Rigid Optimization Doesn't Work... But This Might | Nidhi Bhanshali Pandya

Key Takeaway

Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old 'science of life' from India, teaches us to understand our body's natural rhythms and make choices that restore balance. One immediately actionable practice: when you've had a disrupted night of sleep, choose lighter exercise (like yoga over running), practice slow exhales longer than your inhales (5-count in, 7-count out), and oil your body before showering to support your nervous system and speed recovery.

Episode Overview

Niti Pandia explains Ayurveda as the original 'science of life' - a 5,000-year-old system from India that covers everything from disease prevention to nutrition, lifestyle, and relationships. Unlike rigid prescriptions, Ayurveda provides a flexible framework for understanding your body's rhythms and the nature of foods and activities, allowing you to make informed choices and remediate imbalances sustainably. The episode covers core practices like body oiling (Abhyanga), resonance breathing, and aligning eating patterns with your digestive fire, which fluctuates throughout the day like the sun outside.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Rigid Optimization Doesn't Work... But This Might | Nidhi Bhanshali Pandya from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Niti Pandia, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Dan. All right, let me start with a really basic question. I think a lot of people have heard of Ayurveda. You know, it's kind of as a it's like a marketing thing now. I've heard of it. I [clears throat] know about as much about Ayurveda as I know about essential oils which is to say nothing. Um so what is Ayurveda? So Ayurveda you know as you said a lot of people know Ayurveda today through Tik Tok wellness trends whether it's turmeric whether it's ashwagandha oil pulling dry brushing uh bullet coffee intermittent fasting you can say to a great extent all of these have their root in roots in Ayurveda but what Ayurveda literally is what it literally translates into is au means life and veda means science.

It is the original science of life that comes from India 5,000 years ago. [snorts] And given the fact that it's the science of life, Dan, it covers everything from prevention and treatment of diseases to [snorts] lifestyle, nutrition, fertility, child care, social conduct. If it has to do with human life, Ayurva covers it. And what's what's happened is that as we've opened our mind to looking at the system beyond modern medicine in the last few years, a lot of trends have come from traditional Chinese medicine and ayura.

So the world has opened up its mind and eyes to ayura again. And this is the perfect time to rediscover it and bring it back because it is technically ancient but it's timeless and it's extremely relevant to us. So, you say the world has opened its mind. Um, one of the quotes that I love from one of my favorite punk bands in the 80s, uh, the Meat Puppets, they had this a line in one of their songs that open up your mind in pours the trash.

Meaning, uh, and not that's not to trash Ayurveda, just to say that you've got a lot of less than scrupulous people who can feast upon this ancient tradition for their own benefit and create a lot of confusion. Do you does does that jive with you what I'm saying Dan? 100% I fully agree with you. Right? Because when you bring something ancient and you're still bringing regulation into it, but it sounds mystical, it sounds appealing and it sounds different. It can very quickly become a trend. It can very quickly be lost in translation.

[snorts] And honestly, part of my life's work then is to bring Ayurveda back to what it's supposed to be. It's the science of life. It is supposed to it is the most precise and logical science that I have come across and to bring it back into its principalbased model rather than a prescriptionbased model. Sire has become prescriptive, dogmatic, rigid and even trendy which is just loading people with information rather than giving them the wisdom of why this is done. So bringing the wise back to the what's part of my work but you're absolutely right.

It has it's very quick. It's it can very quickly become a trend. It can very quickly become a marketing tool for marketers. marketers. marketers. You said it's the most precise science that you've come across. Is that did I am I recapitulating your words correctly? That is actually correct right Dan because if when you go back to the ancient Sanskrit texts I just want to give you an example when I say this what what is it that I mean right that today you can hear you know studies are done and it you know you see that okay this is what turmeric can do for you this is the curcumin for example I'm just going to take that example this is what the curcumin and the turmeric can do for you but when you go back to the ayurveetic textbooks and you look at them talk about turmeric it will start out by talking about who can take turmeric Turmeric what are the properties of turmeric who should not take turmeric how should you combine the turmeric at what time of the day should you take the turmeric what can you not take along with turmeric so what I mean to say is that nothing that's given there is just it's abs it's not absolute everything has a perspective everything is very relative and everything comes with its disclaimers and warnings and I feel like to do it that way makes it so much more safer rather than just general advice for the mass audience.

I I guess the reason why my ears perked up when I heard you talk about the precision of the science is if you get cancer who are you ni going to trust more like an oncologist or an Ayurvedic doctor. So I will say that and I've thought about this Dan right because I'll be honest cancer actually runs in my family like we are just we we just are like that my grandmother my aunts my dad and this is precisely what what we've we've done especially this is what my dad who's currently in remission is doing so for the surgical aspect of it right and surgical aspect of it definitely modern medicine right for critical care critical care critical care definitely modern medicine but for the maintenance if or as well tell us if anybody is going through chemo and what that chemo does to your body and what radiation does to your body with me Dan and I've had this conversation I've had some procedures done and I've said that I the surgical aspect of it by all means in fact Sushut if you if you a lot of surgery schools give credit to Sushut who's one of the Ayurvedic authors back in the day he's called the father of of surgery have you heard of him he's like people will tell you the father of surgery is sushut and he comes from ayurveda [snorts] and um so we are absolutely okay with surgical procedures.

In fact, I rather you know we had textbooks on surgical procedures but I think everything else as my dad is he had highgrade prostate cancer um fast progressing he's 7 years in remission and all his treatment post his surgery has all been right so but what about chemo would you not do chemo when I work with my clients Dan I will tell them that you do you right I'm not I'm not allowed to give medical advice and I understand that you know chemo can be beneficial for a lot of people but I will say that chemo pretty evenly chars the body for the lack of a better word.

You know it creates this inflammation inside it depletes the mucosal lining and all the work that needs to be done so that you can start rebuilding I will bring in Ayurveda. All the foods that you can eat and all that you can avoid so that your body is braced for that chemo ayurveda can be very helpful to integrate into that entire treatment protocol. You're if I'm hearing you correctly, you're not saying let's um forget about western medicine. You're saying no, let's let's um supplement and enhance western medicine with this ancient science of life.

Absolutely right. I mean, one way of saying this, right, yoga is a sister science of ayurvea, right? And it's beneficial for most people if they're doing strength strength training 3 days the running 2 days it's beneficial for them to add in yoga one day somewhere in there right because it'll help to stretch it'll help to regulate the breathing it will improve the heart rate variability so it very well works in fact in our modern day with everything that we're consuming currently you know with our air being polluted with our food being toxic with everything in our environment and this is also why I say this is the time for ayura Because this science teaches you so well and so deeply how to brace yourself in the face of imbalance or in the face of an imbalanced ecosystem.

imbalanced ecosystem. imbalanced ecosystem. Let let's go into what Ayurveda is actually all about. What are the key concepts that we need to understand uh beyond the the branding that may show up on our the face lotion. So I will say Dan right I think one thing that I want to clarify right off the bat that what you see today mainstream is not even the tip of the iceberg in fact that's the most superficial aspect of Ayurveda what Ayurveda really is it understands you know actually let me actually go back a little bit right so when we look at the world around us right Dan and we look at animals and I always use the example of deer deer knows uh that it needs to wake up in the morning to graze No alarm clock needed, not complaining.

Oh my god, I'm on the same patch of grass again. Right. And you see uh we see animals everywhere, species on our planet displaying behavior where they understand how to live. Like I've personally seen bears eat big cabbage heads in Alaska before they hibernate because they want to have that big bowel movement. Or they're animals who will reject certain foods but eat galactog plants when they're nursing. or pets, you know, if you have an animal, even if you got in the, you know, in the wild with a dog and if he is bruised, they notice sulfur rich soil.

They'll kind of roll on that sulfur rich soil. So, all species, even worms with like two senses, can understand, you know, where to make their hole, what to go into, what to consume. At birth, we as babies know to eat from our mother's breast. We've never used our mouth before, but it's this inherent knowing, right? So we can we can agree we can safely agree that all species understand how to live and how to be well and how to make choices. Somehow we have forgotten we've overused our intellect so much that we've lost that instinct.

Now ayurvata is a science that is preserved. If somebody had to take all of human instinct and really put it down in literature and say these are the rhythms and the patterns that exist in your body. This is the nature of the human body. This is the nature of our organs of how we function and this is the nature of the world outside of you of the foods you eat of sunrise and sunset of what's happening and how do they interact with each other and through this deep understanding of how nature works how life works through that basic foundational princ those foundational principles now it can kind of go further into because of this understanding this This is how you can build your life out.

This is how you can eat. This is how you can cook your foods. This is how you can wake up. This is how you sleep. This is how you conceive. This is how you make relationships. Just pretty much all of that. So, at its core, ayada understands that instinct, but it's kind of written down in the in the form of a framework. And on top of that framework are these prescriptions that consume this or do this in the morning and do this in the night time.

One more layer of ayurda Dan that I think that's often missed is Ayurda is not rigid right it's not a rigid science at all for example let's say you and me right Dan and we all know today I'm just going to give you an example that okay you know sleeping early at night is going to help deliver inflammation it's going to get that body the lymphatic system going to give you deep rest and rebear and yet there are times that you know let's say let's say I cannot sleep late or I cannot sleep on time and I'm sleeping late every night when I'm sleeping I rather has a lens of understanding what happens in the body when I'm doing this so say hey this we know today scientifically that you know there'll be more cytoines and you'll have more inflammation more oxidative stress lower lymphatic cleansing what can you do right because you understand the impact of what this staying up will do what can I bring in during the daytime to create balance to that imbalance that I created at night so because I understand the nature of the imbalance.

You can now bring in remedies. You can remediate the imbalances that you create. Now, of course, long-term that's going to hurt somebody. But I cannot even tell you like right now I live in New York City. I'm raising two teenage daughters and I would say it's all my tools in my toolkit come from this science and understanding. And it doesn't mean that you have to live in an ashram or a monastery. It does not mean that. It just means you want to understand the basic rhythmic function of your own body and what's happening outside and constantly look to offset imbalances that are created and move towards health in the most sustainable and easy manner.

So, it sounds like it's a it's a kind of I've sometimes heard Buddhism referred to as advanced common sense and and that seems like it might apply here. It's a return to our intuitive knowing that's been papered over, crusted over by social pressure to look a certain way. Uh conflicting advice about what diet is best for you. Um uh lots of uh unhealthy foods that flood the the the food chain. Um and it's about bringing us back to our intuitive knowing and then adding some real insights and expertise on top of that.

of that. of that. Oh yeah. I couldn't have said it better. But but yet, right, uh Dan, I I I tell people that we're so far away from our intuition. We're so far away from our instinct, right? We've overused our intellect. I mean, in our intellect is great. It's really what made us human. It's made it's allowed us to advance this much, but it's also becoming it's also becoming what's it's also in the way of coming back to our wisdom, right? It allows us to stay in that information.

We're obsessed with information. It's outside of us. Wisdom is within us. And in Ayurata the first cause of disease is that loss of wisdom of that inner knowing. [snorts] So we need a framework to come back and yes aya is ayata provides that framework so you can start understanding instinctually the rhythms and the patterns that exist in the body. But it is very true it is it is very much like Buddhism. Um in fact one of the later texts actually have a a sutra a verse from from Buddhism you know the middle path of the how how everything comes to that middle path in whether it's food whether it's lifestyle it comes to that moderation moderation moderation yes middle path I mean is that the just for people listening who don't know much about Buddhism but the the Buddha in his early pre-enlightenment days you know was swinging back and forth between um total total total uh indulgence in sense pleasures of that available in the world.

he was a prince. So they were all available to him all the various forms of pleasure and then um aestheticism or self-mortification complete selfdenial complete selfdenial complete selfdenial on the other hand and ultimately what he landed on and this was where he ended up getting enlightened was the middle path and I I hear that in what you're saying in fact the word balance comes up a lot in your in your speech and I wonder if if that is a core concept here that that is uh operationalizable for the rest of us.

us. us. That is a core concept. Um Dan and and the word balance I mean it's it can mean so many things to so many people. I mean somebody could somebody could look at balance as like even as a rigid concept that you're always looking at something and looking to balance yourself with it or you're always looking to do something right. But that's not the kind of balance right. The kind of balance that you're looking for is is the moderation and everything. Of course the deep understanding of how to live and how to do things and to constantly seek to bring moderation in that and when you deviate from that you know center path is again to understand how can you bring yourself back in the most easy loving kind manner it is a very loving science you know at the end of it I brings a lot of self-compassion for yourself but also for others as to how do you constantly come back into that equilibrium in all parts of your being your physi the physiological being emotional being, mental being as well as breath.

Speaking of that, you you mentioned as an example of the flexibility that in Ayurveda you there's an understanding and this is this rhymes with modern science that going to bed early and having a set schedule is it you know is really important for sleep which sleep is so I sometimes call it the apex predator of healthy habits and yet sometimes and I'm thinking about myself like tonight I have a dinner at 7:00 I'm unlikely to get home before 10:00 and then I'll unwind for a while So, I'll be going to bed later than I normally do, but it sounds like in your system that's okay.

You just need to bring in some counter measures the next day. What would those countermeasures be? Like, if I if I've uh given myself permission to stay up late, like how do I take care of myself the next day? Right. And so, so Dan, I I just want to say something here, right? So, firstly, of course, it's ideal to sleep early. And I'll tell I'll tell everybody if you can if you can't get to bed by 10:00, if you can be in your bed and be asleep by 10:00, nothing like it.

But I understand that life happens after the after the invention of electricity. I mean this is also the same time we have chronic diseases. We've gone completely we've just lost how to live and well now that being said right sometimes it's it is it is an inevitable modern evil on many many days. So one of the things that you would do and this happened to me last night Dan so it's like really I'm freshly right there because I had I had a late night. So in the morning right when I pick my exercise I would pick a lighter form of exercise.

So if I have a choice between let's say running and going for yoga I would go for yoga because it will slow my breath down. The idea the idea is to slow your body and slow your breath down to stay as much in parasympathetic as you can and you're not living in stress mode. So these are a few of the things that I did right I woke up in the morning I went for a yoga class. I came back I massaged my body with oil. Again, it's one of the ayuratic practices of body oiling, slowing down, creating lymphatic drainage, but also very very grounding to the nervous system.

Right? And then I took a nice warm shower and then I did my breath work and my meditation. But also what what what I will remain conscious of for the rest of the day is to choose activities that are slower to slow down my body movements to maybe go into a silent fast and then of course eventually to go to bed early tonight if I could if I will have a chance I'll go for another massage maybe I'll go for a foot massage today. So the idea is that listen if I did not get enough repair at night how do I create enough enough repair in the day and how do I have enough tools in my toolkit so I know how to create repair now let's say today was a really really busy day just by slowing down my exhalations just by slowing and this is a practice that I have adopted for many many years that you slow down your breath when you slow down your breath you slow down your nervous system and you get into the parasympathetic mode your body is repairing faster.

It literally it literally goes into the rest and digest mode. So even though you're awake and you're functioning, your body is still trying to maintain its repair. In fact, every inhale, right, I always tell my clients, every inhale is is sympathetic, puts your body into like let's act. And every exhale is parasympathetic. And when you get really busy in a day, very often we come back and we sit and we're like [sighs] we sigh loudly, right? because your body is forcing out that exhale. But if we were to just mindfully tune into those and create those longer exhalations, even in conversation, even while your mouth is open, when you f focus on longer nasal exhalations simultaneously, your body starts to go into parasympathetic and you really come to that present moment and your body starts to relax and that offers healing of its own kind.

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All right so it's called something it's called a resonance breath and the resonance breath is that you you count you can count your inhalation. So let's say you were to do five five count and whatever that count looks like for you right it could be 5 seconds it could be a faster you can do it in your mind. So you would inhale if you were inhaling 5 seconds seconds seconds and take a slow inhale, but when you exhale, you'd want that to go a little bit longer.

So let's say you would do seven. And you can use an app. You know, my friend Eddie Stern has an app called the breathing app. Super easy. You can set a gong. It's a free app and it gives you a timer and you can let it play in the background. But when you would exhale, that would look like five. Uh so if your inhalation is five, your exhalation would be seven counts slowly through the nose as though you're blowing a balloon. Let's just say if your nose could have the power, the potential to actually blow a balloon and then you slowly exhale and then the slow long exhales like the shorter inhale and the longer exhale really sets your body into rest and digest.

Now, when I say shorter inhale, your inhale is still enough of an inhale. It's still a nice long inhale. It's just shorter, slightly shorter than the exhalation. the exhalation. the exhalation. And how long will you do this for? Sometimes I'll do it for 5 minutes if I'm doing it systematically, but also you could be working. And if you have an app, right, you could be working and if you have an app like the breathing app and you play that in the background for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you're kind of training your brain to start breathing like that even when you're busy.

Now Dan for somebody like me I think I've done it for so long that I can naturally just remind myself hey ni just go back into that resonance breath. So whether I'm talking whether I'm teaching whether I'm cooking I can kind of fall back into those longer exhalation patterns that instantly relax the body. The other thing you mentioned was massaging your body with oils. Just can you say a little bit more about what that actually entails and do we need to buy special oils? So Dan the practice is called Abbyanga right and it's right now again it's become one it's become trendy again it's come body oiling but it's a practice like my grandfather who was an irad the healer did it his for his entire life and I've been doing it for the last 20 years and what that does so first what how do you do the practice and I'll tell you what it does as well so how do you do the practice is you take traditionally you took sesame oil or another herbal ayurvedic oil now those are very complicated bhanvant talam mahanarayan talam and you don't have to ever use any of those but using a plain sesame oil untoasted is good enough it's a great start and for people in the United States I tell them if you if you don't even like the scent of the sesame oil go and get just a simple lemongrass coconut oil from Trader Joe's there's no no collaboration with them but it's a very easy start it has a pump bottle it's a very easy place to start now traditionally you would be warming up this oil but you don't have to warm up the oil if you were just starting out the practice.

And just as you would put moisturizer on your body, you would apply the oil and you would massage your limbs, you would massage your shoulders, you would ma massage your your abdomen, any place that you can get to, focusing more on the joints, long movements in the long areas and circular movements in the joints. And you could do this for 5 minutes, you could do this for 7 minutes, you could do this for 10 minutes. Ideally, you want to do this before you shower. In fact, in Ayurva, you do this before you even go for your exercise.

If you look at Dan, if you look at, you know, pictures of wrestlers from India, you'll see they're wearing their little, you know, little wrestling underwear and their entire body is oiled up. And as a child, I thought that was just for aesthetics. Till I learned that it's it actually not only protects their joints, when their body warms up, it allows for faster recovery. You know, when they're wrestling and they're using their body, they're exercising. In fact, in fact, sesame is known to regulate estrogen, right?

They still haven't done the research on how the oil would have an impact. But sesame by itself regulates estrogen, which becomes anti-inflammatory and allows for faster recovery. But men can do this, women can do this. It's not it's not reserved for just one gender. And you would apply that oil and ideally you would, you know, I tell people, of course, don't go into your gyms with all that oil. Just wipe it down a little bit so you're not slipping anywhere. And then you would exercise. You would sweat more as a result.

You would recover faster as a result. And then you would jump into your shower. But what it does when you even also jump into your shower, it oil has a detoxification effect. So it it's many many things and I want to go into them just briefly. Right? So oil will as the body has warmed up when you exercise the oil will kind of enter your pores, right? The pores open up, the oil goes. And oil is a if you even if you if you let's just say you left some oil you poured you spilled some oil on your table and then you didn't have the chance to wipe it out and then you had to leave you know for an errand and you come back you'll see that oil almost looks grimy you almost feel like all the dust from the table has come into the oil because it has this power to kind of pull out dust and you know [clears throat] dirt and grime.

So it's a de it's a detoxifying practice for the body. Of course, it helps allows for faster recovery. You know, it creates it depends on how you massage. You can do a lymphatic drainage. Um, in Ayurata, they'll also say it'll allow for the better synthesis of vitamin D because uh oil, vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. And traditionally, you would put some oil and you would step out in the sunlight. But then when you go into the shower after this, right, like you have oil on your body, you go into the shower, you're protecting your skin barrier from the harshness of the water.

Water can be very harsh for the skin. So, you're also protecting your skin barrier. So, at so many different levels, that oil from detoxification to your nervous system to protecting your joints to faster recovery, but it's going to help you at those various levels. I will say Dan it is a practice that all my clients once they start this this is one of the practices that they don't want to give up at all and they notice a big difference in their recovery but also their skin their anxiety and also how sick they get or they don't right because microbiome and our skin is lipopilic all the good microbiome is lipopilic which means that they thrive on fats they need those fats to survive so you're constantly replenishing these depleting fats Especially we're living in these air conditioning regulated environments.

It's really interesting. Okay. So let's talk about some more key concepts of Ayurveda. Um one of them is digestive fire. What is what does that mean Dan? The idea right I mean we've started giving a lot of importance to digestion now in the west in the last few decades. The concept of digestive fire is this right for anything to break down for anything to transform any metabolic activity to happen in the world right heat is needed you cannot even charge your phone without electricity right the saying that I use is how can it how can it transform unless it's warm to cook your foods you need warmth for plants to do photosynthesis you need warmth every metabolic process is warm so this environment of the gut right?

Where you have these great digestive enzymes that come to work, you have gastrin that comes to work, you have bile that comes to work. And even if for somebody who's never really interacted with any of these enzymes as a as a biologist, they can still understand that these are probably warm. These enzymes are probably warm. You know, these acids of the stomach, right? And this environment balanced with the mucosal lining that protects us from our own acids and hot foods and the process of metabolism. That perfect environment which is conducive to life which is conducive to microbiome down there that is called the digestive fire.

Now Ayurata talks tremendously about it. It says that when your digestive fire gets compromised there in starts the beginning of all diseases at least at a physical level. Okay. So if we take this seriously and I do what are some basic moves we can make to uh tend to our own digestive fire? Yeah. So the so the fire fluctuates through the day and I think understanding how the fire fluctuates naturally is is one of the is the first important thing and then the second is how do you prepare your foods that it support that they support the fire.

So let's go into the first one first which is how does the fire fluctuate throughout the day for dal mammals like us that are supposed to rise with the sun and set and sleep as the sun sets because before we had electricity and we did not we don't have nighttime vision. We didn't have a choice but to be in bed you know once the sun set right so much like plants can only do photosynthesis once the sun is out. We're kind of like that. So how does the fire fluctuate through the day?

It corresponds to the sun outside is very mimics the fire inside. So Dan, let's go into that cycle a little bit through the day. The daytime cycle, right? And Ayurvedic scientists, people can call them Ayurvedic sages. I like to call them scientists. They also looked at the patterns outside to understand the patterns inside. So, the morning hours between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., for example, example, example, our fire is still picking up as the sun is rising outside. And if you were to walk on grass, it's all wet and dewy and sluggish.

That's kind of the environment in the body and the gut, right? So, people can have nasal congestion in the morning. People can have eye boogers in the morning. Usually, your sinovial fluids and the joints are padded. I mean, I can never show off in a yoga class in the morning. That's not happening, right? because everything is like sluggish and your gut is sluggish as well because all this kind of mucus, the refueling that happened at night, the repair makes your body a little bit more wet and sluggish inside the system.

It just means that it's a little bit slower and there's more mucus and there's more fleg and all of those things. So, it's not the time for the biggest breakfast. That is the time you activate your fire by exercising. You activate your fire by oiling. And then when you do eat in the morning time, you eat a warm, right? Because I said it cannot transform unless it's warm. All traditional practices, most blue zones, eat something warm and not super heavy in the morning. So you've exercised, your body is ready, it's warming up, and you eat something warm.

My breakfast, for example, every single day is a hot cup of spiced milk with a little bit of porridge on the side. And I look for and almonds, you know, soaked and peeled almonds. I soak them overnight. I eat them in the morning. My favorite breakfast lifelong. Love it. But it could be anything. It could be stewed apples. It could be roasted sweet potatoes. It could be um you know it could be an omelette for could be it could be an omelette for somebody, but ideally something warm and something spiced.

We always use spices as well. And I want to say here that spices do a lot of things. They support the breakdown of the foods that you're eating. They support the digestive fire because they add that warmth. If you've ever eaten black pepper, ginger, any of the spices, you can almost feel that inherent warming feeling that they bring, right? [snorts] It's a little bit subtle, but it can be experienced. So, that's how your breakfast would look like. Now, between the hours of 10 and 2, as the sun peaks, so does the digestive fire.

And now, we know this today, right? Science knows this that gastrin as at its best best behavior uh which is your dig you know great one of the biggest MVPs when it comes to your digestion but also your insulin sensitivity is high and you can break your foods down better. So the sun is high, your digestive fire is high, so is your mental fire, right? People don't get lunch, they get they get hangry because everything is so hot in their system. So it's a great time to eat your biggest meal.

Anything that you crave, do it for lunchtime. You want to indulge, eat the biggest meal during lunch. And if if you've eaten a warm uh if you've eaten a warm light breakfast, chances are that you will not feel sluggish after your big lunch because everything is nice and ready and warm in your body. your body. your body. So that's your time for big lunch and you support your fire that way. Between the hours of 2 and 6, as the sun sets outside, you almost notice the wind inside.

The sun is setting outside. It's slightly windy. Leaves are now moving. You experience the wind experience inside as well. And I just I use this language to make it more comprehensible for people. But when your neurotransmitters are changing from daytime to evening time and what happens, you feel you feel like stretching at your desk. You feel the afternoon lull. That's exactly what happens outside. Now, that is a good time to, you know, just go get some fresh air, drink some peppermint tea. Of course, not caffeine because really your body is doing everything it can to unwind and to slow down.

And if you give it a stimulant, you're kind of taking it against the cycle. Ideally, right now, this is the most important. This is the biggest change. I tell everybody, if you want to make one change, make this one. And this is the change I'm talking about. Stop eating dinner. Stop eating by 600 6:30 in the evening. evening. evening. As the sun starts to set down, and this can look different if it's summer time, it can be slightly different. But as the sun starts to set, and let's say you're living in a place, the sun sets by 600 6:37, 6:37, 6:37, your digestive fire is not working as well anymore.

In fact, at night, we insulin resistance increases. You cannot break down your sugars as well. And that light meal at night like dinner is not even a thing. Our ancestors were not really lighting lamps and having big dinner parties way after sunset you know and this is only like a 100 years ago 1930s is when electricity came into our homes and we weren't we didn't have this level of chronic disease. So if there's one change you can make let it be this. So the the fire kind of slows down in the in the evening time and you definitely want to honor it by only burning eating as much as you can burn for sure.

And this is this alone can be a big gamecher. But if I had to add another thing on top of it right that people can do to keep their fire burning. The first function of food right and this is going to sound crazy but it is it is it will make sense uh once you hear it. The first the first function of food is not to give you nourishment. The first function of food is not even to give you nutrients. The first function of the food is to protect the environment of your gut.

Because if the environment of the gut is not protected, it is only a matter of time. You may be eating the biggest superfood out there, but your body will not be able to put it to good use. It will not be able to assimilate anything from it. So how do you protect the environment of the gut? By of course honoring these cycles of how do you eat, but also there are a couple of other things that can be done. done. done. Then cooking foods is a big thing in Ayurveda.

to cook foods. And if you go back into the history of our species, when we started using fire to cook our foods about 300,000 years ago, and this is not non-yurvedic scientists have done this research, that when we started using fire to cook our foods, that's when we actually became these intellectual species because our gut became smaller, our brains became bigger, our our microbiome, our gut bacteria changed drastically. And it's it's really what has made us human from primitive. And anybody can actually do this research because there's a lot out there.

So Ayurveda is big on cooking your foods on using good fats and using good spices to cook your foods as well. So cooking does create some metabolic waste in the body right um they can become free radicals. But the minute you spice your foods and you pair them with spices, most spices are what we call antioxidants that will basically neutralize those free radicals that are created not only from cooking but also from your own body's metabolic function. So I is big on using spices and that's not spicy.

Spices are spices that you can find in the spice aisle of the grocery store but are technically not really putting your tongue on fire. So, it's cinnamon, clove, black pepper, cumin, bay leaf, whatever people like. You want to use those. You want to use a good fat. You want to cook your foods. Just going back to the the the cycle of the day. Um, and you were recommending that we eat a smaller dinner uh and stop eating, you know, as the sun goes down. Are there I'm asking this as a as an insomniac.

Are are there things that you would recommend drinking later in the day that might help people fall asleep? fall asleep? fall asleep? Absolutely. Right. And that is absolutely what you can do. So drinking a warm cup of milk for example, right? Drinking a hot cup of milk with and that can be done at like 7:30, that can be done at 8, that can be done at 10 if you're staying up later. and um and and adding let's say nutmeg or cardamom especially these two spices a few pinches of nutmeg or like even half a teaspoon of cardamom powder can be a tranquilizer really ground the nervous system our body also remembers as babies this is the grounding food you consume to go to bed you know to go to bed and it's it's a great one to allow yourself to go to bed to put fall asleep just want to go keep going through some of these key concepts another is um symptoms are messengers.

Symptoms are messengers in ayura. Absolutely. Right. Before your body goes into a full-blown imbalance, we've relied so long on just blood reports and other vitals to understand what's going in our body and they never paint a full picture to begin with. But in Ayurveda the minute you notice the symptoms that's step one out of the six steps before it can become it can manifest into a full disease right so there's the first the symptom is local and you might experience something then it might become chronic it might lodge itself there it's local it's temporary if it's not addressed it becomes more permanent when it becomes that more permanent it starts affecting either the tissue or the blood or the plasma in that area, right?

I mean, think of it as inflammation. Think of it as like if if there's if you had a bruise even on on the top of your skin that didn't heal for a long time, it's not healed or you keep, you know, bumping your hand into something, it be it becomes more and more and more and aggravated. And at some point, it's going to be this deep level of scarring that's going to happen. But the same thing can happen inside your body. And I just use the example of a bruise because it's more visual, but any it can be just anything.

It could just be a blockage in one of your tubes, in one of the many channels uh that exist in your body. And then once it becomes chronic and it starts to affect the tissue. Now it's kind of homogenized. The imbalance is homogenized with the tissue that activates your immune system and that can start now creating imbalance depending on which organ it is or which tissue it's affected or whether it's the blood and plasma. If it's blood and plasma it starts traveling around. Now you have this it's like dirty water pipes you know like every every floor if your apartment building has water pipes that have gone wrong every single floor is going to have dirty water.

And that's kind of what our blood and plasma are, right? They're the these distribution systems for the body. And if they get affected, then everything it starts kind of circulating in the body. And then you'll start noticing individual symptoms. And then it usually goes into a full-blown disease. So pain is a great sign. A symptom is a great sign. We don't have to say shut up. Look, I understand sometimes we all need to take painkillers. If you're having a day, you got to do something. Life's happening.

Yeah. But it's usually a sign. It's a great sign that listen to your body now. let's address this today rather than saying shut up I'll see if you'll come back another day and we'll talk then I guess a related concept uh that that comes out of your book is the body is always right always right always right I would say it's more than that the body always knows the body already knows more than the body is always right right so the body is always telling you something and the body already knows and that I don't say in the fact in in terms that the body is giving you alarms each time or the body is giving you warning sending signals and it's actually not that.

When I say the body already knows, it's the body already knows like like when you're a baby and your body knows to look for its mother's breast and eat from it or the worm knows exactly where to crawl and when to pause. And you know, we see this even like if you see a bug at home or you see like they'll know how to behave when it's electricity and how it how to pause when they see motion. Like every species on the planet has that intelligence within of how to live, how to survive, how to be well and we just so that so so my book which is called your body already knows gives you that framework to come back into your own intelligence in the most kindest way to trust yourself that your body already knows and it always tells you what to do when you learn its language.

We're missing the missing the language. We're missing the framework, right? So when somebody can say, "Hey, I just want to eat like five bag my my body is craving chips." That's not, you know, five bags of chips. No, that's not the listing that I'm talking about. We need to understand its language. language. language. I want to get to your toolkit in a second, but you you do spend some time in the book talking about uh the human tragedy of overoptimization. Can you say a little bit about that?

Yes, Dan. And I'm living in the capital of overoptimization, New York City. So we have right and I and I keep going back to the invention of electricity because we have we really haven't spoken enough about it in the modern world because it it's it's a underlying root cause of all our problems. And I'm not saying you shut off all the lights in your house tonight uh as soon as sun sets but just to give attention to how much it's disrupted the way we live. So, we've expanded our days.

We've expanded our capacity to work. We're constantly being overproductive. And we're living in this high stress that we have to get everything right. You know, Dan, can I tell you most often I'm telling my clients to do less, not to do more for their health. Most of the times I'm like, just don't take these like you don't you don't need to do all of this. You don't need to exercise 6 days a week. Take 3 days off. relax for so many days because we're just we've got into this whole doing burnout mindset.

But what it really does, right, it's it kind of it jeopardizes your wellness rather than giving you wellness. And because most people to follow these rigid routines to follow that level of discipline which is not intuitive and inherent which comes from an external prescription. So your body it's not coming from your lyic system. It's just a it's just like a memorized behavior from external sources. When you do that, your body is under high stress. And when it's under high stress, you have increased cortisol. You have increased adrenaline.

adrenaline. adrenaline. As a result, you're actually disrupting your hormones. You're affecting melatonin production. You are compromising your body's idea of wellness. You're downregulating digestion. The biggest thing you're downregulating digestion and you're like I have to get this right. I cannot eat this. I have to sleep at this time. All the have to all the shoulds in the name of health are actually hurting health. I see the people who are sickest you know Dan people will come to me. I usually work with women a lot more.

And women will come to me and say I'm doing everything so right and I wake up in the morning and I wake up at 5:30 and I do ABCDE E and I'm taking these supplements and my husband he's smoking and sitting on the couch and he's fine, you know. Because the truth is like your stress to be well will hurt you more. And when I say your body already knows that is a promise that you don't need to go this crazy. There are few things few fundamental things we all need to return to to to and there's nothing more that you need.

We've 4 and a half billion years as a species you know we started as single cell organisms on this planet. 4 and a half billion years. The planet is th just continued to thrive and we've come to a place in the last 100 years where we're questioning whether we can evolve from here whether we can grow from here but otherwise 83 trillion species over 4 and a half billion years we didn't have to do anything the environment was right the climate was right inherent intelligence is carried by every species and we just rely upon that so we've gone into this overdrive and in the overdrive we're actually creating further disease.

further disease. further disease. You say as a one counter measure that we should uh learn through awe. Uh you talk about the value of fascination over force. Can you say a little bit more about that? about that? about that? When I talked for example about the circadian rhythms of the day, right? And I talk about looking at it outside. I always talk about the behavior of the sun and I always talk about the behavior of the species outside of us. And I said, "Hey, morning. It's sluggish outside.

It's sluggish inside." Or the sun is rising high and our digestive fire is rising high. Or there's wind outside and there's like yawning and wind inside. Right? So when you're constantly connecting with those rhythms and patterns of nature, when you're looking at the behavior of other species, when you're just like fascinated with this, look at this precise science. Plants can dare not do photosynthesis till the sun is out. And when you're constantly looking at those patterns, right? You're actually learning from the limbic system, you're actually learning from a different part of your brain.

Oh, and wonder, they become an emotional experience. And when something becomes an emotional experience rather than I am supposed to wake up at 7 a.m. I have to set my alarm, which is like a prescriptive informationational preffrontal cortex rigid prescription that is not internalized by the body. And when it's internalized with O and wonder, you activate the default mode network of your body, which is where conditioned behavior happens, where organic natural behavior happens, where your neuroplasticity expands. So I insist, right, like when people come to me, Dan, and even in my book, I'll insist, don't make the changes today.

I don't want you to make the changes. Like for 3 weeks, you're not making any changes. You're just sitting in awe. Like I want people to notice these rhythms of the universe outside of them. like look outside to know what's happening within. philosopher philosophers time and again have said as above so below as is the macro such as is the micro and just that oh right and then when you do one thing and when you're so tuned in and you've become such a keen observer of these rhythms and patterns of the universe and then let's say you decide somebody decides to say I'm going to eat an early dinner tonight and yes in the night you know they're used to comfort food and their body is you know it's going to feel unhappy but it's and they become they observe keenly what happens next day let me see what happens to my bowel movement let See, how do I feel at lunch?

Because you're just now becoming this keen observer going back to the rhythms and patterns that were meant to be part of this human cycle and human body. body. body. Yeah. I mean, that really lands for me. The first person I heard heard this argument from, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with her work, but uh Evelyn Triboly, who's one of the um progenitors of um something called intuitive eating. So instead of listening to somebody else's rules about what you should eat and when and trying to achieve ketosis or whatever, it's more like actually can you listen to your body uh and get curious about that?

Um and that's I have really switched my eating habits based on that and it's been really helpful. That's beautiful. That's beautiful to hear. Yeah, absolutely. And then you know and and and and I tell people when you're keenly observing observe rhythms observe patterns because literally Dan what sets you apart from your wax statue and what will set me apart from my wax statue is that I have a breath I have a heartbeat every cell has a vibration there is everything in the universe it's the rotation of the sun it's the revolution around you know everything is a rhythm it's a pattern it's a whole orchestra what a beautiful musical system and when you go out of rhythm Even if one if for one minute the earth stopped rotating we're going to be like what's going on you know like or if you see it's snowing in spring we're going to think there's something off like drastically even though in short term you know like nothing's happening it's snow one day it's sunny one day but we know that this is just inherently wrong we know we scared right so similarly everything is a pattern in the body and so I just say keenly become a pattern seer seer seer outside inside see how they connect and it's easier once you get into this mindset and it's actually easier than people think.

people think. people think. Okay. So, you have a a tool a toolkit and then also a framework. Let's start with the toolkit. These are like three levels of self-regulation. They include preventative tools, battlefield tools, and repair tools. Can you walk us through this? I talk about it all the time on this show. Sleep is like the apex predator of healthy habits. Nothing good happens if you're not sleeping. And in order to sleep well, you need a good mattress. If you've ever slept on a mattress that feels like it was designed exactly for you, that is what Lisa, one of our sponsors today, is offering.

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Lisa.com promo code happy. And so Dan, I want to start by saying that yeah, people want to jump into change. People want to come today. I'm all I have this all this adrenaline. I want to be the best version of myself and then I fall flat on my face. And that's like listen, we've all done that a hundred times, right? It's kind of harsh to want to do that with yourself, right? I mean because our body has had a lifetime of experiences and trauma and generational conditioning and forget all all the things that are happening to us right we've stopped even how to feel safe in fact most of the habits that we're keeping are just coping mechanisms right and here you are like saying I'm going to give up my coping mechanism without a shield so people are like okay I don't want to eat late from tomorrow night or like I want to give up my alcohol I want to give up I'm like let's let's slow down let's bring coping mechanisms because really poor or habits that if you've been if you've been trying to give up a habit for a while, it's not gone.

You're coping with something else. The toolkit, which is probably the most important part, I think of any transformation or change is this loving experience for your nervous system first. And what it is, we all need three types of tools, right? The first one I say have preventative tools in your toolkit, which means something that you will do every single day for your nervous system to feel safe before you get on the battlefield of life. And this especially holds true for people who are living in chronic stress.

They don't even experience a minute of what this feels like. Their nervous system just does not even know what that is. So it could be music, it could be meditation, it could be breath, it could be a massage, it could be something, it could be a sport for some people. But before you get into life, your nervous system has been in a place where it's lost sense of time and space, where it's so present, it's so safe, it's so comfortable. Now it has a memory. memory.

memory. And so I I usually prevent provide people with an alakart menu and I say you try all of them, keep a couple and have that every day. Now say a little Can you just say a little bit more about what's on the alle cart menu? You you listed a few things but I just want to make sure [clears throat] people know. people know. people know. Yes. So I you I will say meditation last. Even though it's my biggest I'll say it last because it's so hard for a lot of people to get into.

So I'm going to list it in the order of ease. Music is a big one and I'll say classical music. It is not a coincidence that there are seven notes. There are seven endocrine glands that play with the with the juices neurotransmitters in your body. There's seven chakras if you're into the chakra thing, right? And every musical note has a certain effect on the neurotransmitters of your body. In fact, Indian classical music and even western but Indian was designed their morning what you call morning music, morning ragas, R a G- A and evening raas.

So I tell people start with those morning ragas. Let you don't have to do the work. Let your music do the work. Let your cells do the work. Let your body do the work. So that'll regulate your nervous system. So music can be a regulator, but it can go in the order of music, exercise, music, exercise, music, exercise, body massage, body massage, body massage, breath work, meditation. There are other tools as well, but these are most easily accessible to people. Got it. Okay. So preventative tools.

Then there are battlefield tools. So when you're on the battlefield of life, I'm going to give you a little alakart menu for the battlefield tools. And my favorite battlefield tool is humming. And humming is something you could be on the road, you could be driving, you could be cooking, and you can you could be at your desk working and you could be humming. And what humming does again, right? Because humming is essentially an exhalation through the nose. And I've talked enough about the exhalation from the nose.

Puts your body in parasympathetic mode. instantly starts your body instantly starts feeling safe, allows you to start regulating right away. This is also the reason why an M at the end of a yoga class feels so relaxing because it is essentially a hum. It activates the vagus nerve, does all of those things, but in the most simplest understanding, I say it is going to put your body into the parasympathetic mode. It will start relaxing everything there and bringing yourself back to safety. There could be other battlefield tools while you're feeling that trigger, right?

Grounding, noticing, noticing the fabric of your own clothes on your skin. Really coming to every contact points. How do your feet sit on the ground? How's your hair touching, how everything feels. And again, that brings your body to safety. That starts that starts getting your brain to be integrated again, right? Because the brain kind of flips the lid. the brain starts disintegrating and disconnecting when you are your rational brain disconnects from your emotional brain when you're feeling when you're on the battlefield. So that kind of contact point coming back to every sensation that you can experience again starts to regulate your nervous system.

You could also without humming just go into longer exhalations exhalations exhalations while you're having a conversation with somebody. If you're in the middle of a conversation with somebody, you can also step out and just splash some cool water on your face. If it is possible for you to go and take a shower or to go for a quick 5, 7 minute run, moving your body, all of these things, depending on who the person is, I tell people you try some of these battlefield tools, but make sure you have them in your pocket so that when you're experiencing that trigger, you can pull something out depending on where and how that trigger is.

is. is. And finally, repair tools. Repair tools. Yeah, I you know I I I always joke that all addictions happen at night like alcoholics are made at night, sex addicts, food addicts, TV addicts, right? Because we need to heal from the day. All of us need to heal from the day. Um and repair tools allow us to actually do that. Now there are two types of repair tools. I mean mainly the one something that you can use every single day to repair and these could be anything from journaling to lying down with your legs up against the wall.

This is a yoga pose called diparit karnney that lowers your blood pressure, enhances blood circulation, relaxes the body body body to massaging your feet before bed to taking a warm shower to drinking a hot cup of milk. But when you do it intentionally and you say this is my repair for the day, you bring more intention into it into bringing your nervous system back to safety. And then I say that you also need repair tools for those times when crisis hits. So for example, my repair tools, right?

When my nervous system can just cannot take it anymore, I will go for a massage. I tell people to draw up a bath, you know, to take an Epsom salt bath, to go for a massage. Um I think I think therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy or or therapy that works for people is again great periodic repair tool. But I think essentially to go through life to even start thinking about any change, everybody needs to build a toolkit out. So before I promise change, before I bring shifts to people's diets and their lifestyles, I say let's get that toolkit ready so that when you actually create that vision of the future that you're walking towards, you have all the tools that you need to give up a past life.

Super helpful. Okay. So you also have this framework, this framework, this framework, the three codes of life, the inner climate, circadian rhythms, the cycle of everything, growth, transformation, decline. We've talked about some of this, but do do you think it might be worth walking through this for people? So you know, I'll I'll go into the second one, the inner climate longer, but I'll just talk about what this framework is, right? So if my ask is let's bring us all back to our instinctive knowledge to our wisdom that that's within each cell of our body that's a big ask unless I gave you a framework.

So I say there's only three governing principles to be honest these are governing principles only three principles that govern everything from outside in the universe to inside in our body to every single phase of our life. The first governing principle is the circadian rhythm. Right? As dal mammals, even nocturnal mammals, they have a very different circadian rhythms. But basically, all species on the planet have this relationship with the rising sun and the setting sun. And the juices in our body flow accordingly. So the first one is to really tune tune into that wonder and awe and start replicating that in your life slowly, steadily, one day at a time.

And then that makes it intuitive, right? Which means that already if somebody's telling me, hey Nidi, you know, uh wake up in the morning and like do something super bizarre, I already know that it's against this first principle. It's not intuitive. It doesn't make sense. The second principle which is really my life's work and this is something that we would get a little bit deeper into if at all is um Dan the whole premise is right that life exists on our planet and no other planet because the climate was right on our planet right the sun and the moon and the atmospheric pressure and water and climate was right suddenly single cell organisms became like these like 83 trillion species.

Today climate is wrong and we're questioning our life on this planet and how long it will survive. So we know that for anything to survive you need the right climate. I cannot grow tomatoes on the north pole. The climate is not right. Similarly, the idea is that there is a climate inside our bodies and our body is a universe to trillions of microorganisms of microorganisms of microorganisms microbiome. And today more and more researchers and scientists are discovering that their life determines our life. How healthy they are, how healthy the microbiome is determines our digestion, our immunity, our nervous system, our hormones.

And you're like, "Oh my god, like there's a whole world happening inside." So they need a certain climate for them to thrive. And Ayurva and if you look, I've studied other ancient systems of medicine as well, they actually understood this in different ways, but all of them came to the same conclusion in some way or the other that there is this climate, the yin and yang that you have to maintain. So what is that climate? Um, and my work is I've just made it more more understandable than the yin and the yang and then the pH balance.

So, what is that climate? Dan, can we do this together really quickly if you don't mind? mind? mind? Sure. Sure. Sure. Can I ask you to take your your palm and just cup it a little bit and exhale into it a few times? What did that feel like, Dan? Uh, warm. Uh, warm. Uh, warm. Warm. Was it moist? Was it dry? Moist. Moist. Moist. Okay. So, you said warm and moist, right? right? right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, perfect. Dan, do you know Do you know what human blood is?

Is it warm or is it cold? It's warm. It's warm. It's warm and moist. Mother's milk, warm and moist. Reproductive fluids, fluids, fluids, warm and moist. Amniotic [clears throat] fluid, warm and moist. The sun and the moon, they come together outside on their planet to create this warm and moist environment. And that allows for life to thrive, right? Especially places that are like Florida in March. So warm and moist, beautiful life. Our our mic microbiome was previously called flora and fauna, right? We know that flora and fauna thrive in warm and moist places.

Our body temperature is 98.7°. Alan, do you like hottempered people, cold people, warm people? Warm. Warm. Warm. Warm. Yeah. And and nobody ever teaches us what their warm is. Hugs are warm and moist. A cozy blanket is warm and moist. Most comfort foods are warm and moist. Anger is hot. Anxiety is dry. Stress is hot and dry. Depression is cold and sluggish, but love, gratitude, compassion are warm and moist. If you're sitting in a room, you don't want the room to be overly dry. I know nobody likes dry skin.

But even if your hands were sticky or slimy, you wouldn't be comfortable with it, right? But if it's just the right moist, you don't want it too cold, you don't want it hot, warm and moist. Human beings all around the world, right? inside of us. Outside, we gravitate in our minds, in our bodies, in our emotions. We gravitate towards warm and moist. Warm and moist is where life thrives. It's too hot and humid, parasites, marsh. It's hot and dry, you're a desert. You're seda. Not happening.

You're cold and moist, it's all snow. You're cold and dry, you're a cold desert. Warm and moist is where life thrives. Now, how do you bring this? The second principle is, you know, for I'm going to say one more thing. Trigger. A trigger is hot and dry. And and I do this with my clients when we use our field like our battlefield tools. We see like they actually notice that they're becoming hot and dry inside, right? It's like it's picking up pace. So this place of balance which is warm and moist, which is really what we all want.

We can bring warm and moist into our foods. We can bring warm and moist like the the good fat and the cooking and the spicing is the warm and moist. In traditional Chinese and Asian cultures, they fermented again that is warm and moist, right? You talk about fermentation, culturing, the process of culturing actually is a warm and moist process. That multiplication of bacteria which is aerobic produces these water droplets and the whole the whole pot actually becomes slightly warm because of the multiplication of the bacteria.

That's a warm and moist process. So if you look back at I looked at all cultures and somehow they were doing this they were returning back to the warm and moist. It is that state of flow. It is that midpoint when I talk about the center point where the sun you know you're not overly things are not overly heating things are not overly cooling the sun and the moon that's what they do on our planet right the sun heats and dehydrates everything by the end of the day you have dry ice dry and then the moon comes in with its gravitational force which in Ayurveda believes that the gravitational force also acts on our neurotransmitters in the gravitational force it replenishes the moisture on the planet the center point is warm and moist so anyways I can talk about the inner climate method for as long as I live.

But I'm going to just end here. But the inner climate method kind of offers you to start noticing where in your life are you creating excessive burn, excessive stagnation? What foods that you're eating is doing are are doing this for you? What is your own inner climate? What has your imbalance led you to? People can identify their own inner climates as well and say, "Oh my god, my body has become hot and dry. It's inflamed and it's like global warming happening inside. I'm burning in the sun and I have this rash and my stools are burning or people can say I've just become stagnant and I just sit and I want to watch TV and I just don't feel like doing anything.

I feel so depressed and you know so people identify their own neural climate and then we make the journey back to warm and moist in every aspect physical emotional mental spiritual everywhere. spiritual everywhere. spiritual everywhere. Well I want to get practical within that framework. Is is is this why you recommend minimizing cold beverages? Yes. I It's like a refrigeration in your gut. We know all these poor like our poor acids and enzymes, they're all warm and they're trying to like metabolize and digest everything that we eat and we say, "Hey, let's just like let's just play a little havoc inside and let's, you know, put a cold beverage in there.

It's like a it's like a cold rain like in the middle of harvest season." And uh and it slows down metabolism. And if you do it once in a while, it doesn't hurt. But if you do it, if it's not warm, how it's going to transform? Why do you want to Why would you want to refrigerate your gut systematically and periodically? periodically? periodically? I drink a lot. Uh I'm I'm just rethinking uh I it's very com I'm rethinking my own habits here. It's not uncommon for me to like grab a um sparkling water out of the fridge.

But I think it sounds like you're saying actually just drink some tap water instead. instead. instead. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not saying do it tomorrow, right, Dan? But I I mean I'm not telling you to do it tomorrow. I'm not telling anybody who's listening to this to do it tomorrow. But I'm just saying bring curiosity to this and then maybe one day you feel curious enough and you feel like I might want to try this. This might have logic or just open your mind to saying what did traditional cultures did or like how new is refrigeration for us?

It's like not even that old like refrigeration only came into our homes like 70 years ago and what else happened that time? Oh my god, guess what? Croic disease happened that time. Metabolic disorders began that time and I'm not saying just refrigeration caused it. There are many things altogether that came into that whole you know that whole era where moderniz modernization of our lifestyle and consumption happened but it's worth seeing even for 3 weeks what that does to your body. In fact sooner than that people will tell me how different they feel.

feel. feel. Another thing you recommend is to regulate water consumption. What what does that mean specifically? So, we've become obsessed with water. And we think that we drink water and that we think that we drink water and all our cells start blooming with hydration like they're little flowers, right? Like people have this visual, oh, I'm going to drink water and all my cells are going to plump up and I'm going to have this garden of cells inside me that are all plumpy. That's really not true, right?

Water goes through our stomach, goes into our small intestine through the process of osmosis, makes it wherever it makes it. I mean it is such a long drawn process and you're drinking when people are drinking crazy amounts of water and they're just all they're doing is urinating putting that load because they they the water does not even have time at that point even osmosis doesn't happen it's an emergency exit to the bathroom so this is like the first time we've given this important and I understand why water became so important right because as Americans we just stopped drinking water it was like no longer a thing we were drinking beverages the entire time and you know we were in this crazy place when industrialization just happens.

And so we now we said hey let's let's wake up and drink water but like everything else we like to go overboard you know so let's let's just drink 5 lers of water and that can be very harmful for the body because it firstly compromises digestion right your digestive enzymes are all out and they have they're creating a certain environment they don't want a monsoon in there I trust me I grew up in India monsoon means like everything everything goes to waste all flora and fauna what was growing is not is not growing as well so the microbiome starts to get affected when you drink excessive amounts of water and I've seen this with my clients who've got candida and parasite and parasitic infe infections but also there's a load on your kidney all I'm saying is when you actually drink water you know more of course in the first half of the day till 400 p.m.

And you drink tooth and sip by sip and you keep it warmer or you keep it infused with either mint. And when you bring water into your soups and other foods, you know, more like semi-olid foods, they get absorbed better because if it's if it's if you get hydrated through osmosis, then you want salt in your food. Then you then you want to do it through salt as well. And that that osmosis happens when you're eating like Ayurveda will talk about eating semi-olid foods as much as you can.

And one of the reasons is that you're going to take all the water from that food and you're going to use it in your body. So you drink water to thirst, you'll end up drinking more in the summers, less in the winters, more in the daytime, less in the evening time. No prescription is needed. You got to keep it natural for you. But don't deliberately go and guzzle down liters of water because you think it is a prescription. prescription. prescription. So I when I wake up, I drink about a liter of water before I work out.

Are you saying and usually it's just right out of the tap. Are you saying what do you think of that? And and uh you mentioned something about putting mint in it or something. I said mint because mint is the easiest. But the minute you put something in your water, you kind of give it a task to do. You slow down. Like your body says, "Hey, hey, hey, what's coming in? Let's start processing it differently." You know, you give it an address almost. So depending on what's happening in the body, right?

Like one thing that I would recommend and I would just tell people you try it like Dan I would ask you to just try it if you were ever curious to try it for 10 days or a week is to take warmer water in the morning throw in a few pinches of dried ginger if the first thing in the morning that's what I would recommend to pretty much almost anybody and I don't really I rarely give universal uh tips you know I rarely say anybody can everybody can do this but this is one of those things that almost everybody can do is put a few pinches of ginger prow powder not fresh ginger Ginger powder, Ginger powder, Ginger powder, great antioxidant, really starts breaking down the slime in your body, starts firing up that digestion.

Um, and just about one cup is enough in the morning time because your your agny, your digestive fire is just waking up. You don't want to give it rainfall early in the morning. You want to give it something that's going to support the waking up of the digestive juices. And excessive water slows it down. And and I tell people, try this for yourself. Don't believe me, right? You try it for yourself. Works for you, great. Doesn't work for you, move on. But it's worth trying. I'm not asking you to do anything that clearly doesn't sound dangerous for the system.

So, it's worth giving it a shot. Almost everybody I know will has felt a remarkable difference. difference. difference. Couple other super practical questions before I let you go. You mentioned fermented foods. You talking about things like kimchi or pickles? Yeah. But you don't overdo the fermented foods, right? Like every culture had some level of fermented food before they sat to eat, right? Uh sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, just a little bit, a little fire starter because it's like it's as warm and moist as it can get. It's like the first it's like putting the matstick on, right?

So you only want you don't want to put your gut on fire. So you don't want to do all fermented foods, but just like our ancestors did, you want to go back to that little wetting of the fire, that little stimulation of your appetite and the metabolic environment using some of those fermented foods. And there is place occasionally for more fermented foods like a sourdough bread for example, but as religiously if you want to do something before every meal, it's just a little bit of a side fermented food.

You also talk about adjusting shower water temperature and luckily modern day dermatologists, cosmetologists, skin doctors will tell you this but uh so shower water you don't want to take very hot showers right of course it affects your skin barrier but it also plays havoc with your blood pressure and um actually even even like in Chinese medicine and Ayurveda it can actually your your body has to thermorreulate very differently when you're using very very hot water and as a result it can compromise the thermorreulation of your own body the the thermorreulation mechanism of your own body but warm water is just fine warm to like slightly warmer on in colder months is just fine.

So the prescription is to avoid really really hot water and the shower temperature heart and above. You know just as you would go into a jacuzzi you would keep like your heart out of the pool. You don't you definitely don't want to use very hot water heart and above again for the blood pressure. So then where are you on saunas? So if it's a steam right is actually big on steaming which is wet sauna which is not a dry sauna and a wet sauna like a wet steam uh we have steam tents but the head is out the head is not inside the steam tent like they they look they look like little cute they actually look like coffins with your head out of it you know they're wooden sometimes they're wooden these days they're like whatever you know more synthetic materials so steaming is a is a great is great for the body right because it kind of starts opening up the pores and allows toxins to start moving out of your body.

Saunas are slightly questionable. I can see why when we look about we look at performance why saunas temporarily close up your pores really start activity inside metabolic activity inside your body your cells become active because now everything is shut down and the heat is retained inside. I would say longterm in my ayurveetic viewpoint and lens and understanding it is not something that I would recommend long-term to any of my clients especially female clients. Let's close on this. I want to give you a chance to to preach a little bit here because this is this is the stuff where I really you know I I have strong and similar feelings.

You talk about radical acceptance and gratitude. It's kind of like where where you you sort of close on this in in your 21-day plan that you talk about in in the book. Um, and I think that's a really nice counter measure against a lot of what you described earlier, which is this kind of overoptimization, this this mirthless militaristic approach that we take to our own bodies. Can you just hold forth on on this notion of radical acceptance and gratitude? Um, as we wind down here in this modern day right today, a lot of our wellness is is wellness or the lack of it is psychosomatic.

We've become obsessed with our 3D bodies and our physical well-being. We've forgotten what our thoughts, our nervous system, and the biochemicals that result as that kind of arise as a result can do for us. Radical acceptance and gratitude. And I'm just going to say even just scientifically, right? When you're in the state of gratitude, your body is completely relaxed. When you look at the spiritual world or your electromagnetic field, it's completely it's it's expanded. And in that state, wellness is only a side effect. I always like to use the example of Charlie Mer and Warren Buffett.

Charlie Mer, one of the greatest investors of our time, Bshshire Hathaway, died last, you know, maybe a couple of years ago at 99. Dan, the worst lifestyle, right? Warren Buffett sits and drinks such big bottles. At his annual general meeting, he's drinking Coke and eating burgers and he eats from McDonald's all the time. He's 94 years old. He's sharper than anybody else, right? But because he's in this state, right, of complete acceptance, he is in flow. He loves what he does. He lives the life that he loves.

He makes the choices that he loves. He you can tell from the way he talks that he's in the present moment. And he has radical acceptance for his life. And in that state, wellness just happens. When people come to me, I tell them, if you cannot do it through your mind, you do it through your body. But if you can do it through your mind, you don't even need me. Because you can eat three, four, five times a day. But every thought has a corresponding chemical reaction in the body.

It's only a matter of time that that biochemistry is going to change your biology. And radical acceptance of what you're unable to shift. And gratitude for how far life has got each one of us. The ability to live in this modern day and time to live in a time where we're actually talking about healing and we're talking about traumas. And we're talking about not passing on to our children what we received from our generations of wounds. I mean, I think that by itself is such a great thing, great time to be born in that we can have this dialogue.

And if we can stay in that state, you're more connected to the intelligence of nature. And it's only a matter of time when wellness will begin to show up in the in your life. This has been very uh uh it's been super interesting for me introduction to Ayurveda and I really appreciate your time. Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the name of your book and anything else you've made or produced or created that that we should know about? So, the name of my book is Your Body Already Knows.

And it just gives you a systematic 21-day 21-day 21-day stepbystep guide to start living like this and creating your own toolkit and being able to witness some of the changes that come when you start living in awe and wonder and bringing out principles. So, that's my book. I have a practice where I work with people. I teach a ton. I have a lot of courses on my website which is nidhipandandya.com my firstnamel lastname.com I post a ton on Instagram my_yabadic_life you just look up my name you don't need to remember the handle but yeah I'm always teaching I'm always writing I am speaking and I work um I have a practice and I work with clients one-on-one for a period of 6 months nit pia thank you very much for your time time time thank you so so much for having me Dan