Sunday 18 September 2011

Admissions... and Neti Cleansing

Hi

I have something to tell you... It's no big thing, but something I need to tell you all the same. I'm a fraud! I've been thinking a lot lately about what direction I want my blog to take, having so far written a few posts about a few things, some that have hopefully made you laugh but some that have just been there to fill internet space. I've come to the conclusion (with Charlie's help) that I want this blog to be a yoga blog about my yoga journey, that I hope you will want to follow. 

At the moment, I have a stinking post-Bestival cold (of which I must write about next! The festival, not the cold...) so I decided what better place to start than Yoga for Colds! I researched and I found a lot of yogic advice and so I started writing a post about how yoga can help reduce the severity of a cold and how it can reduce recovery time. I had a few paragraphs going, with a couple of headings, in bold! But something about it didn't feel very honest. I wasn't writing from my fairly minimal experience, I was writing what I was being being told, and something about that made me stop, delete and start again. 

It's much better to write about your own experiences, it gives a more heartfelt and honest view of what you're going through. So before writing this post, I went into my bedroom, picked up my neti pot and went and cleansed my nasal passages like they have never been cleansed before!! So this, my dear friends, is how I think I'm going to blog about yoga. I'm going to practice a yogic... err, practice, for a week at a time and I'm then going to tell you all about it in all it's gory detail!

So here is what happened with my neti cleansing...

Me, my little neti pot and a box of Kleenex went into my small bathroom to begin (and end) this practice. Usually the recommendation is for you to use non-iodized salt, of which I have none at the moment, so I opted for plain, warm water. I filled the pot then leaned (leaned or leant?) over the bath, placed the spout in my right nostril, tilted my head to the left and poured. Out of my left nostril came a small stream of now warm and slightly snotty water. Remember, I have a cold at the moment. 

I haven't practiced neti cleansing for quite a while so I had forgotten what it feels like to do it. Feeling the water at the back of your throat is quite bizarre! I wanted to cough it out but the idea is to keep your chops closed while pouring the water through your nostrils so that it doesn't come out of your mouth. Now, rightly or wrongly, and I hope this doesn't gross you out too much, but I usually take the spout out of my nostril and then openly blow out of my nose into the bath to expel any mucus that may have built up in there, which will now be released by the water. Then I gently blew my nose a few times and then refilled the pot and repeated the same thing but on the other side, so that is in my left nostril. This one seemed to be a bit stuffier than the right nostril but the cleansing definitely cleared the airways and made a marked improvement for me. I repeated the open nose blowing into the bath and then used the Kleenex again for any that was still in my nose.

I have to say I have already felt an improvement, I don't feel as stuffy or 'yucky' as I did before.

I'm going to continue this for the next week and will hopefully remember to blog the outcome... I'm not going to post a photo of my nasal mucus, I just mean I'm going to write down the practice, any differences I see, and many other things that I can't think of right now.

I hope you're enjoying my blog peoples, if there's anything you want me to write about or research and blog then just put it in the comments. Yoga related obviously!! Unless you want me to research cake, I can totally do that :)

In other news not at ALL related to yoga, I think you should immediately go out and buy Yes Man by Danny Wallace. And read it too. One of the funniest books I have possibly read in my entire life. Filled with laugh out loud moments and a lot of wisdom.

Ok, that's all for now, hope you've had a great weekend and I'll blog you tomorrow :)

Namaste xxx

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