Cold Remedies From Your Kitchen Cabinet

During the winter season many of us are either experiencing, fearing or recovering from the common cold. While there is no cure, there are many remedies to maintain health or speed up recovery.

The suggestions bellow are not meant to be taken simultaneously. Pick two or three  to try at a time.

Simple Kitchen Herbs

During a Cold or For Winter Health Maintenance:

• Boil a pot of water with ginger, cinnamon, freshly squeezed lemon juice, a pinch of chili flakes or cayenne, and honey. Keep refilling your cup and enjoy several times a day until you feel well.
• Other ginger and cinnamon tea options could consist of lemongrass or a pinch of cardamom.
• Tulsi (holy basil) can be purchased in tea bags and is a great winter tea to prevent and recover from a cold or flu.
• Garlic: chop a clove of garlic into small pieces and swallow like a pill with water. Garlic helps fight bacterial and viral infections. You can do this every morning and will not experience garlic breath.

Cold Remedies:

• Half a teaspoon of fennel seed mixed with one teaspoon of honey can be taken 2-3 times a day.
• In a jar mix honey with chopped onion and garlic. You can also add chili flakes, black pepper or a pinch of cayenne to the mix. Let sit for a couple of hours until the honey has liquefied.  This concoction is highly effective as an antibacterial and for breaking up accumulated mucus.Take 2-3 tablespoons of the liquid solution daily.
• For colds with a cough and congestion: Mix half a teaspoon of cinnamon with one teaspoon of honey. Take 2-3 times a day.
• For a cough with mucus or sinus congestion: Mix a quarter of a teaspoon of black pepper with one teaspoon of honey. Take after a meal.
• For a dry cough: Mix half a teaspoon of ginger with one teaspoon of ghee.
• For a sore throat: Mix one teaspoon of whole cloves, half a teaspoon of celery seeds, half a teaspoon turmeric, quarter teaspoon of ginger powder, one teaspoon ghee, and half teaspoon of honey. Take half a teaspoon of this mixture several times a day.
• For sore throat: Chew on one whole clove followed by the black inner seeds of a cardamom pod. Spit out the remainder of each when done chewing.
• For sore throat: Mix half teaspoon of turmeric and a teaspoon of salt in one cup of hot water. Gargle it in the morning and evening or up to five times a day.
• For Nighttime coughing: Take two teaspoons of honey at bed time to reduce nighttime coughing. Honey is also known for soothing a sore throat when taken with warm water and lemon.

Morning or Evening Routines For Winter Health

• Neti Pot:
The regular use of a neti pot can be more effective than many over-the-counter medications for cold or allergy related nasal and sinus congestion. First fill the neti pot with warm salt water. Tilt your head over a sink and place the spout of the neti pot in the upper nostril. Allow the water to flow through your nasal cavity, coming out the lower nostril. This will flush out excess mucus. Blow your nose (preferably not squeezing the nostrils shut) and repeat on the other side.
Ceramic neti pots are available at most pharmacies and health product stores. Costing about $15, they can last a lifetime.

• Sesame Oil Rub:
Using sesame oil (preferably cold-pressed and organic), warm the oil and apply topically all over the body. Daily self-massage (called abhyanga in Ayurveda) will hydrate dry skin, move lymph, enhance circulation and boost immunity. The hydration of the skin will also prevent the lips from cracking.
When applying, use circular motions around joints and long strokes up and down on limbs. When oiling the belly, it is recommended to rub up the right side and down the left to flow with the direction of the digestive tract.
A daily routine of self-massage will calm the mind and grounding the mind, and sooth the nervous system. These are the qualities that keep us in balance during the winter months.

Heal Your Cold Through Diet

• Winter appropriate diet: click here to learn more about a diet geared towards winter health.
• Mom’s infamous chicken soup: For generations people have been using this remedy during a cold for its anti-inflammatory and anti-congestive benefits.
• Hydration! Room temperature or warmer water, clear broth, or water with lemon are vital for cold prevention and recovery. Drinking hot water several times a day is effective in removing toxins and recovering from a cold.
• Avoid drinking sodas and coffee when sick. Not only are they dehydrating but their stimulating effect on the nervous system robs the body of its healing capabilities.
• If congested with mucus, avoid dairy products.

Rest And Exercise When Sick

Mild to moderate exercise can be helpful in relieving a cold if you are not running a fever and all your symptoms are upper respiratory (runny nose, nasal congestion, sore throat). If symptoms are felt below the neck (chest congestion, hacking cough, upset stomach, widespread muscle ache), it is best to postpone exercising. Keep your exercise gentle. Vigorous practices can move the cold to the chest. Inversions such as shoulder-stand or headstand as well as forward bends can help prevent postnasal drip and drain mucus through the nose.

Breathing Exercises For Winter Balance

• “Breath of fire”: Kapālabhāti Pranayama
This is a vigorous breathing technique, stop before the muscles and lungs become fatigued.
Gently exhale all of the air from the lungs then inhale a little. Exhale rapidly like a gentle sneeze making a sound with the mouth closed. Then inhale rapidly and begin to exhale and inhale in quick rhythm. Use the diaphragm to create the force required for quick inhalation and exhalation. Adding a little more force to the exhalation, the inhale will be quick and automatic.
Start with 8- 12 rounds of inhalations and exhalations. Gradually build up the number of Kapālabhāti breaths taken each time. Stop if the chest fatigues.
This breath burns the cold.

• Alternate Nostril Breathing: NādīŚodhana
Alternate nostril breathing will balance the nervous system and relieve congestion. The term NādīŚodhana refers to cleansing the Nādīs (energy lines that carry prana, vital energy and life force) and nerves.
Perform NādīŚodhana by Inhaling through one nostril and exhaling through the opposite nostril . Then inhaling through the same nostril that was used in exhalation and switching nostrils after each inhalation.
Bend one arm and pinch the nose with the thumb and a finger of your choice. Breathe in through the right nostril. Exhale through the left nostril. Inhale through the left nostril. Exhale through the right nostril. Keep this flow going, trying to pause at the top of each inhalation, effortlessly retaining the breath, before naturally exhaling.

Yoga Sutras 1&2: Bringing the Mind to Rest

Now The Discipline of Yoga

Yoga is The Cessation of Mind

Patanjali’s first and second yoga sutras have been a great reminder, a mantra, to center and ease my recent experiences of a tumultuous mind.

I am fascinated by how much more the body can be affected by the stories of the mind than actual life experiences. Circumstantial events, such as my car accident this past summer, are not the worst upsets to the body. As people we are extremely adaptable in times of crisis. Although life’s events can be destabilizing, it’s the mental worrying about our imagined future or perspective on past that truly causes internal damage.

Yoga postures are not really concerned with the body, they are concerned with the capacity to be. It is only in the Now that we can understand the science of yoga, the scientific laws of being. Yoga is an experience, not an idea or belief. Such an experience can only be accessed in Now.

Discipline means the capacity to know and learn. But we cannot know unless we have first attained the capacity to ‘Be.’

Osho describes us as a crowded house of people filled with our various personas. As we currently are, there are many people in our house but we are not there. A disciple is a seeker, learning to feel his/her being, to be the master of self rather than a slave to the crowding desires. To Be is to learn to be alone in your home in silence.

Yoga is the state of no-mind. The mind includes anything thought related: All ego, desires, hopes, fears, preconceptions, philosophies, or beliefs.

I often confuse the mind with something substantial that exists within my body. I can physically feel the effects of its turmoil. The second Sutra reminds me that the mind is just a function. The mind is an activity just as talking is. If we stop talking, talking stops existing. When we stop ‘minding’, minding stops existing. The problem is we’ve forgotten how to stop. We have lost the capacity to Be in Now.

These two Sutras serve me as a reminder to recognize the turmoil of the mind and to simply remember that this “minding” can be put to rest.

It doesn’t matter how many times the mind wonders off or for how long. What matters is the moment we realize the wondering of mind and bring our attention back to the experience of now, feeling the breath. To recognize the wondering of the mind and to attempt to shift back to present is the ultimate act of compassion for our process and ourselves.

Yoga In 'Limited' Motion

A week after a car accident, still limited in movement, my stretching routine currently consists of laying flat on the floor with my feet on a chair. As I lay flat, the muscles of my ribs are elongated and consequently begin to spasm. I stay in the position, breathing deeply until the spasms subside. Each small movement in the direction of stretching my arms over my head invites more tension. Laying on my back, waiting for a few breaths until the muscles relax and then moving a little further in to the stretch; this is my current yoga practice. 

Whether stretching in my current range of motion or going deep into a pose when I’m not injured, the benefits of the practice remain the same. Taking the body to its edge, learning to stay and breathe into discomfort, allowing the discomfort to consequently subside, and going deeper into a new range of possibility. 

I am often told by others “I’m not flexible enough for yoga.” Spending half an hour working to comfortably stretch my hand over my head has provided me with the same feeling of freedom that my usual vigorous practice does. To breathe into limitation, to work with whats currently there and to move forward from a place of ease. Yoga is not a pose, its a feeling, and it is accessible to all. 

The Yoga of Car Accidents

The ‘attack’ of the shopping bag occurred while driving on the highway with open windows. The wind carried a bag that flew into my face, blocked my vision and lead me to swerve off the road. I crashed into the median and flipped the car over taking (what I think was) a couple of rolls.

Once the car went from spinning to flipping there was nothing I could do to control it. I closed my eyes, stayed clam and waited for the movement to come to an end. I felt the body release its tension as it took its last few tumbles. Once coming to a halt, I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled out through the window of my upside down vehicle.

As the airbag had never inflated, (thanks Toyota) I had hit my head badly on the steering wheel and was bleeding heavily. The medics had covered my nose and eyes with bandages and I was taken to the ER.

For the next 4 hours of care my eyes remained shut from swelling and bandages. Without the stimulation of sight, I stayed fully focused on my internal experience of thoughts, emotions and patterns of breath. Each time a thought would bring a sense of panic, I’d return to my deep rhythm of breathing and the anxiety would subside.

As I was being stitched up, I could hear a woman in the other room screaming, more from fear than pain. It is so easy for us all to get trapped in the fear if we don’t access the tools to bring us back to center.

I am so grateful for my yoga training that had enabled to release my muscles at a time of extreme tension, minimizing the impact of the crash, and has taught me ‘breath awareness’ to transform my experience to a lesson in healing rather than pain.

Enhancing Your Metabolism Through The Power of Breath

Did you know that you could control your stress levels as well as achieve your ideal weight by simply learning to breathe deeply? 

We all have stress which we need to address. What we may not have realized is that breathing is a major factor in controlling stress: it can either relieve it or create it.

When stressed, one tends to take a shallow breath using the upper chest muscles rather than the diaphragm. For many, this breathing pattern becomes habitual, even when stress is not present. By paying closer attention, we can learn to control the depth and pace of each breath, enabling us to control our reactions to the stresses of life.

A Natural Shallow Breath: 
Shallow breathing using the upper chest muscles occurs naturally when we hyperventilate. It is meant only for moments of severe stress when we need to increase the supply of oxygen to the body.

Imagine you are in the woods and are confronted by a bear. As you spot the bear you gasp. Gasping is a shallow breath into the upper part of the lungs. This gasp stimulates the lobes of the upper lungs which activate the part of your nervous system telling you there is a state of emergency. In the case of the bear, the body receives the message to RUN!

Although we now live in urban environments and bears are not the norm, our body continues to operate in a similar fashion, where a shallow breath signals the body to stay in survival mode.

A Shallow Breath’s Effect On Weight: 
When the body believes itself in danger, it looks for an immediate source of energy to fuel its escape. The carbohydrates we eat are the primary energy source in times of danger and stress because they are most easily converted into fuel by the body. As long as the body thinks there is a state of emergency it will crave emergency fuel in the form of simple carbohydrates and sugar (these include processed foods such as cookies, chips, breads, soda, etc). Unfortunately, even though carbohydrates give a quick boost of energy, it is short lived with energy levels dropping once we digest the food. We then crave another dose of sugar and carbohydrates to lift up the energy levels once more, leading to overeating, overweight, and a number of other serious ailments.  

Besides creating cravings for carbohydrates, as long as the body is in a “survival mode mentality” it will store as much fat as possible for later use. Fat has more energy stored in it and burns more slowly than carbohydrates, supplying longer lasting energy.  The body does not know how long this “state of emergency” will last so it stores as much energy as it can.

While in “survival mode”, the digestive system is weakened. The body will prioritize survival rather than digest its food, therefore it will take the energy from the digestive system and supply it to the muscles for a “fight or flight” response.

As we learn to relax and breathe deeply, our digestive system maintains the energy to assimilate foods and nutrients correctly. Difficulty burning fat as well as difficulty gaining weight can both be symptoms of a weak digestive system.

Breathing’s Effect On Weight Through Exercise:
While exercising we might find ourselves out of breath. It is important to pay attention to breathing as deeply as possible to fully oxygenate the body. If we gasp for air while running on a treadmill, the body perceives this no differently than if we are being chased by a bear. To the body, a stressful situation is a stressful situation. Similarly, if we are huffing and puffing about being stuck in traffic, the body will perceive this as a state of emergency.  

Practicing "Three Part" Breathing:

Be sure to practice breathing only through the nose both on the in and out exhalation.
 
1) Belly (diaphragm): Lying down on your back, rest your palms on your belly and begin breathing into the area underneath you palms, feeling the rise and fall of the belly with each breath.
2) Mid-chest: After several breaths move your palms up to the side ribs and breathe into the hands to expand the mid-chest. Notice that your belly just below the breastbone, after initially expanding, draws slightly in and up as your mid-chest expands. Take several breaths here before moving to the next part.
3) Upper Chest: Place your hands just beneath the collarbone. Breathe into your hands, filling up until you feel the collarbone lift. Notice that breathing into this part requires the most effort, while drawing in less volume.

Putting It Together Into A Full Breath:
Inhale: From bottom to top, breathing into each of the three parts progressively. Breathing into the lower belly, rising into the mid-chest, and from there all the way up to the collarbone.
Exhale: Relax the diaphragm first and continue from there, relaxing from your belly, to mid-chest, to upper chest. Do not strenuously “push” the air out. Calmly release each breath so that you finish the exhalation softly and relaxed, leaving the body receptive to the next breath.

Getting Down To The Core

 The ‘Core’ is defined as a center or foundation. It is not without reason that we refer to our lower abdomen as our core. When we speak of strengthening our belly muscles, we refer to it as ‘core strengthening’. Our core is our center of gravity. Martial arts, dance, yoga, archery, weight lifting or wood chopping are all preformed better when coming from the core. However our core is not limited to just our physical center. The teachings of martial arts or yoga explain that our mental, emotional and spiritual centers reside in that same core location. The practices of meditation, theater, painting, or cooking, that are not necessarily related to motion, all teach that centering around the core is an indispensable key to achieve mastery. In Eastern cultures the core is referred to as ‘the sea of Qi’ (Chi), your vital life force. Centering awareness and breathing into the abdomen is a practice that opens our perceptions. 

Most of us go through our days forgetting our core. We rush around breathing shallowly into our upper chest. No longer using the muscles around the diaphragm at their fullest potential, we grow stiff and harden through the mid section of our chest, bellow the breast. This muscular congestion develops into a chronic block of breath flow, life force, through our bodies.

With the breath stuck in the upper chest, we continuously trigger our nervous system into fight or flight response. A shallow breath is like a continuous gasping; it is designed to stimulate our nervous system into a state of emergency. This is our body’s natural way of receiving quick spurts of oxygen in times of danger; in case we need to run or fight a predator. If we get caught in this survival mode type breathing, we may experience symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, chronic fatigue or any other stress related disorder. 

On an energetic level, we have blocked access to our intuition that resides in our gut (our gut feeling.) We rely solely on the brain to figure things out, keeping all our energy up in the chest and head and therefor creating tension in the neck and shoulders.

Meanwhile the lower abdomen isn’t getting much attention. It grows stagnant. A common symptom of stagnation in the abdomen is weight gain around the midsection. Often, this is a symptom of too much cortisol, a stress hormone, rather than just caloric intake. Our digestive system is weakened due to the high level of stress that the body is experiencing and digestive disorders may occur.

Core Breathing Exercise:

Pay attention while sitting in your computer chair or driver’s seat to see if you are caving into your mid section and belly. How many hours a day do you spend folded in this manner?

1) Sit up tall and focus on breathing into the belly. Be sure not to push the breath in forcefully but rather calmly invite it in.
2) Once you grow comfortable with the flow of breath in the belly, deepen the breath so that it begins from the lower abdomen and expands upward until it fills the chest as well. As you do so, concentrate on slowing down the pace of the breath and prolong each inhale and exhale.
3) Begin to explore the feeling of breath in the back of the body. If this is difficult to do, lean back into a chair and notice the different parts of your back pressing into the chair as you inhale and exhale.

If you are having a hard time feeling one of the stages, stay there for as long as you need. You may just be practicing the first part for a few weeks. Each attempt to deepen the breath wakens the nerve endings and softens the muscle tissue. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. Make it a habit to set a timer each day and spend at least 2 minutes practicing. You can do this while sitting at your desk. Before reaching for coffee or sugar to keep you going, try these exercises when you begin to feel your energy drop.