NISHA KHANNA
“Even if you just eat fresh, wholesome food that is closest to its naturally occurring form, you are eating Ayurvedically. If you then prepare it with herbs, spices, and warmth, making it easier to digest and assimilate, it is even more Ayurvedic. And, if you select specific foods, herbs, and spices to balance your Vikriti, you are enjoying the full expression of Ayurveda.”
Dr. Nisha Khanna is a board-certified medical doctor who has been practising medicine since 2005.
She pursued her Ayurvedic education under Dr.Vasant Lad, where she additionally studied the healing art of Marma therapy.
Next, she co-led the Wholefoods Medical and Wellness Center, while integrating the additional disciplines of Functional Medicine, Mind-Body Therapies, and Energy Healing into her medical toolkit.
Today, her unique multi-disciplinary approach bridges Eastern and Western Medicine, creating powerful, customised health solutions that produce transformative results for her private practice patients. Areas of focus are gut disturbance, hormone balance, and vitality.
She is excited about health education and sharing her integration of healing modalities on public platforms.
“Ayurveda gives you your unique roadmap to feeling amazing.”
What does Ayurveda mean to you?
Ayurveda is a portal through time and space that connects everyone and everything through a universal understanding of natural law.
Anyone who studies it begins to understand themselves better — their health, their moods, their relationships. Moreover, they access the knowledge on how to heal their body, mind, and relationships. On this self-discovery/self-healing journey, there is a return to centre. At your centre, you find your stillness and feel a grounded bliss. You are not too much of anything, but you feel like you are everything.
Ayurveda gives you your unique roadmap to feeling amazing, so that unencumbered by your body and the distortions of your mind, you can embody what you love and emanate your offerings to the world.
When did you discover it? How long have you been practising it?
I discovered Ayurveda when I was 15. My parents had moved to Saudi Arabia to provide their children with a more secure future, so I went to boarding school on the northeast US coast. At the time, all I knew was family, so I felt lost and confused and missed them terribly.
After a year of loneliness, cold weather and eating salads, I found myself in a Vata spiral – anxious and unable to sleep for days. Thanks to my Aunt Sally who had been immersing herself in Ayurveda, instead of going the medical route of white coats and prescription meds, I had my first visit with Dr. Lad. His clear, loving manner helped me understand I wasn’t the problem — that there was something called Vata that was super high, and that when I brought it back down, I would be OK.
And I was.
At his clinic that day, I picked up my first Ayurveda book and started to learn about myself.
In the following years, I continued to see him periodically for an herbal powder tune-up, and my friends would joke that they were my “drugs” that kept me slim. Maybe they did. But I think it was the warm water I was drinking to swallow them!
And on my quest to learn more about my body, I went to med school. I saw Ayurveda as my secret. I didn’t expect my friends in college and later med school to get it. At the time, I didn’t realise that I had created a dichotomy in mind – Ayurveda was what I gave to myself and Western Medicine was what I gave to everyone else. Maybe the thought of bridging them seemed impossible, so I kept them separate.
While in med school, on a visit to Dr. Lad, I saw some students hanging around his clinic, and declared to him during our time together, “I’m going to come study with you!” He said, “Wait. Finish med school first.” So I did, and as school transitioned to a job in a hospital, I almost forgot.
Five years later, I found myself in a bad relationship that I didn’t know how to leave and in a job I did not love. So I decided to move across the country to study Ayurveda with Dr. Lad, leaving my problems and my paycheck.
I hadn’t felt passion for work, I didn’t know I could feel passion for work, till I got there. And when I did get there, there were signs everywhere that I was in exactly the right place. I felt my soul come alive in coming home to Ayurveda. That was 12 years ago.
Is Ayurveda part of your everyday life or just for your medicine cabinet or fall-back routine?
It is everyday life. I do my best to practise what I preach. I don’t however think we are meant to do it perfectly. I think we are meant to use it as a framework to maintain and regain health. The ancients understood our humanity, and likely knew we wouldn’t be happy with all business and no pleasure, so the texts are full of remedial measures. However, the closer you get to centre, the more you choose from your centre, and your choices reflect that, which will also keep you centred.
What are your top 3 Ayurvedic tips that have worked for you?
Cold food and drinks are not your friends. Withstand the pressure of social norms. Experience cooling foods without the fridge chill for beauty, health, and longevity.
Make friends with your appetite. Let it speak to you and signal the quality of your Agni. Let it guide you and help you evaluate true hunger vs. habit or dependence.
Daily morning Pranayama to clear mental/emotional Ama, so that it doesn’t cloud your thoughts, decisions, words, and actions, and prevents you from committing crimes against your wisdom.
What surprised you most about Ayurveda?
That a little, even just changing one thing, can go a really long way. Sometimes, the only thing I’ve shared with a patient is to stop eating fruit with their eggs, and their “mysterious,” constant gas and bloating has vanished.
Did you integrate it gradually or overnight for any particular reason?
Gradually. The more I learned, the more I experimented. The more I loved. And the practice was adopted as ritual.
Do your children/family eat an Ayurvedic diet? And if they do, do they know it’s Ayurveda or do they just think of it as home cooking?
I live alone with my dog. He doesn’t get fed before baths or exertion and eats the freshest, moistest dog food available. So I’m sneaking in some Ayurveda with him, and I don’t think he knows it!!
My boyfriend, his daughter, and my friends love my cooking. I think they assume it’s Ayurvedic, because they know me. I think what makes it really tasty is that: a) it’s freshly and simply prepared, so it feels like home, b) I use high quality ingredients, because the whole is only as good as its parts, and c) I have a fair amount of Kapha in my constitution, and because like increases like, I love the food and the food loves me back!!
I blend in functional medicine and create meals that are often paleo, dairy-, and gluten-free so that I can practise recipe ideas for patients with more restricted diets. Many people these days have such disordered, confused Agni, that it first takes stripping out harder-to-digest foods from the diet, and once leaky gut is healed and Agni restored, there is room for expansion. But Ayurveda is my foundation for the how, when, and what within these frameworks.
Even if you just eat fresh, wholesome food that is closest to its naturally occurring form, you are eating Ayurvedically. If you then prepare it with herbs, spices, and warmth, making it easier to digest and assimilate, it is even more Ayurvedic. And, if you select specific foods, herbs, and spices to balance your Vikriti, you are enjoying the full expression of Ayurveda.
What is your favourite Ayurvedic recipe or go-to ingredient?
Kitchari is a staple. It’s always delicious and nourishing. I can make it in about 20 minutes and typically always have the ingredients. Lately, I’m excited about hot quinoa flake porridge, with thyme, basil, black olives, salt, pepper, and olive oil mixed in, for breakfast. It’s light, filling, so quick, and so delicious.
How does Ayurveda fit into your day-to-day routines?
I prepare my body for the day, first thing when I wake up. It surprises me when I visit others that they get on with tasks for the day and even eat breakfast without eliminating, scraping their tongue, and washing their body. I don’t begin anything until I’ve gone through my morning routine of physical and energetic preparation.
Here it is: eliminate, tongue scrape, eye rinse, Kansa wand facial massage, brush scalp, Abhyanga, shower, Pranayama, meditation. The meditation can extend, but the first part takes about an hour and a half. If I’m tight on time, I may push the Abhyanga and meditation to the evening or another day, in which case I’m ready in an hour.
I do Agnihotra, a Vedic fire offering, each day at sunrise and sunset, so I’m always up before the sun, even if just by a bit.
In the evening, I take an Epsom salt bath most nights, except during the summer, to unwind and release other people’s energy before bed.
Following an Ayurvedic lifestyle doesn’t mean that you have to do all of the above. This is my iteration of a daily routine after several decades of working with Ayurveda. My self-care requirements are also higher because of the nature of my work. Simply implementing one practice, such as tongue scraping followed by warm water, can make a huge difference.
What do you wish was easier in our society to make an Ayurvedic lifestyle more accessible?
I wish that our society would move away from fads and the notion that one thing is good for everyone. I think patients struggle the most with recalibrating their definition of healthy, because society has programmed things like smoothies and salads to be health food. They can be, in comparison to a lot of modern consumption. But as we take the deeper cut into health, we must reconnect with our intuition and move away from mass production and consumption.
Additionally, as a society, we are so Vata and Pitta-aggravated. We need to slow down, connect to our individual “why,” clean out what we don’t need, and make space for Ayurveda.
Ayurveda is a slow food. It’s not a perfunctory Pitta to-go order or a Vata buffet, where you try everything and eat nothing. We need to make room for Ayurveda to gently simmer in our lives and release its fragrance.
Do people around you/in your circle of friends know about Ayurveda?
They do. Words like chai, dal, and even kitchari are becoming more commonplace. There is an awareness, but I think the depths of Ayurveda’s truth and power remain hidden to most.
What’s the one thing you would encourage everyone to try or you think would benefit the majority of people’s health for the better?
Periodic cleansing — weekly and seasonally, giving your body a break from that which we tend to get used to consuming regularly, such that we lose our discernment. The same types of food, media, people, conversations — all the things and thought patterns that slip below our awareness because we get used to them. Such cleansing strengthens your Agni, whose primary function is awareness and discernment. And when you have a robust Agni, you have health and happiness.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Ayurveda was codified for your health and happiness. Because there is so much more to life than just being healthy and happy.
We each have unique offerings and gifts to the world, and the answer to what these are lies in what we enjoy creating and expressing. This could be anything from art, to building companies, to nurturing relationships.
However, so many of us are just struggling to be healthy and happy, so that we never get to the part of enjoying our expression and embodiment. Or we create to feel happy and end up compromising our health in the process and missing the happiness. Ayurveda is one of the greatest gifts to humanity. It offers a template to health and happiness, from which you have the time and space to begin honouring the meaning of your life and creation.