By Duncan Hulin
With ongoing health challenges across society becoming more important than ever, Duncan Hulin explains what we can do for ourselves to strengthen our general immunity. Understanding and seeing the interconnectedness of everything is the basis for holistic yoga practices.
When we look after the part, we also look after the whole and vice versa. Therefore, simple holistic lifestyle practices can collectively make a positive difference to increase our immunity and our overall general health and wellbeing. Stagnation in the bodies tissue fluids is the primary weakness that allows disease to get a foothold. Thus, the vital need for exercise and movement, stretching, posture work and deep breathing to enable efficient flushing of the tissues is needed. Further more, the whole immune system is made up of different organs and our body’s defence depends on these different organs. To strengthen our immune system, we need to look after these organs to increase our body’s ability to fight infection
Our first line of defence is the skin (the largest organ of the body!). The skin provides both a physical and chemical barrier to pathogens. For the skins healthy functioning, it requires good circulation.
Some simple holistic yoga care practices for the skin include:
– Daily shower
– Self-massage techniques
– Body brushing
– Exposing skin to fresh air and light
The body’s second area of defences are the nose, sinuses, throat and lungs. As entrances to the body, they have a thin mucous membrane which protects the body from airborne bacteria, viruses, fungi and other harmful substances like foreign particles and organisms that we breathe in. It’s not easy to keep everything out as the mucous membrane is thin. If this membrane gets swollen or is weak, nasties get through the barrier and the body reacts with an immune response because it feels it is being attacked.
Holistic yoga for the nose, sinuses, throat and lungs include:
KRIYAS
– Kapalabhati
– Brahma Mudra
– Neti
PRANAYAMAS
– Bhastrika
– Simhasana
Our third line of defence and more internal is the lyphatic system which is made up of vessels which run throughout the whole body just like the blood. They drain excess flued from around all the body’s cells and returns this to the blood. This system cleans and removes harmful bacteria and viruses. This is done in the lymph nodes (sometimes classed glands) which are concentrated in places like our neck, armpits and groin, in the spleen (which filters the blood) and the tonsils and thymus gland. These all contain white blood cells, that are like the “special forces” of the body, which help to destroy bacteria and viruses. It’s the white T cells which hang out and destroy unwatned pathogens with white B cells ready to respond with an arsenal of antibodies.
Holistic yoga for the lymph includes:
SURYANAMASKAR and/or ANY DYNAMIC PRACTICES
– Inversions
– Specific self-massage techniques
– Walking
