Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

pituitary glands. The many compressingand squeezing actions in yoga postures assist the heart in keeping fluids moving, preventing stagnation. These circulatory benefits and effects also work on the lymphatic system fluids, which are vital to health and the immune system. Health experts have long pointed out that pumping and circulating one’s bodily fluids through exercise is one of the most important factors in health and disease prevention.
    The circulatory system offers a spiritual lesson too. After the lungs oxygenate the blood, the heart pumps the first, best, and freshest blood back to itself. The heart has learned and instructs us in the lesson that “charity begins at home.” Serving others is a key part of yoga and loving and caring for ourselves and our own bodies are essential to serve others well. Follow your heart. In all ways give your best energy to your own heart.
The Respiratory System
    Breath occupies a central role in Hatha yoga, both in the practice of asanas and as its own field of practice, pranayama—the control of breath and energy. Breathing capacity is proportional to the ability to control the breath and to the strength and flexibility of the thoracic area.
    If chest, ribs, and intercostals are stiff, and if we are unable to fully utilize the diaphragm, breathing capacity is limited. Yoga brings flexibility to, gives fine control over, and increases the capacity of the respiratory system. Yogis have shown that health, vitality, longevity, and mental and emotional states are directly related to the breath. These relationships are discussed in more depth in the section on pranayama in Chapter 5 .
The Digestive System and the Eliminative System
    The digestive fire is stoked and toned by exercise. Appetite and the ability to digest foods are greatly increased after exercise. Inverted poses, twists, and forward bends increase the flow of energy to the digestiveand eliminative systems, both by directing energy toward these organs and by releasing compression in the spine to increase nerve flow to the digestive organs. Yoga also brings great attention to diet and nutrition. Eating a clean, healthy diet, free from harmful chemicals and toxins, is part of maintaining the digestive and eliminative systems.
    Pumping bodily fluids through the body with exercise aids the vital internal organs—kidneys, liver, intestines—in their work. The skin is the largest organ of elimination. Exercise and sweating help the skin eliminate toxins and take the load off other organs. Yoga also uses forward bends, twists, abdominal lifts and churning, and internal cleansing practices to stimulate peristalsis, elimination, and “to keep things moving.”
    Health is often judged by the externals of muscle tone, strength, and endurance. But the foundation of health lies in the organs of assimilation and elimination. Yoga practice works toward the health of internal organs not only through the benefits of asana practice but also directly through lifestyle, internal cleansing
kriyas
, and by encouraging a clean and healthy diet. It is very important to be attentive to our food intake and to learn the constant, lifelong process of tuning and honing our diets for optimal wellness.
The Endocrine System
    The endocrine glands of the hormonal system affect all aspects of growth, development, and function in the body. Hormones are complex and mysterious chemical messengers that transfer information and instructions between cells. They regulate our mood, tissue function, metabolism, and sexual function, pregnancy, and other reproductive processes. Asana practice, especially inversions, backbends, twists, and breath control, are believed to have strong, beneficial effects on keeping the endocrine system in balance.
    After I had been teaching only a few months, one of my first students began having difficulty with her metabolism and energy levelafter a couple weeks of practice. She told me she was on thyroid medication and I recalled that the Shoulderstand was said to help regulate the thyroid. She was doing a five-minute Shoulderstand each day. I suggested that she have her doctor check her thyroid again. Her doctor found that her thyroid had become more active and was able to reduce her medication. This occurred a couple more times over the months until she was able to go off the medication entirely. This example may be exceptional, but many other cases have shown yoga to help bring mood, energy, and metabolism into a more