The #1 Burnout Cure You Are Ignoring (It’s Not Yoga)
- Jean-Francois Alleno
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Do you feel "tired but wired"?
You lay down after a long day of caregiving, but your mind is still racing through medication lists and appointments. That isn’t just stress—in Ayurveda, that is an aggravated Vata Dosha drying out your nervous system.
In this video, I’m in my kitchen to show you the #1 medicine for burnout: Deep, Ojas-building Sleep.
Most caregivers treat sleep like a pause button. I’m going to show you how to treat it like a medical prescription using a simple, ancient recipe you can make tonight.
📋 THE "SLEEP PRESCRIPTION" RECIPE:
1 Cup Milk (Dairy or Almond/Coconut)
1 tsp Ghee (Clarified Butter)
Pinch of Turmeric (Anti-inflammatory)
Pinch of Nutmeg (Natural sedative)
Optional: Ginger powder or Cinnamon
Today we're gonna talk about sleep because everybody know that if you have a good night of sleep, your day is completely different. sleep in Ayurveda is actually very important. It is so important that it's actually one of the three pillars of health, the other ones being food and routine. And you're gonna see that today actually the sleep,
is going to be part of both the food and routine as well. I'm in the kitchen, so I'm going to show you a recipe that might help you fall asleep, actually.
Sleep is so important that in the Ashtanga Hrdaya, it's a traditional book in Ayurveda. It says that happiness and unhappiness, knowledge and ignorance, life and death, all depend on sleep. This is how important it is. and I'm sure that you must have had some sleepless night and you know that the next day you are absolutely not functioning.
as I told you, I'm in the kitchen and I want to share with you a recipe. So for that recipe, it's very simple. You will need actually some milk. So I have a cup of milk. I will need ghee, the clarified butter. And there is a video in here that I just posted a few days ago about how to make ghee.
Quick video and you're going to see it's very simple. Otherwise you can buy ghee in the grocery store. It's super easy to find. Absolutely no need to go to the Indian grocery store for that. and I want to introduce you with four different spices. We will not need the four different spices but it's just an invitation for you to be a little bit more familiar. So we're going to talk about turmeric.
ginger powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. So you might be familiar with cinnamon and nutmeg if you are not so familiar with ginger powder and turmeric.
what I would invite you to do is if you try some spices, what is the effect that they have on you?
And I just want to take an example. talk about ginger. This is two different things. This is raw ginger, and this is ginger powder. And they don't have the same effect. The raw ginger tend to be way warmer, hotter than the dry powder. if you tried ginger before and you're like, wow, that's way too hot for my system. I have heartburns and...
you know, I'm getting warm with it. Maybe try the powder. The powder will work differently and you will have the benefits of the ginger powder, but you won't have the hotness or the side effects of the raw ginger. So give it a try.
So today's recipe is actually a warm milk, a warm cup of milk with an addition of ghee and spices if you want. And why do we do that before going to bed? It's just the milk, the ghee, and some of the spices have exactly the same quality that we are looking for when we want to fall asleep. we want heaviness
And most of the time, the people who can't sleep, who can't fall asleep, it's just because there's an increase of vata in the system. And vata, and we know that the quality of vata are cold, and there's lots of movement, the racing thoughts and everything. And this is why we try to balance that. I'm just going to put my cup off.
milk in my pan in here.
Then I'm going to use 1 teaspoon of ghee.
Here I am, one teaspoon of ghee, and I'm gonna put in the milk.
I love you. Delicious.
I'm going to put a little bit of turmeric. turmeric has an anti-inflammatory effect. And in order for the turmeric to work, it has to be combined with some fat. So when it's combined with the milk and with the ghee,
it will actually go everywhere it needs to go in your system, even in the really deeper layer of the tissue, like the nervous system and the brain, I'm going to use a little bit of nutmeg. So just, you can see I'm just using a little bit like that with my knife. Okay, give it a stir.
And I'm just going to put it on the stove.
All right, it's on the stove and it's just on medium heat. obviously because it's milk, you have to check that the milk is not boiling over. Otherwise you'll be super sad because you will have to clean the stove. One thing that I want to mention about the milk, I know that some people are going to tell me like, wow, you know, for me, milk is very difficult to digest. Either you can maybe cut...
the milk like half water, half milk, so four ounces of milk, four ounces of water. And that might be easier to digest, but you still have that nice heavy quality of the milk. simply use some plant-based milk, like coconut or almond milk, for example.
while the milk and the ghee is gently warming up on the stove,
I just want to go over what would be some causes of lack of sleep. people who are not nourished properly. So, and I know that for caregiver, this is some things because missing meals and eating here and there, that actually could increase the Vata in the system
and could impact your sleep.
The second one, everything's linked to fear, anxiety, and God knows that caregiving is something bring a lot of anxiety,
Third thing Making sure that you have the proper bed, the bed is comfortable enough, and there's enough darkness in the room, because you need the darkness to fall asleep. another thing is
suppression of sleep. If you feel that you are sleepy around 9, 9.30 p.m. but you're like, but I really want to look at this movie. Well, if you miss that boat of going to bed, like when you are really falling asleep, sometimes it's to be very difficult to fall asleep after that.
an excessive consumption of dry food. Popcorns, raw food, salad. we are coming back to that increase of vata in the system and vata being cold and dry and movement. If you eat an excess of dried food, that will just increase the vata in your
to look at screen like your phone after 8 and 9 p.m. And I know that that's another conversation that we might have. I would love for you to be able to sleep without your phone in your room. I understand that for caregivers sometimes it's very important to have your phone. but if you have your phone, try to have your phone a little bit.
away so you can hear it if something happened but it's not right away beside you on your night table.
because it's so tempting to reach for the phone and start looking at the phone. And obviously, consumption of heavy food and alcohol before going to sleep might actually have an impact on the quality of your sleep.
So let's talk about how to improve sleep now. So as I said about that conception of food before going to bed, try to eat your last meal at least three hours going to bed.
consumption of warm cooked food. As I said, if you know that all the dry food, The popcorn, the crackers, the raw food is not beneficial for sleep. The opposite, having like a soup, a stew or something that have lots of moisture in it will help you to fall asleep.
Obviously, you can have a herbal tea before going to bed, you can have what we are doing right now, That beautiful milk with ghee would actually help then there's a few things that I want to share with you. have a small bottle of oil on the side of your bed, and I'll make some video about that.
Use that oil to put a little bit on your feet before going to bed. just a few drops to put on the sole of your feet, a few drops to put at the top of your head.
and you can even use some of this to put in your ears, around the ears, inside the ears. I will do a video specifically on that, and I will attach it in here
if you can stop looking at your screen, computer, TV, starting at like 8 and going to bed by 10, that would be great.
I've talked about that in other video. Obviously, timing is very important. to bed before 10 p.m.
It's a crucial time to clean up everything in your body. So if you can be in bed by 10 p.m., that actually very helpful
And the last things I want you to live with journaling could be a good thing. So writing a few things, you know, to get them out of your minds before going to bed. But some people are not super good at journaling or they don't really like that. So my invitation is for you to find some gratitude being grateful for whatever happened during the day. At least if there's one, two or three things that went really well, some achievements.
Being grateful for that really helps prepare your body for the night.
all right, so while we were chatting, my milk is ready.
Look at that beautiful golden color milk and you can see the Ghee in it.
So drink that and if it helps you falling asleep. So I'm looking forward to hear from you in the comments. In the meantime, you have a really important job to do. So take care of yourself. Ciao.
