Lifestyle Issues Affecting Upper Respiratory Health and Excessive
Mucus in the Body |
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About The Author |
Swami Omananda Saraswati has been a practitioner and teacher of
yoga for over 25 years. Australian born, he is trained in the
tradition system of Integral Yoga as taught by Paramahansa Swami
Satyananda Saraswati, of Bihar India. Swami Omananda is the author of
four books on yoga and associated subjects. He is a qualified yoga
therapist and has helped many people back to good health through the
techniques of yoga in combination with commonsense lifestyle
modifications. He is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced
writers on the yoga practice of Jala Neti (Saline Nasal Irrigation)
and this document is to be read as a supplement to his other writings
on the topic of Jala Neti. See
The Jala
Neti Frequently Asked Questions.
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Introduction |
As a starting point for some professional suggestions, and as a
starting point for your own self-inquiry and personal experimentation,
I will outline the ways in which the yoga system in general � and any
yoga therapist specifically � would look at and treat the condition of
excessive mucus in the body. These concepts tie in with the technique
of Jala Neti (Saline Nasal Irrigation, SNI) and go beyond the
immediate needs many people have to manage and treat the symptoms of
upper respiratory ailments with topical methods such as nasal
irrigation, and also explore the root causes of such illnesses.
There are many causes for the wide range of nasal complaints from
which people suffer these days. Some may be due to structural problems
such as congenital abnormalities or structural injuries sustained in
childhood or adulthood; some may be due to fleshy growths over the
long term, such as cartilage, polyps or cysts; some may be due to
environmental allergies � be it air pollution, food allergies,
allergies to products, etc; some may be due to infections and
inflammations from germs; some may be due to lifestyle issues which
simply cause excessive mucus secretions within the body. This document
mainly seeks to address this last category which I believe is the most
common cause of nasal complaints today.
Relatively very few people have the first category of structural
abnormalities. For them, surgery is the only option to repair and
reopen the nasal passages. More often are those who have growths and
fleshy deformities inside their nose which are causing their
discomfort. Although some are aware of this through a doctor�s
examination, many may not know it. The ignorant may labour on for
years, trying all kinds of over-the-counter preparations and via-the
Internet �cures� only to find no relief for their problem, when all it
would take is a medical consultation, some minor surgery and a few
lifestyle modifications.
Pathogens (bugs, bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc) entering the body
are a fact of life for everybody at some time, and whilst medicines to
combat the symptoms of these are available, the best medicine is
prevention through a good strong immune system. And prevention is
always the yogic approach to illness. Short-term treatment for an
invader, and management of symptoms during an event of infection, is
no long-term solution, as dependence on medicines always weakens the
body�s own mechanisms for self-defence and also causes psychological
dependence on some one else or some thing else to fix the problem on
behalf of your body�s own healing abilities. If this dictum makes
intuitive sense to you, and you are ready to take responsibility for
the illnesses you and your body contract, then you are ready for what
is known as self-healing and for the concepts and methods of yoga
which promote self-healing of the body and mind through lifestyle.
The same can be said for chronic mucus conditions which seem to
have no external causes. Endless blowing, sniffing, drying up the nose
with sprays is not actually addressing the problem. It is just
suppressing the symptoms. The real solution lies in self-awareness,
self-examination, lifestyle modifications � in short, self-healing.
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The Self-Healing Concept |
Self-healing is all about thinking � �What can I do to address what
is imbalanced in my body and in my way of life?� �How can I change
things which may have gotten me into this situation in the first place
and to help prevent getting into this situation again?� It is only
partly concerned with what may have been the original causes, and only
in so far as knowing the causes can actually help in addressing
practical solutions. Sometimes analysing causes can be a great
big lot of historical puffery, and a great mental distraction from
real action which is required in the present. Some causes are
unchangeable, non-reversible and must be lived with, but some are
self-caused and are eminently changeable. These are the ones you must
come to see and address rather than wasting time and effort on the
ones you can�t change.
The first thing any aspiring self-healer must resist is immediately
reaching for the medicines which have been stocked up in the bathroom
cupboard. The second mindset is to resist running off to the drug
store or chemist for �something off the shelf�. The third trap to be
avoided is to stop thinking � �I am sick, therefore I need a doctor to
tell me why I am sick and to help me get better�. Whilst there may be
many valuable things in all these three places � for certain illnesses
and at certain times � it is not always the case that an outside
source is needed to battle the ailment or provide the cure. Initially,
in any instance of ill health, a brief moment of self-reflection must
be made so as not to react according to past habits, then an
adventurous and bold new paradigm must be established to break old
patterns of thinking and acting.
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The Basic Method |
The basic lessons a person must learn if they wish
to effectively lessen and self-treat any respiratory illness are:
1 - To listen to your body. This means to watch, to be sensitive to
the changing states of mucus in the nose, throat, and lungs. The
second thing one must do is to:
2 - Interpret the observation. This is not as hard as one might
think. You certainly don�t have to be a doctor to see the simple
�cause and effect� events which are making your body give you signs
about what it does and doesn�t like. But you do have to make the
mental effort to take the time to investigate and interpret what is
going on. You also have to be honest with yourself and with others.
You can�t just jump into blaming outside forces. The next thing you
have to do to prevent ill health for yourself, both in the short term
and the long term, is:
3 � Act to change the circumstances. This is the major hurdle for
many people. And this is the area where the remedy may take lots of
self-discipline to make certain lifestyle changes. No matter what the
cause, or what the illness, there is always, always, 100% of the time,
lifestyle changes which can lessen the effects of the causes. And at
this point in the illness, the main issues then become: Do you want to
improve the situation enough to change some things in your lifestyle?
Do you value your health enough to put it above other factors such as
habitual comfort? Because that is what you�ll have to do to break the
chain of cause and effect. No amount of warm salty water up your nose
or even prescription nasal spray is going to fix (as examples); your
hayfever allergy � if the cause is the pretty flowering tree in your
neighbour�s backyard right next to your bedroom window; your recurring
winter colds � if the cause is the temperature and germ-pool of the
office air-conditioning system; your chronic sinusitis � if the cause
is the smoke-filled pool room bar you frequent every Friday night; the
perpetually blocked snotty noses of your children � if the cause is
Dial-Up Pizza and a Monster Chocolate Thickshake several nights per
week. Such hypothetical examples would need to be eliminated from your
life before restoration of normal body function can even begin to take
place.
The above three factors can be summed up from the yogic perspective
as: Awareness - Thought - Action. As a yoga teacher and yoga therapist
of 25 years experience, I have had opportunity to be aware of, think
about and prescribe many actions (yoga practices and lifestyle
changes) for people with many differing ailments, as well as my own
personal experience and training in these areas. So, like many health
practitioners, my experience can help give you a head start of
knowledge in your quest for the most likely causes and remedies to the
sorts of conditions for which most people try nasal cleansing.
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The Mucus Linings |
The whole length of the linings of both the respiratory and
digestive tracts are covered with mucus: the nose, the frontal and
posterior nasal cavities (including the sinuses and eustachian tubes),
pharynx, larynx, oesophageus, trachea, lungs, stomach, small and large
intestine, colon, rectum. In summary, mucus has the function of
protecting the sensitive internal skin cells from by chemical or
biological invaders. It�s purpose is to trap baddies before they can
get into the blood stream to make us sick. It sacrifices itself to be
eliminated (via sneezing, nose running, coughing, or by travel through
the gut and then defecation).
So, whenever you sense the respiratory system snotting up or your
nose running, it is telling you that something has got into your
breathing system which is annoying it and it wants it out � or else
your mucus secretion mechanisms may be randomly malfunctioning and
don�t know health from danger anymore. The latter can become the case
after years of medicinal dependence where the body �forgets� how to do
its job properly. To ignore the initial telltale signs of a mucus
increase is to invite the pathogen (that is the baddie the body
doesn�t like) to hang around longer, make a home in our system, breed
some more and create a health-threatening scenario. It�s that simple.
Mucus is your friend and early-warning system. Ignore its messages at
your peril.
The following is a list of lifestyle factors which are known to
directly or indirectly cause and exacerbate upper respiratory
complaints. I have expanded upon them and discussed practical
solutions which can help you along a path to a healthier life, not
just a healthier nose!
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Food Factors |
Excessively Mucus-Forming Foods. All foods
cause mucus to be secreted into the nose, the mouth the throat, the
stomach during and soon after a meal. A certain amount of mucus is
normal. But a lot is not. Dairy foods are the most well known
mucus-forming foods. Milk, cream, yoghurt, icecream, butter, etc are
not evil foods per se. It is the quantity of dairy foods that modern
people are eating which is causing their bodies to overload in the
mucus department. Man has been eating them since time immemorial. Yet
only in the last 100 years have they started to give people excess
mucus. In days gone by, dairy products were made freshly, every day on
the farm, because they would not keep well without refrigeration.
Also, they were known to be high-value, high-energy foods. That is,
you don�t need much of them to get a big protein and fat hit. But
nowadays milk is drunk like water. People go to the fridge and drink
half a litre to quench their thirst. Parents feed their children a
glass or two whenever they think they might be thirsty. Many children
buy two or three flavoured milks a day at the school canteen. Cream is
put into so many processed foods to make them �rich�. Cream is heaped
all over every piece of cake or confectionery bought at a coffee shop.
Ice cream is available everywhere, anywhere, at all times of the year,
in 100 flavours. People like four scoops on their cone. Butter is laid
on bread as thick as cheese by some people. Cheese is double-layered
on pizzas.
The following extract from the book
Yoga,
Food and Health should remind us of milk�s inherent power and
energy, and also of The Great Milk Myth which is being relentlessly
perpetuated by vested interests and which is contributing so greatly
to the excessive consumption of dairy foods in our society.
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Extract from
the Book � �Yoga
Food & Health�. |
There exists today in the affluent Western societies �The Great
Milk Myth� � that humans need to drink a lot of milk to be healthy.
Unfortunately, this disproven idea is still being widely disseminated
by health professionals and those in the dairy industry with
commercial interests to protect. We hear through the media that
�youngsters have growing bones and need the calcium, protein and
energy that only milk can provide�. We hear that older people get
calcium deficiencies because they didn't drink enough milk in their
youth or because they stopped drinking milk at a mature age. We hear
that low fat, calcium enriched milk is the best for your figure. We
hear that top sports people are successful because they have milk on
their breakfast cereals. Blah, blah, blah.
But all this modern milk drinking makes no commonsense, and ample
evidence exists to show that humans do not, in fact, need copious
amounts of cow's milk from birth to death to live healthy lives.
Undoubtedly, certain nutrients in dairy products are very valuable to
a balanced diet, but if we assess large samples of healthy people of
all ages in cultures other than our own, (which do not have the space
to graze an unlimited number of cows), we find that they can
satisfactorily get the necessary animal nutrients from more compact
and efficient sources such as cheese, ghee, butter and yoghurt, rather
than from daily litres of pasteurised, homogenised, full cream, or
even low cream, plain or flavoured milk. Like all rich, high-energy
foods, in small quantities they do no harm, but in excess they will
overload the digestive system.
It was once pointed out to me by a farmer who kept many different
milking animals, that the size of the molecule in cow's milk is many
times larger than that of the human milk molecule, but that the size
of the goat�s and sheep's milk molecule was nearly identical to that
of human milk. All mammals only feed on their mother�s milk until such
time as they can freely eat solids. Goats and sheep naturally wean
themselves by the time they are the size of the average human child
but a milk-feeding calf will not be weaned until it is over human
adolescent size. There is a great discrepancy here in body size, milk
potency, and length of childhood milk drinking. The old farmer pointed
out that cow's milk is made to promote a calf�s growth at a rate of
1.2 kilograms per day, from a 30 kilogram newborn to a 200 kilogram
calf in just four months! These simple facts indicate that the milk
produced by a mother cow is a far richer in nutrients and growth
hormones than humans would ever need for their young. But many people
nowadays drink a litre or more of cow's milk per day and, as a result,
often end up looking rather bovine! The growing number of children and
adults with milk allergies, lactose intolerance, high cholesterol,
obesity, inability to process fats in their digestive system, poor
skin, and many other food complications, clearly suggests that the
popular, modern, high-dairy diet is drastically wrong.
This great milk con may well take a long time to die down, due to
our cultural and psychological conditioning which teaches that beyond
weaning from mother's milk, we should still be drinking some quantity
of milk everyday. In olden times when people went out to work in the
fields and exhausted far more protein and fat in their working lives;
when our ancestors came from far colder climates where a higher body
fat content was needed for protection from the elements; perhaps, a
greater dairy consumption was necessary. But these days, with so many
people leading more sedentary lives than our forebears, the need for a
large quantity of dairy fats in the diet is far, far less (even though
the need for a minimum amount of animal protein remains constant).
Even the way humans feed their domestic pets regular supplies of
milk, is a projection of our own preferences for sweet and fatty
substances. Do they really need cow's milk? But they are cats and
dogs. If they didn't have a house to live in and a bowl of milk to
drink from, would they would go off in search of milk from a cow, even
beyond their weaned age? No. They are just sopping up one of the
nicest things in the world because we give it to them. And possibly,
like some adults who may have been weaned prematurely or not even
breastfed at all, they hold within them a deep and unresolved craving
for mother's milk. |
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Body Chilling Foods.
Most things eaten directly from the fridge are basically bad for the
digestive system and create mucus in the body. When the body feels
coldness, be it on the outside or on the inside, its mucus linings
secrete mucus for protection from the cold (ie to insulate the blood
from cooling). When any cold food consumed reaches the stomach, the
first thing that must happen is that it must be heated up to equal the
internal body temperature before it can be properly processed buy the
gut. The digestive enzymes, acids and other substances secreted into
the body�s �furnace� are intended to work at body temperature. But
until the food has reached this temperature is will just sit there,
inactive. Have you experienced that heavy gut feeling when you know
something you ate is just a lump in your stomach for a few hours?
Commonly called indigestion, there can be several reasons for this.
(i) The food is too cold for the stomach, so therefore the body
must summon heat from elsewhere before it can begin to work on
digestion. When digestions starts, either the abdomen will have
sufficient heat there to commence its job or else heat (that is
chemical energy) has to be drawn from the extremities of the body
through the bloodstream. This is why many people experience cold
extremities straight after a meal or at other times. Ands this is why
we are advised not to go swimming too soon after a meal. As the blood
is drawn to the digestive system, cramps can be caused in the muscles
of the limbs, especially in cold water. Their stomach and the rest of
their digestive system is consuming so much of their body heat because
the food they eat is demanding extra power to digest it because it was
fed in cold
(ii) The food is too raw and needs lots more �cooking� to be
properly broken down before digestion can start. Food which is not
properly cooked can be a common cause of indigestion and excessive
mucus in the system. If not cooked properly by the power of gas or
electricity, it can take an incredible amount of the body�s energy to
finish cooking it. Cooking is the first step in breaking down food
into its different components. Cooking is helping the body to digest.
Undercooking the food is overloading the body. The heat and the
additives (salt, spices, herbs, condiments) are part of what the body
needs to carry out its stages of digestion. A simple motto to remember
is � �Cook the food in the pot, not in the stomach�.
(iii) That the required chemicals needed for digestion are not
being secreted, in other words, a lazy gut or a gut chronically
overloaded with mucus. This is deeper physiological problem and one
which requires getting the whole body chemistry back on track through
a total dietary transformation, a major exercise/yoga program and
other lifestyle modifications too numerous to deal with here.
So the lifestyle issues concerning eating cold foods can be
summarised as:
Don�t eat cold foods directly from the fridge, unless it is a very
hot day and your intention is to cool the body down. Even so, suck or
drink them slowly so as to cool the throat (thyroid gland area) but
don�t gulp them down in large lumps so as to end up with chilled
substances in the stomach. Summer salads are OK, as these are usually
light, easy to digest and tend to cool the body anyway due to their
high water content.
Always cook food properly in the pot, especially foods which are
hard to digest, which are high in proteins and fats.
Do something like yoga or regular physical exercise to keep a good
strong heat (lifeforce) in the abdomen, particularly just before
meals.
Use the temperature of your extremities to judge how the heat is
being used around the body to aid or inhibit fast, efficient
digestion.
Watch out for signs of nasal mucus after eating. This will tell you
how your body is coping with those foods, as well as coping with the
temperature at which you are eating them.
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Unnatural
Environments |
Artificial Air Temperature. First up, note that I
differentiate between naturally cold environments and artificially
cold environments. There is a distinct difference in body reaction and
body health between the two.
The body senses temperature changes in the environment through two
mechanisms: the air temperature as it reaches the nose, and the
temperature of the skin on exposed parts of the body. When these two
sensors � plus the activity that the body is doing � all match in a
natural kind of way, there is no problem. When an environmental
temperature change from warm to cold has come about through weather,
and the body has had forewarning of this, there is not a problem. But
unnaturally cold changes (such as walking from a hot day outside in to
a cold air-conditioned building) and extended periods of time in
unnaturally cold places (like an office building with no fresh air or
breeze) tend to make the body produce more mucus because it �knows�
the air you are breathing doesn�t match with the outside (real) world.
For example, when the weather turns cold, whether it is winter time
or just for one afternoon in autumn, the whole atmosphere in the area
where you live has been building up to this over time. Your body has
detected that the cold change has been on the way, and your body
temperature has had time to adjust accordingly and usually people
instinctively adjust their clothing and go indoors as this happens.
How does your body know that the weather is getting colder? By the air
coming in through your nose, through a combined air temperature drop,
a drop in air pressure (like a barometer), and by the electromagnetic
ions on the breeze. But only if you are a nose breather and only if
the sensitive passages and sinuses in your nose are acting as per
normal, as designed.
But if you are a chronic mouth breather or your nose has
malfunctions in structure or growths or excessive mucus, how would
your brain know what is coming in on the air? The air flowing through
your mouth does not tell your brain about air temperature, air
pressure or ionic composition. It is the job of the olfactory nerves
and nasal sinuses to send these messages to the brain.
There is no question that the body was designed to breath through
the nose. All the major receptors for environmental information are in
your nose NOT the mouth. If you mouth breathe, the first thing the
body knows about the air temperature is when it hits the back of your
throat, your thyroid gland area. But if it is just cold at your mouth,
the brain thinks � �Ah, I have just EATEN something cold�. When the
air in your nose comes in cold, the body thinks � �Ah, the weather is
cold or the room I just walked into is cold�. How can it think
anything else, because the air coming in through your nose, always is
designed to be body temperature by the time it reaches your throat.
But without nose breathing this cannot happen. So the body gets
confused. Cold air, air not warmed by the nasal passages, then goes
down into your lungs, and what happens � the windpipe and the lungs
produce mucus for protection from the cold. They know the nose is not
working, not heating the air. So, to protect against a lower internal
body temperature the lungs contract, cool down, get watery, phlegmy
and the foundations for all manner of lung conditions set in. Mouth
breathing is a major human health disaster.
And what is the major cause of mouth breathing? Excessive nasal
mucus, which comes from allergies to things smelled or eaten or
inhaled; sometimes by structural defects; sometimes by sudden or
artificial temperature changes. So the more the nose is blocked, the
more mucus is produced, which leads to more mouth breathing and then
more mucus. It�s a Catch-22.
Sudden and Alternating
Temperature. Air-conditioning is a great �tricker� of the body
and of the brain because, on a hot day outside, your body is doing its
thing to keep you cool as best it can, then, all of a sudden, into the
supermarket you go and the temperature drops and the body thinks �
�What the hell!?!?� It then goes into cold-protection-mode (that is
mucus-producing-mode) and at the same time into sudden
body-heating-mode. As a result the nose and respiratory linings clog
up, the skin surface tries to warm up because you left home in just a
T-shirt on a hot day, but now you are in a cold place with short
sleeves and short pants. After a while of shopping, things have
stabilised a bit for the body. It understands and adapts. But then you
go outside again to the carpark �... �What the hell?!?!� The body then
has to go into sudden cooling mode. The respiratory system mucus
starts to dry out and body temperature tries to go down by sweating
and cooling the skin surface even more than if you have been standing
outside in the sun all that time! Then, you get in the car, turn the
air conditioning on ��. �What the hell?!?!� Then you get home, get out
of the air-conditioned car �� into the non-air-conditioned carport ��
then into the air-conditioned house �� you get the point.
Now blind Freddy can see this is not a good thing for the body�s
own, self-regulating temperature mechanisms. It will create a massive
amount of mucus-up and mucus-down adjustments far quicker than the
body should normally do. It will also make you dependent on a constant
air-conditioned life because you �Don�t like the heat� and �Don�t like
all that going in and out of the heat�. So, all summer, many people
opt to live mainly inside a false temperature womb such as an
air-conditioned home and/or office, and/or car. But, deep down, some
part of the brain knows that it is actually summer (from the length of
the days), but it can�t quite figure out why it is always a stable 15
deg C (60 deg F) all day in the house, office and car!
Then of course the reverse is true in winter. There are naturally
shorter, colder, darker days outside and yet it�s constantly warm to
the body�s skin and nose breath! How can a body�s mucus producing
membranes function well from the nose to the lungs, from the mouth to
the anus, with all that temperature deception going on. It is no
wonder so many people have chronic mucus and sinusitis conditions.
False and fluctuating environmental temperature is just the start. The
body was not designed for such trickery and it will not behave well
because of it.
Overly-Warm Rooms. Many
people today live in houses and spend a large proportion of their day
in workplaces which are over-heated. When winter comes, or a cold day
dawns, the windows are closed and the heaters go on. Yet few people
bother to put on a an extra jumper to save the heating bill or wonder
why they feel so cold in the body with just a few degrees drop in
outside temperature. As discussed in the sections on
Low Body Temperature,
Underactive Digestive System,
Movement and Exercise,
Unnatural Environments, all these
factors are interconnected such that it is often hard to tell which
ones are causes and which ones are symptoms of any other. So for the
person who often states �I really feel the cold�, a whole raft of
personal health issues need to be addressed.
Specifically, overly-warm rooms dry out mucus in the nose and lungs
which prohibits the body cleansing in the ways that it needs to. You
will notice on a very cold day how, when you first go outside, the
nose will run. That is in fact a good thing. That particular runny
nose is not a sign of infection (like sinusitis or allergies or
hayfever). It is the body trying to rid itself of the dried-up,
stuffed-up mucus in the nose from being in a warm, dry room and then
experiencing a sudden change in temperature. It is a normal function
of environmental adjustment from one extreme to another.
Overly-warm rooms in winter are often just the other side of the
lifestyle habit many people have of overly-cold rooms in summer. This
habitual dependence on bodily comfort of a lovely warm winter and a
lovely cool summer through air-conditioning shows an imbalance of
one�s own body temperature regulating mechanisms and will gradually
lead to a malfunction of the mucus regulating systems in the body.
But instead of artificially warming a room with gas or electricity
or wood or oil heaters, why not increase the heat from inside your
body by increasing the available life force, or prana as we a call it
in yoga. The best way to increase vital lifeforce that I can recommend
is to take up regular yoga exercise and breathing practices. In this
way you will be able to repair a broken body thermostat and learn how
to switch on body heating (and cooling) when you need it. That way you
are working with the body�s mucus system rather than against it, not
to mention all the other health benefits which will spread from that
too, like better digestion, a clearer head, lack of colds. And of
course smaller heating bills!
Stuffy Environments.
Everyone know that feeling of complete freshness you get standing on a
hilltop over looking the sea with the wind in your nostrils. That is
the ultimate healthy air, the ultimate life enhancing place to
breathe! The nostrils flare out to enjoy it more, the mucus dries out
of the nose, the lungs get that sensation of life-fullness, the brain
wakes up and gets that tingly high. You feel A-L-I-V-E. That�s a
similar quality of fresh air the whole planet had before man chopped
down so many trees, made so many industrial chimney stacks, paved so
many roads, lit so many forest fires, turned the rivers and oceans
into sewers, and closed all the windows and doors to keep out the
pollution of the cities. Fresh air is the air that the body was
designed to breathe, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Anything else
is a health compromise. And the nose gives the first signs of
annoyance to that situation.
Humans breathe on average 16 times per minute. The average breath
is about 1.5 litres (1/3 gallon). That�s 1500 litres (340 gallons) of
stale air you are filling a room with each hour you are in there. Add
in other people, machinery outputs (like a computer fan) etc and
pretty soon the air is stagnant. As the air deteriorates, the body
increases its mucus production all through the respiratory system �
the very opposite of the ocean breeze experience and you soon notice
you have snotted-up. Snotting-up is the telltale sign that the body
has had enough of that place � �Time to go elsewhere and
freshen-me-up� it is saying. But who does? Most people will eventually
get around to opening a window, but often not until their brain starts
to say �I�m tired, I�m yawning, I�m dizzy, I�m not functioning well�.
And that is due to a definite lack of oxygen in the room. But that is
quite some time after the nose has made its case for a fresh batch of
air.
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Direct and Passive Smoking |
This particular factor which creates mucus in the body should
hardly need any explanation or critique at all in this day and age.
There can hardly be a person on the planet who doesn�t know that
smoking is bad for one�s health.
Any air or gas or smoke which goes in the nose which is not pure
clean air is bad for the body to some extent. And to indicate this and
protect against such inhaled pollutants, it is the mucus linings and
the sinuses which �run� to try to cleanse such invaders before they
can get to the lungs.
As well, all the research which has been done in this area has
shown that even passive smoking (breathing in other people�s cigarette
end-smoke and their exhaled smoke) is bad for nearby breathers. In a
smoky environment, such as a club or bar, there is enough smoke in the
room to quantify a passive smoker as consuming about 25% of the same
smoke that the active smoker does. So, someone consuming passive smoke
is a smoker too.
The inhalation of a smoker is always through the mouth, and is most
often out through the mouth which means the nose will be completely
inactive for the time of the smoking. Yet the nose will detect the
smell and passive smoke in the room and will try to block those
pollutants by secreting increased mucus. This increased mucus will
only serve to make the smoker a permanent mouth breather. If a person
is not inhaling through the nose, the mouth and the throat and lungs
collect all the pollutants directly, as they have not passed through
the body�s initial filters in the nasal passages. So, in polluted
environments, mouth breathing will become, over time, a killer. In the
event of a smoker exhaling through the nose, the nasal passages then
become an exhaust filter from the bottom up, providing an extra
trapping of the exhaled smoked particles in the throat and nasal
passages.
For passive smokers who endue other people�s smoking around the
home, the workplace or in recreational areas, you will notice how
quickly your own nose blocks up at the first sign of smoke. If you
choose to live or work around smokers, saline nasal cleansing can only
help so much to improve or maintain your health. For the passive
smoker the choice is quite simple. Either you value your own breathing
health (nose and lungs) above suffering such smoke, or you don�t.
Smoking is such a powerful force against health and life energy that
the passive smoker needs to make a major lifestyle decision and remove
themselves from such places � permanently.
Anyone who has heard the bad news about direct or passive smoking
and yet still continues to do so has, to my mind, no excuse to make
for their own poor health and no serious interest in improving their
health until they have completely given up cigarettes and/or
frequenting places where cigarettes are smoked. See Also
Jala
Neti and Smoking.
|
Air Pollutants |
Air pollutants of all kinds irritate the nasal linings such that
they make the linings and the sinuses secrete excessive mucus. As
mentioned previously, mucus is the body�s internal membrane protection
system and a mechanism for trying to expelling any invader or
pollutant which enters through the nose or mouth.
So what defines pollutant? In the purest sense an air pollutant
could be described as something which annoys your senses enough to
cause the body to react in any of the following ways: coughing,
sneezing, getting a headache, feeling dizzy, feeling nauseous, eyes
watering, tongue fuzzing up, mouth salivating to the point of needing
to spit, throat to get sore, nose to run, nose to clog up, needing to
instinctively leave a place.
These are just the early warning systems, superficial bodily
reactions which, if ignored or left unattended, can only deepen in
severity causing long-term imbalance or malfunction of the internal
organs in the body. Of course, where the person is a nose breather,
the early signs will be more subtle, less severe, and only affect the
frontal nasal system (as designed and desired by nature). But where
the person is a mouth breather, the signs and symptoms of polluted air
entering the body will be far stronger and will affect deeper into the
respiratory more quickly (not as designed or desired by nature).
Most people pay attention to some of these early signs and yet
ignore others, particularly the signs of excessive mucus. But
long-term, chronic mucus problems should not be ignored. If you live
or work where you suspect air pollution to be a possible cause of your
nasal complaints, then it is time to assess your location as a factor
in your health. If a doctor advised you that the cold wet air of the
mountains was worsening your asthma, would you not move your life to
somewhere warmer and drier? If your nose is giving you advice that the
polluted city air is (for example) wrecking your sinuses, causing
chronic headaches, keeping you awake at nights, making you dependent
on nasal medications and sleeping pills, why not move to somewhere
cleaner? It is only a matter of symptom severity and sensitivity to
your body�s messages which differs between different people. The
principle remains the same. Your body is giving you messages; are you
listening; are you prepared to act upon those messages?
In the name of experimentation, spend a week out of the city in the
clean fresh country air. Maybe you�ve already tried that experiment.
Did you sinusitis improve that week? If so, then why live with the
problem? Move to a better environment. This is just one example of our
bodies telling us that our modern life is too unnatural for our
bodies. Sure, some people a can live in the cities and survive the
pollution without a problem. But others, maybe like you, are more
sensitive to the air and should not be living there. Yes, these are
big decisions, to move your whole life somewhere else more clean. But
such health and lifestyle options will always there to for
consideration to be re-prioritised, and if you ignore the body�s own
messages, you will, in the end, only suffer worse.
The only compromise is to use a method like Jala Neti to regularly
(ie. 1 - 2 times a day) cleanse the pollution out of your nasal
system. Whilst this may satisfactorily address the symptoms for a
while, it will never really address the root cause, such that over
time you may find that the symptoms of air pollution still gradually
build up in other parts of the body, eventually causing organic
breakdown at a deeper level.
|
Surrounding Pathogens |
Pathogens are micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses, parasites,
worms or fungi which cause illness in the body. They may just be
free-floating in the surrounding air, passed on to you by proximity to
other people who are carrying them, or come in via water or food. It
may seem an obvious thing to suggest, to keep away from sick people,
and most people do move back away from the hospital bed or the
coughing, sneezing, ill person. But it is the half-sick people who are
far more likely to be the spreaders of pathogens around society these
days. One often needs to be eternally vigilant for half-sick people,
or even quarter-sick people. This how they would classify themselves,
but, in my book, they are all sick and will not in fact be
healthy until their body has returned to its so-called normal healthy
state.
�When is one ill?� is an interesting concept. Many people do not
realise that in the early stages of incubation they are carriers of
germs. They may be passing on disease even before they get noticeable
symptoms. It is not just the acute phase of illness which is
contagious. The beginning and the end is often just as strong.
How often do you hear the phrase � �I was sick last week but I�m
pretty well over it now� �from people with blocked up noses, runny
eyes, and half sick bodies who may still be coughing and breathing
their germs all over the place, even though they are out of bed and
back at work. They think that because they are better, they are of no
danger to others. But this is not the case. Even those are sick and
who force themselves to work, think that �keeping away from others and
coughing into a handkerchief� is some kind of protection for others,
but it isn�t. Sick people should be left a very wide berth (they
should actually be at home and in bed). Even breathing the air of
half-sick people is asking for troubles and the utensils they use
should be washed as thoroughly as those which are used by fully sick.
Hospitals, air-conditioned offices and child-care centres are known
to be the greatest germ pools in society, even more so than the family
home. When family member get sick, either one at a time or all
together, the illness usually passes around in a fairly short time, as
they all share a common environment and genes. But it is the diseases
caught outside the home, those from public sources, which tend
to knock people about worst.
So how can one detect whether a person they are talking with might
be in the early, middle or latter stages of an infectious illness?
Apart from the obvious signs of one who is very sick and who knows it,
the earliest tell tale signs of disease may be detected by the mucus
of another person and of oneself. In other words if they sound a bit
blocked up or are nasal sniffing runny sinuses then their body may
already be starting to fight off a pathogen. If, after meeting them,
your own body starts to go into mucus excretion in the nose (either
thick to thin), then that may be a sign that you have caught their
germs. In the latter stages of an illness, I make it a rule to treat
all people who have been sick in the previous 10 � 14 days to be a
health liability, and therefore to be kept at a distance. Although it
need not necessarily take 10 � 14 days to get over a common
cold or the flu, I notice that most people these days carry the
lingering effects for at least that long because they do not treat
their illness properly during the main phase, because they scrimp on
�time off� and because they then get back into their normal lives
again in a half-sick state for many more weeks before the body finally
ends the invasion. Apart from being a poor way to restore one�s own
health, it is also a great way to spread ill-health to others.
So the yogic approach when one first senses disease arriving is: To
hit it early and hit it hard, with extra relaxation, reducing social
interaction, semi-fasting and relevant cleansing techniques. If this
fails to halt the onset, then fully �going down� with all of the above
plus full fasting and full bed-rest is prescribed. Do not just try to
soldier on in the worst phase. That will drive the illness deeper and
make the recovery far, far longer. After the main phase has passed,
allow another 2 - 7 days for partial return to duties, carefully
�coming out� of the relaxation, fasting, isolation stage until full
health has returned. Don�t just jump back into normal life once you
think the bug has left. That will not help heal the body for the
longer term and may just cause a relapse and worse, spread the tail-
end of your illness to others.
|
Under-Active Digestive System |
An underactive digestive system is a disorder which starts and
finishes within the person themself. There is no outside cause for
this, although many lifestyle factors exacerbate it and can prevent a
long-term solution from taking root. Of course, nasal mucus is not
usually thought of as connected with the digestive mucus which lines
the stomach and the intestines, but it is. People who are heavy mucus
producers in the nose are often heavy mucus producers in the GIT
(gastro-intestinal tract), and vice versa. Therefore, addressing
weaknesses in the digestive system can be highly beneficial for those
suffering excessive upper respiratory mucus.
And underactive digestive system is intimately connected with a
Low Body Temperature. �Heat in� and
�heat out� are the forces which ultimately determine the efficiency of
food processing in the stomach. An under-functioning digestive system
is basically a function of low energy in the whole abdominal region.
This includes the organs of the stomach, the liver, the gall bladder,
the pancreas, the spleen, small intestine, large intestine and colon.
As all these organs are so closely connected, it is nearly impossible
(even for a medical diagnosis) to say which area is more a cause or a
symptom that any other. So in yoga therapy, to improve digestive
function, we deal with them all in an integrated way: always with yoga
postures and exercises; always with yoga breathing; always with
dietary management; always with lifestyle management; often with yoga
relaxation and meditation. This often addresses more than one
abdominal problem and helps to clear up nasal mucus as well.
Without prescribing a whole yoga course for health of the whole
digestive system in this article, (for that, see
The 8 Week
Integral Yoga Beginners Course), the basic lifestyle issues which
can help bring the GIT into better function are:
Eating high-quality foods (preferably organic)
Not eating low-grade foods (pre-packaged, high
preservatives)
Not eating cold foods straight from the fridge
Not eating late at night
Eating the main meal at lunch
Eating a good breakfast
Not snacking between meals
Eating a balanced broad-based vegetarian diet
Plenty of activity, exercise in each day
Avoiding sitting too long in chairs or lounges
Slow deep strong abdominal breathing (through the
nose)
Balanced intake of liquids � limited alcohol, soft drinks,
heavy drinks like milk; plenty of water each day.
|
Low Body
Temperature |
Low body temperature is not commonly acknowledged as an imbalance
or illness, however, many people attest to the discomfort of
permanently �cold extremities�. Some describe their condition as �poor
circulation�, which is somewhat closer to the truth of the cause.
It is not the case that low body temperature directly causes
excessive mucus, although it is a factor in making the body protect
itself more and therefore secrete more mucus. It is more the case that
excessive mucus (for whatever causal reason) cannot be dried up,
burned up, and therefore eliminated in a �cold body�.
In Eastern healing modalities like yoga therapy, cold bodies are
often referred to as �wet, or yin, or lunar� because there is not
sufficient heat, or yang, or solar force in them. It is not so much
that the internal body temperate is cold (a body thermometer would
read much the same as anyone else). It is actually a case of the body
(via the blood) not being able to heat those body parts and warm the
nerves, therefore they �feel cold� and �feel the cold�. It is that any
heat elsewhere cannot get to where you want to feel it. But there is
also the issue of quantity of heat.
Many people do not generate enough body heat. What, where is the
heat generator in the body? It is around the abdominal region at the
solar plexus, around the navel centre and the digestive system. We get
our inner heat from two sources only � food, and fat. The heat from
hot food entering the body is absorbed and distributed to where it is
needed. It can also be stored in the muscles and is also transformed
into fat if the muscles don�t use it. Ergo, predominantly underactive
people are predominantly fat people. Also, in a well-functioning body,
food breaks down into chemicals and this gives off heat, to be used or
stored. But eating also requires heat to do its job, so a balance of
heat and hot food in is important. Equally, a balance of heat and
energy output is important. And for those who know how, it is possible
to turn your fat back into heat when needed. Body fat is not just an
insulator against the cold. It is also a portable heat source. Yoga
has many ways to train the body to be able to turn fat back into heat
� on demand. Then, no more cold extremities!
The primary causes of cold extremities are: an underactive
digestive system, that is not being able to draw from food its full
chemical and body heating nutrients (see
Underactive Digestive System); slow
circulation due to lack of exercise (see
Movement and Exercise); a predominantly blocked right nostril
causing a predominantly left or lunar energy flow (see
Poor Breathing); low solar energy
around the abdomen (from not diaphragm breathing, underactive adrenal
glands, tight clothes, tense stomach); a blocked nose (hence mouth
breathing sends cool air to the lungs which cools the blood, and
increases mucus, etc); a dependence on heaters to keep you warm (see
Poor Breathing).
All these conditions can be remedied through yoga methods of one
sort or another and by different lifestyle adaptations. Eat foods high
in prana (or lifeforce) rather than pre-cooked, low grade foods; eat
food which has been slow cooked in an oven or over heat like gas or
wood; strengthen the spine to relax the abdominal breathing; cleanse
and/or repair the nose to get back to nose breathing; do strong
aerobic exercises everyday just before eating to �fire up� the
stomach; keep away from too many heat sources which only make your
body dependent on outside heat rather than inner heat.
|
Poor
Breathing |
There is no worse habit for human health than mouth breathing. The
nose, with all its sensitive nerves and complex workings, was made for
breathing. The mouth is primarily meant for eating, and only as an
emergency breathing hole in a case of a blocked nose or, in case of
maximum capacity panting, during exertion.
It causes all manner of secondary illnesses. A person should do all
they can to get back to a condition of natural nose breathing � both
in and out the nose. I know, some schools of health education teach
that you should breathe in the nose and out the mouth but, according
to yoga, this is not correct. Just as inhaling through the mouth lets
the brain know what is in the air which is coming from the
environment, exhaling through the mouth does not let the brain know
what is in the air returning from your lungs. This is an equally
important aspect of breathing physiology.
When it comes to the lungs, there are two kinds of breathing for
the body. One is chest breathing (also called thoracic breathing) the
other is abdominal breathing (also called diaphragmatic breathing).
Both these mechanisms are there for different purposes.
Diaphragmatic breathing is the breath of relaxation. It is
(normally) assumed when lying down, sleeping, or resting. Babies are
natural abdominal breathers. Watch them sleep. Their tummy rises and
falls so evenly. But, as many people grow up, they resort to habitual
chest breathing even at times of relaxation. The abdominal breath is
centred around the navel area, the solar plexus, the �hara�, the seat
of our power and dynamic body energy. It is only natural that this
diaphragmatic breathing should be our primary form of breath and our
primary centre of heat and energy.
Thoracic breathing is the breath of vitality. It is for times of
strong exertion; work, exercise, or running away from danger. And yet
many people breathe all the time in the chest. This is a very cooling
breath. It is used by the body to dump heat quickly from the lungs
rather than to store heat in the belly � as abdominal breathing does.
Chest breathing is a health depleting habit for many people.
Asthmatics (for example) are chronic chest breathers. Their lung
condition is wet, mucusy. Their breathing is shallow, sporadic,
uncontrolled, uneven. When taught abdominal breathing, many of these
symptoms lessen.
Excessive mucus in the body is always associated with poor
breathing. Chest breathing when not necessary; shallow breathing
instead of deep; fast breathing instead of slow; uneven breathing
instead of even. All these can be retrained through yoga breathing
exercises (called pranayama) and then the excessive mucus secretions
from cold and wet lungs, blocked up noses, and runny sinuses will soon
clear up.
|
Movement
and Exercise |
Stagnant muscles create stagnant blood, which creates stagnant
lungs, which means an excess of mucus blocking the airways. The lungs
and breathing passages normally produce small amounts of mucus all
day, and each exhalation is supposed to expel from the body any excess
moisture in the lungs. If the body is underactive, the lungs will be
cold; they will be contracted; they will be over-lined with mucus and
will not have sufficient force to dry themselves out with each breath.
Heavy, deep breathing, as is usually done with exercise, dries out the
lings, effectively changing the stale mucus lining for fresh. This
also helps to clear out germs which may have lodged there in the mucus
lining. Everybody has heard in the media that regular daily exercise
is good for health in many ways. One of the most important ways,
relevant to our discussion here, is to help take out excessive mucus
from the respiratory system. Physical exercise also helps to heat the
body which protects against excessive mucus secretion in the first
place.
|
Restrictive Clothing |
How can tight clothing affect the body�s mucus activity I hear you
say? Very simply. At the skin surface, tight clothes (and shoes)
restrict blood flow in the capillaries, thereby causing cold limbs and
cold extremities. Also, tight clothing and shoes restrict full and
free movement to the joints of the hips, the shoulders and the ankles
thereby restricting the major circulation vessels, again, causing
coldness in the limbs and extremities. This in turn makes the body
secrete more mucus in the false belief that it is in a cold
environment. It assumes this knowledge from the nerves� feedback in
those extremities. And, if you are breathing through the mouth, the
air coming in will not be warmed to body temperature by the time it
gets to the lungs and a second message is interpreted that you are in
a cold place.
Specifically, tight underpants tourniquet the circulation to the
legs, not to mention the testes in men. Tight bras in women restrict
the flow of blood to the chest, the heart and the lungs. Tight waist
belts restrict the digestive system � like tying a knot in the garden
hose � food can�t flow through the intestines and therefore blocks up
and stagnates the energy and heat in that part of the system. Tight
shoes or boots restrict circulation to the toes and ankles. Tight
jackets restrict arm and shoulder movement and therefore circulation
of heat and energy in the arms.
Loose clothing allows a natural airflow around the skin, so that
the body can detect the real temperature of the environment and the
body�s extremities instead of the �wrapped-up temperature� of, say,
denim and polyester. Loose clothing allows freer body movement in
everyday life, better allowing you to move into positions such as
cross-legged sitting, squatting, bending forwards and backwards,
stretching up and twisting.
|
Excessive Use Of Hot Water
Bathing |
Unlike many people, I believe that hot water is one of life�s
luxuries rather than one of its essential needs. In olden times, when
wood was the predominant fuel and it had to be cut, split stacked and
burden to make hot water for bathing, a weekly bath was used to
properly cleanse the body and luxuriate in its warmth. Of course it
took a lot of physical energy to make fuel, and that every activity
used to keep people warm from the exertion. But nowadays, with a flick
of the switch and turn of the tap, we have instant and unlimited hot
water for any purpose we like. Many people believe they need 3 - 15
minutes of hot water and soap running over their skin once or twice a
day to keep it clean. Hardly! Some people just use a hot shower each
morning to warm themselves up, to get their body going for each day.
Some people have a daily bath or spa each evening just for the
pleasure of it. But all these uses are far beyond what the body needs.
In fact, excessive use of hot water bathing weakens the boy�s
temperature regulation, and weaken ones tolerance of normal cold water
bathing as human have done for millennia.
An interesting phenomenon is that during a hot shower or bath, the
predominant flow of air in the nostrils will go onto left nostril,
that means the body has gone into �I want to cool down mode�. The left
nostril is the switch for the para-sympathetic nervous system. It is
the relaxing side of the autonomic nervous system. So you stand in the
hot shower for 15 minutes, or lie in the hot bath for 30 minutes on
left nostril and then go to get out into the bathroom which might have
the big heater lamps on the roof to warm it up for when you get out.
You wrap yourself in a big soft fluffy towel, dress in warm clothing
again and then go out into the house again. Do you ever notice that
for quite some time you will feel cold after that sequence even after
soaking and sucking up all that hot water heat? And if you check your
nostrils you will find you are still stuck on the left side flowing
more freely. Your body is stuck in cool down mode from all that
excessive heat.
To prevent this, and to better look after the body�s temperature
(and therefore mucus regulating systems) finish off your hot shower or
bath with 30 - 60 seconds of hard fast cold water only. Whilst the
cold
water is flowing, make sure you rub it vigorously over every part of
your body, and particularly splash some on your anus. This is
important to help force the nose to switch sides, as the buttocks
often protect the anus from cold sensations. Don�t worry you will not
get cold. Your skin will just feel cold for a few moments. When you
get out you will notice that the skin will tingle and you will feel
glowing warm inside and at the skin. Believe me. Also notice
that your nostrils will flush out really well during the cold rinse if
you blow them well and, when you get out, they will feel fully open
and alive. As you dry yourself, give the skin a good fast hard rub
with the towel which will bring the heat out to the surface (instead
of just standing there all wrapped up, thinking you should be
shivering and running to the lounge room heater).
This cold water ritual is not suggested as some
yogic-austerity-self torture method, but as away to immediately switch
your nostrils back on to the right nostril flow, which will then
switch the body onto sympathetic nervous system and make the body heat
itself up again. It also helps to close off the skin cells from taking
in cold after your hot bath or shower, (which is how some people catch
a chill after bathing). This will also have the advantage of
keeping the heat you absorbed from the hot water inside the
body rather than the body giving it off for a while after your
shower or bath.
The long-term outcome of using this cold rinse as the antidote to a
hot water soak will be that your body (and your emotions) will not
become habitually addicted to purely the comfort aspects of bathing.
In addition, on occasions when you do not have a lot of working dirt
or sweaty body oils to wash off, have a lukewarm shower, or even a
cold one, partly to exercise a little self-discipline and also to
re-educate your skin and body temperature mechanisms a more moderate
state. This sort of routine will certainly help in cleansing out
excessive mucus in the body.
|
Medication Side Effects |
All patients and doctors will attest to the fact that most
pharmaceutical drugs produce side effects in the body. As nearly all
modern drugs are derived from unnatural substances, the first thing
the body does in reaction to such drugs entering the system is to
secrete mucus as a reaction against their presence. In the case of
ear, nose and throat aliments, mostly the intention of the drugs is to
fight infection and inflammation. In many cases the patient has
predisposed issues with excessive mucus. And yet, the irony is that to
lessen the mucus by fighting an infection, the body�s reaction against
the drugs is to increase mucus production (albeit temporarily
while they fight the infection), thus worsening the situation for some
time.
Also, it may not only be drugs for upper respiratory conditions
which are causing excessive nasal mucus. It may well be other drugs
being taken concurrently for other ailments. Many unwell people are on
a cocktail of drugs. The individual side effects, plus the accumulated
side effects of several drugs can produce an overwhelming amount of
reactionary side effects, the most prevalent of which is mucus
production in many areas of the internal mucus linings.
Over time, habitual use of pharmaceutical drugs causes chronic
mucus conditions. Breaking this cycle is very hard. It is not
advisable to simple �stop taking� medically-prescribed drugs and try
�alternative� methods instead. The best approach is to use natural and
naturopathic remedies (such as Jala Neti together with the lifestyle
modifications recommended in this document) alongside any
medically-prescribed drugs until the symptoms lessen and acute
infections pass. At which time, after consultation with your doctor,
the drugs may be gradually cut back, thereby giving the body a better
chance to break the mucus cycle and return to more normal levels.
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