If we look back at our scientific evolutionary history of approximately six million (60,00,000) years, then what we call modern civilizations are merely five thousand (5,000) years old. That means, for 59,95,000 years, we survived and flourished without any help of modern ways of living, falling ill, recovering, and eventually ceasing to exist.
In other words, there might be some secret that ancient people knew through which they lived, fell sick, and healed through time-tested natural remedies. Bringing back that lost secret of aeons and reconnecting us with the healthiest life through the sanctuary of nature is SHARAN.
Dr Nandita Shah, the Founder, has found that hidden truth. A registered medical practitioner, Dr Nandita started her career as a homeopath with the goal of holistic healing rather than symptomatic treatment. She taught advanced homeopathy to practitioners all over the world. During this time, she realized that all systems of medicine – homeopathy, allopathy, naturopathy, Ayurveda, Chinese medicine etc. -are man-made systems that are useful but not foolproof. At the same time, she noticed that animals in nature know how to heal themselves. She realised that our instincts and nature are almost foolproof.
“Healing means to make whole. Our personal well-being is interconnected to that of all other beings on the planet. I had to make the connection,” says Dr Nandita. This is how SHARAN’s name came to be.
Dr Nandita Shah has always been a clinician and has treated thousands of patients. Her observations are from her years of experience. She has also read much of the literature about this kind of healing or systems that come close to it and attended conferences and courses in this field abroad.
Dr Nandita Shah is the author of the book, ‘Reversing Diabetes in 21-Days,’ published by Penguin India. This book has been on the Amazon India bestseller list for years. She also received the Nari Shakti Puraskar 2016 from the President of India.
In an interview with Insights Success, Dr Nandita spoke at length about her evidence-based unique healing perspective and more. The highlights of the discussion are given ahead.
Ma’am, please brief our audience about SHARAN, its USPs, and how you are currently positioned as one of the best multispecialty hospitals.
SHARAN is an acronym for Sanctuary for Health and Reconnection to Animals and Nature. We are not a hospital, but we have a team of doctors and nutritionists, and we help people prevent and reverse lifestyle diseases with the help of lifestyle changes, primarily diet. We are perhaps the largest and oldest organisation in India doing the kind of work that we do.
We teach people how to become their own best doctors most of the time by listening to the body, looking out for symptoms, thinking about the causes and eliminating them. Many of our patients can stop all the medications, be symptom-free, and have normal lab reports.
Our goals for the patient are never short-term relief. We try to make the lifestyle easy and sustainable so that our patients will never have to come back to us again once they are well. They will be the masters of their health. In fact, most of our patients say that their family members also get healthier since they, too, begin following this lifestyle.
The reason that people are getting so sick these days is because we’re eating and living the way we have been taught to eat and live by our society, culture and advertisements. But we should really eat and live the way we have been designed to eat and live by God or nature.
Eating foods that were not designed for us is a little bit like putting diesel in a car that runs on petrol. It doesn’t work very long.
Whenever we want to get rid of a problem, we should understand and remove the causes of that problem. In general, medicines never cure. All they can do is control symptoms. But the body always works to heal. If we remove the impediments, the cure is likely to occur.
Being an experienced leader, share your opinion on how adopting modern technologies impacts the Healthcare space and how SHARAN is adapting to the change.
We help people make lifestyle changes with the help of events, talks, cooking classes, seminars etc. With the pandemic, all our events went online on Zoom, with the result that they are now accessible to people anywhere in the world. Also, because of taking our work online, many of our programs have become less expensive.
Online programs do have their challenges. Our live programs were always known for the (healthy) food, community and camaraderie that was instrumental in motivating our clients to change. Online, we use different techniques – longer programs and challenges.
Our very best offerings are our retreats because we get the results on the spot, and our clients forge like-minded friendships that last over the years.
Considering the current industry scenario, what challenges do you face, and how do you drive SHARAN to overcome them?
Our biggest challenge is that most people are conditioned to believe that medicines can cure and, even after taking treatments for years for lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, don’t question the system or even think about it. Living with lifestyle diseases is not natural and normal. Being healthy is, and it’s possible.
Another big challenge is that our system cannot reward doctors monetarily in the same way big hospitals can. But our doctors receive real rewards in terms of patient recovery instead.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Healthcare space?
Walk the talk, focus on your convictions, and you will succeed. Focus on quality rather than quantity. If even one patient is truly helped, they will send you many more. If your quality is exceptional, the money will come. Too many people work on scaling up without having the required quality, infrastructure or experience.
The founders of a few well-known organisations have also trained with SHARAN in the past. We are fortunate that our work is spreading through them. Recently, many organisations have appeared and claim to be doing the same work as ours at scale and low prices.
How do you envision scaling SHARAN’s operations and offerings in the future?
Now that we have built a strong, high-quality team, we are looking into scaling up. Although we are widely available, thanks to online events and consultations, we will work on scaling up through more courses, retreats, and more training programs.
We offer training programs for doctors and nutritionists annually and are probably the only organisation in India in our field that offers these. We also offer programs that train facilitators for talks, events and healthy cooking classes.
Recovered Patients Testimonials:
- Dr Yogita Bavaskar, Aug 2022, “I am a doctor (MD in Preventive and Social medicine). I have had rheumatoid arthritis since 2009. I tried all treatments but was still having bouts of joint pains which were debilitating. In 2020 I got introduced to the whole food plant-based diet and started following it sincerely. But I was not satisfied with the few cooking options I had. Through the internet, I found SHARAN’s website and YouTube channel, and I was amazed to see a whole lot of recipes and other videos related to health. Even though I am a doctor, I was unaware of this lifestyle and suffered so much due to an unhealthy lifestyle and wrong choices. I used to have pain after consuming milk products, but I never thought of quitting dairy as I thought milk is essential for me. But after getting this knowledge, I removed it from my diet and got the results in less than three months. I have been in remission of RA for 18 months now. This lifestyle has given me a new life, I feel more energetic and younger by ten years. Lifestyle medicine is my passion, and I wish to help more patients adopt this healthy lifestyle.”
- Nipa Mangat, March 2021, “In February 2021, after a social meeting with fellow marathoners, some of us came down with fever. Thanks to an alert from one of them, I immediately isolated myself at home. I tested positive for Covid-19, and so did the others. My symptoms were fatigue, low-grade fever and body ache. Thanks to the quick alert from my friends and early isolation, no one else in my home got it. I had two options – I could call my family doctor and follow his instructions and take more tests and start medication or believe in what I had learnt at SHARAN and try to heal myself naturally. I chose the latter. I decided to stay firm in my beliefs of Dr Nandita Shah’s principles – given the right environment and nutrition, our body will heal itself and fight the virus. My fever lasted only a day and a half, and my body ached for 4-5 days, after which I was free of symptoms and was on my way to recovery. I am truly grateful to Dr Nandita Shah and the SHARAN team for all the knowledge about the whole food plant-based lifestyle, which boosts my immunity and keeps me healthy.”
For more testimonials, please, visit the link – https://sharan-india.org/testimonials/
