Seeking pranayama advice

[vaibhav]

Hello All,
I am new to this forum and I am looking for tips from you all.

I am 30 yrs old and I have been diagnosed with mild inflammation to my stomach and esophagus and I want to practice the most beneficial types of pranayam that would help improve my condition.

Currently I am doing breath of fire ( 15 mins) and bahya pranayam (10 mins) and it does seem to help a bit.
I do am following a vegeterain diet to go with the pranayama.
Please help me with suggestions.

Thanks
Vaibhav

[InnerAthlete]

Could you expound on your diagnosis a bit please?
Generally speaking I would not pursue a yang pranayama for a condition that seems to beg for a yin response. So for my students I would not suggest breath of fire.

[vaibhav]

Dear InnerAthlete,
Thanks for the response.
I have been feeling on and off lack of appetite and stiffness in the abdominal area for almost 10 years.
The doctor recently did an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy to rule out crohn's disease. We did tests to see if I had celiac disease and after all this investigation the diagnosis is that I have mild inflammation of stomach and eusophagus. No celiac or crohn's disease. That is good

I started doing Kapalbhati and Anulom vilom after watching baba ramdev's videos and it made me feel a bit better.
Then I decided to try breath of fire after watching an online video. The breath of fire would seem to immidiately help me gain appetite. And so I started focusing on doing only Breath of fire mainly and stopped doing kapalbhati and anulom vilom.
But if I do it ( breath of fire)for more than 15 mins I get some burning sensation in chest area.

Thanks again,
Vaibhav

[Jim Colyer]

I think that lying on your back and deep breathing for a while is enough emphasis on the "breath."

[Pandara]

Namaste Vaibhav,

The one sided aspect of just doing pranayama and the effects of it has been discussed at length in a previous post, I copy the link for you here and think it might help you as well, as there was many valid points mentioned i that post.


http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f16...iety-3494.html

Hope this also helps you in gaining understanding of your condition.

Now to answer your questions: My own teacher has always warned us against doing unguided and immature pranayama when one suffers from any problems relating to the stomach as well as colon and recommended expert guidance in such cases. If pranayama is prematurely applied without proper pruification through asana and other yoga practices, you might just exacerbate your condition. You might experience short moments of getting better, but because your approach lacks the support and integrity of other related yoga practices, this will be short lived and a host of other problems will start to show themselves.

Please also note that pranayama doesn't just works on the physical body, but also on the five other doshas as well as on the ida, pingala ansd shushumna nadis. For example, the Breath of fire, which creates heat in the body, counteracts imbalances in vata dosha or the wind element. I think you can already gather that pranayama is not just simple breathing exercises, but something you need proper guidance, especially if you have some medical conditions you want to treat with it. I would recommend that you seek the help and advice of a yoga therapist in your region.

Good luck and I trust this will help you in making future choices.