gasp in, breathe out

kim on 4:05 pm July 28th, 2009 / Be the first to comment! »

One of my graduating TTs is writing a paper on asthma, yoga, and medicine. We just had a very interesting talk about how to reconcile the medical approach to asthma, and the yogic approach to breathing.

My perspective is that while there are other factors — genetics, environmental pollutants and allergies, immune system — one of the main things that causes asthma is stress. This is the same for most if not all other diseases.

The purpose of yoga is to still the mind, which can only happen after layers of stress have been recognized, dealt with, and released by the practitioner. This is not a simple, linear, or even one-time process. It involved a lifetime of observation, and finding and trusting qualified teachers to help you shake the stress out of you.

Once you know how to shake it off, you always know how to shake it off. That’s how embodied knowledge works.

Pertaining to asthma, yogic breathing (pranayama) is a remarkabe way to take stress out of the body. As stress leaves, the nervous system approaches what it knows to be equilibrium, and breath panic calms down. I believe that all asthmatic patients should explore pranayama with a qualified practitioner, at least in conjunction with their medication if not in replacement of it. This is a good book advocating the same thing.