Iron rulses of health -6

[Guest guest]

In 6th part of this series, we will study the principles of breathing

techniques. These are outlined in sketch manner already in message#

5066. In this post, we study why breathing techniques work, at a more

grass root level. One more post will be needed to connect breathing

with our mental processes. Last paragraph addresses the cardiac

diseases issue.

 

Our life started with breathing and will end with last breath.

Correct time for birth chart is first cry of the child, which causes

rush of air to its lungs. Even if heart stops, doctors try to revive

life by CPR techniques. If breathing starts, you are back to earth.

We can stay without food or water for days together (Ratan Manek in

Rajastan India has not eaten anything in last nine years), but cant

survive few minutes without air. No politician can stop our supply of

air. Do we ever thank the creator for this? Right from birth, body is

chanting this Soham mantra. While we take maximum 1 kg. Food

everyday, 3 kg water everyday, we take 20-30 kg air everyday, but

attention we pay to the intake is inversely proportional to the

amount taken.

 

The most fundamental of all techniques is Pranayama, which can be

understood as the action and regulation of bringin Prana in the body.

As per message# 5066, Pranayam directs or regulates the "prana",

subtle life force energy. Regular practice of pranayama activates and

harmonizes many body and mind rhythms including that of brain,

heartbeat, enzymes and also mental and emotional rhythms. When we

carry out breathing techniques, we worship "Air" element. Air and

water, worshipping two elements is adequate for good health. If this

is done, other elements will be worshipped automatically, opine

several spiritual gurus.

 

Our body is just like any other machine working on electrical energy

or chemical energy of fuels. The creator has made this body from

trillions of cells, with complex network of blood vessels and nerves.

The body receives and communicates various signals through electrical

pulses. Just like any other machine, if the body is not used

regularly and properly, its parts reduce their efficiency and stop

working slowly. For instance, arthritis strikes those whose walking

is very much reduced. Often dead cells accumulate under the skin,

resulting in blemishes. Have you observed that Rheumatism strikes

first on the joint, where dark skin blemishes develop much before the

strike is discovered. Observe the skin on joints such as knee, ankle

boan, elbow etc.

 

If we observe a new born baby, we find that it uses all its lung

capacity. Its breathing is mainly through belly moving up and down,

with very little expansion of the chest. With growth, slowly the

expansion of the belly reduces, and so reduces the breathing capacity

of lungs. The intelligence provided by creator in the innocent mind

is gradually lost. This does not happen with animals, they do belly

breathing throughout the life. Observe your pet for study. Creator

has encased the lungs and heart in the rib cage, so expansion of

lungs is limited, but diphragm allows expansion in downward

direction. It may be surprising, but most of us do not use our lung

capacity beyond say 20%. Due to less use of lungs to limits, the

muscles causing the movement of lungs slowly harden making full

breathing very difficult. Athlets, runners on the other hand retain

their full capacity. Observe their bellies when they are relaxed.

 

The purpose of respiration is to purify the blood. Due to reduced

lung capacity, neither there is adequate intake of oxygen and nor

purification of blood. The result is short breath tendency after a

little walk, climbing staircases, or running a llittle. Since toxic

wastes of our muscular and cellular actions are eliminated through

lungs, adequate oxygen supply to lungs is essential. The wastes which

could not be eliminated, they re-circulate in the blood, get

deposited in the inner walls of blood vessels, causing athero-

sclerosis/arteriosclerosis or hardening and contraction of vessels.

The heart is a 24x7 pump sending this blood all over body. (No such

pump human beings have been able to make so far). The contraction of

arteries causes more stress on heart and gradually heart muscle

weakens due to inadequate oxygen. This shows that reduced lung

capacity results in a dangerous situation for longevity. In

introductory post in this series, we have seen that cells know only

health, provided all nutrients are made available to them. Oxygen

rich blood is one nutrient. For proper blood circulation, blood

purification, avoiding cardiac problems, the essentially the

breathing must be proper and adequate. Thus importance of blood

purification through liver for CAD problems also becomes obvious.

This is where breathing techniques come in roadmap to health. Even

arrhythmias are connected to inappropriate breathing. To understand

this connection, do one simple experiment. Put stethoscope at heart,

and listen to heartbeats. Stethoscope is essential as beats at

different points on the body are not same as heart beats. Now take a

deep heavy breath and exhale very slowly. Do this twice or thrice.

What did you notice. Heart is adjusting the beat rate to relaxed

state now. Did you note irregular heart beats for some time? But

after starting steady but slow breathing now, you will note that the

periodicity is better now, so is beat sound slightly larger, ringing

clear. Many heart conditions can be diagnosed with stethoscope alone,

without needing ECG, Coronography, Angiography, etc. Where are those

doctors now? The diagnostic capabilities of human brain is getting

transferred to electronics and softwares.

 

With each breath, we inhale air containing oxygen. In addition to

oxygen the air contains Prana too. For the time being do not worry

what Prana means physically or chemically. The meaning will become

clearer later. The air goes to lungs, but Prana gets absorbed in

nerves located close to end of nose, termed Shringatak Marma. More

details of Shringatak marma, as defined by Sushruta etc will be

covered in post(s) on Nasya, but for the time being, we just take it

for granted that it means the bundle of several nerves, few of which

sense smells. Prana absorbed in these nerves distributes in all the

body. Many diseases arise due to inadequate breathing and reduced

prana absorbed in body. As a result of prana, our cells regenerate

and generation rate is adequate to allow growth or maintaining total

number of cells. But with age, when death is near, absorption of

prana becomes poor and generation rate of cells drops, more energy is

lost than what is absorbed through prana. People who meditate, they

know the break-even point when prana absorption is reduced. Constant

practice of Pranayama increases the lung capacity and input of oxygen

as well as Prana. While oxygen goes to lungs, purifies blood and

distributes in body, Prana energy gets absorbed in nerves and through

nerves, circulates through entire nervous system. Adequate Prana

energy keeps nervous system in proper health and efficient. After

sufficient practice, one can tell difference between room aitr where

window air-conditioner is used, central air conditioned theatre,

polluted traffic road, or a garden with fresh naturally ozonated

air. Author gives here a simple test to study how good functioning

of nervous stem is. Take an empty soft drink bottle (mouth size about

one inch) and keep over the table. Take another full bottle and try

to pour the drink into empty bottle, keeping hand as high as

possible, and concentrating on the mouth of bottle getting filled, If

one can do this without spilling the drink, and higher the height of

bottle from which drink pours, better is the functioning of nervous

system. Steadiness of hand is essential, and hand cant remain steady

unless mind is calm. To make test more tough, one can hold both

bottle in hands.

 

Prana is a form of energy here, filling the entire universe. It

causes development of heat in body. The nerves which start at nose

bridge, go to the brain and from there, go to the Muladhar chakra,

Yoga science calls the nerve conductors as Ida, Pingala and Sushumna.

Muladhar Chakra is the battery where this energy gets stored. It

supplies this energy for digestion, elimination and sexual organs,

via higher charkas Swadhistan and Manipur Chakra. The nervous energy

goes further through higher charkas depending on their level of

excitation carried out by a person through yogic and tantric ways.

Digestion, elimination and sex organs require maximum Prana energy.

You can appreciate this when you touch perineum area and assess the

size of blood vessel carrying blood to sexual organ.

 

Though physically nervous system supplies signals through sciatica

nerve running through spinal chord, the concept of Prana energy

supply to all organs of body through energy charkas and associated

network of nerves help understanding why nervous system becomes

sluggish, why constipataion develops or Vatic disorder develop. This

concept also helps understand that a 70 year old yogi gets strong

erection while a 40 year old accountant has erectile dysfunction due

to blood circulation problems.

 

Let us see how oxygen works in body. Oxygen received in lungs is a

chemical Agni. Any toxic waste coming via blood in lungs gets burnt

in lungs and get eliminated in the form of carbon dioxide. Carbon or

coal is the ultimate conversion of organic matter, when subjected to

heat. The network of blood vessels is elastic and bring all blood for

purification to lungs, just like sewerage system of city. The

elasticity of blood vessels depends on heat energy available to them.

In whichever parts of body, the heat energy produced is less, the

coldness causes contraction and hardening of arteries. This reduces

blood supply to those organs further, causing all sorts of pains,

Connection between pains and toxins in blood, or between reduced

oxygen (Haemoglobin) and pains is well known. If every cell of body

receives adequate blood containing adequate oxygen and less toxin,

its function will be efficient. Surge of strength, lack of stiffness

in muscle will be noted. The temperature, known by touch, will be

right. Some modern diagnostics use thermal imaging to locate tumors,

while polarized fomentation is one way to kill malignant cells.

Everyone knows warming up or even heating up of sex organs, due to

heavy blood rush. On the other hand, coldness can be reduced by local

fomentation restoring blood circulation causing reduced pain when

vatic disorders exist. Heat causes expansion of vessels, while cold

causes contraction. Hence Vatic problems aggravate in winter.

 

In Pranayama, prana energy travels along spine. In order to make this

flow easy, it is necessary to sit erect and reduce the resistance. In

order to get maximum breath capacity, Pranayama should be carried out

when stomach is empty so that diphragm expansion can be utilized

fully. The wisdom of keeping 1/3 of stomach empty, or loosening the

belt after food may be clear now, as more blood flow is needed for

digestion, needing heavier breathing. The actions of taking air

inside lungs, holding it, and finally releasing it are

termed `Purak', `Kumbhak' and `Rechak' in Sanskrit. During Purak,

Prana gets absorbed in nostril nerves. In Kumbhak, the efficiency of

oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange becomes efficient, while Rechak makes

nostrils warm, so that more breath can be taken. Kumbhak allows

pressure to build up in lungs, so that exchange of oxygen becomes

forceful. In nature all organism utilize their intelligence fully to

fight scarcity. By holding breath, we train or lung tissues to

utilize oxygen to maximum. Timin ratio of Purak, Kumbhak and Rechak

vary from practitioner to practioner. One starts with 1:2:1 and adept

yogis have reached 1:32:2 also. Such yogis can get themselves buried

underground and come out alive after even 2 days. They are able to

utilize whatever little air diffused through ground. When blood

carbon dioxide level rises, thoughts reduce and mind becomes steady,

reducing the oxygen requirement also. Since body does not move, acids

produced are also reduced.

 

While science texts mention air contains 21% oxygen, no environment

administration agency ever publishes correct figure of oxygen in city

environment. 21% oxygen is available only in country side with

adequate rain forests. In Cities, due to pollution, the percentage

reduces. If we went to country side, a normal person can breath only

4% oxygen in and exhale remaining 17% out. With practice of

Pranayama, this proportion increases to 8% and 13% respectively, as

experimented by this author.

 

Depending on the school of Yoga, different techniques of Pranayama

exists. What sitting posture to adopt, in what sequence to breath

through which nostril etc differ from technique to technique. But all

techniques have same ultimate goal. To increase breathing capacity

and clean nasal passages. Kapal bhatti is a technique, which

exercises/strengthens diaphragm, and increases the lung capacity. The

added exercise to abdominal organs helps sheeding excess fat stored

in adipose tisues in belly. On net, you can learn spinal breathing at

aypsite or advanced_yoga_techniques . In India, several

different techniques are taught having names such as Raja yoga,

Kriya yoga, Sahaj Yoga, etc.

 

What most schools emphasize is that Pranayama is a breathing

technique. What author wishes to emphasize is, pranayama is a

technique of distributing prana energy in the charkas. When pranayama

is done in a specific manner along with concurrent meditation, i.e.

passing mind along the spine and charkas, prana energy can be

increased. This energy can be specifically directed all along the

body, especially where disease exists. Yoga and ayurveda texts

consider human being as a tree having root as head, and branches as

limbs. Do you ever wonder why creator gave us hair on head, eyebrows,

chest, navel etc. Hair act as antennae to pick up cosmic energy. Why

we have male pattern-female pattern hair loss? Many yogis have gray

beard, but black hair on head. Look at Baba Ramdev on TV. Location of

various Chakaras becomes obvious when we see where hair concentrate,

in the form of a spiral. When we look at head crown sahastrara center

gets recognized by center of spiral hair pattern. As long as there is

adequate Prana energy supply to a chakra, corresponding set of hair

remains thick, black and shining. This is similar to a farmer

locating ground water at depth, by looking at vegetation on surface

of ground. You can compare grass with hair.

 

Nature has given air and prana reservoir to us. Using this reservoir

alkalizes blood pH also. In cities, where oxygen content in air is

less, new

oxygen therapies are available to help correct oxygen deficiencies.

There are oxygen drops that can be added to water. There is ozone

therapy. We can use ozone sauna or ozone cabinet. Ozone is an exotic

form of oxygen that's broken down into special form of oxygen, which

are nascent molecules brought in through the skin. Those who can

afford, there are hyperbaric chambers that pressurize the oxygen in

the blood and increase saturation. There are also water machines that

can ozonate the water and actually manufacture oxygen through ozone

generation. For free ozone, plant adequate Tulsi plants, black

variety. This is one exceptional plant which provides a little ozone,

when subjected to photosynthesis. This plant can grow anywhere,

provided sunlight is available. It sustains and likes strong sunlight

too, just like Indian cow, and hence both provide cancer medicine.

Indian cow dung, also gives out a little ozone, when organic manure

is made out of it, in a specific manner. These facts were mentioned

by author in earlier posts too.

 

To increase cellular oxygen, one can use Chlorophyll too. Chlorophyll

comes from plankton, green leafy vegetables, wheat grass, barley

grass, spirulina, chlorella, and other potent green foods.

Concentrated wheat and barley grass has a high chlorophyll content

which helps increase oxygen. If we look at our environment they are

cutting down the rain forests and polluting the oceans, which have

the oxygen giving plankton and algae. In mountains, deep wells exist

with a covering of green algae. If you clear the cover, and drink

water, you will find that water is very pure. Such water storages are

termed Oxidation ponds, as water gets enriched in oxygen. Connection

between wheat/barley grass, green leafy vegetable juices/soups,

cancer treatment and oxygen may be clear now. If you are doing any

yoga practice, note how joints give pain signals when you reach the

limit. That green leafy vegetable soups increase cellular oxygen can

be experienced by noting the ease with which you can do yogasana if

soup is consumed about 12 hours before.

 

So far we discussed breathing through nostrils. However, body breaths

through skin and mucosal linings too, where air contact comes. Skin

has millions of pores, which help it act like kidney. These are also

used to breath. Hence contact lenses must be removed in the night.

Maximum elimination of toxins acts through the areas which perspire

most. When toxins are solids in the form of fine powder, itching

sensations are created by body, so that we help elimination. Itching

is always maximum where dark blemishes develop. Blocking these

elimination routes by use of thick underclothes, steroidal ointments

or deodorants to stop itching is not a healthy decision. It reduces

possibility of breathing by skins. To provide maximum oxygen level,

washing these areas with mud soaps is a better option. Mud bath of

naturopathy allows skin to absorb minerals in the mud and mud to

absorb the toxins in the blood through skin pores, but this is

possible only if skin pores are open. Since skin keeps breathing a

little oxygen all the time, it is important to keep most areas of

body uncovered. Trans dermal administration of medicines is possible

only due to this breathing process. Author has devised a bath similar

to mud bath which obtains the results of Haemo-dialysis.

 

Lastly, those who have suffered from stroke earlier, or suffering

from angina pains, it is necessary that they eliminate the

possibility of second attack. Sixth paragraph of this post showed the

importance of breathing here. The need to keep stomach 1/3 empty is

also pointed out. The connection between male pattern obesity (Apple

shape middle) and CAD is now clear, caused by reduced oxygen to

cardiac muscle as a result of reduced lung capacity. Author came

across instances that such people were on some medications which are

supposed to be ineffective if cardiac muscle is already suffered an

attack. Yoga, breathing techniques is an effective way of eliminating

the risk. There are several rasayanas in ayurveda and nature, fresh

air walk in ozone rich climate of early morning being the most

important one. Four set of Pranayamas can be undertaken, at early

morning, before lunch, evening empty stomach and before bedtime. Each

set to consist of just two cycles of anulopma/vilma breathing taught

in any yoga class is adequate. If you can reduce Apple shape also by

reducing fat (cholesterol in liver) in liver as discussed in 5th post

in this series, you reduce the risk considerably, as lung capacity

increases automatically. The ratio of belly size (measured at navel)

to hip size should be 0.8 to 0.85 according to several websites

created by public funded health agencies. Kapal bhatti as propogated

by Baba Ramdev gives strong movement to abdominal muscles and along

with more oxygen available, allows liver to burn fat stored in itself

as cholesterol. This takes care of obesity rapidly. Author

experienced connection between tumor growth/arrest and breathing on

few patients. Thus despite lack of clarity on this issue in

scientific research, the anecdotal experience is in favor of flooding

blood by oxygen, for cancer patients.

 

In the next post we will see how breath traveling in nostrils affects

central nervous system though bioelectrical energies.

 

 

dr bhate

[Guest guest]

Dr. Bhate,

 

This was another of your informative posts. I would like to add one thing.

Ancient yogic scriptures state that we are all born with a certain number of

predetermined breaths allotted according to our karma. It is up to us as to how

we use these breaths. We can use these up rapidly by getting emotional or we

can breath long and deep to fulfill certain tasks and our ultimate destiny. We

can use these techniques to accomplish the task.

 

GB

 

Iron rulses of health -6

 

In 6th part of this series, we will study the principles of breathing

techniques. These are outlined in sketch manner already in message#

5066. In this post, we study why breathing techniques work, at a more

grass root level. One more post will be needed to connect breathing

with our mental processes. Last paragraph addresses the cardiac

diseases issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Messenger with Voice. PC-to-Phone calls for ridiculously low rates.

 

 

[Guest guest]

ayurveda, Guru Khalsa <greatyoga

wrote:

Ancient yogic scriptures state that we are all born with a certain

number of predetermined breaths allotted according to our karma. It

is up to us as to how we use these breaths. We can use these up

rapidly by getting emotional or we can breath long and deep to

fulfill certain tasks and our ultimate destiny. We can use these

techniques to accomplish the task.

 

Dear Gurubandhu

It can be experienced that body breaths in only proportionate to the

level of activity. Mind becomes calm and thoughts reduce, more so as

breath is slowed down, as in meditation. This is nearer to "Yognidra"

while other extreme, rapid breathing with deep breaths, increases

oxygen and burns up both physical and mental ama, giving health. THis

aspect will be discussed in this week's post.

 

You have brought out hidden message in the Iron rules -6 post, how to

use the breathing for purpose other than health. Long and deep

breaths also increase prana in the body.

dr bhate