Welcome back to the Everything's Energy Show, I'm your host Roland and unless you've been living under a rock I'm sure you've heard the word inflammation. Have you heard about the perspective of Ayurveda in terms of how to deal with inflammation? You might be asking what is Ayurveda? Well thankfully today I have Doctor. Shivani Gupta, PhD in Ayurveda and author of The Inflammation Code.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:00:21
Yes.
Thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:00:23
Thank you for having me.
Well, I'm super excited to ask you about a ton of things. I think we should set the tone about what Ayurveda is. Because a lot of people know Eastern medicine, they know alternative medicine, but Ayurveda is a very specific class of Eastern philosophy. Is that fair to say?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:00:38
It is. So Ayurveda is this ancient system of medicine, health, and healing from India that's over 5,000 years old. And within that system, we teach about how to live a truly preventive lifestyle, and it's personalized medicine. It's a way to approach your entire life in a way that's anti inflammatory, but that also brings body, mind, and spirit into alignment. That's our goal is that true alignment that we can have that brings us the joy, the vitality, the vibrancy that we all deserve.
Okay. So in terms of defining someone's approach with an Ayurvedic as a practitioner, maybe take us through what that process looks like.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:01:14
Sure. So when we meet with someone, our goal is to understand what is going on here. What's wrong? Where did the imbalance start? An So Ayurvedic practitioner takes a very big history from birth on what happened in their lives.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:01:27
What are you doing right now? What are you struggling with? And then we also come to understand what is your imbalance or constitution in your system. So we teach that everyone has something called a dosha or what in my book I renamed elemental design. And we're made up of the five elements.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:01:43
And so once someone takes a quiz or you do a pulse diagnosis on them, you can come to understand what is their primary and secondary constitution. And then that is the driving force or understanding we use to help them customize their entire lifestyle. And so we teach those as vatha, piththa, and kapha made up of air, ether, fire, water, and earth. And those energies really start to define how you are physically, mentally, emotionally, and give you a really good perspective on why you are the way you are and then help you guide from there on, okay. For example, if you are very fire, okay.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:02:21
Well, then the counter pose to that is to bring more coolness into your life. Or if you're more air like a vatha person, we're gonna need to bring more warm and grounding tools into your life. Or if you're like guffa and more grounded, let's get you moving. So it's it's really a customization based on the constitution.
Interesting. And where does inflammation fit into this perspective?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:02:40
So when it comes to inflammation, looks at inflammation as just dysbiosis. Like, there's a friction in the system between gut and immune and maybe our toxin residue in the system that we call ama. There's this fragmentation or friction that's existing. And so our approach is always going to be heal the gut, heal the entire body, but also understand your constitutions because your constitutions guide how you make that approach.
So I would imagine that different constitutions have different susceptibilities. Like, of the three, is there one that's most prone to inflammation, for example?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:03:16
For yes. For sure. So Pitta people are more fire. Okay. And so they tend to get really imbalanced and inflamed quickly.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:03:24
So that's the one we think of first. But truly, each constitution has imbalances that in the end can drive inflammation.
And what would someone be experiencing through the auretic lens as a symptom when they're inflamed?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:03:37
So let's take each constitution and break it down.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:03:40
The first one is vatha. A vatha person is air and So this is someone who's taller or shorter than most people in their demographic, tend to be really lean. So this someone who's kind of lanky, or if they're petite and small, they're really small boned. This is someone who's like air and ether. So their properties will be like air, which is wind and movement.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:04:01
And you can imagine wind can be consistent like a ceiling fan. It can be a beautiful, gentle breeze, or it could be like a tornado. And so really understanding the nature of the element is important. And so a Vatha person mentally can be someone who's always on the go, always in movement. They're always thinking, always anxious about the next thing.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:04:20
They're go getters. They're always always like a busybody almost.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:04:25
Yeah. Very hard time to sit still or relax because there's always this motion element to them. And then Vatha people have a tendency to when they're balanced, they're creative. They're joyful. They have access to the artistic creative ideas of the world.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:04:38
This is your marathon runner. They love to be moving. They have so much good energy to them. But when out of balance, a Vatha person tends to have anxiety. Their dryness leads to dry hair, dry nails, dry gut, so constipation.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:04:53
That constant movement means disrupted sleep or insomnia. And so when you look at a Vatha person, if they are imbalanced, our homework for them is to bring in warm grounding meals, three square meals a day, building a routine and a schedule that holds space for letting go of that erraticness in their schedule and really warming, grounding, the nourishing the system, maybe bringing in ghee and all the healthy nourishing foods from Ayurveda, the warming spices, and that'll get them more balanced.
So you wanna bring up the heat to dry them out? Is that the or not necessarily the way to think about it?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:05:26
We're bringing in warmth and comfort and grounding to ground the system. Because a Vatha person will tend to be very green juice, cold foods, salad, smoothie, and what they need is warm and grounding and nourishing to undo that dryness.
That's so interesting. Because when I went out for lunch today, I had nothing but cold stuff all day. Because as you're talking about this, I'm thinking, where do I fit into this category? And I'm like, I want something warm, but nothing was speaking to me. I just knew that I needed warmth.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:05:53
Yeah. Yeah. And so understanding that energetics around warm and cold is actually a big piece of Ayurveda. And so we're always teaching people tune into yourself and see what is your body asking for. A lot of times we follow trends.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:06:06
The trends right now are cold smoothies, icy cold things, cold salads, raw foods.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:06:11
That's fine in certain seasons. That's a summer season type of mindset. Mhmm. But when we're getting into fall winter, we need to really transition to the new circadian diet of the season and move into the fall foods that are seasonal or the winter foods that are seasonal. And so Ayurveda is teaching us know your dosha or elemental design constitution and then understand circadian rhythm right after to customize your life plan.
Oh, I wanna come back to circadian rhythm, but I think we should finish the the categorization. So that was the Vata. The Pitta is the next one.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:06:40
Yes. Okay. Pitta is someone who's fiery. This is fire with some water. So this is someone who is physically reddish skin, reddish hair, tends towards early graying.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:06:52
They're more medium body. So while Vatha is kind of thinner and linkier, and you've got Kapha who's stronger and sturdier, but that's kind of right in the middle. Mhmm. Mentally, fire. So passionate, sharp.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:07:04
They're very organized. They're very, like, ambitious. They're very go getter.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:07:08
Pitta people tend to be driven, entrepreneurial, all those things. Pitta people love to eat hot, spicy, oily food. Everything that throws them out of balance, they're just intense. They want everything
They want the hottest curries or the spiciest soups, that kind of stuff.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:07:24
Exactly. Almost to the point of pain.
Yeah. Sweating while eating. Exactly.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:07:28
And so Pitta people tend towards when they're imbalanced, when that fire is too much, tend towards heartburn, inflammation, and they behave kind of like a volcano. So they erupt on the people around them. The closest people in their lives are collateral damage. They get frustrated, angry, bitter, burnt out. So any fire word.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:07:48
And so the job of Pitta is to really understand and treat themselves like a nuclear reactor and start to cool and calm in between. So that's why so many people come to me and say, I'm a sugar. I have a sweet tooth. I'm a chocoholic. And I always say, no.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:08:01
You are using sugar strategically to address your anxiety and stress and to cool yourself down because it's a cooling food. Let's look at healthier cooling foods instead.
Interesting. In my mind, I'm I'm seeing all these corollaries of how you're you're explaining things through the the lens of the doshas. I'm like, that's HPA axis activation. That's cortisol management. That's it.
I love how these philosophies everyone is concerned about what they're saying that's different.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:08:27
Right.
They're saying similar things with different terminology. I love bridging these gaps.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:08:32
Right. Exactly. Modern science is proving so much of Ayurveda to be true.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:08:36
So we're living through a beautiful moment where Ayurveda is fully validated by the modern sciences.
Well, in the West, you know, Chinese medicine has been something that's become a mainstay. And I remember when I was in nutrition school, I took an Ayurvedic class, and I learned the basics, the foundations. But you don't hear people saying, I'm gonna go to my Ayurvedic physician. Like it's not something that's become a mainstay in the West yet. And I kind of think you're one of these people who's kind of like the swell before the wave, so to speak.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:07
Yes. That's what I've been trying to do for a decade.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:09
I studied Ayurveda in my twenties. I studied it in India. I sat at all the guru's feet all over the different corners of India. And I thought, this is the most profound science and system of health ever. How am I gonna bring this wisdom west?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:24
And I thought, you know, India is just Ayurveda's just bad at marketing. That's the problem. They don't know how to break this down into a way that we can understand. But as I have taught it over the last twenty years, I've realized, you know, part of it is that it's holistic. It's integrative.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:38
It's not a perfect system on a linear path.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:41
And like you've talked about in the West, we want this, like, structure.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:46
Exactly. We want this pyramid or this building. Like a b c leads to d. And Ayurveda's like, actually it's a amorphous, beautiful, holistic understanding of you. And you're different.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:09:57
Each of us is different. So can't just make an ABC protocol. It really comes down to the individual.
That's what I love about the personalized approach. Yeah. And in keeping with that theme, we have one more Yes. Constitution to go through, yeah, which is the the kapha?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:10:10
Exactly. Okay. So a kapha person is earth and water. So this person is gonna be sturdier, stronger. Physically, they're bigger boned.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:10:18
They can lift heavier. They tend to have round features. So round face, round eyes, oilier, curlier hair, oilier skin. So this is that person who's very one thing at a time. Imagine the pace of mother earth.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:10:31
So it's one thing at a time, one decision at a time. They talk a little slower, move a little slower. They're not the the vatha going 200 miles an hour down the
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:10:41
Yeah. Slow and steady wins the race with kapha. Mhmm. And so a kapha person mentally tends to be this loving caretaker energy. They're so loyal, and they are such they're the best friend you ever had.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:10:53
They care about everybody else first. So in a man, it's a very mountain energy. And in a woman, it's this grandma caretaker energy.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:11:01
Exactly. Who's cooking and feeding everybody. That real caretaker. So when it comes to kapha, this is a person who can have a sluggish metabolism, stent can tend towards dampness, so, like, asthma, allergies, congestion in the lungs. This is someone who can tend towards depression, so a little bit of that earth water can create a lower energy field.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:11:21
Mhmm. And they can tend towards constipation as well. And so when it comes to that kapha person, they tend to have amazing slumber and sleep. So our job as a practitioner is to go in there and say, when kapha ends her day or his day and sits down on the couch, it's like mother earth sat down. And there's no getting them up and off to go do a third job or a side hustle or all those things.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:11:45
So understand your nature and honor that you need that deep sleep. You need that rest. So we encourage Kapha to eat warm cooked foods, easier to digest, again, those cold, hard to digest raw foods. And then we encourage them to exercise and move their energy in the morning. And kapha can actually tolerate bigger intermittent fasts, which supports their metabolism compared to the other constitutions.
I would imagine that context if a Vata person fasted too much, they would waste away, they would stress their system out. Correct. It's interesting because a lot of things become very vogue and popular in the health industry and cold plunges have been something of late. And I've always had this wonder of, like, not for everyone. No.
And when I've tried them, when I do them in the evenings Yeah. I don't sleep that night at all because my system gets so amped up. And I would imagine what I'm doing is I'm taking my constitution and exposing itself to a modality that's actually not in alignment with me. Right. And my body's response is, well, you don't get sleep because you're gonna be blown through cortisol all night long.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:12:49
Correct. And that's the thing. We're living through a moment where trends become these overarching trends. They become so in vogue. Like you said, everyone's doing them so cold plunging, infrared sauna, intermittent fasting, all the way to one meal a day.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:13:03
These are pretty extreme things we're talking about nowadays, and we're saying it's good for everybody. It's not good for everybody. It's not good for men and women. So let's, like, bring context there. Where are you?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:13:13
Are you still cycling or not? And then let's really add that context of dosha and elemental design constitution. Should we be dropping fires into plunging ice cold water? That's kind of insane. Vatha definitely should not go into ice cold water.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:13:30
Gafak has a lot more tolerance and reserve and needs that metabolism support. So it's really about the awareness.
That's such an interesting perspective. I love the approach because it gives people the ability to figure out where they fit in. Maybe there's a question for you. How does someone determine their makeup? Like can you be a balance of all three?
Are you primarily two or a single one? Like, how does that work?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:13:53
So we're all born with what we call our Prakruti. Prakruti is from birth what you are. Mhmm. Most people have a primary and a secondary. Some people are balanced in all three.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:14:02
And then you have what happens over life, which we call Vakruti. Over time, different traumas, different life events, and things that happen can lead to you being really imbalanced or living inside of another constitution that's not your primary and secondary. And then our job as a practitioner is to address that with you and help walk you back home. So for example, I meet a lot of women who are Pitta Vattas or Vattabittas. And they're like, yeah.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:14:27
I've been fiery my whole life. But then I had kids, and all of a sudden, everything has really slowed down. Or someone in my family got sick, and I became a caretaker. And I said, yeah. You had to call in mother earth energy.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:14:38
And maybe that that put on a little weight for you or maybe it's like you slowed down a little bit in your life and now you wanna be this. Just slowly walk yourself home. And that's what we teach is how to do that through the six pillars of Ayurveda that I teach.
Interesting. Interesting. Okay. And if one wants to figure out their constitution, I remember you saying you have, like, a questionnaire or something that people can go through?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:15:00
Yes. On my website at doctorshimani.com, I have a quiz. And when they take the quiz, they come to know what is their constitution, and then they also come to know about it. So I put videos there so you come to know about it right there.
Okay. I might wanna go do this after. I'm very curious to see if it was still as it was when I did it way back when. Yeah. Because I would imagine over as you said, over time, things can change.
Characteristics can start to become amplified or or nullified.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:15:23
Exactly. Yeah. You can create different shifts in your life that happen to you that can shift you within your primary and your secondary even. So for example, I'm a bit of vatha. But anytime life gets really chaotic and really busy, I can feel that vatha going into overdrive.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:15:39
And then that's the one I need to focus on and balance. Travel can do that to us. Conferences, lots of different things can just throw you overboard. And then it's just about understanding the nuances of how you bring yourself back into balance the quickest.
So I guess it's gonna be a challenging question to answer, but I'm gonna try to ask it as well as I can. Knowing we have these nuances and these specific approaches, is there foundational approach practically
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:16:06
Yeah.
To inflammation that Ayurveda takes? Is it the adoption of herbs? Is it using different therapeutic foods? Like, what's the overarching concept? Then maybe we can drill it down to specifics.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:16:16
Sure. So in my book, I outlined the six pillars of Ayurveda that over working with thousands of clients, I have seen are the six pillars we need to understand for us to constantly dance and flex with our constitutions. So my first pillar is know your elemental design and live by it. The second pillar is circadian rhythm because the circadian clock from Ayurveda is how we custom build our rhythm every day, and that's what keeps us in alignment and keeps us balanced. It's actually one of our best tools to dance with our different constitutions.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:16:49
Then I teach about gut health because gut digestive fire from Ayurveda is one of our key topics. When your fire is strong, mind is strong, immune system's strong, everything is working well. But when it's weak, we create what we call ama or this toxin residue that builds up in the system that stagnates and slows the whole system down and causes disease and inflammation. And so understanding gut digestive fire is really important. Then we talk about diet, a circadian diet, a seasonal diet, a diet that's so nourishing that the body has everything it needs to stay healthy.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:17:23
Nowadays, we're living very restrictive or one way diets or extreme diets. And Ayurveda was very much about the middle road being the best road, but customized to your constitution. And then I also teach about how we can use self care as a daily rhythm to detox the body gently, but also to live according to our constitution, to stay more balanced. Really detoxing gently is the main point of the self care rituals. And then I teach super spices and how all the super spices, including turmeric, which is what my PhD is on, is such a powerful toolkit for us to reach into when it comes to inflammation and health.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:18:01
And then the final pillar pillar, it's like a bonus pillar. When I wrote the book, I realized if people don't address their innate stress, they're never gonna win at inflammation. And so I called that mental inflammation. Because in Ayurveda, we really teach that you're digesting everything that you consume physically, mentally, emotionally, everything visually in your world. You're consuming it and processing it.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:18:22
We might always not always have that fire for it. And so I teach, can you please work on your stress? Maybe it's yoga, pranayama, walks in nature, but all the different ways to reduce that so we're not creating inflammation in the system.
Yeah. That's a very important point because I think people fail to realize all nonphysical things still have to be experienced through the body. So your physiology is going to respond to psychological stress, emotional stress, your spiritual stress, right? And last time I checked in 2025, stress seems to be people's past times unconsciously and inadvertently because of the pace of life. And also, like you said, we're all trying to get ahead and what what it is we're trying to do.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:19:03
Right. And we underestimate the toll that that takes. We underestimate what it does to our gut digestive fire or our entire system's fire, that agni that we have. We call it agni for fire. And so when I wrote the book, I thought mental inflammation is that last key piece that if we don't pause and address, we're gonna cause such detriment and inflammation to the system.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:19:25
But really, it's about standing guard at the door of the mind and standing guard at the doors of our energetic field and understanding we have the power. We have the power every day, but we have to tune in and recognize and understand when do I need to push harder? When do I need to take a break? When do I need to recover? When do I need to get off social media?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:19:46
I'm consuming garbage. Let's put that down and consume something good. And so that awareness is so powerful because Ayurveda says your intuition knows everything you need. You just need to create the breaks in your day to allow your intuition to come through. And so I teach that as something called tea time is me time.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:20:03
So I pause five times in the day, have a cup of tea, and use that moment to really tune in. And in modern science, you could call it vagus nerve toning because sipping a hot beverage will do that. Dropping into parasympathetic. We know that will reduce inflammation and put us in rest and digest. So there's a lot of scientific stuff we can use to help you understand why you should do it.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:20:24
But in the end, to me, tea time is me time is a moment to tune in and ask my intuition. What do I need right now? What can I do that will make today better? What do I need to change that's really not gonna serve me today or this week? And then wait for your intuition to give you the answers.
I get this vision of the classic Japanese tea ceremony. I know it's a different cultural reference, but it's you're honoring not only the process, the nature of being present, being fully immersed in the experience. I mean, all that there ever is is the now anyways. You know? So it's again, it's another way of, you know, you're taking spiritual conceptual frameworks and you're applying different language to the same idea.
You're just trying to balance the two, I guess, necessary opposing forces in the person that ultimately help them maintain health.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:21:09
Right. Exactly. Yeah. And you know what? A lot of times we think of health as so much work.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:21:15
That was part of why I named it mental inflammation because nowadays nowadays, anyone who's in the health and longevity and biohacking space, there's so much to do. I own an infrared sauna. I own a lot of these tools, and I love them. PEMF mats and all these things. But Ayurveda said, move in nature, breathe in nature, and put your feet in nature.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:21:33
It is free. It is that simple. Nature is the ultimate biohack, and she will give you that peace that you crave. So it can be that simple.
I couldn't agree more. You know, people sometimes turn these modalities into a stress and that it's
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:21:48
Exactly.
I've seen this a lot clinically. People who wire their fight or flight nervous system, you talked about sympathetic and parasympathetic. They become addicted to stress seeking because it makes them feel normal, and they don't realize that when they stress seek, the psychological shift into that fight or flight also puts the gas pedal of their physiology to the floor, and they start burning through resources, and they start to imbalance themselves over time. So Correct. You're saying the same thing.
You're telling the same story, but with different lessons through the lens of Ayurveda.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:22:18
Exactly.
I wanted to come back to circadian rhythm. Sure. I'm fascinated by circadian rhythm for a multitude of reasons. I think it is truly the foundation of how the human body is supposed to work in alignment with the rhythm. Exactly.
What's the Ayurvedic approach? You said it's a very specific tool.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:22:34
Yes. So Ayurveda looks at the circadian clock. Ayurveda came up with circadian clock. And so it's really beautiful that now we talk so much about chronobiology and circadian rhythm and especially in the biohacking space, and we're using blue light blockers and talking a lot more about sleep than ever. But Ayurveda said the circadian clock dictates all things.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:22:53
You can either swim upstream against the flow of the river and fight so hard against being healthy, or you can flow downstream with nature. And that's where ease comes in. Ease and flow when it comes to your health. And so our circadian clock is broken up by the constitutions. And so we call six to ten the in our case, we call it six to ten as gaffa time of day.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:23:15
So AM. AM and PM.
So six to ten It's it's interlinked in a mirror.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:23:21
Exactly. It's mirrored on both sides. So when you take six to ten in the morning, that's your slower start. You're meant to move your energy first thing in the morning. You're meant to focus and get things done.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:23:32
Ten to two on that clock is bit that time of day. That's fire. So when that fire comes in, you have the strongest sun in the sky to really absorb all your food, gain all the nutrition, and absorb your micronutrients and nutrients out of those meals. So harder to digest things you're meant to eat at lunch. And you're meant to have a very productive fiery day in your ten to two.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:23:51
Your most productive hours of your day are ten to two. Then after two, we have that slump that most of us have, and two to six is Vatha time of day. And so that's your lighter, higher, quick energy time of day. You might feel more scattered. You might have a hard time focusing.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:24:06
So we teach that in that time, get your quick list task done. Make a list and execute it because your bigger, higher thinking is not gonna happen in that window. Then, again, six to ten evening, it's much clearer. You're meant to relax, ease into the evening. You're meant to put your work down and commune, eat, and relax.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:24:25
Ayurveda does want you to finish dinner early enough so you're digested and complete at least three hours before bedtime. So if you can finish dinner by seven and have your bedtime at ten, that's ideal. And we teach that there's a melatonin release at 10PM, and so you should leverage that and use that. And 10 to two again is bit the time of day on the clock. So 10PM to 2AM is when that fire comes out.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:24:48
It can clear your lymphatic system, lymphatic system, and inflammation. So it's your best opportunity for detoxification. But most of us push that 10:00 bedtime. And so ten to twelve, we teach is actually twice as important as all the other sleep you're gonna get from a detox standpoint. And then, again, two to six, you're still meant to sleep, but that could be some of your lighter sleep states.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:25:10
And so making sure the ten to two happens is important. So we kind of look at it as this cyclical opportunity to understand where you fit in with productivity, how you wanna manage your day and build your day for your own health.
That's so cool because I remember hearing a long time ago, don't know where I heard it, that the sleep that happens, like you just said, from ten till midnight is the most important. And they say the physiologic repair happens between ten and two, and the psychological is two to six. And which is interesting is you're reflecting, like, I would imagine the the body's more fire and the mind is more air. Right. So it's saying, again, the same thing.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:25:46
Exactly. Exactly. And so understanding circadian rhythm is important. We're we're also teaching when to eat, how to eat in those time schedules. Eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:25:56
Some people can hold bigger fasts. The kapha crew can. But the vatas and pittas need to watch out how far they push their fasting. And then we teach that eating that bigger meal at lunch is better. Usually, we like those big dinners.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:26:09
Mhmm. And dinnertime is meant to be more soups and stews and easier to digest meals.
So this may be really hard to do, but I'd be interested to know if we could do a very quick going through the day as an individual dosha, like a Vata's optimal day, a Pitta, a Kapha if we
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:26:23
could. Sure. Okay. So let me start with Pitta. That's the easiest because I am a Pitta.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:26:28
Pittas are meant to wake up, kick off our day. Pittas have a lot of fire energy, so there's a lot of energy there to work out and move first thing. Pittas are meant to keep cooling practices on board first thing in the morning. So your morning rituals and what we call those daily self care rituals, could look something like waking up, set an intention, hydrate. We have no problem with bowel movements as Pittas.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:26:53
We have such a hangry, strong agni and system. It just keeps moving. And so your morning practices could have pranayama, deep breathing, that can have a cooling effect. So for example, is alternate nostril breathing that's cooling to the mind. That's a great one to start with.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:27:09
Yoga would be cooling, not too too vigorous or too hot. So pittas don't need hot yoga. We're already burning hot enough. We can do regular yoga. Nowadays, there's so many trends that people jump into.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:27:22
Bit does have a lot of energy, so they can drive in their business day, but make sure to pause and actually eat lunch and focus so you digest and get those nutritional benefits. And then moving into the afternoon, really making sure you stay hydrated, eat your cooling foods, and have a transition point. So I have high tea every day at 03:30 or 04:00 to transition and switch my day from work into the afternoon evening with kids.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:27:46
Bitters will tend to have their fire on twenty four seven and work twenty four seven. So building kind of breaks in the day or junctures in the day that switch you from different parts of the day can be really helpful. And then a beautiful evening routine to cool and calm the mind towards bedtime because bittha's content to just work straight into bedtime. And with social media and everything, you can kind of work twenty four seven now. So that would be Pitta.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:28:10
And, really, an evening routine that's cooling could be dry brushing. Abhyang massage is something we teach that's very a self massage that slows you down in your day and really grounds you. All of those things can benefit the Pitta person. Now a Vatha person tends to be dry, tends to be cooler. A Vatha person, when they start their day, maybe should start a little slower.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:28:32
So, yes, your hydration tongue scraping, oil pulling, these kinds of practices are good, but a slow yoga practice, a slower deep breathing practice. Maybe really walking in nature and setting up the day by keeping a slower cooler well, I wouldn't say cooler. A slower morning, and then making sure you eat a proper warming breakfast as your first meal, proper lunch, which is hard for the Vatha crew. They tend to run around and not eat. But eating that healthy fat like avocado and and ghee can really keep your body more grounded.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:29:02
Mhmm. And then in the afternoon, that two to six is when Vatha is actually gonna get the most dysregulated. And so Vatha people really have a it would help to have a schedule where you're really making a list of things to do, keeping track of what you need to do, keeping yourself focused and on task because Vatha can get really distracting.
Just staying grounded. Teaching yourself to be able to stay grounded.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:29:24
Exactly. Which is really a practice for the Vatha crew. And then making sure you're supporting yourself to be active enough to get good sleep. My Vatha crew tends to have that very disrupted sleep, and they need to move their bodies. So I always say, is it a morning workout and evening walking?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:29:39
Like, really bookend your day with movement so you've moved enough to have good sleep. And then that evening routine is very important for Vatha. They need dinner, warm and grounding dinner, but also an evening routine that eases their mind, quiets the mind into bedtime. And so maybe it's a deep sleep tea or a pyang massage that really grounds their energy, warms them up so that they're supported for a better night's sleep. So evening ritual to guarantee good sleep would be Vatha homework.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:30:09
And then Kapha, I would say Kapha needs to start the day and move. Kapha wants to just stay sleeping and sleep for their ten plus hours, the goal is set an alarm once your sleep is complete and move, whether it's walking in nature or vigorous exercise. So spinning, HIIT training, any of those things. I would encourage them to sign up for group classes and have a buddy who holds them accountable to force them to go and move.
Because they may be a little resistant to getting up off the couch.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:30:35
Yes. Yeah. Don't want to move. It's it's the nature. The nature is just so earth energy.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:30:40
So moving the body to move the energy for the day and get energized is important for them. Eat their grounding meals, avoid the cold. And then by evening, Gafa, once Gafa sits down, is settled. And so honor that. Understand that that's your nature.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:30:56
So whatever you're gonna do in your day, get it done by five, 06:00. Then once you're settled in for your Netflix and chill or your your relax time, then that's okay because that is your nature. And and really understanding how to take care of self and do self care for self is important because kapha is always in service to others.
K. So I'm gonna try to round it out. See if I'm gonna see if I have this. The Pitta people have to manage the heat and the fire. Yeah.
Let it be a tool, but don't let it burn you out and and over overdrive your system. Yeah. The Vata people have to stay grounded. Right. Use the ability to tap into the the motion and the movement of the air, but don't let your feet get too far off the ground.
Yeah. Kapha people cannot become one with the couch. They have to make sure that they're doing their things to keep themselves moving so they don't become too stagnant in energy or body. I got that right?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:31:44
Yes. Good job.
Thank you. I mean, you laid it out really well. What are some general inflammatory activities or practices that all people can benefit from regardless of where someone is on the spectrum?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:31:59
You're asking what they can do that's anti inflammatory in their lifestyles?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:32:02
Yeah. Number one would be understand your circadian rhythm and build a circadian rhythm and be consistent. So wake times and sleep times, get consistent. A lot of people are pretty erratic with that, I've heard. I I'm very structured.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:32:15
So Mhmm. Really that structure matters first. Then let's talk about diet. Three square meals a day, but really bringing in more nourishing food. Sometimes we're eating so on the go.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:32:26
In Ayurveda, we teach about when to eat and how to eat more than what we even teach what to eat. Because oftentimes, we're gonna pick up I see people all the time standing to eat, just nuking the food in the microwave and eating it quickly, standing and running around on the go.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:32:41
Eating in the car. So many practices we have now in the West that that really don't serve us. So park, sit still, smell your food, experience your food, say a blessing or a prayer just to drop to, of course, bless the food energetically, but then also take a breath to drop into your parasympathetic so you actually absorb the benefits of that food and actually get the nourishment. So really that awareness around food is important. I teach tea time as me time because it's almost easier for me to tune in during the tea time and as me time times than always on the meals.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:33:15
And then as you're going through your day, really build a rhythm of self care. Tuning into self. Maybe it's taking walks after every meal. Maybe it's a meditation. And if you can't meditate, I walk in nature as my meditation.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:33:28
So those are some of the simple anti inflammatory practices, circadian rhythm, how to eat and when to eat. And then I love using super spices. So my whole dissertation was on turmeric, and turmeric to me is the most powerful anti inflammatory. Ginger, and there's other great spices from Ayurveda that can do that. But I always recommend, let's get the inflammation down fast.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:33:49
Let's win at it. And then can I teach you the entire lifestyle you can use so you never have to take turmeric again? Because we're not meant to take any given herb forever. These are great tools. We have a lot of science around extraction and building potent supplements right now, but we're not meant to take anything forever.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:34:05
So let's actually then build the lifestyle so we win on daily basis.
I really like that perspective because in the West, people get this idea of, oh, it's anti inflammatory. Therefore, I should take it. And we keep stacking things.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:34:16
Right.
And no one thinks about the potential black box reality of if I take 19 things that are all for inflammation, do they all work well together? Right. It's really a roll of the dice, know supplements are a wonderful tool but again there is a little bit of a fantasy like nature in the sense of assuming something's gonna do well and then more is better. Oftentimes more just ends up being more
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:34:39
True.
Very true. Potentially not so optimal.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:34:42
Yeah. And you know what? People don't let go of their supplements. A lot of times you'll start something and you just take it forever and we forget that there can be like this overuse of something and let the body hold itself. So I'm a big believer in and Ayurveda teaches us, use your herbs, use them strategically.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:34:59
They are very powerful. But then also let's keep adjusting lifestyle where needed. Because if the body needs the herb, there's something off in lifestyle.
Mhmm. And the body will always tell you, but people don't really know how to tune into that inner intuition or wisdom.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:35:13
True. I mean, inflammation shows up as brain fog, fatigue, headaches, indigestion, bloating. It shows up as aches and stiffness and joint pain. So anytime you feel like, gosh. You know what?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:35:27
I feel like I'm aging. Something is off here. I always pause and say, no. No. No.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:35:32
That's inflammaging. That's inflammation meets aging, and inflammation's making you feel like your aging is accelerating. So now you need to pause and, like, understand where where did I create a change? What happened? For me, sometimes it's sleep because I'm traveling.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:35:47
So then I'm like, okay. Double down on sleep. Let's take whatever we have to sleep tea, sleep gummies. Let's get phenomenal sleep, and then we should be able to fly without that. Or is it our diet?
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:35:58
Did we suddenly start picking up foods that are inflammatory to the system, or did we drop all self care? And so really understanding where are we sitting on that line will help us reverse out of that inflammation and then not feel those aging symptoms. But most people I meet are like, yeah, I'm just aging, so I just pop NSAIDs and whatever I have to every day for the pain, and I keep going. And that's the perspective Ayurveda does not believe in. We say you have such sovereignty and power of your health.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:36:25
It's just tiny, choices built on a rhythm that you have to do to stay healthy and vibrant.
And it's really commitment to the practice. Yeah. I love that. Doctor. Shivani, this has been an absolute masterclass in inflammation and Ayurveda.
I wanna thank you. Where can people find you if they wanna know more about this? Because I'm sure some people might be compelled to reach out after this interview.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:36:45
For sure. So my elemental design quiz and all my teachings are at my website, shivaniguptha.com. Shivanigupta is how you spell it. And I'm on Instagram and all the social channels as doctor. Shivaniguptha.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:37:00
My book is theinflammationcode.com. And then my teas and Ayurvedic nutraceuticals are at fusionaryformulas.com. And I made a special code, everything's energy. We'll give everyone 15% off on the website, and that's where they can find me.
That's amazing. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for enlightening us on Ayurveda. I know I learned a lot. I'm now thinking back through, okay.
I have to revisit some of this stuff because I think there's some wisdom in there that I need to to figure out for myself.
Dr. Shivani Gupta
00:37:26
Awesome.
Alright. And everyone, thank you as always for being here. If you do enjoy this content, please like, subscribe, and share it with anyone who you feel called to. We'll see you next time on the Everything's Energy Show.
