E077 | Infertility, Hormones & Hope with Mahesh Jayaraman

When the science of hormones meets the compassion of healing — what truly helps the body restore balance and hope.

What if infertility isn’t a diagnosis to fix, but a signal to decode?

In this illuminating conversation, I sit down with Mahesh Jayaraman, Co-Founder of Sepalika Women’s Fertility and Hormone Health Clinic, to explore how compassion, mindset, and science converge to restore fertility naturally — even after failed medical treatments.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

•Why infertility isn’t your body’s failure — it’s communication.

•The hidden link between hormones, metabolism, and emotional safety.

•How stress physiology and nervous system healing affect fertility.

•What traditional medicine often misses about women’s hormone cycles.

•Practical ways to support fertility through nourishment, rest, and rhythm.

•The real science behind compassion and hope as healing catalysts.

Listen if you’ve ever thought:

“I’ve tried everything, and nothing’s working.”

Because this episode might just show you what trying less, but listening more can do.

 Guest Bio for Mahesh Jayaraman

Mahesh Jayaraman is the Co-Founder of Sepalika, a women’s hormone and fertility clinic that has helped hundreds of women naturally reverse PCOD, painful cycles, and infertility—even after failed IUI or IVF.

An IAFHH-Certified Functional Hormone Specialist and Acupuncturist, Mahesh blends science and mind-body tools to help women awaken their body’s innate healing intelligence.

Connect with Mahesh:

📸 Instagram: @sepalikafertility

🌐 Website: sepalika.com

 Resources

•Learn more about Effortless Healing™ → healingfromwithin.substack.com

•Download your Effortless Healing AI Prompts → launching this week!

•Follow Anindita → @aninditarungta

If this episode reminded you that your body isn’t broken; it’s brilliant, share it with someone who needs hope today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Why hope still matters in healing
• 1:52 Meet Mahesh: The Sepalika story
• 5:57 Gaslighting and hormonal health
• 11:31 The 2 biggest conceptions around fertility
• 18:08 The role of stress and nervous system safety
• 24:09 Where east meets west- conventional and root cause medicine
• 25:18 Lifestyle habits that are helpful
• 29:16 Staying hopeful throughout the feritility journey
• 35:53 One small shift that you can make as a couple
• 41:47 Closing reflections: From infertility to self-trust

Transcript

My guest today is Mahesh Jayaraman, who is the co-founder of the Palika is a women's fertility and hormone health clinic which has helped many women heal naturally from PCOS, infertility and hormonal imbalance. And I'm really excited to have Mahesh here because especially because I like the part where he blends deep science and mind body healing, which is very close to my heart as well, especially emotional and energy healing, you know? So that's what we talk about. And because I also believe that true fertility, just like true healing, is so much more beyond biology. And, you know, we sort of go from there. Welcome, Mahesh. So excited to have you here today. Thank you so much, Nandita. It's such a pleasure. I know that we sort of move in the same spaces when it comes to healing, and we probably in the same part of the jungle as it were. So I'm very happy to be, uh, speaking with a fellow traveller in those parts. I really like that analogy, because I also believe healing is a journey, whether as healers or, you know, even if we are working with our clients or patients, it's still a journey for all of us. So yes, so happy you are here

 welcome to Embrace Your Healing Journey, a podcast for women with autoimmune and other chronic conditions to help them navigate their illness without fear of isolation and uncertainty, and find relief from their symptoms. Your body is your guide and ally in healing. If you are ready to embrace this journey with compassion and awareness, then this show is for you. Tune in weekly as I, a Functional medicine Certified Health Coach, deliver tips and insights that demystify the healing process, guiding you towards the relief you deserve so that you can feel healthy and happy once more. I would like to start at the beginning. I mean, if you want to share a bit of your story, what led you to focus on women's health especially, you know, infertility. So if you can just share a bit about that. Okay. So, you know, we were already working in hormones health. So now before that actually, um, I almost 20 years ago, my practice used to be largely centered around acupressure diet and supplements. And this was all early days. Just I think Hyman must just be coining the term functional medicine around that was this which year? This was 2001. Oh, yes. He was probably describing the term functional medicine. That's. Yeah. Yeah. So those days it wasn't such a catchword or a buzzword. And um, you know, it was more an integrative approach. And, uh, I used to use modalities of acupressure, uh, acupuncture primarily. I am with over time. I'm also, uh, government certified acupuncturist. So Maharashtra has an acupuncture council. So acupuncture is a particular modality that I practice. We also do magnet based acupressure. Your viewers may be interested in that little magnet that I have on palm. On the back of my palm is a little, um, uh, stimulant that's going through the fascia, we believe, and the parts of the nervous system to help the energy balance have been getting some naughty and unnecessary old age acne, as it were. And this is a particular, uh, magnet point, uh, governing vessel three that helps to address this. So this is one of the modalities that I used to practice and I used to use dietary supplements. Those early days, people thought even vitamin D3 was a terrible thing. Whether you got it from the sun or you sun means, you know, you will end up with skin cancer, and taking a supplement means you'll end up with toxic doses. And that was the initial practice, but it was what it was. And I met Sharda, my business partner at Seppala, GA. That way. Uh, she probably came into my practice ten years later from then. So around 2011 or so, she had, uh, and this story, she says publicly. So I don't, uh, so I'm not breaching any confidentiality, but she used to have severe migraines and acidity. And that's something that she was struggling with. She had been to somebody in Mumbai who was a migraine expert who had put her on some, um, very strong medication, and he convulsions literally for that. So terrible and so on. Uh, Lyrica and that family of medications. So, um, you know, she had heard about me from somebody else whom I had helped. So she came to me and we helped her with vitamins, minerals and, uh, acupuncture and acupressure and that really, you know, migraines went away. She had suffered from it for more than a decade. And she said, I can't believe that this is, you know, this exists in the world and we don't know about it. So can we please, you know, take it out to more people? I said, you know, sure, I'm happy to, but, you know, I don't go around advertising. So however you want to do this, we can do this. So I started seeing some patients. I live in Delhi. My partner lives in Mumbai. So she said, Will you please consult with my family? So I began visiting Mumbai. I see her family. They began to benefit. Then it became friends. It became a larger circle until finally she said, you know, this is, uh, this is not okay, that it's only limited to the people can travel and see you. Can we do this online? And that's how basically the idea of Alka was born. And even at that stage, honestly, if you ask me, there's a, you know, there's a saying that I resonate with in functional medicine that the men only come when the parts fall off, but the women are there, you know, much before that. So preventative health women don't feel emasculated by prevention. Men often feel like, you know, the that why am I being such a crybaby? And why should I prevent anything and I'll take care of it when it comes. So women naturally gravitated towards this sort of a holistic practice. So by natural selection, more of my patients were women. The husbands would be dragged in occasionally along with them, and that's how that went. But I also realized at that time itself, hormonal health and women, um, there was a lot of gaslighting happening even then. It's all in your mind, you know? The uterus is, uh, Greek for hysteria and so on. You know, you hear all this nonsense bandied about, so there was a lot of gaslighting happening even then. And, um, women were also not given satisfactory solutions. They were literally often lifting the load of the home as well as the workplace. And yet there was very little support going for them. So that's how Sabalenka was born. As a women's hormone health clinic, we decided that we would share with the world whatever we had learned diet, lifestyle, uh, mental practices, appropriate sleep, circadian rhythms. These are all things that can really help a woman make the most of her beautiful hormonal cycle through the month. Men just have testosterone throughout the month, but women have estrogen in the first half, progesterone in the second, and it's a far more complex and beautiful dance. And if you can align women to those hormonal ups and downs, they can get the most of their life, all aspects of their life. With that dream was born, and we were very clear that we wanted to keep it online for the most part. So we did awareness talks and other things offline, but we kept it online from the start. So we were in zoom before Corona covered all of this. So we only did zoom consults and women were benefiting from everywhere. Um, we ran a flagship pod program. We treated hundreds of women. We published a couple of studies as well on how the, uh, lifestyle diet and, uh, all these practices that we spoke about, holistic stuff can make a difference. And with that, we began seeing that, you know, one thing led to another, some women with because were able to reverse early stage type two diabetes. Sometimes free diabetes, sometimes full blown diabetes. And we were in trying to fix it. We were only helping the body go back to its natural rhythms. But health outcomes occur naturally. Many of them fell pregnant as well, and which is what we realized by this time. We had developed for about 7 or 8 years. And then Covid struck. And once Covid struck, you know, everybody was homebound. And unfortunately, people were in very interested in fixing their body or diabetes or anything. It had become a doomsday sort of scenario where everybody said, we'll see what happens tomorrow. So all chronic health in that sense took a back seat. People were doing stuff at home. People began working out doing things, but it had this other impact as well. The only part of the business that didn't suffer the clinic, you know, where we kept getting inquiries was fertility, because offline people weren't able to do IUI cycles, go see their Gainax in person, IVF cycles were stalled because of Corona and, you know, the whole lockdown and everything. So people said, can we work on our foundations while we wait for these cycles to come? You know, for the world to open up again. So we began working with these women and couples, and lo and behold, several of them fell pregnant before the world opened up. So we said, okay, so there is maybe something to this as well. And that's basically how we began focusing on fertility, largely. So we still do hormonal health. We do type two diabetes as a program. We do weight loss, we do PCD, but like a fertility clinic, because again, even within the generally gaslit women, women on the fertility journey are even more, you know, told it's their fault. The man is rarely in the dock. One good sperm report and everything is okay now. It's the woman's burden. She's the one taking the injections, is going through hormonal treatments and all of it. And I said, this is something that is worth changing or, you know, trying to change, making an impact, giving people back their power. And that's basically where we're at right now. Fertility. We have 65 odd babies now in the last three years, and we are quite happy with it. That's amazing. What a beautiful story. What a beautiful journey. There's so many things you mentioned here. I think I would start with Sharda. Sharda, whom I have met personally in Bombay. We both live in Bombay, so we have been met in a while. But yes, we, you know, she's become a friend of mine in that sense. So I'm so glad that she came to you. You know, it's something that is meant to happen. Some of these, uh, meetings and, you know, so these are these are just things that are meant to happen. And that's how, uh, you know, the Palika was born in that sense. And, of course, we keep evolving, uh, you know, over time. So I'm, you know, in a way, Covid helped to sort of move the Palika in probably a different direction. And, you know, that's I think that case with all of us, isn't it, like we start somewhere and then sort of life takes us somewhere else or shows us another path and, and it helps too many. So that's, that's the amazing thing and congratulations and all the babies and in fact. Um, you did send me. I mean, I don't know whether I shared this with you. You had a, uh, a further one of your patients because she was also dealing with some autoimmune conditions. ET cetera. And she came to me. She'll be coming on this show soon, actually, to share her story. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so also, there's so many amazing, um, uh, you know, the impact that actually all of us have together is amazing. And, uh, so and you've touched upon some of these things, you've mentioned gaslighting, you've mentioned, you know, it's it's a stigma, especially for the woman, uh, you know, and it's as you said, it's usually the woman who's blamed for all this or whether it doesn't matter who's actually at fault and honestly doesn't I mean, I don't believe that, uh, you know, focusing on the blame helps anyone, really, in any sense. Right. So what are the biggest misconceptions that, you know, couples have or families have when they come to you? I mean, I would I think I want our audience to probably know that they are not alone in all of this. Sure. I think the first one is that, you know, most people aren't even explaining the basic statistics of fertility, right? So couples been trying for a short while, and these days it's usually later on in life. Nobody thinks of a family till their mid 30s, till the career is sort of settled. They've ticked off a few things from their bucket list. They've gone, you know, snorkeling in the Maldives and something or the other. You know, so then there are things that we all like to do. And then we say, okay, fine, now we're ready to start a family. And we kind of think that it's going to happen in the first month or in the first few months. Right. You think all this while you were using protection and that's what prevented it from happening? And guess what? I get regular periods, so I should be able to conceive as soon as I, you know, decide to start trying. That's the first misconception, right? So we may not behave like it or behave like the pinnacle of evolution, but nature seems to think about us like that. So fertility and pregnancy doesn't happen easily. So for a couple who is otherwise completely healthy in their mid 30s, the chances can vary between 1 in 5 to 1 in 7. Right. So you try for consecutive five months to seven months, depending upon certain other facts and statistics. But that's the worldwide norm for how long it takes you to fall pregnant. But if you're already in 35 and you're collecting, you know, uh, entrance forms for Montessori somewhere because you've got your life all planned out for your kid, then there is a problem because, you know, you think the clock is ticking. Nature doesn't know. Any clock is ticking. Nature is kind of making up her mind. When is the right time? And that is the second part, right? So first is the statistics. Don't expect to get pregnant as soon as you try. Second one is that, you know, um. It does really matter what health you are in. So nature has this way of sensing. Is it safe? Is this the right time for you to bring a new life into the world? So I'll give you two aspects of this, right? So I tell my team often, we are probably in one of the toughest jobs when it comes to medicine, because fertility involves all the other systems. But I also say at the same time, it's one of the easiest jobs because this is the only one nature truly cares about. Now, so nature doesn't care if a diabetic becomes non-diabetic or not. You are done with, you know, nature saying you're the one eating there as well as you pay the price. I don't know who you are, but nature cares about the next generation. It wants the next baby coming and wants the human, uh, you know, evolution to continue. So nature is on your side. But most importantly, you have to align with nature, and then nature is going to let it happen to you naturally. So the second example I often give for this is the maximum number of calls we get from in any given month is often from cashmere, okay. And it's from young ladies from cashmere in their 20s who have lost their periods and are suffering with infertility. Okay. And my prescription to most of them is to move to a relative's place in Delhi. Okay. That is how much safety makes a difference, how safe internally the body feels and how ready it is. These are young people at the peak of their hormonal health. Everything seems fine and they all come with this unexplained infertility diagnosis. They pinned to a Gyn at the clinics, looked at it, said, everything is fine. Go back home. Try. Then we run a slightly more deeper black panel. You see the AGM cortisol. You see the stress markers. That tells a different story, right? So you've got stress as a huge component, which you know may not be cashmere level for all of us, but most of us in metro cities are carrying a huge, you know, underlying white noise of stress all the time. What are we doing to address it proactively? Right. So none of us are taught ways in which this needs to be done, especially at that age. And therefore we're doing everything we just follow whatever is the trend. We do intermittent fasting. We do, you know, HIIT workouts. Those are the more popular, visible things that you do. But to feel emotionally safe, to feel internally without a little tremor, to feel that this is a rest and reproduce state and not a fight, flight or free state, that's not something anybody works on. So people come to us. Another misconception is here's a big fat file. Here's all my test reports. Here's what the labs have to say. Here's what the blood has to say. Here is some radiology. I say, let's put that all aside. Tell me about your life. When do you wake up? What happens in the morning? Are you rushing through breakfast? Are you swallowing your food? Do you remember the chew? What's your break time in the evening? Is your work environment toxic? Do you have friends? What do you celebrate? You know, so these they're kind of gobsmacked and they're expecting FSH LH, AMH discussions. I said you know those are all easy to do nowadays. Even an AI will do it for you. But the deep feeling of just aligned with nature filling in a rest and reproduce situation. I think people underestimate these sorts of, you know, factors. So I'd say those are the big misconceptions people come to us with. Um, you know, that's so well put. And I was smiling because it's exactly the same thing that I think a lot of other practitioners. It's the same thing, right? Any chronic condition where your body is not feeling safe, uh, you won't heal, the body can't heal or reproduce, for that matter. And, uh, the other thing I find is, and I don't know whether that's the same thing that you face, is that a lot of people are not even aware that they're living in that kind of stress. Right? I mean, we are so disconnected from our bodies. And actually, that's the kind of work that I do in my practice as well, body wise healing, especially for women. We cannot afford to be disconnected from our body. Our emotions live in our bodies, you know, so a lot of trauma lives in our bodies. But all so when I when I have asked so many times, you know, do you have any stress. Yeah. The usual but they have no clue how their body is doing. So have you faced that? I mean, is that very common? Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. And you know, again, like I said, we are in the same part of the woods clearly. And we are doing similar work. And that's so heartening to hear. Somebody else also echoed the similar experiences. See, even on a zoom consult, one can just tell from the body language. Right. So are they safe? Are they feeling relaxed? What is this conversation about? Are they at the edge of the seat? How is the dynamic between the couple? Right. So we only work with couples for the most part. We don't, you know, we don't like to leave the man out. And many times you can see the body language is laid back in the man. It's up front with the woman. There's so many cues that are coming through. And again, people don't realize. See, it's like that old story of the toad in the hot water, right? So you put a toad in boiling water in one go and it hops right out. But if you put the toad in the water and then turn on the stove as the gently the heat is going up, the toad doesn't even realize it literally gets boiled to death. That's what's happening to a lot of us. Stress is something we are taught to live with from the time we appear for our high school board exams, you're told this is how life is stress, right? This is what you do. This is how you get forward in life. Then your first job. You are the bottom of the totem pole. You get ground. So you think the way to handle it is by partying hard, work hard, party hard, and that's the youth that you spend. Then somewhere in the middle of that, you know, you start making it to mid-level management. Still, there is stress, but you by this time you've got adjusted to what is like a new normal. It's fine for you to feel that 3 p.m. slump. It's fine for you to drag yourself out of bed in the morning. You don't even remember these things are happening to you, right? And you don't tell yourself because you don't. Who wants to? Acknowledge that that youth is dead. You know, nobody wants to do it. So part self-denial and part what? We are trained from society. There are so many pockets within the body where you don't feel safe and you know, there's just stress you're holding. And that produces a biochemistry that biochemistry is in turn going to, you know, turn hormones in a particular direction. So, like you rightly said, I practice more infertility. You handle autoimmune with women. All of these are, um, you know, probably have similar things that contribute to this fire that's burning. So, um, absolutely. There is a body disconnect and connecting people back to the body, just making them, you know, I say, close your eyes, take three breaths together. Let's you and I take this breath. Can you feel it going through your nose? Do you realize there's a throat? Do you realize there's a chest? Just put people back into their bodies and they're surprised. You know, it's like they were living just outside of themselves. You put them back in and now they say, you know, I feel something has happened. So, yeah, completely agreed with you. It's, uh. Yeah, but that's where it actually all starts. That awareness. That's where the shift happens. I mean, that's what I have figured out, that without that awareness, nothing changes. Especially for the long run. It might change for a week or two, maybe while they're working with you. But that's it. I mean, then after six months, what happens after three months? What happens back to square one? So that's amazing to hear. I mean, it's the same everywhere. So tell me, uh, because, you know, I believe that there is, uh, you know, place obviously for conventional medicine, medical treatments, medicines, you know, a lot of there's a lot of things that either or, you know, and I don't believe that is the right approach. So there is a, you know, time and place for a medicine, which is a talk about medical medications and treatments. And of course, there is the approach that we take, which is a more route called approach functional medicine naturopathy. So uh, specifically when it comes to medical protocols, where do they really help in terms of fertility and where can they actually end up adding more stress? So so, you know, I would use IVF, for example, as one of those very specific things within fertility, right? So IVF was invented or discovered as a technique 43 years ago. Um, and it was basically for a simple condition called blocked fallopian tubes. So for the viewers who may not know too much about the anatomy physiology, we'll just do a one minute detour. So there are these ovaries, and each month one ovary releases one egg in a normal course. That egg gets picked up by these little tubes called fallopian tubes, generally the one that's closer to that particular ovary. So left ovary releases an egg, left fallopian tube picks it up. It has these little finger like projections, moves it inside in itself right now. See the beauty of nature. There is a self-selection process. So the husband and wife get intimate. They have intercourse. Sperm enters the vaginal passage, swims through the uterus into this little tube, where it must be strong enough to beat all the others and be the first one to reach that egg. Then it fertilizes that egg, and life begins inside that fallopian tube. So for the first three days of life, the embryo is spending it inside the fallopian tube. Once the brain decides there are no gross defects in this embryo, it then rolls it down into the uterus where it implants and life begins. So day four. Day five is when life begins in the uterus. Now, if this little tube, which is ten centimeters long but only two millimeters wide at its narrowest point, gets jammed for some reason. Now, no matter how good eggs you have, you may improve your diet. You may do all the other work and you improve your ovulation. So equality is fantastic. The man works on himself, improves metabolic parameters. Sperm improves sperm is excellent. But this tube is jammed now. Nothing will open up this tube for a man. They have seen all sorts of people claim all sorts of things, except for loose mucus based blocks that can sometimes be temporary in nature. Any permanent damage to this tube means that you cannot have an egg and a sperm meet, so no embryo can be created. This is exactly what IVF was invented for. So you take the egg out of the lady. You take the sperm out of the man, put it in a petri dish in a lab, under certain very controlled conditions. Create an embryo. Now you bypass the tube. So you take the embryo and you put it inside the lady. This is a perfect example of where alopecia absolutely shines. So there is a clear structural blockage. There is a need for a procedure. And you do this. And yet does it mean this is the be all and end all? Absolutely no. Because we have women with blocked fallopian tubes who go for an IVF and come back after it fails 1 or 2 times. The reason it failed 1 or 2 times is either the quality wasn't good enough, or the sperm quality wasn't good enough, or the lady was so stressed about the whole thing that multiple good quality embryos, you know. PGD tested embryos couldn't implant because our cortisol is through the roof. She's so stressed that her body is not ready. So there is a place for integrative medicine. So there are horses for courses. There are times we do have aloe pads on stuff. We use them where it's needed, but we use it with our eyes wide open. Right. So have we done the basics? Is your diet in place? Are you sleeping well? Are you not stressed? Despite all of this, are you not able to conceive? Okay, let's take a look in with allopathic radiology. Do an ultrasound. Figure out where the problem is. Is there some medicine that can help? Certainly. Even there, there are herbals that you can use at round one. If those don't work, then allopathic medicines tend to be stronger. So no one. You know, the joke in our office is don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. So you literally keep allopathic in the room as well. But our allopathic know very well that we have to work on root causes and the root cause. Doctors know the allopathic are available. Should we face a structural issue? And that's the combination that I believe works best. Yes, that's the best of both worlds, actually. So using what is what required where. So you mentioned some of the. So cortisol high levels of cortisol. We talked about stress. So what are some of the lifestyle habits that actually help fertility. So what are the things that you know couples and maybe especially women if if at all should be moving toward. Sure. So I, you know, put on top of the list basically sleep. You know, for me sleep is the, you know, imagine eight hours at night, 8 to 10 hours at night. You're sleeping with your eyes closed. You are lost to your senses. It is the most vulnerable point in a human being's life, right? So when we. We used to sleep, even when we slept on trees, animals could come and eat us. And yet this behavior has been preserved. Why would nature preserve it if it weren't so crucial for the remaining 16 hours of life? Right. So all the hormonal repair, all the cortisol work, all the reproductive hormones are all maximum secreted during that rest and digest period. That night time sleep is so, so crucial and we get so many women these days. You know why sleep at one? They think one is early enough, you know, and they're like, but I get it as I wake up at night and, you know, so you're like, okay, uh, not again. We don't believe in prescriptive medicine. You know how we work. It's a health coaching model. It's similar to what you do. First, understand the life of that person, right. Every habit the person has is there because it solves a problem for them. Sleeping at 1 a.m. solves something for this lady, and I'd be foolish to take it away without trying to understand that. Right? So maybe she's in the kitchen till 10:00 and this is their only me type. So if I don't give her an alternative to me time and I take away just the 1 p.m., it's only going to add to her stress. It's not really solving a problem. So we understand in-depth why, but we start moving it half an hour sooner. So gently start trying 1230 the first week. Try at 12. What's happening now? Do we need a little bit of homeopathic support or something. I just toss and turn in the bed. Now, you know, we do all the normal breathing, the paddle, all the things which are non-medical in nature. Let's try all of that. Cool the room. Absolute darkness. No devices for one hour do all of that. Even then, if you need a little bit of help, do it. But number one for me is sleep. Circadian rhythm as close to 10 p.m., getting to bed as close to 6 a.m. except for winter, etc. when I wake up. This is what we find generally works for people to establish a metabolic um clock that works well, a circadian rhythm that works well, one hour plus minus four owls and you know, whatever, eagles and all of that that one can do. But I have not found anything in our own practice or in medical literature that there are people naturally meant to sleep at 3 a.m., you know, there's nothing only health detriments. We see whether it's night workers like know Sex and fire Engine and things like that, you know. So yeah. So sleep is my number one go to for everybody. And that's so true what you say. And actually, this is the same thing that I have heard so many times that, you know, I and I I'll give you the same example that I sleep at three and I get up at 11 because I can and I do. I was like, you know, I'm getting my eight hours. I mean, this is something I've drummed into my children because our society doesn't really prioritize me. And I have I have teenage children and they're not so young anymore. So they listen to all, you know, other influencers or whatever. I mean, social media here and there. A good thing is there is some awareness which is getting created, but it's still that I need to just get eight hours. I think, no, you don't just need eight hours. You need to you need eight hours in accordance with nature, right? That's the important thing. So it's not about sleeping. So I think that's one big point that you made. And I'm so glad that you talked about sleep, because we don't talk about it enough and you can do everything else. But if you don't get this right, yes, you will probably, you know, don't see changes, you don't see improvements which last at least. Um, so, you know, this process and of course, I've only heard it from others who have been through the whole process. And, you know, you take a couple through this particular journey. So how do you help from your side? You know, couples and, you know, the especially maybe the woman to stay grounded, to stay hopeful because they know there's so many of them go through failed IVF, IVF or otherwise treatment. So how do you help them in that sense? Yeah. See, I, I often feel that the first step is just for them to understand the basics. You know, um, most people come in thinking they've already failed. You know, first you tell them that that's not the case. You know, here are just hard statistics. I just throw numbers at that. Just understand, especially miscarriages. Women after miscarriages are distraught. You know, they don't realize that only three out of ten pregnancies make it to life. Birth. This is Stanford Institute of Medicine, and they have a repeated pregnancy loss committee, which is multidisciplinary, and this is their statistics worldwide. If you have ten pregnancies confirmed by home pregnancy or beta hCG testing, only three make it to live birth. That's the amount of rejection rate in human beings. You know, look at us at traffic lights and we don't behave like we're the acme of evolution. But there you have it. Nature doesn't want babies, which may be a burden on themselves or their parents being born. So many miscarriages are on account of DNA errors which have crept in, which can be improved in the next pregnancy. But this one wasn't meant to be. So this whole guilt needs to be removed from the from people's minds that they're somehow broken. And remember, to be a parent is such a such a hard wired instinct, and to have that taken away from you or to feel defective in that area is very, very deep. It cuts too close to the bone. So the first thing we do is tell people that they're not alone, statistically or otherwise. And then we say, all right, now let's take a look at what have we done till now. Right. What are the scientific things we could have done. Have we done all of them? Often in that we discover gaps which are about the basic foundations. You're not eating well, you're not sleeping on time. You're not doing stress management. You have hormones, vitamins in gaps. There are things that are happening. So again, you point out to them how those filling those gaps helps. But most importantly underneath are the way that, you know, this is something that we learned over time. And it's only by running a clinic, you know, so you get into something like fertility. It's a very technically oriented field. You know, even if you're trying to be holistic, everybody is talking AMH, internal follicle count stimulation, follicular studies. It's very difficult not to get caught up in this kind of storm, you know, to get into the eye of it. That's when at some point we step back and we said, this is still a human being, right? And this is still a person who comes with their own preferences, their likes, their dislikes. And they've been so disempowered by a system that says this day, this injection, that day, that scan, this day, that the whole life gets regimented like you've been put back in school or something, you know, it's just a very disempowering experience. So instead, we use a health coaching model. Every, you know, into the intake call begins with open ended questions. Every review call has to start with good news. Tell me what's working in your life. There's no. There's enough time for what's not working in your life. The minute you see a doctor at the other side, a therapist at the other side, you want to say, what about digestion? So, you know, you say, forget we get to the digestion. I'm not going to escape it. Or trying to, you know, go, go, go. But first tell me we did these five things. Tell me one thing that worked for you in this week. It could be because of me or not because of me. It doesn't matter. This week I had a wonderful lunch with my long lost cousin. Let's start there. The framing changes, right? There's a difference in the energy and this is something we inculcate throughout the program. You come in with, you focus on what's working, and slowly you begin growing that area, growing that area, grow the light till the darkness has no place. This is like super important. Of course, the nuts and bolts of it are. Here's a diet that works for you. Maybe this particular grain whole world is saying quinoa is good, but guess what is too hard a grain for you? You can't digest quinoa, so our nutritionist will handle that. Do you need a supplement for diminished ovarian reserve? Your AMH is very low. Are there herbs that truly help that? What is the evidence. So we'll make sure that those herbs are dialed in by your doctor. What's your follicular scan looking like. So we take care of those aspects. Acupressure is again you know, one of those things that we believe deeply can affect energy networks and how energy or T flows in the body can be influenced with acupressure. So that's one of the other petals that we use. So we call it a five petal program. So we do diet, we do dietary supplements, we do acupressure, we do lifestyle changes and we use Ayurveda. So this is like a um, you know, complete, um, approach that we would take with a couple. And it makes me so happy to hear this as a as you know that I follow this the principles of health coaching. I'm a health coach myself, and especially what you just mentioned about what's going well, that struck out because I don't see many practitioners following it. It's it's the it's the principles of positive psychology which tells us that, you know, if you start with what's going well, you can actually stay motivated to keep going. To stay on track, to get back on track when you, you know, sleep and not give up hope. And the I think the other thing that you you know, I think you hit the nail on the hand is that the medical system can be very disempowering. So even when I work with my clients, it's all about things like taking charge of your healing. Right till and actually, you know, when I also teach health coaching, uh, in a few places. So what happens is that, you know, the number one question that I hear from other practitioners is that, uh, how do I make my patients do this? I said, you can't make anyone do anything, you know? That's where the coaching comes in. That's where the approach that you are talking about comes in, right? How can we do this together? You said that. You know you're not alone. Uh, so that is the beautiful, uh, partnership. I think, you know, I would call it, rather than anything else. And of course, you're guiding them. Of course you're telling them about the supplements, and of course, you're telling them about the hormones and educating. And each has its own role for this five petal, um, approach. It's amazing. And, uh, so, in fact, I in my practice, I talk about it in terms of the body wise healing framework, which is, you know, so we all have our own modalities, but it all boils down to the same thing, I think. Right. It's about the root cause and connecting. So, um, the audience who typically listens to this show or other my Substack are women. So while of course we're talking about couples, uh, the women has two is the one who, you know, goes through most of the journey, especially in terms of fertility. So what is one small shift like as a couple that they can make together, right today or right this week? Or the woman can make that, you know. That can support her hormonal balance and fertility. You know, I would say the number one thing is, um, possibly a shared meal. Right. So it's an example that we give our patients. So many families are nuclear. Now, many couples are living by themselves, either for career. They've gone to another city set up home by themselves. You know, meal times are now literally spent, each one on the phone, one hand on the plate. And that's how it goes. And there's no real bonding beyond just chores, right? So it's like, hey, have you told the driver that? And did you tell the maid that? And it's very, very functional, right. So even more so once we have kids. But even before. Right. It's not uh, it's it's very we forget what it was that we got married to each other for, you know, so, uh, eating a meal consciously. Right. So that that can be a beautiful two way, sort of. It can take two benefits. And it's a lovely way to connect. Right. So it's food that's been cooked with love. It's arrived at the table. You're both. A third fret. You put food on the table and now you know you finish that meal within nine minutes. So I usually think to patience is at least though at least, you know, take it to ten minutes. Right. So we make them chew their food. It bores them to death. I say at least one meal a day. Try it up. Don't try 32 times. Mouthful for every teeth. Do half, do 16. Chewing. If you choose your food 16 times and you swallow it, you realize what taste is there in the food. The nutrition gets absorbed better because digestion begins in the mouth. Amylase is already working over there and you understand when you're full, you're not gobbling or eating for emotional comfort. And if you truly make it a time for laughter and sharing what happened with each other and, you know, kind of almost unburdening before, you know, sleep time, which is coming, you've shared the day's happenings with each other. If you can do that without having to resort to a digital device, to my mind, that's a very nice shared space for the couple. Um, you know. And, uh. Yeah, that's something that we try with a lot of couples, and they come back with all sorts of endearing stories. You know, it's by candlelight. And, you know, we went back to feeling all romantic about it. And he claimed, you know, he put on a favorite CD from college and, you know, all those things. I think it's a it's a fantastic way of connecting again and see how true it is. Eventually time will tell when we have all the devices that can see these things. But literally in South India, when they cast a horoscope, they say the guy casting the horoscope writes, I am noting the birth time of the child. After removing three months he spent above the father's head before conception. Okay, so it said that you attract the kind of soul that you want by your will, by your presence. Your wanting to be a parent is what brings that soul into your life, and the kind of presence with which you are able to attract that energy brings in the right kind of soul into your life is basically what they say. Now, whether this is, like I said, this could all be very metaphorical and no magical sounding, but it is true that couples were able to feel connected to each other and they feel ready truly to start a family. We just find that they conceive easier. Right. So the mechanics of it leave it to the likes of us. We're here to help you. The doctors are there. They'll do whatever is needed on the mechanical parts. Of course you're participating and you're not disenfranchised. But they often ask, what more can I do? What? More in as if saying, can I walk an extra kilometer? Can I eat one less roti? And my point is, those are all not things you need to do. We are managing those parts. You know, you're sorted one kilometer more, one roti less will not make a difference. But this mind is all yours. This state of being is all yours. So if you can get into that couple ready to attract a family, ready to start a family, you know, maybe dinner is a good idea. For others, it may be a long drive. For still others, it may be a movie. Whatever floats your boat. But. Get away from devices and spend some v dime as time. Don't try to take pictures, don't try to post it on insta saying you know with my Bey, don't do that. Just, you know, do what's needed with each other. Um, that's such a beautiful example and it resonates so much with what I believe in as well. Uh, because the connection starts way before the bedroom. I mean, it doesn't start in the bedroom. It starts in the day. In the morning. And just to give you an example, my husband and I have been married for almost 25 years now, 23 years now. So another couple of years. And one thing we started during Covid and we have two kids. So you can appreciate after children all these things become, you know, even more difficult to do for a long period of time till the children grow up, you know. Then there's this phase. So we started this thing about because we were all stuck at home having. And we like one cup of coffee, like black night strong coffee. We have one cup, but started having that coffee together during Covid because, you know, we were stuck at home. And we've continued ever since because we work for ourselves. We don't work in a 9 to 5 job so we can do that. But that's a connection time. And in fact, it's happened that I've been traveling or he's been traveling. We'll have coffee on zoom. Ah, lovely. That is so lucky. Yeah. So, you know, anything? Anything works, right? It doesn't have to be this. It doesn't have to. It can be mean, like what you said. But I love how you put it together. Because I also truly believe that these are the things that you cannot outsource to someone else. Everything else can be taken care of, as you rightly said. One extra roti. One less roti. Low carbs, high carbs. You know all that is fine and you know. And we'll focus on that. We'll focus on the meds, we'll, uh, or the supplements. We'll focus on the food diet. But this you cannot outsource to anyone else. Please. You have to figure out what's going to work for you. So this connection. Well, so this is such a beautiful place to end our conversation. But I just want to also, you know, ask you, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to share before we end the conversation? No, I think, you know, this was a very beautiful conversation. I've participated in several podcasts, which are often on the more technical side of things. I'm very, very happy to have been able to, you know, share this with somebody who truly practices this themselves as well. For it to for me to hear an echo. Right. So we all look for our tribe, and it's wonderful to hear this and to share it with your listeners and your tribe. So I think if there's a take home message, you know, not that we missed anything, it is to truly not give up hope. Uh, and, you know, uh, stay focused on the good things in your life. It's beyond a bumper sticker. It's not just some, you know, uh, trying being trashed out what you repeat to yourself and what you focus on is what you grow. That there is no doubt about. I think all of us know that at a very instinctual level. So if you are facing any fertility struggles, etc., ask yourself what's going right. If you're still getting regular periods, if you're still not in great amounts of pain, if you're somebody who's otherwise into fitness, if you're even getting a daily walk every day, you know if you're drinking enough water, even that little dot of light is enough. Start there. And it will grow into one giant, you know, lit up room and stuff will work out. So. Yeah, that's about it. That's lovely. And I think you mentioned that that lightness will. You know, I think drown out the darkness. And we need both. Actually without the without darkness, we can't see the presence of light. It's both, uh, and, uh, you know, and both have it's, uh, role to play. So thank you so much, Mahesh. If, uh. So, uh, Malika is on Instagram, so if you, uh, you know, I'll be sharing them in the show notes, etc.. But if you want to share any particular, uh, website or nothing, we're just very we are very active on Insta and that's become our main mode of reaching our people. And so like our fertility is our handle. We're also on LinkedIn, of course. Uh, you know, these days websites seem to be less and less in favor. Most people seem to want apps or, you know, doing stuff on their phone. So the website's not really, you know, that singing and dancing, but the symbolic of fertility. Insta is a good way to get in touch with us should anybody need to. And, uh, LinkedIn as well. Sharda and I are both there on our personal profiles and as a public utility. Okay. And I'll share all that in the show notes. Thank you, Mahesh, for a lovely conversation. I'm sure that, you know, many, uh, couples, especially women who have, you know, been dealing with this, uh, this particular journey, fertility in fertility, for that matter, and hormonal issues. So they will have, uh, you know, got such a beautiful, what should I say message out of this. And, you know, it would have it would give them hope as well, because hope is something that a lot of people thought of, uh, you know, give up on actually, like you said. So thank you once again, Mahesh. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anindita. It's such a pleasure. Thank you for creating this platform to have these chats. And you know, we haven't prepped at all. This was a completely free flowing chat. So thank you so much for that spontaneity as well. All the very best to thank you.