DIGESTIVE SYSTEM AND YOGA Introduction In the late 19th Century, a teen-aged boy named Tom had a bullet shot injury in his abdomen. When the wound healed, he was left with a permanent hole in the stomach. Doctors, who were interested in understanding the mechanisms of how the nervous system learns to control body functions, requested Tom to co-operate in their experiments. They collected the gastric secretions through this hole in his abdomen, during different times of the day and analysed them. They found that the digestive juices secreted from the stomach increased when Tom felt hungry, when he thought of food, when the food was kept in the mouth and, of course, when the food entered the stomach. The interesting part of the experiment was that there occurred a heavy surge of acid from the stomach when Tom was irritated, frustrated and anxious. This gave a big clue about the effect of emotions on acid production from the stomach. Just like the face turns red when one is angry, the stomach lining turns red too. And it pours out large amounts of acid and enzymes. Anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety, tension etc, are emotions which influence not only the quality and quantity of secretions in the stomach and intestine but also alter the blood flow and the motility of the intestine. There is a well-organized vigilant control mechanism operating through your automatic nervous system to receive and send information from and to every part of the digestive tract. In other words your brain (in turn the subconscious mind) knows every thing that happens in the digestive system and vice versa. Thus, each one of your emotions and thoughts are perceived by the digestive organs producing necessary changes in their functions. Many ailments |