Hello everyone,
I have a few yoga related questions for you and that?s the first time I post a thread. Thank to the help that may come!!!
The subject is mostly about breathing. To help you to understand the breathing problems that I suffer which will be describe later, I will give you an enumeration of the elements I feel could be important for you to know. Notice that those elements could be related together or not and they may not all be pertinent. I hope people with experience will help me to clarify this.
First I am 34 years old and I suffer effort related asthma since I am young. We discovered that maybe at 5 or 6 years old. That mean when I do cardio exercises, I don?t feel my breathing capacity increasing at all. This was always the case throughout my life. At about 1 year old, I had a very big peanut butter allergic reaction. According to my parents, my face went bigger and my lips much more. Hopefully it got back to normal after medical care, but it was a bit long before we could reach the doctor place ? I may have stayed a long time in this crisis state.
I suffer my biggest asthma crisis at 12, did some sporadic yoga for the last 9 years, but more regularly for the last six month. I have not the best neither the worst diet, but slowly tend to a vegetarian one. Last year a specialist told me that my nasal canals were very narrow, but should breath by the mouth instead if I needed to ? Pranayama is very hard for me to do, especially alternate nostril breathing. Before using methylene blue as an antiseptic when my throat start to itch, I had at least 3 big colds a year with fever, now it?s more like only one, and no fever. I often feel tiredness. The symptoms always first start in my eye, it?s like a part of me is ready to sleep, but not the rest. This can happen at any time during the day. My last complete blood test was nearly perfect.
From two events, I will try to put a scale on my breathing capacity in order to have a good feeling of the benefit I get from different ?? breathing events ?? in my life. The first one will be the biggest asthma crisis I suffered at the age of 12. It was a December 24 and after sleeping the night on the carpet floor I woke up in crisis. I felt that air could get into my lungs just about a breath out of 5 and it was easier if I was yawning to do so. This is the bottom of the scale. Which means I can still live, but not much more? The other event is something else. It was 5 years ago when I woke up at 5 AM, still a bit tired, but not enough to sleep again. I decided to do a classic 90 minutes yoga class. In the final relaxation, I can?t tell if I was sleeping or something else, but when I came back to a conscientious state, I was at the end of a deep inhalation and naturally followed a deep exhalation. [COLOR=black]This was by a way the deepest, natural, effortless, satisfying breath I ever [/COLOR]experienced!!!
Is that the natural way my body should breathe all the time or just a freak peak out of reach for everyone??? Is anybody always breathing like this in the world??? As breathing is the most important thing to do, I think it well worth the time to get the max of it!!!
I always saw asthma as a difficulty to inhale, but I?m wondering if it could not be the inverse, the difficulty of exhale and therefore a difficulty to release the Co2 in a normal time. This could turn into a vicious circle. Trying to inhale more, but can not release more? Too much Co2 = tiredness??? Anyone had ever heard of something like this??? Or anyone understand the deep details of the mechanics behind asthma??? Can my asthma and my peanut allergic reaction at 1 year be related???
From those two extremes, I would rate my normal breath as 40 % of these, and when I do cardio, I would say 20 %. Since the last week, I practice twice a day the Neti nasal cleaning. I was not hopping that much from this technique, but felt easy and secure to try. Surprisingly I find out it always increase my breathing capacity at about 50 % or 55 % of the best breathe I experienced. Incredible!!!
Now with the Neti technique, I feel much more comfortable to breath by my nostrils than my mouth. By breathing with my mouth, I fell some itching in my throat. With the result from the Neti cleaning, I am wondering which of the others kriyas must make my throat fell as comfortable as my nasal cavities??? Is there others easy and safe kriyas that I can do for the throat???
For those who are still reading thank you for reading this (I know it?s a bit long) and the help if you feel to have some answers or comments ?
Stef
