My Panchakarma Experience - Reseting Body & Mind After "Feeling Off" for Far Too Long

connect7091
Dec 30, 2025
7 min read

Most people don’t wake up one day and decide to do something called Panchakarma.

They get there because they’re tired of feeling off in ways that are hard to explain.

The labs are “mostly fine.” The supplements help a little. The diet changes work… until they don’t. Energy is low, digestion is unpredictable, immunity feels fragile, and no matter how many things you try, your body never quite settles.

That’s where I was.

Panchakarma is an Ayurvedic process designed to help your body reset by removing what’s been quietly building up over time - inflammation, toxins, habits, foods, and stressors that your system can no longer process cleanly.

It’s not a quick fix or a trendy cleanse. It’s a structured, immersive experience that strips everything back to baseline so you can see, often for the first time, what your body actually needs and what it’s been reacting to all along.

I want to be clear about this upfront:

This is not a spa week. It’s not relaxing in the way people expect wellness to be.

Panchakarma asks a lot of you - your time, your discipline, your willingness to feel uncomfortable and stay present without numbing or distraction. And at times, it can be emotionally intense.

But for those who fully embrace it, it can have deeply profound impacts.

My Panchakarma Experience

I went into Panchakarma thinking I understood what I was signing up for.

I had read about it. I worked in a clinic that offered it. And still, nothing prepared me for what it would actually be like to live inside the process - physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I did my Panchakarma at Neuroveda Health with Jen LeValley, and that detail matters more than I realized at the time.

When you’re doing something this demanding - something that touches your nervous system, your digestion, and your emotional history - who guides you through it makes all the difference.

This is my honest account of what Panchakarma was like from the inside.

Not the brochure version. Not the textbook explanation. But what it felt like day to day, what came up, and why - despite how hard it was - I would do it again.

What Panchakarma Actually Is (in normal-person language)

Panchakarma is a traditional Ayurvedic detox and reset for your body and mind. It’s meant to help clear inflammation and toxins that build up over time so your body can actually reset. It includes things like:

Eating a very simple diet (mostly kitchari)
Herbal supplements and ghee
Bodywork and therapies (massage, steam, red light, etc.)
Colon cleansing (yes, enemas)
A long integration period afterward where you slowly add foods and habits back in to see how your body reacts

It’s meant to strip things down to baseline so you can actually see what’s affecting your body.

I’ll be honest — I dragged my feet for a long time because the time commitment is no joke. Eventually Dr. Ehrlich convinced me to just do it, and she was right. I started in early November.

Why I Would Only Do Panchakarma with Jen

My one condition was that if I was going to do this, it had to be with Jen.

If you know her, you already know this, but I want to say it anyway: I could not have done this without her. Not even close.

She doesn’t just follow a protocol. She really sees you. She listens to what you say, she notices what you don’t say, and she adjusts things when you’re struggling. She’s calm, steady, and present in a way that makes you feel safe and when you’re doing something this emotionally intense, you need that.

She wasn’t afraid to make tweaks for me when I needed them, while still keeping the integrity of the process. We talked a lot that first week when I was struggling with the diet and the detox headaches and the fatigue.

Knowing she was there made it possible to stay with it when it felt like too much.

Week One - Prep Phase

The first week is basically getting your body ready for the more intense detox that happens in week two.

That meant:

Changing my diet completely
Starting supplements
Cutting out processed foods and sugar
Cutting out coffee (my favorite thing)
Doing the bitter greens ghee protocol (which is seriously rough)

The food was the hardest part for me. I’m really picky about textures, and kitchari was really challenging. Jen had me add vegetables and chicken, because I was coming from a high-protein diet, so that helped a lot.

The bitter greens ghee — if you know, you know. It’s tablespoons of ghee mixed with bitter greens that you melt into hot water and take like a shot. You work up to five tablespoons a day. It’s intense.

I had:

Really bad headaches
Exhaustion
General detox discomfort

But I was determined to do it by the book, so I stuck with it.

Week Two - In Clinic

I really thought this was going to be the relaxing part. I was picturing warm oils, long massages, peaceful steam… spa stuff.

It wasn’t that.

You’re in the room with Jen for three to three and a half hours. You start by talking about how you’re feeling, what’s happening physically and emotionally, and then you go through a series of therapies. Mine were usually:

Detox foot bath
Red light therapy
Garshana (dry brushing)
Bodywork
Steam

Every person’s protocol is different because it’s based on your dosha and your needs.

Day One

Day one was pretty mellow. The bodywork felt good and I was tired but okay.

Day Two

By day two, I was struggling with food again. I didn’t want to eat the kitchari anymore. Jen saw that and changed my diet so I could keep going realistically.

Day Three

Day three is when everything hit.

I was crawling out of my skin. I didn’t want to lie there anymore. I didn’t want to be touched. I couldn’t turn my brain off. I just wanted to be done, but I stayed because I had committed and I trusted the process.

That’s when old emotional stuff started coming up. I started remembering things from my childhood, things I hadn’t revisited in a long time. And I realized that certain things I did as a child suddenly made sense once I connected them to what was happening in my life at that time. I’m not going into specifics, but that clarity was intense and painful and strangely healing.

Jen talked a lot with me that day about how Panchakarma isn’t just a physical detox, it’s emotional and mental too. I was not prepared for that.

Day Four & Five

Jen adjusted the protocol to make it less overwhelming. Day four felt calmer, but more emotional. I cried. Not because anything was wrong, but because things were coming up and I needed to move them through.

Friday, we ended with a Heart Basti, which was incredibly powerful. I went home that weekend and basically had an emotional detox, crying, sitting with things, understanding pieces of myself I’d never put together before.

The Enemas

Yes — they’re part of it. Starting around Tuesday or Wednesday, you do enemas daily for four days, then once a week for three weeks after. Not glamorous, but important, especially for someone like me who has struggled with constipation my whole life.

The Weeks After

After the clinic week, you’re not done. You keep taking supplements, you stay on the diet, you adjust slowly. Jen customized everything for me — gut support, brain support (I recently tested positive for markers associated with early-onset Alzheimer’s), and anemia which we discovered along the way.

I’m around week seven now and still integrating.

My Results: What’s Changed Physically

My digestion is dramatically better — I am regular now and that is huge for me.
My cravings have changed — I barely think about coffee now.
My energy is better especially after addressing the anemia.
I feel generally healthier.

My Results: What’s Changed Emotionally

This was the biggest part for me. Old things surfaced that clearly needed to. I made connections that explained parts of my childhood I never understood. It was incredibly difficult but also incredibly important.

Would I Do Panchakarma Again?

Yes. I will do it again. My doctor recommends something like this once a year for inflammation and brain health.

Next time won’t be “easy,” but now that I know what to expect, I think I’ll move through it differently.

Who Panchakarma’s For

Panchakarma isn’t for everyone, and it’s not something to do casually. It asks for time, commitment, and a willingness to be uncomfortable in service of real change.

But for the right person, it can be deeply supportive—sometimes transformative.

This approach tends to help people who feel like they’ve tried a lot of things and still don’t feel like themselves.

It’s especially helpful if you’re dealing with things like:

Chronic digestive issues that never fully resolve, even with “good” food and supplements
Ongoing inflammation, immune issues, or feeling run down more often than not
Persistent fatigue or brain fog that doesn’t match your lifestyle or lab results
Sensitivities to foods, stress, or environments that seem to be increasing over time

Often, these aren’t acute problems—they’re patterns that have slowly built up. Panchakarma is designed to address that kind of accumulation by stripping things back to baseline so your system can recalibrate.

It can also be powerful for people who sense that their health challenges aren’t just physical.

If you:

Feel stuck in old patterns you can’t quite shift
Notice your nervous system is always “on”
Carry stress, grief, or unresolved experiences in your body
Have a hard time resting, slowing down, or listening to internal signals

…this process can create space for those layers to surface and move.

Panchakarma doesn’t force anything, but it removes enough noise that what needs attention often rises on its own.

This is also for people who are ready to take responsibility for change, not just gather more information.

You have to be ready to:

Feel uncomfortable
Let things come up
Sit still
Not numb or distract
Actually change things

If you’re truly ready to reset your body and your life, it can be life changing. But it is not for the faint of heart.

Final Thought

There were so many positive physical changes for me, but the emotional changes were honestly even bigger.

And the most important part of the whole process for me was Jen. Her presence, her care, her adjustments, her empathy — that’s what made this possible.

I don’t think I could have gotten through it without her.