Today we are spending large amounts of time daily in front of computer screens, cell phones, other electrical items and overall in an electrified urban environment. In the process we are exposing ourselves to powerful artificial electrical energies on many levels. This may be a necessary hazard in our information technology era. But it can have significant physical and psychological side-effects.
How do we compensate for these higher tech electrical energies that can disturb our nervous systems as well as our mind and emotions? Here Yoga and Ayurvedic Healing have much to offer. Ayurveda helps protect our bodily energies through right care of the body and appropriate daily life style, balancing our doshas of Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and improving vitality and immunity. Yoga aims to calm the mind by relaxing the body, deepening the prana, turning the senses within, and promoting meditation, silence and transcendence.
A few simple remedies below:
Proper Hydration
Make sure to take adequate water and liquids throughout the day and never allow yourself to dehydrate. This weakens our immune system and circulation. Best liquids include fruit juices of all types and coconut water but taken at room temperature with a little ginger, mint or tulsi.
Herbal teas like tulsi, sage, mint, ginger, turmeric, cloves and cardamom, particularly sipped warm regularly during the day are very helpful. Green or jasmine tea or Indian chai tea with spices are good. Nervine teas like brahmi (hydrocotyle or bacopa), particularly with a small amount of calamus (vacha) or ginger powder is very good. Regularly sipping such warm teas or even warm water helps maintain the movement of peristalsis within us.
Brahmi ghee taken in warm milk with turmeric is also good. It can aid in sleep if taken with a little nutmeg as well.
Incense and Aromas
Use incense and aroma therapy to clear and energize the air around us, including sandalwood, vetivert (khus), champak, frangipani, rose, jasmine, myrrh, loban and other aromas. Havans and Vedic fire offerings are excellent when possible, particularly Agnihotra using ghee and dried cow dung, particularly at sunrise and sunset.
Fragrances that clear the sinuses and open the lungs are helpful like eucalyptus, mint, tulsi, basil, and cinnamon, with possible steam therapy (svedana). Sandalwood is best for calming the mind and Sandalwood oil can be applied to the forehead, or even Ayurvedic medicated sesame oils (tailams) to the head.
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Pranayama
Pranayama should be performed morning and evening and periodically during the day, taking not mere coffee or tea breaks but pranayama breaks. Make sure your prana is flowing and circulating within and around you, and the breath does not become stagnant.
Use a neti pot or nasya oils to make sure your nostrils are clear and open.
Breathe starting from your belly for deeper breaths. Balance your breath between the right and left nostrils. Such alternate nostril breathing or nadi shodana is important, inhaling through the right nostril and exhaling through the left to stimulate the mind, or inhaling through the left nostril and exhaling through the right to calm the mind.
Pratyahara and Sensory Breaks
Make sure to go outside daily, particularly morning and evening for a few minuts, where you can see the sky, clouds, moon or stars and exercise your distance and depth vision and your ability to see the subtle colors of nature.
Screens are two dimensional and can flatten and depress our minds, reducing our awareness of the third dimension and causing a loss of perspective, making us think in terms of black and white or rigid dichotomies.
Screens cause superficial thinking and promote emotional reactions, not deep thinking or contemplation. Artificial light and colors also lack the variations of natural light and color, irritating the eyes and causing the mind to lose its subtle vision.
We gain prana through natural sensory impressions but lose it through artificial sensory impressions. In your house at least have plants, flowers and water basins or fountains nearby where you spend your time during the day or along with a meditation room.
Walking, Hiking and Yoga Asanas
Walking and hiking are very helpful for our entire body and mind, particularly in gardens, by lakes, rivers or the ocean, or in the hills and mountains. Experience yourself as a moving part of nature’s rhythms and nature will give you her grace.
Your body belongs to the Earth and your mind belongs to Infinite Space. Experience your Cosmic Self.
Yoga asanas are great, particularly if we have to stay indoors, including inverted poses to clear the head, right and left balancing poses, and spinal twists to bring about balance. We must learn to release all tension from our joints and muscles.
Natural Sense of Touch
Learn to touch the ground and dig the soil if you can, as well as being around plants, grass, leaves and branches, even rocks and stones. At least have flowers or plants like tulsi, aloe or ficus around your home or apartment. These are all part of your greater natural being. Contact with pets is important or being connected to the animals around us like watching the birds.
Share therapeutic massage with those you are safe with, particularly using special Ayurvedic massage oils made in a sesame or coconut oil base. Ayurvedic massage oils can be applied to protect the skin and strengthen immunity, countering dryness.
Mantra and Sacred Sound
Mantra, chanting and singing to clear the voice and vibrate the nervous system are excellent and can throw off negative electrical energies that accumulate in our aura.
Expansively chant OM repeatedly, or chant deeply OM Namah Shivaya to create inner peace or simply repeat OM Shanti Shanti Shanti.
Study the Secrets of Mantra Yoga
Chant whatever primary mantras you prefer and have energized by your regular practice. Use your voice to vibrate your pranic energy and let it flow throughout your body, mind, home and environment. Do your favorite kirtans and bhajans on a regular basis. Soothing music of various types is also good.
Meditation
Above all learn to silence and empty the mind, letting go of all disturbed thoughts, emotions and electrical energies irritating the mind, particularly at night, so that your consciousness and prana can be renewed in deep sleep.
Meditate regularly during the day, even only for a few minutes at a time, observing your thoughts and connecting with nature.
The silent mind full of space and light within naturally heals itself and promotes positive thinking and deeper awareness.
Remember your eternal and infinite Self-nature that pervades the entire universe!
Dr. David Frawley
