criticizing, appreciation in place of jealousy, surrender instead of obstinacy, were the real lessons that helped her to change her nature. While these concepts were changing her, regular practice of pranayama and meditation helped her to handle her bad habits of emotional surges. Working side by side with knowledge and practice, she continues to grow healthier in body.

What is Chronic Constipation?

Constipation is defined as passing hard stool which requires great effort to empty. This happens usually when the bowel is not emptied within 24 hours.

As we have seen, one of the major functions of large intestine is to reabsorb water from its contents; if the stool stays too short a period in the colon it leads to diarrhoea and if it stays too long it leads to constipation.

It has been observed that chronic constipation that lasts for months or years could lead to many chronic health problems including cancer of the large intestine.

What are the causes of chronic constipation?

The causes of constipation include wrong diet habits, poor toilet training, IBS, stress, new growth etc.

• The commonest cause of chronic constipation is lack of roughage in the diet. In 1950s the incidence of cancer of the colon increased very rapidly in UK. Researchers were looking for the cause of this rapid increase. They observed that this disease was almost unknown in African race. One of the researchers got a fascinating idea and supplied plastic containers to a group of Africans and the British collected their stools and weighed them. The answer was right there! The stool weight in Africans was much higher than that of the British. And thus the cause of colonic cancer was chronic constipation. Further analysis made them understand that constipation occurs due to lack of water and indigestible components in the diet. The husk of the cereals and pulses,