Ep 543 – Awakened Sleep with Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar and Dr. Sheila Patel

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0:00:50.0 Angie Paris: Hi there ABMP listeners. I'm Angie Paris, licensed massage therapist, yoga teacher and Chopra certified in meditation, Ayurveda and well-being coaching. I'm also the director of strategic partnerships for ABMP and you're listening to the ABMP Podcast, a podcast that speaks uniquely to the massage and bodywork community. We're here in 2026, start of the new year, and we thought that this would be a good topic to get us off to a good start. Today I'm being joined by Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar and Dr. Sheila Patel, who have co-written the book 'Awakened Sleep: An Ayurvedic Approach to Getting Deep Rest and Unlocking Optimal Health.' Dr. Suhas is one of the most prominent and academically accomplished Ayurvedic physicians in the US with over 35 years of clinical experience. He is the director of Ayurvedic Healing, an integrative wellness clinic in Santa Cruz, California. He is also the author of 'The Hot Belly Diet' and 'Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life,' which has been translated into 13 languages and sold nearly 70,000 copies. He is an advisor and consultant at Chopra Global and Chopra Foundation, which allows him to share the stage with some of the leading global experts in the field of integrative medicine. He's been featured on numerous podcasts, radio and TV shows. Dr. Sheila was former chief medical officer for Chopra Global and a board-certified family physician. Dr. Sheila is certified as an instructor of Ayurveda, yoga and meditation and served as chief medical officer for Chopra Global for 13 years. She joined the Institute for Integrative Nutrition as a medical advisor where she continues to be a lead educator for the Chopra meditation and health certification programs. In addition, she serves as the clinical research director for the Chopra Foundation, volunteer faculty at UCSD School of Family Medicine and Public Health, and as a sought-after keynote speaker. And through my Chopra training, I've learned a lot from both of these experts and I couldn't be more honored and thrilled to be here talking with you today.

 

0:02:59.3 Dr. Sheila Patel: Thank you for having us.

 

0:03:00.6 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: Thank you, Angie. Thank you for having us.

 

0:03:03.2 Angie Paris: So I read this book during my Thanksgiving holiday, and my dad had double knee replacement surgery. And my mom, of course, being a total vata and in her head and being all nervous and scared, wasn't able to sleep. She was doing a lot of worrying. And I referenced this book quite a bit, and I think for her, the takeaway that was really empowering was the point that you had made in there about the regularity of a schedule versus the quantity of sleep. Because sometimes we can get in our head about, "Oh my God, I didn't get this many hours of sleep, and now I've failed." So she took that and she said, "Okay, well, here's my schedule. This is what I do." And I think it gave her a tool that empowered her.

 

0:03:47.3 Dr. Sheila Patel: Yeah, that's fantastic. That was our hope when we wrote the book, is that there'll be little action steps that people can take that do make a difference just singly, but also then additively, slowly over time, it sticks. So that's nice to know.

 

0:03:55.2 Angie Paris: Yeah.

 

0:04:03.1 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: It's very interesting that you brought this up. It's a very interesting point. Sleep, like any other thing, is an urge. In Ayurveda, we call it as vega. So, like, thirst is an urge, hunger is an urge. When you have the urge and when you do the activity, then you are doubly benefited because you have the support of nature. The whole physiology is ready to carry out that function. But when you don't have the urge and when you try to do something, then you are trying to defy the logic what the body is trying to do. So you are disrupting the chronobiological clock and the circadian rhythms. And it happens so often, trust me, that it's about 8:30 and you are yawning and you're ready to crash, and you want to sleep at that time and you look at the clock and, gosh, who wants to sleep at 8:30? And then you start flipping channels, and then by the time you realize it's past 11:30, and then you are trying to sleep and the urge has come and gone, and then you are trying to force that urge to come back. So regularity is very important, as is the hunger. Eating the right food at the right time, you train the body to have that vega, that urge to create so that you can ride the wave and go further.

 

0:05:20.5 Angie Paris: Yeah.

 

0:05:20.9 Dr. Sheila Patel: Yeah, that's such a great explanation. And especially, again, the exciting thing about medicine and science right now is everything I read. And I'm always trying to pour through what science is telling us is really supporting all of these things. So for a while they were focusing on quantity. And for most of us, that is, they do show we can get too little and we can get too much. So we want a good balance there. But even science is confirming now that that regularity is more important. And so it's just really interesting. And especially for your mom as a vata, as you mentioned, for people who know Ayurveda or if you don't, it's kind of the air and space types where their nature is irregularity, just like air and space and the wind. And so even more importantly for her to establish a regular routine of sleep, wake, meals, everything. And so that's the other thing we, as you know, we talked about in the book, is that there isn't one size fits all. There are certain things that are helpful for all of us. And then each person can take the questionnaires and quizzes in the book to figure out what potentially is the most important tool for me.

 

0:06:32.7 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: I think one more point that I would like to add to what Dr. Sheila is saying is that to create an ideal daily routine, to create a structure so that it's regular of what time you wake up, when do you exercise, what time do you eat, the quality, the quantity of the diet, food, exercise, the science is not about what, it's all about when. And so it is that cyclical thing. We like to call vata people as regularly irregular, and the more you make them regular. And all these urges, including bowel movement, including hunger, thirst, they're all cyclical in nature. So regularity and sticking to an ideal daily routine, which has been one of the pillars of Ayurvedic medicine, to educate people that you want to really understand your routine and stick to that to the best of your ability. Once in a while, we all travel and do different things, but most of the time you should try to stick to your regular routine as much as you can.

 

0:07:35.0 Angie Paris: So you talk about this a lot, Dr. Suhas, in your book 'Change Your Schedule, Change Your Life.' I mean, I follow that book, it has changed my life. Can you talk about, both of you, what the circadian rhythm is, what's going on, and how chronobiology, you talk about this too, so how is aligning with nature, how is that directly affecting our biology?

 

0:08:00.4 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: Well, it was an old school of thought that we used to understand that when you wake up and you see the light, then that light gives a signal to this little area in the hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. And that tells the entire body that it's light now and all the cells wake up. But that was an old school of thought. The recent discovery, which won a Nobel Prize not long ago, was that the time is embedded in our genes. Our genes know exactly what is happening outside your window. And they want to carry out the activities as per what is happening outside. They are fully aware. Time is embedded in our genes and they're fully aware at a genetic level, at a cellular level, and they are ready to carry out functions. It's us who not having our lifestyle in sync with what the body is trying to do. So it creates a desynchronization, it creates circadian disruption. So we can't even glorify that, whether I'm a night owl or I am an early morning or late night person or this or that, because every form of life on planet Earth is responding to the cycles of light and darkness. Our planet Earth is tumbling on its axis and moving at a dizzying speed around the sun. And the day and night are created. The time, 12 hours of sunlight, circadian simply means circle around the sun. And those 24 hours of cycles are created basically.

 

0:09:33.6 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: So 12 hours of day, 12 hours of night, day is for doing things, night is for resting and recovering. You are resting, but the body is carrying out millions of functions. So if you understand that this is a circadian clock, the body is trying to do these things from sunrise to sunset, then you align all your day based upon that and you let the body do all the things that it should be doing, especially in the night. And millions of functions that the body tries to do in the night when we are asleep, which could be lipid regulation, immunomodulation, brain detoxification, millions of functions. And when you do not do that, then you are throwing a wrench in the perfect functioning of the body and you start creating that backlog, like a snowball starts creating. And then you are suddenly realizing, why am I having this autoimmune condition? Where is this disease coming from? Where do I get this inflammation from? Because sleep is one of the most potent anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory activities that one will ever do in their lifestyle.

 

0:10:38.1 Dr. Sheila Patel: Yeah, no, I mean, agreed. It's this mismatch that really gets us in trouble. And we do constantly have signals that our body and our nervous system and our senses are constantly taking input. And that circadian clock is really aligned with the rhythms of nature. And then we have what we call our social clock, which is what we're doing throughout the day. And when those things are mismatched, again, all of this... And one of the things I love about Ayurveda is that it's really trying to optimize our self-healing ability. The body knows what to do if we're usually getting in the way. And so we have to figure out what is getting in the way of us optimally healing and what do we need to bring in, like practices, to really support that self-regulation, homeostasis, whatever we want to call it, that natural sort of healing that we all have. And that's what the body's constantly trying to do. And so again, we talk, again, in the book about the importance of having a good daily schedule. Not only what we read about the two or three hours of good sleep hygiene before bed. I see so many patients that say, "I'm trying to do these things two hours before bed, three hours before bed, and I still can't sleep." Because then when you look at their entire day, you realize they're doing all these things all day long to overstimulate the nervous system, to create stress and high cortisol. And then it is sometimes challenging to follow to a T that two to three-hour sleep hygiene. So from an Ayurvedic perspective, we say the quality of your day impacts the quality of your night. And it's from the first... As soon as you get up in the morning is how you set up how you will sleep that night. And then of course, we all know how we sleep at night impacts our day. If we don't get natural, restful, restorative sleep, you can wake up in the morning... And the number one questions I ask people to assess sleep is, "Do you feel rested when you wake up?" Because some people will say, "Oh, I slept for eight hours, but I wake up and I'm tired. I don't feel rested."

 

0:12:43.8 Dr. Sheila Patel: And so then you know something's interfering with us getting into what those rhythms are supposed to be at night, the deep sleep stages, the REM, dream sleep stages, and all of the corresponding physiologic functions that are going on. In fact, certain stages of sleep are more active than even being awake. They say, looking at brain waves and different things, especially during dream sleep, that REM sleep, when again, not only are we consolidating memory and we're doing some physical healing, most of which is happening during deep sleep, but it's happening all night, but we're processing emotions. We're actually going through our day and regulating all of those emotional experiences. So we need to be sleeping and getting all of those stages of sleep, and then we'll wake up and feel rested.

 

0:13:36.0 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: The current modern age, the biggest challenge is busyness. Is that right? So everybody's so busy and they are sacrificing their me-time, which is often the time when they're trying to sleep and rest. So you want to take away that me-time and do your social media things at that time. You want to catch up on the latest episodes of whatever television binging that you're doing. You want to catch up on some of the missing things. And so at that time in the evening, people are using that time for doing so many things, which influences their sleep and their mind and their psyche a lot. Everybody is in a faster lane. The busyness at the cost of happiness. To the degree, I really salute the work that you do, Angie, with the massage work, and it's a big education that is needed for people to understand that this is an investment. I actually had a patient yesterday, and he was supposed to come for an hour-long massage, and he showed up about 30 minutes late due to traffic. I said, "I understand that you showed up 30 minutes late, so let's reschedule this."

 

0:14:44.1 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: He said, "No, I'm here now, so I would like to do that." So he went upstairs and he told the therapist that, "I don't want to have the oil massage today," because she was warming the oil and she was telling him, "Remove your clothes and we'll be doing a hot oil." He said, "No, no, no, just give me a rub over my clothes so that I can rush back to my next meeting and everything." And she came to me and I went back again and told him that, "Let's not do this today. We can reschedule this whenever you want to." He said, "No, why can't you do this for 20, 30 minutes? I get seven-minute massages all the time." I said, "This is not what we do, and I don't think this is even beneficial for you. So it's better that we reschedule this. You come back peacefully. If you want to come over the weekend, we'll allow you to do that." But that faster lane that people are working, they are catching up with the meeting, the boundaries have become invisible. We used to start working 9-5, punch the card, go in, punch the card. That has disappeared. It's a smartphone, you're working all the time. And so the mind is racing all the time. So when your skin, where we try to massage the body, is the abode... The sensation of the skin is the abode of vata. Vata regulates the mind. So when the skin is dry, when the skin is wrinkly, stiff, inflamed, it's what the mind is behaving at that time. So look at the skin and imagine what is going on in their mind. And so all these connections of the five sense therapy that Ayurveda talks about is actually uplifting the overall relaxation because most of the people are in fight and flight. And the only way you can regulate fight and flight is with a relaxation response. And I think massage therapy is a huge component to do that, which brings the next closest thing is sleep, which gives rest to all the senses, not only to your skin, but all the senses. So there's no powerful healing modalities to all your sensory organs than sleep.

 

0:16:56.5 Angie Paris: I 100% agree. I mean, one of the things when I was in massage school, as soon as I learned about the parasympathetic system and the sympathetic system and accessing the vagus nerve and how impactful that would be for our own self-healing, I was like, why are people not talking about this more? This was 20 years ago when I was in massage school. So I'm so thrilled that we're talking about that more in our communities. One of the things that I think is really important about Ayurveda that I've taken away is the importance of digestion. Like you talk about, it's not what you eat or all the different things that you're experiencing, but it's how we process it, how we digest all of that. So talk to us a little bit about that and how that's affecting our sleep and how sleep can help us process and integrate some of these things that we know to be true to help us heal.

 

0:17:58.7 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: Yeah, we are talking about digestion as something which is the total body experience. What you take in from any field of perception, from any mode of intellect, that is diet. So you want to digest and metabolize things. So we are nothing else but the metabolic end product of our sensory experiences. That's who we are. But going back to your question about food and digestion, I wrote this book earlier called 'The Hot Belly Diet.' And one of the taglines in the book was "Eat late to gain some weight and sleep late to gain some weight." And if you're doing both, then you're doomed. And about 70% of the country is doing both. They're eating late and sleeping late. So the more you eat late close to bedtime, it is going to influence your sleep a lot. So eating three hours earlier, at least a couple of hours earlier, and making your dinner lighter is a good idea. But the second part is even bigger where you know it. In the massage therapy schools, you teach this to all massage students and everything, that the layers of the gut, brain, and the skin, they're all coming from the same dermal layers during embryological development of our body. So there is an intricate connection between the skin and the gut and the brain itself. So what goes on into the gut lining in terms of your digestion, we call it as ama. So there are residues of impure foods that are staying in the gut that is making you dull, heavy, groggy, toxic, tired, maybe even more a chronic state of indigestion that will affect every sensory experience. It'll affect your immunity, it'll affect your cognitive behavior, it'll affect your moods. All the functions that happen in the gut that regulate the serotonin is something which is regulated with the effective digestive process. So you want to optimize your digestion in order not only to sleep better, but calm down the general inflammation. And I think that is what we see with massage therapy, with oil massages, what we do with creating this five sensory relaxation experience where it regulates the entire relaxation response and it improves your ability to metabolize every experience that is filtered through. And the choices that you make depend upon how you feel. And it's a big point because how I feel is exactly what kind of life I attract back to myself.

 

0:20:32.2 Dr. Sheila Patel: Yeah, I think, again, digestion, we're learning more and more, and Ayurveda has described this for thousands of years that our health really starts in the gut. Right? And so we're starting to understand that from certain perspectives, like microbiome and a few other perspectives. But in Ayurveda, it takes into account... It's just so much more holistic in its understanding of what's going on. And so our digestion will also create heat. So when we eat too late, that creates heat in the body. And so if you're waking up, especially during certain stages of life or if you're a certain body type, it's even more important to not eat anything in that two or three hours before bed. People wake up with heartburn and reflux, and all of those things are very common at night. And we tell people, "Oh, put your bed up 30 degrees." And in medicine, it's a lot of... And I know because I trained in medicine, and so I understand the things that we can do, but I also see more and more clearly over time the things that really are just trying to take care of symptoms but not get to the root cause. And so how many times... Now we're starting to understand these things. But I graduated medical school 30 years ago, and how many times would people come in and say, "Oh, I wake up with reflux at night," and we give them acid blockers and tell them to elevate the head of their bed. And those things can help symptom-wise. But how many people were asking, "What time are you eating before bed, and what are you eating?" We just didn't understand this holistic system. And so I think we're starting to put the pieces back together just from that medical perspective from what I've seen, although not all doctors are on board yet. But especially, it starts with anatomy. We dissect everything apart, and we never put it back together. And think about all these specialty areas. They're only looking at one part of the body. And we've allowed this to happen where we forget to put it all back together. But now we're understanding the mechanisms with sympathetic, parasympathetic, the vagus nerve. Again, we're learning a lot of science around the senses and how the senses all interact with the nervous system.

 

0:22:41.9 Dr. Sheila Patel: And so, as Dr. Suhas mentioned, in Ayurveda, five-sense therapy, taking care of our senses, our ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose. That's why all these Ayurvedic practices focus on. If you think about it, they're all about taking care of our senses, then being mindful of what's coming in. And that's why we say turn off or dim the lights or reduce the electronics before bed. And even not just before bed, but all day long, taking little breaks, letting that nervous system settle down. And not only eliminating those things for short periods during the day, but then maybe looking at cooling colors or doing some eye exercises or being in silence for a little while during the day since we're bombarded by noise all the time. Or the sense of taste, some teas or herbs that you can take that the moment it touches your tongue, the body gets signals to either calm down or wake up. The senses are such a powerful tool, which is why we spend an entire chapter talking about it in the book. But all of the senses can interact with the nervous system, which then can help the gut function better and vice versa. When we're watching what we're putting in our gut, then the rest of the body works better. And so it is this cause and effect, two-way relationship. And so when I evaluate people or we're talking about sleep, we really have to look at all of the pillars: nutrition, movement. When are you doing exercise? Are you doing it really late at night? Because as Dr. Suhas mentioned, "That's the only time I can get it in, and exercise is good for me." These gyms are open 24 hours, and you see people exercising late at night. And now even science is telling us good sleep isn't necessarily, "Oh, I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow." That could be exhaustion. And you may be asleep, but your cortisol's still high. And so that's inhibiting your melatonin and these natural mechanisms that melatonin is supposed to be doing at night. But cortisol may be interfering with that, like stem cell regeneration, creating new tissue, and cellular repair, and all of these things that are happening. So nutrition, movement, of course, looking at the sleep hygiene, but emotions, emotional regulation—so important. We're really starting to appreciate that mind-body connection.

 

0:25:03.6 Dr. Sheila Patel: So we have to take a look at emotional regulation. And then that includes stress and stress management with meditation. So we have several meditations in the book as foundational tools. And then again, as Dr. Suhas mentioned, our self-care. What are we doing throughout the entire day as our daily practices? In Ayurveda, that's dinacharya. What is our daily routine, our daily activities? So it's very holistic. And so sometimes that's challenging. People want the one answer: "What's the one herb I can take? What's the one thing I can do?" And that's not how biology works. Doing all of the things together can be extremely beneficial.

 

0:25:42.0 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: And all these practices that we are talking about in the night, whether it's self-reflective journaling, expressing gratitude, counting your blessings, doing your meditation, doing your self oil massages, having a gentle aromatherapy, all of those things, prayer, meditation, soothing music, they are all creating that parasympathetic relaxation response in the body and you get into a habit of doing it. So that once you start doing it, you cultivate a habit and you train your body to not only crash and go to sleep because you're exhausted, wiped out, and tired, you actually lower the cortisol even before you go to sleep. And that what deepens the sleep and that takes you as a sacred gateway to not only relaxation, rejuvenation, but spiritual enlightenment. And I think the main emphasis of the book is to using sleep as a gateway to higher state of awareness and consciousness where your thoughts, your desires, your dreams, you clear the weeds, you plant the seeds to manifest what you want to manifest in life.

 

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0:27:30.3 Angie Paris: Talk to us a little bit about what is going on in the dream state and how can we leverage that into our waking life? How do we use that while we're sleeping for healing? Talk to us a little bit more about those higher states of consciousness through sleep.

 

0:27:45.1 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: I think vata dreams are more fearful. So the personality is all about fearful dreams of missing your flights or not getting what you want or fearful of "what if" kind of a thing. Pitta are dreams which are more goal-oriented, more fiery, more dynamic, more heated conversation. These are all things in your subconscious mind. The body type is something which is structuring your subconscious response to everything. So when you talk about the doshas, which are into the physical realm of things, which are influencing not your decisions but your dreams also. So what we are trying to do is we are trying to override the dosha by a sattvic ritual, by uplifting light and pure qualities so that you don't go to sleep in a disconnected zombie mode in a tamasic state. And many people do that, drinking alcohol, having cannabis gummies and things. They are already making the dull tamasic quality of sleep even more dull and tamasic where the experience is not light and bright at all. So you want to make the sleep as a light and bright experience, cultivating a sattvic routine so you change the very nature of those dreams and experiences because you want to connect yourself with the higher state of consciousness where you dispel the fear.

 

0:29:12.4 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: Number one reason for insomnia that we know in medicine is somniphobia. Fear of falling asleep, fear of being alone, fear of darkness, fear of unknown, fear of death. That all comes together at that time in the night when you're alone, tossing and turning yourself. And so all these practices that we have mentioned in the book, and Dr. Sheila will tell more about journaling, is dispelling that fear and feeling the support, love, so that you feel more relaxed. And even if you wake up in the night, there are ways that you can go back and recollect and take your meditation practice with you in the sleep so that you wake up even more energized and more positive.

 

0:30:20.5 Dr. Sheila Patel: I could also listen all day long. Dr. Suhas talked about these spiritual aspects to sleep. It really is the beauty of Ayurveda as a consciousness-based approach to healing. Because yes, there are things we do for the body and now we can understand mechanistically what's happening. And yes, we have practices for the mind to calm and balance the mind and balance these doshas, these different psychological principles. But most importantly, when we balance the body, when we somewhat quiet and calm the mind, what we're doing is we're accessing consciousness, our unchanging nature where pure potential exists. And the daily world is constantly pulling us out. Our sensory experiences are pulling us outward; conversations, reading, looking at computers, noise, everything is pulling us outward. So sleep, I think Dr. Suhas mentioned this earlier, is really the only time we have to really shut down our sensory experience. And that's what happens when we're in deep sleep and really access that pure potential that we have as consciousness. And that's why we see all of this healing happening. Cellular regeneration, like recreating, making new tissues, cleaning out the brain, cleaning out waste, the liver doing so much detoxification, it's very active at night.

 

0:31:17.1 Dr. Sheila Patel: This superhuman-like healing potential we have when we have withdrawn our senses and go into deep sleep. And then what medicine has a hard time with, I think behavioral health world is really stepping up into this space, is the emotional healing that's needed to really create physical healing. When the mind is disturbed, that will create the fight-or-flight response. And so the body has a hard time healing when we're in fight-or-flight. That's not rest-and-digest longevity mode, right? And so the emotional processing and healing that goes on at different sleep stages. And again, we can measure what's happening when we sleep, like, oh, these are the brainwaves and this is what's happening physiologically, but not the why and not the deeper essence of what's happening. Like unlocking creativity. We talk about all of these amazing creative books and movies and music that has emerged when people have been sleeping, right? In that ultimate creative state that we have. So when people are trying to manifest in their life and increase their creativity, there's no better thing to do than work on your sleep, right?

 

0:32:27.2 Dr. Sheila Patel: And so these are these deeper realms. And then compassion, empathy, gratitude. When we're accessing consciousness, it's just like when we meditate, we bring into our day these qualities of consciousness; more compassion, more love, more joy, more connection. We feel not this separate body, we're actually experiencing our connected self, connected to everything. And so we bring a little bit of that into our day-to-day life. And so that's how we become enlightened. This is what Awakened Sleep is about. It's about having an enlightened life. And again, sleep as an extension or a variation of meditation is not a waste of time. Why would I sleep when I can be do-do-doing? Well, we want to be, right? And so if you really want to unlock your ultimate creativity and healing potential, whatever it is that your intention or your intended outcome is, we have to get good, natural, restorative sleep to access all of that healing potential. And we don't even know what's going on in the emotional brain during different stages of sleep very well. There's functional MRI that can show us maybe potentially what parts are active.

 

0:33:37.4 Dr. Sheila Patel: But brainwaves are really just looking at the cortical brain. We really don't know what's happening in these deeper aspects of the brain during sleep from sleep science perspective. We may in the future with new tools. But one of the really fascinating phases of sleep is that hypnagogic and hypnopompic state between sleep and waking state. And this is what we access with yoga nidra, and we can extend that phase, that stage of sleep where incredible things are happening. And from a medical perspective, we kind of just describe it as, oh, there's hallucinations that happen during that time. And it's just a quick thing going from waking to sleep. And we've kind of overshadowed that, and I'd love to see more science around that because with yoga nidra and in trauma work and in people who have trauma in the military, etc., they're using yoga nidra techniques to expand that stage of sleep where we're actually accessing other stages of consciousness and clearing out the subconscious mind and clearing out suppressed emotions and not having to relive things or use the mind to do that work. It's just such a powerful stage of sleep that again is going into these other realms of awareness and consciousness that medicine just doesn't describe at all.

 

0:35:00.7 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: I think it's a very mystical experience that science is yet to wrap its mind around it because we still know just stages of what happens in the brain in terms of electrical activity, but we really don't know what happens in the sleep. And you are a meditation teacher, you are a yoga teacher, so you know this, that the sleep is the mental modification supported by the cognition of absence. And the thing that we are discussing here is, is it the absence of awareness or the awareness of the absence? And if you get to the stage in the sleep when you are watching and witnessing yourself asleep, dreaming, and you are witnessing that, that force of witnessing is allowing you to be aware of these things, the modifications of everything. Because you can try all day long to control and regulate your senses. Chitta vritti nirodha is so difficult to control, regulate, slow down the mind, the sensory organs one by one. You do it effortlessly in sleep. You withdraw the senses, the mental activities go down, the body is like a log, doesn't move, it's in a state of paralysis. So you cannot even achieve that state in any samadhi state during the day. And you are getting to that state every night. Why don't we take it to the next level? That's what Adi Shankaracharya said. He used this term as sleep as nirvikalpa samadhi. You are already there, so you just need to take a couple of steps to watch yourself witness. And that state of consciousness, which is witnessing everything that you do while you're awake, while you're asleep, is which you are the most close to in the night. It's like you have stars in the sky, but you don't see them during the day, do you? You can easily see them in the night. Why? Because it is a very conducive environment at that time for you to experience what is being there eternally. That is state of consciousness. So you are able to see your own reflection. And as you watch, as you witness, as you are completely free from the daydreaming of the illusion of maya in the night, as you prepare. And so all the yogic traditions in the world, all the Buddhist traditions, and all the ancient cultures in the world have talked about sleep as a mystical experience for enlightenment. It is often correlated with full moon. Is that right?

 

0:37:41.7 Angie Paris: Mm-hmm.

 

0:37:42.7 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: Sleep, enlightenment, everything, the realization, self-realization happens in that quietude of the night when the mind is able to tap and merge itself into cosmic consciousness.

 

0:37:53.7 Angie Paris: It makes me excited to go to sleep now, honestly.

 

0:37:58.7 Dr. Sheila Patel: We should be.

 

0:37:59.3 Angie Paris: It's like, I can't wait. What can I manifest?

 

0:38:00.6 Dr. Sheila Patel: Yeah, we should be excited to go to sleep. It's this magical realm that we have this potential as humans. And one of the things too that... I mean, it's so beautiful, right? But then we get again in the book, it's great to understand all of this, but the tools, right? We want the tools. So how do I do this? You hear this, "Oh, how do I tap into that?" And so much of it has to do with obviously not having dramatic issues going on in the body, because that will interrupt sleep. But the mind, I can't say enough about the mind. And so there are some simple journaling practices you can do that take two or three minutes before bed to just let go of your day. There's something called recapitulation that we teach that's basically you can do it visually or sometimes I recommend people just write it out, because when you write and when you journal... And writing is better, don't do it on your computer. There have been studies that show that writing, that kinesthetic sort of quality of writing is a little bit more of a release. It gets it out of all of those thoughts and just put them down on paper about your day. Just write out as if you're just witnessing, not getting embroiled in the emotions of the day or thinking about it, but just like you're observing like a camera watching yourself throughout the day. And that whole practice should take about two minutes, three minutes max if you're just simply describing what happened. And then you intentionally, you consciously say, "I'm letting go of my day." And then you're literally just letting it go. Or you can just stream of consciousness dump out whatever's on your mind, because that's all the stuff that's going to be on your mind at night. So we need to have a way of turning it off and letting all of that go before we go into sleep. Because whatever is on our mind or going on is what we're going to take into sleep with us. So let that go. Then you've created this wonderful space, letting go of all of this monkey mind and your activities of the day. So now just write down three things, just three, because then you're starting to think too much.

 

0:40:06.7 Dr. Sheila Patel: Three intentions or affirmations or seeds that you want to plant in your mental garden that you're taking into the night. And then close with three things you're grateful for because that will activate the parts of your brain that are associated with higher awareness, higher consciousness as you're going to sleep. And just three things, the first three things that come to you. And then you put that away. You don't think about it. You just lay down, focus on your breath, do a body relaxation technique, drift off to sleep. And over time you'll start to see these things manifest in your life. And it's like the best space to be planting intentions and affirmations and whatever it is that we can... Whatever kind of mind and thinking you want to create, you can. We are just victims of conditioned mind and all of the things we hear and think about throughout the day and watch on videos and TV, and then we wonder why we're unhappy or unstable, right? So I think it's... What Ayurveda has taught me is that we have these incredible powers to create... This body is a constantly changing experience. So every choice we make is affecting that constantly changing body, this constantly changing mind. So every choice we make, every thought we choose, when we create space and realize I can choose any thought in this moment, that creates a mind that we want. And so I think it's very empowering rather than feeling victimized by life. And I hope... That's one thing I really hope people walk away with learning about Ayurveda. It's just very empowering. And yes, you need guides sometimes and it can be confusing, like what's going on with me, but ultimately it's about teaching you your nature through these doshas, how nature is expressing itself through you through these psychophysiological principles, what are the choices you can make that can keep each of those in balance, and then you get to be your own best doctor, your own best teacher, your own best guide. And that's just extremely empowering for people.

 

0:42:14.1 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: And I think the mission statement of Ayurveda is Ayurveda Amritanam, Ayurveda for immortality. And I think there's nothing better than experiencing what you experience in the sleep because you're going to the same place where you were before you were born and long after you will be gone. So if you are connecting your mortal self to your immortal self every night, why don't we enjoy this process and make it more awakened?

 

0:42:44.0 Angie Paris: That is a beautiful way to bring this whole episode together. I love everything that you're saying here and I think it's a beautiful way for everybody to start off our new year and gives us some real practical tools to help put us into place. And when we set those intentions for the new year, what do I want my new year to manifest? What couldn't be a more important, useful tool than everything that you have shared with us here today? Listeners, you have to read this book. It's filled with more details and practical tools. As they've indicated, there's rituals that they recommend, meditations, breathing exercises, there's recipes in there for you. You can do some dosha analysis, you can learn about the different sensory tools. It's all there to help you customize your own personal plan so that you can enrich your sleep experiences. The book can be purchased through all booksellers. To learn more about Dr. Sheila Patel, visit drsheilapatel.com and to learn more about Dr. Suhas, visit ayurvedichealing.net. Is there anything else that you want to leave for our listeners here today to help them set off the new year using Waken Sleep?

 

0:43:57.9 Dr. Sheila Patel: I love what you said about the book. It is all of those things. I don't think I could have said it any better. It is practical tools for people to use. And instead of feeling overwhelmed sometimes, which people can when they're learning a new way about thinking about themselves, just what resonates the most with you? What's one thing you can start in the new year? Like if you're looking at what's the one tool that you're potentially not using that you can bring in, because none of the individual tools are complicated, complex, take a lot of time. So you just pick one. That's what I would tell people is set yourself up for success. Pick one tool and then start doing that and make it regular, and then you can always add something else and add something else. I mean, I think if we realize what's happening to us now is an accumulation of weeks, months, years, potentially decades. So we also want to be patient with the process and slowly add in new tools and then by the end of the year, it'll be a dramatic shift.

 

0:45:01.9 Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar: And myself and Dr. Sheila, we are teaching a four-part webinar series starting in January and February. So if anybody who is interested in coming and learning live webinars with us, please go to our website ayurvedichealing.net. You'll find all the information about the upcoming series of classes that is starting in January and February. So hope you sleep your way to perfect health.

 

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