The Wellness Sense

by Om Swami

  In Ayurveda, an enema is not just done with water. There are a variety of herbal concoctions and decoctions for this purpose, and it is even done with oil. An enema is a far better alternative to laxatives. The downside of modern laxatives is that your body gets used to them and they even cause damage to your intestine. There is a common misconception that having enemas can become a habit. Ayurveda makes no mention of this. One is free to have an enema at least once a week. For the various herbal and oil enemas, it is best to consult an Ayurvedic physician. He may recommend one for you based on your dosha. Or you can buy the standard enema kit from a drugstore. The simplest method is to do it with lukewarm water mixed with a pinch of salt.

  If you follow the principles of diet and eating mentioned earlier and do conch cleansing once every quarter, you will likely not even need to have an enema, much less take laxatives. Almost all gastrointestinal disorders will have disappeared like darkness in light. No matter how healthy you are, cleansing the colon is a good practice; it’ll only make you healthier.

  OESOPHAGEAL CLEANSING

  Airway inflammation due to allergens is normal in patients who suffer from asthma. Cleansing the oesophagus – the tubular organ proceeding from the throat to the stomach – is particularly useful for such patients. Smokers can also benefit from this cleansing. It can be done daily. It is called kunjala or dhauti in Ayurveda. This is how it is done.

  Drink two glasses of lukewarm water at your usual speed – not too fast and not too slowly. Ideally, there should be some salt in the water as it ensures better cleansing, but it is not absolutely necessary. Stand a little bent with your legs apart and lower your head. Make sure your hands are clean. Now press your tongue with your index and middle fingers and slide them further into your mouth. As soon as they come close to the uvula, you will throw up. Just gently move your fingers in to-and-fro horizontal movements (towards the uvula and away from it) until you vomit all the water you just drank. This should be done in the morning on an empty stomach. Many people use a toothbrush instead of their fingers. If you gently rub the toothbrush on your tongue in the same manner as described above for your fingers, you will achieve the same outcome. Although this is designed to cleanse your passage of food, it also cleanses your small intestine in much the same way as an enema cleans the large intestine. With the reverse movement of water, your oesophagus and stomach become clean. This promotes the digestive fire and a glowing skin. The entire process takes around seven minutes.

  There is another variation of dhauti that is done with a thin, almost diaphanous strip of soft cotton cloth. It is called danta-dhauti. This technique must be done under expert supervision, and therefore I will not elaborate on it here. I am simply mentioning it so that you know there is an even more rigorous method of oesophageal cleansing. It is a yogic process and even most Ayurvedic practitioners can’t do it. There are numerous teachers of hatha-yoga who can teach you this if you wish. That said, the above simple dhauti is more than sufficient.

  RESPIRATORY CLEANSING

  Respiratory cleansing purifies your entire body. It pacifies the three doshas and strengthens the seven dhatus. It flushes your lungs and blood with fresh and abundant oxygen, boosting your immune system and improving your overall well-being. Respiratory cleansing has a calming effect on your mind as well. It improves your memory, virility (or fertility) and strengthens your neurological system. According to the yogic texts, it allows the practitioner to live longer and healthier. It is called pranayama. Prana means vital life force and yama means to elongate it. The science of pranayama is a different subject and is not part of mainstream Ayurveda.

  Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, specifically states that only those who have perfected their posture should attempt pranayama. Even though it is very common in the Western world, few people understand why doing pranayama incorrectly can cause irreparable damage to your nervous system. Briefly, a true pranayama has three stages: inhalation (puraka), retention (kumbhaka) and exhalation (rechaka). Pranayama, the mother of all yogic exercises, is of twelve different types. For the purposes of respiratory cleansing, I will elaborate here three types of pseudo- pranayama; pseudo because you won’t have to retain the breath, and we’ll simply focus on different methods of inhalation and exhalation to cleanse and strengthen your respiratory system, nervous system and your whole body. Pranayama has a nearly instant calming effect on the mind.

  Prerequisites

  For all the breathing exercises, it is most rewarding to sit cross-legged. Sitting in this posture allows you better control of the flow of the vital energies in the body. In case you can’t sit cross-legged, it is okay to sit in a chair. Breathing exercises should not be done while lying down. In all the exercises, your back and neck should be in one straight line. Your posture needs to be firm and straight but not tense. It is best to do these exercises on an empty stomach in the morning. If you are doing them during the day or at night, make sure there is a minimum gap of two hours between your meal and the exercise. And that’s assuming you have a light vegetarian meal, because a light vegetarian meal completely digests in two hours. If you have a heavier meal, you may want to increase the gap to three hours or more.

  Start all breathing exercises with an exhalation. This is a subtle but extremely significant point. Exhalation allows you to expel stale air. If you start with an inhalation, you simply pressurize toxic air, making it circulate through your system. A rule of thumb to be followed for all yogic exercises: if they make you uncomfortable, stop right away and seek expert guidance.

  Simple Deep Breathing

  Simple deep breathing is a hassle-free, easy and potent exercise. Assuming that you have followed the prerequisites, just sit comfortably, resting your hands in your lap if you are sitting cross-legged or on your knees if you are sitting in a chair. Inhale deeply and gently with both nostrils. Fill your belly and lungs with fresh air. Hold it for a few seconds – no more than five seconds – then exhale gently. Pull your belly in as you exhale and gently push your belly out as you inhale.

  Simple deep breathing has a calming and purifying effect on your body and mind. It is the easiest of all breathing exercises and you can do it even at work. Ideally, breathing exercises should be done where you have plenty of fresh air, but even doing them indoors is better than not doing them at all. If you feel restless, agitated, irritated, fatigued or simply stressed, just do deep breathing for about five minutes and see your mental state change by the time you finish the exercise.

  Set aside fifteen minutes in the morning for simple deep breathing. Do it for five minutes and take a break of two minutes and then do it for another five minutes.

  Alternate Breathing

  Alternate breathing is a type of pranayama that is excellent for neurological and respiratory cleansing and detoxification. It forms part of the nervous system purification (nadi-shodhana) regime. It is called anuloma- viloma in yogic texts. Anuloma means natural order and viloma means reverse order. While retention of breath is an important aspect of pranayama, it is recommended only for those who have mastered the physical posture, who eat a sattvic diet and who are complete teetotallers. You should note that the exercises in pranayama are a staged progression.

  Therefore, in a variation of the standard alternate breathing, my strong recommendation is that you do not hold your breath for any more than a few seconds (between five and ten). There is a very important reason for this. When you practise alternate breathing without gaining stability in your posture and without controlling your diet, you run the risk of pushing toxins through your nervous system, to all parts of your body. This can lead to neurological disorders, the formation of tumours and cysts and loss of memory. If you practise alternate breathing without prolonged retention of breath, you gain the greatest benefit. You purify and cleanse your nervous system and boost the stabilizing energies and forces in and around you. If you have been practising yoga for a long time (a minimum of two years) and you
are on a sattvic diet, you can practise breath retention for a longer time. In any case, do not do it beyond what you are comfortable with. No yogic exercise is supposed to make you red in the face, either during or after the exercise. Yogic exercises are supposed to be effortless.

  To do alternate breathing, follow these instructions. As always, start by exhaling completely from both nostrils. Put the thumb of your right hand on your right nostril to close it. Now breathe deeply, steadily and gently through your left nostril. Hold the breath for a few seconds. Put the middle finger of your right hand on the left nostril and lift your thumb to open the right nostril. Exhale completely, steadily and gently. Ideally, your exhalation should be so soft that you should not even hear yourself breathing out. Yogic scriptures state the standard one-four-two rule for pranayama. It means if it takes you one second to breath in, for example, you should hold the breath for four seconds (four times the length of inhalation) and exhale over two seconds (double the length of inhalation). However, as I stated earlier, retention of breath should only be done if you are observing all the rules and if you have been guided by an expert.

  If you have epilepsy or hypertension or suffer from palpitations, or if you have had a heart attack in the past, do not retain the breath at all. Simply breathe from alternate nostrils. At one stretch, you can do twenty repetitions. One complete repetition is inhale from the left, hold, exhale from the right, inhale from the right, hold, and then exhale from the left. This is one repetition. If you have the time, you are free to do it twice or even thrice a day. There is no better purifier of your entire nervous system than pranayama. It is nothing short of a miracle exercise, handed down to us by the ancient yogis.

  Bellows Breathing

  This is called bhastrika in yogic texts. The metaphor in the texts for this exercise is the bellows of a blacksmith’s fire. But finding a blacksmith’s fire these days is harder than sourcing ancient yogic manuscripts. So instead, imagine using a hand pump to inflate a tire. It has two movements: push down and pull up. If you push down and pull up at the same speed, you are doing bhastrika. Compared to the other types of breathing exercises, this is a bit more swift and aggressive.

  To begin with, just relax your body completely – especially the shoulders. Take a few deep breaths to prepare your body and stomach. Start forceful exhalations through your nose (both nostrils), immediately followed by equally forceful deep and swift inhalation. Keep your body – the torso and the limbs – as still as possible. It is diaphragmatic breathing. Only your abdomen should be seen moving. Your belly expands while you inhale and tucks towards your spine while you exhale. In other words, your body remains still and only your tummy moves in and out.

  Do twenty breaths (inhalation-exhalation) in one set. Take a rest of one minute. Do normal deep breathing during the rest time and then repeat the set. You can do up to four sets. If there is a miracle to cleanse and strengthen your colon, to improve your body’s metabolism and to rid yourself of most gastrointestinal disorders, then bhastrika is it. It pacifies the three doshas and gives you an amazingly healthy colon. Its results become noticeable in a matter of days.

  Bellows breathing or bhastrika can be practised once or twice every day. Increase the count only steadily, preferably under guidance. Do it on an empty stomach and empty bladder. It is prohibited for pregnant women and for those with acute asthma.

  SINUS CLEANSING

  The nose is the body’s first line of defence against any allergen. You mostly inhale and exhale through the nose – at least you should do so – therefore, the nose responds to pollen and most other seasonal allergies first. Yogic texts place great emphasis on nasal cleansing, because besides alleviating most environmental allergies, it clears the breathing passages – a must for any serious practitioner of yogic breathing exercises. All the breathing exercises mentioned earlier are dependent on clear nasal passages.

  Nasal cleansing has a marked effect on headaches, migraines and nasal polyps. It is excellent for vision and the overall health of the eyes. The exercise of sinus cleaning is called neti. The literal meaning of neti in Sanskrit is ‘not this’. It is a Vedic concept of transcendental wisdom that makes the seeker aware that they are not the body, mind, senses, religion, or matter; that they are beyond the sum total of physical and perceptible aggregates. In Hatha Yoga Pradipika, a classical text on yoga, neti is described as the process of inserting a soft thread through your nose and pulling it out of your mouth. It may sound a bit difficult, but with practice anyone can master it in a matter of weeks, if not days. Neti is of two types: water neti and thread neti.

  Water Neti

  To do water neti, you will require a neti pot. These days, all major drugstores stock neti pots or you can buy them online. Put warm water mixed with salt in the pot. It is of paramount importance to put salt in the neti water, because plain water can cause the nasal turbinate to swell up, thereby worsening its condition. If you live in a region where water is highly chlorinated, you may want to boil it first. If so, filter and cool down the boiled water and use this water to do neti. Chlorinated water may be fine too, but it’s better to use soft, ionized, distilled or alkalized water. Water in your neti pot should be neither too hot nor too cold. It should be on the warmer side. Pour a few drops on the back of your hand to make sure the temperature is right.

  You can do it over the sink or in the shower, or anywhere for that matter where spillage of the water is not an issue. Neti can be performed standing or sitting. If you do it standing, just hold your legs apart, knees slightly bent, bend your upper body at around a seventy degree angle and lean forward a bit. If you want to do it sitting, you will need to squat. The most important thing to remember while doing neti, is to breathe only through your mouth.

  Place the nozzle of the neti pot on your left nostril (you can also begin the neti through the right nostril, if you wish). Once the nozzle is snugly fitted on your nostril (you may have to turn, twist or adjust it to ensure that it completely blocks your nostril), tilt your head to your right side. Now raise the neti pot a little so that water starts to flow out from the nozzle.

  It will start to pass through one nostril and out of the other. You can run half the pot through one nostril and the remaining half through the other nostril. If you feel good, you may pass one potful through each nostril. There is no hard-and-fast rule regarding this. I reiterate: make sure you remember to breathe only through your mouth while doing neti, otherwise you’ll end up snorting a lot of saline water and it’s not a nice feeling. It’s also important to dry your nose properly once you’re finished, so do soft inhalations and forceful exhalations for around a minute.

  As warm water flows through your nose, it warms the sinuses and has a strange calming effect on your mind. Water neti is extremely good for sinusitis, allergies and headaches, as also for your eyes.

  Thread Neti

  Thread neti, or sutra neti, should only be performed under expert guidance. For informational purposes, I am documenting it here for you. Thread neti is performed either with strands of thread twisted to form a thick (around three millimetres) string or with a thin rubber catheter. Of all the yogic practices focussed on nasal cleansing, thread neti is the most powerful and effective method; water neti comes a close second. Here is how to do thread neti.

  If you are using thread (as opposed to a rubber catheter), take multiple strands to form a bundle of about three millimetres in diameter and about forty-five centimetres long. Trim and twist the ends. Melt some beeswax and dip one third of the string in it. Allow it to harden. Take the other end of the string and dip one quarter in beeswax. Allow it to harden. You can also get neti threads from markets or you can simply use the rubber catheter. Personally, I use the rubber tube because it’s softer and gentler on the nose. Besides, with beeswax, I can’t be sure that I will get pure, organic beeswax in the market and not something mixed with chemicals. In a nutshell, a rubber catheter is simpler, economical and
just as good.

  Stand square with your legs slightly apart and gently insert the catheter in one of your nostrils. It’ll come into your mouth and you’ll feel it on your tongue. Put your index and middle fingers into your mouth, reach out to the catheter, and gently pull it out of your mouth. One end of the catheter is now hanging out of your nose and the other one from your mouth. Hold each end with your hands and gently pull to and fro a few times, then pull the catheter out of your mouth. Wash it with warm water and repeat the process on the other nostril.

  Neti (water- or thread-based) opens the nasal passages and consequently you draw more oxygen into your body. It is beneficial not just for the nose but for the ears, eyes and throat as well. During the change of season, it can be done every day for a couple of weeks. Normally, it should be done no more than twice a week. It is a common practice among the yogis to put a drop of ghee (clarified unsalted butter) in each nostril after the neti to lubricate the nose. You could use some lubricating nasal drops if you do not wish to use ghee. A lot of people don’t use any ghee or nasal drops. You are welcome to do what suits you best.

  14

  Fasting and Pancha-karma

  We all feel good when we sleep, waking up rejuvenated and fresh. Why? Because our body and mind are able to rest when we are asleep. But our kidneys, stomach and liver are forever working. Every day we eat and all the time they are put to work. They don’t get time to rest, recoup or rejuvenate.

  Fasting is called vrata in Sanskrit. It means a solemn vow or a resolution. As the name suggests, fasting is a resolution to do something a certain way for a specified period of time. For example, refraining from speaking or a vow to observe silence, is called mauna vrata. Abstinence from sex is called brahmacharya vrata. Yogic and Ayurvedic texts describe many types of fasts to improve well-being.