Tag: Yoga for Migraine

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Trataka

Names

Trataka, Tratak, Fixed Gazing, Fixed Gazing meditation, Blinkless Gazing, Yogic Gazing

Tratak is a well-known Kriya or karma of the six karmas of yoga, the ‘Shatkarma’ and it also is a practice of meditation.

There are many different practices explained in different texts but they are all very similar. You can find the practice of Tratak with a betel leaf, a paper, a candle, a needle, darkness, open sky, a photograph, a deity, a crystal, a stone, a flower, the moon, a star, a painting, shadow, nature, a tree, ocean waves, a flag, a bird etc.

How to perform Trataka

The main practice of Trataka is to gaze. It doesn’t matter which object you use for this but you should focus on it and gaze at it without blinking. You can even close your eyes and focus within with closed eyes.


Choose any object that is currently available to you. If you are in nature, choose a tree, a stone, a flower or anything similar. If you are out in the night, do Trataka with the moon or the stars. If you are inside your home, just use anything that you see and can focus on.
The most common and suggested one is the practice with a lit candle.


Light a candle in a dark room and place it about 75 to 90 centimeters away from you at the level of your eyes. Focus on the flame and continuously stare at it without blinking until tears start running down your cheeks. Then close your eyes but keep gazing at the same point from behind your eyelids for 15 to 20 seconds. After that relax your eye muscles.
Place your palms over your eyes without any pressure on the eyeballs. Gently move your palms in circles. Take a towel or tissue to wipe your eyes.


After that you can continue the practice. You can do this exercise for 12 to 15 minutes.

For inner Trataka practice, close your eyes and start with gazing on your third eye between your eyebrows. Further you focus on your breath and then you focus on your mind and thoughts and just pick one thought or picture and focus on that. For example think of your loved one. Gaze on it inside of you and then narrow your circle of vision and point your focus more specifically at one point in the picture. Continue the practice until you can forget your surroundings completely. That is the stage of deep meditation. This is called Trataka meditation, also known as Dharana or concentration.

Benefits of Trataka

Trataka is very obviously a very great exercise for the eyes. It moves the eye muscles which are in the usual way of looking often only staring without moving. It can help people who suffer from glaucoma, conjunctivitis, eye herpes, keratoconus, macular degeneration, ocular hypertension and sometimes even for retinitis pigmentosa and Stargardt disease. Usual and common problems like hypermetropia (longsightedness) or myopia (nearsightedness) and astigmatism can be relieved. Peripheral vision problems, presbyopia and diplopia can all get help through the practice of Trataka.


If you suffer from frequent headaches, you can also get relief by regular practice of Trataka.
Apart from physical benefits for your eyes, there are many benefits of Trataka on your mind. You increase your concentration in every day’s life by concentrating regularly for a little while in Trataka. You will be able to focus and concentrate longer and better without getting distracted.


Through this time of concentration in between, you also reduce your stress in daily life. This is good for your mental health, helps you get better sleep and brings your nervous system to peace.

Focus Points

Do not let your thoughts distract your eyes from their focus. Keep concentrated.

Tips and Help

Keep breathing normally and stay relaxed, that helps you concentrate. If you are used to perform Dirgha Pranayama, deep yogic breathing, you can also use this breathing practice.
Keep a tissue or towel next to you for wiping your eyes and blowing your nose.

If you have an eye problem and you want to practice Trataka for that, please consult your doctor and yoga teacher before starting the exercise.

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Surya Namaskar – Sun Salutation

Names

Surya Namaskar, Sun Salutation

How to perform Surya Namaskar

Stand straight in Samastithi. Check which of your nostrils is more active by holding your hand in front of your nose. Now bring your arms in front of your chest in Namaste position.
With inhalation bring your arms up over your head. Bend backwards and bring your hips to the front with your body weight on your toes. Keep your knees straight. Look backwards and keep deep breathing.


With exhalation bend forwards while keeping your back and elbows straight. Place your hands next to your feet. Now bring back the leg of your active side back. If your right nostril is more active bring back your right leg. Your left knee should now be directly above the left foot. Bring your pelvis down as much as you can and keep the right leg straight and don’t place it on the ground.


With inhalation bring the left foot back next to the right foot into Chaturanga Asana. Hold the position and keep your body in the air. During that keep arms, back and knees straight.
If your shoulders allow it lean your body weight forward with exhalation. Hold your breath and with an inhalation go into Bhujangasana. For that put down your legs and hips on the floor. Your hands should be beside your chest now. Bring your pelvis down but your upper body up so that your navel doesn´t touch the floor anymore. Look straight up to the ceiling. Open your chest wide and breathe deeply. Make sure that you are not hanging your body weight on your shoulders.


With exhalation you bring your head back into the normal position and look straight. With inhalation twist your head to the right side and look at your left heel. With exhalation bring your head back and repeat the same on the left side.


Now push your body back and go into Adho Mukha Svanasana with inhalation. For that you keep your arms straight and with the strength of your shoulders you bring your hips up into the air. You lower the upper body and push your hands into the floor. Your buttock should be the highest part of your body and point to the ceiling.

With exhalation go back into Chaturanga Asana.


Now bring your right foot into the front between your arms. Your right knee should be directly above the right foot. Bring your pelvis down as much as you can and keep the left leg straight without touching the ground.


With inhalation bring the left foot next to the right foot between your arms and straighten your knees. Bring your upper body close to your legs so that your nose is touching the knees.

Bring your palms together in Namaste position. Straighten your elbows and slowly come up with inhalation and your back straight. Bend backwards as before and come back to Samastithi.


Now you have completed the first round of sun salutation!

Benefits of Surya Namaskar

This is a very beneficial position for your whole body. You may do it to warm up at the beginning of your yoga practice. It is also a great exercise for children as this position strengthen the muscles and gives the body more room to develop the organs and to grow.
Sun salutation also helps to prevent many digestive issues and stomach problems. If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, sun salutation may help you as it regulates the movement of the bowels.


A regular practice of this sequence of yoga postures will strengthen your arms, shoulders, chest and abdominal muscles and help you to reduce fat especially on your belly.
It will also keep your whole body flexible.


If you practice this pose regularly it will help you to calm your mind, to improve your focus and concentration. Those effects work against depression, bipolar disorder, insomnia, headache, migraines and stress. It is also good for your memory and nervous system.


This exercise also has a lot of benefits for women. Regular practice of sun salutation helps against irregular menstruation and prevents pain during pregnancy. Sun salutation can also help to make the birth of the child easier.


Also your cardio system will be influenced in a positive way. Your blood will get more oxygen and so helps the body to get rid of toxics.


It is also very good for the coordination between mind and body and therefore recommended for seniors.


When you suffer from diabetes make this pose to reduce the sugar in your blood and to regulate your insulin level.


Your skin will become better, it will shape your muscles and will make you look and feel younger. It’s a wonderful exercise for beauty!


This exercise is a complete workout! Even when you don´t have much time for yoga or a workout, just practice sun salutation in the morning and it will give you a complete workout for your body.


In total a regular practice of Surya Namaskar keeps you happy and healthy!

Focus Points

Keep your feet together and knees straight while standing. Always keep your body weight on your toes. Focus on your body and the muscles you are working on while performing the posture.


Performing sun salutation slowly makes you understand the position and how it works and for sure it is more beneficial than doing it fast.


Make sure that you breathe very regular and perform the position in a steady rhythmus.

Tips and Help

For an easy version you can place the knee of the stretched leg on the floor when you finished the forward bending and you bring one leg back.


You can also lie on the floor after Chaturanga Asana. Lift your buttocks up and come into cobra after that.

If you are suffering from shoulder pain, place your arms next to your chest. Lift your chest, head and your arms and hands from the floor. The rest of the body lies on the floor as a substitute of the full cobra.


Coordinating with the breathing makes it easier to perform the posture.


Advanced yoga practitioners can try to keep the body up in the air during the whole sequence of poses. Only your hands and feet should touch the floor.


And if you want it to be more difficult, just do it more slowly and hold the single yoga poses a longer time.

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Shirshasana – Head Stand

Names

Shirshasana, Sirsana, Sirshasana, Head Stand

How to perform Shirshasana

Fold a blanket and place it in front of you. Sit on your toes and place your knees on the floor. Grab your elbows with your hands so that your lower arms touch each other. Place your arms in front of your knees. Now open your arms and interlace your fingers in front of your knees on the blanket so that your hands look like a triangle.


Place the top of your head on the blanket and support the back of your head with your interlaced hands by placing them on the back of your head. Straighten your knees so that you are only on your feet, arms and head. Make sure your back is also straight.


Now slowly shift your body weight to the front, over your head, and walk closer to your body with your toes. When you feel your back is in an angle of 90 degrees to the floor, start lifting your feet with exhalation from the ground and bring them up and straight, in vertical alignment with your body.


When you feel strain or, at the maximum, after three to five minutes, you slowly bring your feet down to the floor and come out of the pose.

Benefits of Shirshasana

The head stand is considered as one of the best yoga poses because of its vast amount of benefits and is, for that reason, sometimes called the ‘King of Yoga Poses’


Through the upside-down position, your blood flows more easily down where now is your head and your brain. This inversion is good for the blood circulation and your heart. The blood is purified and cleansed through its strengthened flow.


Through the easy flow of blood into your head, the whole area is supplied with fresh oxygen which helps your brain to work properly and better. You will realize that you can concentrate better and your memory improved.


A better blood circulation can prevent headaches and migraines. People suffering from insomnia can also get relief by practicing this yoga pose. Even epilepsy is said to be relieved for yoga practitioners who do the head stand.


Your ears, eyes and nose benefit from the circulation as well and many issues can be prevented through inverted yoga postures like Shirshasana.


The scalp is supplied with blood which stimulates the growth of hair and can even prevent hair loss if it was caused by poor circulation.


This yoga exercise stimulates the thyroid gland, the pituitary and the pineal glands and thus improves their functions.


Of course it is an exercise that strengthens your muscles and with all these effects it also makes your immune system stronger and more resistant.


The head stand is also said to help with many sexual problems.

Focus Points

Keep normal breathing while you are in this pose. Try to straighten your legs up so that your body is a straight vertical line.

Tips and Help

Before performing Shirshasana you should already be warm and have done some exercise. Exhaling while lifting your legs will make it easier for you to come up.


If you are new to this exercise, you can first practice performing Ardha Shirshasana and when you have gained balance in this pose move on to the full head stand.

When to avoid Shirshasana

Do not hold this pose for a longer time, even though you feel you are capable of doing so. The pressure on your head and the blood circulating there can have negative effects if you hold the pose too long. Whenever you feel strain, come out of the yoga pose.


If you suffer from headache or a serious eye disease such as glaucoma, you should avoid this pose. High blood pressure patients and people with cardiac problems should also not practice the head stand. If you had neck injuries or hernia or if you currently suffer from back pain, you should always consult your doctor before performing this yoga pose.
Women should avoid Shirshasana during menstruation time and pregnancy.

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Shavasana – Corpse Pose

Names

Shavasana , Savasana , Corpse Pose

Unfortunately for this yoga pose a wrong pronunciation of its name has become popular in many parts of the world. Even many known yoga teachers, studios and websites call it ‘Savasana’ instead of ‘Shavasana’.


The correct Sanskrit name is ‘Shavasana’. It consists of two terms “Shav” + “Asana”. In Sanskrit “Shav” means dead body and “Asana” means posture or pose. Literally translated it thus means posture of dead body, acting and lying like a dead body.

How to perform Shavasana

As its name already says, you only need to lie as if you were a dead body to perform Shavasana. Lie on your mat, your body flat on the floor. Let your body completely lose. All your body muscles should be relaxed.


Your hands are lying next to your body with the palms facing the ceiling. Your feet are shoulder-wide apart from each other and relaxed.


Your body should lay like a dead body without any movement. Close your eyes, go inside, focus on your breath and simply relax. Relax your toes, relax your calf muscles, your thighs, your hips, your waist, your abdomen, your back, your shoulders, your arms, your hands, your neck, your face muscles, your eye balls and your tongue. Just relax your entire body and breathe normally. Visualize how you completely relax with each of your body parts.

Benefits of Shavasana

Shavasana is obviously a very good position for relaxation. It is also known as the yoga pose for final relaxation at the end of your yoga praxis. It is beneficial for all kinds of problems, physical and mental.


It is recommended to do Shavasana after yoga practice, as this is position relaxes your body and mind, distributes and spreads energy to your entire body and prepares your body for what you do after your exercise.


Apart from this Shavasana is also very good for reducing stress. It helps overcome depression, is good against, fatigue, nervousness and insomnia. It even helps you to regulate your blood pressure. Shavasana calms down your brain and improves concentration.


Shavasana is suggested against headaches, asthma, constipation and indigestion.
Overall it is a very beneficial pose to relax your body and mind which helps you in many ways in your daily life. You feel more at ease with making critical decisions and more relaxed in stressful situations. You have clearer thoughts and can think more quickly.
Practitioners of meditation like this pose if they want to do a relaxing meditation.

Focus Points

You should not sleep while performing Shavasana. Apart from the fact that you might start snoring in the middle of your yoga group, this pose is for relaxation of the body. It is a way of meditation, aware and awake.

Tips and Help

Make sure that you are not lying on the cold floor. You can also cover your body with a sheet or blanket.


If you feel tension in your back when you lie down in Shavasana, you can bend your knees and pull them tight to your chest before placing them back to the floor. You will feel that your back muscles are now more relaxed and at ease.


If you still have difficulty placing your legs just flat on the floor, you can use small pillows under your knees for support.


If you are suffering from back pain, back injuries or had back surgery, you should bend your knees and place your feet a foot away from your hips. This will support and relax your back.
This is also recommended for pregnant women. During pregnancy women can also use a pillow to raise their head and upper body if they feel like it.

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Netra Dhauti – Eye Cleaning

Names

Netra Dhauti, Eye Cleaning

How to perform Netra Dhauti

Sit in Utkatasana and take clean and fresh water into a little bowl. Open your eyes and rinse your eyes with the clean water by taking some water into your hands and spilling it into your eyes.


Then fill your mouth with as much water as you can and rinse your eyes again with the clean water. Spit out the water after that.


Repeat this procedure three times.


Another way to do this exercise is to form a cup with your hand and fill it with water. Then you bend over your hand filled with water and open and close your eyes so that they will be cleaned.


You can also take a big pot with water, dip your face into it and open and close your eyes while your mouth is full with water.

Nowadays you can also buy eyecups and they can also be used for this exercise.

Benefits of Netra Dhauti

Netra Dhauti improves eye sight and is beneficial for all kinds of eye problems. This is also a good exercise if you are suffering from head ache because headache is often related to problems with the eyes or stressed eyes.


insomnia can also be eased because this exercise gives the eyes a rest and they get something like a workout during cleaning the eyes with waters which prepares them to relax.


Don’t do it if you have wounds in your eyes or just had a surgery at your eyes.

Tips and Help

If you have burning sensation in your eyes, use rosewater to rinse them or put a bit of it in water. If you have sore eyes, a burning sensation or if they are tearing, you can use water with Triphala, an Ayurvedic medicine in there.

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Nadi Shodhana Pranayama

Names

Nadi Shodhana Pranayama, Channel Cleaning Breath

How to perform Nadi Shodhana Pranayama

Sit in Siddhasana , Vajrasana, Padmasana or Bhadrasana with a straight spine, looking to the front. Your head should be in one line with your spine.

Make the Vishnu Mudra with your right hand by placing the tip of index and middle finger on the root of your thumb.


Check which of your nostrils is active. If you are breathing from the left nostril, close your right nostril with the thumb of your right hand.

Inhale deeply through the left nostril. After completing the inhalation close the left nostril with the little and the ring finger and open the right nostril to exhale from the right side.


After exhalation from the right, continue with inhalation from the right nostril. Then close the right nostril with the thumb, open your left nostril again and exhale.

Now you have completed one round of Nadi Shodhana. Repeat this pranayama exercise 5 to 10 times.

Benefits of Nadi Shodhana Pranayama

The name Nadi Shodhana comes from the Sanskrit words “nadi” and “shodhana”.
Nadi means energy channels while Shodhana means cleansing, purifying or purification. Nadi Shodhana thus means purifying the energy channels. This makes the Prana, the life force, flow strongly and in a healthy way.


It does not only have energetic effects though! Nadi Shodhana also cleans the body of toxins and helps you to relax. This relaxation is good for your heart, as the heart beat slows down and in general good against physical and mental stress.


People suffering from migraine have also reported that through the practice of being calm, stress-related migraines have not further appeared. Even people who have been diagnosed with bipolar syndrome got relief through the calming effect of the yoga exercise.


And last but not least it is a great exercise that you could even do at work – whether during usual working hours or in your lunch break!

Focus Points

In this breathing technique you should not hold your breath. Concentrate on relaxing and breathing continuously in a steady rhythm.

Tips and Help

If you cannot sit in any of the poses listed before you can do this pose also when you are sitting on a chair or in any comfortable sitting posture.

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Kapal Randhra Dhauti

Names

Kapal Randhra Dhauti, Scalp Cleansing

Kapal is the Sanskrit word for head. Randhra means hole. The Kriya thus means the cleansing of the hole of the head.


If you are not aware what this means, just think of the skull of a newborn baby. It is soft and at the top, there is a kind of hole. This is the place meant to be cleaned in this Dhauti.

How to perform Kapal Randhra Dhauti

In Kapal Randhra Dhauti, you rinse the top of your head with water. Lean forward and pour water on your head with one hand while rubbing the top of the head with the other flat hand.


Use water of a pleasant temperature and wash the top of your head. Some people refer to the scriptures’ advice to use cold water for this practice.

One needs to take into consideration however that these scriptures were written in India, a generally hot country where cold water is still not freezing through the influence of the daily sun.

It is thus safe to say that water at a normal temperature is good for use.


In the next step, you massage your temples with your thumbs, both clockwise and anticlockwise.


Additionally and to have more benefit, you can place your middle fingers from both sides to the top of your nose bone, just below your eyebrow. Hold your breath and gently massage your upper nose.


When you have to exhale, stop the massage and exhale with force.

Benefits of Kapal Randhra Dhauti

This technique is very good for calming your mind and brain.

Through the massage you reduce stress and by this can reduce problems of insomnia and even bipolar because you relax your mental situation enourmously.

You clear your thoughts and thus get more and more peace in your complete system.


Problems of headache and migraine are reduced and your nervous system has a chance to calm down, too.

In this way Kapal Randhra Dhauti also helps against depression – it gives you the chance to relax and see things another way! All kinds of stress and its symptoms can disappear with regular practice. Even bipolar disorder can be treated with this relaxation of your mind.


The calming effect is also good for your blood pressure and makes the blood circulate to your head, too. This prevents dizziness and of course the oxygen is beneficial for your brain power, too.


The water opens the pores of the scalp and cleans it.


Practitioners of meditation enjoy doing this technique as it helps you go into meditation easily.

Tips and Help

Also make sure to dry your head after washing will prevent you catching cold. It is recommended to practice this in the morning.

When to avoid Kapal Randhra Dhauti

Take care not to do this cleansing technique when it is cold as you could easily catch a cold.

It is working with the Kapha region of your body and thus the practice could increase the mucus if there is cold air around the person performing it.

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Jala Neti

Names

Jala Neti, Water Neti, Water Nasal Cleaning, Neti, Water Nasal Cleansing

For doing Jala Neti, you need a Neti pot or a ‘Ganga Sagar’, as it is called in India.

This is a pot that has a kind of tube or pipe from which you can pour out water in a steady stream.


In India it was formerly usual for people to perform Neti Kriya without any Neti pot. They sniffed water into the nose from a normal Lota, a drinking pot.

Other practitioners drank water and then brought it out through the nose. Again others drank it through the nose and then performed Kunjar Kriya afterwards.

This nasal cleaning in different ways was previously a normal way of cleaning one’s body, just like brushing teeth and showering.


With the invention of the Neti pot the practice has become easier for people who have never practiced Neti before.

How to perform Jala Neti

You need a Neti pot, half a liter of water of a pleasantly warm temperature and about one teaspoon of sea salt. Mix the salt into the water.


Jala Neti can be performed in standing, squatting or in Utkatasana . If you stand, bend forward from your waist and then perform it. Check which of your nostrils is active and start from that one.


Fill your Neti pot with the salty water, and if your right nostril is active, tilt your head to the left and place the cone of the pot to your right nostril. It should have an ending of a size that you can easily insert it a bit into your nose.

Lean a bit further to the left side and start breathing through your mouth. Relax and let the water flow into your right nostril and out of the left one.


When the water is all out, take the pot away from your nose and sniff out the remaining water and mucus from your nose with force.


Repeat the same procedure from the other nostril.


After performing the Kriya from both sides, stand up straight, bend forward a bit and take five to ten breaths with inhalation through the mouth and exhalation through the nose.

If you still feel water in your nose, bend forward completely and repeat the breathing. Get up again and sniff everything out that is left.


Now you should tilt your head back for about 30 seconds, then to the left for 30 seconds and finally to the right for 30 seconds.

Again you sniff anything out that still remained inside.

Benefits of Jala Neti

Neti is one of the best Kriyas for cleaning the nasal and sinus cavity.

In our nose there is hair that catches dust and dirt and mucus that does the same. In this way your body prevents the dirt from reaching further into your respiratory system but obviously this dust then is caught in your nose.

Neti helps you to properly clean your nose from this dust, mucus and all bacteria which may be caught in that.


By this cleaning, Neti prevents and even cures infections of the nasal cavity, hay fever and other allergies, sinusitis, adenoids and post nasal drip. Even sore throats and coughs as well as inflammation of the tonsils can be prevented and healed.

If you suffer from asthma or bronchitis, Neti can relieve your breathing problems by opening and cleaning your nostrils.


Your nose is connected with your eyes, ears and even your brain. This is why, when you have a cold or flu and mucus accumulates in your nose and sinuses, you feel that your whole head is heavy.

You feel pressure on your ears and can even have headache. Cleaning that mucus can have a liberating effect!


You can thus get rid of headaches and migraines and your vision will get clearer. Your eyes get hydrated and thus you shine much more.


If your hearing ability is impaired by mucus or if you have pain, inflammation or infections in the ears, Neti might be a helpful practice.

It is even said to cure otitis media and tinnitus.


The cleansing of your nose also enhances the power of your olfactory nerve which is connected to our sense of taste.

This is why it is said that Neti improves the senses of smell and taste.

Jala Neti is additionally a great help for people who are willing to quit smoking.

Tips and Help

Take care not to pour water from the top of the pot on your face.


Do not force the pot’s cone too hard into the nostrils.


Drying the nose afterwards by blowing is necessary because it is not good to leave water in the nose. It can cause you cold or funny feeling in the head so better clean it out.

To prepare yourself for Jala Neti, you can practice Dirgha Pranayama and Nadi Shodhana Pranayama before.

After Jala Neti you can practice Kapalabhati Pranayama which will dry your sinus cavities.

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Jala Basti – Water Enema

Names

Jala Basti, Water Basti, Enema, Yogic Enema

Nowadays medicine knows a lot of different ways to perform enemas and recommends them as an important way of cleaning your colon. 

Ayurveda and yoga knew about the importance, too, which is why this advanced practice is also seen as very important.

How to perform Jala Basti

In order to be able to perform Jala Basti, you need to have mastered the practice of Uddiyana Bandha , Nauli and Ashwini Mudra.


Jala Basti is the sucking of water into your anus and releasing it again for cleansing purpose. In ancient times yogis went into a river until the navel and suck in the river water. Due to bacteria and the current situation of most rivers, it is rather unadvisable to do that nowadays.


Beginners can use a helping tool like a hollow pipe, the root of a lotus, a catheter or a basti yantra, which is a pipe that is narrow at one end and broad at the other side.


To perform Jala Basti, you can fill a bathtub with water and squat in the water in Utkatasana . If you use a helping tool, insert one end into the anus to keep it open to the rectum.

Perform Uddiyana Bandha and use your sphincter muscles and the Ashwini Mudra to suck water in from the anus to the rectum and to the sigmoid colon.

Very good practitioners can even pull up the water up to the descending colon. Once the water is inside, gently remove the tool if you were using one.


Now you get up and practice Nauli to move the water inside you so that is washes the colon. After that you go to toilet to force the water and the cleansed waste out of your body.
You can repeat this practice a maximum of three times in a row.

Benefits of Jala Basti

Our colon is a very important part of our body. It is important for keeping balance and harmony in between other organs. An unhealthy colon has a lot of bad effects on your complete body.


Digestive problems, bad mouth odor, irritable bowel syndrome, dryness of skin, obesity, heart problems and even depression are only a few of those problems caused by toxins stuck in the colon.

Those toxins and the problems of digestion cause difficulties with blood purification and kidney and pancreas may not fully function. This obviously leads to a weakening of the immune system and to mental problems such as stress, bad mood, insomnia, lack of sexual interest and more.


Even your joints can be affected and arthritis pain can be relieved by cleansing the waste from the colon.


The inner state of your colon also has an effect on your outer appearance. If your colon is not clean, you can easily gain weight and will have difficulty to lose it even with hard workout.

Additionally the problems with your skin can make you look older than you are.


Doing Jala Basti gives you a light and clean feeling which can change your mood and way of thinking, makes you more positive and gives you more strength, power and enthusiasm. This enthusiasm also affects your sexual energy, you feel you have more sex appeal and are overall more confident.

Additional Notice for the Practice of Jala Basti

Jala Basti and enema are not a substitute for natural bowel movement. You should not depend on Jala Basti alone to cleanse your colon. If you have difficulty getting rid of waste often, please contact a doctor.


A healthy person is recommended to have enema twice a month.


Beginners should learn this practice under guidance of an experienced yoga teacher, Ayurvedic practitioner or medical doctor.

Relax after the practice of Jala Basti and take care to eat light and easily digestible food.

Tips and Help

If you use a pipe or any other tool, you may want to apply ghee or oil to your anus before starting the practice.


One main advice in order to succeed with Jala Basti is to be relaxed. You should not have any apprehension and should be aware that what you are doing is good for your body.


If you have difficulties performing Nauli after sucking water into your colon, you can also lie on the floor, roll over from left to right and right to left.

If you are not able to make Uddiyana Bandha and suck water in yourself, you can have an Ayurvedic Basti done or ask a doctor about a medicated enema.

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Dirgha Pranayama – Full Yogic Breath

Names

Dirgha Pranayama, Dirga Pranayama, Full Yogic Breath, Deep Breathing

How to perform Dirgha Pranayama

You can practice the full yogic breathing in any position that you are in. In fact, you should make an effort to make this way of breathing your usual and constant breathing.

The more often you breathe deeply like this, the better it is for you and your system.

Inhale deeply and fill first your belly, then your lungs with air and finally until the top of your chest, so that your shoulders are widened and lifted up.


Exhale in the same way, from the top down to the lungs and in the end from the belly.

Benefits of Dirgha Pranayama

It is scientifically proved that people who breathe more deeply are less prone to stress-related diseases and illnesses such as the burnout syndrome, hysteria and even stress-caused headaches and migraine.


Deeper breathing simply means that you inhale more oxygen than in your usual, flat breathing. You give your lungs room to expand and do their work properly. They distribute energy through the blood in your whole body. The more oxygen you get at once, the more energy you will feel.


This deep breathing makes you calmer, slows down your heart beat and thus prevents you from hyperactivity. You don’t take stress as easily anymore and even in situations of shock you are able to reduce any harming effect by taking a few deep breaths.


Of course it is a natural help for anybody who has problems with asthma and his breathing channels.


There are so many benefits to breathing deeply that you might as well simply try it out and see for yourself what it does to you!