SHE Asked Podcast

Responding to the Mental Health Crisis through an Ayurvedic Lens with Expert Rima Shah

• Anna McBride

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AYURVEDA FOR MENTAL HEALTH

In this episode of She Asked: Tools for Practical Hope, Anna McBride and Ayurvedic expert Rima Shah explore how Ayurveda helps us understand and heal the mind through balance, awareness, and daily ritual.

Together, they break down the three universal forces—Sattva (clarity and peace), Rajas (action and drive), and Tamas (inertia and heaviness)—and how these energies shape our thoughts, emotions, and mental health. They also explain the three mental subdoshas—Vata (movement and anxiety), Pitta (fire and focus), and Kapha (grounding and stability)—and how understanding them can help you restore emotional equilibrium.

You’ll also learn simple Ayurvedic tools for mental health you can start using today:
1️⃣ Abhyanga — self-massage with warm oil on the head, ears, and feet for calming the nervous system.
2️⃣ Meditation and Pranayama — especially Nadi Shodhana (Alternate Nostril Breathing) to balance solar and lunar energy.
3️⃣ Nasya (Nasal Oil) — to nourish the brain and open the subtle channels of clarity and breath.

NAYSA NASAL OIL - Use code RIMA10 at checkout

ABHYANGA OIL

MEDICATED GHEE - Use code RIMA10 at checkout 

RIMA SHAH
rimashahveda.com
IG: @rimashah.ayurveda

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome back to She Asks: Tools for Practical Hope. I'm your host, Anna McBride, and I'm so excited that you're here today. So, today, on this episode, I'm going to have a deeper conversation around Ayurveda and mental health. And I'm so excited that my good friend Rima Shaw is back with us today to help us appreciate the complexities around Ayurveda and how it can really help address this very real, very continuing and almost growing mental health crisis that we have going on today. So thanks for being here, Rima. So glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00:

So happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02:

Seven years ago, I had an interesting fall. Almost within months of each other, I lost my younger sister to the disease of alcoholism. And so I was experiencing great grief from that. And within a short period of time from there, my marriage of 36 years fell apart. And I realized that I was having panic attacks and anxiety through the roof. However, I was working with a therapist to address it, and she recommended that I go on medication to help with my anxiety. And I thought twice about it and knew enough from about myself that I didn't want to go on medication. I wanted to see if there were other ways in which I could address my mental health crisis. We had just been in India some months before, you and I, studying meditation and Ayurveda, and I knew that in some way, shape, or form Ayurveda was going to help me through. So I we you and I talked of quite a bit at that time relative to my situation, and I picked up certain practices, certain foods, ways to address it, which wasn't immediate, but over time helped me get back to a sense of calm, a sense of center, a sense of I'm gonna be okay. So as you listen to my story of grief, panic, and turning toward Ayurveda, what do you see happening in the mind-body system that from an Ayurvedic perspective?

SPEAKER_00:

I just want to say because your story is so profound in the sense that Anna, I was with you before all this happened. And I know the amount of balance that you've worked on in your life, and to just recognize that you can be really doing all the right things. And then when life throws you curveballs, you inevitably fall off the cliff. And just having compassion in that, just in the understanding that how much you take care of your life, there's going to be things that happen that make us fall down so we can re-evaluate again.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Thank you for pointing that out. That's right. I can forget that I'm human, right? And we all as humans, particularly those of us that that are in the mental health fields or in the practitioners of Ayurveda, really work to remain balanced or get centered. Yet you're right, at any moment, a life situation can happen that can knock us down. And it's good to know that something like Ayurveda can be there to help us. So, from an Ayurvedic perspective, what is the whole mind-body system going through when we're dealing with a mental health crisis?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so you know, also Ayurveda is mother medicine. So the reason why you felt compelled to turn to it is because it is divine mother medicine. It will always embrace us because of the way that it is so fully designed to look at your mind, body, and spirit. So when you're dealing with a mental imbalance or a crisis or stress that just throws the normalcy of your life out the window, we recognize in Ayurveda several things. First off, there's 14-16 channels to the body according to Ayurveda. And I say 14-16 because women have two extra channels than men. They have a lactation system and they also have a menstruation system, and they're also able to procreate. So women have two extra channels than men, but there's one channel that every human being has, and it's the channels of the mind. This is the only system of the body that has no physical location, and it's truly actually not recognized by Western science. Western science actually didn't know a lot about the brain, how we process emotions and trauma. And the reason why meditation study groups from Harvard and University of Mass General has received millions and millions of dollars of research is they actually started to learn a lot more of how about how the brain functions through meditation. So I want you to just take that in that Ayurveda thousands of years ago understood that there is an important channel of the body that has no physical location, but it permeates through the entire physical, subtle, and mental bodies.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Also, from a yogic perspective, because you and I both share so much of loving yogic wisdom, the yogis understood that we are higher brain individuals, but it creates the monkey mind. And if you leave the monkey mind just to be distracted or stimulated by life, it is said that it will run you into a ditch.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So a big process of our daily life, which we'll get into combining Ayurveda and yoga tools, is really understanding that daily we have to do things to calm that monkey mind. Because if we don't, the monkey mind creates stories that actually most of them are not true. And we believe those stories and we put energies into the stories, and we actually believe that our experience is that story. When truly that story is just outlining the worry, the fear, the anxiety, the rage, the anger that's underneath.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I think that relating back to my story, I definitely was having intrusive thoughts, obsessive, intrusive thoughts around the fear of death and the fear of the end of my marriage, and not really knowing who I was without having this relationship with my younger sister or even with my now ex-husband. And I was so grateful actually to have studied along with you a lot of practices, meditation being one of them, that helped me to interrupt that pattern of constant incessant thoughts, particularly the negative ones and the fear-based ones. Yeah. And so another question I'm thinking of is how does Ayurveda describe the mental or emotional imbalance, let's say anxiety, depression, burnout, for example, either through the go the doshas or the gunas or something?

SPEAKER_00:

What how would you so our last conversation and we highlighted the three doshas, vata, pitta, and katha. And out of those three doshas, each of those doshas have five sub-doshas. So there's 15 sub-doshas, five vata, five pitta, five katha. The beautiful thing about diving more into the doshas is we see more localized areas in the body where they function. And the mind has three mental subdoshas: a vata subdosha of the mind, which is prana, which is life force energy. It is the cha ching that gives us the energy every day. And when prana is balanced, we feel vitality number one, but we also feel creative, energetic. We feel like we are lighthearted, like we're not keeping a lot of heaviness in us. And when vata is imbalanced, that lends to the anxiety, worry, nervousness, fear. Pitta is called sadhaka pitta. And the seed of consciousness of sadhaka pitta resides in your heart. So all of these mental subdoshas actually exist in the brain. They're part of brain function, and we could actually talk about more of the scientific aspects of what they do, but I'm putting more of the emotional aspects right now. Pitta people have a tendency to just digest life and keep going. I'm just gonna chug through. But we say sadhaka pitta is the seed of consciousness that resides in the heart. It's really easy for pitta people to go through heartache and say, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm just gonna keep moving on. But you actually have to work really hard for that heart-mind connection because you can intellectualize your pain, but you actually have to open the consciousness within your heart.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh my gosh, that describes me to a T and how I survive a lot of things in life is that I just have pushed through or just told myself intellectually I'm okay. Yeah without feeling anything. And I think what I love about this practice practices or this idea or this concept is that it really does teach us that to soothe the mind, we have to go through the heart. We have to feel.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And pizza people, they're natural-born leaders, their CEOs, their motivational speakers, their teachers. And when you're imbalanced, that's when you feel all the fiery energy, which is anger, violence, irritation, irritability, frustration, ego. And kha, kaffa, when it is balanced, you have this deep contentment and you actually have a beautiful ability to withstand stress. And when it's imbalanced, you feel all that earth and water energy because it's an excess, and you feel lethargic and uninspired, depressed, and sad. So let me take that more to talking about the functions of the brain. Movement of thought. We are human beings, we have movement of thought. That's vata. We like movement of thought. It's the reason why so much innovation has happened, the progress and evolution of humans is so much of this movement of thought. Who would have ever thought that we could fly in these metal objects in the sky? That's prana. But then sadhapitta is the operating fire. That starts from the moment we're born because everything we learn in the development of our human existence must be brought into the neural pathways, and we organize and comprehend that information. So let's just take in that pitta is doing a lot of work for us from the moment that we're born. Like a baby who like their mother tells them, you look at this is a little box. You're organizing that thought. So never again do you ever have to look at that and learn it. It's already a part of you. So we call that the operational fire, the operating part of your brain. And then khaffa represents the myelin sheath. It represents this beautiful, lubricating, insulating layer that protects our brain from all the neurons firing because that's what our brain is doing. And it allows us to have good memory recall, to look back on our life and remember 40 years ago. And let me tell you, people are really you losing long-term memory because of overstimulation. So I just want to put that in perspective because I think when we start to talk about mental subdosis, people start to have that relationship of understanding the brain a little bit better through an Ayurvedic perspective.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it is it's important to understand that we are mind, body, and energy as well. The spiritual part is very much connected to all that. So another side of a mental health challenge has to do with seasonal changes.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So what does this why does the season matter when it comes to our mental health? And how does Ayurveda address that? I know we've been talking in previous conversations about fall and the winds and the Vata season, but let's talk a little bit about this thing called seasonal affect and what does Ayurveda have to say about that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is such a great question. Last time we talked about the change of the seasons and how it's very vulnerable. And when we look out in nature and it looks so vulnerable, we are susceptible to that vulnerability of imbalance. So we say that we want to balance the dosha before the season hits. For example, we are in vata season here in North America. So anyone that's entering a cold season, which really is all over the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere is flipped, so they're in a different season right now. But we're talking about the global north. And so this is a vata predominant season. We start thinking about pacifying vata in August. So we don't wait till the season comes and then all of a sudden we feel anxiety, and then we want to start to work on remedies. So I want us to keep that in mind that when we start to see these winds shift, when all of a sudden we're out there on a windy day and the wind is whipping us around, we want to remind ourselves, but it still could be like 75 degrees. We want to remind ourselves that we are trying to be on that bridge of bridging say pitta season, but also inviting vata season. So around August, you got to start thinking about having more cooked foods. You got to think about establishing routine, because a lot of times summertime lends to that carefree attitude. But then when we come into the season, routine is of utmost importance. So if you found that you're having this beautiful, carefree life and you're at the lake more or whatever, you start to realize you need to hone in because you don't want to be caught right in the middle of the season feeling these imbalances.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I was just down on a retreat in Mexico and I got into that vacation mindset. And when I came back, it was a bumpy transition to go from this quiet retreat, relaxation and the way the location was, to the loudness of the city, the sounds, the noises, and then, of course, the winds of this season that are coming in. It is really true. Like today, for example, it's extremely windy here in New York City. However, the temperatures are warm.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's also a contributing factor. Like seasonal affect can last a lot longer because we're not really having these changes that are obvious physically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And darkness is a huge thing. Part of Vata season for any place in the world is that it will be the darkest of the area that you are in. And for Anna, we're talking about we're leading into a time that it's going to get dark at 4:30. So a big part of Vata season is that cold, rough, hard, dry, and that also lends to more darkness. And that's a big thing with the seasonal affective disorders.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I want to really remind people that full spectrum lights, there's been a big shift to LED lights because they last longer, but LED lights are only white light. We need full spectrum light. So a big part also, I think, of like people really feeling the effects of winter season is how to feel okay in the darkness. And I think light sources are a good thing to look at. And the biggest thing, too, is no matter how where you live and how cold it is, getting yourself out first thing in the morning puts that sunlight into your cells and your cells start to activate. And in this season, where when many of us feel like those routines get very hard because it's cold out, it's really important to get the small amount of light that we can get, which is not much.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that is true. That's a really good point to begin the day with actual sun exposure.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Even if it's zero degrees up.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Before we move on to actual practices, I want to get your in your ideas on Ayurveda's point of view when it comes to the imbalances created by medication. Another side to therapy and how to deal with anxiety, for example, or depression is possibly a medical medicine-related therapies. Prescription drugs are on the rise to both address the anxiety and the depression that our people are experiencing. And I'm I mentioned that I did I chose not to do it. I know that there are people who where it's not really a choice. It's something that for them to have stability, they need. However, it can create imbalances in our system. So tell us a little bit or speak a little bit towards those imbalances and what how Ayurveda can help with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I and I shared with you too that many of my clients actually come to me because they are have been to doctors for a long time. They've been on a variety of drugs and they are living with side effects. So I feel like it definitely is a big aspect of people coming to an Ayurveda practice. Things that I've seen, just to let you know, some of these pharmaceutical drugs are stimulants. And so one thing that's actually been a big thing that I've seen in young people and older people, but young people are taking pharmaceuticals a lot because they're feeling the stress of school, is not being able to gain weight. Like they drop a lot of weight and they become very skinny, and then they have a hard time getting back to like their normal weight. That's been a big issue. Another thing is sleep, sleep disturbances. Like they might feel like, okay, I'm on this, but now my sleep is really messed up. And then also just like gut dryness issues, dry mouth, dry eyes, like your senses feel it a lot because a lot of these pharmaceuticals can dry out your body. So there's actually a wide variety of very common additional symptoms that come up. One thing that I just want to say to people, too, is that whatever you need to get out of crisis is totally what you should be doing. And I also am here to say to you that when you start to incorporate diet, lifestyle, and herbal remedies, I have seen many of my clients and I encourage them, go tell your doctor what you're doing with me. And I encourage that dialogue with their doctors. Many of my clients over 25 years have been able to reduce their pharmaceutical medication to very small doses. Very small. And then eventually a good number of them are fully off of it. But that's the change that I've seen working with people is that almost everyone I've worked at, they've worked with, they've been able to lower their doses.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's amazing. Yeah. To know that even after being on medication for quite a period of time, that there are parts of this Ayurveda practices that can just help you to cut back on your medication, which that enough it may make a huge difference in someone's mental health as well as their physical health. As you were telling that story, I so I have children, as I know you have a daughter, and one of them has been on ADHD medicine for quite some time. And that medicine at first, as you were describing, the weight loss that they experienced, and then my son went off of the medicine for a period of time, and his weight went back up, and it was difficult for him to rebalance his system. I, knowing enough through things that we've studied together, was able to help him gain some agency over this care, but mostly in terms of just handling thoughts and feelings and some food options. Yet I'm wondering when you're talking about, like, say, women of a certain age and we're getting to understand the changes that go on in our bodies when we get into menopause or perimenopause. What are some things that Ayurveda suggests? Because that has its own mental health changes that can go on. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

And I also want to bring up something really important that you said about talking about your son. 95% of serotonin is found in our gut. Ayurveda's known this for thousands of years. This whole like gut biology that's come out, thank goodness, in the last 15 years, but Ayurveda has always understood that your second brain is your gut. So 95% of serotonin. The reason I believe that people in the holistic field are successful with working with people is because we don't separate the body. If I'm treating somebody with mental challenges, I'm also treating their gut. I love that. That's really the important thing, which I feel like you have always advocated well for your son, too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that the sanotonin serotonin is such the relevance of that in your gut and the need for having gut health, which is an imbalance that's created, unfortunately, because of a lot of the pharmaceuticals.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Now, I want to shift a little bit here towards practices that we could be doing on a daily basis to help us get through a, let's say, a limited crisis, or just to relieve us, because we are at a time in society that there's so much uh worry, so much fear, so that has nothing to do with the fall season. It just is the climate of the world right now. And there's so much fear related to that. What are some things that you advocate and practice or suggest for your clients that are dealing with an added amount of anxiety because of what's going on in the world?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. So, first of all, we know that when we look at the world, we are seeing such a time in history that is causing people to really feel like they don't have any safety. So that's a huge collective emotion we are all feeling. We're sharing it worldwide. There's not a single country in the world that it has found a way to bypass the stress that just modern life is giving us. So I just want to recognize that. And because of that, we are very about to deranged society right now. And I use the word deranged because some of these Sanskrit words are actually hard to translate into English because the meaning is so poetic and there's not really a great English word. So don't think of deranged like deranged like crazy. Just think of it as like extreme imbalance. So we are all a very vata-deranged culture. We've been like this for a long time because we've built societies on production versus like balance between work and life and rest and play. And then to top it all off, the northern hemisphere is entering vata season. And that season already is a season that is going to bring up more anxiety and worry and fear and phobias. So balancing at this stage in 2025 is extremely important. One of the first things, like I said, is establishing routine. I cannot stress enough that if you eat at 12 one day and eat at four another day, how much you're going to feel it in your mind. So, first and foremost, and I know I'm I can be a broken record, you have to establish routine. So, whatever way that you need to do that, whether you join classes for accountability, whether you really commit to a journal entry where you're going to write down the things that you do, but you there has to be some kind of like real life practice to help you with routine, however that goes.

SPEAKER_02:

Or work with a coach to develop.

SPEAKER_00:

Or work with a coach, which I think is extremely important right now because there's too many thoughts for one person to almost be able to see and separate. So I think it's extremely important. Abyanga for this season, for anyone who's entering Vata season, I want us to just remind ourselves of this. Abyanga is considered loving hands. So when you're feeling anxiety and you're taking five to 15 minutes to spread warm oil on yourself, it's huge. If you don't have time for a full-body abyanga, the ancient Ayurvedic text said your head, your ears, and your feet. Wow. So maybe we could all start by getting a little bit of massaging your head. Yeah. And it's a secret that people in India have done for a long time. You know that when we go to when we were in India, you saw how many like oiled heads were around. And yeah, I think we just have to get into the practice of it because you can shower afterwards, but getting into the practice of oiling your head is so profoundly good for mental health.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's interesting. That was my takeaway from our trip in India and a practice that I continued. Even when I went on all those hikes, I used to take my oils with me and would oil my head, my ears, and my feet. Yes. And it's so calming. You're right. I'd almost forgotten about that today. And it's just a natural part of my daily practice. Absolutely. I don't fully appreciate just how much it can be contributing to.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And then the ears you could just take some oil and you can just I call it money. It's this kind of but going up and down your ears three times with oil is so good because the ears are extremely sensitive and cause a lot of issues to the mind. And then taking a little oil and just rubbing it a little bit on the inside of your ears, beautiful. And then also the feet. It's called Pada Abianga. Padda meaning feet, abianga meaning oil massage. It is the root, it's the root of who we are. So when we oil the roots, we are creating such a grounding foundation.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. I love that. Yeah. So abianga is really important for restoring the Ojas, right?

SPEAKER_00:

The Ojas and so good to the mind. Like I feel like when I tell clients or students and they come back to me and they've done it for three weeks, because we all know that 21 days is a good amount of time to establish a new routine, I always hear positive benefits.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It definitely takes a few weeks for things to settle into routine. I myself have found that, gosh, time can go by so quickly, but if I start my day with the things that I know are going to set my the best situation for my mental health for the day, it makes such a huge difference, regardless of the time of year or what's going on in life. I love that. Now let's talk a little bit about because we mentioned how you're working with clients that are having side effects from their medications.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What are the best practices or precautions for integrating herbs and therapies, Ayurvedic therapies alongside medication? Rule of thumb?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I I want people to remember that I do feel like we're in a time where people are getting a lot of information off the internet, and that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But I do recommend that it is so important to work one-on-one because if you work one-on-one with a coach, that coach is going to help you with very specific aspects that you need help with. And in Ayurveda, I we want to look at your unique constitution. Because when we do that, we know whether you need ashwagandha, because ashwagandha has become such a popular herb. All integrative doctors are using it and for patients. But ashwagandha is not the best choice for everybody. Sometimes Brahmi is. And ashwagandha and Brahmi, those two herbs are considered the two supreme herbs for the mind.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

One is hot, one is more cooling. So even right there, just making sure that you're aligning with your plant ally, that is best for your constitution. And so I do encourage. That you get that one-on-one or you seek the advice because then you can really truly know that you're using something that's actually probably going to be very beneficial to you.

SPEAKER_02:

There's not a one size fits all kind of solution, which I love that. And that's where having somebody with the training and passion about it that you have, I think, is really important. Just like they wouldn't go, I hope, to somebody who's not qualified to prescribe the medication that they were going on for their mental health-related stuff. It's the same thing with trying to restore balance when you are on medication, to be able to know that you need to be guided by someone who can help you navigate that safely. A lot of over-the-counter things now have everything mixed in it if they're dealing with herbs therapies. And that's where it can be a little tricky to navigate individually.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I also think that singular herbal use is also a good idea sometimes in the beginning, because combinations of herbs might not indicate whether it's working for you or not. So many times when I start to work with a client, I'm choosing a singular herb. I also want them to establish a relationship with the singular herb because instead of combining, instead of combining. Yeah, and eventually maybe we will combine because combinations, the beautiful thing about plants is that they love synergy with each other. They work better. Yeah. So eventually I love herbal combinations, but when somebody's starting, I think just a singular plant is a beautiful place to start because it starts to empower them to learn about what they're using. And these herbs I just brought up too. There's actually so many herbs for the mind in Ayurveda, and they've been used for thousands of years. But one thing, Anna, that I think is really great for your listeners to hear is many of these herbs come in the form of nasya. And nasya is herbalized nasal oil. Many times it's oil, and it's applied to the in into the nostrils. And Ayurveda clearly understood that the nose is a direct gateway to the brain. And when you're using herbal remedies in your nose and you're breathing it, and prana is taking it to the brain, it is known to have an immediate effect on your the your mind.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. So I love NASIA. And many winter website. Many Ayurveda, I would say almost all Ayurveda websites and stores that have a pretty complete product line, they're all going to sell NASIA. And I think it's a wonderful Ayurveda herbal medicine that's not really known by Western herbalists because it's not really part of their repertoire. They use more tinctures and things like that. NASA is extremely specific to Ayurveda. And I think it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm going to just adjust this for a second. I want to be able to so many people here in the West use what are they the neti pot. Neti pot. And I remember when we were there, we realized that there's it's over we don't just do it now and then, we do it all the time in the West, which throws that whole area of the body out of balance. Whereas the oil is sufficient in most regards, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_00:

Or it yeah, but some people, especially Kafa people who are going to be really congested, they probably do need to use it every day. The beauty is you can use netipot, and then right after neti pot is over, you can go ahead and apply nacea because it's also a great, it was also a great remedy also during the pandemic, because yeah we used herbalized antibiotic nasal oils. And I'm saying antibiotic because these herbs had antibacterial, antibiotic, antiviral properties is a great preventative during the pandemic, also. And we talked about it a lot in podcasts when we're talking about immunity of the planet. So for respiratory health, it's amazing, but also it's a direct gateway to the brain. Wow. It's amazing for the brain.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Okay. So since most of our listeners are women, yeah, what would you say is some of the most important things that women begin to incorporate as we're getting of a certain age in order to address the imbalances that naturally come along with the aging process?

SPEAKER_00:

I love your questions because again, women coming to a certain age, and I like to call it the rose hips, right? We're rose hips, no longer the fresh bud, we're not the beautiful bloomed flower.

SPEAKER_02:

Such a kind way of saying it.

SPEAKER_00:

We are this potent rose hip that remains after all the blooms have done its work and then we still have all this potency. So we're in this like stage of the rose hip stage, and we're entering vata season. We're entering the vata season of our lives. Come into the earth. And I think we talked about this last time. We're in the kha phase of our life because we're little 19-inch babies that have to grow into full grown humans. So we say zero to puberty is kafa time of life. Puberty to the end of your productive years is pitta. And then your productive years, which is retirement or your 60s or maybe 70, till your death, till you meet your maker, is your vata time of your life. So many people go through life and then all of a sudden they get to this transition of moving into high priestess cronehood and they experience things they've never experienced before. Because Vata time of life is going to make no matter if you're a Vata Pitta kaffe, you're going to be drier. It is inevitable because our body will slowly decay and we will become lighter and we will fade out more. So we are ready to transition into the next abode. Yes. So this transition is so extremely important to bring vata pacifying practices. It's also a time that our material world does not matter as much, and we are much more aligned with our spiritual world. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So we want to remind each other that this time in our life is for deep spiritual development.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a really good point. So when we're talking about Ayurvedic practices, not just the daily physical things that we're doing, like abhyanga, the oils, it's to also attend to our spirit. 100%. It's very common for people to start really considering those parts of themselves. But and that can also mean it can bring up a lot of fears around end of life and finding practices that will help ground. What are some other daily things that you would recommend in order to address not only that part of ours now? We're in the vata part of our life, but also ways to attend to those fears that may come up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is a time of high anxiety and fear because we are in the vata of our life. So it's extremely important to number one, have a spiritual practice. Number two, take those risks. Like maybe you always wanted to do the El Camino de Santiago. Maybe you wanted to take a pilgrimage in the Himalayas. Like you might think you're too old, but this is the perfect time, right? It's technically the perfect time. Leaning into that. But also, I think it's extremely important to have actually some herbal support. I I really do believe for moving into that phase. Starting in your late 40s, early 50s, or mid-40s, really honing into some good mental herbal support is really key.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So part of the daily practice. That could look like taking some medicated ghee. Like in Ayurveda, we really like to take herbs and infuse them in ghee. Because when you're 70, you're noticing your skin is wrinkling and you're drier and your brain is drier and you're not remembering things. So medicines like suspended in oil is such a good thing. So I love the use of ghee. I love the use of medicated ghee. And I would love to talk about some of those things in more detail or get some resources for people because these are, I know I'm introducing a lot of products that people have never heard of.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it would be great to have some of that information we can put in the links as a notes for this podcast. Because you're right, we could go on and on about that. What I would like to hear from you is why do you think Ayurveda is more essential now than ever, given what's going on politically, environmentally, socially?

SPEAKER_00:

So one thing that I didn't bring up, which I think is a good thing to mention again, is the three gunas, the three universal gunas. Guna is known to mean attribute or quality. And the one thing about Sanskrit is that a certain word like guna can be used in multiple ways. And I always tell students when you see a word used a lot and it has multiple meanings, that means it's a really important word. So gunas, we talk about the 20 attributes, and that makes up all the elements and all the physical matter of the world. But the three universal gunas are sattva, rajas, and tamas.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Sattva is holy pure energy. It's like that energy of like dewdrops on a rose petal first thing in the morning when the world is still quiet. Sattvik energy is staring out in the ocean and you feel like God's presence is there. Rajasic energy is very kinetic, strong, fiery energy. I actually think much of our modern society is Rajasic. We have these highways that are constantly moving. And like you talked about coming back to New York and the noise of New York. That's a very rajasic. And then tamasic energy is like the energy of darkness or inert. I like to say, I like to tell students, think of like mushrooms growing in a damp, dark forest floor because there's so much canopy that the sun isn't shining. We need all three of these universal energies. We actually need sattva, we need holy, pure energy. I don't know if humans know what to do if they didn't have some kind of relation or some kind of iconic figure that reminds you of that. Like it's really important for the human experience to know that there's holy and pure out there.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And then rajasic is that fieriness, and then that in someone's mind is really wanting to be productive, and it's all about producing. And that tamasic energy can lead to like lethargy or depression.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

You inherit the gunas from your parents.

SPEAKER_02:

So I like that's an interesting thing. The way you describe it is really great, and then also to be thinking that now my mind's going to okay, which of those did I get from my mother?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Or my father.

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's really important to think about that.

SPEAKER_02:

Because we are a combination of both of them, our parents, and the environment we grew up in. And if you were like me raised by an immigrant mother, there's certain qualities that come along with that. And then in my case, I both of my parents were suffering from a disease related to alcoholism, which created a lot of chaos and dysfunctional aspects in the home. And that's regassic, and that's rejostic energy. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So when you think about that, we did inherit those things. We get affected by the household environment. What do we do from an Ayurvedic perspective to address that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so we've got this, right? And like you're even saying right now, oh, I've just realized I'm inherited a lot of rejostic tendencies. So, number one, I want everyone to think about that because the tendencies of our mind, yeah, it's genetics, it's de it's in our DNA, but it's a good thing to recognize because a lot of our tendencies, we can see why we have them, because they're inherited from our parents and our genes. The whole world, though, has a lot of rajasic and tamasic energy. Tamas, tamas is not only like that inertness, that non-movement, it is ignorance.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And then rajas is this like anger, violence, division, yeah, judgment.

SPEAKER_02:

What we would describe as the unhealed minds from the mental health perspective, right?

SPEAKER_00:

So we all of us need to be working to bring more sattva into the world, into our minds. So let's all journal about that today. How can we bring holiness and purity into our minds, into our communities, into our hearts?

SPEAKER_02:

What work to do, right? To get there. So many people who I work with ask me constantly, what can I do to help heal the world? And because we feel like there's such a geographical, local as well as international call to action, right? And yet, from my perspective, it begins with you, with the individual. Heal yourself, right? Where are you kneeling healing? Where do you need to get more balance, more sattva inside you so that you can actually respond to what's going on in the world in a different way?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then I like to take this a little further because these are really hard philosophical discussions. It's actually takes a lot to dive deep into this. So I've done something the last, I don't know, five, six years working with students and how to like make this more tangible. I like to bring it into what I call five sense therapy. How do we bring sattvic energy, holy pure energy into our senses, which are bombarded constantly with rajas and tamas? So let's just go through it quickly, right? Okay. Our eyes were on the phone so much. So, how do we bring some sattvic holy energy to our eyes? Number one, visual meditations are great. Number two, the Buddhists talked about this. Keep a blue flower at your meditation space because blue negates anger. So, like, even just staring at a blue flower, a ghe lamp, it's known as chitaka, it's known as like a very pure light because it's fueled by ghee and it's not fueled by petroleum. So, a very common practice in India is to light a ghee candle, stare at it, and go into your meditation. These are subject things for the eyes. So simple. Simple.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

If you've been on your phone for three hours, maybe just go and go out into nature and just contemplate the way we used to when we were young. Just stare at something really soft and pretty to rebalance yourself. So those are some things for the eyes. The nose is easy. We just talked about nausea, but aromatherapy, how easy it is. Or baking bread, cooking. So let's remind ourselves that we can use a lot and aromatherapy. I feel like it's such an easy thing, and people can palm inhale or they can use lavender. So we can bring things, sattvic scents to the nose, sound healing for the ears, yoga nidra, putting on gong meditation, listening to ocean, going out in nature into the forest and just sitting there. And then the mouth, which again lends to mental health and the gut. When we are feeling mental challenges, we start to succumb to those cravings that are not that great for us, right? Like when you get angry, you start to appreciate crunchy food more because it lends to that anger. So our cravings actually make us go for foods that are not the best for us when our mind isn't at the best. Oh my goodness. So, how do we stimulate and bring subthic energy to the mind? Chewing on fennel seeds. Not only does that bring good breath into your mouth, but it actually stimulates your digestion and gets you ready to eat. How about a great tea? How about a rose-infused tea if you love rose? Like, how do you bring pure tea to your mouth? And then last touch. And that's why abhyanga is so good. I feel like marma therapy, which is subtle therapy, these are marmas are subtle energy points in the body where prana is stored. Third eye center is actually a marma. So touching ourselves, precision touch, loving touch, touching your child, hugging. Puerto Rico is still considered to be such a happier country because they hug 47 times a day, like hugs. I like to use that because I'm trying to figure out ways to make it more tangible.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love the way you describe things and really offer some practical ways in which people can create more peace, more sattva in themselves and in their lives, because it does matter. The mental health crisis is real. And I live in a city where we don't support enough, I think, the mental health situation that we have going on here. Homelessness is on the rise, and so it it spills over and is very a part of my everyday existence here. I can have compassion towards that. What I find like it can affect people who come to visit me. They come into town and they don't like, they don't know what to make of what seems so a part of my everyday life. So as people come and go in different parts of the world, because travel is something I enjoy doing. What do you recommend for people from a traveling standpoint when they are in a setting, let's say, that's more rigistic that sets them off or imbalances them?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Number one, too. I think I said this in the last podcast. When you're traveling, eat a date with some nut butter the before you get on a plane. Eat grounding food because you don't want to get vata deranged in the sky. Also drink a lot, even if you have to go to the bathroom. I know it's not that pleasant. Drink a lot of water. Yeah, drink a lot of water. So I think key things before you travel is really important. And then I also think aromatherapy and meditation is a great thing during travel. When you do enter a new city, and I do have to say, unless you're entering like a very peaceful place, it's pretty rejussic the moment you land because you've got to get through stuff to get to a place to center.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So first and foremost, whether you're traveling through time changes or you're just traveling a little distance, right? Because you might be traveling from California to New York and then you're actually dealing with a three-hour time change. So, first things first is just deep breaths, deep breaths to ground and not messing up your routine. So let's just say you land and you might have missed lunch. It might lend well for you to just try to stick to your routine as much as possible instead of having like a big meal at four. Like that first day, it's really important to just establish your routine in a new city that you're going to be at for a few days. And the best ways to do that is to think about what you did at home and how you can incorporate that in your new.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. That's something I hadn't thought about that in travel, that to really keep in mind, like the actual routine part, as opposed to just your eating schedule.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like for example, India, which you know is such a long flight. One of the ways that I can deal with India because it's so long, is I just follow circadian rhythm. And India is not easy. Everyone lands at 2 a.m. for whatever reason. It's the way the flight pattern is. So you really want to go to sleep. And maybe if you get to your hotel by four, maybe you can sleep for a couple hours. But that first day, I follow circadian rhythm and I actually will make myself stay awake and follow the energy of the sun. And I might not make it the full day, but I'll try really hard because I know that's gonna really help me with jet lag. Okay. Circadian rhythm is really important. Even being outside and getting that sun's rays, if you're like happened to be in Rome and you just landed, be outside first. Get that sun energy into your cells because that's gonna help actually your sleep rhythm.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Gosh, I feel like we could go on and I love talking to you about all this stuff. It's really fun. Is there anything that you feel as we wrap up here today that you would want to make sure we note to help people in restoring or reducing anxiety or restoring calm?

SPEAKER_00:

One thing is present moment awareness. If we think about the future, we feel anxiety. And if we think about the past, we can feel depression. So cultivating present moment awareness and that really comes, I think pranayama is a perfect way to establish present moment awareness. You and I both love 16 seconds to bliss, but I love alternate nostril therapy, navi shodhana, because it's balancing the solar and the lunar aspects to you.

SPEAKER_02:

So say talk about that quickly in terms of yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So Nabi should Nabi Shodhana is literally alternate nostril breathing. You tend to put your fingers down, you can either activate your third eye center or you can just tuck them away and you're using your thumb and your fourth finger. I like to tell people to choose the side to start if they need more lunar energy. So if you're feeling like really like hot or fiery, or you're just like feeling agitated, then first close off your right nostril and breathe in the left to start off with. If you're feeling a little bit too soft and lethargic and maybe not motivated, close the right left nostril and start with the right.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

The right side of our body is the solar energy. It's like everything that we love about the sun. It's activating, digesting, energizing, stimulating. It's hot. It's heating, which is why the liver is on the right side of the body. The liver is like the hottest one organ you can have. No surprise it's on the right side. Left side is lunar energy. It's very soft, mysterious, feminine, nurturing, mysterious, mystical. And hatha, hata yoga is really the sun and the moon. Right. So we have these and they are so important in our physiological functioning at all times. One of the best things we could do is nadi shodana because we're balancing the solar and lunar aspects. Nadi shodana is one of those pranayamas that is so effective that it's good for insomnia, it's good for stress, it's good for like better hormonal activity. It's it is just such a good one because it is making sure that your pranic flow is really strong throughout your body. When I take Ayurvedic pulse a lot in people, many times I ask them, did something happen on this side of your body because your prana flow is not as strong? And then they'll be like, oh, I actually got into a car accident, or oh, I did notice this. It's really common for our body for one side of our body not to be in tune with the other side. We need to make sure they're in tune. We have this amazing pranic flow. Yeah, and that's life force.

SPEAKER_02:

So creating balance, that's what we're talking about here. Yeah and alternate nostril breathing, nadi shodna, the four 16 seconds to bliss is inhaling to four seconds, holding it in for four seconds, exhaling to four seconds, and then holding that out, the breath out for four seconds. That full 16 seconds helps to do what for towards balance or the body.

SPEAKER_00:

It literally changes your brain wave activity and gets your brain waves into a calm, happier state. And when I brought up those meditation grants that Harvard and actually University of Wisconsin-Madison, they spent millions of dollars, they really determined that this it revolutionized brain science because they really saw, oh my goodness, the brain function changes and just takes 16 seconds.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's incredible.

SPEAKER_00:

And they also proved something else really important. They took supermeditators and people who never meditated and they put them on the same eight-week protocol. And at the end, it didn't matter if you were a super meditator, if you just started, your brain activity was the same. It was vital, enhanced. It showed that your gray matter was really large. The gray matter of your brain is the operating part of your grain. And then they showed that your amygdala shrunk, which is your fight or flight center.

SPEAKER_02:

Incredible. All ways in which we can all all get started in getting helping contribute to balance and our own mental health improvement.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

This has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed learning from you. You're such a resource of all things Ayurveda. I know that I'm always going to learn something a little bit more or be reminded of things that I knew when we get together and talk about these things. It was important for me to be able to have a conversation with you about mental health because it's not only one that's so prevalent today, it's one in which I myself was born into as well as had had to deal with certain things in life. As we wrap up today, we I want us to remember that Ayurveda is there to help teach us how to restore balance, how to through and to keep it, right? Regardless of what's happening in life, we always have it to turn to. And it's not to mean that medications aren't something that people ought to take advantage of. It's just that it's an added resource that's been around forever. And that wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I think what's important, as you said, is just take a breath, slow down, and know that you have it within you. Our listeners have it within them to contribute to their own well-being by just 16 seconds, as quick as 16 seconds, or doing a more extended alternate nostril breathing practice. And it's what we choose to do on a daily basis that makes a difference in our overall outlook and attitude about life. So grateful again to have you here, as always, Rima, for here at She Ask Podcast, where healing meets practical hope. And I just want to say to my listeners, until soon, thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.