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 yahoo group. 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