How to Balance Your Doshas with Dr. Jay [Episode #483]

This week’s topic is: How to Balance Your Doshas with Dr. Jay

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Parla Jayagopal, B.A.M.S – or Dr. Jay as many know him here on the podcast, who is a renowned Ayurvedic professor and vaidya (Ayurvedic practitioner). He has been on our podcast many times. He’s back by popular demand to share his Ayurvedic insight into balancing doshas, useful tips and tools on using herbs and the benefits of implementing Ayurvedic practices into your daily routine.

[BULLETS]

• Ayurvedic perspective on COVID-19…
• Lung health and Dosha imbalance…
• Whether we should be strengthening our overall system or really fortifying the respiratory system, from an Ayurvedic standpoint…
• Tips and practices using herbs…
• Three tastes that you want to gravitate towards…
• Which spices to take precautions with while pregnant…
• How Doshas impact your health and ways to help create balance…
• Ayurvedic benefits to cutting back on meat…
• The Kapha Dosha and how not to gain excess weight…

[FEATURED GUESTS]

About Parla Jayagopal, B.A.M.S.

Dr. Parla S Jayagopal BAMS, MD (Ayurveda), MAOM (C)—or Doctor Jay as we affectionately call him—received his Bachelor’s degree in Ayurvedic medicine and surgery (BAMS) after completing five and a half years of training from Bangalore University. He also pursued three years of education to receive a Masters degree in Ayurvedic herbology from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. Bangalore.

In addition to his twelve years of clinical experience, Dr. Jayagopal has traveled to Europe and Japan to propagate the science of Ayurveda. Currently he is teaching as chair and associate Prof. dept. of Ayurveda at American University of Complementary Medicine.

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Dr. Jay’s Interview

• Dr. Jay’s Website

Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• More on Ayurveda with the Amazing Dr. Jay!
• Ayurvedic Spring Practices & Visualizing Your Success!
• Best Ayurvedic Practices For Fall with Dr. Jay & The CBD Oil Craze
• Digestive Distress Side Effects

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: Hey, Beauties. Welcome back to our Monday interview podcast. I am super excited for our guest today who is Dr. Jay. He is a renowned Ayurvedic Professor and Physician. He has been on our podcast many times. He’s back by popular demand. He’s also my personal teacher. I studied with Dr. Jay for years, and he is my go-to person, authority for everything Ayurvedic related. I love him very much. I always have infinite things to pick your brain with Dr. Jay.

Fan Of The Week

Kimberly: Before we launch in, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to our fan of the week. Her name, or her names are rach&paige and he, or she, or they, right? Love this podcast and all the information. So inspiring. rach&paige, thank you so much for being our fan of the week. I love that we’re connected. I love that we can support each other. I’m so grateful for you being in the community and for you taking the time to write us a review. Big virtual hug no matter where you are.

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Kimberly: Beauties, this is a great example of how quick and easy a review can be. It can be one sentence. If you haven’t yet left us a review, please do so. It’s a great way to support the show and for other beauties, just like you, to find this information to hopefully really benefit their lives. It’s just, again, free, easy, hop over to iTunes and it can be one sentence. While you’re at it, you can please also be sure to subscribe to our show, that way you don’t miss out on any of the Monday interview podcasts or our Thursday Q&A podcasts, which are based on questions that come right from the community.

Interview with Dr. Jay

Kimberly: All right, that being said, Dr. Jay, I’m so happy we made this happen. I’m looking at you, at your warehouse with all your amazing herbs behind you. How are you doing Dr. Jay in this interesting time?

Dr. Jay: I’m doing great, Kimberly. Hello to all of our listeners in the community. Yes, it’s been a challenging time, but it is also a time for introspection and committing to help. That’s what I look at this time as. We were taking health for granted, now at least we have this real compulsion in us to do something about our health. That’s the way I’m looking at this challenging time.

Ayurvedic perspective on COVID-19, lung health and Dosha imbalance

Kimberly: Dr. Jay, obviously, COVID is on a lot of people’s mind. It’s a respiratory disorder. Can you tell a little bit about it from the Ayurvedic perspective? How we can of course boost our immunity, but also our lung health? How this affects Doshas, Dosha imbalance?

Dr. Jay: Mm-hmm (affirmative). To all of our listeners we want to be very clear that there’s no cure from the Ayurvedic side for COVID. There’s no claim or no, even the Indian government has also said that they have not come across any proof that Ayurvedic medicine is capable of curing the disease, so we need to be very clear on that for our listeners.

Kimberly: Sure.

Dr. Jay: But what they have seen is the protocols that the Indian government and the Department of AYUSH that they are putting out there is the, what we have talked about, Kimberly, is the prevention or in a way to boost the immune system. Not even prevention, boost the immune system because there are some studies to show that these protocols that they’re recommending they increase the immune system. Not specific to COVID, again, but in general.

Dr. Jay: What happens is, when this condition, the body is afflicted by this condition. There is a response, you know, the body responds to it. How does it respond exactly? The immune system comes into picture and then responds to it. This virus is specifically targeting some organs because they have seen, this is the scientific study that there is an enzyme called as Angiotensin type 2 co-factor enzyme 2. That’s the type of enzyme that is responsible for fixing the protein. If you look at that, picture the virus it’s so famous now.

Kimberly: Yes.

Dr. Jay: Is look like a ball [crosstalk 00:04:41].

Kimberly: Like a crown, yeah.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, so that, the small things like antennas that stick out is what they are looking for to fix on to this, the Angiotensin enzyme 2. Those enzymes are present. They regulate the blood pressure that’s what they do these enzymes, but when… Wherever these signaling proteins or enzymes are present this virus is bound to attack it or attach with it. They’re found in the lungs, they’re found in the heart, they’re found in the kidneys. That’s why when this condition comes in, there is a pop first, it starts with the respiratory system and then goes into the lungs.

Dr. Jay: Then it [inaudible 00:05:33] the entire body by going towards the heart and the kidneys. The polysystem failure is what we see. In the meantime our body is really fighting against it. It recognizes there’s something coming to us and then it goes with full force. When it goes to the full force, it creates the what we call as inflammatory by-products.

Dr. Jay: They are the cytokinins, cytokines or cytokinins and then prostaglandins. These are, what they are is when the immune system recognizes something is going wrong, it will secrete these bags of enzymes that go inside and then destroy anything they come in contact with. It mostly viruses that are in there. What happens is, it is so severe that these cytokine creates a storm of cytokines, it’s not just normal, there’s a huge storm of these secretory inflammatory [inaudible 00:06:39].

Dr. Jay: The moment that comes in the body cannot cope up with it. Other organs, it’s so overpowering [crosstalk 00:06:50] immune response, but it’s not a normal immune response.

Whether we should be strengthening our overall system or really fortifying the respiratory system, from an Ayurvedic standpoint

Kimberly: Right. From the Ayurvedic standpoint, Dr. Jay, going back to that, would you say that it’s more about strengthening the overall system or really fortifying the respiratory system where it tends to come in first? From this branch of, this kind of medical, this medical system.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, correct. We have learned a lot about this from the research that has been done. But from Ayurvedic point of view, as you said that Kimberly, absolutely true. We want to look at entire body, right? Now, if you look at the studies to support this. Recently they found that younger people 40, age group of 40 around. These people did not have any other symptoms of active infection but they ended up in the hospitals having strokes that means this organism can or target multiple organs because it’s evolving itself as well because they’re now 30 variations or mutations of this particular organism.

Dr. Jay: We don’t want to call it as an organism because sometimes a virus is a lifeless thing. It has nothing to show that it has life in it, but it only has that RNA that it is capable of. Anyway, I read essays that you have to look at entire body, how you can keep your entire body strong. Making sure that you’re eating, this is the time that you want to pay attention to good, healthy, mindful eating. If you have to learn something in this time is learn cooking.

Tips and practices using herbs

Kimberly: Yes, and it’s springtime right now. Can we talk about some of the herbs and the practices that would be great for right now, Dr. Jay specifically? More yes, specific tips.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. The spring is a season where I would say is that there is more mucus being generated inside the body because all the secretions that were held in the wintertime it’s all now being released because the heat that’s coming in, right?

Kimberly: Sure.

Dr. Jay: We go into things that help the scattering, digesting and assimilating of all these secretions that are coming towards the digestive system. Because it comes in and it pools into the gut, it makes the gut to hamper down or metabolism comes down significantly. The best thing to do in this time is pungent vegetables like radishes, daikon, parsnips. Things which are pungent, not necessarily chilies, paprika and jalapenos. Those are more irritable but you want to choose something that’s more milder but also capable of breaking the mucus and helping the immune system to be free.

The three tastes that you want to gravitate towards

Kimberly: What about astringent, Dr. Jay? Like arugula which… I’m looking at the window of my garden I’m growing so much arugula right now.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. Arugula will be a great choice as well. Astringent. The three tastes that we need to keep in mind is pungent, bitter and astringent.

Kimberly: Okay.

Dr. Jay: These are the three tastes that you want to gravitate towards. Because they are the ones which dry up the mucus, break down the mucus and digest the mucus. That’s what they do.

Kimberly: Is this a time Dr. Jay where we want to… Naturally it’s getting so hot anyway, so we’re starting to naturally cut down on things like creamy curry, a lot of coconut milk, just some of these really richer, heavier dishes.

Dr. Jay: Exactly. You want everything to keep your metabolism up and running. Anything that is either slowing down or even metabolically, if it is hindering with something, you want to think about it. Rethink, okay, this is too heavy for me. I don’t want to put it in my body. You’re right. Arugula will be a good choice. You can do now dandelions, you can do dill, you can do oregano. All these pungent, aromatic spices are good to go on. If you’re making a soup for example, cut up a lot of mint into it and then spray it on because that’s aroma that breaks away the mucus and alerts the immune system.

Kimberly: What about ginger? Dr. Jay?

Dr. Jay: Oh, you’ll never be cold without ginger. Ginger, definitely it’s very versatile. In spring you want to make it into a tea.

Kimberly: Okay.

Dr. Jay: Taken really warm to hot. You can grate a little ginger and then put some lime or lemon into it and then maybe a little bit of jaggery into it, that’s for the tea. Soon after lunch is done you can sip it down so that it can also help to keep the digestive system active.

Kimberly: And then herb wise, spice wise, is this a good season for turmeric, cumin?

Dr. Jay: Cloves, which are milder, you will have to take it small quantities but they’re really pungent and sharp. The quality that I want all of our listeners to keep in mind is that sharpness, which is coming from cloves, cinnamon for example. Cinnamon is an excellent agent, which has that sharpness, but does not aggravate the gut. It only breaks away, yeah, it breaks away the secretions that are coating the gut. Like the stomach and the intestines. It just scrapes it away and breaks it away so that the gut becomes open and then has more metabolism coming up.

Which spices to take precautions with when pregnant

Kimberly: Dr. Jay, I’m obviously so pregnant right now. I’ve heard cloves and cinnamon for pregnant women you don’t want to have in huge amounts. Obviously they’re helpful from a pungent standpoint but some of these things are a little bit trickier with pregnant women.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. Whenever something has these active, sharp penetrating qualities in them, they dilate the blood vessels. That’s the one thing that you need to be clear.

Kimberly: Right?

Dr. Jay: If they dilate the blood vessels… There is a delicate network of blood vessels that is supporting the fetus, the placenta and then the uterus so you don’t want to aggravate it, that’s the one reason. Second reason is, sometimes if you overdo it, these spices can also cause some burning sensation, like urinary irritability or [inaudible 00:13:35]. You should be mindful. If you combine it with food and then take it they’re not that stronger.

Kimberly: Right.

Dr. Jay: If you take it by themselves like a tea, then they can be a little more stronger on the digestive system also circulatory system.

Kimberly: Well, Dr. Jay, I can’t I mean I don’t want to go on this big tangent but there’s so much, so much knowledge you have about pregnancy. I’ve been working with you during this pregnancy, my last pregnancy. We’ve had to push back our pregnancy course a bit because of the shooting complications but we have that upcoming Beauties. Dr. Jay is someone that we are interviewing for that. Also postpartum care in a couple months Dr. Jay will do another podcast on that. I think it’s fascinating. I love all the, Ayurveda talks a lot about babies, healthy conception and healthy pregnancy. Don’t want to go on this huge tangent, but that’s a whole other category. We’ll get it into.

Dr. Jay: Yes, absolutely. There’s so much of wealth of knowledge, Kimberly, that anybody by doing these simple steps can have healthy pregnancy not only healthy pregnancy, as you said, it starts with healthy conception. Healthy conception to healthy pregnancy to healthy postpartum. All of that can be achieved with very simple processes that Ayurveda has been holding on for thousands of years.

How Doshas impact your health and ways to help create balance

Kimberly: Okay, Dr. Jay so veering back to this for a moment. It’s also a time… What I love about Ayurveda is it’s so holistic. It talks, of course, about the power of the mind and the mental state, and a lot of people are feeling very ungrounded, very anxious. I imagine there’s a lot of Vata imbalance at this moment. Would you say that that’s the Dosha, that’s the most imbalanced as the collective with all the doubt.

Dr. Jay: Yes let me speak about the Dosha, yes. Also, I’ve done some little research to see how this disease has been unfolding. It’s a Vata type of disease as well.

Kimberly: Right because it is also targeting a lot… Largely targeting the elderly and that’s where Vata dominates.

Dr. Jay: There you go.

Kimberly: I remember that Dr. Jay.

Dr. Jay: That’s the, yeah, the core principle is that it’s going towards elderly people who are Vata aged. Yes. [inaudible 00:16:00].

Kimberly: What is the system, the Dosha that rules the lungs and the respiratory system?

Dr. Jay: It is both Vata and Kapha. Vata is making the breath to expand and contract constantly, that movement. And then the Prana that comes in. That is all Vata and the Kapha is the one which maintains its integrity and then the strength of the lungs is maintained by Kapha.

Kimberly: Okay, okay. Can you tell us some practices to balance Vata and Kapha then in that case? Because we all know that stress has such a profound impact on our bodies. It impacts our sleep, our immunity, and of course, we’re anxious. We feel, we don’t know what’s going on in the news. We don’t know what’s going on exactly in the future, it starts to feel very ungrounding. We want to feel grounded Dr. Jay, we want to feel good. We don’t want to, of course create more susceptibility in our systems. What are some things we can do?

Dr. Jay: Kimberly, breathing we’ll get to the breathing in a minute. But for Vata imbalance especially in this time where so much is in uncertainty, routine is what every one of our listeners have to put together. A routine that is so personal to themselves. Not to follow somebody’s routine, somebody is saying this is good, that is good. You can collect all of that and then see what is practical for themselves to do and what they resonate with.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, that is very important. Vata always likes haphazard and everything coming in many directions. It gets… It feeds on it to become more stronger. Routine is what we want. Simple routine, maybe just keeping time like you have now so many gadgets would say when to go to sleep and when to wake up. If you sleep regularly and a very well rested sleep is much, much Vata balancing than any other therapy that we can do.

Kimberly: Yes, sleep is one of the most important things.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. This time is now… We are at home, we don’t have any external things happening. Let’s start with sleep routine and hygiene for sleep. Where you’re balancing Vata naturally. You go to sleep, everything slows down, the nervous system calms down, and then the organs. The internal organs will rest. When you wake up, you have that, a sense of everything being calmer. Otherwise you wake up with this sudden excitement or some news that is coming to you saying that those many cases happened, this happened, that happened.

Kimberly: It’s horrible. Well, Dr. Jay, I think it’s important to stay off the news before you try to go to sleep and first thing in the morning because it sounds really nice. It’s a great concept to get to bed and sleep. But people are having trouble sleeping and I think people are checking the headlines, checking the news before bed and they’re taking that in. And obviously that’s very disruptive.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, yeah. What you excite yourself with is very important. Are you excited about number of cases? It’s not a good thing to have. You have to get excited that you’re going to cook a new recipe tomorrow. That’s a great thing to have.

Kimberly: Yes, keep it, yeah… This is time where we’re so… People are home. I work from home usually anyway. The biggest shift for me Dr. Jay is Emerson, my toddler, not having school. It’s a lot of energy looking after him while being so pregnant. But for people that aren’t used to being home this much, it’s a wonderful opportunity to get back into cooking, making simple meals, working with different herbs and spices, self care, and like you said, working towards better sleep hygiene.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, because now you can see that people when they are staying home for a longer time, there is friction between the partners or children and the partners. That can be completely avoided if you have a good routine for the entire family. Everybody gets into a mode of cooking, everybody gets into a mode of breathing, everybody gets into an artwork where everybody is doing something creative. If it can be done, that routine is so, so important for keeping the Vata under control in the season. Now, you asked about the breathing.

How and where to breathe from to calm the body

Dr. Jay: Yes, of course breathing is very essential for both calming the body as well as the mind. We can take up as simple as abdominal breathing, where whenever you feel anxious whenever you feel that you’re very isolated and alone because of this situation. Just connect your navel. What you can do is you can keep your hands on the belly button. Then you just breathe into the abdomen. Where you invite all the air into the abdomen and then you affirm yourself that I’m taking all the vitality from the universe into my belly.

Kimberly: Why your belly Dr. Jay? Why not your third eye or your heart? Why in this practice your belly?

Dr. Jay: Because belly is the place where Ayurveda says the space element is located. The navel is the space element. When we say that the space element, things manifest in the space, and then they distribute to the other parts of the body.

Kimberly: That’s really interesting. If you’re working on manifesting an idea. In a practical way some people are having to obviously shift their profession, their job, they may have lost their position. So let’s say you’re trying to create something new. Would you want to breathe and actually meditate on your belly?

Dr. Jay: Yes.

Kimberly: Wow.

Dr. Jay: Yes.

Kimberly: Not your third eye?

Dr. Jay: Yeah. Third Eye is for vision not for manifestation.

Kimberly: Interesting.

Dr. Jay: When you’re not able to think what am I supposed to do next? You’re gonna put it, pay attention on your third eye because it opens the vision of what-

Kimberly: The guidance.

Dr. Jay: … To do in the future.

Kimberly: When you’re working on manifesting a new idea you focus on your belly.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, because that’s the earth element also, you know?

Kimberly: Yes.

Dr. Jay: This is… Here is the space element, here is the element and then distributed are other fire elements in here, right? You want to manifest, you want to keep it in you, that means the vital, all the vitality that the universe has in abundance you want to invite that right into your belly and then manifest it in your belly.

Practices to help alleviate belly disturbances, hip pain and lower back pain

Kimberly: Wow. Dr. Jay, I wonder with your patients what you’re seeing or what you’re feeling, because you just mentioned the earth element. Switching to Kapha a little bit. This feeling of being grounded, is so shaky with a lot of us. Are you noticing people having belly disturbances, hip pain, lower back pain? What are some practices that could help alleviate that? My hips hurt a lot but I think it’s because I’m about to give birth in a few weeks.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, you’re excluded in this category.

Kimberly: Yeah. I don’t know if there’s much I could do at this point except breathe through it.

Dr. Jay: The most important thing is because of the stay home situations people are sitting a lot. Our bodies are not designed to sit, the way that we are sitting. Sitting on our buttocks is never, is normal now for us. We need to be moving around or we should be squatting or different sitting positions.

Kimberly: Sitting on the floor.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. Sitting in thunderbolt posture like how the Japanese sit, sometimes in that posture, sometimes Half Lotus, sometimes on the sides. If you continuously sit on one position and then watch then Ayurveda says that Vata, the wind energy starts accumulating in that area.

Kimberly: The way that we’re sitting is starting to imbalance that area and in turn we start to feel energetically imbalanced in that area.

Dr. Jay: Exactly. Energetically we stagnate everything. The blood starts pooling. When the blood starts pooling in one area, if the muscles are not drained from the old blood and the new blood does not perforate in them the inflammation slowly sets in. And then there is pain or achiness or non-flexibility that all comes into picture.

Kimberly: Wow, that’s a really practical tip. I love that Dr. Jay, just getting up moving, sitting in different positions. Yeah. I love that because we tend to sit in our favorite chair in the same way day in and day out, and then there can be that stagnation. What about… Vata can really accumulate in the lower back. We can start to feel achy, especially again with the mental part of feeling very unsettled. What are some practices specifically for the lower back? I guess this is where Ayurveda is very connected to yoga, but can it be also some herbs and spices, some other practices too?

Fruits and seeds to help move gas downwards

Dr. Jay: Yeah, sure, Kimberly. What happens is one of the things that we forget is when we sit continuously, we don’t pass gas. That’s one of the things that we need to keep in mind. We say that the gases that are generated inside the gut needs to be eliminated. If they are not eliminated then it will find its way… Because gas can diffuse very quickly, it goes into different areas. The herbs that are meant to make the gases to move downwards. That includes sometimes eating a papaya. That’s… I’m going to spices in a minute, but I have to talk about the fruits because papaya is one of the best things to move the things even the gases downwards and eliminate gases.

Dr. Jay: We also have seeds. We have pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds. Those also help to move the gases downwards. The more gases move down with your bowel or by themselves, it’s better for your spine, for your hips. Those are the food articles that we can use. As far as the spices are concerned, we can do of course the ginger and turmeric are good for moving things down. But also think about cumin. Yeah. Think about-

Kimberly: I love cumin.

Dr. Jay: … yeah ajwain, there is this wild celery seeds [inaudible 00:26:41]. These are all meant in Ayurveda to move things. They are called carbonators. They carbonate everything to go downwards so that whatever gas that is released by the gut biome is all eliminated naturally from the gut. Even though we go through all these complications of something that is not… Especially the pain in the hips. People can do nigella drops, they can put nigella oil in the water like one or two drops and then drink it. Or they can sprinkle some cumin seeds when they are doing some lentils or you know rice. Have you tasted the cumin rice? It’s wonderful.

Kimberly: I think we made it in our Ayurvedic nutrition class.

Dr. Jay: Yes, yes.

Kimberly: So good.

Dr. Jay: Cumin rice, is one of the best things to move things down. Of course you can do spicing of your vegetables with ginger and turmeric in it, which is also equally good. The last thing is good oils. If you use good oils, they also helps to eliminate the gases from the gut. These are the things that simply [crosstalk 00:27:52]-

Kimberly: Coconut oil, yeah, avocado oil, things like that.

Dr. Jay: Yeah.

Kimberly: Dr. Jay, while you were talking about that and talking about making, removing things that are congestive and heavier just so we’re processing the Vatas flowing through. I know that Ayurveda is a very open philosophy as far as saying, different types can eat different foods. I also say that too, it’s not all or nothing. But as you know, Dr. Jay, I’ve been plant-based for a while and you are also vegetarian.

Dr. Jay: Yes.

Ayurvedic benefits to cutting back on meat 

Kimberly: I could have ghee and things. Just from your… I know Ayurveda again, there’s a lot of interpretation to be much, much more open. But just in general, if people were to cut back on meat right now, which we know is a lot more dense and more difficult to digest. What sorts of benefits do you think they would get in this period? Specifically just the energetic part of eating decaying matter, like what’s going on with everything.

Dr. Jay: The universe-

Kimberly: I think if they just [inaudible 00:28:52], yeah.

Dr. Jay: I felt like Kimberly the universe is already playing its role. Because if you look at the spread of this condition. All the meat glands are getting [crosstalk 00:29:01]. How is that explainable with all of this going on, right? I think if the large amounts of meat are taken, the gut is going to be really burdened. The worst thing that we can do for our bodies, susceptibility to any condition is to slow down the metabolism, right?

Kimberly: Yes.

Dr. Jay: Ayurveda says that anything that is heavier, like meat, even by-products of meat. Not just the meat by itself, the by-products of meat like broth, et cetera. They all have a tendency to slow down the metabolism.

Kimberly: Isn’t that funny Dr. Jay how bone broth got really trendy?

Dr. Jay: Because probably the meat industry had so much bone they didn’t know what to do with it.

Kimberly: But Ayurveda will say bone broth, even though it’s liquid has energetically, it slows down the system.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. When it comes to the energetic part of it like psycho emotional aspect of food, the meats and animal products are very tamasic, when we say tamasic yeah, they make us think like animals, like only three things, food, sleep, sex. This is what the person will always think, because that’s how the thoughts will be streamlined into our psyche. Those are called as tamasic food. We want to avoid that tamasic food because we are here in as humans to evolve from a lower consciousness to a higher consciousness.

Dr. Jay: We don’t want to [inaudible 00:30:45] into lower consciousness. This type of food energetically speaking has a tendency to push you down to be not evolving. That is the energetic aspect, but when it comes to the physical aspect if they are not digested, which we tend to because we are so sedentary in our life nowadays. We don’t have that type of physical activity that we used to do when we were farmers or when we were, gatherers, hunters and gatherers.

Dr. Jay: We used to do that. But now we have evolved from what we were as humans to now as we are civilized. We don’t want to have that same type of food habits that needs a lot more activity to break down. We just eat those and all of that sits inside and ferments and then the by-products of it will come into the blood and then the blood doesn’t know what to do with it so it deposits into all tissues. And then these depositions are the places where the diseases will start growing.

Kimberly: Yes, exactly especially the soft tissues like the joints. You’re seeing so much with the brain neurological disorders now.

Dr. Jay: Exactly. Any soft tissue like thyroid for example, or adrenal for example, liver and pancreas. These are soft tissues, the meat worst influences on them and it’s not digested.

Kimberly: Even, that’s why I keep harping on bone broth but you know when they’re boiling the collagen, the bones. That’s the, some of the soft tissues of the animals where I imagine a lot of the toxins have been stored that could be [inaudible 00:32:21] to the body.

Dr. Jay: Sometimes it depends on how the meat has been harvested. That’s a whole different… Maybe the nature is not very happy with that, that’s why it’s going into these, places where these animals are experiencing horrible, horrible pain. Which, not human wise but animal wise, they also experience that in a very high extent. The nature is noticing it, that there’s something that is not correct. That’s why everything is stopping. I think they said yesterday or day before yesterday in the news 25% of the meat production has come down in the entire country.

Kimberly: Isn’t that amazing?

Dr. Jay: It’s unbelievable what the nature ways of saying that we are not doing the right thing.

Kimberly: Wow. Dr. Jay, I know it’s, again Ayurveda it doesn’t take this right, wrong, all or nothing approach necessarily by every Ayurvedic practitioner that I personally know, every teacher, my teacher in London, you, they’re all vegetarians.

Dr. Jay: Yeah.

Kimberly: It’s interesting, right?

Dr. Jay: Yeah, it is where you come from. That’s what matters. It is not how you look or how you, how [inaudible 00:33:34] you are. But where you come from, how do you experience the world around you? That’s the most important thing as humans we need to always question ourselves.

Kimberly: Dr. Jay, I know you come from a lineage of Ayurvedic teachers and your grandfather was quite a famous teacher in the area in India. Did you grow up vegetarian?

Dr. Jay: Yeah, I grew up vegetarian. Yes.

Kimberly: Wow and so your wife as well?

Dr. Jay: Yes.

Kimberly: She’s Ayurveda doctor too. It’s just interesting to notice that, it just seems to be the trend with all the teachers I really love and respect, they all happen to be vegetarian. Not vegan I get it there’s a, with the ghee and all that but definitely not eating flesh animal products.

Dr. Jay: Yeah so I came across this new terminology. It’s not called vegetarian, it’s called gheegan.

Kimberly: Oh wow, that’s funny. I love that, gheegan and there’s also beegans, Dr. J. Which I guess is what you would call me because I’m okay having bee pollen and some raw honey.

Dr. Jay: Yeah.

Kimberly: You have beegan and gheegan, yeah. So you’re a gheegan?

Dr. Jay: I’m a gheegan.

How to know when we’re over congesting ourselves with oil

Kimberly: Sometimes we think that it’s lighter, it’s spring. I’m personally drawn to eating a lot of fruit. I have been this whole pregnancy. I think this baby’s really high vibration. But how do we know, the Ayurvedic system, there is more oils that we cook with but how do we know when we’re over congesting ourselves with oil? How do we know when it feels too heavy from your standpoint Dr. Jay?

Dr. Jay: Yeah. The first thing, the oil in Ayurveda we call it as Sneha means something that is lubricating and does all the friendship between all the tissues. Sneha means friendship. The muscle and the bone will become friends, the blood and then the bone marrow becomes friends. There’s an interaction that becomes smoothened by the consumption of good fats. That’s the function of fat in Ayurveda or how it looked upon. If it is taken in excess, first thing that you notice is that the production of the waste material that is coming from nose, eyes, ears, tongue, they increase.

Dr. Jay: You’ll see more of goo forming around your eyes or you’re constantly cleaning your nose or you’re, you say that, “Oh, my ears secretions have been enormous I need to clean so much every day or every other day.” That is an indication that too much fat is being consumed, one thing. The tongue is beautiful in expressing your fat metabolism. If the tongue is strictly coated and it shows, relate your thickness from increasing from the tip to the back of the tongue. Then we say that type of a tongue coating is not a healthy tongue coating because you’re not digesting your fat.

Dr. Jay: The first thing that you look at is the color of your bowel. When your color of your bowel is lighter and lighter, then you’re not digesting your fat. It needs to be normal colored, what we know from our history of our bowel movements. If you see that the lightening of [inaudible 00:37:00] stools, then you have to say, “Okay, my fat is not getting digested, I need to cut down on the fat.” Or you can say, “I need to take something to digest my fat that I’m taking in.”

Kimberly: Like our Feel Good Digestive Enzymes Dr. Jay. I’m over here with all the lipase splitting enzymes. I take them. Yeah, I always take them before lunch and dinner.

Dr. Jay: That’s great.

Kimberly: Yeah just to really enhance fat metabolism.

Dr. Jay: Sure.

The Kapha Dosha and how not to gain excess weight

Kimberly: I want to talk about Kapha just for a moment Dr. Jay because I’m very… My Vata gets imbalanced. I tend to focus on that. But this is also a period where we’re getting a lot of questions about people are home, they’re feeling imbalanced. They’re feeling anxious, but they also have their fridge right there. People are starting to gain a lot of weight and their Kapha is starting to accumulate. From a Kapha perspective, which is the earthy element and in excess imbalance, it means weight gain, it means more lethargy, what can we do to, we’re home all day, Dr. Jay, we’re working at home. We’re just here, staying cozy all day. How do we not get sluggish? How do we not gain the excess weight when we don’t want to gain?

Dr. Jay: Yeah. The first thing is they’re so many choices of herbal teas, right? Buy some herbal teas. Whenever you walk to the seat-

Kimberly: Which ones? Toffee, rooibos.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, so we can do mint, we can do tulsi, we can do licorice, we can do you know ribose as you said, [inaudible 00:38:34], things like that. Even cinnamon, ginger teas, those are all good. What you can do is, temptations are very hard to get hold of… because when you are alone, the temptations are very strong on you they are like demons getting you, right? Make a compromise. Once you open the fridge you eat something, the next time you’re not allowed to eat something from the refrigerator. You’re going to drink herbal tea.

Kimberly: Yes because I’ve noticed it’s just that wanting something in the system, wanting something in your belly. I find that, that’s great advice, Dr. Jay, that’s very helpful to feel heat in your body. Makes you connect to your body, it also feels very expansive circulation wise.

Dr. Jay: Yep. The second thing is have, sometimes what happens is when you’re sitting and eating or doing something, what happens is you will gravitate towards things that are more like tempting. Either that is very crispy or very crunchy and all that. In that way you can replace in one crunchy thing with another crunchy thing. If you’re doing a lot of chips, which happens to be or if you’re doing too much of popcorn with watching movie or something like that.

Dr. Jay: You just get into it’s one in the morning [crosstalk 00:39:58] put in God forbid. Microwave and you microwave the popcorn, you bring it in a bowl and you sit to watch. Same thing you can do it with celery. Same thing you can do it with napa cabbage. You can just cut them up and then just toss them with some kind of a sauce. You know it is easy, very easy to feel that you’re eating same thing.

Kimberly: Yes.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, it is the first few bites will occur it’s not the same thing that I’m eating. But once you start you know getting into that mode of eating then I’ll just it goes on because the mind gets into that auto piloting, auto mode. That’s what I would say when you get out to eat something crunchy, include something that is crunchier, it’s healthier. You will you’ll feel less burdened by this weight gain that’s happening.

Kimberly: Urban spice wise Dr. Jay, are they different than the ones we were talking about? Cloves, cinnamon, ginger, cumin. Are there other ones if you are working on Kapha that it would be more applicable?

Dr. Jay: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely, we can ask our listeners to sprout fenugreek seeds.

Kimberly: Hmm, that’s great for lactation too, right?

Dr. Jay: Exactly.

Kimberly: You see where my brain keeps going. I can’t get away from the pregnancy stuff.

Dr. Jay: That’s what you’re all about now so that’s fine.

Kimberly: I’m just in living, breathing huge pregnant woman, yes.

Dr. Jay: These fenugreek seeds are also good for burning fat. Yeah, they… Because what happens if you’re sitting continuously your sweat is clogged and that’s why. Sweat is a by-product or waste product of fat. You want to secrete fat. I mean, you secrete sweat in order to regulate your fat. These fenugreek seeds, you soak it in the night for about 12 hours or 14 hours. Take the water out tie it in a cloth and then leave it in a bottle jar or something like that. Leave it there for about maybe 24 hours. You see the sprouts coming up.

Kimberly: Wow.

Dr. Jay: Those sprouts can be added to salads and things like that. Fenugreek is one of the best things to take for excessive body fat, to burn body fat.

Kimberly: Oh my gosh, that’s an amazing tip, Dr. Jay.

Dr. Jay: Yeah. And then moringa so which is very, very famous now. Moringa leaves, moringa leaf powder can also be taken as tea, that is also good for burning fat. Moringa seeds can be-

Kimberly: Maybe with some honey, I think it’s a little bitter.

Dr. Jay: It is but what I do is I put it in lemonade, so that it becomes a little milder in drinking. So that’s what I do. I put it in lemonade, and I let it sit. And then when I’m drinking, I just stir it up a little bit and then it gets suspended and I drink it. It’s not as you said bitter or discouraging to drink on a daily basis.

Kimberly: Dr. Jay you are more Vata, no you’re Pitta Kapha.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, yeah, I’m Pitta Kapha but I regulate my Kapha because I have a tendency to put on weight. If I don’t check my body intake, then I have a tendency to put on weight and then I become a little sluggish. Right? That’s what, I always make sure that my Kapha is not aggravated, which has a tendency to slow down and stagnate. Our listeners also have to think, I’m not big, but I’m always I’m cautious that this is my tendency and how I can prevent that.

Kimberly: Wow that’s great Dr. Jay. I would never think of you as getting big. You’ve always been so trim, but it’s also because you’re aware because you’re living in these practices.

Dr. Jay: That’s right. That’s right. Thank you.

Kimberly: Wow, Dr. Jay, I could literally talk to you all day. I can’t wait to get into our pregnancy stuff and postpartum care. I’m excited to be with you on this journey for a second pregnancy. Thank you very much. And thank you so much for talking to us about all these really practical measures. Right now just what’s going on in the world and with COVID and keeping ourselves healthy and our families.

Kimberly: It’s certainly important to know this wisdom to incorporate it along with of course, obviously the CDC measures and taking precautions, wearing masks, washing hands and things. But from a self-care perspective, there’s so much nurturing. I mean, we’re not claiming Ayurveda is a cure, but it’s a way to really nurture and strengthen your body and to add in layers of self-care that can be really helpful.

Dr. Jay: Yes, yeah, Ayurveda can be a great support system. This I think, is the time that people can pick and choose some Ayurvedic regimen or routine to enrich their life not only this moment, but also rest of their life they can really cherish on what they picked up, as Ayurvedic routine at this time of you know.

Kimberly: Amazing. Amazing. Well, Beauties thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Jay, first of all, thank you. You have so much knowledge for us. We love having you back.

Dr. Jay: Thank you.

Kimberly: And Beauties. We are going to link to Dr. Jay’s website. It’s athreyayurveda.com. I’ll spell it A-T-H-R-E-Y-A ayuverda.com. Dr. Jay has all organic, beautiful products like shatavari for women and just all sorts of wonderful oils and a whole load of things. I love him very much. We’re going to link to that. You check it out on the show notes over at [inaudible 00:45:39]. We’ll be back here Thursday for our next Q&A podcast. But until then, take great care. Remember, we are also on Instagram daily for inspiration at underscore Kimberly Spider. On the [inaudible 00:45:54] website. You’ll also see lots of free recipes and meditations. Some recipes inspired by you Dr. Jay.

Dr. Jay: Thank you.

Kimberly: Ayurvedic takes. All right Beauties. Lots of love. And we’ll see you back here soon.

Dr. Jay: Namaste.