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Wes: Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness Podcast, where we talk to wellness professionals from around the world to gain their insights into healthier living. I’m your host, Wes Malik. With the holiday season upon us and New Year’s just around the corner, what a year it has been… through so many public service announcements and talking about the whole year and how we can deal with it. It’s been quite the interesting whole year of 2020 and as we look forward, we look forward to talking to more wellness professionals and gaining their knowledge and insights, and today is no different. Our guest today is Mr. Ram Rao. He has 20+ years of research and teaching experience in Neuroscience and has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, chapters and textbooks. He also supervised, trained, and mentored several high school students, college interns, research technicians, and post-doctoral fellows. He’s also a board-certified Ayurveda practitioner and a registered yoga teacher. That’s what we’re going to talk to him about today. He recently published a best-selling book called “Good Living Practices”- The Best from Ayurveda, Yoga and Modern Science for Achieving Optimal Health, Happiness and Longevity. I can’t wait to speak to him about everything in his book and what he’s learned through his research, and through teaching Ayurveda and Yoga. Let’s welcome him to the show. Mr. Rao, welcome to the Lifelong Wellness Podcast. How are you doing today?
Ram: Very good, thank you, sir. Thank you for calling me here on this platform.
Wes: Now, we know that you’ve got 20+ years of research and teaching experience in neuroscience. But what we also know about you is that you teach Ayurveda and Yoga, and I think we'd like to revolve our conversation around that because you have applied the principles of Ayurveda and Yoga, and you teach that for people to have good living practices, which is the name of your best-selling book. Now, before I ask you any more questions. What is Ayurveda? What is Yoga?
Ram: So if you go back to, we did not know the exact date, but if you go back to 4 – 5 years ago. There was a branch of medical science that has been operating in and around Asian countries, especially the Southeast Asian countries.
Wes: Right
Ram: This was written by, I mean we do not know how it came about, but we know some of the authors who have ever done these books.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: These books were called The Vedic Sciences.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: In the Vedic sciences, it’s an entire, I would say a collection of books revolving around wellness, health, and your association with the environment, with the climate, with the art, with the planets and everything. In some of those texts, there was an entire compendium on health and wellness. So the part about taking care of your health, your tissues, your body muscles, your bones, your organs all these forms are part of what we call Ayurvedic Text.
Wes: Do these texts have an author? Or was that unknown?
Ram: So it’s interesting because if you go back you see there’s a term called Bṛhat-Trayī and Laghu-Trayī. Bṛhat, means huge.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: So these are huge textbooks, running to like 25 to 30 different volumes.
Wes: Wow!
Ram: And then the Laghu-Trayī is the light, or the supplemented texts that also runs to about 25 different volumes and all of them have been written, there are names. The question is where these people get the ideas from? So they say that normally, there were these enlightened people in the Himalayas.
Wes: Yes.
Ram : Who have known the environment around them and then realized, they’ve got this divine vision to bring about health and wellness among people in the neighborhood. Those days it was an oral tradition of learning and somewhere down the line, somewhere down the generation, somebody thought that it's best to write down these texts instead of just having an oral language. So these masters actually wrote down the text and the text is now what we refer to these days.
Wes: How old are these texts?
Ram: So it’s interesting… the reason I say years is because there are some of those manuscripts still present in some of the old libraries back in Southeast Asia.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: In India, in Pakistan, In Sri Lanka, Indonesia.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: And if you do a carbon dating of these texts, what happens is you get a value of around 3,000 years. Then there are other texts that are longer, let’s say 6 or 7 years ago. So nobody knows when exactly it was written but we know that all the years there were editions, there were different variations, there were different versions of them. That’s years is the ballpark estimate.
Wes: Wow! Mr. Rao that’s incredible because if we take a look at our timeline of human history, hardly 10,000 years ago we discovered farming and started settling into settlements and we reached, the Egyptians reached their pinnacle about 4,000- 4,500 years ago along with the Incan and the Mayan Empires in South America, where they had math and science, and astrology, astronomy, and other sciences and you’re telling me these texts are around the same time as those civilizations were prospering or probably preceded those.
Ram: It could be preceding them or pre-parallel because it’s interesting, when you go back some of the manuscripts actually present on those libraries, these are really old manuscripts but then they do talk about visitors coming in from other countries.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: So I like to think of it as a parallel system of knowledge that was evolving.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: And as it keeps on evolving, people from different countries brought in their cases, brought in their virtues. Brought in their knowledge.
Wes: Right.
Ram: And so that’s the reason why these texts keep evolving, because there are references to the Greek civilizations, there are references to the Arabian civilizations.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: The Egyptian civilizations, so it seems as if, you know it’s interesting because all these people, their thinking seems to be very parallel because a lot of the reference books, actually when you talk about them, it seems so familiar in all the civilizations so it seems as if even though we don’t know much about how or what kind of communication existed in those days. But it seems as if there were constant interactions between these people from different countries.
Wes: Really? So how did your interest develop in studying Ayurveda and Yoga? I mean, you’re an expert, you’re a Ph.D. in Neuroscience.
Ram: Neuroscience, that’s right.
Wes: Was this before that or after? How did your interest develop in this?
Ram: No! actually to tell you the truth. I knew about Ayurveda and Yoga because back in India and in Indian sub-continent.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: They do a lot of things in our life which is part of the Ayurvedic and Yoga system.
Wes: Right.
Ram: Between our whereabouts.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: The spices that we eat on a day to day basis, some of the things that we do outside, like gardening and all those things, and then you’re praying to the trees and all that.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: So that was part of the Ayurveda and Yoga culture, but it never was told to us that it was part of the Ayurveda and Yoga culture. My dad was actually a chemical engineer but my grandfather and his father were all in the lineage in the study of Vedic Sciences so they knew about Ayurveda and Yoga. But of course, my father became a chemical engineer and so it stops with that. So probably the genes were there. I think it required for the genes to get the sort of activator.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: I came to the US to do my post-doctoral fellowship in Neuroscience and then I become a faculty professor of Neuroscience ,and then around the time of 2000, there were some Yoga Studios making it around bay below.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: And then I started taking Yoga school, yoga classes.
Wes: Right.
Ram: And that’s where suddenly I started developing an interest in Yoga and Ayurveda, and then that’s how I jumped into those sciences.
Wes: So from then, from 2000 onwards, now you teach those two things I believe at the university?
Ram: That’s correct. So, in addition to my scientific laboratory work that I do, I also on the weekend, now I couldn’t because of the COVID situation now, I don’t go the actual college I practice from home.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: I have been teaching, actually finished my Ayurveda practice and my studies. It’s a 3-and-a-half-year program that they offer. I finished that and then I got a certification as an Ayurvedic practitioner and around the same time, I also got my license practice for Yoga and I became a licensed teacher. So I put the two sciences together and started teaching at the California College of Ayurveda. It’s interesting because even though it seems like an exoteric science, there’s a lot of patterns between modern medicine and Ayurveda and Yoga and so that’s where I think my expertise comes about. I try to bring all three sciences together because of what happens in Ayurveda and Yoga they tell you to do this, but they don’t tell you why or for what or how does it happened and all that stuffs. And now, when I go back to modern science and neuroscience I know why those hubs work.
Wes: I see.
Ram: I know why specific yoga poses for the brain, why it worked, what exactly happens. So I’m able to put all these together and come out with a solution and with an answer and of course everything is based on studies.
Wes: Does that all fit together? Does it all make sense when you put the two knowledges together?
Ram: It does! Because for example, I’ll give you a small tip. In Ayurvedic and Yoga text, they said for people who are 50 and above one of the things that they should be doing every day is sort of inversions. Inversions where the head is beneath the heart and they didn’t explain why. All they said if you do the inversions then you will have a clear mind and you will have a healthy body and you will not have any inflammation, you will not have any association with diseases.
Wes: Like the Down Dog Pose.
Ram: It’s a little more than that. It’s like doing the complete headstand.
Wes: Right! Okay! Oh! Okay.
Ram: Yes, people are doing that, but now we know that in some neuroscience perspective, we know that as we age what happens is the blood flow from the heart to the brain comes down and there’s no medication to improve the blood flow to the brain. Unlike the other organs, the brain, the minute you have reduced blood flow, the brain starts… it goes awry. All the structures and functions. Alterations are seen when there’s a reduced blood flow and so one of the things that happens and people have done these studies, was when you do inversions you actually see a smooth blood flow happening. The structures around the veins become more strengthened, the blood flows happen, even when you’re 60+ and so that keeps the brain active.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: So, now we know why those inversions worked.
Wes: If somebody asks you what Ayurveda is and they have no knowledge of what it was, what the word means, or what it is all about. How would you basically, simply in a basic form explain that to a person?
Ram: Right! So Ayur actually means “age or life, lifespan”.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: It’s from the Sanskrit word called “Ayush”, “Ayush” means “the age of your lifespan” and “Veda” is knowledge. So it’s a knowledge of Life.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Knowledge of Life is a very simple term. Knowledge of Life, now what does it mean? It’s knowledge about your own living, it’s knowledge about your living within the confines of your atmosphere, within the confines of your surroundings, your climate, your season, the time, the atmosphere, the clothes that you wear, the food that you eat, so everything around you that can have an effect on you. Ayurveda will explain to you what you need to do.
Wes: I see.
Ram: Even though Ayurveda, it’s interesting because the actual word ‘Ayurveda' doesn’t have any medicine in it. It just says, how do you or what should you do to live an optimal life.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: And they provide you with some tips. The question is if you don’t follow the steps, that’s when you have a disease condition and Ayurveda says “Okay, let’s say you did not follow our advice and now you feel sick. Okay, so what can you do about that?” So towards the end, they provide tips about how you can heal yourself if you have any imbalance. But the actual definition of Ayurveda is your own life or living with respect to the environment around you and the climate around you and the people around you and everything else, all the factors that can affect you.
Wes: You have written much, a lot of material and you published a lot of papers. But let me ask you about your book “Good Living Practices”. How did this arise? When did you come to the conclusion that you needed to write a book about good living practices?
Ram: A couple of things actually forced me, not forced me, but put me in the path of writing this book. Number 1, when I was a neuroscience researcher as part of our community and when the building came up, so this is an institute that really focuses on age and age-associated diseases, I was focusing on memory loss that comes with a disease called Alzheimer’s Disease.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: That’s an age associated condition. So, I was working on that aspect and then we realized that the actual disease was described in 1901. Since today we don’t have a single drug for the disease, absolutely no drugs. So people with memory loss when they come to us, we just diagnose it to be a memory loss but then that’s all, there are no drugs to be given to them.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: So, as part of our community-building practices, they wanted us to go and give our lectures for the community and so in all the lectures that I gave, people asked me “Do you have drugs for Alzheimer’s?
Wes: Okay.
Ram: And I have to establish and say no to that. That’s when I realized that the whole concept of memory loss and Alzheimer’s is not confined to a single drug. But it is a complex phenomenon that affects the body, the mind, and the emotions.
Wes: I see.
Ram: So when we talk about humans, we are taking into consideration not just the body alone and the symptoms alone, but even the mind and emotions, and this squarely put me in the Vedic Science text of Yoga and Ayurveda. Because in Yoga and Ayurveda, we define humans as persons with a Body, Mind, and Emotions. So that’s when I realized that in order to achieve optimal health and Wellness, in order to overcome all the diseases that come with aging, we need to make sure that our body-mind and emotions have to be in sync 24/7, and that I call it Unfractionated Life. If, however on the other hand if we just act through our body or if we act through our mind or our emotions, it's all out of place and we don’t do anything to that, then that’s living a fractionated life. That Fractionated life is a cause of all the disease that we see here and so I put all of these together in a form of Good Living Practices, where I provide hundreds of tips about how to keep the body, the mind, and the emotions in sync 24/7 to experience optimal health and wellness.
Wes: Could you share one example of those tips?
Ram: Okay, so let’s say you are ready to eat your food.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Okay, now how many of us actually eat our food with our mind and emotions on the food itself? I mean most of us these days, we view eating as a social activity, and then we either watch TV or are in front of the computer.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Or busy on our keyboard.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Or talking to somebody else.
Wes: True!
Ram: So, which means you are not focusing on your food, and eating is a factor that requires you to focus on your food to know what you’re eating, how you’re eating, where you're eating, why you’re eating. So all these requirements for your body, your mind, and emotions on the act of eating. This means that in addition to not just chewing your food, but your mind should be in its place, your mind should not be diversified or your mind should not be in any other activity, and your emotions should be balanced. If you are angry, or if you are fearful, or if you are in anxiety, or if you feel depressed, there’s no point in eating the food because nothing happens to the food. The food gets, not only it desiccates properly if improperly digested but it will create problems in the body later on. So in my first chapter, I forward tips on how to focus on your food, what is should be doing and how you should be paying attention to what you’re eating, and there I define eating as a meditative act. So only if you look at eating as a meditative act, that’s when you will experience optimal healing because that’s what happens to the food if gets properly digested.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Otherwise, all the food that you are eating, if you are not properly focused and your mind is elsewhere and if your emotions are off-balance, then along with the food, you have a lot of other neuro-chemicals that come about in the body that play havoc with our digestion and with our absorption of the food.
Wes: I see! That’s a great tip and your book contains many of these. So in your book, Good Living Practices, is it just about how to live a better life and a healthy life incorporating Ayurveda and Yoga, or is it based just solely on Ayurveda and Yoga. You explain what that is and you go into detail about that.
Ram: No, actually what I did is there are a lot of concepts in Yoga and Ayurveda that talk about good living. A lot of people know Yoga and Ayurveda so I brought in those concepts from Yoga and Ayurveda text and then I made sure that it was supported by evidence-based studies and then I put them in a manner that is easily accessible to any person who has absolutely no knowledge about Yoga and Ayurveda because in my textbooks you wonder I talked about Yoga and Ayurveda I don’t talk about poses, I don’t talk about hubs, I don’t talk about medicines. All I’m saying is you don’t need all those but yet you can experience optimal health and wellness by following certain guidelines and those guidelines are incorporating at the level of physical body.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: And the level of mind and the level of emotions. So, anybody, the book is meant for anybody who wishes to experience optimal health and wellness because at the end of the day, let’s all agree that our health is our property and we need to take care of our health, we are the only doctors for our own health. So there’s no need to abuse our body, there’s no need to abuse our mind or our emotions, and one way to do that is to make sure that we do the right things for all the three entities the body, mind, and emotions, and my books provide those tips.
Wes: Sometimes we start taking care of our bodies when they start failing us, we find issues or problems with them and were like “Oh Oh! We need to take care of this now” and sometimes that’s a little later than is required. When you teach Yoga and when you dispense the knowledge of Ayurveda through your book with your students, whenever you have a public speaking engagement, not talking about this year of course but in the past. Have people come up to you and said, “Okay, my life changed because of this” or I have achieved a positive impact in a certain area”. Are there any success stories that people share with you?
Ram: So, until today, I may have seen because I am an Ayurveda practitioner and Yoga practitioner as well and I tell them, I tell people when they come for consultancy, I tell them I’m not a clinician but what I will do I’ll try to make sure that you achieve good health and wellness, and so a lot of people have come to me, I’ve seen more than a hundred patients so far and I put them on. I try not to put then in any hubs because a lot of people, they have absolutely no idea about hubs and how to take them.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Plus, they are little skeptical about these hubs because if you really like to see a pill.
Wes: Yeah.
Ram: And the minute they see a hub, they’re like “Oh, what the heck is this?”
Wes: What kind of magic is this? (laughs).
Ram: Right, Yes! So those hubs have to be taken in a certain kind of a medicinal carrier and all that. So they are a little skeptical. So I don’t do a lot of hubs, but I do a lot of, my practice involves a lot of stuff around eating because what we say in Ayurveda is that if you can control your eating and if you have your digestion optimal, then nearly 80 to 85% of all your health conditions can be improved. Which means that eating becomes a sole priority in our life. My focus is all on eating, making sure that your gut is well, making sure that you have the right kind of atmosphere in the gut, your bacterial environment is good. So I put them on an eating schedule, I tell them how to, what to avoid, how to practice. I talk to them about physical activity. I tell them about mental activity because everybody thinks that physical activities are the only activity to do to achieve goodness, but no. I now know from neuroscience that you have to equally exercise your brain as well. So mental activity become a very important task in our day today.
Wes: Really?
Ram: Yes! There’s one entire chapter that I’m focusing on in the book where I talk about mental health or mental exercise. This actually is a part of Ayurveda and Yoga tradition where they make sure that your mind is always active. We can talk about that a little later and with greater detail and I also talk about behavior because a lot of the negative traits or the negative qualities affect not just the brain but affect the body as well through the interplay of cell hormones that can affect your health as well. This is the kind of approach I put them on and within 3 to 4 months, I see people come back to me and say “You know Ram, this is great – We’re seeing a lot of changes, better changes”. And not just that, sometimes it’s not just them. It’s the caregivers, friends who tell them “You look so great, what is it you’re doing?” and through the word of mouth, I got more people coming by to seek advice from me. So yeah, a lot of people experience very good changes.
Wes: That’s great. Now you’ve spoken about the body, you’ve spoken about the mind and there’s a whole chapter dedicated to the mind in your book Good Living Practices. How about emotion?
Ram: Isn’t that great? If you tell people that emotion is very much necessary for your optimal health and wellness.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: People will think I’m crazy, but no! What we talk about in the Yoga Philosophy, we talk about the entire chapter dedicated to the emotions and now we know from Psychological studies and people with neuro-psychology expertise.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Who had said that cultivating things like Honesty, Smiling, Truthfulness, Loving, Kindness, Forgiveness – all of these. It may seem it's a rebutton, but then it plays a very important role in your optimal health and wellness and people who practice these virtues are supposedly much happier, they have better health, better resistance because, especially now with the COVID situation, they think about immunity in terms of the body but immunity is actually at the level of the mind and what happens is your mental immunity improves only if you cultivate positive habits, good positive traits or emotions. So, I always tell my patients that you don’t need to pay me for my consultancy, but whatever amount you planned to pay me, just give it to the nearest food bank or give it to somebody who requires it, somebody who's more deserving.
Wes: Really?
Ram: I don’t need money, so what happens is they practice selfless service. I’m doing an act of kindness, they're doing an act of kindness and now what happens – if that goes forward, the entire society benefits from that and so.
Wes: Brilliant!
Ram: Yes, selfless service, loving, kindness, forgiveness, honesty speaking the truth – all of these are emotions that really play a very important role in optimizing your health. Now on the same note, it’s just not about positivity. On the same note, negativity has to go down, actually should not be in our lives at all. I’m trying to not have the word NO in my vocabulary.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: NO or NOT.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Because the minute you say NO or NOT, it means a negative trait and negative quality. What happens is, even though we don’t realize it, there’s a release of a bunch of neurochemicals associated with those negative traits and those can cause a lot of havoc, hurting the brain development but even at the level of the gut, at the level of your heart and oral physique and your fitness, and so that’s the reason why negativity has to come down, actually, it should be eliminated completely.
Wes: Really?
Ram: Yes! Absolutely. There are evidence-based studies, clinical studies where people have shown how negative traits like anger, fear, worry, judgment, being arrogant, being violent all affect not just your health, but the health of the people around you.
Wes: I never thought, well of course your emotions and what you're feeling play a role in your mental health and I would only think that it would approach that level, but you’re saying that it can actually affect your physical health I would never correlate the two things.
Ram: It’s interesting because when we think about these emotions. So, let’s talk about negative emotions.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Let’s say whether you have fear, worry, anxiety, anger.
Wes: Right.
Ram: Rage, depression, irritability any of these. Even though they are emotions, what exactly happens to the level of the brain, it’s nothing but an interplay of hormones and these hormones are the same hormones that are released when you’re experiencing stress.
Wes: Right.
Ram: The fight or flight response and these hormones, if not controlled, they can create such havoc in the brain and in the body as well, and so what happens is the same hormones get released when you are experiencing these emotions, so the question is, let's say you are eating your food… when you’re eating your food, do you really want to be, are you in a state of anger? Are you in a state of constant fear or worry? Are you depressed? Because what happens when we have these emotions, the first thing, and it’s a human trait when we are emotionally burdened, the first thing we do is we tend to reach out to food. Because the minute you have food in your mouth, you feel secure. The problem is when you have these emotions in your mind, the food that you’re going to eat is not going to be digested at all and all it does is create more havoc. So that’s the reason why and not just the food that, not just the food, but these hormones can play havoc with your heart so you can have cardiovascular disease. It plays havoc with your kidneys. It can play havoc with your bones. It plays havoc with your brain and on so many different levels, these emotions can play and have a negative role. That’s the reason why these days it’s so interesting, even modern medicine agrees the first thing a person can have cardiovascular disease and all the brain conditions, all the cancers they ask you how. Do you have stress at work? Do you have stress at home? And they all have agreed, they said the level of 1 to 10. 10 being the highest, where are you at the stress levels? And if it somewhere between 8 to 10, they will say “Oh you need to address that fast”. So yes, emotions play a very important role and that’s the reason why I put that in my book because I know that to experience optimal health and wellness, you have to cultivate positive emotions and you have to bring down all negative emotions.
Wes: While we record this podcast in the last week of December, the holidays are upon us. Christmas is just around the corner and I believe Mr. Rao you are in California?
Ram: That’s correct.
Wes: We here in Toronto are experiencing an elevated spike in COVID-19 and many parts of the US are going into lockdown modes and you see reports of very aggravated people demanding freedom and mobility, and there’s tension in the air with a lot of people, and I think that this situation for the last year has really stressed people out. You have to release your emotions one way or another. Now with that being said, that statement being said, Mr. Rao, what would your advice be when it comes to negativity and pent up emotions and stress that we’re feeling this whole year and a lot of societies feelings almost the same thing, sitting at home and all the things because right now there are many things going on in California. What would you say to that? What would you recommend? What would your advice be?
Ram: Yes, so a lot of people have approached me, saying they are stressed out and do we need to do and if you notice there are a lot of articles in different means of communications that people can read about what we should be doing.
Wes: Right.
Ram: To achieve optimal health and how to bring down the stress levels… But, unfortunately what happens is when these people talk about that, they talk in terms of either at the level of the body or just to the level of mind and they say, ‘just do this'.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: That’s not the same. We need to do it at all three levels of the body, mind, and emotions. Let’s say, for example, you are locked up 24/7 at your home and you’re already stressed out.
Wes: Right.
Ram: And you’re working from home.
Wes: Right.
Ram: You want to get out and you can’t get out.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Because you get excited or you get a ticket for coming out.
Wes: Right.
Ram: And plus, you are fearful because, what if you catch the disease?
Wes: Right.
Ram: So, but the best thing is. Okay, within the confines of your home, what can you do to bring down the stress levels at the level of the body? My suggestions are, just do the way you want to do, your normal regular routines, be at work, working from home and then in sitting continuously for every 1 hour that you sit in front of the computer, get up and stretch for about 10 to 15 minutes.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: This is the best activity that you can do for your body, stretching.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: And if you have a yard, go out barefoot, ground yourself, Grounding is a very important aspect that requires you to be walking barefoot on the earth.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: So you have to be in contact with the soil. You have to be in contact with the ground and you can do that either by doing your yoga poses in the yard or just walking. Walking actually helps, and the other things that I like to say are that when it’s time for you to eat, make sure that you eat at the right time. There’s a reason why throughout the world they eat exactly at 12:00, even though or somewhere around 12:00, because what happens is at around 12:00, the sun is at its peak and when the sun is at its peak, it affects our digestion. The stomach is calling for food; the brain is releasing all the elements that are necessary for the digestion of food. So without wasting your time, without going around saying I’m very busy, just drop your work wherever you are, eat your food around 12:00, between 12:00 and 1:00, that’s something you’ll do at the level of your body.
Wes: Right.
Ram: At the level of the mind, make sure that you cultivate. When you are stressed out, the best things would be get up go to a corner, just close your eyes and don’t do anything you don’t have to do. You don’t have to burn incense and wear an orange robe.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: All you can do is just go around, sit in a corner, make sure you are undisturbed and just closed your eyes and just focus on your breath, and you don’t need to do anything. If your mind wanders, just be aware of that because our mind keeps on wandering, no problem. If your mind wanders, just be aware of that and then come back to your breath. Each time it wanders, just come back to your breath and you don’t have to do it for long, just 10 minutes is enough to ground yourself at the level of the mind. If you’re out there in the garden, out there taking a walk, make sure that your mind is in the environment around you, don’t focus on work, don’t focus on your boss, don’t focus on the computer.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Make sure that you are focusing on the atmosphere around you. Look at the birds, look at the trees, look at the flowers. In Canada, it's now snowing so appreciate the snow, appreciate what nature is doing. Look to nature because nature is the best example when it comes to selfless giving.
Wes: Right.
Ram: That’s a great exercise that we can do. And at the level of emotions, what you can do is write a check and then giving it out to a food bank.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: My counting is just spending 10 minutes of your time and actually go there and try to do some service. Physical involvement
Wes: Right.
Ram: A selfless act can bring down emotions like crazy. So do that.
Wes: Really.
Ram: Yes, you know it’s interesting when I tell people about the selfless acts. They say “Oh yes we wrote a check”. Right, anybody who has $10 extra will write a check. That’s a good practice, no doubt about that, I’m not saying no to that, please do that. But in addition to that, can you actually take a little effort and go out there and feed the people some warm food or go out there to the food bank and actually pack some food or go out there in this COVID-19 situation? Can you do something for the neighborhood? Maybe bring…
Wes: Right.
Ram: …Some food for the people who are unable to get out or maybe bring food to the people who are in the senior living centers who are unable to get out or bring or go and buy some vegetables for them, or in my case, the zoo nearest to our place, their animals because they were in a lockdown situation, the animals in the zoo are having scarcity of food.
Wes: Right.
Ram: So, what I do is I purchase a bag full of fruits and vegetables and all and I just went there, although its 20 miles from my home, I just went there and provided the food, things like that. Make an extra effort and do that. What happens is when you’re doing all those things, your emotions actually come down, and then don’t expect anything from that, don’t expect your name to be out in the papers or people talking about it or to be on CNN for being the best person to donate. Don’t expect those things. Have no expectations, just do, and come out and bless those people. When you do all this, Mr. Malik, I noticed that it really helps to help the COVID situation.
Wes: Right! What wonderful advice… that is just golden words of wisdom. Fantastic! Having no expectations for doing good, I think that it also means don’t post it on Facebook and Instagram (laughs) don’t take Tiktok of “Hey! I’m feeding the bears or something at the San Diego Zoo”. (laughs) Keep it to yourself.
Ram: Notice what happens, Mr. Malik, notice what happens people don’t realize it. So you did that, okay let say somebody did something and posted it in Instagram.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: Let’s say they didn’t get the number of likes they wanted, what happens now?
Wes: The negativity. Yes!
Ram: Negativity comes into the mind, “I did all this and yet nobody appreciates it”.
Wes: Right.
Ram: You know the fear, worry, so it’s a spiral of negativity that comes into play. So, the best thing is, why did you want to do it in the first place? Why was it photographed and put on Instagram and expected anything?
Wes: There you go. This is fantastic, wonderful advice throughout the year the whole world has gone to hardships, every country has been affected, the US the most, even where I live in Canada, a lot of people have been affected and of course, we will get through this with time. But then again, it’s important to talk about these, there are solutions to our emotions, our problems that we have and you gave the great suggestion, fantastic stuff.
Ram: Thank you.
Wes: Now I want to talk about a little more about Yoga and…
Ram: Right.
Wes: You did mention what flows towards the mind. I also want to touch upon mind exercises after this. Tell us about the benefits of Yoga. Tou also mentioned maybe we could do Yoga in our yard, ground ourselves while doing Yoga. What are the benefits? Why is it important to you and to us?
Ram: When we talk about Yoga, the word Yoga actually means the Union, and it talked about the union of the body-mind and emotions. They call it spirit actually. As a neuroscientist, if there’s anybody who's skeptical about this, I’m a scientist I have to be skeptical.
Wes: Right.
Ram: When I talk about spirit… Spirit is a word that it’s sort of out there and it’s very difficult to imagine, so I use the word, emotions, because that is easy for me to access, that is easy for me to understand, and that's easy for me to change or modify.
Wes: I see.
Ram: So when I talked about Yoga, I talked about it as the union of body-mind and emotions. I would also say the same thing, union of body mind and emotions. Yoga provides a path and the path is through several different ways. One is what we call Karma Yoga which is selfless service, the other one is Grana Yoga which is knowledge, so the union of the body-mind and emotions through at any knowledge, and then the other one is what we call the Bhaktis or Dhyana Yoga. Dhyana Yoga is doing meditation and achieving the union of body mind and on the emotions. There’s an aspect of Yoga called Rāja Yoga, Rāja Yoga is to practice. What do we mean by practice? Once again we are talking about good practices for your living and in that, yoga poses are one small aspect that they mentioned. Naturally, you have to have good living and you have to experience optimal health and wellness. Your body and your mind should be in the proper place. They should be more flexible. Whatever happens around us, whether there’s COVID, whether there are viruses, whether there’s fire, whether there are earthquakes… we should make sure that we are perfectly alright in health in the level if the level of the body and the mind. Yoga provides those tips as to how to attain optimal health and wellness. There are many facets to that, one of the facets is through proper body postures.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: And we call it “arsenals” and so there are thousands of arsenals that they talked about where you can achieve agility for both the body and the mind. Anybody can practice that, even though it was written for people in order to move into spiritual life. Now we know that thousands and thousands and thousands of evidence-based studies have proved that yoga poses, including within the yoga poses you also have aspects of meditation, you also have an aspect of breath practice called Pranayama and when you have all these, people have shown it is extremely helpful for people with cancer, with cardiovascular diseases, with brain issues, with problems with GI, gut issues, problems with the bones as we age we see the degeneration of bones and skeletal system. All these can be delayed or to some extent you want to reverse through yoga, through the aspects of yoga. So yoga has got a number of benefits and people have continuously written about that. The benefits extend not just the young people but even older people as well.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: So anybody can do that and anybody can achieve that wellness by doing those postures.
Wes: I started yoga for the first time in my life this year. I’ve given it a little pause but it has been great for mobility and great for my joints and my limbs were all inflexible and with yoga over a period of couple of months that flexibility which I had when I was younger returned.
Ram: Right.
Wes: And I did it at home because there’s nothing to do in (laughs) March and April. Everyone was working at home and I was like okay, me and my wife started doing yoga with an app that we got for free.
Ram: Right.
Wes: And there’s several out there. I completely agree.
Ram: And people always say why can’t we achieve the same thing with the…
Wes: Yes.
Ram: …Physical practice in the gym. The problem is, you can do that. I always say if you can do anything, at least exercise for half an hour.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: The problem with the gym or physical exercises, we are only affecting a certain part of our body. People who do weights, they only do the abdominal muscles, but we need to understand that we are not just the abdominal muscles. We are the bones, we are the skeletal structures, we are the feet, we are the legs, we are the blood flow and to have a good agility at the level of body and mind. All these aspects have to be strengthened, and so through the yoga practice, yoga doesn’t focus on one organ or one tissue. It focuses in the entire body. It focuses on the entire mind.
Wes: You're right, yes.
Ram: That’s the reason why it helps anybody. I mean, it helps achieve stability for anybody, whether it's a younger or old person.
Wes: Some of the exercises might be a little difficult, but most of them are pretty easy. Everyone can do that.
Ram: Correct, yes – I’m a yoga teacher but I cannot do a lot of those conjugated poses (laughs). There are people in the beginning that I still remember when I was learning. Those teachers are very strict and they used to say “You have to do that”. No, it’s not because every person has their own constriction.
Wes: Right.
Ram: And each constriction is unique to that particular individual. So if a person is able to achieve a figure of 8 in the yoga poses, not everybody can do that, at the same time, we have to respect our own self, we respect our body, we have to respect our own flexibility and do the best we can instead of looking to our neighbors. Because what happens in a yoga class setting, if you have a group of people and you are, let’s say a beginner, and the people around you are very flexible, again that can cause a lot of emotions because it can trigger a lot of fear, a lot of anger.
Wes: Yes.
Ram: I don’t like my body shape. The person next to me is able to do that. I’m not able to do that. The last thing yoga wants is to have all those emotions, negative emotions.
Wes: True.
Ram: And so just respect your body and do the best you can.
Wes: Let’s talk about mental exercise. I actually wrote this down while you were speaking. I’m quite interested in this.
Ram: Yes.
Wes: What is, so you mentioned the benefits of mental exercises. What are mind exercises?
Ram: You know what happens is people think that exercises are restricted to the body, but now we know from neuroscience work that there’s a lot of problems in the brain as well, and so we need to keep the brain fit and healthy and resilient. Now, neuroscientists will also tell you that we are born with a defined number of cells and then, unlike the other areas of the body, these cells will not divide, will not multiply so you are born with a million cells, you die with those. So what happens is each time you age, some of those cells get deteriorated and they start dying off. You can’t replace them with newer cells. Which is partly true, but what happens is there is an aspect in the brain called Plasticity.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Or we call it neuroplasticity.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: What that means is that, let’s take the example of a tree when you cut the branches. What happens is a tree will give out more branches and when you trimmed them it will sprout new branches. The more the branches, the thicker is the tree and that’s how you get a forest, very old trees put on a lot of branches and all that so they can become thicker. So the same phenomenon places around in the brain as well. You were born with a defined number of cells. What happens is we have what we call branching of cells, branching of the neurons and these branches of the neurons are the one who provide resiliency to the brain. It provides strength to the brain, it provides resistance, our immunity to the brain as well. So the question is, how do you branch out? How do you create those branches? And there are no medicines for that. Those branches are created whenever you exercise your brain, so each time you exercise your brain, you’re creating more branches. The more you exercise, the more branches you put out and the more branches you put out, the more strengthened your brain is. The more resilient your brain is, the stronger immunity you face at the level of the brain. There are exercises out there that can really improve those branching. For example, let’s say you’ve been working with your dominant hand, let’s say your right hand is dominant.
Wes: Right.
Ram: For all these years the question is now, can you do those things using your left hand?
Wes: Ah!
Ram: Okay, with the non-dominant hand.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: I’m very successful now in eating with my left hand.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: But I cannot use the mouse with my left hand because the minute I use my mouse with my left-hand, my word document goes all over the place.
Wes: Right (both laughs).
Ram: So what happens is when you use the dominant part of your body, the non-dominant part of your body becomes what you call rusty, and you don’t want that to happen. We have what we call the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere in the brain. Both the hemispheres have to work in the same way, what we call is equanimity and that equanimity actually helps to strengthen the brain. So think about using the non-dominant part of your body.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: The other thing is learning a new language, because each time you learn a new language you remember the words, you remember the diction, you remember the grammar and so the minute you start doing that, your brain gets stimulated and you put up more branches. Or you can learn a new musical instrument.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Whether it’s oral or vocal, whether it's instrumental, you have to, you are exercising your brain when you’re doing that. Learning a new language, learning new music, learning a new instrument, learning to dance. Anything that you have not been able to achieve when you were young, this is the time to achieve that. This is the time to practice that because it requires you to exercise your brain. One of the reasons why I took Ayurveda and Yoga, is because I knew even I was doing my regular lab centric work and I was a middle-age person then. I knew it required me to memorize, it required me to understand, it required me to achieve a new level of thinking.
Wes: Right.
Ram: And so that’s the reason why I took to Ayurveda and Yoga but this time, you can start learning something new. Learn a new musical instrument, learn a new language, learn a new profession. So let’s say you are a bank person or if you’re a bank official, you can start learning computers, you can start learning economics, or you can start learning some different field of practice which you have an interest but you couldn’t do it for some reasons.
Wes: Right.
Ram: So that is some level of exercise that you can achieve. The other thing is, let's say you are in a neighborhood and you are out taking a walk… Okay, how many times you have taken a walk without knowing, I mean you know the streets and alleys but you may not remember the names.
Wes: Right, that’s true.
Ram: Like when I go to work, I use a car to go to work. I know the route that I take, but the problem is, I don’t know the side alleys or the side lanes. I didn’t take care to see what the names are and these days we rely a lot on GPS. The minute you use GPS, you are not exercising your brain.
Wes: True.
Ram: So can you do away with the GPS and actually stimulate your brain by actually remembering all those by names. The reason this becomes important, Mr. Malik, is, I don’t know if you heard about this, but this is a beautiful anecdotal study that was done in England. There, they compared the brain resiliency of cab drivers vs. the resiliency of people who drive the local buses.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: The city buses.
Wes: Right.
Ram: The city buses have to follow a certain route and if the route is blocked, they cannot take the side alley or side road.
Wes: Right.
Ram: Because people are waiting for them at the bus stands, so they have to follow the same path and the bus drivers have been going in this path for the last several years. So their brains are all walking in the same uniform direction.
Wes: Right.
Ram: On the other hand, the cab drivers in England have to pass an exam. It’s a very tough exam. For six months they have to prepare, they have to memorize all the routes of London city. All the bylanes.
Wes: I’ve heard. Yes.
Ram: So what happens is that when they checked the brain level of resiliency of these people, the cab drivers did much better compared to the bus drivers. The reason is very simple, because of course of their memory and their preparation and their methods of learning the bylanes and the names of it. Not only that, let’s say the road gets blocked, a cab driver can easily veer through other routes just to get you to the destination and they don’t use GPS. So those brains are much more strengthened and much more, better protected compared to the bus drivers and that’s neuroplasticity in play.
Wes: What a great analogy you gave and the three examples you gave as well. Fantastic! Even something as simple as picking up a new hobby that you have an interest in. Woodworking is a mental exercise.
Ram: Super!
Wes: Right?
Ram: Absolutely! And my suggestion is, if you're taking that, make sure you go deep into it. Don’t just do artificial learning.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Just go deep into it.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: And learn every little aspects of woodworking.
Wes: Like master it.
Ram: Yes! Absolutely.
Wes: Or pick up saxophone or playing the guitar.
Ram: Correct.
Wes: Or anything like that
Ram: And nobody should say that you’re a novice. They should say that you’re a professional. That’s the extent of learning you should have and what happens is, that when you do that, your brain gets its exercise.
Wes: Right, and earlier on the podcast you mentioned that it can delay the onset of degenerative diseases, even Alzheimer’s when you’re young, middle age, and when you older, mental exercise has those benefits.
Ram: Absolutely and we now know from a lot of studies and this was actually present in Ayurveda and Yoga text but now we have been able to study. People have done MRI imaging studies. They have shown people who do a lot of mental exercises, their brains are more strengthened and there’s a better blood flow and this blood flow actually helps, there’s more oxygenation to the brain, so a lot of benefits that come from just merely practicing brain exercises. It may seem very simple but it’s really so beautiful and so effective in order to stay mentally young, let’s put it that way.
Wes: Mr. Rao, you are a wealth of knowledge and thank you so much for sharing this wealth with us today on the podcast.
Ram: Absolutely, it was my pleasure, sir.
Wes: We could continue speaking for hours on end. I know you have a very busy schedule. I need to get a copy of your book now, I really want to read it.
Ram: Sure!
Wes: Where can I get Good Living Practices?
Ram: Amazon Canada has it. Target has it, Walmart has it.
Wes: Really!
Ram: So any of those places, if the local libraries may not carry it.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: But if you can order it online, Yes! All these, my book distribution people. eBay has it.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: So a lot people have it, they’re carrying the book.
Wes: Alright! Fantastic! Do people reach out to you? Do you have a website or a way for people to contact you?
Ram: Yes, I do have a website – it’s called www.kaivalyawellness.com and it’s in the book and I’m also conducting since the time the book has been published, it’s interesting Mr. Malik the book came out just in the time COVID situation started building up in California and so we got locked out, so couldn’t do book promotion physically but I took to the communication media and did a lot of WhatsApp, skype, I did a lot of, I put up my book out there.
Wes: Right.
Ram: I put my book out there a lot of people have benefited from it.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: They have returned to me and even now I have a lot of classes online.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: Called Good Living Practices.
Wes: Okay.
Ram: YouTube actually has a lot of my Good Living Practices.
Wes: Really!
Ram: Yes! YouTube, on YouTube, if you write Good Living Practices or my name and Good Living Practices I’ve created small 5-minute or 6-minute good living tips for you to able to practice it.
Wes: So that would be Good Living Practices-Ram Rao.
Ram: On YouTube.
Wes: That’s R-A-M space R-A-O
Ram: That’s correct.
Wes: Alright! That’s Fantastic! That is wonderful to know. Mr. Rao thank you so much once again for being on the podcast. This one is the longest Podcast you’ve recorded. I wish you well and once again the knowledge you shared today is truly beneficial to me and I hope it will be very beneficial to our listeners as well.
Ram: Thank you so much for doing this for me. Thank you so much, Mr. Malik.
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