Host of the TV show Vibrant Health, Host of the “Fusionary Health” podcast, CEO of Fusionary Formulas, Author, Public Speaker, and Ayurveda practitioner Dr. Shivani Gupta is here to help bridge the gap between traditional remedies and modern science.
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro Snip
01:52 Dr. Haley confronts Dr. Shivani Gupta about her referrals to us even though she didn’t know it
03:45 How aloe vera relieves constipation
07:00 Dr. Shivani Gupta reveals the special coupon code “drhaley” that can be used to get a discount at fusionaryformulas.com
07:50 How can you use natural remedies for better health?
10:08 How is Ayurvedic medicine different than mainstream medicine?
11:18 What are the six pillars within Ayurveda medicine?
13:29 How do you know when to warming or cooling spices?
17:42 How to detox the body every day
18:50 What is oil pulling?
19:41 What is special about Dr. Shivani’s turmeric product?
24:40 What products other than turmeric gold do you make?
27:11 What is inflammation relief and what is in it?
28:10 What made Dr. Shivani Gupta want to be a healer?
29:08 What is your “Dream Team”?
30:07 Tell us about your Ayurveda Lifestyle book…
31:54 What are some keys to gut health?
40:40 What were your “Power Words”?
44:00 An invitation to understand Ayurveda
TRANSCRIPT
And so when you look at Ayurvedic medicine,
ayurveda means the science of life. It’s actually a science that studies. What is it that we need to be doing to live a truly preventive, healthy lifestyle? And so really, it’s patient first
it’s who is in front of you. And how do you show them and teach them what their constitution is, what elements are driving their behaviors, their actions and their tendencies?
What are the ways we’re going to teach them a lifestyle that helps them stay most aligned, most supported over the long haul?
You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.
Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.
This is the Dr. Haley Show podcast, and I’m Dr. Michael Haley, your show host. And today, well, we have the host of the TV show
Vibrant Health, host of Fusionary Health podcast, CEO of fusionary Formulas, author, public speaker and Ayurvedic practitioner Dr. Shivani Gupta. And she is here to help bridge the gap between traditional remedies and modern science.
Dr.
Gupta, thank you so much for being on the show. My mouth’s all fumbled up today. I’m stumbling over my tongue or something, but I think we’re going to get it together and have a great show. How are you? For sure? Good, good, good. Thanks for having me. I’m wondering if you know this. I happen to have a nutrition company.
You have a similar company? Yeah, and I have had people in the little box where it says, who should we thank for referring? I’ve seen your name. Really? Yes. So cool. Now, I don’t know if you were specifically recommending our product. I don’t even know if you know what product I have. This is. Oh, tell me about it, because I do.
I’m very specific about what I recommend to people. I’m pretty obsessive about, like, I trust these companies and these products. Okay. So either there’s another person out there with your name. Probably not. Maybe I’ll be not. Not Dr. Shivani Gupta, right? I don’t know. Probably not. But actually we have an aloe vera product that’s, pretty well known
What is it called? Well Stockton Aloe #1. Okay, so I do recommend aloe vera juice heavily because it is a wonderful solution when it comes to Ayurvedic medicine. When people call me and they’re like, we’re constipated. I’m like, just come to my house and pick up some aloe vera, or please go to the store.
Aloe vera is like I say it every day to people. Like any time you are not moving, the system is not moving properly. Just have half a glass of aloe vera. The whole system will bloom. So yeah, that’s probably why you’ve seen my name, because I’m obsessed with it. I think it’s
such an easy, clean, natural solution.
Why aren’t we all using this? Yeah, I suspect that someone saw that you recommended aloe vera. And what they probably did is went to the internet and did a search for best aloe vera and found us and, you know, just the fact that there was a recommendation for aloe vera. Now, interestingly enough, when it comes to aloe vera and the constipation issue, a lot of people are thinking of whole leaf aloe vera, which we are not. where inner leaf only and the outer leaf actually has something that has a laxative effect, whereas the inner leaf is the calming.
It’s almost like the outer leaf is the heat and the inner leaf is
the cool okay, we’re inner leaf only now when people are bound up or too loose, aloe vera seems to bring them closer to normal, regardless of which side they’re on. The inner leaf seems to do that, whereas the outer leaf that, I think, in Ayurvedic the outer leaf, would be considered heat, has more of the contracting, and if you have too much of it, you might even get a little trouble there.
Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, we usually take the inside. I have not seen anyone take the outside that much because we don’t want to create anything that’s harsh on the system. The goal is in a very calm, like, cooling, soothing, simple way. Support the system to get the job done. Well, it was years ago that they were actually bottling the sap that came out of the outer leaf.
And in fact, I think it’s a practice in India. I think there’s a big aloe vera farm. They call it aloe tapping. And what they do is they lay a big tarp down on the field, they dig a hole, and they kind of lay the tarp over that and tuck it into the hole, and they harvest the aloe leaves just by cutting them off.
And then they almost make like a chimney with the aloe leaves in a circle, you know, stacking them up like bricks. And they drip through the night into that tarp, and then they knock the leaves out of the way and grab the tarp and pick it up
like a sack full of the sap that had dripped out.
And they take that to the market to sell it. And that is the it can be dried and turned into capsules and stuff, but it’s the what I would consider the out of leaf irritant. Now. Yeah, we’ve gotten away from this about honestly, probably 20 years ago, I think it was the National Institute of Health and now they teamed up with the FDA or a couple of organizations that got together, and they essentially gave rats just the outer leaf.
And what it did is the cells of the intestines that make mucus grew in size, probably to make more mucus to protect from the irritant part of aloe. And at some point, they called that cancer, that adaptive chain, that change, that growing of the cells. So it was determined that aloe vera causes cancer, which not only scared of aloe vera, but it was done on the outer leaves and no one makes that clear.
So medical doctors, a lot of them are confused that aloe vera causes cancer done on research that was designed to shut down the natural competition with the drug companies that make their laxatives. Sure. Craziness. Things that we have to filter through to get to the real truth.
And I made a special code for your listeners D r H a l e y will give them 15% off at fusionaryformulas.com
so much of what I teach about from ancient Ayurveda is that plants the plant kingdom, what Mother Nature created for us has so much healing capacity.
I teach a lot about super spices because I’m pretty obsessed with turmeric, based on my PhD in Turmeric I’m obsessed with how do we utilize spices in our kitchen, in our lives, in natural ways, to get us to the goal that we have? There’s so many natural remedies that can get us there, and those are just the most perfect
front line.
Like first line of defense, first line of support we can reach for. And if we need those bigger heavy hitter tools. I’m a big fan of using the tools you need. Go to the doctor, get the procedure, do what you need to do to get back to healthy. But if we can have more access to a bigger toolkit of natural remedies, then we’re talking about, okay, well, when you have a headache, what are you reaching for?
And your stomach’s a little upset because you overate in a restaurant. What are you reaching for? If in the morning your system doesn’t move like it should every day, what can you easily reach for? That’s only beneficial and has no negative side effects. And then guess what? If things evolve too much deeper, bigger problems, fine. But let me also teach you how inflammation is the root cause of a lot of the issues we’re struggling with and the lifestyle we build.
That’s nontoxic, clean, healthy, gut supportive is the key to having
the vitality, the vibrant health we want. And then we’re not going to even create a lot of those downstream issues that I’ve seen happen in my family history for decades. Like that’s my whole goal is to prevent people from the catastrophic health events that can happen to all of us if we’re not living on that path of prevention.
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about Ayurvedic medicine and I also want to talk about turmeric as you brought it up, because it’s not easy to get. I went to I like buying my big box full of ginger, and I put it through the juicer and I have the ginger ready and kind of use like one of those syringe kind of suction things to fill it up and squirt it into our water.
And I want to be able to do the same with turmeric. So they don’t have that at Costco. So I went to Publix. They don’t have turmeric. You can’t find the real thing. So we need like a supplementary source. And I know you have an answer for that before we get to that. Mainstream medicine this is a definition from cancer.gov, a system in which medical doctors and other health care professionals such as nurses, pharmacists and therapists, treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation or surgery, also called allopathic medicine, biomedicine, conventional medicine, orthodox medicine and Western medicine.
It’s kind of odd. It’s they’re treating, not the patient, but the symptoms and the disease. And just now you were talking about your practice in health and prevention. Tell us, how Ayurvedic medicine is different.
Gosh, when you read that definition, it’s such like, a funny way to start, right? So ancient Ayurvedic wisdom is one of the original systems of health, healing and medicine that exists in the world, very similar to the same timelines as traditional Chinese medicine from which acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine came from as well. And so when you look at Ayurvedic medicine,
ayurveda means the science of life. It’s actually a science that studies. What is it that we need to be doing to live a truly preventive, healthy lifestyle? And so really, it’s patient first
it’s who is in front of you. And how do you show them and teach them what their constitution is, what elements are driving their behaviors, their actions and their tendencies?
What are the ways we’re going to teach them a lifestyle that helps them stay most aligned, most supported over the long haul? And so Ayurveda is really showing you a way of life. And so we talk a lot nowadays about lifestyle medicine and personalized medicine. Ayurveda was that 5000 years ago when it started. And within Ayurveda I like to teach what I call the six pillars.
So number one is what is your elemental design or your individual constitution because that dictates how you manage everything else in your life. Are you more fire? Are you more air or are you more earth? And that’s a pretty big understanding and self-knowledge you can have. Then Ayurveda came up with the circadian clock. So right now in biohacking and longevity, everyone’s like your circadian rhythm.
I’ m like yeah, that came from Ayurveda that Ayurveda teaches we must live in rhythm with nature. And so we have a lot of teachings around building that rhythm to stay and flow with nature. Then we teach a lot about gut. So gut health is having its like trend, moment of life, but gut brain axis, gut tied to mood, gut being, your entire immune system, gut being the central all vitality and health.
These were all written in the ancient Ayurvedic texts. And so I read there’s a lot of tools around how to build good gut health, aloe vera being a key tool that we use on that path. And so gut health to me is central. If your gut health is off, everything is off. And so it’s beautiful that in modern day wellness we’re talking about it a lot.
Then I teach a lot about self-care rituals because using the dinacharya self-care rituals of Ayurveda according to your circadian rhythm is a great way to keep us on track with like, what is the rhythm? Are we detoxing every day? Are we doing things that are good for us and how we can use this ritual? Of self-care throughout the day and mindful moments to really stay our healthiest.
And then finally, I teach a lot about super spices because I can teach you a lot about living in a anti-inflammatory lifestyle and sleeping well, and moving and yoga and breathwork and stress management, all the cool things. But sometimes I’ve got to get you out of the fire first. And so that’s where I use turmeric, Boswellia, dried ginger, amla, a lot of herbs from Ayurveda, ashwagandha, which everyone’s heard about.
I’ll show you how to leverage the Super Spice kit to get where you need to be, but we have to build the lifestyle if we want to maintain the results. And so that’s my dreams that everyone understands. both interesting. So you’re getting away from. Yeah. Help me understand just a little more. Ayurveda kind of identifies things as hot and cold.
From what I understand. I think you just mentioned, like, turmeric, which I would have thought would have been hot just because of the taste. But, yeah, turmeric is a warming spice for sure. Okay, but somewhat. Maybe calming too, because it’s anti-inflammatory. Yeah. I mean great question. So there’s a lot of tools in terms of the plants and the spices that we use.
And we have to be aware of if they are warming or cooling. And so rarely do people ask me that question, but I always explain, look, it is a warming spice. So based on your Constitution, I’m a real fire constitution. I can use turmeric, I can use it heavily when I want to, but I have to bring that awareness of am I hydrated?
Well, am I keeping cooling practices? Am I eating cooling foods in the right season to tolerate the warmth of that spice? I’ll give you an example. I have a lot of people come to me and they’re kind of like, my skin has hives. Everything hurt, my joints hurt, my skin is off, everything’s off. And I’m like, that’s called overheating.
So yes, we’re going to use turmeric because it has a very anti-inflammatory effect on the system. It’s going to push it out. It’s going to handle those fires. It’s going to cool those fires, but it’ll also warm the system touch. Thankfully, nowadays we’re not living outdoors. We’re not, you know, living in tents or in the sun 24 hours a day.
We’re living under AC, we drive an AC cars, so we’re keeping our bodies pretty cool so we can tolerate that a little better. But I recently was talking to a client. I said, I need you to eat more cucumber, watermelon, and coconut water this week as you’re going to take the turmeric because you’re already on fire in too many areas, need you to cool the system and use this spice strategically to get the result that you want.
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So when it comes to, things like turmeric, it’s interesting what you said about skin, too, because I know my, my daughter, believe it or not, is got me hooked on this ginger drink more than anyone else.
And at the time, I was already consuming ginger beverages that I was buying. It was essentially water with ginger and lemon and a couple other things, but she was making this concoction of ginger, turmeric, garlic, and I think black pepper. Was there anything else in it? I don’t know. But she, you know, she’s 16 years old and she was making it on her own because something you mentioned, it calmed her skin down.
Yeah. So she would see a difference in her complexion in her face when she drinks this. So she would have it every day. That’s amazing. It’s very gut supportive. Any time we put ginger in the system, it’s going to line the digestive system. It has a very powerful anti-inflammatory effect. Many people think of ginger for its, you know, anti-nausea effects, but truly it’s a powerful gut support.
So in Ayurvedic medicine we teach a good habit is every morning have some ginger lemon tea. It’s going to be alkalizing to the system. It’s gut supportive. First, any warm beverage we take in, in the morning is also going to help with our first bowel movement, which is very important. But I really want us to know that we can detox the body gently every single day.
We can build a rhythm with that so you can wake up in the morning and after you brush your teeth, you can use a copper tongue scraper. And if people haven’t heard of using a tongue scraper, that’s one of those like 101 favorite Ayurveda hacks that I love to teach you basically buy a copper tongue scraper for 5, $10 online.
I have them on my website too, and you gently scrape the tongue 7 to 14 times. And what you’re doing there is just like Ayurveda all the organs are reflected on. Just like in reflexology, all the organs are reflected on the bottom of your feet, in Ayurveda we teach that they’re all reflected on the tongue.
And so by gently scraping the tongue, you’re going to gently scrape all your organs and detox them all right there in, like, 30s first thing in the morning, and then you rinse that off. Thank God. Copper is like a very antibacterial metal. So it’s kind of it keeps it from getting too gunked up and gross. But of course, rinse and wash your tongue.
scraper . it’s that the reason for the copper. Yes. Antibacterial metals a lot of times we love that. And it’s also re-mineralizing. So we heavily used copper in ancient Ayurvedic medicine as well. And then you can also do oil pulling. That’s just taking 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil, putting it in the mouth, swishing that around for 5 to 20 minutes while you’re doing your morning habits, maybe making your morning coffee or showering or getting ready.
And then when you spit that oil out, spit it out in the trash at your shower, sink, or toilet, or will clog the pipes of your home. But what we’re doing there’s we’re cleaning the oral microbiome. And look at what modern science has found. Your oral microbiome is tied to your heart health. We know it’s tied to
the gut microbiome.
And so these are simple practices. And so after that ginger tea or the ginger beverage you’re talking about is another powerful support. These are simple stacks we can start adding into our lives. But they can have profound impact on our gut health and on our overall longevity as well. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about your turmeric product. Sure. So about ten years ago I finished my Masters in Ayurvedic Sciences.
I was writing a book on Ayurvedic pregnancy as my thesis, and my advisor asked me. He’s like, you know, if your goal is to write Ayurveda books and teach the world Ayurveda you should do a PhD. And I was like, I don’t know if I’m built for that. That’s like really, really hard. And he’s like, not, I’ve got faith in you.
I think you should do it. What topic would you like to study? And I said, well, turmeric is actually really fascinating to me because I was in herbology class. And the professor said to her, does all this, I’m Indian, I already eat all these spices every day. I don’t understand how we think from Ayurveda that one spice can do all that.
Because if that was true, why are we not using it across every single specialty in Western medicine? Like there’s a gap here called we are not teaching this right. And so I decided to do my PhD on turmeric spent years in the science. Back then there were 10,000 scientific studies on turmeric in PubMed. Now we’re at like over 17,000.
And it basically turned me into an evangelist.
once you read all the science, it’s like, oh my gosh, your throat hurts. You can take to your work for that. Your knee hurts, you can take turmeric for that. And so that’s when I started saying to everyone and my family looked at me and said, if you’re going to really say that for the rest of our lives, you should make your own turmeric.
And I thought everyone was nuts. I was like, who creates a supplement company?
that’s a big undertaking. You’re creating something that goes in someone else’s body. It’s not like you’re making a garment, like you’re really making something ingested. And luckily, around that time, the perfect team came together an amazing factory in the United States, and I was able to really dig deep into what it takes to make a really high quality medical grade product.
And I told my team around me in the factory, I said, listen, if I can’t make something that’s completely different than what’s on the market, and if I can’t put it into a doctor’s office and they understand that, they can now use it as their first choice for pain and inflammation. I don’t want to do this. And the factory was like, just so you know, that’s not how you build a supplement company.
Supplement companies are built for margin. They’re built for the profit. I was like, no, I have no goals or dreams there. I have a turmeric PhD I just want to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that all of Western medicine should use this. And so we found an incredible curcumin ten years ago, and the factory looked at me and said, you can’t use this ingredient.
That would be insanity. You’re going to lose money forever. And I said, no, no, no, let’s just try it like one year, year one. He’s like the factory thought I was insane. So we put it into a product. I put it in the hand of orthopedics, and every orthopedic surgeon called me back and said, this is insane. My patients love this product.
We don’t even understand how you’re as effective as pretty much everything else we’re recommending. And now they come running into my office every month to buy your turmeric. They don’t need to see me as effective as effective. What they were recommending being drugs. Yeah. Being like NSAIDs and things like that. And so I thought, okay, now we have something and now I have to use the ingredient I’m never going to change the ingredient.
And so my factory was not happy with me, but they were like, you fine, honey, if you want to run a nonprofit for the rest of your life, you can do that. We’re not going to stop you. And so now I’m ten years in. Now, I’ve changed a lot of things, but I’ve never changed the core ingredients because I know the impact they have.
Yeah. And now the company’s really on its way. But it took seven years of losing money to finally hit our stride. And what’s beautiful is it’s carried by orthopedic medicine, functional medicine, chiropractic, acupuncture. Every integrative practitioner gets it. GI doctors, primary care doctors. So my whole dream
is achieved because I’ve prove my point. And now my next dream is how do I publish more double blind, placebo controlled trials proving the efficacy of turmeric across all subspecialties?
Like that’s my next dream. But for now,
it’s a very potent turmeric solution. So the majority of what we do is ship out turmeric to everyone. And then they call us and they’re like, wow, I actually feel something taking your turmeric, my back pain, my hip pain, my knee pain. I’m great. You took me from like an eight to a two and in pain.
And before I was taking turmeric But I never felt anything. So that’s what we’re kind of known for. Yeah. And as a chiropractor, a little humbling story here. A particular patient that also family member, distant family member sort of but sacroiliac pain and I could not get results. And it was a turmeric product which is the only thing that worked for her.
Wow. Yes. And so for me it’s like, oh, I couldn’t fix that. I tried, and you would think chiropractic would have been great for sacroiliac back pain. It is for so many people. But so turmeric was the answer. Wow. That’s cool. That’s great that it help. Yeah. So that was your first product kind of a flagship product.
And then
what else have you added and why. So turmeric gold is our number one flagship. Because so many people take turmeric. They know that it’s antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antioxidant. It’s very gut supportive straight good for longevity. It has anti-aging properties. It it’s like the ultimate janitor. It gets in our system and cleans house. So if we’ve got malignant cells or we thought zombie cells that don’t belong, that are causing damage and problems, it cleans that out.
It’s good for neurogenesis and mitogenesis. So
new neurons, which I don’t know about anyone else, but I always need more brain support and brain health as I’m aging and mitogenesis is more mitochondria, which means more energy. So to me, and it’s a powerful adaptogenic herb in the body. So it goes. and does what we need it to do, which is so cool.
Before we move on to other, of your products, why does yours work and not others in. Great question. So out of the entire turmeric plant, only 3% is the curcuminoids. Out of those curcuminoids, curcumin is the most effective at reducing inflammation, but the proportion of those three curcuminoids matters. So the problem is on the market.
Most people who send me their turmeric supplement labels, either they’ll say, curcuma longa 1000mg. That’s just the plant turmeric. That’s your regular
kitchen turmeric that you buy at the grocery store. Then a lot of them will play games with how they source and how they standardize that curcumin for you. In my case, I have one supplier who’s as obsessed as I am, and I’m always pushing him like Rick
We should go harder and better and he’s like, look, Shivani, we’re at a 97% grade potency out of that curcumin that we’re giving you. And we have mimicked Mother Nature’s potency in proportions. So it absorbs in the system because our body knows how to absorb plants, but our body doesn’t know how to do this. Absorb weird synthetics where you completely change the molecular structure of things.
So in my case, I didn’t break off molecules of curcumin and say, hey, I’m better. Here’s some studies. I really honored that Mother Nature knows what she’s doing, and I’m trying to give it to you at a very concentrated level to create an impact. And so that’s why it’s different. Is that honoring of Mother Nature proportion while keeping potency, but not doing it in the cheapest way possible just to get like something into a pill.
It’s much more of a how do we reach the highest level of potency to make the biggest impact in the body? Yeah. Is it a capsule, a liquid? what do you got? It’s a veggie cap. So turmeric gold is our number one formula by far. Because everyone gets it’s turmeric then I created a second formula called inflammation relief.
And I never thought my Ortho docs would use it. But they did. They all said, wow, you made one called inflammation relief. I don’t know what half those herbs are,
Like that’s your ultimate joint formula. We love this thing. But that one has Boswellia, dried Ginger, amla, guduchi
A whole symphony of herbs from Ayurveda. So anyone when they say to me I’m inflamed, I’m like, take that one. Actually, they’re going to get all these other herbs from Ayurveda that work as a synergy and like an orchestra to get to the problem. And Ayurveda has a lot of understanding with plants where you want the primary plant to go, where it needs to go.
Secondary plant supports that first job. Third one helps us get where it needs to go in the body. Then fourth one undoes the negative effects of putting such strong herbs into the body. In the first place. So there’s a lot of intelligence that goes into those formulations and those herbs. What made you want to be a health care practitioner?
I grew up in a family of diabetics, and every single time I went to India, someone would pass away from the end stages of diabetes. And I just saw this happen again and again. My grandma quadruple bypass my grandpa Parkinson’s and leg amputation, my other grandpa heart attack. And I just watched this devastation and I thought, what are we all doing here?
Are we on earth just to like, worked really hard, built disease and then the last quarter of life is not retirement. It’s just horrible, catastrophic disease management. That makes no sense. Like logically. So I said, okay, well, I have my parents generation and they’re going to turn out like their parents. And then what’s going to happen to my generation?
Like this is our genetics. And so I just made it my mission to figure out how do we change the pattern. And the pattern change came by.
everything Ayurveda says and also understanding, we have to take ownership of our health. We have to exercise. We have to go to integrative practitioners like you. We have to build our dream team, which is what I call my chiro acupuncture.
All my practitioners and I have to build a rhythm and lifestyle that completely prevents inflammation and problems, because that inflammation is at the root cause of everything that harmed my family. And so if I don’t every day exercise, eat well, sleep well, and do all these things, I’m just signing up for the same end result, and that’s just not acceptable.
I like the concept of the Dream Team. I don’t have my own dream team and I should. Yeah, as practitioners we forget. Like even this week my knee was hurting and I was like, why have you not gone to chiropractic? You know, they’ll fix you. Like, how are you skipping the medicine you need when what you teach is the medicine everyone needs?
So it’s about finding those time slots for our own dream teams to help us stay tuned up and healthy and well so we can stay in alignment and teach these things. Yeah, I understand you’re also writing a book. Yes, yes. I don’t know where the cover of that book is today, but I wrote a whole book. Yeah, I have it.
I’m just starting to share it. This week we’re finalizing the cover. The book is called The Inflammation Code. Hay House is the publisher, which to me is like my whole life is made
with that publisher that I always dreamt of writing for. And the whole book is about how the Ayurveda lifestyle, will help us build a lifestyle to prevent inflammation, reduce inflammation, how to live a nontoxic lifestyle.
Kind of the six pillars I talked about and then how to implement that into your life. Because to me, if I don’t teach you how to build things as tiny slices into your existing day, if I make it too hard, no one’s going to do the work. And so I build it as tiny little micro habits and micro rituals.
And then
the minute you fall off because we’re all human, we’re going to fall off the horse. You know which one to pick up to get right back on your track to, to get your energy, vitality, your immune system, where you want it, gut health, where you want it, brain health, where you want it, all those things.
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When it comes to gut health, you know, you mentioned aloe vera, what are some other things that you’re doing? Aloe vera is one of my favorites. I recommend a lot of time. Something called tea time is me time. It’s pretty simplistic, but I teach people to pause 3 or 4 times a day, brew a cup of tea, and use this as a tiny habit and ritual.
First of all, teas can be very healing. Ginger tea. I don’t like tumeric tea, cause I’d rather you get to at the correct dosage, at the correct potency. But any adaptogenic tea in my product line I built like sleep gummies and
sleep teas and different other teas for our health that are functional using full on Ayurvedic herbs.
But they taste good. But you can truly pick up any delicious herbal teas, and that habit is a moment of tuning in and really taking a second to ask yourself and your intuition. Powerful questions like how am I doing today? What do I need to do today for today to be better? Have I taken my supplements? Have I structured today so I get to eat?
Because a lot of times we’re not even checking in with ourselves to understand what it is
we’re missing out on or not doing for ourselves. But yeah, in terms of the Ayurveda toolkit, I love cumin seeds. It’s a very powerful way to make food more digestible. So we always heat up oil and heat up cumin seeds before we cook beans or any hard to digest vegetable post meal.
You can chew on fennel seeds or soak fennel seeds in hot water and drink it. And that’s going to reduce heartburn and help you digest things better. Ashwagandha is one of my favorite tools after turmeric because I find we’re all so stressed out. And because ashwagandha is such an adaptogenic herb, if you’re stressed and anxious, it calms you down.
If you’re having the blues or feeling low, it lifts you up. It’s like this perfect thermostat in the system, and so I reach a lot for adaptogens. Like I built a whole tea called Menopause Support Tea with Tulsi and shatavari. I built one called Unwind Tea that has brahmi and it has ashwagandha, so I’m always trying to see it.
Can I give everything to you in whole plant form, and let that do the work in your system and help you stay more calm, cool, and collected? Because we know stress alone will cause inflammation. So that’s why I’m constantly playing with
the plants to see what can I give people as a ritual that will keep giving them that result?
As you’re saying these things, I wonder how many my listeners feel the same way right now. I feel like I’m missing out. I feel like I do a lot of things that I think I’m eating pretty healthy and have some healthy habits, but as you mentioned, all these different things and the teas, for instance, I haven’t been having tea.
I do have my ginger drink, but not like a warm tea. And I’m not taking advantage of all the other potential tea leaves and herbs and spices. I feel like I’m missing out. It’s hearing you say these things is just enticing. Like, yeah, live a little bit and get some more flavor in your life. Exactly. Open up that spice cabinet.
If it’s just salt and basil, which is what I see at some of my friends houses, go open up your palate a little bit. I mean, when you eat in an Indian restaurant,
they’re using cumin, red chili powder, fennel. I mean, we have a lot of other spices
and all of them have different benefits to our health.
So that’s why I call them super spices
in the West, we’re so used to super foods and we just reach for those. But there’s a whole much bigger toolkit called the super spices and super herbs. And each one has pretty profound health benefits, like the same level of health benefits that you would say a superfood has a lot of the superfoods are immune supportive, gut supportive, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant.
And the spices do that too. So my invitation is to start to play like use more cumin in your cooking and see, does your gut get a little happier because it processes that food better or reach for, let’s see. Fennel is a good one. Cinnamon is a great all. This is the funny thing. And I’ll be, I may be a little embarrassingly transparent.
I would recognize fennel if I saw it or tasted it. I wouldn’t recognize it because it’s not something I’ve ever included. But I’m sure it’s been in dishes that I’ve had somewhere along the line. But I don’t even know what it is. Yeah, I know it’s rare. We don’t really experience these things in our typical Western life. It’s rare, very rare to have a salad even that has fennel, radicchio, all those things in it.
And so yeah, you have to consciously go buy it and then play with it because it’s
not going to be in a typical restaurant experience even. Yeah, I’m a big salad guy. And the other thing is, is when I go grocery shopping or if I’m ever in a unique store, I’m always looking for something that I’ve never had.
You know, I want to make sure I don’t miss out. So I’m looking for something. And what is that? Let me find out what it is and figure it out
and see if I can include it and experience them. And somehow I’ve never come across fennel Yeah, it’s one of our favorites. Just like aloe vera is one of our favorites.
Cinnamon is a favorite of ours. We love incorporating cinnamon. Cardamom has so many health benefits, and we have two types of cardamom green cardamom and black cardamom.
there’s a whole world to open there when it comes to spices. Yeah. How many SKUs do you have? How many things
you have on your website? Nine.
So we have two turmeric supplements. Those are what we’re most known for is the two main formulas. Then I came up with four teas and then three gummies, mainly because I started with sleep. People who don’t sleep well will always be inflamed, and a lot of times when you’re in pain, it’s going to keep you out of sleep.
So I made a sleep gummy sleep tea first, and then I kept going from there. I thought, okay, when you get home from work, you usually reach for wine or chocolate because you’re so stressed. What if I could help a tea help have a tea so effective that 1 or 2 cups would calm you down, and then you wouldn’t reach for those crutches.
Perfect. That will reduce inflammation. So that’s always my thought process, is how am I building a ritual that has a really powerful impact and keeps you from being more inflamed, really, and causing more health issues? Okay. And the website shivanigupta.com Correct. Yes, that’s my website shivanigupta.com And on there I have tons of like guides, a cookbook, videos.
I have like free video challenges and things like that. And then that will connect you to my company which is fusionaryformulas.com And I made a special code for your listeners, DrHaley We’ll give them 15% off D R H A L E Y for 15% off All right. Beautiful. Thank you I appreciate that along the, well and the course of your life, what are some power words that have been spoken into your life, something that may be stuck with you your whole life, and possibly that you applied to who you are?
One of the funniest answers I got was just a couple of weeks ago, and one of my guest. He chuckled when I asked the question
And I said, I know you have the answer because you’re laughing, but I still went on to give an example anyway. And the example I’m going to give today is his.
And he talked about when he was, you know, 2 or 3 years old or whatever, stacking blocks up, and they would keep on falling over. And his father stepped in or something and said, do you want help with that? And he spoke his own words into his own life. He said, I’ll do it myself. Yeah. And, you know, it became sort of a mantra when he would get stuck, I can do this.
I’ll do it myself. I’ll find the solution to it for me. There were times when people said something and it just stuck with me, and I applied it to my life
and it was something that was powerful, it forming me into who I am today. Well, what can you think of that maybe really made you who you are.
You know, I went to a business school called Babson in Boston for my undergrad, and it was a really great school. I learned so much about entrepreneurship, and I come from an entrepreneurial family, so all the generations are like crazy, hard working entrepreneurs who overwork ourselves, burn ourselves out, and are super intense about our work. And I remember at Babson, I met with my professor and I said, something is wrong here because maybe I’m too
idealistic.
Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I believe there’s a different way to do business. And no one here gets it like that.
I don’t think anyone here understands what I’m trying to say. And he goes, hold that thought. I have the perfect class for you. So he walked me over to the MBA school at the time, and he introduced me to the professor of social entrepreneurship.
And she said of course, I’ll let you audit the class. Come on in. You know, it’s fine. The I get your an undergrad, but come on in. If he vouches for you, you’re in. As I sat in class and just my jaw dropped because they taught us that in business you can do business, but you can do good at all levels of the business for every type of shareholder and shareholders.
An interesting word to use there, but the idea of every aspect of what you build can do good. Always stayed with me and always resonated with me. So what that means is from the farm that grows, the turmeric that I get to use, I can benefit those women and those farmers to the people in the factory, to the sourcing, to okay, who am I creating this for?
I’m creating this for someone in the West. That’s where I ship and that’s where I live. I live in the United States. So for now, until we’re way bigger, this is where we do business. I’m making this for a woman, a man, a person here in the US who needs me and needs what I’m making. Okay? I’m serving my doctors.
I’m giving the doctors something that they can use and feel good about with their patients. Okay, I have a team. My team is all women and women of color at this point. And
we’re chugging and we’re all moms. We’re doing our best. And how can I benefit them, too? Because we’re all sharing this vision in this dream.
And then how can I write books and impact billions of lives by teaching this Ayurvedic wisdom and lifestyle? So to me, it’s like this conscious entrepreneurship idea of if every single level of every single thing you’re doing benefits everyone, then how can you not win at this thing? Because what if all of us in business tried to approach it from the same way of let’s do good inherently at all levels of what we created, then what a different world we would have.
So so that’s kind of the message that landed with me in college was, you can actually do good on all levels. And enjoy that journey and constantly seek how can you do that more? so in recent years, it was like, how do we support more female entrepreneurs in the health space? Or how do we support more sustainability through the business?
So I’m always exploring, like, how else can I do good and how can I use my business as the vehicle that lets me do that? I like your answer, and the reason I ask the question is because it can be if it was powerful for you, it can be powerful for the people that are listening. And certainly we can all take that and apply it to our lives, our business, our relationships, our families.
How can we do excellent at all levels within this? And there’s probably areas that we can all improve. I had a similar take on that that I’m always looking for the win win. You know, it has to be and it’s kind of a win win win has to be, you know, it makes sense for me. Make sense for who I’m doing business with.
Makes sense for my customers, my patients. We want everybody to win. And it’s a similar concept as what you just shared. Exactly. You know, good stuff Dr. Shivani. I enjoyed the time I got to spend with you. Is there anything that I should have asked? There’s so many things we could have talked about, but I don’t. If there was anything that was really, you know, needs to be on this podcast.
You know, to me,
it’s always hard to explain. Ayurveda in short periods of time because it is a huge system of medicine and science. Like I can teach eight hour workshops on it. It is always hard to fit it into 45 minutes, but I really do invite everyone who’s listening to take some time and try to understand it.
I have YouTube videos. I have a whole podcast full of some knowledge on this with good followings. I might say on your youtube and your I think the other one I saw was Instagram. Probably a couple of others. I do teach heavily on Instagram because it’s an easier place to teach all day on the topic, but I just invite everyone to pick up one habit and just start there.
Because each habit that we stack out of Ayurveda at least, and I have all the modern health and wellness practices that we learn about, they add up. They are all a piece of the puzzle, and it’s our job to figure out which one is best for us and resonates with us and feels good to us. And so yeah, I just want to invite everyone to take those steps to go a little deeper.
in Ayurvedic wisdom, because it’s
changed my life. It’s changed the life of the thousands of people who I’ve worked with. And it might be that final puzzle piece that you need to find to kind of finish the puzzle on the lifestyle that supports you in this decade of health. And then, you know, each decade we have to pick up more tools to add to our toolkit.
Yeah, well, this podcast has been, enticing towards Ayurveda, and I want more in my life. So I think you’ve done well today. Thank you. Dr. Shivani Gupta, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.
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