Exclusive: I See Ayurveda Becoming A Global Phenomenon, Says Dr. Dimple Jangda

Popular content creator & Ayurvedic health coach Dr. Dimple Jangda has exclusively connected with whosthat360. In this conversation, she gets candid about her transformation from investment banking to Ayurveda. Jangda also shares the reason before this shift.

Excerpts...

What inspired your shift in your career from investment banking and media to Ayurveda?

At the peak of my investment banking career, I was practicing in New York and advising on USD 550Mn worth of cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions. I had everything I ever wanted from my bucket list, a high-rise career and a globe-trotting lifestyle. But something felt amiss, and I strongly desired to discover my true purpose and ikigai in life. I packed my bags left them in storage, and took an indefinite sabbatical while traveling across 10 countries. I returned to India and started traveling to several cities and the countryside, and felt unconditional happiness and health when living close to nature. I wanted to bottle this happiness and sell it to the world, and the closest I could come to doing that was through preventive healthcare life sciences like Ayurveda, naturopathy, and yoga.

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Could you share the story behind founding Prana, and what is its overarching vision?

I visited Kerala towards the end of this sabbatical and met with several traditional ayurvedic families and explored the idea of bringing authentic ayurvedic practices to the hustle and bustle of Mumbai city. In 2017, we set up Prana Healthcare Centre, with a team of Ayurvedic doctors, therapists, treatment rooms, medicines, and herbs sourced from Kerala. We have to date treated over 4500+ patients from 43 countries and also started Prana Academy during the lockdown to impart ayurvedic preventive healthcare education to those curious to improve their health. We have conducted over 300+ workshops for 85,000 participants and over 9000 students from 64 countries have completed our masterclass.

Our vision has and will be, to make preventive healthcare a global phenomenon and a household practice. We want every home, every parent and child to know how to prevent diseases rather than waiting to get sick. When you invest in your health, you can live a healthier and more powerful now!

How has Prana impacted the global healthcare landscape, especially in bridging traditional Ayurvedic practices with modern science?

When we started the clinic, I noticed a large gap between Ayurvedic doctors and patients. There was a communication gap, language gap, cultural gap, and research gap. Ayurveda has been practiced for 5000+ years but suffered a huge blow during colonial rule when western medicine and sciences taught in English, were alone promoted at the cost of native sciences. We lost confidence in our own sciences, and there came a research gap dividing modern research-based science and traditional sciences. We started to bridge this gap by going through several research reports that had similar conclusions as mentioned in Ayurveda. For example, modern science emphasizes that 90% of diseases are caused due to an unhealthy colon or a diseased gut, and Ayurveda talks about the agni or digestive fire, and vata dosha will reside in the colon, as responsible for 90% of the diseases. There were a lot of similarities, modern science had research-based evidence and Ayurveda had solutions on how to prevent these ailments. 

Photo Credit: Dr. Dimple Jangda Instagram

You've coached notable personalities like Dev Patel and Juhi Chawla. What has their feedback been, and how has Ayurveda influenced their lives?

Juhi mam chanced upon our courses on social media and signed up for the 5-day Ayurveda masterclass. Her presence added so much to our confidence and we knew, this was just the beginning. Juhi Mam not only learned Ayurveda basics from us but also she also went on to endorse this to her followers and at our Ayurveda online festival, encouraging everyone to study Ayurveda and learn how to prevent ailments. Dev Patel came to us through a reference and was initially skeptical about the science. But he spent almost four hours at our center, understanding the nuances of a personalized diet, along with his colleagues. Since then, several other notable celebrities visited the clinic for a consult and panchakarma detox, including Anjali Tendulkar, Shaina NC, Rakulpreet, Aditi Rao Hyadri, Huma Qureshi, Masaba Gupta, and we have followers like Pharrell Williams, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Apurva, Kaya Jones and others from Hollywood. 

When did your journey with Ayurveda begin, and how has it transformed your life?

Growing up, I did not have the best of health. I was born with epilepsy and had severe migraines all through college. At the age of 16, I had a cancer scare when I detected a tumor and underwent four surgeries before I turned 20 for various health issues like fibrocystic tumors, deviated septum, and tonsilitis. I was advised to undergo a fifth surgery, which I flatly refused. Based on home remedies suggested by a friend, I was able to dissolve a benign tumor using just warm castor oil, and dietary changes. I was able to help my father dissolve gallbladder stones and prevent surgery. 
During my time in New York City, I felt an urge to learn yoga and to return to nature and my roots. I discovered Ayurveda and yoga during my sabbatical for my self-improvement, and wanted to deep dive to learn more. Since then, I have been learning every single day, how we can prevent several diseases by changing the food on our plates, addressing our lifestyle habits, correcting our circadian rhythm, and syncing our clock back to Mother Nature.

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What Ayurvedic practices do you incorporate into your daily routine, and how do they contribute to your overall well-being?

The most important tool is syncing my circadian rhythm to mother nature which includes waking up before sunrise, engaging in silence, meditation, and prayer, followed by an hour of yoga and breathing exercises. I mostly follow a vegan lifestyle when at home and abroad, and choose my ingredients carefully based on my Prakriti, which is our unique biological blueprint. I engage in regular detoxification rituals like juicing, mono dieting, intermittent fasting, eating before sunset, panchakarma detoxification rituals. I also practice self abhyangam, and consume basic ayurvedic herbs from time to time based on my diagnosis. 

What challenges did you face in promoting Ayurveda, and what surprised you the most about its reception in modern society?

When I started the clinic, the biggest challenge was convincing clients to implement Ayurveda in their lives. Many held the misunderstanding that Ayurveda was all about bitter inedible medicines that are difficult to consume. But Ayurveda is beyond herbs and medications and has intense detoxification therapies that allow you to eliminate 99% of toxins from your body and thus prepare the body for healing naturally from within. Ayurveda has such deep literature on the science of food, how nutrition is personalized to your unique biological blueprint, and how you eat, drink, and live a more productive and healthy life. Many people who visited the farmers' markets or our clinic, were open to conversations around nutrition and diet but were averse to practicing Ayurveda due to a lack of research-based evidence. When we started educating them on the importance of gut and colon health and helped them connect the dots with the root cause of the disease being unhealthy colon and gut, and how panchakarma helps eliminate toxins, people became more open to the idea of Ayurveda. 

Photo Credit: Dr. Dimple Jangda Instagram

For someone new to Ayurveda, what advice would you give to start integrating its principles into their life?

Start with understanding the basics of circadian rhythm. Rise with the sun and set with the sun; size your meals based on the position of the sun. Have a small breakfast, a large lunch, and a small dinner before sunset. Replace junk, packaged, and processed foods with natural healthy foods that are cooked and consumed fresh. Include ingredients like carminatives spices and herbs to boost your digestive health, metabolism, and energy levels. Focus on getting deep sleep between 10 pm to 2 am, and wake up before sunrise so your body can eliminate toxins and prepare for the day. Engage in simple detox rituals like oil pulling, gargling, tongue scraping, dry brushing, oil massages, nasyam, and steam inhalation to release toxins and improve blood circulation.

What are your aspirations for the future of Ayurveda, and how do you envision its role in global healthcare evolving?

I see preventive healthcare and Ayurveda becoming a global phenomenon and a household practice. We already have seen patients and students from 64 countries coming to Prana to learn more about Ayurveda. On social media, we have seen over half a million followers learning and curious about preventive healthcare remedies. On Spotify, we have listeners from 130+ countries. These are signs that Ayurveda has come of age, and the growing curiosity and interest in this science will bring it back to the limelight. This is the era of preventive healthcare and Ayurveda is going to usher in so many new areas of health and wellness around the world. I am excited for the future.