Shivambu deep dive

What this video covers

On the LifeSpa podcast, Ayurvedic practitioner Dr. John Douillard talks with Cate Stillman, yoga teacher, Ayurvedic practitioner and author of Uninflamed, about Shivambu (urine therapy) in Ayurveda. Stillman says urine therapy appears in Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, the Buddha's Pali Canon, and Irish and Mexican folklore, and argues that our disgust toward it is mostly cultural. Douillard recalls a doctor in India telling him to put urine on a rash, which he says cleared quickly. Stillman explains her view that urine changes as it ages, from fresh urine high in electrolytes to aged or evolved urine kept nine months or more in glass jars covered with cloth, which she says turns dark and is more reducing (antioxidant) on ORP meters, and she proposes that urea and uric acid, rich in nitrogen, may support nitric oxide production. She describes uses reported by her community: drops on the skin, a few drops under the tongue, swishing, snorting (she says a client's long-term rhinitis resolved within about a year), foot baths, enemas, and looping during fasts. She says urine enemas ended her lifelong constipation. Both stress that research is lacking, that the evidence is mostly what she calls citizen data, and that people taking medication may need dose changes.

These are the speakers' own experiences. This is not medical advice.