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10% Happier with Dan Harris
The "Wellness" Industry Sells Us On Rigid Optimization. It Doesn't Work–But This Might. | Nidhi Bhanshali Pandya
01:18:31
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Nidhi Pandya
Foreign.
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Dan Harris
This is the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody. How we doing Today? We're going to talk about the problem of self optimization. We're also going to talk about some ancient alternatives to optimization. But let's stay with the problem for a second. This issue of optimization is a symptom of a deep problem, I think, in the overall wellness world, where we're sold sometimes this idea that we need to spend an enormous amount of time and energy and money fixing ourselves endlessly, tweaking our workouts, tracking our sleep, counting our steps. It really preys on our insecurities, our fears, our pervasive sense of insufficiency, our. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to be healthier or better in any number of ways. But, and this is paradoxical, the first thing you need to do if you want to grow and change is to accept yourself as you are. Because you can only get so far if you're approaching personal development, spiritual growth, whatever you want to call it, from a place of self hatred, if you're succumbing to what has sometimes been called the subtle aggression of self improvement. So like I said, today we're going to talk about an ancient alternative to self optimization. Specifically, we're talking about something called Ayurveda. Ayurveda often gets reduced to overpriced supplements and spa treatments, but at its core, it is a deep and sophisticated system for health that has been refined over millennia. Some of the ideas in Ayurveda have been studied by modern science, others have not, some. So you can think of this episode as an exploration rather than, strictly speaking, medical advice. If something here sparks your interest, check in with a qualified healthcare provider before you make any changes. My guest today is Nidhi Pandya. She's an Ayurvedic doctor and the author of a bestselling book called you'd Body Already Knows. In this conversation, we talk about what Ayurveda actually is beyond all of the TikTok trends, how ancient Ayurvedic principles align with and differ from modern medicine, the human tragedy of self optimization, how awe and fascination are more effective than discipline or force, how modern life often disrupts our biological rhythms and creates imbalance. The framework to coming back to your own native intelligence, the intelligence in your body, some practical tools for sleep, the concept of digestive fire, a three tiered toolkit for self regulation, the perils of jumping into change, and more. Meanwhile, over on my new app, 10% with Dan Harris, there's a new meditation that drops today from our teacher of the month, Bart Van Melick, who has tailored said meditation to today's episode. The meditation is called what listen to your body actually means. So in other words, Bart is going to take us beyond the cliche. Okay, we'll get started with Nidhi Pandya right after this. Thank you to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. I love owning a home. We've owned the home we're living in right now for the last five years. It's amazing. And then sometimes it's horrible and terrifying. One minute you know you're calmly meditating and the next you're ankle deep in water from a burst pipe. Or you've got a tradesman in the house who's telling you they need to fix something and it'll just be $50,000. Repairs do not care about timing, and they definitely don't care about your budget. We get insurance for for our health, for our car, sometimes even for our phone. But what about your home? It's probably your biggest investment. And when things go wrong, the costs can come hard and fast. And that is where HomeServe comes in. 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Sleep is like the apex predator of healthy habits. Nothing good happens if you're not sleeping. And in order to sleep well, you need a good mattress. If you've ever slept on a mattress that feels like it was designed exactly for you. And that is what Leesa, one of our sponsors, today, is offering. Leesa has a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. The nice folks over at LEESA sent a mattress to one of my team members, Hayden Broome. And Hayden is here to file this report. Hayden. Recently my girlfriend asked me, hayden, why do you seem taller and more handsome and funnier?
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Nidhi Pandya
And I said, it's a good question. It's because every day I've been waking.
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Dan Harris
Up on my brand new Leesa mattress. Thank you, Leesa. Thank you, Hayden. It's quite an endorsement. Leesa is not just about sleep. It's about impact. They donate thousands of mattresses each year to those in need, while also partnering with organizations like Clean Hub to help remove harmful plastic waste from our Oceans. Go to Leesa.com for 25% off mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with the promo code happier exclusive for my listeners. That's L E-E-S a.com promo code HAPPIER for 25% off mattresses, plus an extra 50 bucks off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. Lisa.com promo code happy. Nidhi Pandya, welcome to the show.
- [06:37]
Nidhi Pandya
Thank you for having me, Dan.
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Dan Harris
All right, let me start with a really basic question. I think a lot of people have heard of Ayurveda. You know, it's kind of as a. It's like a marketing thing now. I've heard of it. I know about as much about Ayurveda as I know about essential oils, which is to say nothing. So what is Ayurveda?
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Nidhi Pandya
I'm so excited to have this conversation. I'm. I'm glad you opened your mind to hearing about Ayurveda, or at least Ayurveda done differently.
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Dan Harris
All the credit goes to Marissa Schneiderman, whose job is to pry open my mind.
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Nidhi Pandya
All right, so Ayurveda, you know, as you said, a lot of people know Ayurveda today through TikTok Wellness trends, Whether it's turmeric, whether it's ashwagandha oil, pulling, dry brushing, bullet coffee, intermittent fasting. You can say to a great extent, all of these have their roots in Ayurveda. But what Ayurveda literally is, what it literally translates into is Ayu means life and veda means science. It is the original science of life that comes from India 5,000 years ago. And given the fact that it's the science of life, Dan, it covers everything from prevention and treatment of diseases to lifestyle, nutrition, fertility, childcare, social conduct if it has to do with human life, Ayurveda covers it. And what's happened is that as we've opened our mind to looking at the system beyond modern medicine in the last few years, a lot of trends have come from traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. So the world has opened up its mind and eyes to Ayurveda again. And this is the perfect time to rediscover it and bring it back because it is technically ancient, but it's timeless and, and it's extremely relevant to us.
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Dan Harris
So you say the world has opened its mind. One of the quotes that I love from one of my favorite punk bands in the 80s, the meat puppets, they had a line in one of their songs, open up your mind in pours the trash. Meaning, and that's not to trash Ayurveda. Just to say that you've got a lot of less than scrupulous people who can feast upon this ancient tradition for their own benefit and create a lot of confusion. Does that jibe with you, what I'm saying, Dan?
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Nidhi Pandya
A hundred percent. Because when you bring something ancient and you're still bringing regulation into it, but it sounds mystical, it sounds appealing and it sounds different, it can very quickly become a trend, it can very quickly be lost in translation. And honestly, part of my life's work, Dan, is to bring Ayurveda back to what it's supposed to be. It's the science of life. It is the most precise and logical science that I have come across. And to bring it back into its principle based model rather than a prescription based model. Saurabha has become prescriptive, dogmatic, rigid and even trendy, which is just loading people with information rather than giving them the wisdom of why this is done. So bringing the whys back to the what's, that's part of my work. But you're absolutely right, it can very quickly become a trend. It can very quickly become a marketing tool for marketers.
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Dan Harris
Yeah, you said it's the most precise science that you've come across. Am I recapitulating your words correctly?
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Nidhi Pandya
Right.
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Dan Harris
I guess the reason why my ears perked up when I heard you talk about the precision of the science is like if you get cancer, who are you? Me he going to trust more like an oncologist or an Ayurvedic doctor.
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Nidhi Pandya
So I will say that. And I've thought about this because I'll be honest, cancer actually runs in my family. Like we are just, we just are like that. My grandmother, my aunts, my dad, and this is precisely what we've done. Especially this is what my dad, who's currently in remission is doing. So for the surgical aspect of it, definitely modern medicine, for critical care, definitely modern medicine. But for the maintenance as well as if anybody is going through chemo and, and what that chemo does to your body and what radiation does to your body. But I think everything else as my dad is, he had high grade prostate cancer, fast progressing, he's seven years in remission and all his treatment post his surgery has all been ayurvedic.
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Dan Harris
Right. So, but what about chemo? Would you not do chemo?
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Nidhi Pandya
Look, when I work with my clients, Dan, I will tell them that you do you right. I'm not allowed to give medical advice. And I understand that, you know, chemo can be beneficial for a lot of people. But I will say that chemo pretty evenly chars the body, for the lack of a better word. You know, it creates this inflammation inside it depletes the mucosal lining. And all the work that needs to be done so that you can start rebuilding, I will bring in Ayurveda, all the foods that you can eat and all that you can avoid so that your body is braced for that chemo. Ayurveda can be very helpful to integrate into that entire treatment protocol.
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Dan Harris
Got it. So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're not saying let's forget about western medicine, you're saying, no, let's supplement and enhance western medicine with this ancient science of life.
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Nidhi Pandya
Absolutely. One way of saying this, right, Yoga is sister science of Ayurveda. Right. And it's beneficial for most people if they're doing strength training, three days, the running, two days, it's beneficial for them to add in yoga one day somewhere in there, because it'll help to stretch, it'll help to regulate the breathing, it will improve the heart rate variability. So it very well works in fact in our modern day with everything that we're consuming currently, you know, with our air being polluted, with our food being toxic, with everything in our environment. And this is also why I say this is the time for Ayurveda, because this science teaches you so well and so deeply how to brace yourself in the face of imbalance or in the face of an imbalanced ecosystem.
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Dan Harris
You do spend some time in the book talking about the human tragedy of over optimization. Can you say a little bit about that?
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Nidhi Pandya
Yes, Dan. And I'm living in the capital of over optimization, New York City, after the invention of electricity. I mean, this is also the same time we have chronic diseases, we've gone completely, we've just lost how to live. And well, now, that being said, it's underlying root cause of all our problems. And I'm not saying you shut off all the lights in your house tonight as soon as sun sets, but just to give attention to how much it's disrupted the way we live. So we've expanded our days, we've expanded our capacity to work, we're constantly being overproductive and we are living in this high stress that we have to get everything right. You know, Dan, can I tell you, most often I'm telling my clients to do less, not to do more for their health. Most of the times I'm like, you don't need to do all of this. You don't need to exercise six days a week, take three days off, relax for so many days because we've got into this whole doing burnout mindset. But what it really does, right, it jeopardizes your wellness rather than giving you wellness. And because most people to follow these rigid routines, to follow that level of discipline which is not intuitive and inherent, which comes from an experience, external prescription. So your body, it's not coming from your limbic system. It's just a, it's just like a memorized behavior from external sources. When you do that, your body is under high stress. And when it's under high stress, you have increased cortisol, you have increased adrenaline. As a result, you're actually disrupting your hormones. You're affecting melatonin production. You are compromising your body's idea of wellness. You're down regulating digestion. The biggest thing, you're downregulating digestion. When you're like, I have to get this right, I cannot eat this. I have to eat this. I have to sleep at this time. All the have to's, all the shoulds in the name of health are actually hurting health. I see the people who are sickest. You know, Dan, people will come to me. I usually work with women a lot more and women will come to me and say, I'm doing everything so right. And I wake up in the morning and I wake up at 5:30 and I do A, B, C, D, E and I'm taking these supplements. And my husband, he's smoking and sitting on the couch and he's fine. You know, because the truth is like your stress to be well will hurt you more. And when I say your body already knows, that is a promise that you don't need to go this crazy. There Are few things, few fundamental things we all need to return to. There's nothing more that you need. We've four and a half billion years as a species. You know, we started as single cell organisms on this planet. Four and a half billion years, the planet just continued to thrive. And we've come to a place in the last hundred years where we are questioning whether we can evolve from here, whether we can grow from here. But otherwise, 83 trillion species over four and a half billion years. We didn't have to do anything. The environment was right, the climate was right. Inherent intelligence is carried by every species and we just rely upon that. So we've gone into this overdrive. And in the overdrive we're actually creating further disease.
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Dan Harris
You say as a one countermeasure that we should learn through awe. And you talk about the value of fascination over force. Can you say a little bit more about that?
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Nidhi Pandya
Yeah. So, Dan, you know when I talked, for example, about the circadian rhythms of the day, right? And I talk about looking outside, I always talk about the behavior of the sun, and I always talk about the behavior of the spirit species outside of us. And I said, hey, morning. It's sluggish outside, it's sluggish inside. Or the sun is rising high and our digestive fire is rising high. Or there's wind outside and there's like yawning and wind inside, right? So when you're constantly connecting with those rhythms and patterns of nature, when you're looking at the behavior of other species, when you're just like fascinated with this, look at this precise science. Plants can dare not do photosynthesis till the sun is out. And when you're constantly looking at those plants patterns, you're actually learning from the limbic system, you're actually learning from a different part of your brain or in wonder, they become an emotional experience. And when something becomes an emotional experience, rather than I am supposed to wake up at 7am, I have to set my alarm, which is like a prescriptive informational, prefrontal cortex rigid prescription that is not internalized by the body. And when it's internalized with O and wonder, you activate the default mode network of your body, which is where conditioned behavior happens, where organic natural behavior happens, where your neuroplasticity expands. So I insist, right? Like when people come to me, Dan, and even in my book, I'll insist, don't make the changes today. I don't want you to make the changes. Like for three weeks you're not making any changes. You're Just sitting in awe. Like, I want people to notice these rhythms of the universe outside of them. Like, look outside to know what's happening within. Philosopher philosophers, time and again have said, as above, so below, as is the macro, such as the micro, and just that awe. Right. And then when you do one thing and when you're so tuned in and you've become such a keen observer of these rhythms and patterns of the universe, and then let's say you decide. Somebody decides to say, I'm going to eat an early dinner tonight. And yes. At the night. You know, they're used to comfort food and their body is, you know, it's going to feel unhappy. And they observe keenly what happens next day. Let me see what happens to my bowel movement. Let me see, how do I feel at lunch? Because you're just now becoming this keen observer, going back to the rhythms and patterns that were meant to be part of this human cycle and human body.
- [18:19]
Dan Harris
Yeah, I mean, that really lands for me, the first person I heard this argument from, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with her work, but Evelyn Tripoli, who's one of the progenitors of something called intuitive eating. So instead of listening to somebody else's rules about what you should eat and when and trying to achieve ketosis or whatever, it's more like, hey, actually, can you listen to your body and get curious about that? I have really switched my eating habits based on that, and it's been really helpful.
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Nidhi Pandya
That's beautiful. That's beautiful to hear. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I tell people, when you're keenly observing, observe rhythms, observe patterns, because literally, Dan, what sets you apart from your wax statue and what will set me apart from my wax statue is that I have a breath, I have a heartbeat. Every cell has a vibration. There is everything in the universe. It's the rotation of the sun, it's the revolution around. You know, everything is a rhythm, it's a pattern, It's a whole orchestra. What a beautiful musical system. And when you go out of rhythm, even if for one minute the Earth stopped rotating, we're gonna be like, what's going on? Or if you see it snowing in spring, we're gonna think there's something off, like, drastically, even though it's short term, you know, like, nothing's happening. It's snow one day, it's sunny one day. But we know that this is just inherently. No, we scared. Right. So similarly, everything is a pattern in the body. And so I just say keenly become a pattern. Seer, outside, inside, see how they connect. And it's easier once you get into this mindset, it's actually easier than people think.
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Dan Harris
Okay, so you also have this framework, the three codes of life, the inner climate, circadian rhythms, the cycle of everything, growth, transformation, decline. Do you think it might be worth walking through this for people?
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Nidhi Pandya
So I'll go into the second one, the inner climate, longer, but I'll just talk about what this framework is, right? So if my ask is that let's bring us all back to our instinctive knowledge, to our wisdom, that that's within each cell of our body, that's a big ask unless I give you a framework. So I say there's only three governing principles. To be honest, these are governing principles. Only three principles that govern everything from outside in the universe to inside in our body to every single phase of our life. The first governing principle is the circadian rhythm. As diurnal mammals, even nocturnal mammals, they have their different circadian rhythms. But basically all species on the planet have this relationship with the rising sun and the setting sun, and the juices in our body flow accordingly. So the first one is to really tune into that wonder and awe and start replicating that in your life slowly, steadily, one day at a time. And then that makes it intuitive, right? Which means that already, if somebody is telling me, hey, Nidhi, you know, wake up in the morning and like, do something super bizarre, I already know that it's against this first principle. It's not intuitive, it doesn't make sense. The second principle, which is really my life's work, and this is something that we would get a little bit deeper into, if at all. Dan, the whole premise is right. That life exists on our planet and no other planet, because the climate was right on our planet. Right? That the sun and the moon and the atmospheric pressure and water and climate was right, suddenly single cell organisms became like these, like 83 trillion species today. Climate is wrong. And we're questioning our life on this planet and how long it will survive. So we know that for anything to survive, you need the right climate. I cannot grow tomatoes on the North Pole. The climate is not right. Similarly, the idea is that there is a climate inside our bodies, and our body is a universe to trillions of microorganisms. Microbiome. And today, more and more researchers and scientists are discovering that their life determines our life. How healthy they are, how healthy the microbiome is, determines our digestion, our immunity, our nervous system, our hormones. And you're like, oh my God, like, there's a whole world happening inside. So they need a certain climate for them to thrive. And I've studied other ancient systems of medicine as well. They actually understood this in different ways. But all of them came to the same conclusion in some way or the other, that there is this climate, the yin and yang that you have to maintain. So what is that climate? And my work is I've just made it more understandable than the yin and the yang and then the ph balance. So what is that climate? Dan, can we do this together really quickly if you don't mind? Can I ask you to take your palm and just cup it a little bit and exhale into it a few times? What did that feel like, Dan? Was it warm? Was it cold?
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Dan Harris
Warm?
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Nidhi Pandya
Warm? Was it moist? Was it dry?
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Dan Harris
Moist?
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Nidhi Pandya
Okay, so you said warm and moist.
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Dan Harris
Yes.
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Nidhi Pandya
Okay, perfect. Dan, do you know what human blood is? Is it warm? Is it cold?
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Dan Harris
It's warm.
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Nidhi Pandya
It's warm. It's warm and moist. Mother's milk. Same warm and moist. Reproductive fluids. Warm and moist. Amniotic fluid. Warm and moist. The sun and the moon, they come together outside on their planet to create this warm and moist environment. And that allows for life to thrive, right? Especially places that are like Florida in March. So warm and moist. Beautiful life. Our microbiome was previously called flora and fauna, right? We know that flora and fauna thrive in warm and moist places. Our body temperature is 98.7 degrees. Dan, do you like hot tempered people? Cold people, Warm people?
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Dan Harris
Warm.
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Nidhi Pandya
Warm, yeah. And nobody ever teaches us what that warm is. Hugs are warm and moist. A cozy blanket is warm and moist. Most comfort foods are warm and moist. Anger is hot. Anxiety is dry. Stress is hot and dry. Depression is cold and sluggish. But love, gratitude, compassion are warm and moist. If you're sitting in a room, you don't want the room to be overly dry. I mean, nobody likes dry skin. But even if your hands were sticky or slimy, you wouldn't be comfortable with it. But if it's just the right moist, you don't want it too cold, you don't want it hot. Warm and moist. Human beings all around the world, right inside of us, outside, we gravitate in our minds, in our bodies, in our emotions. We gravitate towards warm and moist. Warm and moist is where life thrives. It's too hot and humid. Parasites marsh. It's hot and dry. You're a desert. You're Sedona. Not happening. You're cold and moist. It's all snow. You're cold and dry. You're a cold desert. Warm and moist is where life thrives. A trigger is hot and dry. And I do this with my clients when we use our Battlefield tools, they actually notice that they're becoming hot and dry inside. It's picking up pace. So this place of balance, which is warm and moist, which is really what we all want, we can bring warm and moist into our foods. We can bring warm and moist, like the good fat and the cooking and the spicing is the warm and moist. In traditional Chinese and Asian cultures, they fermented. Again, that is warm and moist, right? We talk about fermentation, culturing. The process of culturing actually is a warm and moist process. That multiplication of bacteria, which is aerobic, produces these water droplets. And the whole. The whole pot actually becomes slightly warm because of the multiplication of the bacteria. That's a warm and moist process. So if you look back at it, I looked at all cultures, and somehow they were doing this. They were returning back to the warm and moist. It is that state of flow. It is that midpoint. When I talk about the center point where the sun, you know, you're not overly. Things are not overly heating. Things are not overly cooling. The sun and the moon, that's what they do on our planet, right? The sun heats and dehydrates everything. By the end of the day, you have dry, ice, dry thought. And then the moon comes in with its gravitational force, which in Ayurveda believes that the gravitational force also acts on our neurotransmitters. In the gravitational force, it replenishes the moisture on the planet. The center point is warm and moist. So anyways, I can talk about the inner climate method for as long as I live, but I'm going to end here. But the inner climate method kind of offers you to start noticing where in your life are you creating excessive burn, excessive stagnation, what foods that you're eating is. Are doing this for you? What is your own inner climate? What has your imbalance led you to? People can identify their own inner climates as well and say, oh my God, my body's become hot and dry. It's inflamed, and it's like global warming happening inside. I'm burning in the sun and I have this rash and my stools are burning. Or people can say, I've just become stagnant and I just sit and I want to watch TV and I just don't feel like doing anything. I feel so depressed. So people identify their own inner climate and then we make the journey back to Warm and moist in every aspect. Physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. Everywhere.
- [27:28]
Dan Harris
Let's go into what Ayurveda is actually all about. What are the key concepts that we need to understand beyond the branding that may show up on our face lotion?
- [27:39]
Nidhi Pandya
So when we look at the world around us, right, Dan? And we look at animals, and I always use the example of deer. Deer knows that it needs to wake up in the morning to graze. No alarm clock needed. Not complaining. Oh, my God, I'm on the same patch of grass again. And we see animals everywhere, species on our planet displaying behavior where they understand how to live. Like, I've personally seen bears eat big cabbage heads in Alaska before they hibernate because they want to have that big bowel movement. Or they're animals who will reject certain foods but eat galactago plants when they're nursing or pets. You know, if you have an animal, even if you got in the, you know, in the wild with a dog and if he is bruised, they notice sulfur rich soil, they kind of roll on that sulfur rich soil. So all species, even worms with, like two senses can understand where to make their hole, what to go into, what to consume. At birth, we as babies know to eat from our mother's breast. We've never used our mouth before, but it's this inherent knowing. So we can agree, we can safely agree that all species understand how to live and how to be well and how to make choices. Somehow we have forgotten, we've overused our intellect so much that we've lost that instinct. Now, Ayurveda is a science that is preserved. If somebody had to take all of human instinct and really put it down in literature and say, these are the rhythms and the patterns that exist in your body. This is the nature of the human body. This is the nature of our organs, of how we function, and this is the nature of the world outside of you, of the foods you eat, of sunrise and sunset, of what's happening and how do they interact with each other. And through this deep understanding of how nature works, how life works through that basic foundational principles. Now it can kind of go further into. Because of this understanding, this is how you can build your life out. This is how you can eat, this is how you can cook your foods, this is how you can wake up, this is how you sleep, this is how you conceive, this is how you make relationships, just pretty much all of that. So at its core, Ayurveda understands that instinct, but it's kind of written down in the form of a framework. And on top of that framework are these prescriptions that consume this or do this in the morning and do this in the nighttime. One more layer of Ayurveda, Dan, that I think that's often missed is Ayurveda is not rigid. It's not a rigid science at all. For example, let's say you and me, we all know today, I'm just gonna give you an example that, okay, you know, sleeping early at night is going to help deliver inflammation. It's gonna get that body, the glymphatic system going, gonna give you deep rest and rebirth. And yet there are times that, let's say I cannot sleep on time and I'm sleeping late every night when I'm sleeping. Ayurveda has a lens of understanding what happens in the body when I'm doing this. So say, hey, we know today scientifically that there'll be more cytokines and you'll have more inflammation, more oxidative stress, lower glymphatic cleansing. What can you do? Right? Because you understand the impact of what this staying up will do. What can I bring in during the daytime to create balance to that imbalance that I created at night? So because I understand the nature of the imbalance, you can now bring in remedies, you can remediate the imbalances that you create. Now of course, long term that's going to hurt somebody, but I cannot even tell you. Like, I live in New York City and I'm raising two teenage daughters and I would say it's all my tools in my toolkit come from this science and understanding. And it doesn't mean that you have to live in an ashram or a monastery. It does not mean that. It just means you want to understand the basic rhythmic function of your own body and what's happening outside and constantly look to offset imbalances that are created and move towards health in the most sustainable and easy manner.
- [31:37]
Dan Harris
I've sometimes heard Buddhism referred to as advanced common sense. And that seems like it might apply here. It's a return to our intuitive knowing that's been papered over, crusted over by social pressure to look a certain way, conflicting advice about what diet is best for you, lots of unhealthy foods that flood the food chain. And it's about bringing us back to our intuitive knowing and then adding some real insights and expertise on top of that.
- [32:08]
Nidhi Pandya
Oh, I couldn't have said it better, but yet I tell people that we're so far away from our intuition, we're so far away from our instinct, right? We've overused our intellect. I mean, our intellect is great. It's really what made us human. It's allowed us to advance this much. But it's also in the way of coming back to our wisdom, right? It allows us to stay in that information. We're obsessed with information. It's outside of us. Wisdom is within us. And in Ayurveda, the first cause of disease is that loss of wisdom of that inner knowing. So we need a framework to come back. And yes, Ayurveda provides that framework so you can start understanding instinctually the rhythms and the patterns that exist in the body. But it is very true. It is very much like Buddhism. In fact, one of the later texts actually have a sutra, a verse from Buddhism, the Middle path of the how everything comes to that middle path, whether it's food, whether it's lifestyle, it comes to that moderation.
- [33:05]
Dan Harris
Yes, Middle path, just for people listening who don't know much about Buddhism, but the, the Buddha in his early pre enlightenment days, you know, was swinging back and forth between total indulgence in sense pleasures available in the world. He was a prince, so they were all available to him, all the various forms of pleasure. And then asceticism or self mortification, complete self denial on the other hand. And ultimately what he landed on, and this was where he ended up getting enlightened, was the middle path. And I hear that in what you're saying. In fact, the word balance comes up a lot in your speech. And I wonder if that is a core concept here that is operationalizable for the rest of us.
- [33:53]
Nidhi Pandya
That is a core concept. And the word balance, I mean, it can mean so many things to, to so many people. I mean, somebody could look at balance as like, even as a rigid concept that you're always looking at something and looking to balance yourself with it, or you're always looking to do something. Right? But that's not the kind of balance, Right. The kind of balance that you're looking for is the moderation. Is the moderation and everything, of course, the deep understanding of how to live and how to do things and to constantly seek to bring moderation in that. And when you deviate from that, you know, center path is again to understand how can you bring yourself back in the most easy, loving, kind manner. It is a very loving science. You know, at the end of it, Ayurveda, it brings a lot of self compassion for yourself, but also for others as to how do you constantly come back into that equilibrium in all parts of your being, your physiological being, emotional being, mental being, as well as breath.
- [34:46]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Nithi talks about some countermeasures for sleeplessness, support, for building strong digestion, and some other key concepts of Ayurveda. Here's a problem I have. I like to eat. I especially like to eat healthy food. But I don't shop unless I'm forced and I don't cook unless I'm forced. So this is my problem. But very recently an awesome solution dropped into my lap. It's called Hungryroot and it is an incredibly easy way to eat healthy. Hungryroot basically works like a personal nutrition coach and shopper in one by planning, recommending and shopping for everything for you. They take care of the weekly grocery shopping, recommending healthy groceries tailored to your tastes, nutrition preferences and health goals. I did the onboarding at Hungryroot. It was super quick, very easy. Few days later I got a huge box on my doorstep with healthy frozen meals that I can literally just pop into the microwave and eat in the middle of a busy day. They're delicious. Huge fan. Also in the box a bunch of snacks and other groceries like salad, ingredients, etc. Etc. All delicious, all fresh, all healthy. Take advantage of this exclusive offer for a limited time, get 40% off your first box plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to hungryroot.com happier and use the code happier. That's hungryroot. H U N G R-Y-R-O-O-T.com happier and use the code HAPPIER to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. The new year is here. Get back into an at home routine you love and elevate your space with Wayfair. From bedding and mattresses to storage solutions for every room in the house, Wayfair is your one stop shop. Wayfair has everything. I've been on their website many times. It's super comprehensive. They've got bedding and bath basics, stuff for kids rooms, home decor, storage for every space, kitchen essentials, everything you need for a home office, etc. My wife recently went on a spending spree at Wall Street Wayfair and she bought all these beautiful translucent little shelves on wheels. She's loading these shelves up with all of the books that she has been buying as research for her upcoming book. Side note, I don't know when the book's coming out but it's on Imposter Syndrome and it's going to be great having all these books in these little Translucent mobile shelving units. It looks beautiful. Get organized, refreshed and back on track this new year. For way less, head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com Wayfair Every style, every home. Speaking of that, you mentioned as an example of the flexibility that in Ayurveda you under. There's an understanding, and this rhymes with modern science, that going to bed early and having a set schedule is, you know, is really important for sleep, which sleep is. So, yeah, I sometimes call it the apex predator of healthy habits. And yet sometimes, and I'm thinking about myself. Like tonight I have a dinner at 7. I'm unlikely to get home before 10. And then I'll unwind for a while. So I'll be going to bed later than I normally do. But it sounds like in your system that's okay. You just need to bring in some countermeasures the next day. Day. What would those countermeasures be like if I've given myself permission to stay up late? Like, how do I take care of myself the next day?
- [38:26]
Nidhi Pandya
Right. I just want to say something, right? So firstly, of course, it's ideal to sleep early and I'll tell everybody if you can't get to bed by 10, if you can be in your bed and be asleep by 10, nothing like it. But I understand that life happens. So one of the things that you would do and this happened to me last night, Dan. So it's like really, I'm freshly right there because I had, I had a late night. So in the morning, right, when I pick my exercise, I would pick a lighter form of exercise. So if I have a choice between, let's say running and going for yoga, I would go for yoga because it will slow my breath down. The idea is to slow your body and slow your breath down to stay as much in parasympathetic as you can and you're not living in stress mode. So these are a few of the things that I did. I woke up in the morning, I went for yoga class, I came back, I massaged my body with oil. It's one of the Ayurvedic practices of body oiling, slowing down, creating lymphatic drainage, but also very, very grounding to the nervous system. And then I took a nice warm shower and then I did my breath work and my meditation. But also what, what I will remain conscious of for the rest of the day is to choose activities that are Slower to slow down my body movements, to maybe go into a silent fast. And then, of course, eventually to go to bed early. Tonight, if I will have a chance, I'll go for another massage. Maybe I'll go for a foot massage today. So the idea is that, listen, if I did not get enough repair at night, how do I create enough repair in the day? And how do I have enough tools in my toolkit? So I know how to create repair. Now, let's say today was a really, really busy day. Just by slowing down my exhalations. Just by slowing, and this is a practice that I have adopted for many, many years, that you slow down your breath. When you slow down your breath, you slow down your nervous system. You slow down your nervous system, and you get into the parasympathetic mode. Your body is repairing faster. It literally goes into the rest and digest mode. So even though you're awake and you're functioning, your body is still trying to maintain its repair. In fact, every inhale, I always tell my clients, every inhale is sympathetic. Puts your body into, like, let's act. And every exhale is parasympathetic. And when you get really busy in a day, very often we come back and we sit and we are like, we sigh loudly, right? Because your body's forcing out that exhale. But if we were to just mindfully tune into those and create those longer exhalations, even in conversation, even while your mouth is open, when you focus on longer nasal exhalations, simultaneously, your body starts to go into parasympathetic, and you really come to that present moment and your body starts to relax, and that offers healing of its own kind.
- [41:03]
Dan Harris
H. I just want to get technical about a couple of the things you said there, because my obsession as an interviewer is to provide my listeners with things they can do as soon as they're done listening. So when you're. You're talking about deep, slow breathing, and you mentioned that you this morning did some of that. Can you be pretty technical and granular about what that looks like?
- [41:27]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah. All right. So it's called a resonance breath. And the resonance breath is that you count. You can count your inhalation. So let's say you were to do five count and whatever that count looks like for you, right? It could be five seconds. It could be a faster. You can do it in your mind. So you would inhale if you were inhaling five seconds and take a slow inhale, but when you exhale, you'd want that to go a little bit longer. So let's say you would do seven, and you can use an app. You know, my friend Eddie Stern has an app called the Breathing App, super easy. You can set a gong. It's a free app, and it gives you a timer, and you can let it play in the background. But when you would exhale. So if your inhalation is 5, your exhalation would be 7 counts slowly through the nose as though you're blowing a balloon. Let's just say if your nose could have the power, the potential to actually blow a balloon. And then you slowly exhale, And then the slow, long exhales, like the shorter inhale, and the longer exhale really sets your body into rest and digest. Now, when I say shorter inhale, your inhale is still enough of an inhale. It's still a nice long inhale. It's just shorter, slightly shorter than the exhalation.
- [42:39]
Dan Harris
And how long will you do this for?
- [42:42]
Nidhi Pandya
Sometimes I'll do it for five minutes if I'm doing it systematically. But also, you could be working. And if you have an app, right, you could be working. And if you have an app like the Breathing App, and you play that in the background for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, you're kind of training your brain to start breathing like that even when you're busy. Now, Dan, for somebody like me, I think I've done it for so long that I can naturally just remind myself, hey, Nidhi, just go back into that resonance breath. So whether I'm talking, whether I'm teaching, whether I'm cooking, I can kind of fall back into those longer exhalation patterns that instantly relax the body.
- [43:17]
Dan Harris
That's cool. The other thing you mentioned was massaging your body with oils. Just can you say a little bit more about what that actually entails? And do we need to buy special oils?
- [43:26]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah. Yeah. So, Dan, the practice is called abhyanga, right? And it's right now again, it's become trendy again, it's gone body oiling. But it's a practice like my grandfather, who was an Ayurvedic healer, did it for his entire life. And I've been doing it for the last 20 years. And what that does. So first, how do you do the practice? And I'll tell you what it does as well. So how do you do the practice is you take traditionally you took sesame oil or another herbal ayurvedic oil. Now, those are very complicated. Dhanvantari, telam, Mahanarayan, teilam, and you don't have to ever use any of Those, but using a plain sesame oil, untoasted is good enough. It's a great start. And for people in the United States, I tell them, if you don't even like the scent of the sesame oil, go and get just a simple lemongrass coconut oil from Trader Joe's. There's no, no collaboration with them. But it's a very easy start. It has a pump bottle. It's a very easy place to start. Now, traditionally you would be warming up this oil, but you don't have to warm up the oil if you are just starting out the practice. And just as you would put moisturizer on your body, you would apply the oil and you would massage your limbs, you would massage your shoulders, you would massage your, your abdomen, any place that you can get to focusing more on the joints. Long movements in the long areas and circular movements in the joints. And you could do this for five minutes, you could do this for seven minutes, you could do this for 10 minutes. Ideally, you want to do this before you shower. In fact, in Ayurveda, you do this before you even go for your exercise. If you look at, you know, pictures of wrestlers from India, you'll see they're wearing their little, you know, little wrestling underwear and their entire body is oiled up. And as a child I thought that was just for aesthetics till I learned that it actually not only protects their joints when their body warms up, it allows for faster recovery. You know, when they're wrestling and they're using their body, they're exercising. In fact, in fact, sesame is known to regulate estrogen. They still haven't done the research on how the oil would have an impact. But sesame by itself regulates estrogen, which becomes anti inflammatory and allows for faster recovery. But men can do this, women can do this. It's not reserved for just one gender. And you would apply that oil. And ideally you would, you know, I tell people, of course, don't go into your gyms with all that oil. Just wipe it down a little bit so you're not slipping anywhere. And then you would exercise, you would sweat more as a result, you would recover faster as a result. And then you would jump into your shower. But what it does, when you even also jump into your shower, oil has a detoxification effect. So it, it's many, many things. And I want to go into them just briefly.
- [46:02]
Dan Harris
Sure.
- [46:03]
Nidhi Pandya
So oil, as the body has warmed up, when you exercise, the oil will kind of enter your pores, right? The pores open up, the oil goes. And oil as a, if you even if you, if you, let's just say you spilled some oil on your table and then you didn't have the chance to wipe it out and then you had to leave, you know, for an errand. When you come back, you'll see that oil almost looks grimy. You almost feel like all the dust from the table has come into the oil because it has this power to kind of pull out dust, dirt and grime. So it's a detoxifying practice for the body. Of course, it allows for faster recovery. It depends on how you massage. You can do a lymphatic drainage in Ayurveda. They'll also say it'll allow for the better synthesis of vitamin D. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. And traditionally you would put some oil and you would step out in the sunlight. But then when you go into the shower after this, right, like you have oil on your body, you go into the shower, you're protecting your skin barrier from the harshness of the water. Water can be very harsh for the skin, skin. So you're also protecting your skin barrier. So at so many different levels, that oil, from detoxification to your nervous system, to protecting your joints to faster recovery, but it's going to help you at those various levels. I will say, Dan, it is a practice that all my clients, once they start this, this is one of the practices that they don't want to give up at all. And they notice a big difference in their recovery. But also their skill, skin, their anxiety, and also how sick they get or they don't. Because microbiome on our skin is lipophilic. All the good microbiome is lipophilic, which means that they thrive on fats. They need those fats to survive. So you're constantly replenishing these depleting fats. Especially we're living in these air conditioning, regulated environments.
- [47:45]
Dan Harris
It's really interesting. Okay, so let's talk about some more key concepts of Ayurveda. One of them is digestive fire. What does that mean?
- [47:54]
Nidhi Pandya
Right? I mean, we've started giving a lot of importance to digestion now in the west over the last few decades. The concept of digestive fire, is this right? For anything to break down, for anything to transform, for any metabolic activity to happen in the world, heat is needed. You cannot even charge your phone without electricity. The saying that I use is how can it transform unless it's warm? To cook your foods, you need warmth. For plants to do photosynthesis, you need warmth. Every metabolic process is warm. So this environment of the gut, where you have these great digestive enzymes that come to work. You have gastrin that comes to work. You have bile that comes to work. And even if for somebody who's never really interacted with any of these enzymes, as a biologist, they can still understand that these are probably warm. These enzymes are probably warm. You know, these acids of the stomach and this environment balanced with the mucosal lining that protects us from our own acids and hot foods and the process of metabolism, that perfect environment which is conducive to life, which is conducive to microbiome down there, that is called the digestive fire. Now, Ayurveda talks tremendously about it. It says that when your digestive fire gets compromised, therein starts the beginning of all diseases, at least at a physical level.
- [49:14]
Dan Harris
Okay, so if we take this seriously, and I do, what are some basic moves we can make to tend to our own digestive fire?
- [49:22]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah, so the. So the fire fluctuates through the day. And I think understanding how the fire fluctuates naturally is the first important thing. And then the second is how do you prepare your foods that they support the fire? So let's go into the first one first, which is how does the fire fluctuate throughout the day for diurnal mammals like us that are supposed to rise with the sun and set and sleep as the sun sets? Because before we had electricity and we did not, we don't have nighttime vision. We didn't have a choice but to be in bed once the sun set. So much like plants can only do photosynthesis once the sun is out. We're kind of like that. So how does the fire fluctuate through the day? It corresponds to the sun outside is very. Mimics the fire inside. So, Dan, let's go into that cycle a little bit through the day, the daytime cycle. Right? And Ayurvedic scientists, people can call them Ayurvedic sages, I like to call them scientists. They also looked at the patterns outside to understand the patterns inside. So the morning hours between 6:00am and 10:00am for example, our fire is still picking up as the sun is rising outside. And if you were to walk on grass, it's all wet and dewy and sluggish. That's kind of the environment in the body and the gut, right? So people can have nasal congestion in the morning. People can have eye boogers in the morning. Usually your synovial fluids. And the joints are padded. I mean, I can never show off in a yoga class in the Morning, that's not happening, right? Because everything is like sluggish and your gut is sluggish as well. Because all this kind of mucus, the refueling that happened at night, the repair makes your body a little bit more wet and sluggish inside the system. It just means that it's a little bit slower and there's more phlegm and all of those things. So it's not the time for the biggest breakfast. That is the time you activate your fire by exercising. You activate your fire by oiling. And then when you do eat in the morning time, you eat a warm, right, Because I said it cannot transform unless it's warm. All traditional practices, most blue zones eat something warm and not super heavy in the morning. So you've exercised, your body is ready, it's warming up, and you eat something warm. My breakfast, for example, every single day is a hot cup of spiced milk with a little bit of porridge on the side. And almonds, you know, soaked and peeled almonds. I soak them overnight, I eat them in the morning. My favorite breakfast, Lifelong love it, but it could be anything. It could be stewed apples, it could be roasted sweet potatoes, it could be an omelette for somebody. But ideally, something warm and something spiced. We always use spices as well. And I want to say here that spices do a lot of things. They support the breakdown of the foods that you're eating. They support the digestive fire because they add that warmth. If you've ever eaten black pepper, ginger, any of the spices, you can almost feel that inherent warming feeling that they bring, right? It's a little bit subtle, but it can be experienced. So that's how your breakfast would look like now. Between the hours of 10 and 2, as the sun peaks, so does the digestive fire. And now we know this today, right? Science knows this, that Gastrin as at its best behavior, which is you're great, one of the biggest MVPs when it comes to your digestion. But also your insulin sensitivity is high and you can break your foods down better. So the sun is high, your digestive fire is high. So is your mental fire, right? People don't get lunch, they get. They get hangry because everything is so hot in their system. So it's a great time to eat your biggest meal. Anything that you crave, do it for lunchtime. You want to indulge. Eat the biggest meal during lunch. And if you've eaten a warm, light breakfast, chances are that you will not feel sluggish after your big lunch, because everything is nice and ready and warm in your body. So that's your time for big lunch. And you support your fire that way. Between the hours of 2 and 6, as the sun sets outside, you almost notice the wind inside. The sun is setting outside, it's slightly windy. Leaves are now moving. You experience the wind experience inside as well. And I just, I use this language to make it more comprehensible for people. But we knew neurotransmitters are changing from daytime to evening time. And what happens, you feel like stretching at your desk. You feel the afternoon lull. It's exactly what happens outside. Now that is a good time to, you know, just go get some fresh air, drink some peppermint tea. Of course, not caffeine, because really, your body is doing everything it can to unwind and to slow down. And if you give it a stimulant, you're kind of taking it against the cycle. Ideally, right now, this is the most important, this is the biggest change. I tell everybody, if you want to make one change, make this one. And this is the change I'm talking about. Stop eating dinner. Stop eating by 6, 6:30 in the evening, as the sun starts to set down. And this can look different. If it's summertime, it can be slightly different. But as the sun starts to set, and let's say you're living in a place the sun sets by 6, 6 37, your Digestive Fire is not working as well anymore. In fact, at night, insulin resistance increases. You cannot break down your sugars as well. And that light meal at night, like dinner, is not even a thing. Our ancestors were not really lighting lamps and having big dinner parties way after sunset, you know, and this is only like a Hundred years ago, 1930s is when electricity came into our homes and we weren't. We didn't have this level of chronic disease. So if there's one change you can make, let it be this. So that the fire kind of slows down in the evening time. And you definitely want to honor it by only burning, eating as much as you can burn. For sure, this alone can be a big game changer. But if I had to add another thing on top of it that people can do to keep that fire burning. The first function of food, and this is gonna sound crazy, but it will make sense once you hear it. The first function of food is not to give you nourishment. The first function of food is not even to give you nutrients. The first function of the food is to protect the environment of your gut. Because if the Environment of the gut is not protected. It is only a matter of time. You may be eating the biggest superfood out there, but your body will not be able to put it to good use. It will not be able to assimilate anything from it. So how do you protect the environment of the gut? By, of course, honoring these cycles of how do you eat? But also there are a couple of other things that can be done. Cooking foods is a big thing in Ayurveda. You cook foods, and if you go back into the history of Ayurveda, our species, when we started using fire to cook our foods about 300,000 years ago, and non Ayurvedic scientists have done this research that when we started using fire to cook our foods, that's when we actually became these intellectual species because our gut became smaller, our brains became bigger, our microbiome, our gut bacteria changed drastically. And it's really what has made us human from primitive. And anybody can actually do this research because there's a lot out there. So Ayurveda is big on cooking your foods, on using good fats and using good spices to cook your foods as well. So cooking does create some metabolic waste in the body, right? They can become free radicals. But the minute you spice your foods and you pair them with spices, most spices are what we call antioxidants that will basically neutralize those free radicals that are created not only from cooking, but also from your own body's metabolic function. So Ayurveda is big on using spices, and that's not spicy. Spices are spices that you can find in the spice aisle of the grocery store, but are technically not really putting your tongue on fire. So it's cinnamon, clove, black pepper, cumin, bay leaf, whatever people like, you want to use those, you want to use a good fat. You want to cook your foods.
- [57:16]
Dan Harris
Just going back to the cycle of the day. And you were recommending that we eat a smaller dinner and stop eating, you know, as the sun goes down. I'm asking this as an insomniac. Are there things that you would recommend drinking later in the day that might help people fall asleep?
- [57:34]
Nidhi Pandya
Absolutely. Right. And that is absolutely what you can do. So drinking a warm cup of milk, for example, drinking a hot cup of milk, and that can be done at like 7:30, that can be done at 8, that can be done at 10 if you're staying up later and adding, let's say, nutmeg or cardamom, especially these two spices, a few pinches of nutmeg or like even Half a teaspoon of cardamom powder can be a tranquilizer, really ground the nervous system our body also remembers as babies. This is the grounding food you consume to go to bed and, and it's, it's a great one to allow yourself to go to bed, to fall asleep.
- [58:13]
Dan Harris
Very helpful. Just want to keep going through some of these key concepts. Another is symptoms are messengers.
- [58:20]
Nidhi Pandya
Symptoms are messengers in Ayurveda, absolutely. Before your body goes into a full blown imbalance. We've relied so long on just blood reports and other vitals to understand what's going in our body. And they never paint a full picture to begin with. But in Ayurveda, the minute you notice the symptoms, that's step one out of the six steps before it can manifest into a full disease. So there's the first, the symptom is local and you might experience something. Then it might become chronic, it might lodge itself. It's local, it's temporary. If it's not addressed, it becomes more permanent. When it becomes that more permanent, it starts affecting either the tissue or the blood or the plasma in that area. I mean, think of it as inflammation. Think of it as like if there was, if you had a bruise even on the top of your skin that didn't heal for a long time, it's not healed, or you keep bumping your hand into something, it becomes more and more and more aggravated. And at some point it's going to be this deep level of scarring that's going to happen. But the same thing can happen inside your body. And I just use the example of a bruise because it's more visual. But any, it can be just anything. It could just be a blockage in one of your tubes, in one of the many channels that exist in your body. And then once it becomes chronic and it starts to affect the tissue, now it's kind of homogenized, the imbalances homogenized with the tissue that activates your immune system. And that can start now, creating imbalance depending on which organ it is or which tissue it's affected, or whether it's the blood and plasma. If it's blood and plasma, it starts traveling around. Now you have this, it's like dirty water pipes. You know, like every, every floor, if your apartment building has water pipes that have gone wrong, every single floor is going to have dirty water. And that's kind of what our blood and plasma are. They're these distribution systems for the body. And if they get affected, then everything, it starts kind of circulating in the body and then you'll start noticing individual symptoms and then it usually goes into a full blown disease. So pain is a great sign, a symptom is a great sign. We don't have to say shut up. Look, I understand sometimes we all need to take painkillers. If you're having a day, you gotta do something. Life's happening. Yeah, but it's usually a sign. It's a great sign that Listen to your body now. Let's address this today rather than saying shut up. I'll see if you'll come back another day and we'll talk then.
- [60:34]
Dan Harris
I guess a related concept that comes out of your book is the body is always right.
- [60:42]
Nidhi Pandya
I would say it's more than that. The body always knows. The body already knows more than the body is always right. So the body is always telling you something and the body already knows. And that I don't see say in terms that the body is giving you alarms each time or the body is giving you warning signals. And it's actually not that when I say the body already knows, it's the body already knows. Like when you're a baby and your body knows to look for its mother's breast and eat from it, or the worm knows exactly where to crawl and when to pause. Even like if you see a bug at home or you see like they'll know how to behave when it's electricity and how to pause when they see motion. Like every species on the planet has that intelligence within of how to live, how to survive, how to be well. So my book, which is called you'd Body Already Knows, gives you that framework to come back into your own intelligence in the most kindest way to trust yourself. That your body already knows. And it always tells you what to do when you learn its language. We are missing the language, we're missing the framework. So when somebody can say, hey, I just want to eat like five bags of chips, no, that's not the listing that I'm talking about. We need to understand its language.
- [61:57]
Dan Harris
Coming up, Nidhi talks about her toolkit for self regulation, the perils of jumping into change, why cold drinks and excessive water can disrupt digestion according to ayurvedic principles and much more. Foreign to take care of you. And who better to help you do that than the top voices in well being? On Audible, you can level up your parenting, career, finances, sleep, relationships or mindset. The Audible well Being collection has everything to inspire and support you every step of the way. Hear the latest from best selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty Master Nutrition with chef Jamie Oliver. Hear nature sleep sounds from the sleeping world or get on top of your finances with Rachel Rogers. Plus, you'll find all the best parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. With this at your fingertips, you can imagine more for yourself and your family. By the way, I'm creating an Audible original with my great friend, the Great Meditation Teacher 7A Selassie, which will be out in a few few months. So go Audible Kickstart your well being journey with your first audiobook. Free when you sign up for a free 30 day trial@audible.com T E N P E R C N T that's 10%. Membership is 14.95amonth. After 30 days, cancel anytime. Listening to the top voices in well being sounds like self care to us. Audible there's more to imagine when you listen. It's a new year. Colder days for many of us. So therefore this is a moment where your winter wardrobe really has to be on point, really has to deliver. If you're craving a winter reset, start with pieces truly made to last season after season. Quince brings together premium materials, thoughtful design and enduring quality so you stay warm. Warm, you look sharp and feel your best all season long. Quince has everything you need. Men's Mongolian Cashmere Sweaters I got a bunch of those wool coats, leather and suede outerwear that actually holds up to daily wear and still looks good. Each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. By cutting out the middlemen and traditional markups, Quint's delivers the same quality as luxury degree brands, but at a fraction of the price. As I've told you before, I actually order this stuff on my own dime, even though I do get some free stuff because they're a sponsor. But I like them so much I spend my own dough on quints. I actually just recently made an order. I got a bunch of boring stuff like socks and underwear. But then I got I love sweaters that kind of you can button up kind of like a shirt. I don't know what they're called. Anyway, I got one of those Digging that. Anyway, hearty endorsement for Quince. Refresh your winter wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com happier for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's quince.com happier free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com happier. So you have a toolkit. These are like three levels of self regulation. They Include preventative tools, battlefield tools, and repair tools. Can you walk us through this?
- [65:24]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah. So, Dan, I want to start by saying that, yeah, people want to jump into change. People want to come today. I'm all. I have this. All this adrenaline. I want to be the best version of myself. And then I fall flat on my face. And that's like, listen, we've all done that a hundred times, right? It's kind of harsh to want to do that with yourself because our body has had a lifetime of experience, experiences and trauma and generational conditioning and forget all. All the things that are happening to us, right? We've stopped even how to feel safe. In fact, most of the habits that we're keeping are just coping mechanisms. And here you are, like, saying, I'm going to give up my coping mechanism without a shield. So people are like, okay, I don't want to eat late from tomorrow at night. Or like, I want to give up my alcohol. I want to give up. I'm like, let's, let's slow down, let's slow down. Let's bring coping mechanisms. Because really poor habits that if you've been. If you've been trying to give up a habit for a while, it's not gone, you're coping with something else. So the toolkit, which is probably the most important part, I think, of any transformation or change is this loving experience for your nervous system first. And what it is. We all need three types of tools. The first one, I say, have preventative tools in your toolkit, which means something that you will do every single day for your nervous system to feel safe, Safe before you get on the battlefield of life. And this especially holds true for people who are living in chronic stress. They don't even experience a minute of what this feels like. Their nervous system just doesn't. Not even know what that is. So it could be music, it could be meditation, it could be breath, it could be a massage, it could be a sport for some people. But before you get into life, your nervous system has been in a place where it's lost sense of time and space, where it's so present and it's so safe, it's so comfortable. Now it has a memory. I usually provide people with an a la carte menu, and I say you try all of them. Keep a couple and have that every day.
- [67:16]
Dan Harris
Can you just say a little bit more about what's on the a la carte menu? You listed a few things, but I just want to make sure people know.
- [67:21]
Nidhi Pandya
Yes. So I will say meditation last, even Though it's my biggest, I'll say it last because it's so hard for a lot of people to get into. So I'm going to list it in the order of ease. Music is a big one. And I'll say classical music. It is not a coincidence that there are seven notes. There are seven endocrine glands that play with the juices neurotransmitters in your body. There's seven chakras, if you're into the chakra thing. And every musical note has a certain effect on the neurotransmitters of your body. In fact, Indian, classical music, and even western. But Indian was designed their morning, what you call morning music, morning ragas, R, A G A S and evening ragas. So I tell people, start with those morning ragas. You don't have to do the work. Let your music do the work. Let your cells do the work. Let your body do the work. So that'll regulate your nervous system. So music can be a regulator, but it can go in the order of music, exercise, body massage, breath, work, meditation. There are other tools as well, but these are most easily accessible to people.
- [68:32]
Dan Harris
Got it. Okay, so preventative tools. Then there are battlefield tools.
- [68:37]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah. That inevitably, because we have these trigger patterns, these scripts we all carry, and you get into the battlefield of life, and there the trigger begins. And in that, we do all kinds of things to regulate ourselves when we're having that experience. So what are you gonna do in the face of that battlefield? And these are different tools than preventative tools. Now, these tools, I can give you example of what that looks like, that you can instantly start noticing the trigger and come back to regulation. And it's easier to notice the trigger if you've done the preventative tools because you've experienced safety, your nervous system has experienced safety. So when you're on the battlefield of life, I'm gonna give you a little a la carte menu for the battlefield tools. And my favorite battlefield tool is humming. And humming is something you could be on the road, you could be driving, you could be cooking, and you could be at your desk working, and you could be humming. And what humming does again, because humming is essentially an exhalation through the nose. And I've talked enough about the exhalation from the nose puts your body in parasympathetic mode, instantly starts. Your body instantly starts feeling safe, allows you to. To start regulating right away. This is also the reason why an om at the end of a yoga class feels so relaxing. Because it is essentially a hum. It Activates the vagus nerve, does all of those things. But in the most simplest understanding, I say it is going to put your body into the parasympathetic mode. It will start relaxing everything there and bringing yourself back to safety. There could be other battlefield tools while you're feeling that trigger, right? Grounding, noticing the fabric of your own clothes on your skin, really coming to every contact points. How do your feet sit on the ground, how's your hair touching, how everything feels. And again, that brings your body to safety. That starts getting your brain to be integrated again, right? Because the brain kind of flips the lid. The brain starts disintegrating and disconnecting when you are. Your rational brain disconnects from your emotional brain when you're feeling, when you're on the battlefield. So that kind of contact point coming back to every sensation that you can experience again, starts to regulate your nervous system. You could also, without humming, just go into longer exhalations while you're having a conversation with somebody. If you're in the middle of a conversation with somebody, you can also step out and just splash some cool water on your face. If it is possible for you to go and take a shower or to go for a quick 5, 7 minute run, moving your body, all of these things depending on who the person is. I tell people you try some of these battlefield tools, but make sure you have them in your pocket so that when you're experiencing that trigger, you can pull something out depending on where and how that trigger is.
- [71:26]
Dan Harris
And finally, repair tools.
- [71:27]
Nidhi Pandya
Repair tools. Yeah. I always joke that all addictions happen at night. Like alcoholics are made at night, sex addicts, food addicts, TV addicts, right? Because we need to heal from the day. All of us need to heal from the day. And repair tools allow us to actually do that. Now, there are two types of repair tools. I mean, mainly the one, something that you can use every single day to repair. And these could be anything from journaling to lying down with your legs up against the wall. This is a yoga pose called viparit karni that lowers your blood pressure, enhances blood circulation, relaxes the body, to massaging your feet before bed, to taking a warm shower, to drinking a hot cup of milk. But when you do it intentionally, and you say, this is my repair for the day, you bring more intention into it, into bringing your nervous system back to safety. And then I say that you also need repair tools for those times when crisis hits. So, for example, my repair tools, when my nervous system can just cannot take it anymore. I will go for a massage. I tell people to draw up a bath, you know, to take an Epsom salt bath, to go for a massage. I think therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy or therapy that works for people is, again, great periodic repair tool. But I think essentially, to go through life, to even start thinking about any change, everybody needs to build a toolkit out. So before I promise change, before I bring shifts to people's diets and their lifestyles, I say, let's get that toolkit ready so that when you actually create that vision of the future that you're walking towards, you have all the tools that you need to give up a past life.
- [73:11]
Dan Harris
Super helpful. Is this why you recommend minimizing cold beverages?
- [73:16]
Nidhi Pandya
Yes. Yes. It's like a refrigeration in your gut. We know all these poor acids and enzymes, they're all warm, and they're trying to, like, metabolize and digest everything that we eat. And we say, hey, let's just, like, let's just play a little havoc inside and let's put a cold beverage in there. It's like a cold rain, like in the middle of harvest season. And it slows down metabolism. And you do it once in a while. It doesn't hurt. But if you do it, it's. If it's not warm, how it's going to transform. Why do you want to. Why would you want to refrigerate your gut systematically and periodically?
- [73:49]
Dan Harris
So it's not uncommon for me to, like, grab a sparkling water out of the fridge. It sounds like you're saying, actually, just drink some tap water instead. Yeah, yeah.
- [74:00]
Nidhi Pandya
And I'm not saying do it tomorrow, right, Dan? But I. I mean, I'm not telling you to do it tomorrow. Not telling anybody who's listening to this. Do it tomorrow. But I'm just saying bring curiosity to this. And then maybe one day you feel curious enough and you feel like, I might want to try this. This might have logic, or just open your mind to think, what did traditional culture say? Or, like, how new is refrigeration for us? It's like, not even that old. Like, refrigeration only came into our homes, like, 70 years ago. And what else happened that time? Oh, my God. Guess what? Chronic disease happened that time. Metabolic disorders began that time. And I'm not saying just refrigeration cost it. There are many things altogether that came into that whole era where modernization of our lifestyle and consumption happened. But it's worth seeing, even for three weeks, what that does to your body. In fact, sooner than that, people will Tell me how different they feel.
- [74:42]
Dan Harris
Another thing you recommend is to regulate water consumption. What, what does that mean specifically?
- [74:49]
Nidhi Pandya
So we've become obsessed with water and we think that, we think that we drink water and all our cells start blooming with hydration like they're little flowers, right? Like people have this visual, oh, I'm going to drink water and all my cells are going to plump up and I'm gonna have this garden of cells inside me that are all plumpy. That's really not true. Water goes through our stomach, goes into our small intestine, through the process of osmosis, makes it wherever it makes it. I mean it is such a long drawn process. And you're drinking when people are drinking crazy amounts of water and they're just, all they're doing is urinating, putting that load because the water does not even have time at that point, even though osmosis doesn't happen, it's an emergency exit to the bathroom. So this is like the first time we've given this important. And I understand why water became so important, right? Because as Americans we just stopped drinking water. It was like no longer a thing. We were drinking beverages the entire time. And we were in this crazy place when industrialization just happened. So we now we said, hey, let's wake up and drink water. But like everything else, we like to go overboard. We said, let's just drink five liters of water. And that can be very harmful for the body because it firstly compromises digestion. The right, your digestive enzymes are all out and they're creating a certain environment. They don't want a monsoon in there. I, trust me, I grew up in India. Monsoon means like everything, everything goes to waste. All flora and fauna, what was growing is not growing as well. So the microbiome starts to get affected when you drink excessive amounts of water. And I've seen this with my clients who've got candida and parasite and parasitic infections, but also there's a load on your kidney. All I'm saying is when you actually drink water more, of course in the first half of the day till 4pm and you drink tooth first and sip by sip and you keep it warmer or you keep it infused with either mint and when you bring water into your soups and other foods, you know, more like semi solid foods, they get absorbed better because if you get hydrated through osmosis, then you want salt in your food, then you, then you want to do it through salt as well. And that osmosis happens when you're eating like I rather will talk about eating semi solid foods as much as you can. And one of the reasons is that you're gonna take all the water from that food and you're gonna use it in your body. So you drink water, tooth thirst, you'll end up drinking more in the summers, less in the winters, more in the daytime, less in the evening time. No prescription is needed. You gotta keep it natural for you. But don't deliberately go and guzzle down liters of water because you think it is a prescription.
- [77:18]
Dan Harris
So I, when I wake up, I drink about a liter of water before I work out and usually it's just right out of the tap. What do you think of that? And you mentioned something about putting mint in it or something.
- [77:32]
Nidhi Pandya
I said mint because mint is the easiest. But the minute you put something in your water, you kind of give it a task to do. You slow down like your body says, hey, hey, hey, what's coming in? Let's start processing it differently. You know, you give it an address almost. So depending on what's happening in the body. Like one thing that I would recommend and I would just tell people, you try it like Dan, I would ask you to just try it if you were ever curious to try it for 10 days or a week, is to take warmer water in the morning, throw in a few pinches of dried ginger if the first thing in the morning. That's what I would recommend to pretty much almost anybody. And I rarely give universal tips, but this is one of those things that almost everybody can do, is put a few pinches of ginger powder, not fresh ginger, ginger powder, great antioxidant, really starts breaking down the slime in your body starts firing up that digestion. And just about one cup is enough in the morning time because your agni, your digestive fire is just waking up. You don't want to give it rainfall early in the morning. You want to give it something that's going to support, support the waking up of the digestive juices. And excessive water slows it down. And I tell people, try this for yourself. Don't believe me, you try it for yourself. Works for you, great. Doesn't work for you, move on. But it's worth trying. I'm not asking you to do anything that clearly doesn't sound dangerous for the system. So it's worth giving it a shot. Almost everybody I know has felt a remarkable difference.
- [79:04]
Dan Harris
Couple other super practical questions before I let you go. You mentioned fermented foods. Are you talking about things like kimchi or pickles?
- [79:10]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah, but you don't overdo the fermented foods, right? Like every culture had some level of fermented food before they sat to eat, right? Sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, just a little bit, a little fire starter. Because it's like, it's as warm and moist as it can get. It's like the first, it's like putting the matchstick on. You don't want to put your gut on fire. So you don't want to do all fermented foods. But just like our ancestors did, you want to go back to that little wetting of the fire, that little stimulation of your appetite and the metabolic environment using some of those fermented foods. And there is place occasionally for more fermented foods, like a sourdough bread for example. But as religiously, if you want to do something before every meal, it's just a little bit of a side fermented food.
- [79:57]
Dan Harris
You also talk about adjusting shower water temperature.
- [80:01]
Nidhi Pandya
Luckily modern day dermatologists, cosmetologists, skin doctors will tell you this, that so shower water, you don't want to take very hot showers because it affects your skin barrier, but it also plays havoc with your blood pressure. And actually even, even like inter Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, your body has to thermoregulate very differently when you're using very, very hot water. And as a result it can compromise the thermoregulation mechanism of your own body. But warm water is just fine. Warm to like slightly warmer in colder months is just fine. So the prescription is to avoid really, really hot water and the shower temperature. Heart and above. You know, just as you would go into a jacuzzi, you would keep like your heart out of the pool. You definitely don't want to use very hot water. Heart and above again for the blood pressure.
- [80:51]
Dan Harris
So then where are you on saunas?
- [80:54]
Nidhi Pandya
So if it's a steam, Ayurveda is actually big on steaming, which is wet sauna, which is not a dry sauna. And a wet sauna like a wet steam. We have steam tents, but the head is out, the head is not inside the steam tent. Like they look like little cute. They actually look like coffins with your head out of it. Sometimes they're wooden. These days they're like more synthetic materials. So steaming is great for the body because it kind of starts opening up the pores and allows toxins to start moving out of your body. Saunas are slightly questionable. I can see why when we look at performance, why saunas temporarily close up your pores, really start activity Inside metabolic activity inside your body, your cells become active because now everything is shut down and the heat is retained inside. I would say long term, in my ayurvedic viewpoint and lens and understanding, it is not something that I would recommend long term to any of my clients, especially female clients.
- [81:57]
Dan Harris
Let's close on this. I want to give you a chance to preach a little bit here because this is, this is the stuff where I really, I have strong and similar feelings. You talk about radical acceptance and gratitude. It's kind of like where you close on this in, in your 21 day plan that you talk about in, in the book. And I think that's a really nice countermeasure against a lot of what you described earlier, which is this kind of over optimization, this mirthless militaristic approach that we take to our own bodies. Can you just hold forth on, on this notion of radical acceptance and gratitude as we wind down here?
- [82:35]
Nidhi Pandya
Yeah. So in this modern day, right today, a lot of our wellness, or the lack of it, is psychosomatic. We become obsessed with our 3D bodies and our physical well being. We've forgotten what our thoughts, our nervous system and the biochemicals that kind of arise as a result can do for us. Radical acceptance and gratitude. And I'm just going to say, even just scientifically, right when you're in the state of gratitude, your body is completely relaxed. When you look at the spiritual world or your electromagnetic field, it's completely, it's expanded. And in that state, wellness is only a side effect. I always like to use the example of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. Charlie Munger, one of the greatest investors of our time, Berkshire Hathaway, died last, you know, maybe a couple of years ago at 99. Dan the worst lifestyle, right? Warren Buffett sits and drinks such big bottles at his annual general meeting. He's drinking Coke and eating burgers and he eats from McDonald's all the time. He's 94 years old. He's sharper than anybody else. But because he's in this state of complete acceptance, he is in flow. He loves what he does. He lives the life that he loves. He makes the choices that he loves. You can tell from the way he talks that he's in the present moment and he has radical acceptance for his life. And in that state, wellness just happens. When people come to me, I tell them, if you cannot do it through your mind, you do it through your body. But if you can do it through your mind, you don't even need me because you can eat three, four, five times a day. But every thought has a corresponding chemical reaction in the body. It's only a matter of time that that biochemistry is gonna change your biology and radical acceptance of what you're unable to shift. And gratitude for how far life has got each one of us the ability to live in this modern day and time to live in a time where we're actually talking about healing and we're talking about traumas and we're talking about not passing on to our children what we received from our generations of wounds. I mean, I think that by itself is such a great thing, great time to be born in that we can have this dialogue. And if we can stay in that state, you're more connected to the intelligence of nature. And it's only a matter of time when wellness will begin to show up in your life.
- [85:11]
Dan Harris
This has been super interesting for me. Introduction to Ayurveda. And I really appreciate your time. Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the name of your book? Book and anything else you've made or produced or created that we should know about.
- [85:23]
Nidhi Pandya
Thank you for asking, Diane. So the name of my book is your body already knows. And it just gives you a systematic 21 day, step by step guide to start living like this and creating your own toolkit and being able to witness some of the changes that come when you start living in awe and wonder and bringing Ayurvedic principles. So that's my book. I have a practice where I work with people. I teach a ton. I have a lot of courses on my website, which is nidhipandya.com, my first name, last name.com. i post a ton on Instagram, my underscore Ayurvedic underscore life. You just look up my name. You don't need to remember the handle. But yeah, I'm always teaching, I'm always writing, I am speaking, I have a practice and I work with clients one on one for a period of six months.
- [86:14]
Dan Harris
Nidhi Pandya, thank you very much for your time.
- [86:17]
Nidhi Pandya
Thank you so, so much for having me. Dan.
- [86:20]
Dan Harris
Pleasure. Thanks again to Nidhi Pandya. Great to talk to her and learn more about Ayurveda, a subject on which I was deeply ignorant until now. Don't forget to check out our new app 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up@danharris.com. there's a guided meditation that dropped on the app today that was tailored to everything we just talked about on the podcast that comes from our teacher of the month, Bart Van Melich, and it's called what listen to your body actually means. As I said at the top of the show, this meditation is designed to take you past the cliche of listening to your body to the deep wisdom embedded in that phrase. Finally, a big thank you to everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our Managing producer, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our Executive producer, and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.