Good Living Practices with Dr. Ram Rao

In this episode, I interviewed Dr. Ram Rao. Dr. Ram holds a PhD in Neuroscience and presently serves as a Principal Research Scientist at Apollo Health which uses a systems-based, integrative approach to prevent, treat, or reverse Alzheimer’s disease. Ram is also a Board-certified Ayurveda Practitioner (AP), and a Registered Yoga Teacher and teaches Ayurveda and Yoga at the California College of Ayurveda. He is the author of the bestselling book Good Living Practices: The Best from Ayurveda, Yoga and Modern Science for Achieving Optimal Health, Happiness and Longevity.

Transcript

Michele Lawrence  0:06  
welcome to this is yoga therapy. I'm your host. Michele Lawrence, join me as we venture beyond the mat into the fascinating intersections of yoga and health. Each episode brings you candid conversations with the visionary leaders and practitioners who are truly shaping this field, sharing their stories, insights and the profound impact of yoga therapy in action.

Michele Lawrence  0:38  
In this episode I interview, Dr Ram Rao. Dr RAM holds a PhD in neuroscience and presently serves as a principal research scientist at Apollo health, which uses a system based integrative approach to prevent, treat or reverse Alzheimer's disease. RAM is also a board certified Ayurveda practitioner and a registered yoga teacher and teaches Ayurveda and yoga at the California College of Ayurveda. He's the author of the best selling book good living practices. I've got my copy right here. Thank you very much. The best from Ayurveda yoga and modern science for achieving optimal health, happiness and longevity. It's such an honor to have you here today. Ram, thank you.

Ram Rao  1:27  
Thank you so much. Michele, it's a pleasure to be here with you and talk about all that you want to know. Wonderful.

Michele Lawrence  1:34  
Well, maybe you can just start by sharing a bit about what brought you here. Let's hear what initially led you to kind of bridge the worlds of neuroscience, Ayurveda and yoga, and how did that path inspire to you to write this book good living practices? And I imagine that's not a short story, necessarily, but maybe give us some of the the highlights.

Ram Rao  1:56  
Absolutely, in fact, that's a question that will take me back to several years, I guess so. Yeah, as you rightly pointed out, I got my PhD in neuroscience from India. I'm basically from India. And I got this degree from India from a reputed Medical Institute, and then I came to this country in the year 1992 to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I worked there for five years, and then from there, I moved over to the Buck Institute, which is close to San Francisco. I came here as a staff scientist, and so my focus at the Buck Institute was on understanding the mechanisms of memory loss, specifically in conditions like Alzheimer's disease, the molecular pathways, the biochemistry, the genetics and so on. So for more than a decade, I would say my world revolved around test tubes and petri dishes. And you know, we were using animal models to study the mechanism. So we were using mice and rats and all that. And then, of course, you know, in my free time, I started practicing yoga because there was a yoga studio that was very close to where I worked. And very soon as i inculcated the Yoga Asanas in the and partial yoga philosophy, I started getting frustrated with my research work because I felt there was something missing in what I was doing. The reason being that we were studying the brain in isolation, okay, and not as if you see what Patanjali puts it in the as the brain as part of a complete human, human being who feels, who thinks and who emotes, right? So even though we were learning a lot from our research work, to me, it was more like a reductionist approach, which wasn't actually leading to a real healing. And then it just so happened around this time that my wife developed a very complex health issue, and conventional treatments were okay, it's temporarily stopper symptoms, but, you know, there were lot of side effects. She was an ardent believer in both Yoga and Ayurveda. And then it just so happened that we were very lucky, because one of the evenings in the yoga studio, they canceled our Asana class, and the teacher who's who canceled the class said, you know, stay back and listen to a lecture by a famous Ayurvedic practitioner. And guess what? It was, Dr Halpin. Dr Mark Halpin was then going around to all the yoga studios because he felt, you know, yoga students would receive Ayurveda much more openly compared to other people. And so that was his marketing strategy to go about to various yoga studios and talk about Ayurveda. And guess what? My wife immediately jumped After his lecture was over, and then she sought his help, and he invited us over to his clinic back in close to Sacramento. And it was amazing, because I was a scientist, and the treatment option. That he provided to her, involved diet, herbs, lifestyle, managing the emotions, selfless service, sleep. I mean things that we as a scientist would never address, because we were always looking for that magical pill to address a disease condition, and here I was looking at a intricate network that involved the body, mind and emotions, that realization actually led me to formally study and later teach both Ayurveda and yoga, all right. And then now, when I look back, I can see everything in perspective that is the neuroscience part of the science, the Ayurveda and the yoga, they were all speaking the same language, the same truth, but just in different languages. The neuroscience explained the mechanisms. Ayurveda and yoga explain the experience. And so integrating these three perspectives actually give me a complete picture of health, not just the absence of disease, but the presence of harmony and so that's where it ultimately inspired me to write this book good living practices, to show that good health does not come from focusing on one aspect of our individuality, either the body alone, or the mind alone, or the emotions alone. Rather, it comes from aligning all the three aspects, body, mind, emotions, into one integrated system. And so this book is actually my way of sharing the journey and offering some practical tools and tips to anyone to experience the same harmony that we are experiencing in their own lives. That's the entire history about how we came all

Michele Lawrence  6:41  
about. I really, really appreciate you sharing that, and we'll dig into it a little bit more. But it's just so true in our work as a yoga therapist too, that we see the whole person right, and that the Western model often is so reductionist, is so isolated in terms of a condition, and it's really the whole person who may be experiencing cancer that can benefit from that whole person approach. So let's talk about this concept of sync. Your book's core premise is that optimal health is achieved when the body, mind and emotions work in sync as one unit, right? That's what we were just talking about. Maybe you can elaborate on that concept a little bit more, and really, from a neuroscientist perspective, what does sync look like, and how does it relate to the holistic view of health in Ayurveda and

Ram Rao  7:40  
yoga? Beautiful. Yeah, that's a great question. So Michele, I always like to say that optimal health is one's own personal property, and so we need to take good care of our own health. Now, there are hundreds and hundreds of books on diet, on lifestyle, on exercise, on emotion management. But yet, as a society, why is it that we are not healthy despite having all these books? The reason is that almost all the health and wellness programs described in these books, in these journals, in the magazines, in the media, in the publications, they all advocate a fractionated approach. Okay, what do you mean by fractionated approach? So let's say, for example, the books about diet, okay, they tend to emphasize only on diet alone, okay? And they do not describe they do not tell the importance of sleep. They won't tell you the importance of physical exercise or mental exercise. Neither will they address emotions. Books or programs on any physical exercise will usually focus on the benefits and techniques of specific activities like gym or Zumba or yoga or tai chi, but these books will not describe good dietary practices, or they won't even address emotional status and how to manage those emotions all right. Similarly, any advice on management of emotions, will avoid talking about diet or sleep or exercise. Now what happens is disease, actually disease, poor health and suffering primarily arises when the mind and the body are out of alignment and function independently as independent entities. In other words, if you focus only on your body and not on the mind or emotions. Or if you focus only on the mind, without paying attention to the emotions of the physical body, you are basically inviting ill health and suffering into your life. And this, in short, is a fractionated living Okay, so then how do we address this so one can experience optimal health and wellness by making sure that all aspects of individuality, that is, the body, the mind, the emotions, they're all working as one unit. And that's what I call as being in sync, functioning as one unit, 24, by seven, and only that will lead to an optimal health. I call that as an unfractionated. The approach which leads to optimal health and wellness. So when I say optimal health happens when the body, mind and emotions are in sync, I'm actually referring to what both modern neuroscience and ancient tradition describe the same phenomenon, except that it's in the different language. So being in sync, which is the core of my book good living practices, where I'm trained to see in terms of biology, neurotransmitters, hormones, different cellular pathways. But over time, I realize that this is all happening with the brain operating in isolation. Okay, so each time we think, every emotion we feel, every emotion we experience, and every bite of food that we eat sends powerful signals that shapes and remodels the brain and the body in real time, okay? So from a neuroscience point of view, the sink actually reflects these balance between the emotions, the brain, the gut, the immune system, okay, and if all this is harmonious, the mood and the cognition stays stable, the brain is functioning efficiently and the body is more stable, okay. Now, interestingly, from the Ayurvedic and Yogic and the yoga viewpoint, the same harmony is described as the alignment of sharira, that is the body, the mana, the mind and the bhava, the emotions. Okay? Ayurveda says that disease arises when these three entities drift apart. That is when they function as individual entities, okay? So when we eat well but live under stress, or when we meditate but ignore our body's physical needs. So and yoga, of course, you know, as you very well, know it calls this misalignment as dukkha, or disease, a state where the life force of the prana doesn't flow freely into the body, so whichever angle we take, okay, the message is the same. It's complete wholeness of the health, okay, where the nervous system, the hormones, the digestion and the emotions, everything is synchronized, the thoughts, the actions, the feelings, they all move in the same direction. That is when we enter a state of optimal health, and that's where we experience deep sense of peace. Okay? So what Ayurveda yoga add is the how part, okay? They give us the daily tools in terms of mindful eating, physical movement, deeps, rest, meditation, selfless service, so that naturally restores the body, mind, emotion alignment, okay? So these are not exactly spiritual practices. They are physiological, because they reset our internal security. So to me, being in sync is not an abstract idea. It's a measurable living experience, one where your physiology, your psychology and your spirituality or your spirit are all responding to the same rhythm.

Michele Lawrence  12:56  
So I'm curious, because you mentioned spirituality here, and what I've heard you talk about is, you know, body, mind and emotions. So where does the spiritual component come in in this whole person in sync? Is that a byproduct of syncing up those other elements? Tell me how you consider spirit in this model,

Ram Rao  13:20  
right? So because my book had to be, I mean, I was focusing on the book to reach all the masses, not just the Ayurvedic people or the Yoga people, but everybody, including scientists, including neuroscientists, and even the lay person. So I have to be very careful when I talk about the spirit, because, you know, a lay person or a nonce or a scientist will never take spirit or spirituality as something part of you. Okay, they always consider that is something abstract. So I loosely, in my book, mentioned spirituality as part of the good mental practices. So if you look at my book, actually, you know, good living practices, which provide us all kinds of habits. It kinds of provides us tools. It kind of provides us all kinds of tips where, if you practice them, you feel more balanced and you feel more alive. And what I did was I broke apart the book into three main categories, good physical practices, good mental practices and good emotional practices, all right, and this under the term good emotional practices, if you look at it very closely, this part of spirituality. The reason being that if you look at good emotional practices, I'm addressing all about how to cultivate harmony within so spirituality here comes in the form of, I give the tools as meditation, one of the main tools in terms of meditation. The reason being that a lot of the scientific audience. The minute you talk to them about meditation, they are like it's because they think meditation means sitting for one hour, close with your eyes closed. You have to have your head shaved, you have to wear orange robes, you have to light an incense stick. And I keep telling them, No, that is a different part of meditation. You can actually. Do a normal meditation, just for even if it is 30 seconds or even with one minute where you're focusing on your breath, that in itself is meditation, okay, so even if it's 10 minutes of daily stillness, it helps reset the nervous system, and that we know from everyday studies, meditation improves focus. It brings on inflammation. It builds both the body and the mind resilience, okay? So that is part of the spirituality there. And then I also talk about in terms of spiritual I also talk about overcoming negativity. Negativity can put you out of balance. It can always create all kinds of imbalances, all right. And one way to overcome the negativity is to cultivate, I think I mentioned that in a book as the noble five, where I talk about, you know, cultivating compassion, forgiveness, kyama, gratitude, cheerfulness, loving kindness, Matri, karuna, humility, okay. Why? Because these emotions and people have done this work. We have shown it in our work as well. When you cultivate these emotions. This is being in spirit, or in the state of spirituality, you are literally shifting your brain chemistry towards more of a balance, towards more of a coherence. All right, that's what I mean by good spiritual practices, or spirituality,

Michele Lawrence  16:14  
hmm, that's really helpful. Thank you for clarifying that you've already started to talk about some of these already, but maybe you can get more specific and just share with our listeners, what are some of the key good living practices you recommend in the book, and particularly for listeners, folks out there who might be navigating chronic conditions or maybe they're simply looking to enhance their daily well being.

Ram Rao  16:41  
Yeah, great question. So the way I divided my book, I talked about individuality, and I said individuality. When we talk about individuality, I said, You are good physical practices, good mental practices and good emotion practice, that is your body, mind and emotions. And then all these have to be inculcated as one unit. So within each one, I provided three different chapters. So for good, physical practices, okay? I talked about the aspect of eating, okay? And, you know, these days, there are a lot of books written about eating, and people are so confused, because each person talks about different aspects of what they experience, and they think that what works for them works for everybody else. And we now know that it's all an individual experience. Each person's need not be somebody else's benefit. And so I always talk about it as conscious or mindful eating. And so I tell them that when you sit to eat, please remember you are what you eat, when you eat, where you eat, how you eat, and why you eat, all these are extremely important. So you just don't focus on what you eat. That's what the world is now leaning towards everybody's talking about what you eat, okay? They say, you know, eat fresh vegetables, eat these grains, don't eat gluten, don't eat fat, don't eat carbs. See, those are all fine. I mean, yeah, it does some havoc to the health. But the problem is, there are other aspects of eating that is equally important. For example, timings of the meal is so important both Ayurveda and yoga say that you cannot just keep on eating throughout the day. See, we have in our brain, and that's where neuroscience comes about. Beautifully. In our brains, we have genes called the clock genes. The clock genes works very similarly to a watch. That is, they tell the time. They tell the time about what. So these clock genes in our brain, they are in sync with the sun. So when the sun is at its peak, that's when the clock genes in the brain tells the stomach, I feel hungry. So you go to any part of the world at 12 o'clock, everybody puts down everything that they are doing, and they go and have their lunch. Why is that? Because that's inherent in our system. There are clock genes. So now the same thing happens in the morning and in the evening. The sun is not at the peak. The sun is just about to rise in the morning, it's about to set in the evening. The clock genes are active, but they're not very active. So that's the time when you're supposed to eat a small meal. So a small breakfast, a small dinner, a big midday lunch. Okay? And then timings also comes about, because between two meals, even if you you know, I like to tell people that even if you eat few nuts, or even if you eat one apple, or even if you eat one banana, that in itself is a meal, which means then you have to keep a three hour gap between two meals. So let's say you snacked on some snacks. Okay, you ate a chocolate, or you ate some nuts. Okay, that becomes a meal. Now if you want to indulge in another meal, you have to keep a three hour gap, otherwise what happens is the clogged genes for digestion gets confused, the clock genes for absorption gets confused, and that's where we are creating condition where we have all kinds of digestive abnormalities. So it's just not for what you eat. It's about when you eat. So timing is very important. Plus, the other thing in addition. Attention to having your meal early in the evening, when the sun is about to set. Okay, you have to keep a three hour gap between sleep and dinner. I mean, between dinner and sleep. How many of us will eat at 930 or 10 in the night and then try to go to bed immediately? The sleep will elude you. You will not get sleep. And then they say, we are not getting good sleep. So we are taking melatonin. We are taking these kind of herb we are taking over the counter prescription. It's because we are hurting our bodies. The melatonin starts picking up when the sun comes down. That's the clock genes for melatonin, the sleep gene, the clock gene for sleep, starts rising up. Melatonin immediately starts rising as the sun comes down, okay, and melatonin comes to a peak when it's about 1030 or 11 in the night. Okay, and so that's the time when you're supposed to sleep, which means then three hours prior to that, you should have finished your dinner. So you see what you eat. When you eat becomes very important. Where you eat. A lot of the tech people, they come to me for consultancy, and you know, their meals are all over the place. They eat in front of their computer. They eat in front of the laptop. They are eating when they are sitting in the car. How many, majority the people I have seen so many people driving the car and eating a meal in the car while driving. So where is your mind? See, when I say, meditation, okay, meditation. See, that's what I keep telling my neuroscientists, my colleagues, meditation is not just not about sitting in a corner or shaving your head or burning an incense stick and closing your eyes. No. Meditation is also at any given time when you are doing a task. Are you focused on that task? Are you? Is your breath, your mind, your emotions, everything on the task that in itself, is meditation. So meditative eating is all about focusing on what you're eating. So when you have a plate of food in front of you, you are meditating on the food, which means you're seeing the colors of the food, you're experiencing the smell of the food, you're tasting all the aromas, and your mind is all now saying, Wow, what a beautiful whoever is involved with this food. Okay, let them all be happy. You're sending a grace to all those people in the food chain that allowed you to have this food in front of you. Meditation that, in itself is a very powerful meditation cooking your food. How varies our mind when we are cooking our food? Okay? Is our mind elsewhere, thinking about our job, or thinking about the next class that we are going to teach, or thinking about some health issue that somebody is having while we are cooking the food, which means your mind is not on the on the activity, and especially now, if your mind is churning out all kinds of emotions and you're cooking your food, remember, it's just not you eating the food, especially if you're preparing it for a family, you're going to give that same food to all your family members. It that food is now laced with all kinds of negative emotions. You're hurting yourself, you're hurting the entire family. So when you eat, where you eat, becomes very important, how you eat so important. The brain has got a wonderful connection with the gums and the teeth and the saliva. And the minute you position your food in the in the mouth, immediately, there's a circuitry. There's a there is there is a signal that goes from the mouth to the brain, and that signal tells the brain the food is here the brain now determines how much force is required, how much of momentum is required, how much of velocity is required for the food to be churned inside the mouth. There is a reason why we have these guys in the the teeth in the mouth, not in the gut, that we have the teeth only in the only the mouth, okay, because we have to chew the food. And most of us, we swallow the food. We don't even chew the food. So how you eat becomes very important. Why you eat in yoga philosophy and Ayurveda philosophy, the main reason for eating Michele is not for you to live, but more than that, it's for to serve the society. Okay, and that is the most noblest of the tasks that you are you're born with. The task for you, for every individual that is born in this earth is to help society. So when you think about all these aspects, okay, there's a reason why you have to eat mindfully. You have to eat consciously, all right, so that was in good physical practices, and then in good mental practices, I talk about how all these aspects, they triggered the changes in the brain. Because we always say, the neuroscientists will agree that we are born with a defined number of neurons, unlike liver or unlike kidney or unlike the skin, the neurons don't divide. They don't form new neurons. Okay, you're born with certain number, and that's a number you will have. You don't want your neuronal cells to die. But there's one aspect of neurons that is extremely, extremely important, and that is the neurons like the tree, it puts out branches, okay? The more the branches, the greater is the brain strength, the greater is the resilience, all right? And so you want to devise all kinds of methods by which you can put out more branches your. Brain should be like the forest of a mountain near the mountains, where you have thick canopy of branches, okay, that's how your brain should look like. There should be a thick canopy of neurons. Only when you have the thick canopy of neurons, you are protected from all kinds of problems. All right. Yoga knew that. Ayurveda knew that. That's the reason why yoga said, cultivate positivity, cultivate all the you know, when they talked about the Ashtanga Yoga, the eight limbs, okay, there is a reason people don't understand. They think of it as on the surface level. But there is a reason why Patanjali suggested all that. Because when you do all those, the Yamas, niyamas, asanas, Pratyahara, Pratyahara, svadhyaya, all these are so important because it's actually training the brain. It's putting off new neurons. People have done this work. In Ayurveda, we say, you know, you should one or the reasons why you need to meditate is because you need to bring about no more neuronal branching. And in Colorado, there's this Dalai Lama's Institute where that, I forget the name, where they do a lot of neurochemical research, and they have shown they have some, done some amazing work on meditation. They have hooked up these people who are seasoned meditators, and the way the brain builds up when they are when they're meditating, it's amazing. So good mental practices is all about meditation. And I also talk about in good mental practice, I talk about selfless service. I mean Karma Yoga is one of the most important aspects of yoga philosophy, written by Patanjali Bhagavad Gita tells us that whenever you engage in selfless service, you are doing all kinds of benefits to your emotions, your brain, your body, okay? And then, of course, I also talk about sleep as one of the most important mental practices, because there is, again, a lot of neuroscience beyond sleep. Ayurveda talked about Nidra as one of the pillars of life. Yoga has talked about sleep as one of the most important aspects of life. So we have good physical practices. We have good mental practices. And I already mentioned about good emotional practices. Okay, all this put together. What I say is, even if you can achieve 50% of these things that I mentioned about okay, and it's impossible to be doing everything, but even if you take some aspects of each of these practices and do it on regular basis, you are experiencing a very good health.

Michele Lawrence  27:16  
Thank you for that. There's a lot there that I think was excellent advice and things that are quite practical too, that folks can start implementing. Today. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about your work with Apollo health, and so that's where you work as a principal research scientist, and your work is around Alzheimer's disease, if I understand correctly. And in particular, you work with something called the Bredesen protocol, which is described as melding eastern and western medicine, and your contributions being the Eastern influence. Could you tell us more about this? What is the Bredesen protocol and how do the Eastern approaches the principles of Yoga and Ayurveda, which she wrote about in the good living practices specifically integrate here with the Western medical approach inside this Bredesen protocol.

Ram Rao  28:10  
Yeah, that's a great question. Because, remember, in the beginning I mentioned about how when we were working on the mechanisms of memory loss, specifically in people with Alzheimer's. You know, the approach that we took was a reductionist approach. We were looking in test tubes, in cell models, in animal models, and without realizing the fact that our brain, human brain, is much more complex, and you cannot remove the brain in isolation and do any work. So the work at Apollo Health, and the work that I've been doing with the with Dr Dale Bredesen actually represents a bridge between two worlds, the analytical precision of Western medicine and the time tested wisdom of both Ayurveda and yoga. And so what do we do is so the protocol that he talked about, the British protocol, actually it is now known. The scientific word for that is the Recode program. Recode in the sense reversal of cognitive decline. So it's R, E, C, O, D, E, and it stands for reversal of cognitive decline. So it's a program. It's a precision medicine approach, which is designed to either prevent or to reverse memory loss that comes with Alzheimer's disease, rather than searching for a single magic pill, this record protocol actually looks at multiple causes. Okay? We look at inflammation, we look at insulin resistance, we look at nutritional deficiencies, we look at people that have been exposed to toxins, we look at chronic stress, and we look at sleep. So all these because we know all these factors can influence the brain to a stage where it can result in memory loss. Okay, because each of these factors have been shown to influence the brain's biochemistry and the architecture of the brain. So now the question is, where does my work? Of the Eastern influence comes in. So it all depends on how we interpret and address these root causes. Okay, Ayurveda and yoga always talked about health as a dynamic balance between the body, mind and emotions. What the record protocol does biochemically? Ayurveda does it holistically? Okay? What do you mean by that? So let's say the protocol we emphasize personal, personalized nutrition, which mirrors the Ayurvedic prakriti based diet approach. The protocol also emphasizes detoxification, all right, because we now know that mold or viruses or bacteria, these are all toxins that can penetrate the brain and can influence the brain in a manner where you can start producing memory. So which means, then you have, in addition to microbes, there's all the toxins can also come in the form of pollutants. So people who live very close to the factories that churn out all the toxic fumes, or, you know, the pilots who are always exposed to the aviation fuel, or people who are staying in the areas where the groundwater is already filled with toxins, chemicals and other toxic, poisonous chemicals, all right? Or people who are exposed to, you know, glyphosate or any other fertilizers, okay, they all compound memory loss. And so we have to detoxify these people. So the detoxification process in these patients parallels the Ayurvedic pancha karma treatment, which is also simple, home based cleansing practices, okay? And then, of course, in the Recode program, we focus on sleep. We focus on stress reduction through mindfulness. Okay? We talk about yoga. We talk about pranayama, breath practices. We talk about meditation, okay, but the only thing is, we don't use those terms because, you know, a lay person or a person who is not into the Ayurved and yoga field may not understand these terms, but you know, so, for example, in the place of pranama, we use the term breath practice in terms of DNA or dharana. We say meditation in terms of Nidra, and then the benefits of Nidra we say, you know, you have to make sure that you inculcate good sleeping practices where you are improving sleep quality and sleep quantity. So basically, it's not very far whatever I have approached from the yoga and I read the field is what we are now approaching from the neurochemical angle as well. So these are all the tools that we use to calm the nervous system and to regulate the HPA axis. We now know in the yoga field, we know everybody talks about the HPA axis. This is the body's stress response system, right? And so we talk about that. And we also emphasize, you know, we tell people, not the people who have lost their memory, because they can't do a lot of things, but we tell the caregivers to start practicing selfless service on behalf of the person who's got memory loss, people who have who don't have severe memory loss, but who are mild or moderately severe memory loss, we tell them to inculcate positive emotions, everything that I talked about in the noble five, in a good living practices. Why? Why do we say that? Because we now know that whenever they cultivate positive emotions like loving kindness, empathy, forgiveness, the brain started losing the feel good, hormones, okay, serotonin, dopamine, prolactin, oxytocin, I was talking about neuroplasticity. These hormones actually build more of the neuronal branching. So they're strengthening the brain, they're strengthening the memory, so it supports cognitive health. So in many ways, if you look my contribution at Apollo health, even though I don't talk in terms of yoga and another language, has been to translate these eastern principles into practical science backed strategies that fits within this Western medical framework. So we use lab markers, we use clinical outcomes to validate whatever Ayurveda yoga have said all along that healing happens only when the person is treated whole, not just the disease alone. The outcome of that is a true east and west integration, where you have personalized nutrition, restorative sleep, movement, mindfulness, detoxification, emotion management, all under this one coherent model. So I like to think of it as giving ancient wisdom a scientific passport in order to operate in this modern world.

Michele Lawrence  34:21  
It's fascinating. And it's so interesting to me that here is this protocol, this model for memory, Alzheimer's. And yet, I guess this is a question. I mean, my belief is that so much of our disease, chronic illness, is also a compilation of things that are causing it right, not just one thing, but many things right, the environment, the food we eat, stress, etc. It's a composite and yoga. And Ayurveda are holistic systems designed to treat the composite on an individualized basis. So this premise that you're using here, I think, is so relevant for many conditions, that's

Ram Rao  35:13  
correct Absolutely. And as you rightly pointed out, Michele, we look at many factors that has gone array in Alzheimer's, not just one molecule or not just one gene. And so my role was to bring in the Eastern perspective as well, because we know in Ayurveda and yoga, they always talk about addressing the root causes, and Ayurveda always teaches individualized nutrition and detoxification. Yoga teaches balance through breath and meditation. And and both these sciences will emphasize emotional harmony and brain resilience. And so now, when we integrate all these practices into a what I call appreciation medicine framework, we see improvements that are measurable. We can actually see the improvements. And these are measurable improvements, not just in lab values, but even subjective experience, they come to us and they feel better, they function better. Most of them actually have gone back to work. I mean, that in itself is a great result, that it is working. They have gone back see they were laid out of work because they lost their memory. And now most of these people, after adopting our program, they go back to work. So that in itself is a great functional experience, subjective experience, that the protocol works, so it's a perfect marriage of science. And let me put it spirit, where modern tools are sort of guided by ancient wisdom, as you pointed out, yeah. Well,

Michele Lawrence  36:34  
I'm wondering if there's anything else you'd like to share with our listeners about good living practices, either the book or the actual practices in them or other aspects of your work.

Ram Rao  36:46  
You know, I like to tell people that good living practices is just not a book about health. It's actually a guide to achieve harmony, because it brings together the best of whatever I learned from neuroscience, from biochemistry, from the Ayurveda, from yoga. And you know, well being is not something we achieve once. It's something that we have to practice daily. So I often tell people that don't wait for an illness to start these practices wherever you are, at whatever stage you are, start these practices begin with one small shift. And so people tell me, okay, give us that one little thing. And I'm like, did you read the book? And they'll say, Yeah, we read the book, but we just want one little thing. So maybe if you want to start shifting in a small way, okay, start eating mindfully, one, at least one meal. Okay? Or there are people that come and tell me, Michele, that you know, we just don't have time to inculcate all these practices. There are so many and so to them, I'll say, look at your neighborhood. Is there a small part? Is there a way by which you can take a walk around the neighborhood? Okay, listen, be mindful. That meditate. It's a meditative walk. Pay attention to the birds. Pay attention to the sounds of nature. Watch the crossroads, and then see if you can memorize those crossroads. Because, you know, I've been in my in my neighborhood, but except for the intersection, I don't remember all the other paths, even though I go there every day, because I don't even want to know what those roads or avenues are. See, one way to build the neuroplasticity or the brain resilience is to mindfully be doing whatever you're doing, inculcate the mental practices as well. So I tell people, you know, memorize the path, memorize the road, the names of the road, memorize the avenues, memorize the street signs and see if you can remember them on a regular basis. Or if you don't have time for that, express gratitude the next time you see a ambulance going past, or next time you see a fire service truck going by, in addition to moving towards the sidewalk, you know, we all move to the sidewalk with our cars. Can we just close our eyes briefly and say, let those people reach on time, wherever they are required. In fact, one more level of prayer. Let those people in the ambulance, the ambulance drivers, the technicians or the fire people, let them be safe, you know, what if something happens to them while when they're driving? What if somebody hits them? You know? So they need to be safe. The people that they want to reach to, they should be safe. They should be receiving proper attention at the in timely manner. So I cannot go there and do that, but at least I can express a wish, I can express a gratitude. Maybe that'll help. Who knows? So these are some gratitude acts that we can do. It doesn't take a long, a lot of our time. You can we can do it before going to bed. So these small acts, when repeated every day, they begin to rewire the brain. They calm our emotions, they strengthen our body, and thereby, what happens is you're aligning your body, mind and emotions, which means then you're naturally inviting health. You're naturally inviting clarity. You're naturally inviting joy. Let me say that health is not something that you try to chase. It's something you try to cultivate. Okay, each breath, each. Each thought, each meal, each act of kindness, everything is part of that cultivation. Okay, so if my book happens to help even one listener take that one little step towards wholeness, I think I've done my

Michele Lawrence  40:15  
job. Oh, absolutely. So I'm curious. I'm going to ask one more question. This is usually how I end the podcast. I'm going to ask it just a little bit differently of you, and I'm going to point it back to the good living practices. So out of these recommendations that you have in the book that you offer to others that come from the traditions of Yoga and Ayurveda, which ones of those do you practice every day, perhaps, which ones are the most important to you?

Ram Rao  40:44  
Wow, that's that's a very meaningful question. Actually. You know what? Michele, let me, let me be very honest. See, for me, sadhana, you know, the what we cultivate, even on daily basis, is, isn't something separate from day to day living, okay? It's a part of me. Because, if it's not limited to what happens on a yoga mat or a meditation cushion, it's really sadhana is actually a way of being okay, intentionally, moment to moment. And that is what anchors me, okay, these daily things that I do on a routine basis, okay? That is what anchors me. Let me say, My mornings begin early. You know, I like to wake up with the sunrise. I start off with a few minutes of silence and gratitude. I just pray that, you know, if I can be of service in any way today, let those avenues open up for me. Okay, and then I'll wish that everybody, you know, we have a beautiful Shanti mantra in the in the Vedanta thing in the Upanishads, where they talk about, let the entire world the nature, the birds, the animals, the four legged creatures, the two legged creatures, the humans, the people responsible for the food, the natural elements, the air, fire, water, earth, everybody should be in peace. So that's the mantra that I normally will recite before starting my regular activities. So I'll do my usual bathroom practices, okay, proper hygiene. And then after that, when I come to my study room, that's where I practice 10 minutes of stillness. And then I do my yoga asanas. I do gentle Asana practices. I have 30 minutes of Asana practices. And then I followed, usually an alternate nostril, anulom vilom, because I've noticed that anulom vilom, I've been doing it for the last several years now, and I think it really helps to settle my mind. So in from the yoga part I already have, I'm inculcating prana, Dhyana, Dharana, and then mantra meditations. So that is something that within that I do. And then, of course, once I finish with all that, I finish my regular, deep way practices, in all my practices, I try, I try my little best to make sure that my mind and my emotions are focusing on whatever I'm doing. Okay, it's not that I'm typing on the keyboard and my mind is already thinking about what I'm going to have for dinner or something like that. No, it's not that. So my mind is not working elsewhere. My body is not working elsewhere. I try to keep my dharana and Dhyana on that act that I'm doing all right. And then, of course, towards evening, I once again, I do my breath practices, I'll do my meditation, and then I reflect. That's a part of me. I either write it down or I reflect. I reflect as to, how did I think today, how they speak today, how they act today. Were there any instances where I use the wrong choice of words? Did I hurt anybody in that process, even though the person may not have told me, Did I hurt that person? So because, you know, I want to live a life where there is compassion, with this humility and with this joy. So this is what keeps me grounded in the midst of all the noise, and then this reminds me continuously about how I can engage with my own self consciously. So that's my sadhana, and to live each day with awareness, with gratitude and with loving kindness,

Speaker 1  44:04  
really beautiful. Well. Thank you so much for this conversation today, for the work that you do, that you've put out in the world, for sharing it with others. Really appreciate you. Thank

Ram Rao  44:16  
you. Thank you so much. Michele, it was a pleasure, and thank you so much to for whatever good you are doing. I had a chance to look at your website, and you guys are doing amazing job in the yoga therapy field that is truly a wonder. And I'm sure people are going to benefit from all the things that you are you're doing to help them. Good luck with your practice as well.


Michele Lawrence  44:44  
Thanks again for listening. If you're interested to learn more about who we are and what we do, check us out at inner peace, yoga therapy.com, you.