Let’s defend ourselves against pollution even by learning to wash our nose
When I teach my pupils how to recover a better breathing, the first thing I recommend them is always to use the nose both for breathing in and out. Mouth, I say and joke, is made for eating (only in exceptional situations I accept to use it for breathing) while nose is the more opportune mean for breathing: thank to many hair there are inside it, nose gives to the breathing apparatus filtered and purified air, defending us from viral “intrusions”.
The slower and tortuous way of air into nostrils, besides, makes air pre-heated and helps to avoid cooling diseases. Nose has a fundamental importance, that’s why I advice to care about it, and always keep it clean. The air pollution we live in, has today reached high levels that we cannot tolerate anymore and, often, impurities that go and stop into our nostrils avoid air to freely pass through.
This is why, with this article, I want to show you an ancient but very easy practice, called Jala-neti or “nostrils cleaning” with water and salt. In the Gheranda-samhita, an Indian text of XVII/XVIII century, that is together with the Hathayoga-pradipika and Siva-samhita one of the most important Hatha-yoga texts, we read about a practice called sit-krama that consisted in aspiring water from mouth and throwing it out through the nose to obtain the cleaning of nostrils and its consequent benefits.
I advice this complete practice to the pupils who have more experience, while I advice the Jala-neti to everyone: it consists in using an instrument with a nozzle as a teacup, called Lota. Inside the Lota, after putting in it warm water, melt half a spoon of salt. On the contrary of what the reader thinks, it’s just the salt that (it also has an antibacterial function) avoid that water, passing through our nostrils, could provoke an annoying burning sensation.
To do it right, bend your back forward until it is parallel to the ground, bend your head on the side, open your mouth so that water don’t go into your throat, insert the nozzle into your nostril and wait that, according with the communicating vessels, water will go out through the other nostril. Do the same with the other nostril and be careful, especially in wintertime, because some drop of water tends to stop into the nasal cavity, to blow your nose very well when you have finished. Beside the cleaning, you obtain different benefits: to prevent the diseases of nostrils as cold, rhinitis, etc., to take off the excessive mucus, to stimulate the head nerves and the nose functions; even eyes and ears, that are linked to the nose, take benefits from it.
by Amadio Bianchi