Unconventional Ways to Find True Health with Dr. Siri Chand

Dr. Siri: [00:00:00] Judgment creates blocks and barriers and when we release judgment to ourself and we embrace ourselves It’s in that very holistic way, it’s self love is never quite the right term with me. I feel like it’s a little overdone, but when we really embrace who we are, it lets some of those barriers to our energy, to our intuition, to what we’re here to do to emerge.

Because, you know, once we’re in that flow and in that river, we have creativity, we have joy, we have empathy, we have compassion, we have the ability to manifest the things and do what we want to do in a way that doesn’t tax us or deplete us. 

Hope: Do you want to wake up feeling like you’re stepping into who you’re meant to be?

Into the best possible version of you? What if I told you that the key to your best life, health, and happiness are all around you? You just have to find what works for you. I’m Hope Petrazza, and I believe that there is a Us one way to live a healthy and meaningful life, and that all you need is a little inspiration to make changes that last from the inside out.[00:01:00] 

Each week I’ll be sharing tangible tips and inspirational interviews to help you on your journey. These are the steps to take to improve your life and live with purpose. This is hopeful and wholesome. Hey y’all, thanks for listening today. I am really excited about this episode. Today I have on Dr. Siri Chand.

And she is a physician who is board certified in internal medicine, integrative medicine, and hospice and palliative medicine. And she is also a doctor of integrative medicine, so she takes a more functional approach these days. And that’s kind of where we start in our conversation, where she’s kind of gone from the more western side of medicine, and has gone down more in an alternative path.

It’s really fascinating to hear, since she sees both sides of things now, she’s To hear the difference between conventional or western medicine and kind of the approach she takes today with a more functional mind. So she also is certified at Ayurveda and she’s going to teach a little bit about that today.

And she, it’s really interesting to hear her take as a physician [00:02:00] on how to use that. So she has got a really impressive resume and I find this conversation really enlightening and she is just a super intelligent woman. So y’all enjoy this episode. I know you’re going to get a lot out of it. Okay, y’all, let’s get going.

I’m so excited to bring on Dr. Siri Chand today. She has one of the most impressive resumes that I’ve seen. She’s just a hotbed of knowledge, and I’m excited to learn more and to teach y’all a little bit of something today. So thank you so much for chatting with me today. I’m so happy to have you. 

Dr. Siri: Oh, it’s a delight to be here. Thanks for the invitation. 

Hope: Totally. So I kind of want to start with your medical background. So you Started you are a board certified physician at md, right? But you’re now you’ve kind of transitioned into the more integrative like functional kind of medicine perspective So what did you see? What problems?

Did you see in your practicing as a practicing physician? Did you see in like conventional medicine that kind of led you down this alternative path? [00:03:00] 

Dr. Siri: Well, that’s a fantastic question and I wanted to just start off today by saying that I’m here to just basically share information and provide education and anything I’m talking about isn’t meant to be a substitution or in lieu of your ongoing medical care.

So, Just like to throw that out there. So my journey is really fascinating. Even I like to say that, I’m always like, wait, that sounds funny. But I got interested in a more holistic sort of integrative approach to medicine actually before medical school and even in college. And as is generally the case, I have found for most Western allopathically trained physicians, There was a healing event that needed more than what allopathic medicine could digest and offer a support for.

So I had developed pretty severe digestive issues from most likely stress. Pre med is the pressure cooker. You know, anyone who comes out of [00:04:00] pre med fully intact and balanced is like, Hey, that is amazing. And a testimony to your parents and your community. Maybe life is different now. This was in the nineties, but you know, back then it was a really important priority to do well in school.

And for me, the way I manifested stress and internal tension was just sort of holding that in the gut. And so I developed really bad digestive issues and I went to the student health And I always say, you know, there’s this, like, divine moment where the right people were doing the right things they were meant to do, even if it didn’t seem right or good at the time, and you can have compassion and forgiveness for the, the event, because it actually ended up leading me into a really different direction.

But he prescribed me a very potent sedative, basically saying, this is all stress. And it wasn’t even like an appropriate psychiatric medicine, it was just a really potent sedative. And I left there thinking, I was always a little bit [00:05:00] of a maverick, but I left there thinking, well, this isn’t UVA, I was like, y’all, I don’t think so, I don’t think so.

And you know, as time progressed, I was still pre med and I was still seeing the value in it. But I began to integrate other ideas about where health originated and where imbalance originated. And so for me, it became both a personal journey, and then it became an expression in my clinical practice of an understanding of the origins of disease and imbalance versus treating a symptom.

And this is a fundamental difference between a lot of the integrative. Pathways, naturopaths, chiropractors versus MDs and Classically, the way we’re trained is to really focus our lens on the problem once it’s occurred. Now, if you sat down with any doctor, they would aptly tell you, prevention of course matters, but it’s not [00:06:00] integrated into our practice model at all.

And as time went on, 20 years later, and lots of study and journey into many different modalities of healing, I ultimately left that clinical practice permanently because of the way the model is structured. I stopped seeing patients and realized that I was much more interested in the prevention piece.

And no one in allopathic medicine could give me the platform where I could be paid to do that. It was sort of an oxymoron. Yes, we believe in prevention and we believe in the power of self healing, but that’s for somewhere else or that’s for someone else. And so that’s really how the process evolved. So now I’m almost 30 years into that journey and boy, it has been a little bit of a wild ride to say the least.

Hope: I can imagine. So what do you think that most people get wrong? Like, when we’re looking at getting medical care or attention, like, because you, I mean, you can see, like, for you in your situation, [00:07:00] you saw the red flags because you’re a trained physician, but as just, you know, lay people who don’t have a medical background, like, what should we be looking out for where we should, might, should maybe rethink how, you know, our doctor, whatever is approaching the issue that we’re dealing with.

Dr. Siri: Right. So I think one of the most important things is that people can start looking at this field. It’s called lifestyle medicine. And so there’s six pillars to lifestyle medicine, meaning, and they all have equal impact on our health. And so it’s meaningful social interaction, non smoking, eight hours of restful sleep, 150 hours of movement per week, a plant forward diet and stress reduction.

And, whenever you come into a place of imbalance of any kind, even if it’s a pretty significant disorder, like cancer, or autoimmune disease, or cardiovascular disease, there’s always [00:08:00] room in the lifestyle lane to empower yourself. And typically, your physician will not approach you about that because they have, we have not had the training.

We believe in it, but the culture of medicine believes in the power of these lifestyle shifts. So anytime you have a new diagnosis, it’s always valuable to ask your clinician about these six areas. Could I look at any of these six areas for a period of time and then come back to you and see how I’m doing?

Now certain, of course, certain diseases require immediate and urgent attention. So by no means am I saying Don’t seek out medical care when you need it, but have that conversation with your clinician and say, Wow, I’ve been diagnosed with XYZ hypertension, diabetes, endometriosis, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel disease.

gastroesophageal reflux and some, you know, depression, anxiety, you know, this sort of top things that end [00:09:00] up taking people to the doctor’s office. Ask your clinician, where are, are there places in these lifestyle pillars that I could work on? And usually they will be open to it. Unless their clinical judgment is such that this is more urgent, it requires urgent attention and urgent intervention.

But a lot of these diseases are really predicated on our lifestyle choices. That’s why it’s called lifestyle medicine. And so, if you can find a physician who’s been trained in lifestyle, integrative, or functional, they’re always going to look at those six pillars foundationally in your visit. Meaning, you won’t be speaking to someone who’s not sure what you’re talking about.

People who’ve done additional training outside of the typical. Now I will preface that by saying a lot of residencies are becoming more integrated in their mindset around lifestyle and incorporating that into the training. But there’s also a lot you have to learn and understand. And helping people [00:10:00] make lifestyle changes is something that you really have to get out and practice.

It’s not so easy in theory, as you would know working with people closely yourself, that everyone’s different. It’s an N of 1, I always like to say. Each person, each interaction is unique and specifically tailored to what their unique needs are. And this is, I think, something that, unfortunately, the way the current medical system is structured and the insurance model, typically, there’s not incentivization for prevention.

Right. It’s really billing for a diagnosis. And so this is also, I mean, it is what it is, but it’s part of what makes it challenging for physicians who may want to offer that in their practice who can’t because the way the practice model and billing structure is that there’s no time code stamp to be reimbursed for that and practices require, you know, the movement [00:11:00] of billing and so forth.

So, If you find someone you really like and they have an independent practice, it’s probably worth your investment if it’s really important to you. And they say, well, the consult is 3. 50. It may seem like a lot of money out the front, but better to make these bigger investments now and really get things clarified so that as you age, you age with vitality and with health.

As opposed to circling back into a system that is more used to addressing something once it’s a significant problem. 

Hope: Right. Yeah, for sure. Because you’re looking more at the underlying issue rather than just the symptoms. Like, you’re treating the issue itself rather than just looking at the symptoms, right?

Dr. Siri: Yeah, and sometimes doctors get a little incredulous with me and they say, Well, of course we’re treating, you know, we, of course we see these other things as important. And I’m not in any way, you know, denigrating the good work that doctors are doing. It’s more just, so I don’t need to be snarky, but really sometimes it is that [00:12:00] simple.

It’s like we’re not looking at how the stress of the family system is or the fact that someone doesn’t know how to cook or they haven’t been able to quit smoking. Or they don’t have a nighttime routine that keeps them awake up till 10, 11, 12, and then they’re sleeping four to six hours. Or that their meals are constantly on the go, and they just, they’re doing their best as they see it, but it’s actually not nourishing them.

You know, these are all things that take time to sort out, and so I’ve been a big fan of incorporating Health coaches into practices who can do these lifestyle assessments really well, and they can learn motivational interviewing techniques, and they can learn how to help elicit new behavior, and that is so valuable.

So. You know, we may, in my ideal world, we’ll see a time when health coaches are really integrated into practices of all kinds, whether it’s a naturopath, chiropractor, or MD. You know, that there is this real [00:13:00] relevance of getting into the weeds with people. We have a lot of social conditioning that takes us away from our, you know, our aligned knowledge of what would keep us healthy.

Hope: Right, right, right. Well, and I think, like you’re saying, I think just to take that time, because I think And a lot of times it’s, with doctors, it’s their no fault of their own, it’s just how they’re practicing, but they don’t have the time to sit there and get all the background and all the, you know, so I think, I mean, I think that’s a great idea to have that other body, that health coach that can get all the background and all of the detailed information needed to kind of put the whole picture together.

Dr. Siri: Yeah. And those intakes can be 90 minutes. Yeah. And easily, easily. Right. So a lot of the integrative and functional providers, MDs. who’ve gone out on their own, who’ve stepped away from the insurance based model. That’s what they’re doing. They’re doing that whole intake that a health coach might do. And so, I don’t know that I have the big solution to what ails the [00:14:00] healthcare system, because I myself had to step away from it, just feeling like there’s not a platform here for me to do the work I really feel called to do.

And I think all of us in our own lives have moments where we We’re asked to sort of, does this system and stylized way of thinking align with my deepest principles? Right. And when it doesn’t, it does take a lot of courage to leave a very financially stable situation and to, new territory of an unknown.

So that, in hindsight, I would say I probably went as long as I possibly could due to the fear of like, is this a good idea? Not, you know, making this transition. But as I said to a physician just yesterday, the water’s fine over here. You’re gonna be okay. Right. There’s a lot of good we can do here that we were, you know, That we didn’t have the lane to do it in over there.

Hope: Exactly, exactly, [00:15:00] yeah. Well, and speaking of the unknown journeys, you also took time away to study Ayurveda. And so, and that kind of plays into what you’re doing now. With Ayurveda, though, you’re teaching physicians. So, can you tell, just for everybody who doesn’t know what that is, can you give a brief overview of what Ayurveda is, and then how you’re using this, how are you using it to teach physicians?

Dr. Siri: So this is a really, uh, fun question. So Ayurveda is from the, um, subcontinent of India. And what happened was, mostly in the West, we think of Hippocrates or herbal and botanical traditions that evolved through time. We don’t even actually think about modern surgery till, you know, later portion of the century.

So, um, I don’t know. Of the era. And so, but in Ayurveda, this was a science and a skilled process of observing the human condition that occurred over thousands of years. In India, and it’s married [00:16:00] into the culture and religions of India, so sometimes people wonder, is it a religion? And I always tell people, you can absolutely practice Ayurveda without it having to be a religious practice.

connection, but much of the principles come through Vedic, the sort of older Hindu religion and philosophy. And what they did is they had these, they call them sort of rishis or sages, who would observe over hundreds of years. And so for many, sensibly millennia, it was an oral tradition, meaning a teacher would observe and theories would be shared.

And it was recited. You know, modern era, we have books and papers galore. So, as this last, uh, millennia came to a close, these books and this material was gradually brought into written format. And so, I have a number of those original textbooks. And so, what they realized, And this is the Ayurvedic system, which [00:17:00] is a bit of a sister science to traditional Chinese medicine, is they began to see the whole organism in connection to the exterior world.

So if you’re in a cold environment, this is extremely basic, how does the cold impact you on a physiologic, mental, emotional, spiritual level? And then you could have even things as subtle as what happens when someone yells at you? How does the body respond? What happens when you take good care of yourself and your internal environment reflects self love?

What happens when you bring certain foods in? What happens when food is grown in a particular way, meaning without pesticides and biodynamic or organic? How does the body respond to all of that? So, it was a system for understanding how we digested everything that came in and to us from the external world.

How our internal environment would respond and they do they realize I always think of this [00:18:00] sort of like in the ocean If you see the sea anemones, you know, they they it’s like there’s like trends and they’re all sort of showing you the ocean current So they found three main currents if you will three main trends Based on five elements and how those elements combined to give these three main trends And so, there’s a Vata trend, which is the air and ether.

There’s a Pitta trend, which is fire and water. And there’s a Kapha trend, which is earth and water. And these three trends, or managers, if you will, of, Energy, for lack of a better word, give us a sense and a predictive model as to how things move out of balance and how to take things back into balance.

And so, for example, a way we might think about this is that someone who has this more Vata predominant body type in the fall, fall is a Vata time where there’s a lot of dryness and coolness, kind [00:19:00] of like the ether is dry and cool. Leaves are dying. So we talk about doing warm nourishing foods, keeping the body warm, keeping a regular schedule.

Sometimes there’s a self oil massage that keeps the body sort of balanced and steady. So it becomes a very, it’s a vast medical system that included surgery. The botanical index includes thousands of different uses of botanicals. The medicinary, the qualities that exist within Ayurveda. I often joke, I said, people often think turmeric latte is Ayurveda, but it’s like, that’s just not it.

It’s just, or the little meme that says Vata Pitakapha, like, oh gosh, there’s so, so much more depth to it. So what I realized was that Ayurveda is sort of the ultimate version of lifestyle medicine because there is a very discreet appreciation for quality of sleep and routines of sleep. There’s a very discreet appreciation [00:20:00] for a plant forward diet and very particularly based on your individual trends.

There’s a very particular quality to yoga and meditation as a means of stress reduction and mindfulness. There is a very clear teachings around removing intoxicants, and that can include things that are like endocrine disruptors, like things in your home that are false smells for the body. So again, you can see how Ayurveda was the precursor to all of that modern understanding, and there’s even some beautiful quotes from, I was just teaching in the class 2, 200 years ago saying, you know, the lifestyle is the primary determinant of the outcome of disease, not the genome.

And they literally said that in the ancient textbooks. And when we sequenced the genome, physicians, healers, you know, everyone thought, oh, now we have the answer. But it turns out that the mechanisms that turn genes on and off, epigenetics, [00:21:00] these little cellular processes that turn genes on and off. That’s the major determinant of disease, not in and of the genes.

And so a lot of modern research, especially in lifestyle medicine is looking at, for example, the impact of nature, the impact of mindfulness, the impact of a plant dense diet filled with lots of wonderful phytonutrients like things we find in spices and pepper and ginger and turmeric. And we’re looking at the role of yoga, we’re looking at the role of movement and exercise and health.

It would seem that these things should just be fully in the lane and fully obvious, but insurance doesn’t pay for us to cultivate that for people, which is really, I don’t know. You know, again, it’s the system in and of itself, if the focus could be into these lanes of lifestyle choices. And so, from my standpoint, the Ayurveda became this incredible lens to view a very precise way of looking at lifestyle.

[00:22:00] And it was based on thousands of years of the human condition, so maybe not everything translates perfectly. Some of the things are a little colloquial or arcane to what is, what we would expect in a modern kind of medical manual. But there’s a lot of depth, and some of it is even very poetic. It inspires us to perhaps have a glimmer at something beyond what’s just straight in front of us.

So, it began really as a personal journey. When I alluded to this health process, And that’s when I picked up my first Ayurvedic cookbook. And so we’re now almost 30 years into that journey. And this cookbook was, I think, Ayurveda for self healing, or something to that effect, or Ayurvedic cooking for Westerners.

Anyway, I don’t remember. But that was the book that really taught me about doing simple teas through the day. Monitoring not eating so much once the sun set, you know, really priming my digestion with the cycle of the sun because there’s this [00:23:00] interrelationship to nature and digestion that’s in Ayurveda.

And simplifying my diet, doing sort of an elimination diet, but I, that was how I healed myself. And again, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case for everyone. We should always get the care we need to sort out what’s going on. Sometimes it’s actually very serious. But for me, it wasn’t. It turns out that it was really a reflection of being totally stressed out and no skill set to manage my stress.

And so at that time I learned Qigong and Tai Chi and took a semester off and did my mega elimination diet where I was eating like steamed chicken and and simple but non cruciferous veggies for six weeks. Well, lo and behold, you know, things got better. My mood got better. My energy got level, you know, my focus got clearer.

So again, it was such a powerful testimony. And I think you find many physicians or healers or people in these fields [00:24:00] have had their own healing journey that makes them sort of. I just believe this works because it was so transforming for me or a loved one. 

Hope: Yeah, yeah. So within this practice of Ayurveda that you’re teaching physicians, are you, in what capacity you’re teaching, are you teaching for them to be able to manage their own or is it something that they’re teaching their patients or is it both?

Dr. Siri: It’s both. So the beautiful thing about Ayurveda, and it’s sort of like a yoga teacher training, so I’ve done a number of yoga teacher trainings, you go into the teacher training level one, and you’re like, when I finish, I’m going to be a yoga teacher, I’m going to be all set. And then like your life blows up during the training, and you end up divorced, or you move your house, or you leave your job, and you’re like, wow, that was a lot of personal transformation.

And you begin to realize, like, you know, sometimes these trainings give you this process and this lens of sort of becoming healthier in yourself and developing more clarity about your, we would say dharma, but your life’s [00:25:00] mission, like how you want to express and the legacy that you would like to have once you’re no longer here.

And so, My experience with Ayurveda was that a lot of the clinicians want to have a relationship to the concepts and inadvertently want to bypass the inner work. And it’s interesting because the burnout rate in Western medicine right now is about 70 percent and the suicide rate for women in medicine is about two times the national average.

Wow! 

Dr. Siri: So there’s actually a pretty deep issue in medicine in medicine. Where the healers need healing and so while I’m not directly doing medicine I’m providing a platform to introduce ideas around self healing that are very clearly enumerated in Ayurveda and of course, these are adult clinicians who have you know, have good judgment and you know, we’ve largely had that experience of [00:26:00] Them being able to learn both in themselves and then figuring out as they learn more what they can address.

And I would say, hands down, the probably most practical skill set that they’re taking from the course is just understanding how to support digestion, using Ayurvedic principles. And there’s a couple of things that are just really straightforward, and one of them is Eating the bigger meal at lunch, not, it sort of is in line with the intermittent fasting, you know, going, once the sun sets, giving a full 12 hours of reset to the gut, and of course it’s not practical for everyone, so, you know, these things don’t apply.

There’s some wonderful teas that one can have through the day, cumin, coriander, fennel is one. It’s a mixture, one to one to one of each, and it’s sipped through the day. Ginger tea, and then there’s specifically tailored teas to your body type. And, of course, there’s a lot to think about in terms of microbiome management, [00:27:00] SIBO, leaky gut, dysbiosis.

It’s food sensitivity, food allergies. So there’s, this is where I think there is this realm of the bridging between coaching and nutrition and medicine, where we know that when the gut gets healthier, the microbiome is positively impacted and there’s no, nobody will dispute who’s looking at the microbiome and gut data that that has an implication for longterm health.

In an Ayurveda. It’s 100 percent linked, like there’s no, it’s like fully integrated. And when I first arrived to medicine in my clinical experience in 2002, I was doing hospital rounds, and I said, well, maybe we ought to look at supporting the gut while someone’s taking antibiotics. And at that point, it was just like, you are weird, why would you say such a thing?

And now, it’s like, of course, we’re thinking about that intensively, and in fact, really encouraging doctors to limit their use of [00:28:00] antibiotics for precisely this reason, and to not just give them, You know, because someone says, I need it and I will feel better if I don’t get it, when a lot of these things are actually viral in origin, which don’t respond to antibiotics, unfortunately.

So, long story long, but 

Hope: No, no, no, it’s good, it’s good. So, with us, I mean, because like you said, Ayurveda is very, it’s a very complex field. So, are there things, just, you know, little tangible things people can take with them, like right now? Are there things that we can do? Because you’re, I was reading through, you know, the stuff that you teach on your website and stuff, and it’s all about like balancing what’s imbalanced, right?

With food, with Ayurveda. So what are things that we can do, like everyday things, simple things, that don’t require a whole lot of Ayurveda background, that we can do to kind of find that balance and kind of incorporate Ayurveda into our everyday life? 

Dr. Siri: One of the most beautiful skills I think we all could learn [00:29:00] right now is to pay attention to our breath.

This may seem abstract, But there’s some very beautiful meditations you can find online. One of them is called so hum. And this is a meditation where you’re inhaling and you hear mentally the breath making this gentle sound of so. So as the inhale, it’s a so, and as you exhale, it’s hum. And as we awaken the meditative quality.

We relax, and when we relax, our intuition emerges as to how to serve us best through the day. So, this is the key component of Ayurveda, is that everyone’s life is a little different. Everyone’s needs are a little different. So if we can bring a sense of relaxation into our day to day routine and begin to listen to our intuition, so whatever means that someone has to be able to accomplish that, that’s then the lens of being informed about where your life needs [00:30:00] to go.

So a lot of times in particular, you may have like entrepreneurs that listen or solopreneurs and the day kind of gets away from you and you get at the end of the day and you’ve got a lot of self judgment and you didn’t get to this or you didn’t do that. And this thing that you needed to do. And so there’s this constant feeling of like momentum and things not being sort of fully vetted.

So, one of the most powerful things you can do, really, is the engaging in a journey with your breath. And, there’s a pranayama, it’s this sort of yogic term, but it could be breath work. It could just be this relationship to appreciating, like, oh, my breath gets shallow when I’m tense and stressed. Or can I relax my shoulders and engage my diaphragm when I’m doing something that requires a lot of focus.

Or, I’m upset and someone’s upsetting me, can I take those deep breaths before I respond? Because we know once the nervous system, the autonomic, that fight flight, that [00:31:00] stress response kicks in. So to me, one of the best things that Ayurveda can do is to help us navigate that stress response. With things like mindfulness and yoga and self care so that when life comes to us We have resilience we have a buffer zone and that to me is one of the most pivotal things that people could have So the breath is one thing.

The second thing is a nighttime routine and Restful sleep is something very few people are getting. So, I keep it real, alright? I know people are on their phones at night. I know that we’ve got a lot of screen time for the kids right now. So, there are some exercises where, for example, throughout the day, you take little breaks.

So, every 20 minutes, you look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. The 20 20 20 rule. Or you just take a moment once an hour, cover your eyes, Because all of this light stimulation affects our [00:32:00] circadian rhythms. And so, though the classics don’t speak of this, the Ayurvedic teachers, they would say, well, how do we solve this dilemma of all of this light stimulation through our optic nerve into the more processing parts of the brain, plus things that probably come in through other routes, just vibrationally.

So, I’ve always thought that a sleep routine starts with the amount of exposure and impact of the eyes. The second thing is really if you’re on the screens in the evening having the blue light blocking. So whether you do the setting on the phone or you put your glasses on, this is a great routine to have.

The third thing is to really try to shut it down by about 930. And we, you know, in Ayurveda, we say you get that second wind at 10 p. m. And that has to do with the doshas all having specific time of day. So pitta, which is the primary metabolic process of the body. kicks in around 10 a. m. and 10 p. m. So, 10 a. m. [00:33:00] to 2 p. m. is the first one, and that’s great. Eat your big meal there, do your big work there. Kicking it in at 10 p. m., most people do notice, Wow, yeah, I got that second wind. And so, I always tell people, once that second wind kicks in, if you will, and you’re at the screen or you’re multitasking, It is much harder to down regulate for restful sleep.

So, if you really have too much on your plate, get up earlier, but really try to get your body to start shutting down and off the screens, or at least off typing, you know, off, like, deeply engaging in projects by about 9:30. And I know everybody is Super busy. And I imagine some of your listeners are in that solopreneur world where it’s like, um, that’s when I do my best work, right?

Hope: When the kids are asleep. 

Dr. Siri: Yeah, exactly. So it’s tough, but if you can learn to switch a little bit of that routine to the early morning, you may find a little better focus and more restful sleep. And the fourth thing, which you know, [00:34:00] is these days is sort of all the rage. And I was just really love is a golden milk at night or a golden milk latte where it’s the turmeric.

In the warmed plant milk, you can add spices, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon. I don’t tend to put any added sugar, but you make a little paste with the turmeric. And this is like a wind down. It’s sort of part of that evening ritual of like, let’s bring the day to a close. The other thing, which I didn’t mention, is just sort of dimming the lights in the evening.

So, if you’re active in the evening, having dimmers on your lights so that it’s not, you know, the football stadium at home. Because this all impacts the circadian rhythms. And so that when we go to lay down to sleep, that the body is ready and aware that sleep, it’s time for sleep. To me, this sleep deprivation is one of these very under, under recognized elements of modern imbalance.

And I think a lot of the [00:35:00] issues that come up for people have some link to their sleep patterns. So meaning, and also if you have a serious diagnosis. Sleeping well is going to give you more bandwidth and resilience to navigate your way through it. So sometimes people say, oh, I did all the best things, I lived a healthy life, and yet still this thing happened.

And in Ayurveda, we would say it is so. It isn’t always about judgment or blame. It just happened. And so, The body in some ways is innocent, you’re innocent, not really about, you know, by the time things happen, things have been in play for a while, so, yeah. 

I think it’s important. So sleep, sleep in the breath, those would be two really straightforward things that are very deeply enumerated and described and tremendous importance in the Ayurvedic and yogic practice.

Older textbooks, if you will. 

Hope: I think that is definitely, those are both doable. If people put their minds to it. 

Dr. Siri: [00:36:00] Exactly. 

Hope: Right. Just a little discipline. 

Dr. Siri: So that’s one little fun thing you can do before a meal is this is something that a lot of people that I teach, a lot of people enjoy is you take a little bit of ginger and grade it or slice it.

You put some lime juice and a little salt and you eat that before the meal. And it sort of wakes up Agni, it wakes up the digestion, and people usually really enjoy that, and it’s, it gives this kind of, ooh! 

Hope: Yeah, I like that, yeah. 

Dr. Siri: But it’s really tasty too, the lime, the ginger, and the salt give this wonderful combination.

Hope: Yeah, I like that, I want to try that. 

Dr. Siri: Yeah, I think you’ll enjoy that one. 

Hope: So before, I do like to ask everyone the same question as I end, but before that, I want everyone to know where they can find you, and kind of what you’re doing. What you’re doing right now. 

Dr. Siri: Yeah, exciting. Thanks. So, you can find me at my website, drsirichand.com, D R S I R I C H A N D dot com. And I’m on [00:37:00] social media, and similarly, I’m available posting mostly pictures of food and cooking because my true love is that, and I’ll be launching a signature program in the new year that incorporates a lot of these beautiful principles from Ayurveda to give a very practical and pragmatic approach to cooking.

Creating a plant forward kitchen that incorporates mindfulness and sustainability and optimizes digestion So 

Hope: yeah, that’s gonna be awesome. I love 

Dr. Siri: yeah, I’m really excited about it 

Hope: Recipes y’all have to go check out her blog because the recipes on there. I mean they’re like So beautiful, like the recipes are so impressive.

Please go check out what she’s doing now with that. It’s awesome. Your recipes are awesome. So I like to ask, end with the same question. I like to ask everyone, what do you think is the most important change people can make or the most important thing they can do to live with purpose? 

Dr. Siri: You know, I think one of the most Absolutely valuable things you can do is to drop self [00:38:00] judgment.

When you do that, that’s when the magic starts happening. It just releases the, you know, judgment creates blocks and barriers, and when we release judgment to ourself, and we embrace ourselves in that very holistic way, it’s self love is never quite the right term with me. I feel like it’s a little overdone, but when we really embrace who we are, It lets some of those barriers to our energy, to our intuition, to what we’re here to do to emerge.

Because, you know, once we’re in that flow and in that river, we have creativity, we have joy, we have empathy, we have compassion, we have the ability to manifest the things and do what we want to do in a way that doesn’t tax us or deplete us. So that I would say is one of my 

Hope: love that that is huge I think that I feel like you just spoke like that my like I’ve always talking my kovat lessons I feel like that you just like spoke my truth like I feel [00:39:00] like that has been this whole time because I am Super type a personality and I’m a planner and Lord knows in 2020 you couldn’t plan a dang thing because everything just got thrown up in the air.

So I feel like that is it’s yes it’s like and I’ve judged myself I didn’t get this done and I haven’t done this and a behind on this and That is like, that is the ultimate truth. I love that. 

Dr. Siri: Yeah, it’s, and you know, to be honest with you, I’m in the same boat as you. I feel like I have had to learn so much through this COVID time.

I have tendencies to perfection as well. And so, I’m so grateful you brought that up because it has been a really wonderfully empowering thing to let go of all of that. It doesn’t actually turn out to have been that useful. 

Hope: Exactly, right? Why was it serving anyway? It’s so true. 

Dr. Siri: It was like, oh, that was really not needed.

And so really being able to make this transition. So [00:40:00] that’s why I love that you, you comment on that. Because I think. More people than we probably realize have had to do that with everyone in the same space, and with kids, and cooking, and uncertainty about finances, and uncertainty about futures, and missing all the things we’re used to, and not being able to deliver or do the things the way we’re used to.

Boy, I don’t know a single person who hasn’t had to look at that. And I think if you’re willing to do the work of letting it go, which isn’t actually Monumental. I mean, it’s doable. It’s in the realm of doable. There’s a lot of joy that sits underneath it. 

Hope: Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for sharing. I feel like, I feel like I could talk about this for hours. Like I can make this like an hour episode. There’s just so much more I would love to learn from you. So thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom and your insight and your energy. I just love it. So thank you so much for joining.

Dr. Siri: Yeah. [00:41:00] Thank you. Hope and uh, again, thanks everybody for tuning in and listening. 

Hope: Thanks for listening to Hopeful and Wholesome y’all. If you found value in this week’s episode, please subscribe on iTunes, wherever you get your podcast and leave review to let me know what you thought. I love to know what you find useful in these episodes, so I know how I can provide the most value I can to my listeners.

And if you have topics that you wanna know more about, I’d love to hear those as well. So shoot me a message on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. It’s at the Hope razza, or visit my website hopeful and wholesome.com. Thanks, y’all.