Inspired with Nika Lawrie

Heal Your Body And Live Longer Through The Ayurvedic Practice with Sharon Niemi

• Nika Lawrie, Sharon Niemi • Season 2022 • Episode 27

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Sharon Niemi is an expert in Ayurvedic Medicine and has been a Practitioner and Health Coach for over 15 years. Her private practice, Your Way Wellness, specializes in permanent solutions to weight, aging, and other women's health concerns by fixing the root cause. 

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Nika Lawrie:

Hey and welcome to the show. I have a wonderful guest today that I'm super excited for you to meet, because she's going to talk about something that I think is really unique and doesn't get enough attention, especially in the kind of Americanized medical world, but it's really respected in other places in the world as well, and so I'm excited to have her on the show. So, Sharon Namy, she is an expert in Ayurvedic medicine and has been a practitioner and health coach for over 15 years. Her private practice, your Way Wellness, also specializes in permanent solutions to weight, aging and other women's health concerns by fixing something that is so important the actual root cause. So, Sharon, welcome to the show. I'm so grateful to have you. Root cause.

Sharon Niemi:

So, sharon, welcome to the show. I'm so grateful to have you. Hey, nika, thank you for having me.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so for those who aren't familiar, can you give a little bit of a background on Ayurvedic medicine and really the significant role it's played in sort of the alternative health world?

Sharon Niemi:

Sure, sure, ayurveda is an ancient practice, and I use the term ancient because it was first brought into discovery about 5,000 years ago on the Silk Road. But it is far from not being applicable to modern day issues and health concerns that we're dealing with Absolutely, because there are eight branches in Ayurveda there is a surgical branch, there's a pediatrics, there's psychology. There's different branches. The one that I specialized in was Panchakama and Rasayana, which is the cleaning and rejuvenative aspect of Ayurveda, which is keep the healthy and strong and then deal with disease if it manifests.

Sharon Niemi:

So Ayurveda is based on, if you're familiar with Chinese medicine, that was formed out of the Ayurvedic principles of five Mahabuddhas, or major elements of ether, air, fire, water and earth, and we and everything else around us are comprised of those five elements. So health is achieved, according to Ayurveda, when there is a balance of the elements in the body and mind, of the elements in the body and mind. So it's a very proactive approach to keeping yourself healthy, where our modern Western practices today I call them sick care. Even though we do have diagnostic tools to find things early, it's still finding things once they're manifest and I don't discount those because your annual physicals and checkups they're just so vitally important. But the premise is is get yourself in balance and health will naturally flow to you.

Nika Lawrie:

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a big believer in that as well. I think it's so often that we are not fully taking responsibility for our own health. We kind of wait for the doctors to tell us what to do or, you know, if something arises, then we deal with it, instead of being, you know, in that proactive mindset of really taking the steps necessary now in order to keep our body healthy and functioning for long term.

Sharon Niemi:

According to Ayurveda, the body can sustain life for 120 years, and that's if it's maintained correctly. So the longer you can keep your body in balance. Healthy longevity being I mean. Ayurveda looks at elderly as being our wisdom years, and we should. It doesn't matter. We're evolving, we're not growing old. So Ayurveda believes that health and vitality, you're capable of it until the day you leave this earth Right. So that's the whole premise of looking at it from a longevity perspective not just how long can you live, but how healthy and vibrant can you be during your lifetime.

Nika Lawrie:

Absolutely. I always give myself the goal of 105. Anything past that is a bonus, but that's my goal, at least 105. And when I say that it's that vibrant, strong and healthy, you know, you know the mind still functioning clearly, and so yeah so I think yeah, and there's.

Sharon Niemi:

There's no reason that that's not available to everybody. Health is innate in us, it's innate, and so we just need to give the body a chance to live in homeostasis.

Nika Lawrie:

I love that. So you also, like you mentioned earlier, kind of specialize in looking at environmental toxins and really helping to clear out our systems. Can you talk about how you sort of navigate that using Ayurvedic medicine and kind of the broader picture there?

Sharon Niemi:

Sure, we're just exposed to so many environmental hazards the toxins and chemicals and the plast, I mean everything. You just can't avoid everything. So, ayurveda, what I do, my approach, is I look at, so I'm going back to the toxins and if the body isn't functioning correctly, the toxins are just going to continue to build and get stored. Yeah, so the whole premise is do the best that you can to eliminate the exposure to toxins and chemicals and that's everything the food, what you inhale, what you touch, all your senses. Look at your toxin input and do what you can to decrease that. That's number one, absolutely. Second is how well your body is able to process or rid itself of the toxins that it's being exposed to. So how well processing is your system to go? Oh, I don't need this, let's move it out of here. So that's the second important factor.

Sharon Niemi:

The third, which I think is one that is so often not considered, is our channels of elimination. Are they open and functioning so that what it doesn't need is able to get out? So most people look at the urines in the bowel, but there's sweat, there's our vocal release. There's so many things that we don't consider as a channel of elimination in Western practice where, in Ayurveda, every layer of tissue we're made up of seven layers has an input and an output channel. So we look at it from flow, from beginning to end what's coming in to what's going out and how is it processing through the tissues? If your body's functioning and optimized, toxins will naturally be expelled, and that's what we're after to maintain health and balance.

Nika Lawrie:

I love that. I mean, I really I absolutely agree with you that I think it's overlooked a lot, because you think about even you know, if you're stressed out and anxious, even just taking deep breaths and exhaling exhaling sometimes releases those emotions, that anxiety that you feel and thinking about. You know it's not just the toxins in the sense that we are eliminating through urine and feces, but it really is a whole encompassing series of events that can happen. And I agree I mean I'm rambling here a bit but I I really think it's something that people don't take enough time to consider and I think they don't listen to their bodies enough to realize how they can eliminate all these, these things that they may be struggling with Absolutely.

Sharon Niemi:

So you also talked about, um Absolutely.

Nika Lawrie:

So you also talked about you know I'm a big proponent of trying to eat whole natural foods. I tend to lean organic for the most part not 100%, but for the most part I tend to lean towards organic food and I still have clients come to me or people in the community that I hear from that say that even when they've done that, they still have digestive issues or they feel discomfort. No-transcript.

Sharon Niemi:

Yes, this was one of the issues that I was dealing with when I started my discovery and use of Ayurvedic principles. Their Western practices were telling me it's aging, it's normal aging, right, and families telling me it's my genes, so it's in your genes, so deal with it. So, but I was the same. I was eating whole natural foods. I was thinking that what I was putting in was really good for my body.

Sharon Niemi:

But I was still dealing with severe digestive distress. And as I began studying and digging deeper into it, what I found was the major cause of that is well, there's two. One could be their stagnation somewhere along the digestive track, so it's not functioning in an optimized state, and the second is malabsorption that you haven't done enough to maintain the digestive tract so that the villi in the intestines are clean and clear, so that, as the nutrients, once they've been broken down, can be picked up and moved out to the body where it is required to do its job, to give you energy or to rebuild itself. So if the body's not able to absorb those nutrients, they just stagnate in the digestive tract and cause major concerns.

Nika Lawrie:

This is a big issue that you see a lot of times with people who have celiac disease or undiagnosed celiac disease too is that you know they may be eating perfectly healthy, but then their villi have been damaged from the gluten and they're not absorbing any nutrients anymore, and you know it can be completely devastating for a lot of people. And so it's it's such an important thing to kind of bring light to.

Sharon Niemi:

Mm-hmm. And then, in addition to that, in Ayurveda we look at things in the aspect of three doshas vata, pitta and kapha and each one of those doshas has a prominence, dominance, prominence and dominance in the body. They're responsible for certain organs in the body, just like Chinese medicine. So vata is the seat, the intestines are the seat of vata, so your ether and your air. So even if you're consuming a really good diet and your ether and air is out of whack, you think of the qualities of that Gas bloating, dryness, constipation so vata gets out of balance.

Sharon Niemi:

When you're anxious, you feel fearful, you're nervous, you're not paying any attention to rejuvenating and calming your body after a stressful day. On a regular basis can oftentimes be the only thing you need to do. That allows vata in your intestines to settle down. Or if you're angry all the time, that's pitta, that's heat and the stomach area is the seat of pitta. So if you're always on edge and ready to jump and you know, fight for your cause, or whatever, if you just take the time to settle that down and be calm before you eat and look at how you're eating, then that in itself could be a cure to digestive issues that you're having.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, you know, when I was in school as a functional nutrition counselor, one of the things that they really drove home with us was slowing down when you eat, making sure that you're actually processing those foods, mostly because digestion really starts in the mouth and kind of goes down from there. But being part of that was to actually just kind of savor the food and kind of calm your mind and really give yourself a moment to really appreciate nourishing your body and breathing in the scents and the smells and kind of releasing that anxiety that comes around mealtime. People are always rushing and going and so slowing down a little bit and it makes a huge difference when you invest a little bit of time into that. So slowing down a little bit.

Sharon Niemi:

It makes a huge difference when you invest a little bit of time into that. What's important is that if you are eating in a way that you're stressed, so you're watching something or you're driving, the body thinks it's in survival. When the body thinks it's in survival, it can't do anything else but survive. So how the heck is it going to digest the food that it put in? So the point is to give your body the environment and give it the situation these this is our actions so that it's able to do its job most efficiently. So knowing what your body needs and giving it to it will just really help de-age you and improve your health, for sure.

Nika Lawrie:

Absolutely. So kind of building off of that a little bit can we also talk about? You know, a lot of people have a hard time going to sleep and they they feel anxious. And I know I used to struggle where I wasn't aware of it at the time, but I actually had a hormonal issue where my cortisol would spike in the evenings and it would be really low in the mornings, which caused the whole host of issues. And so how can we use, you know, our intuition and kind of listening to our body in that sense to help us have a better night's sleep?

Sharon Niemi:

Yeah, ayurveda is prescriptive in the sense of look at the rhythms of the day.

Sharon Niemi:

And Ayurveda looks at the times of the day in aspect to the doshas. So certain times of the day there are prominences, there's a dominance of elements that are going on. So from 6 to 10 in the morning and at evening kapha is at play. So that's the time where there's a lot of grounding and heaviness and denseness to our world. So from 10 to 2 am and pm is pitta time, so there's a lot of heat and fire and transformation going on morning and day and night during that time. And two to six am and pm there's a lot of vata going on, so there's a lot of ether and air dominance. And that's when there's creativity and just wanting to do and to just make things. So it's really the time of creativity. So if you look at sleep, you want to start sleep when the denser, heavier elements are dominant. So you work with the elements. So, if you can, Ayurveda suggests that being in bed before 10 o'clock, being sorry asleep before 10 o'clock, will aid you. The denseness of that time will aid you in helping you to fall asleep.

Sharon Niemi:

Okay, so if you go past 10 o'clock, because I have a lot of clients that say I just can't get to sleep, it's like, well, what time do you? What time do you try to get to sleep? And it's like 11, you know, 11, 12. Well, that's pitta time. That's the time when you want to be transforming. The brain is moving it during the day and at night the body wants to do its cleanup act. So you have a harder time getting to sleep in pitta time and on the opposite end of it, waking up, you would want to wake up before kapha time hits at six o'clock, because then the denseness sets in again and you're going to find it harder to wake up. So in the aspect of sleeping, the Ayurveda recommends and do what you can to ease into that state of relaxation so that before 10 o'clock kapha will be able to take over and ease you into a good night's sleep.

Nika Lawrie:

Right. So you really kind of emphasize the importance of daily routine, but I know there's also a seasonal routine that kind of plays into that or seasonality. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Sharon Niemi:

Yes, so seasonality also has its dominant doshas. So the fall and winter season we have vata dominance. So ether and air. So it, in most areas of the world, our winter months are our shorter months. So you think that ether air would make it harder for us to fall asleep, because that's the time our brain wants to be up and active and working and creating. But, excuse me, so the the point for that season then is to follow the shortness of the day and the rhythms of the sun, the times of kapha, when there's denseness and moist and cold and dense. That's when we tend to want to hibernate and that, you know, that's that's not really what you need in the spring, because that's kapha season, in that wet, moist, cool seasons, rhythms into your day and staying with the 6 am awake and still getting to bed, staying up late enough. We find it harder to stay up later during that time, but try to stay up later than you usually do.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so for listeners that want to connect with you and learn more about this practice and get involved, how can they reach out?

Sharon Niemi:

to you. How can they reach you online? You'll find ways to contact me there, as well as a lot of free things that you can dive into to learn a little bit more about Ayurveda, as well as schedule time with me, if you get that far.

Nika Lawrie:

Perfect, thank you. So before we go, sharon, first I want to just acknowledge the work you're doing. I think it's so important and I think this practice has you know it's worked to heal so many people, and so I just want to acknowledge you for that. I think it's powerful and thank you for the work you're doing.

Sharon Niemi:

I just think so many have not heard about Ayurveda and so many can benefit from it. So you know, I left corporate America four years ago and have spent the last four years just bringing the voice of Ayurveda to women who were struggling like I was and didn't know where to turn. And yeah, it's been a great four years focused just on doing that.

Nika Lawrie:

That's fantastic and it's sad. It's unfortunate that that story is so common. I relate to that absolutely. As I was struggling with health issues, I went to Western Medicine and they dismissed me and sent me home and sent me on my way and didn't fix anything, and so I too went on my own journey to heal my body, and that's what's led me to where I am today to help others. And so it's inspiring that so many of us have been kind of seen the light and want to help others. But it's heartbreaking that so many of us are dismissed by not necessarily just Western medicine, but it tends to be kind of that area. So it's disheartening.

Sharon Niemi:

Yeah, the sad thing is is when I was getting better, when I was getting better and I went to my healthcare practitioner, they never said what did you, what? What are you doing? Yeah, they just said, okay, keep doing what you're doing, Let me know if you need my help, you know, and it's like what help?

Nika Lawrie:

what you're doing. Let me know if you need my help. You know, and it's like what help? Yeah, exactly what help? Yeah, yeah. So, sharon, before we go today, I have a couple lightning round questions for you. So just quick answers top of the mind, the next four questions Are you ready? Do my best, okay. What is the most impactful book you've ever read, and why?

Sharon Niemi:

The Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda. It is what set my spiritual journey to where it is today. I'm a Kriyaban for now 15 years and on a mission of self-realization.

Nika Lawrie:

Oh, I love it. I haven't read it, but I've heard a bit, so I will definitely have to look into it more. So next question is what is your best tip for living a toxin-free life?

Sharon Niemi:

Best tip? I would inventory. The best tip is inventory to make sure that there aren't any hidden toxins. And the one is that we don't often think about is our electromagnetic frequency exposure, our electromagnetic frequency exposure. So I make it a point every week to put my electronics down and away for at least 24 hours once a week. And you know, I think that's one area that we don't pay enough attention to.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I agree. I think it is underrepresented or under-focused on. If that makes sense, I definitely agree.

Sharon Niemi:

And just a quick natural tip is find some river rock and put it around your electronics and that's supposed to diffuse the EMFs.

Nika Lawrie:

I hadn't heard that one before. Interesting. So what is your best tip for living an eco-friendly life?

Sharon Niemi:

Use as much. Non well, let me see, Use as much glass. Get rid of the plastic. That's it, I guess Get rid of the plastic.

Nika Lawrie:

I am a diehard glass fan. I try not to have any plastic anything in my house. I totally agree with you.

Sharon Niemi:

I'm like it can't be that easy and I'm like, yes, it is.

Nika Lawrie:

It is yeah, yeah, okay. So, sharon, the very last question for you what does it mean to live a conscious life to you?

Sharon Niemi:

Live a conscious life is to be aware of of my emotional footprint, to be aware of the impact that I have on this earth and the people around me, and um having the willpower and the awareness to change.

Nika Lawrie:

Love that. Yeah, yeah, it's so important and we so often don't think about the impacts we have on others. And it's so important, yeah Well, sharon, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so grateful to have you and I look forward to connecting with you in the future.

Sharon Niemi:

Thank you for having me. It was such a pleasure.

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