Wellness and Wealth
Wellness and Wealth
Holistic Harmony: Exploring Ayurveda Wellness for Mind & Body with Gauri Jannarkar
Episode Title: Holistic Harmony: Exploring Ayurveda Wellness for Mind & Body with Gauri Jannarkar
In this enlightening episode of "Wellness and Wealth," host Wendy Manganaro welcomes Gauri Jannarkar, a renowned Ayurveda and wellness expert, to explore the profound connection between mind and body through the ancient practice of Ayurveda. Gauri, the founder of Ayurnutrition, shares her journey from growing up with Ayurveda in India to becoming an international keynote speaker and author.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- The holistic approach of Ayurveda, focusing on personalized nutrition, lifestyle, stress management, and gut health.
- The significance of dosha types and how they influence your wellness journey.
- The healing power of turmeric and insights from Gauri's research on curcumin's effects on melanoma.
- Warning signs that indicate a need for Ayurvedic wellness, especially during life transitions like menopause.
- Practical tips for integrating Ayurveda into a busy lifestyle.
- How to access a free eBook with five simple lifestyle changes.
Tune in to uncover how Ayurveda can transform your health and wellness journey, and take the first step towards a balanced and nourishing life.
Connect with Wendy Manganaro:
Hi everyone, this is Wendy Manganiello of Wellness and Wealth. Welcome back to another episode. Today, our topic is Ayurveda wellness for mind and body. I'm here with Gari and I'm going to read her bio and then we'll get right into it. Gari is an author, international keynote speaker, nutrition, ayurveda and wellness expert. She is the founder director of Ayur Nutrition, an integrative practice combining the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda with modern nutrition.
Speaker 1:Gauri is a classically trained Vajra pancha karma specialist and has more than 20 plus years in the field of Ayurveda. She earned an Ayurvedic medicine degree from the University of Mumbai. She also holds a master of science degree in nutrition from Texas Women's University. She's a dedicated nutrition professional with 16 plus years experience as a registered dietitian nutritionist and 13 plus years experience as a certified diabetes educator. Her background in Ayurveda inspired her to do her master's thesis research on dietary curcumin, chemical and turmeric and its effect in melanoma skin cancer, which was selected at the National Conference on Experimental Biology Under Diet and Cancer and at the Texas Dietetic Association Conference.
Speaker 1:She has co-authored two books A Primer on Ayurveda, a Practical Guide, and Ayurveda and Yoga A Path to Health and Healing, now published on Amazon. She has co-authored an e-course primer on Ayurvedic nutrition designed for dietitians, nutritionists and healthcare professionals. She's the host of the wellness show Wellness Bites with Gary on YouTube as a podcast. She is a highly acclaimed speaker and has presented an international local conference on Ayurveda and nutrition to physicians, dietitians and healthcare professionals. Gary believes that mind and body have a profound effect on each other. She loves to educate people in choosing the right food and lifestyle tools using.
Speaker 1:Ayurveda and nutrition to nourish the body and mind, to create a positive impact on health and wellness.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show Thanks for being with me today. Thank you so much, Wendy, and thank you so much for this opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this because I worked with somebody who does Ayurvedic yoga retreats in Mexico, so it's really nice to have somebody on the show to talk about this. For those who don't know what is Ayurveda wellness, because there are many people who think about the yoga practice of it and don't know that it's more than just yoga.
Speaker 2:So when you think about Ayurveda and Ayurveda wellness, so Ayurveda, we can say, is a sister science of yoga and Ayurveda is a traditional system of feeling that was developed in India more than 5,000 years ago. And Ayurveda what it does? It focuses on the mind and the body connection. We can call it a holistic system. It focuses on a whole person approach with wellness at base. So not only we were focused on the nutrition part, which is diabetic nutrition, but also diabetic lifestyle, you know the gut health and also stress management.
Speaker 1:So there comes a very encompassing healing system and that's important because it's the mind and body, and I think that so many people focus on one or the other and forget that they have to put the components together, because then they don't understand why they still don't feel better. But because it's such an old holistic approach, can you delve a little bit more into what, what types of things are in that? Because I know that it's food and nutrition and there's a lot of little pieces as part of it Absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Ayurveda is a very personalized system of holistic healing. In Ayurveda, you believe that every person is born with a dosha type or a praptiti, we call it and every person's dosha type depends upon the three basic dosha, which is water, dhan and kapha. And in Ayurveda, the health, the diet, the lifestyle becomes personalized to every person's dosha type as well. So the main gist of Ayurveda is creating a balance with diet, with lifestyle, with stress management. Also, the different Ayurvedic therapies are introduced as part of the Ayurvedic wellness, which is a massage, and you have the Shigatana and different therapies that are made customized based on the person's body type and what the imbalance is. So the idea with Ayurveda wellness is to create a balance with all these different approaches together.
Speaker 1:So how did you start? Was this something you grew up with or was this something you started later? Create a balance with all these different approaches together. So how did you start? Was this something you grew up with or was this something you started later?
Speaker 2:I'd love to know your background, of why this became important to you. Sure, growing up in India, we grew up with Ayurveda. Ayurveda was a part of our food and diet. One incident that definitely triggered me was learning more about Ayurveda.
Speaker 2:I remember that I was helping my mom cutting vegetables, and in India what we do is every day we would go to the farmer's market and pick up fresh vegetables and then when we come home then we would cook with those fresh vegetables. So I was helping my mom with cutting those vegetables and I had a cut. So my mom said you know what, why don't you go and wash your hand and take just a dab of turmeric and just put it on the cut? And I was just wondering how would turmeric help in this place? So she said just trust me, put a dab of turmeric on the cut and after some time one of the things I found is it had stopped bleeding and after a couple of days that wound had completely healed. And I was in so much of awe as to how something as simple as turmeric, which is an everyday spice that we use in our food, that helped with the healing process and that prepared me into learning more about what is Ayurveda and what exactly it is and what does it have to offer.
Speaker 2:And then I got into getting my actual formal degree into Ayurvedic medicine from the University of Mumbai and started learning more about it. I was working as an Ayurvedic physician in India as well in one of the companies and things as well, managing and training, so I developed a lot into the actual Ayurvedic practice there as well. And then when I came back I was thinking about what can I do to bring that Ayurvedic knowledge to the people over here? And that's when, with my mind around nutrition, I started Ayurvedic nutrition, which is an integral practice with Ayurveda and nutrition.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating. I'm always looking at holistic health things when things happen. I always try to do that first, but I've never heard of turmeric. I want to take a moment and I want to delve into your bio, because my father passed away from melanoma. So I'd love for you to discuss a little bit about your research with that, because I don't think most people know how dangerous melanoma can be if it's not cared for, and it does lead to death. My father had gone to get something removed and they didn't completely remove it and so years later it it caught up to him, unfortunately. I don't think about people go get skin checks either, but that's just made a shit. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your research.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure. So this was a research I'd done during my master's studies and this was an animal study where we looked at a group of mice when this was fed with a diet which had turmeric and curcumin as the base. Now curcumin is a phytocamical in the turmeric which actually is what I call the most important ingredients in that. So these mice were fed this turmeric diet and they were induced with melanova to find out what was the condition before and after when they were fed the turmeric diet. What was the condition later? It was like a 28 or 30-day study and we found that they had some lac draws on these and with that data we were able to determine that with the diet which had the turmeric, the cumin and curcumin part of that, that actually helped with reducing some of the risk factors with the melanoma.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's fascinating, so I'd love to hear a little bit more about your client's perspective, how things have changed for them in terms of balance, mismanagement as well as the gut health, because in Ayurveda we believe we are what we digest, not just what we eat.
Speaker 2:But we go beyond and think about what we digest, because we know that if we are able to digest things correctly, we are able to absorb those nutrients correctly. As a result, we are able to make those tissues and hormones and enzymes in the body correctly. That means we are able to produce those building blocks that our body needs correctly. So everything changes on the part where that means our digestion needs to be correct. So what I've learned is that, overall, when we focus on four basic things one, definitely our diet. Second is our gut health. Third is our stress management and fourth is our lifestyle and sleep, and I find that when we focus on all these things again to the ayurvedic wellness, we're able to achieve a much better result.
Speaker 2:When it comes to ones, when persons can and that's what we focus on when it comes to our programs or even our consults it means is an as a whole, a personal approach. It's not just that you know nutrition is very important and diet comes first, because we need to know, through person, body and type, what particular food are more aligned with that person. Then you can think about what lifestyle is more aligned for that person, what is that imbalance and how we can bring that balance back. And then the gut health. And the last one is sleep. As I said, is that all these things we really have to focus, and when we think about a plan which actually focuses on all these things, only then we can think that a person can achieve better health.
Speaker 1:So for female entrepreneurs who are wondering is this something that could be useful for them? What are the warning signs that this could help, or what are the things that you see that people come to you and they're like I'm struggling with this.
Speaker 2:So some of the warning signs that I see a lot, especially for female entrepreneurs, because there's so much of stress involved right, and especially with us females. One of the things is we always give and give and give and we always keep ourselves at the back burner. So it's time for us to think about making ourselves as our number one priority and focusing on our health and wellness. So, for all the warning signs could be if you're noticing sudden weight gain or you're feeling that your gut is not functioning well, there's a lot of digestive issues, or, for example, there's issues with sleep and things as well, or there are issues with, let's say, for example, women's health, PCOS or thyroid and all these issues or hormonal imbalance. So any of these warning signs if we ask something for you to think about, what can we do to take a life, bring all our health and wellness back into balance, and that's where it actually helps a lot.
Speaker 1:I like that you said that there's a couple of things, because the other thing that I find is that women ignore all those warning signs and then they're like what's wrong with me? I was going to ask you if you see more people who are going through premenopause, because even for me I'm like what in the world is this non-sleeping thing? Suddenly, Do you see people during the times where the woman's body changes? Because I imagine that we would need this more, because all of a sudden notice such drastic changes in our body.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, especially in premenopause or even if a woman is going through menopause. There's so many changes happening. There are a lot of changes happening, especially with gain and things as well, a lot of fluid-based things. There's a lot of issues that can be changed in the hair or, for example, voice or times as well. So all these changes, definitely if a person is experiencing things, it's time to think about how we can add that eye without wellness as part of that coral complementary care as well.
Speaker 1:And I would love to know from you too, because I think that sometimes people hear about this and they're like is this going to be hard? Is it really hard to be? Not hard in the sense of of like it's changed to be hard. I get that, but it is the actual practice of learning how to cook differently, learning how to, because I think that's what people also get overwhelmed with, or women get overwhelmed with. They're like I am just barely getting you know my business done, dropping kids off at school and 500 games during the week. How am I going to add a healthier lifestyle into this?
Speaker 2:so I'd love to hear your experience of how that works so how it works with our either the programs that we have in place. What we do is that we know we work one-on-one with every person and we customize that program for every person's need. And not only are we focusing on the diet part, but we also want to. One of the things we're going to actually start including is actually either the cooking. So not only for the diet part, the consult part, but we also want to show how can you cook some of these simple recipes and you can improve the health of not only yourself but also their family as well.
Speaker 1:That makes sense, because I think that's where people get overwhelmed. They're like this is a nice idea, but how am I going to actually implement this? You know what I mean. I think that that's an important part of it.
Speaker 2:So I have a final question how can female entrepreneurs take the first steps into Ayurveda wellness, one of the things you can definitely do is get a batch with an Ayurveda practitioner who's very worse with you, know all the aspects, so you know when it comes, they understand what it means to be an entrepreneur and, again, understanding that, how things can be more customized, make it more personalized for every person. So, again, getting in touch with an Ayurvedic practitioner, they can get in touch with us as well and we do have a discovery call that they can actually book in and they can get in touch with us and we can talk more about what are the different things and what does the journey with Ayurveda wellness look like?
Speaker 1:And I'm sure during that you have many questions that you ask because that would be the best way to find what works for them. So I want to thank you for your time today. I know that you have an offer, so I'd love for you to tell everybody what your offer is, and I will have all the links in the show notes.
Speaker 2:So we do have an offer for an ebook which focuses on the five steps, on the lifestyle changes and how easily they can actually make a plan including five different steps and make a simple lifestyle plan for them, and it's a completely free ebook that they can get.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time today and thanks for sharing about this, because it is a beautiful lifestyle to integrate in. Thank you so much for your time today and thanks for sharing about this, because it is a beautiful lifestyle to integrate in. Thank you so much, wendy. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.
