then also on, like, the daily lens throughout each and every day? But like you said, there are so many different things that we could be doing every single morning? Like, if you’re not stacking these together and, say, oil pulling while you’re grounding or touching the ground while you’re doing something else? Then it could really take all day, and it’s not necessarily feasible for a lot of people? One of the things I like about using herbs and spices and super spices is that Pretty much anyone can do it. It’s not a huge investment in terms of, like, finances or in terms of time. So can you tell me more about the importance of herbs and spices to yeah. The spices are really interesting because There’s a good amount of research showing, like, for example, turmeric can outcompete when it goes head to head against certain NSAIDs or the anti inflammatory drugs people turn to to, like, relieve acute pain? The turmeric actually can do a better job than they do and with less side effects, keeping your gut healthy at the same time? And then also that there’s research around these herbs and spices when they’re com combined with certain foods such as, like, some of the spices and meat, they can offset some of the carcinogenic effects of cooking them at high temperatures and other effects they have throughout the body?

Shivani Gupta [00:46:38]:

Absolutely. That’s the basis of my whole research right now. So I finished my PhD about 5 years ago, Then I got really passionate about turmeric and decided to jump into the world of turmeric supplementation. And my research has been, Can we work with orthopedics and show them that this is an adjunct tool to the NSAIDs they’re already gonna give us for chronic joint pain And have them fine. You’re gonna give the solutions you’re gonna give, but if you give turmeric alongside, can your patient come off the other solution? And I’ve been able to prove that Hand over fist thousands of times through hundreds of doctors, so that’s a really exciting level of data. We’ve been able to cut opioid use in half. We’ve been able to take patients off of prescribed NSAIDs just using turmeric. Now I’m now I have chiropractic, of course, that gets it.

Shivani Gupta [00:47:26]:

They’re using it. Now I’m trying to go after rheumatology and functional medicine. So rheumatology, I’m like, your patients are losing hand function. Their chronic joint pain’s horrible. Offer them a natural solution that will go after the root cause, which is inflammation. That’s what’s causing the autoimmunity in the 1st place. And so each rheumatologist I meet nowadays is getting more and more open minded to to what’s possible. Then functional medicine already gets it.

Shivani Gupta [00:47:50]:

They know inflammation’s a root cause problem, They need to support inflammation from multiple directions, and so that’s where curcumin can be a very powerful, potent solution. What most people don’t realize is that of the entire turmeric plant, Only 3% is the curcuminoids, one tiny slice. And so when we are taking turmeric, the spice, and sprinkling it on our chicken and our eggs, That is not enough turmeric in our system to create a therapeutic effect. And so I wanna educate everyone on Those 3 curcuminoids, the potency at which you take them, the quality at which you take them is what’s gonna drive that result in the body, and so be very discerning. If you have joint pain and your tumor’s not doing anything for you, you’re not taking one that’s good enough because it should move the needle. And then those are the rest of us who don’t have joint pain but who are taking it as a powerful preventive should still take one that really moves the needle? And that’s the thing. These plants have their own intelligence. I have found that if you are taking turmeric for inflammation, whatever the big problem is, it’s gonna go there first.

Shivani Gupta [00:48:52]:

It’s gonna deal with that. Then it’s gonna go after a medium sized problem. And then people are like, this cured my allergies. This healed my, gingivitis, Like, all these weird little inflammatory issues in the body. And so isn’t that beautiful? That’s such a testament to the intelligence of the body interacting with the intelligence of the plant and coming together to create the synergistic result and heal the body from top to bottom at all levels?

Nick Urban [00:49:19]:

Yeah. So you touched on something very important right there, and that is the difference between curcumin and turmeric. And there are a lot of other constituents within turmeric that are not curcumin and they’re not as well researched? Like, the turmeric saccharides, I think they are. Those are, like, water soluble compounds within turmeric, and they have all kinds of other benefits that I rarely see discussed. It’s in the discussion around health and turmeric. It’s usually conflated with just curcumin? And a lot of products only contain curcumin to provide the benefits.

Shivani Gupta [00:49:52]:

Yeah. I think it is important to always add turmeric back in for their synergistic effects. I worked at a lab in MD MD Anderson Cancer Center Under a researcher who discovered decades ago, at least 2 decades ago, that it’s black pepper that when added to turmeric increases the absorption by 2000%. And isn’t it funny that in the Ayurvedic kitchen or the Indian kitchen, we’ve always had black pepper in our gutter masala, and so it was always cooked With that turmeric. So that intelligence was always there. And then also we always cook with ghee or any healthy fat with our turmeric. And so We know now through modern science, healthy fat or a black pepper will increase the absorption of that curcumin in the body that much better. And like you mentioned, there are benefits to non curcuminoid turmeric.

Shivani Gupta [00:50:36]:

I think it’s important for any supplement that’s made to have the activator, of course, the black pepper or healthy fat, but also to add that turmeric back in because It’s an honoring and a reverence for whole plant with extract. It’s also the understanding that there are other benefits in there. Let’s not just rip the extract out and say, oh, we’re giving the result and forget to honor the rest of it.

Nick Urban [00:51:00]:

Yeah. I was reading a book about the gut recently? And the author was talking about make sure you get turmeric and not just curcumin because turmeric, like, modulates the gut in ways that curcumin and other curcuminoids don’t?

Shivani Gupta [00:51:12]:

Correct. And most people don’t think of it that way. We wanna be fast, and we wanna be quick, and we wanna just get the result. And it’s almost like the drugifying of supplementation that’s happening, and I think that that’s gonna happen. That’s just Consumerism. But if you look at the small businesses, the practitioners who are creating really doctors level health care practitioner lines, Those product lines are meant to create a therapeutic effect in the body, and the practitioners know better. So I hang out with practitioners all day, And you can ask them which probiotic is best. And they’re like, you know, I don’t use that one anymore.

Shivani Gupta [00:51:48]:

I use this one. Which d works better? You know, I didn’t see results with that one. I’m using this one. And they’re getting that real time data in their patients watching the blood work, watching what kind of patients do better with which products. And that’s where that personalized approach comes back in. So it’s so important that we’re open to what works, And then we’re applying it and being consistent with it to get the result.

Nick Urban [00:52:13]:

Yeah. The other day, I cooked a meal, and I was eating it. I’m like, wow. Don’t remember putting any ginger in this. I really taste ginger, and then I realized I don’t usually cook with it, but I had some fresh turmeric, and I chopped that and put it in. And it dawned on me, like, oh, the that’s right. They’re in the same family. No wonder.

Nick Urban [00:52:30]:

Like, I hadn’t tasted the raw turmeric, I guess, cooked, and it really does have, like, a hint of ginger taste to it also? And then you also like to use powders and teas, and I know that you sell some of those in your shop. Why do you like those specifically?

Shivani Gupta [00:52:47]:

So in Ayurveda, if you think about it, they didn’t have factories that put extracts into supplements and veggie caps. Ancient Ayurveda said, okay. You’ve got joint pain. Guess what? Based on your dosa, based on who you are and your level of activity and the season we’re in? You need warming ingredients. Let me show you how to make this tea. And so Ayurveda would say, here’s some turmeric. Here’s some ginger. Add some black Pepper.

Shivani Gupta [00:53:14]:

Maybe 1 or 2 other elements in there to be balancing, and here is your tea, and please make this every day for 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and then you should feel better. And so that reverence and understanding that that tea is an ability to take whole plant in dried form and give it to you not quite fresh because it’s dried usually, But it’s just a whole plan. It’s like an honoring of of the entirety of what we’re trying to give. And so I actually created after I created my Turmeric supplements, which I created mainly for orthopedics, but now it’s used across the board, and I’m winning at chronic joint pain. Then I was like, well, inflamed people need to sleep better, so I created a sleep formula. But I also created a sleep tea because my goal was, Can I create a tea that’s as effective as a supplement? It was a theory. Sometimes I just have these theories, and I have to prove to myself if I’m right or wrong. And so I made deep sleep tea purely because I wanted to see if you take adaptogenic herbs in this ancient formulation.

Shivani Gupta [00:54:17]:

Ayurveda wants you to have cardamom, Osmanthes flower, Brahmi, Ashwagandha, in a beautiful synergy, will it relax the mind and digestive system for a better night sleep? And I was able to prove it. And then I was like, okay. Well, everyone’s complaining about menopause. Let’s see if I can win at menopause. Okay. Three types of dulce, adaptogenic, mixed Together, putting it on top of the jasmine green tea base, using shatavathi, queen of herbs and adaptogens for reproductive organs of men and women? Is a powerhouse. Put those together, and they they work. This is ancient wisdom.

Shivani Gupta [00:54:55]:

It’s not like I created this idea. I’m just pulling together the ancient wisdom concept with potent clean sourcing In third party lab like, in factories where we use third party testing and are very clean about how we do it all, and pulling all of that together to create the solutions Network. And so that’s helped so many women with menopause, their hot flashes, night sweats. Now perimenopause because that’s a whole struggle unto itself as well?

Nick Urban [00:55:22]:

Yeah. Whenever I think of teas, I think of, like, a delicious beverage and not much more than that. And it’s interesting to hear that you’ve actually cracked the code on this and are able to make teas that rival supplements in terms of, like, their potency and efficacy and getting whatever outcome you’re looking to get?

Shivani Gupta [00:55:39]:

Yeah. I’m calling it functional teas.

Nick Urban [00:55:40]:

Functional teas.

Shivani Gupta [00:55:42]:

Some of us have supplement fatigue, myself included. My supplement tray is, like, 50 supplements, and I I never win at my supplements in a given day. I try, and I’m like, oh, again. Oh, again. I missed it again because I don’t wanna take 50 at a time. And so I also built this rhythm of tea where I have my 1st tea at 7, my 2nd one at 10, my 3rd one at 1, my next one at high tea, My afternoon tea and then my bedtime tea. So I have tea, like, 5 times a day. And if they’re caffeinated, they’re gonna be diuretic and dehydrating.

Shivani Gupta [00:56:13]:

So some of them are purely herbal and functional. I’m still getting benefits, but without taking too many supplements to get there.

Nick Urban [00:56:20]:

There’s 2 other ingredients I wanna discuss with you, and one is something called boswellia, and the other is amla.

Shivani Gupta [00:56:26]:

Yeah. Both beautiful. I use boswellia in a formula I made called inflammation relief because it is anti inflammatory, ancient. It’s used by so many. It helps with joint pain, lubrication of the joints. It’s so supportive, so well received, such an intelligent plant. And then Amla, most people don’t know about Amla, but Amla’s a powerhouse. It’s like I forgot the fact, but it was, like, Either 30 or 300 times more potent than vitamin c.

Shivani Gupta [00:56:55]:

It’s such a powerful antioxidant for the system. The body takes it, And, it’s antiaging. We use it in Javanbrash, which is an Ayurvedic formulation to keep us rejuvenated and healthy, kind of like ghee in the way. But amla is also a very powerful source of vitamin c. So we have plants that are not the typical orange or things like that, But that can drive a really potent result.

Nick Urban [00:57:19]:

Is amla the one that’s super bitter?

Shivani Gupta [00:57:21]:

Yes. It it has a very strong taste. I don’t know that it’s bitter. It’s a fruit, But, yeah, it has that, like, acidic taste.

Nick Urban [00:57:28]:

Yeah. I was trying to think of what it was. My partner is she’s Indian, and she was cooking something. I I can’t remember if it was amla or something else, But I took, like, one little bite of it, and I’m like, wow. That is, like, in a really intense taste, and I don’t know if I can eat a whole plate of this. Right. Yeah. That’s, like, the physical side.

Nick Urban [00:57:43]:

And I think in Ayurveda, there’s also, like, a very strong spiritual leaning and teachings. Let’s talk about the spiritual side and principles of Ayurveda.

Shivani Gupta [00:57:52]:

Sure. So that’s not something I normally get to dive into, so thank you for that question. Ira Vida’s whole goal is to bring body, mind, and spirit into alignment, but where we talk all the time is about the physical. We’re so obsessed with the body and how the body looks? Is it healthy, and is it gonna last? Mind. I read that teaches us a lot about mental health. I don’t even get to talk about that ever, but we teach a lot about setting guardrails, about the content that reaches you. And so one great example of that is when you’re pregnant, we say, don’t read any books that are violent or negative. Don’t watch the news.

Shivani Gupta [00:58:27]:

Don’t watch horror movies, scary movies, anything negative. Anything you consume here, you’re consuming into your body. And so now if you take that even one level further into spirituality, The goal is to that spiritual alignment, that understanding of peace, of joy, of of how we are one with the environment. The environment is us. It’s a very kind of Buddhist philosophy and feeling of how can we revere nature just as nature has given us so much. And so I love kind of understanding that all this work that I’m doing, all the things that I’m doing to take care of myself Are really in service to my spiritual goals. And the more I align myself physically and mentally, The more I get closer to that pure alignment. And that pure alignment is me understanding my dharma, my life’s purpose here on this earth.

Shivani Gupta [00:59:21]:

It’s me fulfilling that dharma here on Earth while I’m in this lifetime. It’s me serving at my highest capacity, Me having this energy. Like, I have access to energy in a way that I’ve never had before. So whatever I wanna create, I don’t even doubt my ability to create it anymore because I have such access. Then on top of it, you can bend time. Sounds weird, but, literally, I can’t tell you how many times I look at time, and I’m like, listen. I wanna do this, And then time bends to to support what it is I wanna do. It’s almost like the ability to just stop time and accomplish because you’re at such peace.

Shivani Gupta [01:00:03]:

And it’s interesting. So when I was doing my master’s in Ayurvedic sciences, one of my professors was like, listen. If you can’t heal someone, that’s karma. And I looked at her like, are you kidding? Every health problem is solvable, every single one. And she said, yep. That’s naivete. Like, you’ll you’ll see. You will sometimes have a patient in front of you, a client, and you’re gonna teach them and show them and guide them and do all the things.

Shivani Gupta [01:00:27]:

And you’ll hit walls, and you won’t get further. And sometimes it’s just our Karma according to my belief system, and it’s something to work through and something to level up with and and clear. And sometimes we’ve got lessons to learn in this life, And so I really look at that as spiritual development. For me, it’s in the form of my beautiful children. They teach me a lot of lessons that I’m meant to learn. I I wish I had beautiful cherubs who just do everything I say, and that’s not what I got. I got strong willed, really bright kids. And so that’s the lessons, and and we get to evolve on this Earth, and we also get this access.

Shivani Gupta [01:01:09]:

Like I said, the access part is the fun part because the healthier you are, the more you clear your vibration, the more you understand that Your energy field is something you can control. What you magnetize towards it is something you can control, And those guardrails you put on yourself to create energy boundaries with energy vampires or anything negative that doesn’t serve, It’s all within your control. It’s all within your power, but you’re not accessing it because you’re murky and clouded and tired and fatigued and And inflamed, and you’re clogged. Your lymphatic is clogged. Like, you have this power to clear and up level and rise all the time.

Nick Urban [01:01:49]:

I sometimes feel like more caffeine will help me get more done, be more productive, and you’re certainly right. Like, the clearer your vessel is, the more downtime and quiet you make space for to connect to something larger than yourself, whatever that is? The more, like, I get these downloads and, like, ideas come to me and flow to me that I can’t get just by consuming more caffeine? And if I do that, paradoxically, it can be difficult at times, but I end up getting a lot more done? So that’s what I assume you mean by, like, bending time. Do you have any other examples that you what you would say are different?

Shivani Gupta [01:02:22]:

You know, I also think of bending time as, like, Claiming time. So a lot of times, like you said, I’ll I’ll almost take supplements and different things to, like, supercharge my brain because Maybe I’ll be in interviews all day or I’ll be on camera all day or sometimes we have video days where I am just teaching for hours online, and then they splice it all up and use it for social. And if I need to set myself up to be a 10 x productive person all the day before the day of Create so much space mentally and physically in my life that I’ve I’ve almost, like, cleared this open pathway, And I don’t know. It’s almost it’s like its own dimension in a way, but I clear the space That then lets me when I wanna go do something, I can just go. It’s it’s so funny. Like, sometimes I’ll sit down to work, and I will have an entire work day in, like, 6 to 10 PM, 6 to 12 PM, which I’m not supposed to do. So maybe 4 to 10 PM because by 10 o’clock, I’m like, hard line hard line to bed. You’re not working past 10, 10:30.

Shivani Gupta [01:03:29]:

Yes. But it’ll happen, and it’s almost like a time bending thing where because I have fueled right, because I have aligned right, I have my workout and supplements and everything on point, all of a sudden when I do go sit to focus, I can get a 3 day workday done in a one day workday. So that’s what I mean by bending time is is the leveraging of time on both sides. The leveraging of time for productivity, which is so exciting and and is a rush, And then the opposite, which is if you equally give yourself such space. It’s like the ultimate recharge session before you jump in?

Nick Urban [01:04:06]:

Are there any universal principles or activities you recommend to people who are interested in exploring the spiritual side of Ayurveda and say they like, they’re, like, religion agnostic or available to even atheists?

Shivani Gupta [01:04:22]:

I think what’s cool about India is we have so much in terms of this richness. I think yoga teacher training is a powerful spiritual journey. I did that, in pandemic year, and I was like, wow. You’re teaching me more about Hinduism and than I even knew before this, and I I’m a Hindu by birth. But, yes, when it comes to atheism agnostic, I love studying all religions. I think all religions have so much, so much benefit, so much truth if you’re willing to look at those universal truths. Yeah. There’s no one place.

Shivani Gupta [01:04:58]:

I would say go to India and visit the ashrams and have your own experience. That or Find a beautiful spiritual teacher here. I actually have my own spiritual teacher here in the US. She’s she teaches spirituality. She’s agnostic in the sense that we’re studying about Jesus and Mary Magdalene and and god is dargon, and it’s all over, but it’s it’s such cool Spiritual practice. It’s the study of the quantum field, and and we’re not living in the three d, and we’re in the five d, and And tuning in to to what’s right here is so powerful.

Nick Urban [01:05:30]:

Yeah. And the very simple practice can be just to slow down, make some space for in Time For Quiet, that’s, like, a lost art today. And then also to, like, be open minded and explore and, like, let ideas that may conflict and clash against your own? Like, explore those. Check them out. Decide what you wanna take. You don’t have to wholeheartedly accept anything? You can just, like, take certain things from certain systems and block and block other things from that system.

Shivani Gupta [01:05:59]:

Sure. And and studying your own intuition. Like, a big part of Ayurveda is the the training of ourselves to just tune into our intuition. I am here to train women mainly, but anyone, on how to tune into your intuition and use it as your guide. So a lot of times when I say tea time is me time, take the time to sit and have tea. You can have coffee. You can have your bulletproof. Whatever drink you want that you value, I do it as tea.

Shivani Gupta [01:06:27]:

And when you take that moment and just tune in and start to ask yourself questions, you’re asking your own intuition to guide you. And your own intuition is an intelligence that is connected to every layer around you on on all surfaces, all planes, all dimensions, A lot of intelligence that you in your own mind may not have access to. So I will ask myself, how do you feel today? Have you set your week up for success? What are you forgetting that’s really important right now? What do you need to do this week for this week to be amazing? Like, just start to ask There’s tough questions. Your intuition will start to answer you, and then it’ll get better and better. My intuition nowadays just screams answers at me. I’m like, okay. I got you. Okay.

Shivani Gupta [01:07:09]:

Okay. I I will tell the client what you’re saying. I don’t want to, but I will. So it’s, like, almost you can become a medical intuitive. You can become an intuitive on so many levels.

Nick Urban [01:07:18]:

Yeah. And especially when you’re starting out listening to your intuition, it might not scream at you. Like, for example, it doesn’t scream at me. It it’s like a little subtle voice? Like, I see, like, an image pop up immediately in my, like, imagination, and it’s very easy to tune it out. Like, oh, that’s just like my something else? Like, my imagination running wild, but, like, I find if I notice it and I go at my day, a lot of times, the image that I saw in my imagination or the voice I heard telling me to do or not do something, to listen to something, to change something? A lot of times, it’ll be vindicated later on, but If I was, like the more I pay attention to that, the clearer it becomes, like, this is this is my what my intuition looks like and sounds like, and the more I pay attention to it, the stronger it becomes over time as well?

Shivani Gupta [01:08:06]:

Yeah. And sometimes you can ask for clarity. You can do a yes, no. So somebody will be like, are you sure? And then I won’t get an answer. I’m like, is that true? Yes. So so yes, no helps a lot actually because a lot of times, you’re right. We disregard our own intuition. We’re like, that that’s my imagination.

Shivani Gupta [01:08:24]:

That can’t be true. But I have learned to really trust it, Like and really ask again. Is yes or no? And then when I get the feeling and it’s a clearer feeling, I’m like, okay. I’m gonna listen to that. I will do x or y, and and I find that if we are willing to listen to the intuition and the guidance that our own body, mind, and intellect is giving us, our intelligence, We’re that much more safe, more protected, more supported, more in alignment, more able to achieve the things that are good for us. But also, like, on the on the Hansel and Gretel, you know, like breadcrumb of life journey that we’re on this yellow brick road, We’re able to take those better turns to get there faster.

Nick Urban [01:09:09]:

Uh-huh. And I also will sometimes ask my, like, subconscious, my intuition certain questions like you just mentioned? Then I’ll notice, like, the feeling I get. And if there’s a rising feeling, it feels like a yes to me. And if it’s a sinking feeling, it feels like a no, and that I find to be pretty accurate also?

Shivani Gupta [01:09:25]:

Yes. No. That’s a great way to describe it. I love that. Thank you.

Nick Urban [01:09:28]:

You’re welcome. Well, we’ve been going for a while. I have 1 more question for you and then a quick rapid fire round. If people wanna connect with you to try some of your supplements, your teas? How do they go about that?

Shivani Gupta [01:09:42]:

Sure. So my supplement company is called Fusionary Formulas. It’s f u s I o n a r y, formulas. So that’s our website. That’s our Instagram, and we’re on all the social channels. And then I love teaching the Ayurveda part, so that’s shivanigupta.com, s h I v a n I, Gupta, and I’m at doctor.shivanigupta on Instagram and all the socials.

Nick Urban [01:10:03]:

I will put link to all those in the show notes for this episode. And now if there was a worldwide burning of the books and all knowledge was lost, but you get to save the works of 3 teachers? Who would you choose and why?

Shivani Gupta [01:10:16]:

I have them ready for you. The first one is Chadak Samatha. This is the ancient Ayurvedic texts. I have 7 of them. It’s like a anthology. But this is that ancient wisdom, and Ayurveda is the science of life. So it teaches us how to live this healthy, preventive lifestyle, how to be in alignment, all the good things. So I love those original texts.

Shivani Gupta [01:10:37]:

I read them on the weekend for fun. Then there’s doctor Laud. He’s the father of Ayurveda in the United States. So those of us who have A very Western science mind who need things explained for our brains to digest and believe. I love doctor Lott. I love all of his books. This one called Ayurveda, the Science of Self Healing is a small but very potent book that explains all of Ayurveda in a very summarized way. So I actually love all of his work.

Shivani Gupta [01:11:04]:

I’ve met him. I’ve hung out with him. I really admire him. I feel like I just I wanna go live next to him and and keep learning from him for the rest of my life. Maybe it’ll happen. And then the third one, I’ve really debated it, but it would be this one, Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss. My father passed away when I was 23, the year I was getting married, and this book brought me so much peace. And in Ayurveda, we teach that if our mind is all screwed up and we’re stressed, we will never have good physical health.

Shivani Gupta [01:11:36]:

And so this concept of we travel in pods and the people we love are there waiting for us, that concept brought me so much peace, and it just really helped me understand my own evolution and helped me belief build my belief system around, We’re all here. We’re all gonna be together again. It’s all gonna be okay. And so just that peace. I want people to have peace In whatever form it is, and that book really touched me.

Nick Urban [01:12:03]:

Oh, great. I’ll have to check those out. Okay. Quick rapid fire round now, and that first, we’ll we’ll start out with is if there are any common myths about Ayurveda or herbs or spices or anything that you come across?

Shivani Gupta [01:12:16]:

Sure. So I I was at a medical conference recently, the microbiome labs conference, and one of the doctors on stage had this PowerPoint up. And I think her book is called dirty girl, and I went up to her after. I was like, you know, you said Ayurvedic herbs all are high in lead, And they’re they’re bad for us. And I said, I own an Ayurvedic supplement company, and I can assure you that that’s not true categorically. Sure. If you pick up any cheap supplement off the streets of India and you tested it, sure that’s possible because there’s no, accountability. There’s no necessarily there’s not great testing.

Shivani Gupta [01:12:52]:

I’m sure the big companies have it. But Ayurvedic supplements as a whole are not gonna give you, like, lead Poisoning and heavy metal toxicity and all those things. Instead, they’re powerful solutions. So it’s all about how you source, What the testing is over in India, how the testing happens here, and are you vetting those ingredients? To me, that was the whole basis of why I created what I created. I wanted to prove that we can source really potent herbs at a high purity, at a high potency to create a a tremendous result. And so, yeah, that’s the myth that drives me the the craziest. That and herbal supplements and formulations could never be effective like drugs. I’m like, that’s a load of crap.

Shivani Gupta [01:13:36]:

You just wait. I will be funding all the science myself to prove that one wrong. That’s my life plan.

Nick Urban [01:13:41]:

Well, I hope so. That’d be great to see. Yeah. What area of your own health and performance are you currently working on?

Shivani Gupta [01:13:48]:

Oh, great question. So I go to functional medicine. I do deep blood testing multiple times a year. I love biohacking tools and experimenting on myself. I like to try anything I find. So I am now working on stress management Because I’m scaling my company and my projects so fast, it’s like I’ve built a train and the train is going into overdrive, and there’s Only so much that I can physically handle. And so my most recent stool test showed gut dysbiosis due to stress. And my functional medicine doctor is like, you need to stress less.

Shivani Gupta [01:14:24]:

And I was like, you should see the number of opportunities coming my way every week. You would tell me to keep going. And so that beautiful balance of, alright, you want the epic things, but you want beautiful health, And where is the intersection? Where is the juxtaposition? And so for me, that’s why I was talking about, like, space. I’m having to build more space and more peace Because the sheer level of work and pace is going so fast, and I’m learning to build a team. And so just today, I was like, you must infrared sauna 3 times a week minimum. Like, I’m starting to prescribe higher levels of radical self care Because there’s only so much you can take a toll on the body without having a price that you pay for it.

Nick Urban [01:15:11]:

Yeah. So infrared sauna, any other stress management biohacks that you found that work great for you?

Shivani Gupta [01:15:17]:

Yeah. So Epsom salt bath, detox as you’re churning and burning through life, High dose turmeric, of course, reduce that inflammation because stress will cause systemic inflammation. I love infrared sauna. I love the Vibra acoustic healing bed. I go to a center here that has 1, and that’s an awesome tool to just put yourself in the vibration that you need to be in. And what else? Earthing. I walk in nature. To me, to walk in nature is probably the ultimate healer, so making the time even if it’s 15 minutes, Even if it’s 10 minutes, I’m like, just go.

Shivani Gupta [01:15:50]:

Walk for your 10 minutes in nature, no phone, and all of a sudden the whole system is reset. Mentally, you’re cleared. Stress is reduced. Nature has healed you, and you can just move forward. So those are my best ones.

Nick Urban [01:16:02]:

What is one fun fact that your tribe does not know about you?

Shivani Gupta [01:16:06]:

Oh, I have a good one. I have a need for speed. I’m a 100% addicted to speed. So I am a closet race car driver.

Nick Urban [01:16:15]:

You

Shivani Gupta [01:16:15]:

can put me on the 95 express lanes. I go at speeds that I will not talk about, because one day, I’m sure it’ll be used in court against me, but I really, like, get unleashed when it comes to driving. My sister took me to the Porsche driving track 1 year, and we just went nuts. And so I also wanna be a race car driver in this lifetime at Some point. Like, drive the really fun cars.

Nick Urban [01:16:37]:

Fun. I used to have a little sport motorcycle, and the thing was way too fast. And I thought I I would I was gonna get on it and drive casually and stay under the speed limit, and I realized very quickly that was not possible. So I sold it, and I certainly miss it, I feel the same way as you do.

Shivani Gupta [01:16:56]:

Yeah. Like, I just wanna travel the world and race on racetracks. That would be epic.

Nick Urban [01:17:02]:

Alright. Doctor Shivani Gupta, what are the actionable takeaways that you hope people leave this episode with?

Shivani Gupta [01:17:09]:

Number 1, Use a tongue scraper. It’s epic. It’s a simple habit. It’s the easiest one to incorporate from Ayurveda, but I think everyone should use a tongue scraper. Number 2, take your turmeric. Turmeric is my favorite herb on Earth, favorite spice. Use it. It’s so powerful.

Shivani Gupta [01:17:26]:

Number 3, invest in perfect sleep. There’s a lot of things that you can do to improve your sleep by 10 x, 100 x, And we all think that our sleep is fine. It’s not fine. Everyone’s sleep can be even better. Even us who are obsessed with sleep can keep adding on to the toolkit we use for sleep, And sleep will help you clear inflammation. By clearing inflammation and rejuvenating the body on all levels and allowing the body to heal, Then we win at everything, and it’s part of circadian rhythm. Final message, look up circadian rhythm, circadian clock, And live according to it because that is nature’s rhythm, and nature’s rhythm is what’s gonna heal us, keep us balanced, and give us The ability to have and achieve all that vibrant health and the health goals we wanna have in this life.

Nick Urban [01:18:12]:

Perfect. That is a great way to wrap up. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I look forward to having you back at some point if you’re willing, and I hope that everything goes well with you and your business.

Shivani Gupta [01:18:24]:

Thank you. Thanks so much.

Nick Urban [01:18:27]:

I hope that this has been helpful for you. If you enjoyed it, subscribe and hit the thumbs up? I love knowing who’s in the 1% committed to reaching their full potential. Comment 1% below so that I know who you are. For all the resources and links, meet me on my website at mindbodypeak.com. I appreciate you and look forward to connecting with me