Get ready to embark on a journey with me and Dr. Shivani Gupta, an Ayurvedic specialist with a passion for integrating Western and Eastern medicine. This episode offers you a powerful opportunity to explore the world of health from a unique perspective. Dr. Gupta shares the secrets behind her successful company, Fusionary Formulas, and the revolutionary way it works to educate and serve the community, particularly women, on their path to wellness. You'll feel empowered as she advocates for the importance of self-care, and you'll be inspired by the story of her personal journey.
Brace yourself as we delve into the heart of women's health issues. These are challenges that too many women face in silence - PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, and the often overlooked fertility crisis. We get real about these issues, discuss them candidly, and lay bare the potential solutions. Dr. Gupta will reveal the impact of inflammation on women's health and the long-term consequences if left unaddressed. Prepare to be enlightened about the dangerous cycle of inflammation and chronic pain, and learn how to break free with practical lifestyle changes.
Finally, we dive deep into the world of Ayurvedic self-care. Dr. Gupta introduces us to her innovative seven-day inflammation challenge and shares incredible Ayurvedic practices that can help you create a healthier, more balanced lifestyle. It's time you took a step back from your hectic life and invested in your health. Don't miss out on our discussion about the discomforts of menopause and the natural solutions available. Join us in this journey of self-discovery and health enlightenment.
https://fusionaryformulas.com/
USE: WOMENINTHEARENA for 15% off your order
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Get ready to embark on a journey with me and Dr. Shivani Gupta, an Ayurvedic specialist with a passion for integrating Western and Eastern medicine. This episode offers you a powerful opportunity to explore the world of health from a unique perspective. Dr. Gupta shares the secrets behind her successful company, Fusionary Formulas, and the revolutionary way it works to educate and serve the community, particularly women, on their path to wellness. You'll feel empowered as she advocates for the importance of self-care, and you'll be inspired by the story of her personal journey.
Brace yourself as we delve into the heart of women's health issues. These are challenges that too many women face in silence - PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids, cysts, and the often overlooked fertility crisis. We get real about these issues, discuss them candidly, and lay bare the potential solutions. Dr. Gupta will reveal the impact of inflammation on women's health and the long-term consequences if left unaddressed. Prepare to be enlightened about the dangerous cycle of inflammation and chronic pain, and learn how to break free with practical lifestyle changes.
Finally, we dive deep into the world of Ayurvedic self-care. Dr. Gupta introduces us to her innovative seven-day inflammation challenge and shares incredible Ayurvedic practices that can help you create a healthier, more balanced lifestyle. It's time you took a step back from your hectic life and invested in your health. Don't miss out on our discussion about the discomforts of menopause and the natural solutions available. Join us in this journey of self-discovery and health enlightenment.
https://fusionaryformulas.com/
USE: WOMENINTHEARENA for 15% off your order
Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/
If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net
***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:
Maybe you can help me get there****
Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me again this week.
Audra :This week, we're going to talk about your health.
Audra :We're going to talk about marrying the best of both worlds in medicine.
Audra :My guest this week is dr Shivani Gupta, and she is an arovatic specialist and we're going to talk about what that means as a practitioner and what that means for you. We're going to talk about some cornerstone basics of having a strong, healthy life and also how to combat some of those ailments or diseases that you may be facing and don't want to chase a problem with the pill, because you'll always be chasing a problem with another pill. We're going to get into that conversation and we're also going to talk about how this equates to life as a female and how this is affecting us hormonally, how it's affecting us, how we make, how we're changing as we get older and how we can work with that, because none of that has to be a permanent situation. And yes, I'm talking to you, all of you sisters out there that are also in the middle of menopause with me, so we're going to talk about that too. It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you dr Shirani Gupta. Shirani, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Thank you Thanks for having me.
Audra :I'm really excited to have this conversation because I am so curious about the foundation of what you have built your practice on, your company on and your message on. But before we jump into that, I'd like for you to share a little bit about who you are and how you got to the place that you're at today in focusing on health and having a soft spot specifically for women's health.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Sure. So I grew up in Houston, texas, to a typical immigrant family, a family that came from India and just was working hard to build financial stability and everything else. And luckily, my parents did very well through their work ethic and their intelligence, and I got to work in their business, growing up, and I got to see what it meant to build a team and build a community and simultaneously, as I was growing up, we'd go to India every year to see my grandparents and my cousins, the family that we left behind, and I got to see these two worlds coexist. Where here in the US, it was like you go to Eckerd's, you go to McDonald's. If you have a problem, you just take Pepto Bismol like very Western clear cut solutions Versus.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :When you go to India, there's always someone cooking the freshest ingredient that they got that day that came from the farms to your own street that you purchased. There was always a mom in the kitchen cooking. My grandma would give me these elixirs to fix me, and I just remember growing up thinking you know these are two different worlds. I wonder which one's right or which one's better. Now, as I'm older, I don't think anything's better, I just think which toolbox are you reaching into today, and I also grew up in a family that's very diabetic, and so every single time I went to India, someone would pass away from the advanced stages of diabetes, and that was always such a shock to me.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :I was like what's happening to my grandparents, to all my aunts and uncles? Something is wrong with our family, something's wrong with me and my health, and it just set me on a journey very early on where I was obsessed with health. And what does it take to build an immune system? And how do you fight diabetes? And how do you prevent disease? And if you're going to be such successful entrepreneurs, how do you do so in a way where the last quarter of your life is not disease management, spending all the money you earned in trying to fix diseases? How do you get to enjoy that last phase? Because, gosh, you worked so hard for it?
Audra :I am with you, as now that we are empty nesters and I now have the time and the brain space and I've talked to you a lot about brain space after your children fly the coop, you realize how smart you really are. It's just been the room in your brain has been taken up by raising children, but when they fly the coop you get the opportunity to really focus on you, which you probably haven't done In 20 plus years. That has been the case for me, and so I have been seeking information and better alternatives for my health personally, because I got the opportunity of being a empty nester fairly young. I was a young parent. Now I'm a young empty nester. That's the prize for doing the hard work early, and so I have all this time. I'm only 52. So I plan on being here well into my 90s.
Audra :So I'm trying to reach out, investigate, educate myself on what's really best for me, and what I've come up with is that, like you said, western medicine is not the be all end all. There is a complementary alternative with Eastern medicine and what you do is you marry the best of both worlds through education, through your company of fusionary formulas and what you've introduced through that and now you're serving this community. You're serving the community, specifically me, that now that we have this, I have time to really take a look at what I'm doing to myself when I'm putting in my body, but also educating those even younger than us so they don't have to reevaluate, they don't have to reevaluate at 50 on where their health is. So I appreciate that you've taken this journey. And let's start with the definition of what Aravetic medicine is, because I only became aware of this through research and through our conversations. I know that we've heard about it, but what actually is Aravetic medicine?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Sure, and you know you raise such a good point. Oftentimes when we become moms, when we embark on that journey, we lose so much of ourselves, we lose self care. I have young kids in elementary and middle school and I'm just in the thick of it with car align and carpool and activities and you're trying to find slivers of time to take care of yourself the best you can. But if you understood as early as possible how powerful self care is and how to fit yourself in, then you're right. You wouldn't need such a big recalibration once you become an empty nesters. It's really one of my missions to show women we matter. We can invest in ourselves now. We can keep ourselves sane, happier and more present, joyful in the now as we go through the journey. But Ayurveda the question was what is Ayurveda? Ayurveda is a system of medicine and health and healing from India that's over 5,000 years old. It's this ancient science that existed in India, just like you have Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture coming out of China and East East Asia. In India this was the way of life and it's a preventive way of life. It's called the science of life. So Ayurveda encompasses this wisdom around our gut health and honoring gut health first, as, like the key to all health.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Ayurveda reveres detoxification and detoxing according to the seasons. We teach something called dosha, or your individual mind, body, constitution. So I teach women figure out your dosha, understand it from birth and then leverage, getting yourself back into alignment and from there you are your most powerful. I teach a lot about circadian rhythm and the rhythm by which we can live in accordance with nature. So we're flowing downstream with nature. Life is easier in our bodies and in our minds or not, fighting upstream and exhausted every single day. So Ayurveda really teaches us a way of life according to seasons, according to nature, to stay in balance, and the goal is to bring body, mind and spirit into alignment.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :And so here in the West I'm a Western or two, born and raised in Houston, texas I can honestly tell you my life, the way I used to live. It, was very out of balance. I was always on a path to burnout and sickness and frustration, not understanding why I didn't feel good. And the more I dig into my Ayurvedic toolbox, the more I feel grounded and present and I can enjoy my success as I built it. I can enjoy my family as I have it. There's just so much more access to positive energy and joyful energy and brain capacity that we have if we are living this life less inflamed, healthier and all those things.
Audra :I mean, we're not taught this as, let's face it, we in general I'm not. This is I don't want to make a gross, blanket decision, but or this, I shouldn't say gross blanket discussion of. This is the way it is for everybody, but in general, as Americans, we are not taught how to prioritize self care. We think that it's a luxury. It hasn't been until the last couple of years that we've actually really brought self care into the mainstream and it not just be talking about getting a pedicure although pedicures are wonderful, that is not the beyond all of self care and as mothers, we most definitely are not encouraged or it's not even discussed about taking care of yourself.
Audra :I don't ever remember that being a conversation of you need to make sure that you're healthy so you can take care of your family, or you need to make sure that you're healthy, happy, well mind, body, spirit, so you can be the best you can be to take care of your family. That conversation never, ever happened. I'm only learning that now. But you're saying that this foundational medicaid or it's not even medication, it's a way of life. This Ayurvedic way of life is this place that grounds you, that allows you the opportunity to be healthy mind, body, spirit, have energy, have clarity of mind. I mean, oh my gosh, what kind of, what kind of lives would we have if we just could have a clear thought?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :I know it's funny the days I wake up and I don't feel epic. I'm like, oh, this is what life used to feel like. It's funny because it's a very A-B clear thing. Either you're just on and you feel epic, all cylinders going, or you're like, oh, this is what tired and not as productive feels like Got it.
Audra :Well, as you've listened to my show before, you know that I tell on myself a lot. So we're going to do this wild comparison between who I am now, or what I could be being in balance and practicing Ayurvedic medicine. How I am now. My sleep schedule is wildly out of control because I'm firmly in the middle of a menopause. So sometimes I can sleep and sometimes it's like nah, just kidding, it's awful. There are days that I have great energy and then there are days that I'm like is this thing on? I don't know how to get out of bed. There are days that I think very clearly and then there are days that I'm like why did I come in this room? What am I doing?
Audra :I have been conditioned to believe that this is just how life is once you enter menopause, once you enter middle age. I hate that phrase, middle age because, even though technically I am in the middle of my lifespan, someone forgot to tell my brain that I'm not a teenager anymore, because I still feel like I am when I'm having a good day. But, like I said, I revert back to. I've been conditioned that this is normal. Now I'm going to flip this to you and so you can take me as an example, because I think I'm speaking. It could be me, or any number of any number of any people that are listening, that they could also feel the same way. How should I and how could I be functioning if I was in alignment? And I know that this is not voodoo, this is not weird, science is none of that. This is actually legitimate study that clearly has worked for 5000 years.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Yeah, you know it's interesting. If you look at women overall and our trajectory in our health, it's fascinating. We changed by the decade. We have our zero to 10, somewhere in 10 to 20, we're going to get our period, we're going to evolve and change. And if you look at the clear indications of the increase in PCOS endometriosis there's a lot of female health issues fibroids, cysts, so many things happening with the uterus, more so than in the past, or we just know about it more because they have so much more diagnostics now. Then you've got your 20 to 30s. We've got a fertility crisis. We've got women who want kids. We want kids later, most of us and many. I have many women coming to me right now for fertility because all of a sudden they're ready to have kids but the body is not going to give them what they want. So that's an issue in that decade for many.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Then you go into the next decade, post kids. Everyone I know has a subclinical thyroid condition or a full blown thyroid condition or something hormonal where something is not working Fibroids needing surgeries have a lot of people calling me for fibroids because they know I had a very big one that I had to get surgically removed and I was shocked. I was like how did the body form a 10 centimeter fibroid? That's nuts. Then you go on to the next phase. Now all my friends have perimenopause. Everyone's like the brain fog, the fatigue. This is ridiculous. The complaints are loud. Then all my friends who are just ahead of me in the game of 10 years in the menopause crew are the most frustrated by far, because it's like you are already doing everything right. You're doing everything well. All of a sudden you've walked into this door where everything is going haywire no matter what you try to do. I think that that's so unfair. As women, we go through all these decades of so much struggle and looking backwards at my sisters, I'm like, wow, everyone is going to have a problem in every decade. What the heck? That's why I'm so passionate about what I teach and I reach into every toolkit. I consider myself an integrative practitioner. I'm so obsessed with health that I read everything. Modern science and past science Just like acupuncture in Chinese medicine has been so validated by modern science because they are ahead of the curve. Irv is coming right behind IRV. The medicine, naturopathic medicine, which is very similar to ours, homeopathic medicine, which we believe in essential oils, plant medicine all these systems can be so powerful.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :What I like to show women is we are bio-individual. We each have different ethnic backgrounds, different regions. We come from different blood types, different body types, different backgrounds, different life traumas. We're also unique that, if we can sit there and understand and learn how to use our own intuition, we can learn how to live in our individual rhythm, balancing our own doshan mind-body constitution. We can learn to honor our own gut and our own digestive fire and build that metabolism. We can have this rhythm that we go through in life. That's so beautiful and so supportive of us that even when these phases come, these phases should feel like almost nothing.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Technically, I'm in a phase called perimenopause. I'm not experiencing perimenopause, but maybe it's because of how I live my life. I listen to my body. These last few weeks my body's like please stop beating yourself up in the gym. I'm telling you you better back it up. I'm listening. It's hard because my nature is I want to go to the gym and achieve, but I am listening to my rhythm and I'm honoring it. If we just put certain toolkits into place in our lives a certain schedule, certain amount of exercise and movement, certain amount of teas and elixirs that heal the gut and support us, a certain type of diet that's ultra nourishing. I truly believe that the body knows how to fall into its homeostasis and maintain it, because the body wants to be in balance. The body doesn't want to be on fire, inflamed in a battle, frustrated and torturing us. It's just about us supporting the body to be in its homeostasis.
Audra :It's all these things. It's not a magic pill. It's all of these things, like I discussed before on mind, body and spirit. But you start with a very foundational thing that I want to dive into because I don't know enough about it. I've heard a lot about it. I've actually heard it refer to as the silent killer. I don't know what any of this means, but we're going to dive into it because it's your particular foundation for everything you do. Once this comes into neutral, then everything else can be built upon it. In this case, we're talking about inflammation. I almost said inflammation, that's too much on the brain. It is the basis of inflammation, and inflammation in the body. First of all, tell me what that means. Inflammation. I'm not even sure what that means. When I hear inflammation, I think, oh, I bruised myself inflammation. But that is only one part. What is inflammation and what is it doing to our bodies?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Sure, inflammation is considered a silent killer. It's considered the fire that's burning within us. Back in the day, if you hit yourself, you got a bruise, that was your body creating inflammation to go heal a certain spot in the body, let's say your elbow. The problem is in modern day times the body is under siege. All of a sudden the body is going to send stuff to that elbow, but the healing won't stop. The body will keep thinking that there's problems, because there are different problems that it needs to attack in the body. It's going to go and try to attack all those different issues. That's where we have so much autoimmune. We have so much chronic joint pain. That's why rheumatology is blowing up and everyone's running to rheumatology because something is wrong. Really, what's wrong is inflammation is wreaking havoc Most of the subspecialties out there. When you go, they're like oh, you have somethingitis, you have arthritis, gastritis, bursitis, everyitis is just inflammation and cardiac disease, a lot of the big horrible ones type 2 diabetes based in inflammation. When I learned that I was like oh, diabetes is caused by inflammation, stress and obesity. Okay, I'll make sure I'm never obese. That'll be like my full-time job. I will make sure, and it is quite a job and effort in my body. I will work on reducing stress, but that's a tougher one to fight with. Then inflammation so inflammation is like this fire.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :If you don't have acute inflammation in the body, which is a normal, healthy response, sometimes that acute inflammation will become chronic, low-grade, persistent inflammation. That is the problem. It's like the slow-burning fire that's silent within us. The body thinks it's under attack, so it's releasing things to go back, fight all these battles. We have no idea until it starts showing up as symptoms. All of a sudden we'll be like, oh, you know what, my shoulder was hurting, but that never really stopped. Now my foot's hurting, but I haven't been able to focus for a few weeks. Now my sleep is bad, you know, my gut is off, my stomach's been weird, I haven't been eating, my food's not digesting well, and a lot of times we don't tie everything together. We're like, oh, it's this, oh it's that, oh it's this, oh it's that. I must be aging, I must not have slept well. We never stop and say, hmm, could these be tied together? And inflammation is that insidious in the body, it's that problematic. And all of a sudden what people are calling aging is really inflamaging.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :And until the symptoms stack high and the problem is loud. We don't usually go to the doctor until it's loud and really symptomatic. They're not going to order tests on you and not all tests are really going to show you the truth. And so that's where we are seeing the birth of functional medicine coming out loudly, because a lot of people are going to their traditional doctor and the doctor's like you're fine, your blood test is fine, you should be feeling fine. I don't understand what's wrong with you. Oh, you have subclinical thyroid. When is the real thyroid condition? Come on in and I'll give you a chronic drug. Until then, I've got nothing for you.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :And so, all of a sudden, functional medicines coming out of the woodwork saying hey, wait a minute. We actually know that there's probably a couple of baseline problems here. Usually it's our gut health. We've got just gut dysbiosis, toxic burden, we've got some heavy metals or we've got some mold, we've got something that's wreaking havoc. We've got blood work showing deficiencies, because over half of us are suffering with leaky gut, and we've got other different issues. They're going to test genetics and different things.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :I go to two functional medicine doctors because I like the truth when it comes to my body. And now with true data, we can go forward and say, okay, this person just needs to fix their gut and fix their hormones and all of a sudden, life will be fine. And so that's where I find it interesting, because Ayurvedic medicine would have taught you the lifestyle in the first place. That would have prevented those problems. So I'm coming in saying, okay, let's learn what the problems are, sure, let's treat them, but let's also put the lifestyle in place to not keep creating the problem again and again. Let's not end up in the cycle.
Audra :Thank you to today's sponsor Beyond ERP podcast, hosted by Gina Otrosky and Louis Bala. This is a podcast about change, evolution and transformation. I was recently introduced to them and I got the opportunity to listen to several of their episodes. The one that I found especially interesting is their interview with Sarah Altman. She started out as a French horn player but then later became an IT manager with this little hardware store that loves the color orange. I was inspired by her story of finding opportunity in the most unlikely places. Find that episode, their show Beyond ERP, and more right here where you listen to our podcast.
Audra :Now back to the show. I'm going to bet I'm going to take a leap out there that most women that sit in a seat similar to mine busy lives, busy careers have lots of activity, lots of demands, lots of stress. I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that most of them are suffering with some pretty significant inflammation. Because just thinking about it, just hearing the things that you have been describing to me, I was thinking well, what hurts that? I've gotten accustomed to my joints. My joints hurt all the time and I just, I, just, you know, stock it up to I'm 52. You know things that the joints aren't as as as slippery and oily as they used to be, so it's going to be stiff. So I think about that.
Audra :You mentioned stress and you mentioned sleep interruption, again, all these things. I just thought, ah, it's menopause, whatever. I suffer from migraines, but while I have a control over my migraines because I take a special medication for it, I get daily what I refer to as rebound headaches from anything. They come from nowhere, absolutely nowhere. I can only think that they're stress. But I'm hearing all this and thinking, hmm, maybe I am wildly inflamed and no one has ever taught me about this, sure, and I knew nothing about it, because it's not, that is not a basis of medicine that we are taught. Yeah, and they don't have it.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :It's not at the moment. Yeah, and they won't have a plan for it, right? Like what? They're not going to test for something unless they have a treatment. That's just the nature of medicine right now. I actually love Western medicine. I think they are rock stars. Every time I need a surgery I'm so grateful for them. But when it comes to chronic disease management, I think we're getting pretty clear as a society that they don't have the entire full-fledged toolkit that we need in those areas for disease prevention. And so, yeah, I've been to primary care docs and they're like you're great and I'm like I am not great.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :And it took a functional medicine doctor to dig deep to say you have subclinical thyroid. Like you must be really like these symptoms you're naming. It must feel like you're climbing a mountain every day. I said, yeah, you have no idea, I'm actually a brilliant woman. I've gone to the best schools and I have to keep post-it notes around me 24, seven, because I cannot remember a damn thing and I don't want everyone to think I'm stupid. So there was years where I was writing on post-its and I'm still like I don't want to remember anything and look like an idiot. But now I've got it all under control, but it was very tough. Those symptoms are tough and migraines, headaches. Of course these things are all related and if there's no solution, they're not going to give you the solutions.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :That's where I partner with so many functional medicine doctors. That's where I usually do a consultation. I'm like look, in six weeks I think we can get this 90% resolved, and if we can't get it past 90%, I will walk you into functional medicine myself, because I know which two tests we need and I know how we're going to cross that finish line, because I've gone through this. I've gone through this with so many clients. And when it comes to women's health, women are usually like what is it? We're like the leftovers In Western medicine. They don't study us, they don't dose for us properly, Like I'm pretty frustrated as a woman that we're not put on the pedestal we deserve to be when it comes to medical treatment right now. And so that's my mission is how do I show us how to be truly sovereign in our health and truly know our queendom and truly feel so on point that we can win on every front in our lives, including our bodies and including our health?
Audra :Well, sign me up, because the response of well, it's just your hormones is not good enough anymore, because they're saying it's just your hormones, because they don't know, because they haven't studied us. That's the truth. That is. The real truth is that there's just not enough research done specifically for women and hormones, which is the building block for everything we do. There's not enough information, so that's why they say, just suck it up and deal with it. Well, I don't want to suck it up and deal with it, and I don't want anybody else listening to suck it up and deal with it, whatever situation, whatever decade that you happen to be in. So let's start with curing information. Sure, you have a seven-day challenge detox that is free on your website. What are you going to do to us during these seven days, and why do we need to?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :detox, sure. So IRV that teaches us that we actually need to do one profound detox per year, and I mean profound. We call it Bunchakarma. So I've been to India. We have centers that do it here. A Bunchakarma treatment is like your investment in yourself to truly peel off those layers of toxins and buildup that happen, that accumulate throughout the year, and cleanse yourself. So that's a 21-day cleanse called Bunchakarma. Most people here in the West are not going to give up 21 days. I've only done it a few times in my life that big, usually pre-kids and so now I teach it as seven days. Just take an intersection of seasons or any time of year and take seven days and just do a cleanse and this detox.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :I like to make my detoxes at three levels easy, medium and hard. Because where I meet people might not be right, where they're ready to go whole hog or whole enchilada into something. I want it to be like a layering let's start light, let's go harder, let's go harder. So the seven day inflammation challenge I made it just because I wanted to give those little nuggets of wisdom, that kind of implant into your mind, a way to start to live the anti-inflammatory lifestyle full time all the time, but because we kick it off in a challenge. It's just that gentle way to bring habits in. So one is cut the top five inflammatory foods and I say just start with one or two. You're gentle with yourself because the top five inflammatory foods are gluten, dairy meat, red meat, usually alcohol and sugar. And so any one of us is going to have a addiction is a strong word but a strong affinity to or a love for some of those foods. They might be very much a part of our daily or weekly lives. And so what I encourage is look, just cut sugar. That's a huge accomplishment. Cut gluten for 14 days and you let me know if gluten is toxic and poisonous to you. Most people that's like one I have to really pry out of their hands, and not everyone is gluten intolerant, but I like them to discover that for themselves. And so the way I look at it is if you're inflamed, start taking turmeric and the herbs from Ayurveda.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :First Get the inflammation down. Like, just drop the noise down a couple notches, put the fires out to close to zero. Okay, now you're feeling better, you have energy, you're sleeping better, your brain is working better. Now I can ask you for a few lifestyle changes. Now let's do the seven day inflammation challenge. Let's get started. Let's put healthy habits in place, let's focus on yourself. And sometimes I do my seven day challenge three weeks in a row because it's not easy to get it right. That first time You're like, oh, I ate nachos, dang it, okay, I'm going to try again, and so you get that habit going. And then, when people are ready, then I talk about like a six week immersion, like let's put the real building blocks in place. Right, teach you gut health from Ayurveda. I want to teach you the Ayurvedic diet, like we can do the deep diet. So those are kind of my three phases with people.
Audra :First of all, when you were telling me the five top inflammatory foods, I was like okay, sugar, I could see that gluten is in everything. And boy, that's going to be hard. And then you got to alcohol. I'm like but Shivani, I know.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :I'm a shard of nae girls. I get you.
Audra :I'm like sister, please give a girl a break, I need something. So, okay, maybe that won't be the right one, I'll give up red meat right now. I don't care, take it. I don't care. What was the other one? Sugar and dairy. But let's revert back to the wine part.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Cheese. I don't want to cheese go great together. You know what I teach a lot of people and give it to me for a week or two just drop that inflammation down, then we can bring it back. Because if you bring it back slow and easy from a healed place, then these are treats and the body has the tolerance for it. But if we're in a constant fire you can't put out the forest fire if you're still lighting fires. So that's the the the intention I bring to it. And also we have to learn to fill our cup with self care If we're going to take away so many treats. So if I'm taking wine off the table, which I have I've taken wine off the table down to like maybe once a week, usually twice a month right now, just cause it doesn't make me feel good and I'm so aware of that, then I've got to have a lot of self care and a lot of other things that I use to feel relaxed and chill and create the feeling that I need or that I normally get from that.
Audra :Well, because I'm I'm my own guinea pig, I'm going to take up this challenge for all of you. So, because I'm the I'm the perfect one to do it, because I've just I've told on myself about all these menopause symptoms that I have, the brain fog bugs me the most. I mean I can even I can live with the, the not sleeping thing. I mean kind of, but that doesn't bother me as much as the brain fog. I'm an incredibly intelligent woman that sounds like a bumbling idiot because I can't get the words from my brain out my mouth, which is hilarious that I have a podcast.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Yeah, but doesn't it drive you nuts? Different things and sleep. Here's the thing about sleep that most people don't realize. Inflammation is a root cause of most chronic diseases I won't say all, but most and if you don't sleep you will not clear your inflammation. You clear it overnight and you have to sleep 10 to two according to the circadian rhythm clock in Ayurveda cause. That's the best time to clear inflammation and clear the lymphatic system. So those of us who get sick often, you have to sleep 10 to two. Those of us who have brain fog or inflammation in the body, you have to sleep 10 to two if you have joint pain.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :So I did my PhD, like you mentioned, in turmeric and I studied turmeric and I was like turmeric is going to heal everything and I really was able to create something that could heal the world and people love it and they take it instead of their NSAIDs and people are loving it. But then I realized if I don't fix your sleep, we're still going to have problems. So I developed sleep formulas and sleep teas to like drop us into deeper sleep states and hold us there. And then for people suffering with menopause I was like well, that's coming for me too. I better create something, and I created this menopause tea using adaptogens, because there are so many tools in the medicine, in the plant kingdom and mother earth. It's like there's medicine that exists for us, that's all natural, that the body receives as a natural solution. So it's like because it's from nature and we're from nature, it resonates better, it absorbs better, it does the job better, and so that's what I'm about is how do we keep finding the solution so we're not suffering?
Audra :Well, like I said, I'm going to take up this challenge first for everybody else, so then I can give you my real life feedback of what's happening with me, because, while I'm not a complete mess, believe me, I have friends that are struggling with much, much more than I am, but I am in the middle of. I don't want to feel like this because I plan on being here and causing trouble well into my 90s. My grandmother did it, my great-grandmother did it. They caused trouble until the day they died. And I was like you know what I want to do? That too. I want to make everybody go insane with like, where is mom now? Whose job is it to watch her? But I don't want to do that and be in pain for the next 40, 45 years. I don't want to do that. So I'm going to take up the gauntlet of this challenge of trying to get myself into homo-stacy, homostasis, homostasis. See, I told you brain fog, brain fog. I know what the word means, I just can't get it out in my mouth. Perfect example. So I'm going to do it for you and report back Just short of that. But I'm encouraging everybody to go to your website and do the 7-day challenge.
Audra :Do the 7-day challenge. If nothing else, do the 7-day challenge. What else? What small, tiny steps can we all take to try and get ourselves back into rhythm? Just, I know there are small changes, but what else can we do for ourselves that we can start honoring ourselves and pouring back into the goddesses that we are? Because, let's face it, we all do so much and it's taken for granted because we do it so effortlessly and it's not effortlessly at all. There's a tremendous amount of effort that's going into getting all this stuff done. We've just done it for so long. We don't acknowledge the amount of energy it takes to run your corners of the planet.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :It's true. No, I work across the table from my best friend at work. We're partners and we're building this supplement company together and I say to her look, we're working so hard as women to earn and build and have financial sovereignty and independence, but that doesn't mean that we don't have like four quadrants of our lives that are also equally tough as our work. We have home to manage. Some of us have kids to manage. It's a lot and I literally I said I need a team. I need not only the housekeeper to manage the house, I need the driving nanny to help me with these kids. I need more and more team around me as I scale and as I grow. And then I also need a health team around me. Like I think that a lot is. I want a trainer. I want more yoga in my life. I wish someone was cooking more nutritious original food than I am, that has more nutrient density. So I think there's a lot there as to what we dream of and want in our lives and in the meantime, I'm very much about operationalizing what's simple and doable and possible in the here and now. So the way I achieve that is number one Ayurvedic self care rituals. Ayurveda has a series of 12 rituals we can do daily called dinna jadia. And dinna jadia just means your daily rituals, but these aren't just like hydrate more or get a pedicure. This is like when you wake up, touch the ground, touch your forehead, tune in, do a morning meditation, set an intention for the day and we talk a lot about that nowadays and mindset practices like gratitude, journaling and meditating. But that's part of the Ayurvedic lifestyle is meditation, yoga, pranayama, which is deep breathing Yoga is the sister science to Ayurveda. So that feeling you get in yoga of feeling so like blissed out and healthy and aligned and happy, the practice of Ayurvedic lifestyle is to create that feeling in every moment. And so one other great tip I have, a simple one, is use a copper tongue scraper. A copper tongue scraper a metal tongue scraper is not something we're taught here in the West, but in the East everyone uses a tongue scraper. Why? Because when you gently scrape the tongue seven to 14 times every morning, you're going to remove amma, or toxins, from the surface of your tongue. So that's like a gentle detox to the body, pretty much free. Because you buy that $7, $12 tongue scraper just once in your life, you're going to use it forever and you're going to gently massage all the organs of your body and you're going to ignite your digestive fire. So it's like a simple, easy Ayurveda hack that you can do every single morning that sets off digestive fire, that invests in you having a healthier and cleaner oral microbiome which also supports a healthier gut microbiome. So that's a simple one.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Another simple Ayurvedic self-care tool I use to build a rhythm in my day is one called Tea. Time is Me Time, so I make sure that I carry tea on me at all times. Whatever purse, work, backpack, car doesn't matter. I have tea on me when I travel for business or in my home and in my office. I have a proper tea kettle that heats tea to the right temperatures and I have a tea cup at seven in the morning every day as I drive the children to school. 10 o'clock mid-morning, when I start to have that little lull in my work, lunchtime always has to happen between 12 and 2. You want to have lunch when the sun is highest in the sky. Then I have an afternoon high tea at 3.30. That's my transition point from workday possibly into the wrapping up the day before I get the kids, then in the evening.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Now I've added a new tea. I just designed one called Anxia Tea, but it just calms you down a couple notches, because I don't want to crave wine or sugar or other things to calm me down. But as I transition from my workday and finishing up into evening, I have another cup of tea to relax. Then I have deep sleep tea to go to bed, and that one's full of adaptogens that will relax the mind and relax the digestive system and drop you into a deeper sleep state. So I've built this rhythm. I use tea, some people can use coffee, some people can use water with electrolytes it doesn't really matter but I find tea to be very comforting, and tea can have a lot of potent herbs and super spices in it, so it's also delivering results that you want in your life. Green tea is a powerful antioxidant, so that's what I'm drinking all day, and so we have this opportunity to create rhythm using anchors that are external, that help our mind know.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Now is the time to just take a minute and check in, and when I have tea time as me time, I literally sit there and I'm like how do you feel right now? Have you built your day so you get to eat today. How do you need to restructure things so you actually get to breathe this week and my brain will come back with these answers like hey, you didn't leave yourself 15 minutes. And then I'll start adjusting my schedule, like even for our interview today, I adjusted it so I could have 15 minutes to eat before I went running for the next event. Or I'll look at my whole week schedule at that time and say, wow, you are not being nice to yourself.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :How do you change this to fit in self care? So I think we have this opportunity to tune into self, tune into intuition, support ourselves and give ourselves something that no one will notice. Even if you're in corporate America, you can pause and go, grab a cup of tea and sit there and tune into self. I do it in business meetings, I do it when I travel. It's my way to just check in with self instead of being so outwardly focused. It lets me come inward just for that moment.
Audra :These are really easy things that I mean I can do today and help start to see subtle changes. And is there any special place that I need to get a copper tongue scraper? I mean, we've had tongue scrapers before. They're usually plastic, but I mean, can we get it on that online store that starts with an A?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Yeah, I put it on. It's on Amazon, for sure. And then I found one I really liked, so I put it on my website, just because people ask me all the time for tongue scrapers. So it's on fusionary formulas. And then my website, shibani Gupta's, where the seven day challenges my DOSHA quiz. All that stuff is there and I put like a hundred videos up to share on this topic.
Audra :Well, like I said, I'm your guinea pig because I want to come into alignment. I want to have clear thought. I want to sleep. Oh, my goodness, do you know how much more creative and productive I am when I actually feel like I've slept? That's. The other big thing is that I may sleep but I wake up and feel like I haven't slept a wink, which then also adds to the whole brain fog kind of thing. So I want to be able to have energy, be able to think clearer, be able to catch up to my life, get words out of my mouth instead of it being stuck in my head because I can't remember what the word is. I want to be able to do all these things. So I'm going to start these easy things, really easy things, and we'll see what happens. I will tell all of you guys what happens, because what have I got to leave?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Yeah, and the last one I would add is movement. Every day, you know, people talk about fitness, exercise, all those things. I think. For our brain to work, our body has to move and so, even if I'm not up for a hit workout or fitting in yoga, lately I tried this place called Spenga where you spin, strength and yoga, which I like I will move in nature. So I got to work today and I told my partner, I said listen, my workout today is walking 20 minutes outside. Do you want to go with me? And so we both brought our workout shoes to work, walked 20 minutes walking, business meeting in the morning, just catching up, and then we started our day.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :But there's so much power to moving in nature once or twice a day because that's how we sink to nature. All of a sudden we're sinking with nature, in nature because we can say we're in nature, but truly I've been in air conditioned vehicles and cars, in houses and boxes all day, like I've been in my office, my house and my car. I probably breathed in nature less than 10 minutes. So I make it a point to get outside for just 15 minutes, especially in the evenings. It lets you release the day, lets you sink with nature and all of a sudden you're tuned in, relaxed. The mind is more relaxed. You'll get better sleep. Everything works better.
Audra :I mean especially now. I mean you and I live in some really hot areas. You are hot and sticky. We're just hot here in Arizona. It's just been an oven all summer long, but it's now starting to get nice, so maybe take that deep breath outside, because now you're not roasting on fire. This opportunity with you has been so informative, so educational, and it's exactly what I wanted to start getting to, so we can all start to share in having good health, being clear of mind, sleep and having the energy to keep up with your life. So how would they get in contact with you? Where can they reach you personally and also where they can access these formulas that you've already created?
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Sure, so my main website is shivanigupthacom. My supplement company is called Fusionary Formulas F-U-S-I-O-N-A-R-Y. So those are the two websites. We're on Instagram under those names. I'm at doctorshivaniguptha and it's at Fusionary Formulas R-X. Facebook, youtube, all the sites. My podcast is called Fusionary Health, where I dive into these questions like a total nerd with every doctor and practitioner I can find, and I created a special code for you. Women in the arena will give everyone 15% off on Fusionary Formulas. And on my site you'll find the 7-day inflammation challenge. At shivaniguptha You'll find the DOSHA quiz. Everything is there so that people can kind of get started on this journey and get the support they need, reduce that inflammation, start to feel better. And if you have questions, you can definitely DM me via Facebook or Instagram.
Audra :That is amazing. So, just to recap, I'll make sure that all of this information is in the show notes. As you heard Shavani say, we are now a proud ambassador of Fusionary Formulas. Go on to our website, use the code I'll make sure that that is in the show notes as well so you can get a discount off that and on trying to make yourself feel better. Who doesn't want that? Making yourself feel better and saving money that's exactly what we want to do. I have been so educated today I mean you and I could probably talk for hours about this and we might. We might come back and do some more because I'm learning. I'm a sponge. I really want to know more about how to be a better manager of my health, not just a really good pill taker, I mean. Isn't, I mean, shouldn't everybody have that goal? Because I don't want to chase. I don't want to chase a problem with the pill and then another pill and another pill and another pill. I want to feel better, period.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :It's true, and so many people nowadays are on like 10 pills, dealing with so many side effects, kind of getting buried under that, and so if we can slowly peel back those layers and build health and vibrancy in a whole new way, then we've got that sovereignty, we've got that control, we've got that freedom to live our life our way, which I love.
Audra :I am with you. Like I said, I'm taking up the gauntlet. I'm going to do the challenge myself and I will report back. This is my favorite part of the, of the entire interview, where I get to step back without any interruption and allow you to have a private, intimate moment directly with the audience. So, giovanni, the microphone is yours.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Well, to each of you listening today, I just want to invite you to really step into what it felt like when you felt your best in your life.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :Each of us knows that moment, that week, that month, that year, when we were just on fire and we were winning on all cylinders.
Dr. Shivani Gupta :We felt phenomenal in our bodies, phenomenal in our minds, winning on all fronts. I can distinctly remember certain years like that, and it was when everything was in resonance, the vibration was there, we were in total alignment, we were so clear of purpose towards winning at our goals. And so that's my goal is to create that feeling in us of having that power and that freedom and that vibrancy and feeling so beautiful and healthy in our bodies. And so my invitation to you is to follow me, look up what I'm teaching, learn Ayurvedic wisdom, apply it to yourself so you can see how you can create that feeling year round as we go through our decades of life, because just because we're going through our decades of life doesn't mean we have to slow down, be achy or in pain or suffer. I think we can actually feel better as we age, like a delicious wine, and feel phenomenal and look and feel exactly how we want to, and I truly believe we have total control over that. So thank you.
Audra :I'm in, I'm in. Whatever it is, I'm in. This is like I said this has been an amazing, amazing conversation. I can't wait to have more conversations like this and others as we expand and dive into really managing and owning our health, mind, body and spirit. So thank you for agreeing to this crazy journey where I have absolutely no idea where we're going, but we will have fun along the way. I have that I promise you. We'll all do this together For sure. I want to thank you again for being here and being my guest. It's meant a whole lot to me personally and it's meant a lot to me for you to share your expertise to the audience. So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thanks for having me. It has been my pleasure and I want to thank all of you for listening and we'll see you again next time.