Bridgette Shea - Cultivating Your Microbiome: Ayurvedic and Chinese Practices for a Healthy Gut and a Clear Mind

For my daughter, Calliope, and all of her good critters

CULTIVATING YOUR
MICROBIOME

Finally! A book demonstrating how the ancient traditional medical systems of both China and India understood the importance of the gut microbiome. The ancients, along with Hippocrates, declared that all diseases begin in the gut. As part of both the digestive and immune systems, numerous health problems result once these delicate flora are disturbed: autoimmune diseases, food allergies, and cancer, to name a few. Reestablishing intestinal health should be the starting point for the treatment of any disease. The research cited throughout this book corroborates over and over what these ancient doctors described in their texts thousands of years ago. A must-read for anyone interested in getting to the root cause of all diseases.

MARIANNE TEITELBAUM, D.C., AUTHOR OF HEALING THE THYROID WITH AYURVEDA

As a practitioner of Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, I loved how Bridgette wove these amazing systems of healing with our modern understanding of the microbiome. Cultivating Your Microbiome is a wealth of information and practices that will absolutely serve the seasoned health practitioner. Remarkably, it is also a book that can be read by anyone interested in improving their health and understanding the underlying principles of real well-being. Cultivating Your Microbiome is a must-read for all health practitioners and enthusiasts alike.

JONATHAN GLASS, M.AC, AYURVEDIC PRACTITIONER AND AUTHOR OF TOTAL LIFE CLEANSE

A fascinating book on the microbiome! Cultivating Your Microbiome combines the recent Western scientific knowledge and the teaching of the several millennia-old Eastern medicines.

CHRISTOPHER VASEY, N.D., AUTHOR OF THE ACIDALKALINE DIET FOR OPTIMUM HEALTH

Acknowledgments

T o my muse, Calliope, who doesnt like me to go to work but never protested when I needed to spend time writing. To her father, Nathan Solomon, who encouraged me throughout this process, knowing how grueling it can be, even to the detriment of time that could have been spent together. To my parents, who have always encouraged me to follow my path, regardless of whether or not I was bushwhacking. To Trisha LaPolt, Calliopes Bubbe and my dear friend, for her unending support. To Karen Carey, an amazing coach, and friend, for all of her support and help during this process. To Pernille Dake, who encouraged me just when it was needed. To Joe Kulin, the great connector, for making this possible. To Deborah Neary, for her willingness, patience, and focus, and her wonderful artwork. To Jon Graham, who had great enthusiasm for this idea and without whom this book wouldnt have happened, as well as the entire Inner Traditions staff. To Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, whose magical nature created the space for this process to unfold. And to every person who walked through the doors of the Ageless Acupuncture clinic and asked me how the book was going. Your encouragement, support, and advice are a part of this work and I am forever grateful.

Preface

A s I put the finishing touches on this book, we are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Last winter, when I first heard a report about a new pneumonia virus in China, I knew that this was going to be bad. I found out everything I could about it. One of the things I have enjoyed most about writing this book, as well as one of its greatest challenges, is how every single day there is new information being published about the microbiome, some of it even contradicting previously accepted truths. This virus is no different. Information on it changes daily, multiple times a day even. Like the microbes that make up our microbiomes, it is everywhere and it affects every human on the planet, directly or indirectly.

As I sat down to write this preface, I asked myself, What is it that I need to tell my readers? Unlike other times when I have asked a question and allowed space for inspiration to arrive, it took only a moment for the answer to come. I want my readers to know how to do something fundamental, something totally different in terms of how they view the body, pathogens, medicine, prevention, and healing. This is something that microbiome science will evolve to make us do. It is what Eastern medicine already does, and it is this: It cultivates our internal environment. My primary message here is to encourage you to recognize your body as part of nature and learn how to tune in to and take care of it in an effort to cultivate your microbiome. Eastern medical traditions focus on cultivating the internal landscape: tilling, weeding, and fertilizing the inner soil of our mucosa and tissue terrains using medicinal substances, foods, and lifestyle guidance geared toward living in harmony with nature and its cycles.

That is what this book is about. That is what treating people infected with coronavirus or any other pathogen is about. We in the Western world could have done better helping people suffering from this virus, and we still canby utilizing the wisdom and herbal medicine of the Chinese medical tradition. Did you know that the Chinese government officially promoted traditional Chinese medicine for prevention and treatment of COVID-19? Or that it is being used alongside Western medicine in Chinese hospitals? Do you even know what traditional or classical Chinese medicine is? So many people have beliefs that anything from China is bad. They are afraid of Chinese herbs. Maybe they think Chinese medicine is just acupuncture and animal parts. This set of beliefs could be preventing these folks, and others who dont subscribe to them, from accessing the heart and soul of the medicine: the medicinals themselves.

In researching this virus, I have spent hours and days and weeks and now months following what is being done in China, with Chinese medicine, to help people. Those in the hospitals in Hubei province, where Wuhan is, are receiving Chinese medicine alongside Western treatments. The Chinese herbal decoctions they are receiving are bringing down fevers when the Western medicines are failing. They are helping people get out of the hospital faster and breathe fresh air again. How are they doing this? By supporting the bodys inner terrain. These medicines are helping the body clear the fluids that build up, the dampness, and making the persons body a less habitable environment for the pathogen. These medicines are cultivating the individuals inner ecosystem to not only help the body in a state where it is overwhelmed, helping to balance the inflammatory and immune responses, but also to help the body clear the virus and any potential opportunistic coinfections. These medicines are also mitigating the side effects of Western drugs.

There are memes circulating on the internet about the formula the Chinese are using and many people are asking me about this herb or that. There is no one formula. There is no one herb. Do you make a pasta dish with just wheat? Do you bake a cake with only eggs? Do you fertilize soil with only carbon? The environment in every persons body is different. The inner landscape is different. The amount of fluids, dryness, heat, and cold are different. The strength of the body, the stamina, the immune function, the microbiomes are all completely different. Our microbes live in very specific environments. I often say that the health and diversity of the digestive tract microbiome is dependent upon whether or not we have a Goldilocks gut: not too hot, not too dry, not too cold, not too acidic, not too oxygen-rich here or carbon dioxide-rich there, but