The Ayurvedic Man, pen and watercolor, 18th Century. Wellcome Library, London

There are only two Americans to date who have traveled to India to complete the rigorous 5.5 years of full-time study required to graduate with a Bachelor’s in Ayurvedic Medicine. The first, Robert Svoboda, graduated in 1980.

I had the privilege of hosting the second, Jessica Vellela, who graduated in 2012, in a small-group discussion last week. Her insights into what Ayurveda is and what it can offer were so beautifully shared that I felt called to collect them here for the benefit of others. I’ve summarized them below.

If you want to jump directly to her wisdom via that conversation, or if you were in attendance and are looking for her follow-up links, feel free to click through:

The Conversation with Jess

Highlighted Takeaways

Links to Learn More

If you’re curious, some context before jumping in to the conversation:

I’ve had a longstanding fascination with the question of what helps a human being flourish.

Of all of the texts, tools, disciplines, studies, substances, and worldviews I’ve engaged with in pursuit of answers (and I’ve engaged with quite a few — everything from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita, meditation, keto, IF, IFS, gratitude journaling, dream journaling, psychedelics, etc.), Ayurveda is amongst the most powerful.

Coming across authentic, deep Ayurvedic knowledge is unusual if not downright challenging in the present time. Its wisdom was nearly lost to the world through geopolitical circumstances. Imperialism in India (its place of origin) pushed practitioners to the margins, forcing the texts and practices to be smuggled through a few generations by a few families committed to keeping the wisdom alive. It is only over the last century that robust Ayurvedic training programs have returned to India after hundreds of years in the shadows. Probabilistically, it is more likely than not that I would have gone my whole life without encountering it in a meaningful way.

I was raised on the “calories in, calories out” model of health. And I thought I was doing things basically right: I ate a mostly whole foods diet. I ran marathons, went to pilates, and did yoga. By Western medicine’s standards, I was in great health. And yet I felt horrible. I had an unusually long ovulation cycle (33+ days to the usual 28). I held weight in odd places. I was anxious and engaged with my life with an orientation I now identify as competitive and controlling.

I left my job in tech to build a company focused on creating healing foods. I was absolutely seeking to create for others what I most longed for myself. I built an interdisciplinary team of Medical Advisors, including a world-class MD, herbalist, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, Integrative Nutritionist, and Ayurvedic Doctor.

While developing the products, I had the unusual opportunity to work closely with skilled Ayurvedic practitioners and read the texts they’d studied. Their recommended way of eating (and living) seemed to make sense, and to have a deeper, more robust explanation behind it than anything I’d encountered before. And they seemed to get results. I began mimicking their sensibilities. I focused on cooked foods and the time of day that I ate. I learned my constitution (dosha) and adjusted my food choices, habits, and behaviors in accordance with it. My ovulation cycles normalized. I slept better. My mind was more clear. I arrived and stayed at a shape and weight that feels great in my body. I was so taken with Ayurveda that I ultimately named the company after one of its central concepts: Agni, which means “digestive fire.”

I have since moved on from the company, but my fascination with Ayurveda has remained, along with it a deep desire for others to be able to access and benefit from its sensibilities. Which is why I was so excited to connect with Jess and be able to introduce her to my community, and am so excited to share her words with you.

The Conversation with Jess

Before I introduced Jess, I asked her business partner, Richard, a former data scientist at Uber, to introduce himself and share a bit about why he began working with Jess.

Richard: Hi everyone. I’m Richard. I began as a client of Jess’ two years ago. I found out about her on twitter because a couple of people I follow had worked with her. I thought I was a pretty healthy guy — I worked out, ate right. But there were a few things that were off. I had some recurring back pain and my feet didn’t smell great. A few weeks into working with Jess and doing everything she told me to do I was amazed — things that I thought were structural like the pain were impacted. Smelly feet were gone. My sleep scores with my Oura ring improved and I had 20% more energy all the time. Six weeks in my lactose intolerance, that I’d had for years, was gone. My heart rate variability doubled. Then a year ago I did a panchakarma with Jess and immediately afterwards went to do Iboga [a psychedelic medicine]. The guides said my energy was really clean and told me I could take twice the dosage. I was able to keep all of it down, even when others threw up. I had an incredible journey. I started talking with Jess last year about working together and helping scale her impact and ability to help more people. Now we’re working together.

Astrid: Thanks so much, Richard. Really helpful context for people here today. Jess, thank you so much for being here. It’s such a pleasure and an honor to have you. You spent eight years in India to become the first American-born woman to graduate with a Bachelor’s in Ayurvedic Medicine. After graduating at the top of your class, you opened and ran a Panchakarma center in Turtle Bay, India. Now, you are back in the US, dedicated to treating patients and closing the Ayurvedic education gap in the West. Could you start please by sharing: what is Ayurveda?

Jess: In Sanskrit, “veda” means science, and “ayu” means “life,” so literally Ayurveda translates to “the science of life.” It is a system for taking into account how the sum total of all of our actions moves us towards or away from health: what you eat, the time of day that you go to sleep and wake up, your actions and thoughts. And this means from the time of preconception. In the Ayurvedic texts, the process of conception is described, inclusive of the influence that the states the mother and father inhabit in the literal moment of conception: the state of their health and any dysregulation can very much impact the embryo, fetus, and eventually newborn.

In light of this, people often ask me, “when is the best or right time to start Ayurveda?” I always answer, if you are alive, it’s right now. It can benefit you from this moment forward and help you experience thriving health.

| People often ask me: “when is the best or right time to start Ayurveda?” I always answer, if you are alive, it’s right now. |

Astrid: In the West, we’re used to measuring health in a certain way: we look at blood pressure, heart rate, BMI, maybe nutrient levels via blood panels. How does Ayurveda define thriving health?

Jess: Yes, it’s very different. Ayurveda looks for hallmarks of thriving health in many places, and I’ll highlight three of them. The first is digestive health, meaning a thriving digestive fire or Agni. This means that you are able to take in foods and turn that easily into vital energy for living, and eliminate waste with ease. Ideally every day, in the morning you are eliminating waste. And Ayurveda can discern the quality of digestion from the characteristics of the waste.

The second is around the timing of wake and sleep. And this goes beyond the understanding of western science. There’s a bit of early understanding through the idea of circadian rhythm, but Ayurveda really understands that we have evolved to be in harmony with the cycle of a day in a very specific way. And your health is thriving if you are getting naturally sleepy in the evening after sundown, and then waking naturally with vibrant energy about 1.5 hours before sunrise. Ayurveda grew up in India close to the equator where the difference in sunrise and sunset is only about an hour and a half throughout the year, so we need to better understand the implications further from the equator, where this is not always practical throughout the year. But the central idea is that the sleep-wake cycle is regular and calibrated to the environment.

Last, Ayurveda considers that our senses — the intermediaries between us and the world — are a sign of health. Our sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, should all be working optimally.

| Ayurveda looks for hallmarks of thriving health in many places. I’ll highlight three of them: Digestive health. Being in harmony with the cycle of the day in a very specific way. The senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, should all be working optimally. |

Astrid: What is the historical context for Ayurveda? If it’s so effective, why isn’t it more widespread?

Jess: In the US, access to skilled practitioners has been and is still extremely limited. Vasant Lad was the first Ayurvedic Doctor to begin practicing in the US, and he did so in 1980. There have only been two American-born students to study in India and graduate as Ayurvedic Physicians. One in 1980, and the second one was me in 2012. Because it’s been so challenging for Ayurvedic practitioners to have legal protections, the Ayurveda that can be marketed and practiced in the US today looks different from the licensed healthcare system in India.

In India, Ayurveda is still regaining its footing after challenges due to geopolitical circumstances. The last golden age of Ayurveda ended in the 1400s before British rule pushed Ayurvedic Doctors out of practice. For hundreds of years it remained underground. There are textbooks written backwards, literally. I was reading one in my third-grade Sanskrit when I suddenly understood the thing only made sense backwards.

Now, India graduates thousands of Ayurvedic practitioners each year, but most of them struggle to get jobs. There isn’t the demand for it, and the rapid expansion of training has made it difficult to maintain consistently high standards. Part of the challenge is that Ayurveda is deeply rooted in Sanskrit. To truly understand its core concepts, it’s essential to learn enough of the language to appreciate the nuance of its key terms. Many schools have eliminated this requirement altogether, making Ayurveda more accessible to study, but also distancing students from the language in which many of its deepest ideas are expressed.

Ayurveda originated 3,000+ years ago in India and was connected to traditional systems of knowledge like Yoga through the Vedas. From its inception, it was a system of medicine that described how to measure, reach and sustain thriving health.

Astrid: What surprised you as someone born and raised in the US with Western sensibilities as you started studying Ayurveda?

Jess: The biggest surprise for me was how Ayurveda views early symptoms of illness as not necessarily a bad thing, or something to be afraid of. Ayurveda sees these as data, as motivation to move away from the patterns that can compound to cause disease.

| Ayurveda views early symptoms of illness as not necessarily a bad thing, or something to be afraid of. Ayurveda sees these as data, as motivation to move away from the patterns that can compound to cause disease. |

Astrid: Yes! This blew my mind when I first came across this idea in Ayurveda. The idea that symptoms are welcomed communication from the body about how to bring it back into balance.

Jess: Yes. Illness is an opportunity to support the body in doing what it is designed to do: to come back into equilibrium and thriving health. There isn’t the fear that surrounds disease the way it does in the US.

Attendee: I’m building a network of dark room retreats, and working with Harvard on a study to examine the potency of being completely in the dark for several days, which can produce consistent, safe, and powerful psychedelic-like experiences. Is there anything in the Ayurvedic literature about that?

Jess: Yes. I love this question and being able to go here because it’s really esoteric. But panchakarma, one of the central practices of purification and cleansing the gut, is actually stated in some original texts as the precursor for deeper spiritual practices such as dark retreat. There are actually descriptions of the structures they built to ensure complete darkness, how they are huts with three walls on opposite sides of the room so that as you keep turning no light can reach the next chamber.

Attendee: Amazing. Let’s follow up on this. I would love to talk about having you help design protocol for preparing physically for these retreats.

Attendee: What are some easy steps people can take to start incorporating Ayurveda into daily life?

Jess: A really straightforward and impactful place to start is with sleeping habits and morning routine. Go to bed on the early side, ideally before 10pm. Wake up naturally, without an alarm. Ideally over time with a regular bedtime it’s a regular point in the morning, early, around 5:30am. After you wake up, go to the bathroom, wash your hands and face, rinse your mouth, brush your teeth, the goal is to start to break down some of the biofilm that’s built up overnight. Then drink a glass (or two or three) of room temperature water. You can add a pinch or up to 1/8 of a tablespoon of sea salt — pink Himalayan salt is best. Something like Morton’s iodized table salt doesn’t have much else in it by way of electrolytes. Then you’ll start to replenish the hydration that was lost overnight. The volume of water and downward pressure should also be enough to signal your body to eliminate if you haven’t already. After this, if your weight is stable (not underweight), some exercise in a fasted state is an excellent idea. No need to overdo it, just break a sweat and stop when you feel it’s enough. Then shower off and eat some breakfast. Cooked green veggies are a really great thing to eat in the morning — steamed broccoli or asparagus is great. They signal to the liver to release stored fat. I know it sounds unusual, but try it out. You’d be surprised that you might acquire a taste for it. I have a client who was shocked to learn she enjoyed steamed celery for breakfast.

| A really straightforward and impactful place to start is with sleeping habits and morning routine. Go to bed on the early side, ideally before 10pm. Wake up naturally, without an alarm. Ideally over time with a regular bedtime it’s a regular point in the morning, early, around 5:30am. After you wake up, go to the bathroom, wash your hands and face, rinse your mouth, brush your teeth. Then drink a glass (or two or three) of room temperature water. You can add a pinch or up to 1/8 of a tablespoon of sea salt — pink Himalayan salt is best. |

Attendee: What is Western Medicine best suited for and what is Ayurveda best suited for?

Jess: Ayurveda is best suited for two types of patients: the first category is anyone who is so desperate because they’ve tried everything else and it hasn’t worked. Don’t let yourself get to that place! The other category is anyone who is willing to try new things and experiment, who wants to learn to cultivate their internal awareness of what brings them closer to thriving health. There needs to be a willingness to invest time and effort. For a lot of people with a 9-to-5 job, they find this to be too much, so there needs to be motivation to make some changes and to see what your body is capable of.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading. If you’d like to learn more about Jess and her practice, you can do so here.

Highlighted Takeaways:

1. “People often ask me: ‘when is the best or right time to start Ayurveda?’ I always answer, if you are alive, it’s right now.

2. Ayurveda looks for hallmarks of thriving health in many places. I’ll highlight three of them: Digestive health. Being in harmony with the cycle of the day in a very specific way. The senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, should all be working optimally.

3. Ayurveda views early symptoms of illness as not necessarily a bad thing, or something to be afraid of. Ayurveda sees these as data, as motivation to move away from the patterns that can compound to cause disease.

4. A really straightforward and impactful place to start is with sleeping habits and morning routine. Go to bed on the early side, ideally before 10pm. Wake up naturally, without an alarm. Ideally over time with a regular bedtime it’s a regular point in the morning, early, around 5:30am. After you wake up, go to the bathroom, wash your hands and face, rinse your mouth, brush your teeth. Then drink a glass (or two or three) of room temperature water. You can add a pinch or up to 1/8 of a tablespoon of sea salt — pink Himalayan salt is best.

Links to Learn More:

To learn more about Jess and her practice: https://www.myayu.com/program.html

Jess also shared a list of links expanding on some of the topics we covered here:

• Definition of āyu (life)

• Special post-Panchakarma regeneration treatments (darkness): Kuti praveshika rasayana (hut) and discussion, Droni praveshika rasayana (enclosed tub)

• Entry of the soul into the body

• Kushtha (skin diseases) carried over from previous incarnations (see p 254)

A big thank you to Udit Jain for reviewing an early draft of this piece and for his suggestions that made it much stronger.