Dive into the realm of holistic well-being as Dr. Dimple Jangda reveals Ayurvedic secrets for optimal gut health. Unlock a healthier you with exclusive insights on digestive harmony, food combinations to avoid and combinations that are beneficial, common mistakes in intermittent fasting, quick fixes for bloating and overeating. Dr. Dimple talks about the three doshas or body types in Ayurveda – Vata, Pitta and Kapha and how treatment is tailor-made according to your body–mind type. She is the author of a bestselling book, Heal your Gut, Mind and Emotions and the founder of an alternative medicine clinic in Mumbai – Prana by Dimple.
In your book, you said the gut has a direct hotline to the brain, and 75 percent of serotonin is released in the gut. How does Ayurveda explain this connection?
Ayurveda has an interesting take on gut health. I started researching Ayurveda seven years ago out of curiosity of what it was doing to my own body, and then I started the clinic. And to be able to answer the questions of my clients about how it works and what is the science behind it, I started marrying traditional Ayurvedic science with modern research-based science and there were a lot f parallels. Ayurveda focuses a lot on Agni – or your digestive or metabolic fire. They say it is your source of life. As long as your agni is alive and healthy and burning well, it controls your immunity, and also your mental emotional and physical health and personality. Modern science says that the gut controls your emotional and mental health and your gut bacteria – billions of bacteria living in you lower intestine and colon – they literally command your intuition, memory, emotions, thought process, mood swings throughout the day – are all controlled by your colon health and gut health.
Tell us about how you were inspired to venture into Ayurveda. You were earlier a banker and media professional.
I call myself the accidental gut health coach. I did not plan for this to happen. I was very ambitious and aggressive back in the day. At the peak of my career in NYC where I had a consultancy firm, I was heading about 550 million dollars worth of transactions in cross border mergers and acquisitions, which is a very niche market. So the peak of my career when I had all the money that I wanted and a globe trotting lifestyle, I was unhappy inside and I couldn’t understand why. I felt something was broken inside of me. I didn’t want to push through with it. So, I left everything in storage in New York and came back to India for an indefinite sabbatical. I just started following the cues from nature and said I would not say no to anything that comes my way as I did not know what to do. I kept traveling – 10 countries in 11 months. In every country, I started figuring out a little something, but it still didn’t make sense. The 11th country I did was India – with brand new eyes. I toured India like a tourist. I was in the countryside in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka etc and while I was interacting with the rural people, I found that health and happiness was so simplified there. They were naturally healthy and happy. Little things made them happy. If I gave someone 5five bucks he was happy because he could get an extra cup of chai that day. I was like how is it that they are so happy and we have everything and we are still struggling with our happiness, something is wrong.
So the rural folk inspired your foray into alternative medicine? Did you start emulating their lifestyle?
I started living like them, waking with the sun, setting with the sun and I had a voracious appetite for the first time after having battled with anorexia and what not. As a child, I was malnourished because I wouldn’t swallow anything that was put in my mouth. I had a lot of deficiencies and that led to epilepsy upto the age of 11. So, I would collapse and the doctors had no answers for it. I had migraines up to the age of 20. I had a cancer scare when I was 16, and I had four surgeries by the time I was 18. All those memories started coming back to me. Why did I suffer? Why did I have so many diseases and disorders? Why did the doctors not have an answer for me?
What was your main learning?
Every seven years we have a new body. Our body sheds everything. We have a brand new heart, a brand new set of lungs and a brand new brain. How is it that we have a brand new body every seven years, but the diseases stay in the body. It’s because we hold on to the diseases at a psychosomatic level. Ayurveda and modern science helped me understand that disease plays a very powerful role at a physical, emotional, mental spiritual and energetic level and we are the authors of our own disease and health.
In Ayurveda, the treatment is customised according to individual’s mind – body type or doshas or your prakritis. Can you describe them and their main traits?
The first body type, which is Kapha is the endomorph body type. It’s the thickest body type. Earth and water is more dominant, and they are the heaviest of the five elements. They have thick bones, great skin, great hair. They naturally out on weight easily and struggle to lose weight. They have a tendency towards symptoms in the top part of the body because of excess mucus in their body leading to cold, cough, sinus, asthma. They have an inclination towards the heavy diseases like obesity, diabetes etc. The second body type is called mesomorph or the Pitta body type. This is a more athletic body type. They naturally have a good musculature. They put on weight easily and lose weight easily. They fluctuate a lot. They have an envious lifestyle, as they can eat, what they want and they lose weight very quickly. They tend to have disorders in the middle part of the body because there digestive fire is overactive. So they get acidity, burning sensation, etc quite easily. The third body type is called Vata – or ectomorph. It’s the thinnest body type. They rarely put on weight. They struggle in fact. They tend to have light thin brittle bones, dry rough skin, dry rough frizzy hair. They have an inclination towards constipation and bone related disorders because of the lightness. You can also be a combination, which is dual body types, which gets a little complex.
