How to Use a Neti Pot

Photo credit: Ikuah.fotografias:flickr.com

Are you curious about how to use a neti pot? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Although I’m a new neti pot user, I can vouch for its safety and cleansing benefits, and now that I’ve tried it I’ll never go back to my old ways. Taking its roots from a very old cleansing technique embraced in India, Jala Neti is the sanskrit word for “water cleansing.”

What are the benefits from using a neti pot? Well, for one, you can use it as part of your nasal hygiene ritual, just like brushing your teeth. Using a neti pot can also help you to recover after  nose surgery, and relieve nasal congestion, infection or irritation. Irrigating your nose with a neti pot can also help relieve cold and allergy symptoms, as well as post nasal drip and a dry nose.

A neti pot treatment will flush out your nasal passages using gently salted — or saline — water that streams naturally in and out of your nostrils, ridding your nose of mucus, allergens and other irritants.

How do I use a neti pot? First, you need to buy one. There are many types on the market today, including stainless steel or ceramic. Below is a stainless steel neti pot available for purchase from HealthandYoga.com for a very affordable price.

Next, get yourself a natural salt, such as sea salt without added iodine. Some neti pot kits will include a spoon in which to measure your salt accurately, and some even come with salt packets. How much salt you use will be up to you. Next, fill your neti pot with warm water. You can test the temperature of the water by pouring a couple of drops on the inside of your wrist.

Stand in front of your sink or a special bowl that you’ll use just this purpose. Bend over and breathe naturally through your mouth. Be sure that no air enters your nose. Place the cone of the neti pot into the right nostril and make sure that no water can escape. Gently bend your head forward and roll it to the left side. Your forehead and chin should be at about the same level.

Start by pouring a half pot of water into the right nostril, saving the other half for the left nostril. Keep experimenting with the angle of your head so that you can feel the water coming out the opposite nostril smoothly and effortlessly. Then, tilt your head up a bit toward center and remove the neti pot. Gently blow your nose. Repeat the process in the left nostril, tilting your head this time to the right. Bring your head back to center and blow your nose gently, letting all water flow out naturally.

Want to learn more about how to use a neti pot? Purchase a kit with instruction DVD included. Click below for your own personal neti pot kit!

Keeping Gratitude in Thanksgiving

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon:flickr.com

Now that the holidays are upon us, this is the opportune time to give thanks and feel deep gratitude for everything we have. The yoga studio I go to regularly is holding a two-hour gratitude practice on Thanksgiving morning which I would love to indulge in, but instead I’m going to stay home with my husband and cook our traditional big breakfast together. I’m so thankful for my husband and our marriage, and staying home with him is a choice I’m making. So many people are stuck in bad or even abusive marriages, but I’m so grateful for the husband I have — big, strong, loving, caring, and supportive, and he gives great hugs. We don’t have children, nor do we have family near us, but that’s okay. We spend the holidays alone, and we don’t get invited to anyone’s home for dinner, but we are still grateful because we have a warm home, healthful food, loving pets, a big, warm bed, jobs to pay the bills and then some, two cars in the garage (even if one is a clunker) a phone to hear the voices of faraway loved ones, and a mortgage that we can pay every month.

There are so many people who simply don’t stop to be grateful for what they have. Instead, they focus on what they don’t have, and complain about all the little inconveniences that make life oh, so intolerable. Stop to think for a moment about all the homeless and hungry people out there. They’ve lost their jobs and their homes have been foreclosed on. They stand in line at the shelters with their little children in tow, and cry tears of joy if they can get a bed to sleep in. They eat at soup kitchens and savor the hot food they can get, even if it’s only once a day. They give thanks for whatever comfort they can get.

Let’s give thanks for the roof over our heads, the bed we sleep in, the food in our pantry, the televisions in our living rooms, the money in our checking accounts, the jobs we go to every day even if we don’t like them, and the love of family, friends, and pets. Be thankful for your health and the joy we get from our yoga practice. Envision for a moment what it would be like to be a homeless person, and just be grateful and give thanks that you’re not in their shoes, because if you think some things in life are inconvenient, think of how they have to live.

Namaste, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Taking Time to Relax

By: Lester Best

Photo Credit: Oddstock:Flickr.com

Stress is the curse of living in modern times. Everyone suffers from stress. And the stress we suffer takes a heavy toll on our bodies, emotions and minds.

Feeling stressed out, worn out by fatigue or just simply having a miserable day, the best thing to do is relax.

Watching television may be a form of relaxation for some, but is not a recommended method by experts. When we watch TV we are bombarded with commercials, ads, sounds and images. So how do we achieve relaxation? If there are thousands of ways we can get stressed, one of them is not meeting deadlines, there are also many ways we can relax.

In recent studies, experts have determined that heart disease is linked to anger and irritability is linked to mental stress. Too much stress brings about ischemia that can lead to or cause a heart attack. Relaxation takes on added importance in light of this matter. Managing your anger and attitude is significant to heart health, and relaxation can help you manage stress.

One way of relaxation is transcendental meditation. Recent studies have also shown that this method might reduce artery blockage, which is a major cause for heart attack and stroke. People practice transcendental meditation by repeating uttering soothing sounds while meditating, this is to achieve total relaxation. The researchers found that practitioners of transcendental meditation significantly reduced the thickness of their arterial wall compared with those who didn’t practice transcendental meditation.

Another study on another method of relaxation, acupuncture, seems to reduce high blood pressure by initiating several body functions for the brain to release chemical compounds known as endorphins. Endorphin helps to relax muscles, ease panic, decrease pain, and reduce anxiety.

Yoga is also another method for relaxation and may also have similar effects like acupuncture. In another study, participants were subjected to several minutes of mental stress. Then they were subjected to various relaxation techniques, such as listening to nature sounds or classical music. Only those who did Yoga significantly reduced the time it took for their blood pressures to go back to normal. Yoga is a form of progressive relaxation.

Breathing is one of the easiest methods to relax. Breathing influences almost all aspects of us, it affects our mind, our moods and our body. Simply focus on your breathing, after some time you can feel its effects right away.

There are several breathing techniques that can help you reduce stress.

Another easy way to achieve relaxation is exercise. If you feel irritated a simple half-hour of exercise will often settle things down. Although exercise is a great way to lose weight, it does not show you how to manage stress appropriately. Exercise should also be used in conjunction with other exercise method.

One great way of relaxation is getting a massage. To gain full relaxation, you need to totally surrender to the handling and touch of a professional therapist.

There are several types of massages that also give different levels of relaxation.

Another method of relaxation is Biofeedback. The usual biofeedback-training program includes a 10-hour sessions that is often spaced one week apart.

Hypnosis is one controversial relaxation technique. It is a good alternative for people who think that they have no idea what it feels like to be relaxed. It is also a good alternative for people with stress related health problems.

Drugs are extreme alternatives to relaxation. They are sometimes not safe and are not effective like the other relaxation methods. This method is only used by trained medical professionals on their patients.

These relaxation techniques are just some of the ways you can achieve relaxation. Another reason why we need to relax, aside from lowering blood pressure in people and decreasing the chances of a stroke or a heart attack, is because stress produces hormones that suppress the immune system, relaxation gives the immune system time to recover and in doing so function more efficiently.

Relaxation lowers the activities within the brains’ limbic system; this is the emotional center of our brain.

Furthermore, the brain has a periodic need for a more pronounced activity on the right-hemisphere. Relaxation is one way of achieving this.

Relaxation can really be of good use once a relaxation technique is regularly built into your lifestyle. Choose a technique that you believe you can do regularly.

Yoga for Pregnant Women

Photo credit: lululemon athletica/flickr.com

Yoga For Pregnant Women…Author: aiman