The Daily Bandha: Stretching, Growing Older and Your Down Dog

The Daily Bandha: Stretching, Growing Older and Your Down Dog



It seems many folks talk the yoga talk and yoga on the web abounds! I love the web for sharing and the mat for yoga! Generally I preach Do Your Practice and as BKSI used to say "my body is my laboratory". Doing yoga is one of the best ways, IMO, to learn and to understand yoga.



However, this blog is WORTH a mat break... Check it out.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE NO PROBLEM

HOUSTON, WE HAVE NO PROBLEM

I  write this blog post on March 4, 2015. This is THE day, Houstonians; the first day that you see pollen on your cars, walkways, et cetera. The conditions became perfect at noon: lack of moisture for a moment, the right wind applied and the trees all excitingly fecund. The magical dusting of yellow pollen has occurred.

For many of you, instead of enjoying the lovely budding scenery, trees full of sprouts and flora, you will panic. Your eyes will become puffy and red, your throat will start to close and your head will come close to exploding.

PREEMPT that. You can do it easily, trust your yoga mama on this, it is avoidable with very little effort. Uhuh. 

There’s a little brown bottle filled with magic

A few drops under your tongue, 2-3 times a day, used at the FIRST sign of pollen and NOT much after that, is miraculous. Once you are buried in the pollen, it won’t be very effective. In other words, you have a few days window of opportunity. Find it here or here. If you do not reside here, they make one for your area, New Mexico, Colorado, et al, have their own local formula. Keep on using it daily until you no longer see and are sweeping that yellow powder.

It works much like a vaccine, by introducing minuscule amounts of the same stuff that makes you ill, and allowing your body to do what the body does, which is deal with it. Some of you use local honey for this very reason and when your local honey is actually local, that works toward building immunity, though in my opinion, for Springtime allergy sufferers, this is the Mack Daddy. If you do only this, with the parameters I have lined out in mind, it’s going to work. Forget your allergy shots and over the counter remedies that either make you manic or turn you into a zombie. Uhuh.

In a perfect world, I would also have you performing nasal lavage (see neti pot blog post) and keeping your eyes rinsed out, too. Keep it simple here. Make an eye wash solution with Boric Acid from your local drug store:

Use distilled or boiled water. Mix one eighth of teaspoon of boric acid powder and one cup of water. This is a good solution to use. If you do not have a collection of antique eye cups, a clean shot glass will suffice nicely. Use the solution warm and it will feel marvelous. Be sure to test the temperature with a sterilized finger before rinsing your eyes. If you wear contacts, wait 10-15 minutes before putting them back into your eyes.

The gist according to AyurVeda (here's a lovely introduction to this time-tested health system,) is that for most of us, allergies are cumulative. You may dodge the effects for years and never suffer until one day, wham, you reach critical mass and you're down. After living in this area, allergy free, for years, I began losing my voice every year like clockwork. I made potions that I sipped all day that kept me vertical but still was affected annually until I began using this homeopathic remedy. 

Another factor causing us to experience these symptoms, is that we are so far removed from the sources of our food, thus, we haven't acquired the immunity or put simply, we've lost the ability for the body to do what the body does, keep us health, happy and safe from imbalance. Granted, there are other environmental factors at play, this is but one layer of the onion.

So. There you have it. Go forth and frolic again. Sigh no more, sniff no more except to draw in the intoxicating scents around you!