Podcast - Enhancing Immunity Through An Ayurvedic Perspective

Join Geeta Vara, Holistic Health Practitioner and author of Ayurveda: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Wellbeing for an episode about Enhancing our Immunity. How we are treating ourselves holistically with the foods we eat, the habits and behaviors we keep, and the belief systems that either keep us in alignment or disharmony.

Transcript

Hi Geeta,

How are you?

Hi,

Well good evening to you Johnson,

You're based in Australia,

I'm here so good morning from me over here in UK.

Yes good morning to you in the UK and welcome to Truth,

Wisdom and Freedom Conversations,

I'm so happy that you can join us today.

And for those of you tuning in,

Welcome to another episode of Truth,

Wisdom and Freedom.

I have here Geeta Vara,

Who's actually a good friend of mine.

She is an Ayurvedic practitioner,

A holistic health practitioner.

We've traveled around the world together,

We've been to Cambodia,

We've done a retreat in India together,

We've been,

Where else have we been?

We've been around.

We did a retreat in Greece a couple of years ago.

We did a retreat in Greece,

We've been to Peru together.

So I love Geeta because Geeta has such a beautiful,

Well-rounded perspective about health and diet and she's also the author of Ayurveda,

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Well-Being.

And you know we were talking a little bit about immunity and well of course immunity is very important right now.

But before we go into that,

I wanted to pick your brain a little bit about Ayurveda because we know Ayurveda is a sister science of yoga.

So maybe you can start by telling us a little bit about your journey into Ayurveda and what it is.

Yeah,

Well thank you so much for having me on your channel,

Johnson.

It's a real honor and you're clearly glowing,

So you've been doing some cleansing I see which is nice.

So anyway my journey in Ayurveda has been quite an interesting one.

It's had its ups and downs like we all do when we embark on a new path.

So I had Ayurveda as part of my upbringing but I just didn't know or label it as Ayurveda.

So I grew up with my grandparents.

So a lot of our sort of daily rituals in the house were Ayurvedic,

You know everything from tongue-scraping to rituals around food and mealtimes.

So we had a lot of these rituals and it was very much a part of our daily routine as a family.

And so I went on,

Followed the traditional Indian path of following a very academic structure,

Went on to doing business degree and then when I was working I realized that this wasn't my life purpose.

My dharma was elsewhere and so I was really curious as to,

You know,

Wellness was a part of my,

Kind of,

Something that I really enjoyed learning about throughout my childhood.

But it wasn't until I was working and I realized that this was something I wanted to pursue.

So I had an epiphany at work and realized that my purpose was elsewhere.

So I took off traveling,

I landed in the States and I was about to embark on a course with this Swami guy.

And lo and behold it was not for me,

I just didn't connect with him,

Something was wrong and I had to come back home and I just thought,

Oh no,

Well what do I do now?

I've left my life as I know it to embark on this journey but actually this is not going to work out.

But I did find a course in London and I then started my official journey on the path of Ayurveda.

So what is Ayurveda?

So Ayurveda is,

It's coined as a science of life and it really is the science of life because we are really moving away from this notion of the curative aspect.

So we're not waiting for a disease to manifest in the body for us to then address it.

So we're moving away from that model of a pill for an ill and just really addressing our health issues when we become sick and we'll talk about that when we talk about immunity.

But Ayurveda is really looking at treating the report,

I guess that's the main thing.

So we're treating the report,

Ayurveda is looking at the person as a whole.

So whereas a lot of Western modalities will be looking at treating the disease,

So it's much more disease focused,

Ayurveda is much more person-centered.

So I'm really interested in understanding who the person is,

What is their story because illnesses and diseases are not just physical,

You know,

We have many causes and you know this more than anyone,

It could be emotional,

It could be mental,

It could be environmental,

Social.

So we have many sort of causative factors and the key principle of Ayurveda is really teaching us the guidelines.

There's no hard and fast set rules.

So when you ask someone about Ayurveda,

A practitioner or a doctor and you ask them a question,

They're like,

Well,

Yeah,

It depends or it's complicated because there's no direct,

Straight answer because it depends and that dependency is understanding who you are.

So Ayurveda really connects us back to ourself and helping us to understand ourselves through nature.

So we're connecting all the dots really.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Thanks for that overview of what Ayurveda is and it's very much,

We're very much a product of a Western culture,

A global culture,

A modern culture that emphasizes symptoms and instant gratification and quick fixes more so than understanding from a wisdom perspective how things come to pass and that's very much rooted into our subconscious and unconscious ways of dealing with things.

And so it's very,

It's very symptomatic of,

Or rather,

How do we say this?

It's very prevalent in our society to want someone to tell us what to do because it's quicker,

It's faster than going through into yourself,

Into the depths of understanding to take care of yourself.

And so in Ayurveda,

There's different constitutions and ways of understanding ourself in relationship to nature.

So what are some of those,

You call them constitutions,

Doshas,

How do we understand ourselves better?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

You're spot on.

So when we talk about Ayurveda being preventative and a personalized science,

We're personalizing it because we are getting to know ourselves,

The delicate intricacies of who we are,

Mind,

Body,

Soul,

And who we are within our environment.

And so when we first embark on the journey of Ayurveda and discovering this about ourselves,

We will come across what we call our prakrti or our dosha types or mind body types.

I mean,

There are various labels,

But they are our three bioenergetic forces that sit within us and they govern everything that happens within our mind,

Body and consortium.

So these three bioenergetic forces are composed of the five elements.

So Ayurveda is based on the principle that we have five elements and these five elements reside in our body in the form of doshas.

So we could really go deep into doshas,

But that's not what our talk is about today.

But just to give you a really,

Really quick overview,

Well,

We have the vatha dosha.

Vatha is predominantly formed of the space and the air elements.

And so in the body,

This is governing all the movements.

So it's making,

Governing all the functionality in terms of movement,

Voluntary and voluntary.

So vatha has certain qualities about it.

It's cold,

Light and dry,

For example.

And then if we have vatha dominant in our conscious institution,

Then we're going to see various characteristics.

Okay.

So we can read up about all those characteristics.

We have joint stuff.

Yes.

That's a fun stuff.

That's a fun stuff where we can say,

Oh,

That person's a pitha.

That person's a vatha.

Oh my God.

You're so,

So kapha,

You know?

And we have,

We have elements of all of them within us,

But in our,

In order to understand our uniqueness,

We're trying to establish what is our dominance.

What is our dosha dominance?

You can think of them almost as archetypes in a way,

Characteristics qualities.

Yes,

In a way.

But the,

The,

The doshas are not only governing like our constitution and our body type,

But they're really,

You know,

Doshas have an influence on everything around us.

You know,

The seasons,

The time of day,

You know,

The stage of a life.

So it has an impact on everything.

So it plays an integral role actually in life,

Which is why I over that is the science of life.

And tell us more about the pitha and the kapha.

So the pitha dosha is formed of the fire and water elements in the body.

And,

You know,

We,

We are seeing this as more of the fiery type.

So you might in terms of characteristics in a person,

Maybe you'll see that the fiery nature,

There can be very focused,

Very goal oriented,

You know,

Really determined,

Make great leaders,

Great speakers.

So these are the characteristics that you might see,

But the qualities of pitha are sort of hot,

Fiery,

Sharp,

Penetrating.

So in the body,

The role pitha plays is,

You know,

Looking at all the digestion,

The metabolism,

The chemical processes.

So whatever,

Anything that comes into the body or mind,

And it converts it into usable information for the mind and body to function.

So it's playing that role.

So that's what's most important when we talk about immunity.

These body functionalities play a key role when we're looking at personalization and,

And,

And dosha.

And then last but not least,

We've got the kapha dosha.

So kapha is giving us our actual body makeup,

The physical structure,

The stability,

The lubrication of our bones,

Joints,

The,

The,

The mass of our muscles.

So it's really the heavier parts of us because it's made up of the fire,

Made up of the water and earth elements.

So the slightly denser elements are present more in the kapha.

So,

You know,

Based on that,

You know,

Kapha is heavy,

It's slow,

It's sluggish,

It's cold,

It's having all these qualities.

And so with these qualities,

You can see if we have these qualities in our prakrti,

We're going to have those qualities.

So maybe we're gonna have a slightly bigger body structure,

Possibly we're gonna be sort of slow,

But you know,

We're,

We're going to be very compassionate,

Kapha people very loving,

Very forgiving,

Very easygoing.

So,

You know,

Do look up,

You know,

For anyone who's listening today,

I really encourage you to,

To,

To look up,

You know,

The archetypes,

You know,

The descriptions of the characteristics of our kapha kapha,

Because you will resonate with them,

But not just with one,

Several.

And so you can find,

You know,

Your dominance that way.

Well,

What I love about the dosha types,

The,

The constitutions is that they are describing not only physical characteristics,

But mental attributes,

As well as emotional affinities that people may have,

And also just an overall energetic type.

So we're looking at it from a holistic viewpoint,

Right?

We're not just looking at,

Oh,

We eat this,

And this gives us vitamin C,

Right,

Which is often how we approach nutrition,

Right?

It's a tit for tat kind of thing.

But we're looking at how that gets ingested through all of the systems,

Mind,

Body,

Spirit,

Energy.

And then of course,

There's a different combinations and percentages of you could be vata pitta,

Pitta vata,

Kapha,

Kapha vata,

Vata kapha,

All this stuff.

And so that's really,

Really cool about Ayurveda.

So now that we have a general sense,

Of course,

We can keep talking about,

You know,

Ayurveda and all the different principles,

But essentially,

All day.

Essentially,

Ayurveda is about connecting to the natural rhythms of nature,

And restoring our mind,

Body,

Heart,

Spirit to bioenergetic balance,

Right?

And so immunity has been coming up in conversations with people,

Because as during this whole global situation,

We're in,

People are either slowing down,

Take a look at how they're going to readjust certain things in their lives,

Or they're fighting and resisting it and pushing through.

And in whatever choice people are making,

Immunity is coming into question.

How do we look at our immunity from an Ayurvedic perspective?

How do we take care of ourselves on all of these levels?

So can you talk a little bit about the perspective that Ayurveda has on immunity?

Sure,

So I guess I just want to backtrack just a little bit because we have a we have this beautiful Sanskrit shloka in Ayurveda.

And I really want to recite this to you because this,

This gives us an idea of what we mean by health in Ayurveda.

And actually,

If we just keep referring back to this,

This one single shloka,

We will understand what immunity really is.

And you know,

How we can then,

You know,

Keep referring back to those practical breakdowns of this shloka.

Because if we keep on top of it,

We are then building resistance.

Okay.

So as you know,

Energy is,

You know,

Everything is energy,

We're made up of energy.

And so everything is constantly transforming.

So just because we are what we are today doesn't mean we're going to feel and act and be the same way tomorrow,

Because we're constantly evolving.

So we have to flow we can't force and I think what's happening right now with the pandemic is this,

This is fear has risen,

Okay.

And it's the fear in itself is breaking down our immunity,

Ironically.

So we've got to be really careful of these things.

But the shloka that that talks about health or tells us what health is in terms of Ayurveda,

And it goes like this,

Samadhoṣa,

Samagnishta,

Samadhatu Malakriya,

Prasanna ātmā ndriya,

Mana svaṣṭa itta bhi tīyate.

Okay,

So I'm going to break that down.

We don't have to learn it,

We don't have to know it.

But what we really want to understand is what it means,

And what this means when we refer to holistic health.

So Samadhoṣa,

Okay,

So we need to have a balance of our bioenergetic forces,

Which is the doshas,

Which we've just been discussing.

Samadhanishta,

Agni is fire,

Okay,

So we're really looking to have a strong burning fire.

So that fire is the fire in our digestive system.

So we digest through our elementary canal.

But we're also digesting in many other ways,

As you mentioned,

You know,

We're digesting things emotionally,

Mentally,

Media,

Information,

Information,

Everything,

Everything comes into this,

This,

This mind body is information,

Information for ourselves.

Okay.

And then Samadhatu,

What Samadhatu,

And this is really key when it comes to immunity,

Because dhatus is body tissues.

So we have seven body tissues ranging from plasma,

Blood,

Bone,

Bone marrow,

Muscle,

Fat,

Reproductive tissues.

So we have seven tissues in the body.

So as long as our seven body tissues are well and appropriately nourished,

That is contributing to good health.

Okay,

So dhatus is really important.

Then māla.

So māla is our elimination.

You know,

We eliminate through our bowels,

Our urine,

And through sweating.

So if we have a blockage in one of these elimination channels,

Then that can also contribute to ill health.

During our Greece retreat,

We definitely talked a lot on a daily basis about the movement of our bowels and to some people that may be a little bit disgusting,

But it's very important.

Absolutely.

I mean,

Yeah,

Understanding that,

You know,

Making sure that we're eliminating because sometimes people say,

Oh,

Well,

I eliminate like regularly.

I said,

Well,

Let's break that down.

What does regular mean?

Because regular means different things for different people.

And so alternate days is not regular.

Three or four times a day is regular,

But maybe a little too much.

So this,

This as a practitioner,

This shows me,

You know,

Where someone is in terms of constitution and health.

What I find really interesting is that there's an emotional tie as well.

When I work with clients on belief systems and on shedding belief systems,

Some people that are having difficulty in letting go of a certain belief structure,

They get bloated in there,

You know,

Down there and they can hold on and they get constipated.

And so our bodies are very intelligent and they also mirror what we're going through physically and mentally and emotionally.

Right.

So,

Yeah,

No,

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And you know,

Incidentally,

You're absolutely right.

The digestive system really holds that emotion because we're correlating with our various points as well.

So that,

That area is very much,

You know,

Our security and fear and fear elements can come in there.

So we hold on or we just cannot control.

So,

You know,

It's,

It's coming to that point.

So if we have all these forces in harmony,

Then from an Ayurvedic perspective,

Then we have achieved a couple of other elements to that,

To that shokha.

So,

Prasanna atma,

So it's,

It's again,

Having that connection to spirit.

So,

You know,

We're not devoid of having a spiritual connection in the human body.

So that also does play a role.

So that's can be subjective.

Having clarity of senses.

So as we said,

You know,

We're taking in information,

So making sure our sensory organs are also,

You know,

Having that clarity,

You know,

Having a calm mind and,

And,

And having all of those in harmony is what's going to bring us good health.

And good health is basically equal to immunity because immunity is our unique.

You know,

It's our immunity that differentiates who I am from who you are because that's,

That's kind of gives us a marker.

So immunity is predominantly where our bioenergetic forces are having that interrelationship with our tissues.

And we'll talk about that in a second.

So our,

So our body tissues have to be subsequently nourished.

So the food that we eat or whatever we ingest is nourishing each of those tissues that we mentioned and at the end result of that tissue,

A substance is formed and this is what we refer to in Ayurveda as Ojas.

So Ojas is the essence of these body tissues.

Okay.

So it's like,

It's basically our immunity,

What we call Vyadi Shamatva.

Vyadi is the disease and Shamatva is the resistance.

So Ojas is what brings us that resistance towards that disease.

So Ojas being the end product where it's our vitality,

What gives us a vitality.

You can see when somebody's looking vibrant and has a lot of energy.

I mean,

Whenever I see you,

Anytime you're always looking extremely vibrant,

I have no,

I would never doubt that your Ojas is really high.

We have a lot of Ojas.

You do have a lot of Ojas.

We do have a lot of Ojas.

So this is what we're really looking at.

So immunity in Ayurveda is almost twofold.

One is,

You know,

We're looking at how we're fighting diseases and pathogens as they come into the body,

But more importantly,

What are we doing to resist that?

And that resistance comes from having a strong Ojas.

So having,

You know,

Strong body tissues,

Having a strong digestive fire,

Having balanced doshas,

Plays that,

You know,

It's the foundation of creating strength in immunicity.

So what do you do with clients that come to you with gut health things,

Autoimmune things,

Nutritional things,

Mental,

Emotional blockages and whatnot from an immunity perspective,

How do you educate them so that they can look at the foods that they're ingesting,

The lifestyle choices that they need to make?

How do you work with them so that they can come to this natural wisdom that you're talking about?

Sure.

So,

I mean,

We have to really break things down and go back to the bare basics,

Go really rudimental.

So it is really much about firstly understanding your body type,

Because once you start to understand your body type,

Let's just say,

For example,

Like Vata is dominant in our constitution.

Well,

Vata means that we're going to have a lot more air quality in the body.

So Vata people are generally prone to more stress.

They can potentially get more anxious.

So we have to really start looking at managing these aspects within the Vata type.

And it's the Vata types that are prone to getting the dryness in the body.

Okay.

So the constipation,

All of those.

So then we start to get those blockages coming through.

So we've got to make sure that we're constantly in flow.

So we're not trying to be a different constitution.

We're trying to be the best version of our own self.

I think this is really important to look at because I've studied some Ayurveda as well as part of my yogic studies.

And what I noticed in women who were more of a kapha type,

They wanted to be a Vata type.

But as you said,

Some people were born with a certain constitution.

We have this idea of who we think we should be with media and what the ideal body type is and that you should be stick thin and look a certain way from all of this stuff that we've been fed throughout our lives.

And some of us are a bit more kapha than Vata or some of us are a bit more Vata than Pitta.

And so we have a certain set design that we come into this world with.

And when we start to fight that,

That's when things go off balance because then we try to be differently,

Look differently.

We starve ourselves and we do all these other things.

So there's definitely a psychological element to it as well.

And I think that's really important.

Like what you said,

Honor your type,

Your dosha type.

You came in with a certain design and blueprint and honor it.

Yeah.

And it does come and as you're so right,

Johnson,

This is about accepting who we are at the core.

And so I do see,

I quite often see kapha body types coming through the doors and wanting to do this weight loss program and people go on these.

And this is especially true in January.

So everyone indulges and really lets themselves go.

And then they come to me in January,

They want to detox.

And from an immunity perspective,

This is a really like damaging time for us because like we say kapha,

If we have strong kapha in the body,

Doesn't have to be a kapha type,

But we all have kapha in the body.

But kapha is giving us that,

That strength and stability.

Remember it has that quality and we are in the kapha season during the winter period.

This is,

This is winter through to spring.

This is a kapha season.

So early spring.

So,

You know,

Winter into early spring.

And so the kapha season is not the time to,

To break down,

Break down and detox where the body's trying to create strength.

So we've got to flow with the rhythm of nature.

The seasons will dictate when is the right time to cleanse?

When is the right time to rejuvenate?

And you know,

In Ayurveda,

This is really key because when we follow this rhythm,

We can start to understand the damage that we can do by trying to do the right thing,

But actually we're not because we're doing the right things,

But at the wrong time or we're doing it at the wrong time of day.

Right.

Yeah.

And then that's really,

That's really it sounds really simple.

It's simple wisdom because it's following nature,

But we don't always remember because we're so disconnected to nature from nature.

And so to some of our viewers,

Some of our viewers are in tropical locations.

So,

And some of them are in more temperate locations in the world.

So what would you recommend as the optimal times to detox?

Would it be during the equinoxes or if you're in a tropical climate do you detox less?

What is your,

I'm sure everyone has their own individual diagnosis.

Yeah.

So yes,

It would be,

It would be between the best time to cleanse would be in between seasons.

So when we're transitioning from season to season,

Because things start to shift and move in the body,

Energy,

Mucus,

Fluids,

Things start to move around in the body.

So when we're doing cleansing in the period where we're transitioning from one season to the next,

We're able to eliminate whatever's in excess in flow in our body and,

And release it at that time.

So for example,

Like I'm in the Northern hemisphere and we were in the middle of spring,

We're coming into the crux of spring towards the end now.

And I've just done my really deep punch a karma cleanse and it was a perfect time.

And yes,

We're in a pandemic,

So it couldn't have been a better time to really go into myself and cleanse at every level of my being.

And so it's,

It's been really good and I've noticed a huge difference in how I'm feeling,

You know,

In terms of energy,

I'm feeling really strong,

But this was the right time for me.

Had I done this in winter,

My body would have completely broken down.

And in winter,

What I was actually doing was pumping myself with more fats.

And so a lot of people think fats are going to make us fat,

But fats don't make us fat.

Our body needs fats.

There are,

It's our transport mechanism to carry nutrients.

So in the winter I was definitely eating more fats.

I haven't checked my cholesterol,

But I've definitely been eating more fats.

And it's,

It's funny because I just haven't had any trickles of colds and flu this season.

So it,

You know,

Following the seasonal pattern shows me personally,

You know,

It's not just,

You know,

Preaching,

But it's practicing this wisdom as well.

And it's an experiential science.

So we've got to experience how it feels and trust in what it's feeling.

And you know,

The interesting thing about fat,

Going back to that and debunking the myth that fats make us fat,

It's really the unnecessary grains and all the sugars and everything that actually makes us fat.

Right.

And during my,

I went through a detox at the same time that you went through a detox and we didn't talk about this and we didn't know where you were.

It was definitely,

I'm in the Southern hemisphere cause I moved to Australia now.

And so we're transitioning from summer into spring.

And,

And during that time,

You know,

And I haven't lived in a,

In a colder climate in six,

Seven years,

Cause I've lived in the tropics and now I've moved to a colder country.

And so for me I've been eating a lot of nuts,

Like what Trudy is saying.

Yeah,

Nuts,

Avocados,

Coconut oil,

All of these healthy fats,

Good fats that actually your brain needs.

Cause that's the jet fuel for your brain.

And in my detox,

Most of it was on proteins and fats versus on grains and a lot of greens and fibers,

Intermittent fasting as well,

And making sure that the body had time to heal and repair itself.

And after 10 days,

You know,

I actually lost weight eating so much fat,

Right.

And I don't need to lose weight.

Right.

But so we have someone's asking like what other types of fats can you eat that are good fats,

Good fats?

Well,

Natural oils for sure.

Okay.

So natural oils is one way of getting fats in the diet and that's going to come through seeds.

It's going to come through nuts,

Nut butters.

And the thing is what I really want to stress here,

Johnson is,

You know,

It's,

It's how we digest the fat that's really important.

So for example,

If we're happy,

I could say,

Oh,

You know,

Not so good for you,

But it's how you eat the nuts.

I mean,

If we're having nuts that have been toasted or roasted,

They're completely pointless in terms of nutritional value.

If we soak them on the other hand,

Then we're able to absorb the value,

The oils and minerals that reside within that nut much better.

And then how we eat the nuts,

You know,

Chewing them down really,

Really well,

Masticating it right down so that your body can really absorb it quickly.

So you know,

How,

How we're eating our food items is really key.

Then we've got seeds,

We've got like avocado.

If you're,

If you eat meats,

Then you know,

Fish oils,

You know,

Oils that come from,

From fish sources.

All of these are really good fats.

And in Ayurveda,

You know,

You're never going to get to a talk without me mentioning ghee.

So ghee is an elixir.

When it comes to what ghee is,

You really don't know what ghee is.

So ghee in,

In,

In sort of,

It's translated as clarified butter.

Okay.

So it's,

It's the,

The butter is processed,

It's heated and it gets clarified.

So all the heavy proteins are now removed.

So as butter can be heavy and difficult to digest,

Ghee becomes really light and easy to digest.

So the unique property of ghee is that it helps us to absorb nutrients.

So you could take lots of vitamins and minerals and have all these incredible foods.

But what ghee helps us with is it helps us to extract the nutrients from those foods and convert them to information for ourselves.

So it acts as a carrier or a vehicle to take herbs and nutrients right down to the cellular level.

So a lot of Ayurvedic preparations would be prepared in ghee for that very reason.

Plus it's a brain food.

Yeah.

And Trudy is also asking what happens if you chop all of these nuts up in smoothies?

Like what happens when it,

You know,

Cause sometimes when you blend things,

Does that,

Does that help?

Okay.

Yeah,

That definitely helps because you think about,

You know,

The whole process of breaking things down in the mouth.

I mean when we,

When we break things down in the mouth,

It should be in a form.

So when it gets to the system that lower down,

It's like a soup because our stomach doesn't have teeth.

So you know,

When we,

When we pre digest things by processing it outside,

Either by cooking or you know,

Using like nut butters are similar to that that you would find in smoothie if you're adding nuts to your smoothies,

Then it has a similar process.

So that definitely helps that breakdown process for sure.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

So tell us a little bit more about immunity and if it's been compromised,

Let's say someone who has already been ill or has a chronic thing going on with them or chronic history.

And so how does one recover from that naturally holistically?

So there's,

There's two,

There's two things really.

One is if you are suffering from longterm chronic health issues,

Lifestyle issues,

I really do recommend consulting somebody because you know,

We could say a lot of things here,

But because I have,

Whether it's a personalized science,

We need to understand your body and who you are.

So we would need to personalize that.

But there are some really incredible,

Um,

Herbs and preparations that we can take to boost immunity.

That's,

That's definitely one thing.

I mean,

I use boost loosely.

Um,

There's no such thing as boosting.

Actually,

We're talking more about balancing.

Um,

So I should correct myself there.

But,

Um,

The key thing,

The process that I would help clients with predominantly is really understanding the digestive fire.

So if we are already compromised,

If we're having a cold and flu,

Um,

What we don't want to do is put extra pressure on the body by making it work harder.

So we definitely want to rest more.

We definitely don't want to be exercising.

We want to be eating foods that are going to be easy to digest and they're going to restore our body.

Okay.

So,

Um,

Lightly cooked vegetables,

Soup,

You know,

Um,

If you do eat meat,

Some bone broth because you know,

The,

The,

The marrow of bones gives us a lot of energy and it's,

It's in the marrow that that gives us a boost to our immune system.

No resistance or gives us the strength.

So we can look at eating foods in a really simple way,

In a way that's broken down,

Um,

You know,

And staying away from all the processed foods of course.

But more importantly,

Johnson,

I think,

And this is something that you and I discussed quite often is it's about,

Um,

How we digest.

So the key thing that I find is I ask this question to every client is,

Are you hungry?

And they,

You know,

People look at me thinking,

Well,

That's a stupid question.

Why would,

Why would you ask me that?

Well,

The reason is because if we,

If we don't know whether we're hungry or not,

How do we know whether we should eat or not?

Because you know,

Our hunger is our single most important indicator for our body saying,

Right,

My ugney,

Remember ugneys is ready to fire up and digest that food.

So if our hunger is not there,

It means our body doesn't have the capacity to digest.

So therefore what we're inviting is this buildup of toxicity to now come forward in our digestive system.

And that comes with stress eating,

Emotionally eating,

Eating at the wrong times when we're not hungry because we're not tuned in with even understanding if we are hungry or not.

Right.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So the kaffir types,

You know,

Would emotionally eat,

They wouldn't even question on that.

They would,

You know,

Just eat,

It would be like a comfort,

You know,

Couple of types of looking for comfort.

Whereas a vatha type,

If they're emotionally disturbed,

Perhaps they're going to abstain from food or really indulging fasting because just that's,

That's just the way the kaffir the vatha mind can,

Can sometimes work.

So where do you learn more about the doshas?

It's,

This is all in your book,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

So in my book that I published a couple of years ago,

There's a lot of information about digestive health because digestive health is at the root of ayurvedic wellness.

So there's a lot of information about digestive health.

There's a,

There's an extensive doshas questionnaire so you can get to learn what your doshas is in terms of prabhuti or natural state,

But also your imbalance state.

So what,

You know,

Where are you right now in relation to your natural state so we can make a comparison.

And then the book goes on to talking a lot about how you can manage your doshas much better through diet and lifestyle,

Daily rituals.

There's lots of tips and tricks in there.

But it's,

It's,

It's,

It's really designed to help somebody who doesn't know anything about ayurveda and sort of really break things down for them.

So there's a lot of information there and I,

You know,

If you're really wanting to delve into ayurveda,

Then find out,

Find a local practitioner and start working with them.

Yeah.

Or you can,

They can even zoom you since we're in a zoom kind of world.

We're in a zoom world now.

So I,

I'm working a lot more with the clients online and I have to be honest,

It,

It,

It works beautifully.

So yeah,

I love how simple and digestible you make all of this ancient wisdom and it's really appropriate to the title of your book.

Your book is literally called,

You know,

Ayurveda ancient wisdom for modern wellbeing and you translate it so beautiful in the way that you talk about it.

So thank you so much for telling us all about the doshas about immunity and this holistic mind,

Body,

Spirit perspective about what health is.

Is there anything else that you would like to share to our viewers about immunity before we close?

Well,

Yeah,

I just think,

You know,

That there is certain aspects to immunity.

So a lot of it we can control.

So some of,

Some of our immunity comes from genetics.

Some of it's going to come from our environment.

But we have a lot of control in terms of our diet and lifestyle.

And to that end,

We can make a lot of radical changes to how we exercise the types of foods we eat.

And,

You know,

We want to move a little bit away from this reductionist approach.

And this is something you mentioned at the beginning.

It's not just about,

You know,

Grabbing that vitamin C or echinacea because our body's so,

So complex.

So we've got to make sure that our system is able to digest what we're taking.

So this is going to be playing a really important role.

So the key thing is go slow.

There's no rush.

Just,

Just keep learning,

Exploring,

Discovering and be curious.

And it's experiential.

So just really get in touch with your body and see how things are feeling.

Don't just,

Don't believe everything you read.

Yeah.

Yes.

No,

Of course.

Thank you so much for sharing that wisdom.

What is your website that people can reach you at if they need some support?

Sure.

So my website address is super simple.

It's GitaVara.

Co.

Uk.

So my full name is GitaVara.

Co.

Uk.

GitaVara.

Co.

Uk.

Cause clearly you have your site.

That's correct.

Yeah.

I mean,

There's many,

There's Bellinguita,

I suppose.

So yes,

That's,

That's how people can reach me.

And you know,

If you have,

If anyone has any questions around immunity,

Please do reach out on the feed,

Wherever that's going,

Facebook live.

I'm more than happy to share.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for spending this time with me and for sharing about immunity from an Ayurvedic perspective.

It's always a joy to see your face and I will We did scratch the surface today.

I know we can go on and on and on forever and ever about this.

It's different depths,

But I think that's a really beautiful story.

Thank you so much,

Johnson.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I'll talk to you soon.

Okay.

Take care.

Take care.

See you soon.

All right.

Bye,

Gita.

See you.

Bye.

Bye.

Reviews

Excellent. Thank you Johnson