When I was a young boy my grandmother was our family doctor. She didn't have a medical degree, but possessed amazing knowledge as to how to treat each and every ailment that afflicted any one in the family. May be she inherited it from her Grand Mother. I never asked her at that time, as seldom I realized the value of her medical knowledge.
But when she was no more and when family members fell sick, every one felt the absence of our Grand Mother.
Modern medicine has now almost eclipsed the Grand Mother’s Medicines now. In fact many consider Grandma Medicine obsolete. But for many small ailments, Grandma Medicines still work wonders.
At one time I decided to collect Grand Ma Medicines and the result of this decision is what you see in this Blog.
All these are my collections from different sources which are very many to recall. But the end result of my own collection effort had been very satisfying. Hope these Grand Ma Medicines help people in need.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Problems in the Hair
Our head is like a city. In this city, new hairs are born every day and old ones die. And many hairs continue to live. Like men, their life depends on the person’s health. Thus hair fall could either be normal or abnormal depending on your health status. So to have a good population of hair, you need to follow the same rules, viz. good eating and cleanliness.
Hair grows at the rate of about half an inch per month. When old hairs fall, new ones start growing in their place. This hair growth is not at all dependent on any hair oil you use. They all at best enhance look of the hair, but with adverse side effects.
Internal stress and tension is one of the reasons for your hair fall
Lack of adequate vitamins and minerals in the body is another cause
Tight tying of hair, helmets, more pins or hair bands also cause it
The more the hair fall, the more the tension. This also causes a cycle
Keep your hairs clean
Avoid shampoos
Do not use combs with narrow teeth
Do not tie the hair when they are not dry
Let the oil application be light
Fruits, vegetables and intake of adequate water has good effect n hair
Use umbrella when you are for long under the sun
Keep your mood cheerful
Home Medicines
Following home medicines can help you solve your problems. Try any one of them at a given time
Hair Fall
1 Mix equal quantities of
Shade dried curry leaves, lime peel, shikakai, fenugreek seeds and green gram
Grind them finely
Store and use as substitute of shampoo or soap
2 Take fenugreek seeds and grind them in water
Apply on the head in general
Wait for 40 minutes before washing
Do it every morning for a month
3 Take a handful of neem leaves
Boil in 4 cups of water
Cool and filter
Use it for rinsing the hair
4 Grind kadipatta and shoe flower and apply on head before taking bath
Premature greying
1. Boil a handful of curry leaves in 1 tbsp of coconut oil. Wait till charred. When cool, use it as hair tonic. In addition, take curry leaves juice or chutney every day
2. Soak shredded ginger in honey and eat a spoonful every morning
3. Grind 1 tbsp each of amla pulp and lime juice. Massage this into the hair before going to bed and wash it next morning
4. Take strained juice of two limes
Take equal amount of warm water
Mix both and rinse hair with it
Allow 15 minutes to pass, if possible under the morning sun
Then rinse out
Do it for a few days
Lice
1 Grind 8 kernels of almond with 2 tsp lime juice and apply on the hair
2 Mix 1 tsp lime juice with 1 tsp garlic paste and apply on the hair
3 Take neem seeds and make powder
Mix in coconut oil and apply over night on head
Wash off next morning
4 Mix neem flowers to sesame oil and heat. Use that on hair before taking bath
5 Take seeds of custard apple, dry and powder. Add it to sesame oil, heat and use before taking bath. This powder can also be mixed with seekai powder
6 Kadukkai + Vasambu + Neem leaves. Grind and mix with coconut oil. Keep it in sunlight. Use this oil for applying on hair
7 After bath, apply Sambrani powder smoke for the hair. In that add also the dry neem flower to give that smoke anti-lice effect
8 Grind vasambu and apply on hair and take hair bath after an hour
9 Liquify alam in water and apply on hair
10 Grind Neem leaves + Vasambu + Black thulsi and apply on head and wait for an hour before taking head bath
11 Grind vasambu and apply on head and tie your hair with while cloth for 2 hours before taking bath
12 Heat coconut or sesame oil. Add snuff powder to it and apply on head before taking bath
Dandruff
1. Mix equal quantities of shade dried curry leaves, lime peel, shikakai, fenugreek seeds and green gram. Grind them finely. Store and use as substitute of shampoo or soap
2. Grind 1 onion, 1 tsp black pepper, ½ cup khuskhus in milk. Apply this paste on head. Wait for 20 minutes. Wash with warm water
3. Take a handful of neem leaves. Boil in 4 cups of water. Cool and filter. Use it for rinsing the hair
4. Grind sesame leaf into fine paste and apply on head. Rinse after 15 minutes
5. Grind pepper and jeera and add it to milk cream [malai] and apply on head and take bath after half hour
6. Apply powdered seeds of pavazhamalli
Hair Conditioner
1 Beat the papaya leaf in a bucket full of water
You would get rich lather
Use this water along with the lather and wash your hair
You will have the effect of hair conditioner
Baldness
1 Take 2 tsp of Atimadhuram [liquorice]
2 tsp of seeds of Dhatura [Oomathai] ---- Caution: It is poisonous
A little safron
1 tsp of milk cream
Make it a paste
Fry it in 2 tsp of coconut oil till charred
Apply on bald patches
2 Grind a tender fruit of dhatura with little water
Apply on bald patches
3 Take fenugreek seeds and grind them in water
Apply on the head in general
Wait for 40 minutes before washing
Do it every morning for a month
4 Grind 1 tsp of root pieces of atimadhuram with
¼ tsp of safron and 1 cup of milk
Apply this paste on head patches at bed time continuously
5 Boil 1 cup mustard oil with 4 tsp of henna leaves, gradually added
Filter and bottle
Massage on the bald patches regularly
6 Take Two cups of salt
Add 4 tbsp pepper powder and ½ cup of lime juice
Leave it under the sun for three days to dry out thoroughly
Once dry, powder and bottle
Take 1 tsp of this powder, add with water and apply on patches at bedtime
Wash off next morning and don’t apply soap or shampoo
7 Boil 250 gms of mustard oil and add 60 grams of Mehandi leaves gradually
Filter the oil in a cloth and store it in bottle
Massage regularly with this oil at the patches
8 Take show flower of simple five petals and rub on the spot daily
9. Grind the bark of drumstick into a very fine paste and apply on the patches daily
Hair grows at the rate of about half an inch per month. When old hairs fall, new ones start growing in their place. This hair growth is not at all dependent on any hair oil you use. They all at best enhance look of the hair, but with adverse side effects.
Internal stress and tension is one of the reasons for your hair fall
Lack of adequate vitamins and minerals in the body is another cause
Tight tying of hair, helmets, more pins or hair bands also cause it
The more the hair fall, the more the tension. This also causes a cycle
Keep your hairs clean
Avoid shampoos
Do not use combs with narrow teeth
Do not tie the hair when they are not dry
Let the oil application be light
Fruits, vegetables and intake of adequate water has good effect n hair
Use umbrella when you are for long under the sun
Keep your mood cheerful
Home Medicines
Following home medicines can help you solve your problems. Try any one of them at a given time
Hair Fall
1 Mix equal quantities of
Shade dried curry leaves, lime peel, shikakai, fenugreek seeds and green gram
Grind them finely
Store and use as substitute of shampoo or soap
2 Take fenugreek seeds and grind them in water
Apply on the head in general
Wait for 40 minutes before washing
Do it every morning for a month
3 Take a handful of neem leaves
Boil in 4 cups of water
Cool and filter
Use it for rinsing the hair
4 Grind kadipatta and shoe flower and apply on head before taking bath
Premature greying
1. Boil a handful of curry leaves in 1 tbsp of coconut oil. Wait till charred. When cool, use it as hair tonic. In addition, take curry leaves juice or chutney every day
2. Soak shredded ginger in honey and eat a spoonful every morning
3. Grind 1 tbsp each of amla pulp and lime juice. Massage this into the hair before going to bed and wash it next morning
4. Take strained juice of two limes
Take equal amount of warm water
Mix both and rinse hair with it
Allow 15 minutes to pass, if possible under the morning sun
Then rinse out
Do it for a few days
Lice
1 Grind 8 kernels of almond with 2 tsp lime juice and apply on the hair
2 Mix 1 tsp lime juice with 1 tsp garlic paste and apply on the hair
3 Take neem seeds and make powder
Mix in coconut oil and apply over night on head
Wash off next morning
4 Mix neem flowers to sesame oil and heat. Use that on hair before taking bath
5 Take seeds of custard apple, dry and powder. Add it to sesame oil, heat and use before taking bath. This powder can also be mixed with seekai powder
6 Kadukkai + Vasambu + Neem leaves. Grind and mix with coconut oil. Keep it in sunlight. Use this oil for applying on hair
7 After bath, apply Sambrani powder smoke for the hair. In that add also the dry neem flower to give that smoke anti-lice effect
8 Grind vasambu and apply on hair and take hair bath after an hour
9 Liquify alam in water and apply on hair
10 Grind Neem leaves + Vasambu + Black thulsi and apply on head and wait for an hour before taking head bath
11 Grind vasambu and apply on head and tie your hair with while cloth for 2 hours before taking bath
12 Heat coconut or sesame oil. Add snuff powder to it and apply on head before taking bath
Dandruff
1. Mix equal quantities of shade dried curry leaves, lime peel, shikakai, fenugreek seeds and green gram. Grind them finely. Store and use as substitute of shampoo or soap
2. Grind 1 onion, 1 tsp black pepper, ½ cup khuskhus in milk. Apply this paste on head. Wait for 20 minutes. Wash with warm water
3. Take a handful of neem leaves. Boil in 4 cups of water. Cool and filter. Use it for rinsing the hair
4. Grind sesame leaf into fine paste and apply on head. Rinse after 15 minutes
5. Grind pepper and jeera and add it to milk cream [malai] and apply on head and take bath after half hour
6. Apply powdered seeds of pavazhamalli
Hair Conditioner
1 Beat the papaya leaf in a bucket full of water
You would get rich lather
Use this water along with the lather and wash your hair
You will have the effect of hair conditioner
Baldness
1 Take 2 tsp of Atimadhuram [liquorice]
2 tsp of seeds of Dhatura [Oomathai] ---- Caution: It is poisonous
A little safron
1 tsp of milk cream
Make it a paste
Fry it in 2 tsp of coconut oil till charred
Apply on bald patches
2 Grind a tender fruit of dhatura with little water
Apply on bald patches
3 Take fenugreek seeds and grind them in water
Apply on the head in general
Wait for 40 minutes before washing
Do it every morning for a month
4 Grind 1 tsp of root pieces of atimadhuram with
¼ tsp of safron and 1 cup of milk
Apply this paste on head patches at bed time continuously
5 Boil 1 cup mustard oil with 4 tsp of henna leaves, gradually added
Filter and bottle
Massage on the bald patches regularly
6 Take Two cups of salt
Add 4 tbsp pepper powder and ½ cup of lime juice
Leave it under the sun for three days to dry out thoroughly
Once dry, powder and bottle
Take 1 tsp of this powder, add with water and apply on patches at bedtime
Wash off next morning and don’t apply soap or shampoo
7 Boil 250 gms of mustard oil and add 60 grams of Mehandi leaves gradually
Filter the oil in a cloth and store it in bottle
Massage regularly with this oil at the patches
8 Take show flower of simple five petals and rub on the spot daily
9. Grind the bark of drumstick into a very fine paste and apply on the patches daily
Problems in the Head
Heaviness
1 Grind the fresh fruit of amla into a fine paste and apply at the location
Giddiness
1 Make juice of ginger and add lemon juice to it and take
2 Grind ginger, jeera and jaggery and take one capsule of this in empty stomach
3 If giddiness due to tiredness, take one glass of water with lime juice, salt and sugar.
4 In fainting cases, boil ½ tsp powdered thippili in 1 glass of milk and drink
Headache
In most cases, headache is a symptom and not a disease. Be aware that your head ache may not be inside your skull. It may lie outside in the form of your relationships, your tensions, your eye defect and the like.
Many times our food could be the culprit. People who take food containing tyramine, say cheese, nuts, fish etc. it could activate headache. Alcoholic drinks which go through fermentation process would also cause headache as it affects the nervous system.
Headaches occur due to alterations in the blood flow. The head has the greatest amount of blood supply and has greatest number of nerves too. So this the part that gets affected whether there are alterations to the blood flow. And this blood flow is influenced by our mental and physical states.
Patients may have to check on themselves as what pressure they have within that causes this problem. It could be
A hostility
Anxiety
Depressed states
Situational tension
Negative behaviors
Being rigid
Suppressed rage
Repressed anger
Emotional feelings
Dietary misdoings
Pressure of work
Bad relationships
Discord or dispute at home or office
Since our body has mind-body link, these get converted into physical symptoms and burst upon us as headaches. Since most headaches are due to emotional or physiological stress which you can control, you yourself are responsible for your headaches.
Patients need to ask themselves and understand as to why head aches occur in them. In other words they should themselves identify the sources of their stress. And bring about due changes in their life style. They should know very clearly that their headaches are very much preventable.
You have two actions to take, one short term action and the other long term action. As a short term, massage of your temples usually helps. You can also press your ear lobes hard for about three seconds and repeat it every 15 seconds. Most likely your headache could disappear.
As a long term, make a life style change and become a very positive human being. It means
Be less fussy about minor details
Avoid tension and fatigue
Avoid worries, resentment, anxiety, disappointment etc.
Make your expectations from others flexible
Get satisfied with what you have and what you can do
At any rate, don’t consider head ache as part of life. It can be removed and it is within your power. You can try any of the following home medicines:
1 Grind the fresh fruit of amla into a fine paste and apply at the aching place
2 2 tsp of pepper, 1 tsp each of ginger, camphor and asafoetida
Grind in milk into a smooth paste and apply
3 Make a paste of cloves, water and salt and apply
4 Make fresh juice of coriander leaves or pudina leaves and apply
5 Coriander powder and chandan
Make paste adding water and apply
6 Take fresh juice out of fenugreek leaves
Take 2 tsp and add with honey daily
7 Rub dry ginger with little water on the grinding stone and apply
8 Apply ginger paste after slight heating [or ginger powder + water +
heated]
9 Take with honey ½ tsp of powdered lime leaves [intake]
10 Apply paste of onion on the head
11 Take juice of anar regularly
12 Tulsi leaves and chandan, make into paste and apply
13 Mix coriander seed powder with chandan paste and apply
14 Take neem flower, grind and apply on head
15 Take juice of leaf or flowers of agathikeerai as two nasal drops [or leaf juice plus honey]
16 If headache on one side,
Make mixture of [and store] camphor, nutmerg, cloves and cardamom 1 tsp each
Take 2 pinches with warm water
17 Buy fresh amla and shade dry
Make powder from it and store
Every night, just before you go for sleep, take one tsp, add to some hot water
Drink
Follow it by one glass of warm water – it prevents headache on a long term basis
18 Boil water, add coffee powder and inhale the steam.
19 Apply kumkum paste and expose to heat
20 Soften the cabbage leaves in warm water and apply on the affected
Parts
21 Put 3 drops of betal leaf juice into the nostrils and take rest
22 Powder dried sundaikkai berries and store. Sniff a little when in
Headache
23 Boil handful of leaves of kandankathiri in gingelly oil. Apply warm
24 Soak a handful of vettiver in a jug of water and apply the infusion
over forehead
25 Apply leaf juice of kuppaimeni
26 Apply paste of vasambu
27 Soak handful of fresh jasmine flowers in small cup of water for 90
minutes. Then add ¼ tsp of salt and stir well to dissolve. Instill 2 or 3
drops into nostrils twice a day
28 Grind black pepper. Extract the juice of drumstick leaves and mix and
make a good paste. Apply on the forehead
29 Mix finely powdered tail pepper and dried ginger in a little rose water
and apply
30 Make a fine paste of the rind [not the seed] of kadukkai and apply
Migraine
Migraine is more a sick headache. It is usually one sided with a throbbing pain accompanied by disturbances to the vision. Its attack can be on either side. Sometimes it also accompanies nausea and vomiting. Sometimes neck and shoulders also get stiff and neck movements could get restricted. In these cases use of pain killers would only do more harm in the long run than getting any permanent relief. Trained migraine patients may even have premonition of an attack.
It is caused by narrowing of the blood vessels to the brain. In ladies, it could even be connected to their menstrual cycles. This attack stops completely during pregnancy and disappears generally when the patient reaches 55 years.
1 Heat 2 tbsp sesame oil; Mix ½ tsp each of powdered cardamom and cinnamon
Apply on head
2 Grind ½ tsp mustard seeds with 3 tsp water and stain
Instill 2 drops in nostrils
3 Grind handful of jasmine leaves with 2 tbsp dried ginger and 2 tbsp milk. Heat the mixture and apply on the forehead. Tie a napkin tightly around the head
1 Grind the fresh fruit of amla into a fine paste and apply at the location
Giddiness
1 Make juice of ginger and add lemon juice to it and take
2 Grind ginger, jeera and jaggery and take one capsule of this in empty stomach
3 If giddiness due to tiredness, take one glass of water with lime juice, salt and sugar.
4 In fainting cases, boil ½ tsp powdered thippili in 1 glass of milk and drink
Headache
In most cases, headache is a symptom and not a disease. Be aware that your head ache may not be inside your skull. It may lie outside in the form of your relationships, your tensions, your eye defect and the like.
Many times our food could be the culprit. People who take food containing tyramine, say cheese, nuts, fish etc. it could activate headache. Alcoholic drinks which go through fermentation process would also cause headache as it affects the nervous system.
Headaches occur due to alterations in the blood flow. The head has the greatest amount of blood supply and has greatest number of nerves too. So this the part that gets affected whether there are alterations to the blood flow. And this blood flow is influenced by our mental and physical states.
Patients may have to check on themselves as what pressure they have within that causes this problem. It could be
A hostility
Anxiety
Depressed states
Situational tension
Negative behaviors
Being rigid
Suppressed rage
Repressed anger
Emotional feelings
Dietary misdoings
Pressure of work
Bad relationships
Discord or dispute at home or office
Since our body has mind-body link, these get converted into physical symptoms and burst upon us as headaches. Since most headaches are due to emotional or physiological stress which you can control, you yourself are responsible for your headaches.
Patients need to ask themselves and understand as to why head aches occur in them. In other words they should themselves identify the sources of their stress. And bring about due changes in their life style. They should know very clearly that their headaches are very much preventable.
You have two actions to take, one short term action and the other long term action. As a short term, massage of your temples usually helps. You can also press your ear lobes hard for about three seconds and repeat it every 15 seconds. Most likely your headache could disappear.
As a long term, make a life style change and become a very positive human being. It means
Be less fussy about minor details
Avoid tension and fatigue
Avoid worries, resentment, anxiety, disappointment etc.
Make your expectations from others flexible
Get satisfied with what you have and what you can do
At any rate, don’t consider head ache as part of life. It can be removed and it is within your power. You can try any of the following home medicines:
1 Grind the fresh fruit of amla into a fine paste and apply at the aching place
2 2 tsp of pepper, 1 tsp each of ginger, camphor and asafoetida
Grind in milk into a smooth paste and apply
3 Make a paste of cloves, water and salt and apply
4 Make fresh juice of coriander leaves or pudina leaves and apply
5 Coriander powder and chandan
Make paste adding water and apply
6 Take fresh juice out of fenugreek leaves
Take 2 tsp and add with honey daily
7 Rub dry ginger with little water on the grinding stone and apply
8 Apply ginger paste after slight heating [or ginger powder + water +
heated]
9 Take with honey ½ tsp of powdered lime leaves [intake]
10 Apply paste of onion on the head
11 Take juice of anar regularly
12 Tulsi leaves and chandan, make into paste and apply
13 Mix coriander seed powder with chandan paste and apply
14 Take neem flower, grind and apply on head
15 Take juice of leaf or flowers of agathikeerai as two nasal drops [or leaf juice plus honey]
16 If headache on one side,
Make mixture of [and store] camphor, nutmerg, cloves and cardamom 1 tsp each
Take 2 pinches with warm water
17 Buy fresh amla and shade dry
Make powder from it and store
Every night, just before you go for sleep, take one tsp, add to some hot water
Drink
Follow it by one glass of warm water – it prevents headache on a long term basis
18 Boil water, add coffee powder and inhale the steam.
19 Apply kumkum paste and expose to heat
20 Soften the cabbage leaves in warm water and apply on the affected
Parts
21 Put 3 drops of betal leaf juice into the nostrils and take rest
22 Powder dried sundaikkai berries and store. Sniff a little when in
Headache
23 Boil handful of leaves of kandankathiri in gingelly oil. Apply warm
24 Soak a handful of vettiver in a jug of water and apply the infusion
over forehead
25 Apply leaf juice of kuppaimeni
26 Apply paste of vasambu
27 Soak handful of fresh jasmine flowers in small cup of water for 90
minutes. Then add ¼ tsp of salt and stir well to dissolve. Instill 2 or 3
drops into nostrils twice a day
28 Grind black pepper. Extract the juice of drumstick leaves and mix and
make a good paste. Apply on the forehead
29 Mix finely powdered tail pepper and dried ginger in a little rose water
and apply
30 Make a fine paste of the rind [not the seed] of kadukkai and apply
Migraine
Migraine is more a sick headache. It is usually one sided with a throbbing pain accompanied by disturbances to the vision. Its attack can be on either side. Sometimes it also accompanies nausea and vomiting. Sometimes neck and shoulders also get stiff and neck movements could get restricted. In these cases use of pain killers would only do more harm in the long run than getting any permanent relief. Trained migraine patients may even have premonition of an attack.
It is caused by narrowing of the blood vessels to the brain. In ladies, it could even be connected to their menstrual cycles. This attack stops completely during pregnancy and disappears generally when the patient reaches 55 years.
1 Heat 2 tbsp sesame oil; Mix ½ tsp each of powdered cardamom and cinnamon
Apply on head
2 Grind ½ tsp mustard seeds with 3 tsp water and stain
Instill 2 drops in nostrils
3 Grind handful of jasmine leaves with 2 tbsp dried ginger and 2 tbsp milk. Heat the mixture and apply on the forehead. Tie a napkin tightly around the head
Eye Problems
Good Habits
· Never use Kajal or any such thing on your eyes. They can cause trachoma
· Never apply any eye drops yourself without doctor’s advice
· Avoid watching TV. If you can’t avoid, watch it from a good distance
· If you are using a computer, take a break of 10 minutes after every one hour
· If you are after 40, have a periodical check up including for glaucoma
· If you are under going any operation, never have it for both the eyes together
Home Medicines
We would now see some of our eye related problems and home medicines for the same. Don’t put anything into your eye, even if I say it. Eyes are a very delicate organ and we should do anything only in consultation with an eye specialist.
Burning eyes
1 Mash ripe banana with a little curd and water and take twice a day
2 Take equal quantities of fenugreek powder and shikakai powder
Wash hair frequently
3 Grind an onion with 1 tsp black pepper and ½ cup khuskhus in milk
Apply this paste on the head
Allow it to dry for 20 minutes and wash in warm water
4 Take juice of bottle gourd and mix with sesame oil at 4:1 ratio
Heat till the moisture is evaporated completely
Once cool, use it for massing the head
5 Apply castor oil on the eye lashes before going to sleep
Cataract
As we get old, our eye lens gradually thickens and loses its ability to focus.
1 In early stages of cataract, soak 10 almonds overnight in 1 cup water
In morning, remove the skin, grind with 10 pepper corns in 1 cup water
Drink after adding sugar to taste, once a day
2 Have two glasses of carrot juice daily
3 Take every morning a mixture - 1/3 cup each of carrot juice, onionjuice and dahi added with ¼ tsp of powdered pepper
Glaucoma
Our eye balls have a pressure which ranges from 10 to 20 mm of Hg. If this increases and goes beyond 24 mm, the condition is called glaucoma. Such increase in pressure is accompanied by terrible head ache around the temple.
Glaucoma causes gradual reduction in vision. Initially the patient may have difficulty in detecting road signals and would need to frequently change his head position. There would be frequent change of lens number for reading, seeing haloes around light, pain and redness in eyes and diminition of vision in evening hours. Gradually the vision may be reduced to making sight similar to seeing through tubes. Since it occurs very gradually over five to ten years, by the time the symptoms appear the patient might have already lost half the eye sight in one eye and half of it in the other eye. After the age of forty, it is better that every person periodically undergoes the ‘field test’ in eye sight for checking on glaucoma.
Many people believe that drinking huge amount of water in the morning is good for cleansing one’s body. One opinion is that more of water taken so suddenly in the morning raises eye pressure and could result in glaucoma in people.
The Home medicine for glaucoma is “Mix equal quantities of juice of carrot and arugampl and drink once a day.”
Other eye problems
In case of children, have their first eye check up done when they are 3 to 4 years. And thereafter have the have eye check up repeated every two years. In case you find the following symptoms, then too have their eyes checked up:
ü The child does not evince keen interest in outdoor games
ü The child is not interested to interact with people socially
ü An otherwise normal child, performs poorly at school
ü The child’s grades in the school are coming down
ü Child shows poor interest in work where visual concentration is needed
ü Child complains of head ache, blurred vision, eye strain, not being able to see black board, etc
ü The child has problems of watering of the eyes or of identifying colors
If your house has a television, make sure it is at the eye level and that the viewers have a good distance of say more than 3 meters from the television and that there is adequate light in the viewing area. Also make sure that none of you watch the television for long hours.
Eye Tests
Following are the Home Eye Test methods.
Eye Test No. 1
Look at the picture eye 1 E Chart from a distance of 3 meters
You can look at it with your specs on or with plain eyes
Don’t tilt your head or squint
Cover one eye with your other palm or a paper card
Read the letters as E, M, W, Reverse E
Continue reading till last line
If you can read line 4 or lower, you are OK
Do the same with the other eye, keeping the formerly tested eye covered
If you can’t, see your eye doctor
Eye Test No. 2
Look at the grid picture eye 2 from a comfortable reading distance
You can look at it with your specs on or with plain eyes
Don’t tilt your head or squint
Cover one eye with your other palm or a paper card
Focus on the center dot
1. See whether you can see all four corners without removing your focus on the dot
2. Do all the lines appear straight and continuous?
If yes, you have passed
If the lines appear wavy or distorted, see your eye doctor
Do the test for the other also, closing the formerly tested eye
Computer diseases
The infotech industry has virtually taken over many towns and villages and use of computer in homes has already become the norm. Now lots of people sit bunched up before their computers and work or play long hours at the computer. With this sustained and prolonged sitting before computers, instances abound of such people developing physical problems as under:
· backache
· neck and shoulder problems
· pain in wrists and hands
· sometimes stiffness and cramps
· severe eye problems
People who use computers should maintain neutral posture free from awkward positions and postures and avoid bending. The precautions to be taken to avoid eye problems are as under:
· The display screen should be slightly below eye level and be 18 to 24 inches away from your face
· The character on the screen should be clearly visible. The screen should be cleared of dust frequently
· The colors selected should be easy to the eye
· Brightness and contrast should suit lighting conditions in the room
· No reflections of light should be seen on the terminal
· The users should get their vision tested periodically
· Never use Kajal or any such thing on your eyes. They can cause trachoma
· Never apply any eye drops yourself without doctor’s advice
· Avoid watching TV. If you can’t avoid, watch it from a good distance
· If you are using a computer, take a break of 10 minutes after every one hour
· If you are after 40, have a periodical check up including for glaucoma
· If you are under going any operation, never have it for both the eyes together
Home Medicines
We would now see some of our eye related problems and home medicines for the same. Don’t put anything into your eye, even if I say it. Eyes are a very delicate organ and we should do anything only in consultation with an eye specialist.
Burning eyes
1 Mash ripe banana with a little curd and water and take twice a day
2 Take equal quantities of fenugreek powder and shikakai powder
Wash hair frequently
3 Grind an onion with 1 tsp black pepper and ½ cup khuskhus in milk
Apply this paste on the head
Allow it to dry for 20 minutes and wash in warm water
4 Take juice of bottle gourd and mix with sesame oil at 4:1 ratio
Heat till the moisture is evaporated completely
Once cool, use it for massing the head
5 Apply castor oil on the eye lashes before going to sleep
Cataract
As we get old, our eye lens gradually thickens and loses its ability to focus.
1 In early stages of cataract, soak 10 almonds overnight in 1 cup water
In morning, remove the skin, grind with 10 pepper corns in 1 cup water
Drink after adding sugar to taste, once a day
2 Have two glasses of carrot juice daily
3 Take every morning a mixture - 1/3 cup each of carrot juice, onionjuice and dahi added with ¼ tsp of powdered pepper
Glaucoma
Our eye balls have a pressure which ranges from 10 to 20 mm of Hg. If this increases and goes beyond 24 mm, the condition is called glaucoma. Such increase in pressure is accompanied by terrible head ache around the temple.
Glaucoma causes gradual reduction in vision. Initially the patient may have difficulty in detecting road signals and would need to frequently change his head position. There would be frequent change of lens number for reading, seeing haloes around light, pain and redness in eyes and diminition of vision in evening hours. Gradually the vision may be reduced to making sight similar to seeing through tubes. Since it occurs very gradually over five to ten years, by the time the symptoms appear the patient might have already lost half the eye sight in one eye and half of it in the other eye. After the age of forty, it is better that every person periodically undergoes the ‘field test’ in eye sight for checking on glaucoma.
Many people believe that drinking huge amount of water in the morning is good for cleansing one’s body. One opinion is that more of water taken so suddenly in the morning raises eye pressure and could result in glaucoma in people.
The Home medicine for glaucoma is “Mix equal quantities of juice of carrot and arugampl and drink once a day.”
Other eye problems
In case of children, have their first eye check up done when they are 3 to 4 years. And thereafter have the have eye check up repeated every two years. In case you find the following symptoms, then too have their eyes checked up:
ü The child does not evince keen interest in outdoor games
ü The child is not interested to interact with people socially
ü An otherwise normal child, performs poorly at school
ü The child’s grades in the school are coming down
ü Child shows poor interest in work where visual concentration is needed
ü Child complains of head ache, blurred vision, eye strain, not being able to see black board, etc
ü The child has problems of watering of the eyes or of identifying colors
If your house has a television, make sure it is at the eye level and that the viewers have a good distance of say more than 3 meters from the television and that there is adequate light in the viewing area. Also make sure that none of you watch the television for long hours.
Eye Tests
Following are the Home Eye Test methods.
Eye Test No. 1
Look at the picture eye 1 E Chart from a distance of 3 meters
You can look at it with your specs on or with plain eyes
Don’t tilt your head or squint
Cover one eye with your other palm or a paper card
Read the letters as E, M, W, Reverse E
Continue reading till last line
If you can read line 4 or lower, you are OK
Do the same with the other eye, keeping the formerly tested eye covered
If you can’t, see your eye doctor
Eye Test No. 2
Look at the grid picture eye 2 from a comfortable reading distance
You can look at it with your specs on or with plain eyes
Don’t tilt your head or squint
Cover one eye with your other palm or a paper card
Focus on the center dot
1. See whether you can see all four corners without removing your focus on the dot
2. Do all the lines appear straight and continuous?
If yes, you have passed
If the lines appear wavy or distorted, see your eye doctor
Do the test for the other also, closing the formerly tested eye
Computer diseases
The infotech industry has virtually taken over many towns and villages and use of computer in homes has already become the norm. Now lots of people sit bunched up before their computers and work or play long hours at the computer. With this sustained and prolonged sitting before computers, instances abound of such people developing physical problems as under:
· backache
· neck and shoulder problems
· pain in wrists and hands
· sometimes stiffness and cramps
· severe eye problems
People who use computers should maintain neutral posture free from awkward positions and postures and avoid bending. The precautions to be taken to avoid eye problems are as under:
· The display screen should be slightly below eye level and be 18 to 24 inches away from your face
· The character on the screen should be clearly visible. The screen should be cleared of dust frequently
· The colors selected should be easy to the eye
· Brightness and contrast should suit lighting conditions in the room
· No reflections of light should be seen on the terminal
· The users should get their vision tested periodically
Sleep Problems
People sleep because they have the instinct to sleep. But most people sleep without realising why does one sleep. They sleep because they feel sleepy, just as they eat because they feel hungry. Such people would sleep in such a condition that they would not wake up refreshed.
Many people find it difficult to get up in the morning after a good night sleep. Obviously they have nothing to look forward to in the day. They would be the people who even after sleep, would not get refreshed and would still be feeling drained and exhausted. Such people even when they get up in the morning, would feel weak or exhausted.
On days when something exciting is planned, man in general gets up early on his own. So, when a man does not get up early on his own, it is clear they have nothing exciting to perform in the day and so the nature makes it difficult for them to get up from bed. The nature knows that such people do not deserve to feel fresh in the morning as they are not going to be cheerful even while they are awake. Nature knows whom to reward with good sleep and freshness and whom to deprive of these.
So, the best medicine for solving insomnia is to be cheerful in the day and do something exciting, useful and rewarding.
Need for sleep
It is a great mistake not to take sufficient sleep. Seven hours is the general minimum needed for people. But normally 6 hrs of sleep every night is adequate for most people. It is nature’s way of re-charging our batteries for the next day’s work.
Some do equally well even with less sleep. Especially people who have a very strong nervous system they do reduce it even to five. With rising age, our requirement of sleep also diminishes. That is why old people often get going with less sleep.
But in the normal course, any reduction from six hours of sleep should be rare and ought not to be attempted without necessity. If the body is told to sleep only 2 or 3 hours it may follow if the will is strong enough, but afterwards it may get exceedingly strained and even break down for want of needed rest. The sleep is necessary because the entire parts of your body need the immobility in order to be able to live their own life independently.
Both during physical illness and for mental trouble sleep is a great help and its absence very undesirable because it would cause loss of curative power.
A couple of nights of short sleep made can make easier prey for viral infections like cold and flu. The good news is that as soon as you get enough sleep your resistance bounces back to normal. That is why when people are struck by fever, they are asked to sleep and take rest. Sleep has a direct connection with how well we resist infection. Immunity of sleep deprived people is lower than normal.
Why sleep problems?
The first reason could be physical. The restfulness of sleep is affected by food lying on the stomach. When the digestion is on it lowers the restfulness of sleep. Such people would feel the need to sleep more and they sleep more. If the person goes to sleep after digestion time [two to three hours after food], then he would have restful sleep and less sleep would be sufficient for him. Constipation, over eating, etc. could also add to our problems.
The second reason and most important reason for sleep problems is mental. The common cause is basically mental tension, i.e. . feelings like anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, worry, etc. If one’s mind conditions are perfect, the sleep would come by itself. Sleeping is not an act. It is an event. The conditions necessary for such an event are cessation of all thoughts, no lust, no discords, no fear, etc. Mind should have five qualities,
· self-control
· compassion
· forgiveness
· cheerfulness and
· surrender to God.
If these are present in mind, there would be no sleep problems. On the contrary, if you are mentally excited or depressed, you cannot sleep well. Sleep can also be a very active means of concentration and inner knowledge.
To recapitulate, there are many causes to insomnia. They are:
· Physical disability, pain or other medical reasons
· Worry and anxiety
· New baby in the house
· Snoring by your partner
· Your work hours are not regular, but erratic
· You don’t go to bed at a fixed time
· You take alcohol
· You are habituated to sleeping tablets
· Disturbing environments
· Poor digestion
· You consume chocolate, cheese and such other rich foods having tyrosine
· You fear you may not get sleep
· You had a nap during the day
· You have bad relationships
· You smoke or take soft drinks
Sleeping pills should never be opted for, since they cannot cure the problem. They are at best ok for one or two nights. Even there you run the risk of habit forming and needing progressively higher doses. What is basically needed is change in mental state and life style.
How to sleep
Sleep is a school one has to go through. The effective sleep is one where one knows how to use one’s nights as one uses one’s days.
When a person rests while on journey, he sleeps irrespective of no bed, no pillow and no ventilation. This should happen regularly.
In proper sleep, all physical parts should be put to total rest from the outer noisy life. This is necessary because rest and activity must alternate.
An individual who lies on a soft bed would in course of time develop spinal abnormalities. Hence it is advisable not to go in for spring and sponge mattresses and use only hard bed. Similarly high pillows would cause tension in the muscles and impede proper circulation of blood to the head. Then headache and backache would arise.
Sleeping with head to the east will save us from environmental ill effects.
Before going to sleep, we need to concentrate and relax all tensions in the physical body and relax completely like a rag, as though the body has neither bones nor muscles. We need to calm our body as much as we can, make it quiet and peaceful.
Therefore if one is physically tired, it is better not to go to sleep immediately but stretch and relax on the bed for sometime loosening all the nerves. The next step is to make the mind too peaceful and rest without any activity and bring it to quietitude and silence. Once we go sleep we must not carry the day’s thinking and ideas and make the mind make no effort, otherwise the mind would continue to work and you won’t be able to sleep well. When the mind continues to work, one cannot rest.
Many people who suffer insomnia often approach their bed with the worry whether they would get their sleep that day. And that worry itself would cause their insomnia for the night that day. Thus many times insomnia is its own cause. So if you fear you may not get the sleep, you may end up just achieving that.
Thus, for a good sleep, one must enter immobility in body and perfect peace with absolute silence in mind. Sensations or emotions had during the day must be allowed to drop off and given up. Those studying should not study till just before sleeping.
For a good sleep, a prayer would a good thing asking the God to watch over you while you sleep and then go to sleep.
If these are followed, one would wake up with the feeling of full energy, perfect freshness, contentment and joy.
How to make sleep come to you
People suffering from sleeplessness must find out for themselves as to what are the factors that are impeding the recharge of their energy during sleep and remove those defects. They should seek to purify their minds by adopting the five qualities above mentioned, so that they overcome all the tensions and relax. People who go to bed with a sense of fulfillment after having discharged their duties sleep well and get fully recharged during sleep. This is where the importance of one utilising his day time energy cheerfully in most constructive ways, lies.
If one does not get sleep despite all the above, he can try many methods to facilitate his entering the sleep state.
At physical level, a hot foot bath for about 20 minutes finished with a cold one for a few minutes would prepare oneself for sleep.
At mental level, if you are suffering from anxiety, the first thing you need to do is to stop thinking. If you can’t stop thinking, then divert your thinking away from your problems to something positives. Think of beautiful places you have visited, the beautiful babies you had had, their childhood, your past happy days, your visit to a temple, etc. Divert your attention.
At mental level, what is important is to prevent the mind from wandering and thinking of so many things preventing the sleep from coming. Hence the need is to have mind control. For achieving the mind control, we can do a number of things. Some of them could be as under:
1. Go into the state of Savasana and feel relaxed. Concentrate from toes to head, one by one all parts, and tell each of them to relax. Say
Toes…. Relax [three times]; then
Legs…. Relax [three times]
Move on similarly to every part, commanding each part of your body to relax. Let the commands be very slow and steady. As each part is told to relax, one can feel the relaxation and by the time all the parts are covered, the sleep is expected to come.
2. Focus on your mind and continuously and repeatedly tell it to “Go to sleep”. Say,
Mind… Go to sleep
Mind….Go to sleep
Repeated many times, the sleep is likely to come off. You know, our minds obey our conscious commands. For example, when we have to catch an early morning train, we go to sleep with an inner desire to get up early in the morning, say by 4 a.m. And to your amazement, even without an alarm clock, we would awake at 4 a.m. or little before. That is because your mind had heard your inner desire to get up by 4 a.m. and makes you get up by that hour. Thus, be aware that whatever conscious command you give to your mind, it does help you to achieve your desire.
3. While lying in the bed, visualise a little flame rising slowly from the earth and going up in the sky. Follow the flame to the sky, rising higher and higher, gently and slowly. Then visualise more such flames coming from different directions and gathering in the sky. When you do this, you would drop to sleep.
4. Imagine a field where there are a number of lambs are grazing. Then try to count the lambs one by one. As you go on counting them, you would drop off in sleep.
5. Simply start counting numbers from 1 to 100 and more. As the counting process goes on, you would drop asleep.
6. Observe your own breathing. Concentrate on the breathing as you inhale and exhale. Let your focus be on the tip of your nose and be watching the breath process taking place. If you are able to maintain this focus, you would sleep off automatically.
7. Some general guidelines for getting the sleep are
Maintain good relationships with others
· Avoid mid day naps
· Make sure you had completed your dinner two hours before your going to bed
· Walk for two hours before going to sleep
· Have a regular time for going to bed
· Make sure your room temperature and ventilation are fine
· In the winter, if you are sleeping on mats on floor, first put some newspapers on the floor and over that spread your spreads.
· Relax the jaw and allow your entire face to slack and get relaxed
· Check your eye brows. Let them get relaxed
· Tighten your each muscle and relax; do this repeatedly with every limb
· Relax your entire body
· Opt for having a good music 15 minutes before bed time
· Avoid reading in bed
· Never take any sleeping pill which are habit forming; they only borrow sleep from the next day’s quota
· Avoid worrying whether you would get sleep
· Make sure you have minimum six hours of sleep ever day
· When you don’t get sleep, don’t be looking at the clock
If you still don’t get sleep, be aware that insomnia has never killed any one. So don’t worry. But opt for life style change, both physical and mental.
The home remedies for sleep problems are as under:
Insmonia
1 Fry 1 tsp cumin seeds and powder
Mix with mashed banana and eat at night regularly
2 Make 2 tsp juice of from fenugreek leaves
Add with honey and take daily
3 Make powder of nutmerg / jathikkai
Take freshly extracted amla juice 1 tbsp and mix
Take 3 times a day. Do not prolong this as nutmerg may have side effects
4 Soak 1 tbsp pudina leaves to 1 cup of water for 30 mts. Take thrice a day
5 Tie a bunch of maruthani flowers in a muslin cloth bag and leave it near pillow while sleeping
6 Soak a handful of manuthani leaves in 1 cup coconut oil. Massage the head well before going to bed
Many people find it difficult to get up in the morning after a good night sleep. Obviously they have nothing to look forward to in the day. They would be the people who even after sleep, would not get refreshed and would still be feeling drained and exhausted. Such people even when they get up in the morning, would feel weak or exhausted.
On days when something exciting is planned, man in general gets up early on his own. So, when a man does not get up early on his own, it is clear they have nothing exciting to perform in the day and so the nature makes it difficult for them to get up from bed. The nature knows that such people do not deserve to feel fresh in the morning as they are not going to be cheerful even while they are awake. Nature knows whom to reward with good sleep and freshness and whom to deprive of these.
So, the best medicine for solving insomnia is to be cheerful in the day and do something exciting, useful and rewarding.
Need for sleep
It is a great mistake not to take sufficient sleep. Seven hours is the general minimum needed for people. But normally 6 hrs of sleep every night is adequate for most people. It is nature’s way of re-charging our batteries for the next day’s work.
Some do equally well even with less sleep. Especially people who have a very strong nervous system they do reduce it even to five. With rising age, our requirement of sleep also diminishes. That is why old people often get going with less sleep.
But in the normal course, any reduction from six hours of sleep should be rare and ought not to be attempted without necessity. If the body is told to sleep only 2 or 3 hours it may follow if the will is strong enough, but afterwards it may get exceedingly strained and even break down for want of needed rest. The sleep is necessary because the entire parts of your body need the immobility in order to be able to live their own life independently.
Both during physical illness and for mental trouble sleep is a great help and its absence very undesirable because it would cause loss of curative power.
A couple of nights of short sleep made can make easier prey for viral infections like cold and flu. The good news is that as soon as you get enough sleep your resistance bounces back to normal. That is why when people are struck by fever, they are asked to sleep and take rest. Sleep has a direct connection with how well we resist infection. Immunity of sleep deprived people is lower than normal.
Why sleep problems?
The first reason could be physical. The restfulness of sleep is affected by food lying on the stomach. When the digestion is on it lowers the restfulness of sleep. Such people would feel the need to sleep more and they sleep more. If the person goes to sleep after digestion time [two to three hours after food], then he would have restful sleep and less sleep would be sufficient for him. Constipation, over eating, etc. could also add to our problems.
The second reason and most important reason for sleep problems is mental. The common cause is basically mental tension, i.e. . feelings like anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, worry, etc. If one’s mind conditions are perfect, the sleep would come by itself. Sleeping is not an act. It is an event. The conditions necessary for such an event are cessation of all thoughts, no lust, no discords, no fear, etc. Mind should have five qualities,
· self-control
· compassion
· forgiveness
· cheerfulness and
· surrender to God.
If these are present in mind, there would be no sleep problems. On the contrary, if you are mentally excited or depressed, you cannot sleep well. Sleep can also be a very active means of concentration and inner knowledge.
To recapitulate, there are many causes to insomnia. They are:
· Physical disability, pain or other medical reasons
· Worry and anxiety
· New baby in the house
· Snoring by your partner
· Your work hours are not regular, but erratic
· You don’t go to bed at a fixed time
· You take alcohol
· You are habituated to sleeping tablets
· Disturbing environments
· Poor digestion
· You consume chocolate, cheese and such other rich foods having tyrosine
· You fear you may not get sleep
· You had a nap during the day
· You have bad relationships
· You smoke or take soft drinks
Sleeping pills should never be opted for, since they cannot cure the problem. They are at best ok for one or two nights. Even there you run the risk of habit forming and needing progressively higher doses. What is basically needed is change in mental state and life style.
How to sleep
Sleep is a school one has to go through. The effective sleep is one where one knows how to use one’s nights as one uses one’s days.
When a person rests while on journey, he sleeps irrespective of no bed, no pillow and no ventilation. This should happen regularly.
In proper sleep, all physical parts should be put to total rest from the outer noisy life. This is necessary because rest and activity must alternate.
An individual who lies on a soft bed would in course of time develop spinal abnormalities. Hence it is advisable not to go in for spring and sponge mattresses and use only hard bed. Similarly high pillows would cause tension in the muscles and impede proper circulation of blood to the head. Then headache and backache would arise.
Sleeping with head to the east will save us from environmental ill effects.
Before going to sleep, we need to concentrate and relax all tensions in the physical body and relax completely like a rag, as though the body has neither bones nor muscles. We need to calm our body as much as we can, make it quiet and peaceful.
Therefore if one is physically tired, it is better not to go to sleep immediately but stretch and relax on the bed for sometime loosening all the nerves. The next step is to make the mind too peaceful and rest without any activity and bring it to quietitude and silence. Once we go sleep we must not carry the day’s thinking and ideas and make the mind make no effort, otherwise the mind would continue to work and you won’t be able to sleep well. When the mind continues to work, one cannot rest.
Many people who suffer insomnia often approach their bed with the worry whether they would get their sleep that day. And that worry itself would cause their insomnia for the night that day. Thus many times insomnia is its own cause. So if you fear you may not get the sleep, you may end up just achieving that.
Thus, for a good sleep, one must enter immobility in body and perfect peace with absolute silence in mind. Sensations or emotions had during the day must be allowed to drop off and given up. Those studying should not study till just before sleeping.
For a good sleep, a prayer would a good thing asking the God to watch over you while you sleep and then go to sleep.
If these are followed, one would wake up with the feeling of full energy, perfect freshness, contentment and joy.
How to make sleep come to you
People suffering from sleeplessness must find out for themselves as to what are the factors that are impeding the recharge of their energy during sleep and remove those defects. They should seek to purify their minds by adopting the five qualities above mentioned, so that they overcome all the tensions and relax. People who go to bed with a sense of fulfillment after having discharged their duties sleep well and get fully recharged during sleep. This is where the importance of one utilising his day time energy cheerfully in most constructive ways, lies.
If one does not get sleep despite all the above, he can try many methods to facilitate his entering the sleep state.
At physical level, a hot foot bath for about 20 minutes finished with a cold one for a few minutes would prepare oneself for sleep.
At mental level, if you are suffering from anxiety, the first thing you need to do is to stop thinking. If you can’t stop thinking, then divert your thinking away from your problems to something positives. Think of beautiful places you have visited, the beautiful babies you had had, their childhood, your past happy days, your visit to a temple, etc. Divert your attention.
At mental level, what is important is to prevent the mind from wandering and thinking of so many things preventing the sleep from coming. Hence the need is to have mind control. For achieving the mind control, we can do a number of things. Some of them could be as under:
1. Go into the state of Savasana and feel relaxed. Concentrate from toes to head, one by one all parts, and tell each of them to relax. Say
Toes…. Relax [three times]; then
Legs…. Relax [three times]
Move on similarly to every part, commanding each part of your body to relax. Let the commands be very slow and steady. As each part is told to relax, one can feel the relaxation and by the time all the parts are covered, the sleep is expected to come.
2. Focus on your mind and continuously and repeatedly tell it to “Go to sleep”. Say,
Mind… Go to sleep
Mind….Go to sleep
Repeated many times, the sleep is likely to come off. You know, our minds obey our conscious commands. For example, when we have to catch an early morning train, we go to sleep with an inner desire to get up early in the morning, say by 4 a.m. And to your amazement, even without an alarm clock, we would awake at 4 a.m. or little before. That is because your mind had heard your inner desire to get up by 4 a.m. and makes you get up by that hour. Thus, be aware that whatever conscious command you give to your mind, it does help you to achieve your desire.
3. While lying in the bed, visualise a little flame rising slowly from the earth and going up in the sky. Follow the flame to the sky, rising higher and higher, gently and slowly. Then visualise more such flames coming from different directions and gathering in the sky. When you do this, you would drop to sleep.
4. Imagine a field where there are a number of lambs are grazing. Then try to count the lambs one by one. As you go on counting them, you would drop off in sleep.
5. Simply start counting numbers from 1 to 100 and more. As the counting process goes on, you would drop asleep.
6. Observe your own breathing. Concentrate on the breathing as you inhale and exhale. Let your focus be on the tip of your nose and be watching the breath process taking place. If you are able to maintain this focus, you would sleep off automatically.
7. Some general guidelines for getting the sleep are
Maintain good relationships with others
· Avoid mid day naps
· Make sure you had completed your dinner two hours before your going to bed
· Walk for two hours before going to sleep
· Have a regular time for going to bed
· Make sure your room temperature and ventilation are fine
· In the winter, if you are sleeping on mats on floor, first put some newspapers on the floor and over that spread your spreads.
· Relax the jaw and allow your entire face to slack and get relaxed
· Check your eye brows. Let them get relaxed
· Tighten your each muscle and relax; do this repeatedly with every limb
· Relax your entire body
· Opt for having a good music 15 minutes before bed time
· Avoid reading in bed
· Never take any sleeping pill which are habit forming; they only borrow sleep from the next day’s quota
· Avoid worrying whether you would get sleep
· Make sure you have minimum six hours of sleep ever day
· When you don’t get sleep, don’t be looking at the clock
If you still don’t get sleep, be aware that insomnia has never killed any one. So don’t worry. But opt for life style change, both physical and mental.
The home remedies for sleep problems are as under:
Insmonia
1 Fry 1 tsp cumin seeds and powder
Mix with mashed banana and eat at night regularly
2 Make 2 tsp juice of from fenugreek leaves
Add with honey and take daily
3 Make powder of nutmerg / jathikkai
Take freshly extracted amla juice 1 tbsp and mix
Take 3 times a day. Do not prolong this as nutmerg may have side effects
4 Soak 1 tbsp pudina leaves to 1 cup of water for 30 mts. Take thrice a day
5 Tie a bunch of maruthani flowers in a muslin cloth bag and leave it near pillow while sleeping
6 Soak a handful of manuthani leaves in 1 cup coconut oil. Massage the head well before going to bed
Ear Pain
1 Extract tulsi juice and put 3 drops in the ear
2 Add ½ tsp ajwain seeds to 1 tbsp boiling milk, cool, filter and use as drops
3 In 2 tbsp gingelly oil, put 1 tsp garlic and boil well, cool and filter. Use as drops
4 3 drops of ginger juice used as ear drops
5 In 1 tsp luke warm water, add few drops of lime juice and use as ear drops
6 Use neem leaf juice as drops
7 If pain due to entry of some insect into the ear, apply honey at the ear entrance. The insect might come out.
8 If the pain is due to entry of some insect into the ear, send torch light into the ear and the insect will get out.
9 Extract fresh juice of raddish, warm it and use it as drops
10 Crush the fruits of kandankathiri and take the juice and use as drops
11 Take equal quantity of paste of jasmine leaves and gingelly oil and boil to half. Cool and store. When cool instill 2 drops in ear
2 Add ½ tsp ajwain seeds to 1 tbsp boiling milk, cool, filter and use as drops
3 In 2 tbsp gingelly oil, put 1 tsp garlic and boil well, cool and filter. Use as drops
4 3 drops of ginger juice used as ear drops
5 In 1 tsp luke warm water, add few drops of lime juice and use as ear drops
6 Use neem leaf juice as drops
7 If pain due to entry of some insect into the ear, apply honey at the ear entrance. The insect might come out.
8 If the pain is due to entry of some insect into the ear, send torch light into the ear and the insect will get out.
9 Extract fresh juice of raddish, warm it and use it as drops
10 Crush the fruits of kandankathiri and take the juice and use as drops
11 Take equal quantity of paste of jasmine leaves and gingelly oil and boil to half. Cool and store. When cool instill 2 drops in ear
General Breathing Problems
At one time, all the parts of our body assembled to debate as to who is supreme and as to who is doing the most important work. When every part of our body was staking its claim for supremacy, the committee decided that each part would go on leave for about a month to see what happens. First it was the turn of the eye. It went on leave for a month and returned. Well, during the month the body was put to lot of inconvenience but it survived. Next it was the turn of the ear and so was the inconvenience but the body survived. After sometime, the turn of nose came. It went on leave. But even before it could leave the room, the entire body started gasping for breath and every part realized that without breathing none of them could survive. Immediately all the parts rushed to the nose and requested him not to go on leave.
That is the importance of breathing.
Our respiratory system starts with nose and ends with Alveoli in the lungs. We inhale and exhale air which consists of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
At the time a child is born its respiratory rate is 30 to 40 times per minute with heart beat of 140 to 150 per minute. This steadily reduces and gets standardised at adult stage with 14 to 18 times of breathing rate and 70 to 80 times of heart beat per minute. These can be measured and the normalcy of lung and heart can be checked.
The Respiratory centre in our body is part of our brain and any block to the respiration could affect one’s brain. That is the reason why, if a person stops breathing, then immediately artificial respiration should be given to him. Otherwise his brain could get affected. So, there is prime need to keep this life line running smoothly.
Gasping
Many times, even normal people gasp while climbing stairs, or while going some steep roads or up the hill. Some people gasp for breath in winter and at other times are functioning well. Here are some expert advice on tackling gasping.
When you are about to climb stairs
· Climb the first two stairs breath in
· When you climb the next two, breath out
· Keep this rhythm of two in and two out
When you walk up the hill
· Breath in first three steps
· Breath out the next three
· Keep this rhythm of three in and three out
In winter
· Take quick short breathing for thirty seconds
· Then slow and full breathing for next thirty seconds
· Repeat this sequence
Congestion/bleeding in nose
1 To relieve nasal congestion in children
Crush a fistful of ajwain seeds and tie up in a cotton napkin
And place it near the pillow
2 To check bleeding nose
Make juice from fresh coriander leaves and use as nasal drops
Or you can drop into nostrils, drops of lemon juice
3 fry 2 tsp of dried sundaikkai and fry in little ghee and powder. Take this with rice thrice daily
4 For sinus congestion, grind thippili, clove and rock salt and add 1 tsp to 1 cup boiling water and let the mixture steep for 10 minutes. Filter and drink while still warm
In this connection it would be advantageous to read the following article:
Solutions for Breathing Problems
By Robert Elias Najemy
Breathing difficulties can seriously handicap our ability to function and enjoy life. Air is our most vital source of energy and vitality. When we suffer from asthma, bronchitis, allergies, frequent colds or simply insufficient oxygen intake, we are prone to a lack of energy, vitality and /or mental clarity. Every cell within our body depends on an abundant supply of oxygen for proper metabolism and vitality.
Some Causes of Breathing Problems
1. Hereditary weakness may make our lungs or other organs of respiratory apparatus weak points in our system. Thus when tired, overworked, anxious or stressed, these parts of the body can start to malfunction.
2. Environmental factors may also aggravate the condition. Cold and humid weather tend to accentuate breathing problems. Pollen and other particles in the air may cause allergic reactions. Occupational conditions such as working in a dusty area or in a smoke filled room may also aggravate the problem. Pollution irritates our nasal passage and lungs. Smoking cigarettes obviously damages our lungs, cutting off our supply of oxygen.
3. An over production of mucus clogs up the breathing passages, obstructing breathing. Foods, which tend to cause excess mucus, are all dairy products, white flour, white rice and sweets.
4. A lack of sufficient liquid intake causes the mucus to thicken and cling to the lungs and other breathing passages. This creates a favorable environment for microbes to reproduce.
5. Blockages in the spinal vertebrae or tension in the muscles of the upper back may also obstruct the flow of nerve impulses and bioenergy to the lungs. This may inhibit the proper functioning of the lungs.
6. Emotional blockages are directly connected with our breathing. People, who experience anxiety, depression, fear, nervous tension or a poor self-image, tend to subconsciously hold their breath. Thus their breathing is tense, shallow, and sometimes spasmodic. Long-term emotional blockages may also affect the adrenal glands and thus hormonal disorders may also play their part in the problem. Negative emotions also depress or disturb the functioning of the immune system.
7. A lack of proper education in breathing is another reason why people suffer from breathing problems. It is entirely possible for us to learn to use our lungs more effectively for greater energy, vitality, peace and clarity of mind. This should be learned from an experienced breath coach.
Some Solutions
Surround yourself with large green leafed plants, which produce oxygen and absorb pollution. . Get out of the city frequently. Go the sea or mountains and breathe fresh clean air. Use regular deep breathing to clean out and rejuvenate your lungs. Deep breathing while walking can clean out a considerable amount of pollution from the lungs. If you smoke, then - love yourself - and stop.
2. Avoid all diary products, white sugar, sweets, white flour and white rice. When the problem has subsided, then we can start taking small quantities of dairy products while watching the body's reaction. b. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Drink plenty (6 or 8 cups per day) of warm liquid daily. This may be water, herb teas, or water with lemon. Do not drink refrigerated or iced drinks.
3. When one has a cold, an onion and garlic soup spiced with pepper, cinnamon ginger and cloves, opens up the nasal passages and allows the congestion to flow out.
4. Facing emotional factors is essential for healing the cause of the breathing problems. There are various ways in which we can find relief from these emotional factors and then eventually analyze them and transcend them. a. Self-analysis or objective-self observation can free us from various emotional attachments and fears. Positive thinking, affirmations, and positive thought projection can neutralize negative emotions and tendencies.
5.With the help of various exercises and techniques under proper care of experts, we can seek to: remove the blockages and tensions To start with we can simply practice deep breathing exercises. These exercises will give us relief from tension and may even bring the cause for our emotional tension to the surface so that we may see it more clearly and objectively. Deep relaxation techniques are also very effective for relaxing the whole system so that the muscles of breathing may function more freely.
That is the importance of breathing.
Our respiratory system starts with nose and ends with Alveoli in the lungs. We inhale and exhale air which consists of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
At the time a child is born its respiratory rate is 30 to 40 times per minute with heart beat of 140 to 150 per minute. This steadily reduces and gets standardised at adult stage with 14 to 18 times of breathing rate and 70 to 80 times of heart beat per minute. These can be measured and the normalcy of lung and heart can be checked.
The Respiratory centre in our body is part of our brain and any block to the respiration could affect one’s brain. That is the reason why, if a person stops breathing, then immediately artificial respiration should be given to him. Otherwise his brain could get affected. So, there is prime need to keep this life line running smoothly.
Gasping
Many times, even normal people gasp while climbing stairs, or while going some steep roads or up the hill. Some people gasp for breath in winter and at other times are functioning well. Here are some expert advice on tackling gasping.
When you are about to climb stairs
· Climb the first two stairs breath in
· When you climb the next two, breath out
· Keep this rhythm of two in and two out
When you walk up the hill
· Breath in first three steps
· Breath out the next three
· Keep this rhythm of three in and three out
In winter
· Take quick short breathing for thirty seconds
· Then slow and full breathing for next thirty seconds
· Repeat this sequence
Congestion/bleeding in nose
1 To relieve nasal congestion in children
Crush a fistful of ajwain seeds and tie up in a cotton napkin
And place it near the pillow
2 To check bleeding nose
Make juice from fresh coriander leaves and use as nasal drops
Or you can drop into nostrils, drops of lemon juice
3 fry 2 tsp of dried sundaikkai and fry in little ghee and powder. Take this with rice thrice daily
4 For sinus congestion, grind thippili, clove and rock salt and add 1 tsp to 1 cup boiling water and let the mixture steep for 10 minutes. Filter and drink while still warm
In this connection it would be advantageous to read the following article:
Solutions for Breathing Problems
By Robert Elias Najemy
Breathing difficulties can seriously handicap our ability to function and enjoy life. Air is our most vital source of energy and vitality. When we suffer from asthma, bronchitis, allergies, frequent colds or simply insufficient oxygen intake, we are prone to a lack of energy, vitality and /or mental clarity. Every cell within our body depends on an abundant supply of oxygen for proper metabolism and vitality.
Some Causes of Breathing Problems
1. Hereditary weakness may make our lungs or other organs of respiratory apparatus weak points in our system. Thus when tired, overworked, anxious or stressed, these parts of the body can start to malfunction.
2. Environmental factors may also aggravate the condition. Cold and humid weather tend to accentuate breathing problems. Pollen and other particles in the air may cause allergic reactions. Occupational conditions such as working in a dusty area or in a smoke filled room may also aggravate the problem. Pollution irritates our nasal passage and lungs. Smoking cigarettes obviously damages our lungs, cutting off our supply of oxygen.
3. An over production of mucus clogs up the breathing passages, obstructing breathing. Foods, which tend to cause excess mucus, are all dairy products, white flour, white rice and sweets.
4. A lack of sufficient liquid intake causes the mucus to thicken and cling to the lungs and other breathing passages. This creates a favorable environment for microbes to reproduce.
5. Blockages in the spinal vertebrae or tension in the muscles of the upper back may also obstruct the flow of nerve impulses and bioenergy to the lungs. This may inhibit the proper functioning of the lungs.
6. Emotional blockages are directly connected with our breathing. People, who experience anxiety, depression, fear, nervous tension or a poor self-image, tend to subconsciously hold their breath. Thus their breathing is tense, shallow, and sometimes spasmodic. Long-term emotional blockages may also affect the adrenal glands and thus hormonal disorders may also play their part in the problem. Negative emotions also depress or disturb the functioning of the immune system.
7. A lack of proper education in breathing is another reason why people suffer from breathing problems. It is entirely possible for us to learn to use our lungs more effectively for greater energy, vitality, peace and clarity of mind. This should be learned from an experienced breath coach.
Some Solutions
Surround yourself with large green leafed plants, which produce oxygen and absorb pollution. . Get out of the city frequently. Go the sea or mountains and breathe fresh clean air. Use regular deep breathing to clean out and rejuvenate your lungs. Deep breathing while walking can clean out a considerable amount of pollution from the lungs. If you smoke, then - love yourself - and stop.
2. Avoid all diary products, white sugar, sweets, white flour and white rice. When the problem has subsided, then we can start taking small quantities of dairy products while watching the body's reaction. b. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Drink plenty (6 or 8 cups per day) of warm liquid daily. This may be water, herb teas, or water with lemon. Do not drink refrigerated or iced drinks.
3. When one has a cold, an onion and garlic soup spiced with pepper, cinnamon ginger and cloves, opens up the nasal passages and allows the congestion to flow out.
4. Facing emotional factors is essential for healing the cause of the breathing problems. There are various ways in which we can find relief from these emotional factors and then eventually analyze them and transcend them. a. Self-analysis or objective-self observation can free us from various emotional attachments and fears. Positive thinking, affirmations, and positive thought projection can neutralize negative emotions and tendencies.
5.With the help of various exercises and techniques under proper care of experts, we can seek to: remove the blockages and tensions To start with we can simply practice deep breathing exercises. These exercises will give us relief from tension and may even bring the cause for our emotional tension to the surface so that we may see it more clearly and objectively. Deep relaxation techniques are also very effective for relaxing the whole system so that the muscles of breathing may function more freely.
Asthma
Most people affected would breath abnormally. In their cases their lung would be in a rigid, inelastic state due to severe encumbrances. There is need to restore lost elasticity of the lung tissues. The best way to treat asthma is to stimulate the functioning of your slack glands and re-energise your body; to permit better assimilation of food and to strengthen your lungs, digestive and circulatory systems. For this the first requirement is to reduce the encumbrances to permit practice of better breathing.
A diet which is rich in fruit and vegetables can improve the lungs and increase the ability to breathe properly. Opt for a fruit juice diet to eliminate the toxins. Take liberal quantity of fresh fruits, vegetables and sprouts. Avoid rice, sugar, curd and fried foods which produce phlegm. Whatever you eat, chew slowly and thoroughly. Eat less than your capacity. Drink a cup of warm water every 2 hrs. . Mix honey with water as possible. Total 10 glasses of water in a day. Don’t take water with meals
Ban smoking at home by anyone. Have minimum curtains, carpets, stuffed toys, open book shelves etc where dust accumulates. Avoid dry sweeping, clean by wet mopping. Avoid keeping pets at home. Avoid strong smells, and ice cold drinks.
The next importance to be given is to relaxation. Meditation and visualization would be the best means of relaxing the body. Usually the state of mind affects our breath.
After relaxation, deep breathing is the third key to better performance.
Breathing is a crucial and vital function of our body and still we take it for granted. This approach should go. The patients should do regular breathing exercise. As part of exercise, they can buy some empty balloons and should practice inflating them. Ten balloons in the morning and ten in the evening could give them sufficient exercise. They should make sure that they should never inflate the same balloon twice. Every time they should use a new one. So they should have adequate quantity of balloons with them.
The act of breathing consists of four parts.
1 Breathing out, i.e. expulsion of foul air from lungs. This is very important as, to the extent of retained air in lungs, fresh air cannot get in. Therefore the emptying should be made as thorough as possible.
2 After expulsion, there should be a brief pause for resting the lungs.
3 Then comes breathing in, the drawing of fresh, pure air from outside; and
4 Finally the retention of it in the lungs to allow blood to draw the oxygen and get rid of carbonic acid.
The above four steps are better followed by practise of pranayama and increase the time taken for each breath. The pranayama should be done practised every day either early in the morning or in the evening when the stomach is empty. About 10 to 20 rounds of pranayama should be done each time.
One deep breathing exercise suggested by some experts is as under:
Breath in to the count of four
Hold your breath to the count of four
Breath out to the count of six
In the next round breath out to the count of 7
Don’t worry how you breath in, nature would take care of it
Count your breathing out only
After seven, then breath out to the count of eight
Continue practice till you achieve the count of twenty
This would give you awareness that breathing out is more important
The more you breath out, the more you can breath in
That helps you practice deep breathing
Another exercise suggested by some other experts
Take a news paper
Read it aloud as much as possible in one breath without effort
Now count the number of words you covered in one breath
After three hours try again reading it similarly
Try whether you can overtake your previous record
Tomorrow you try again
Day after try again and see what is your record
Make sure you don’t put yourself under any strain
This would help you breath better
Take following actions:
During the attack
1 Massage on chest and back mustard oil mixed with camphor. Also inhale steam from boiling water mixed with ajwain seeds. Fast, till the attack is gone . After the attack is gone, take lemon juice with honey.
2 Or roll a fistful of ajwain seeds in cotton cloth
Heat this bundle on a tawa
Apply on chest and neck when bearably hot
3 Take a ripe banana warmed on fire after scattering small drops of
powdered black pepper on it.
In general
4 Chew a bel [vilvam] leaf with 3 pepper corn early in the morning
Take 1 cup of warm milk
Do it for 40 days
5 Mix equal quantities of the juices of ginger and anar with honey
Take 1 tbsp three times daily
6 Take 1 tsp ground ginger
Pour 1 ½ cups of hot water over it
Take 1 tsp lukewarm at bed time
7 Powder equal quantities of dried ginger, pepper and long pepper
Mix with honey
Take 1 tsp thrice daily
8 Add 1 tsp of turmeric powder in a glass of milk and boil
Drink at bed time
9 Take ¼ tsp asafoetida powder
2 tsp of honey
½ tsp of betal leaf juice
½ tsp of white onion juice
Sip three times a day
10 Clean 4 figs with warm water and soak overnight in cold water
Take this water and the figs first thing in the morning – Do it for two months
11 Mix fresh or dry amla with honey and take every morning
12 Inhale steam coming from boiling water mixied with ajwain seeds
Similarly steam water with ginger and garlic cloves
13 Inhale the smoke from the burning leaves of Dhatura
14 Take decoction of tulsi leaves with honey and ginger
15 Avoid Yoghurt, butter milk, banana, gauva, chillis, pickle, tea, coffee and fried food
16 Add little ginger juice to warm water and drink at night
17 Take some tender neem leaves and boil in water, stain and drink at night
18 Take the Oomathankai seeds, put them in fire and inhale the smoke when in problem
19 Drink fresh cabbage juice every day – half cup
20 Mix one tbsp of camphor powder in half cup coconut oil and apply on chest
21 Take equal quantities of ajwain, amla without seed, dry sundaikkai, curry leaves, fenugreek seeds, dried ginger, mango kernal and rind of pomegranate. Fry them all in little ghee till become golden brown. Take, cool, powder and bottle. Put half tsp in milk and drink twice daily
22 Take equal quantities of powder of Thippili + dried ginger + black pepper thrice daily
23 Take juice from a fresh onion. Mix with it 1 tbsp ginger juice. Add 1 tsp . honey. Mix them all in 1 glass of warm water. Take it twice a day to clear mucous and reduce the frequency of asthma attack
24 Chew a small piece of dried rind of kadukkai every night. Make sure you don’t take the seeds of it. It is poisonous.
A diet which is rich in fruit and vegetables can improve the lungs and increase the ability to breathe properly. Opt for a fruit juice diet to eliminate the toxins. Take liberal quantity of fresh fruits, vegetables and sprouts. Avoid rice, sugar, curd and fried foods which produce phlegm. Whatever you eat, chew slowly and thoroughly. Eat less than your capacity. Drink a cup of warm water every 2 hrs. . Mix honey with water as possible. Total 10 glasses of water in a day. Don’t take water with meals
Ban smoking at home by anyone. Have minimum curtains, carpets, stuffed toys, open book shelves etc where dust accumulates. Avoid dry sweeping, clean by wet mopping. Avoid keeping pets at home. Avoid strong smells, and ice cold drinks.
The next importance to be given is to relaxation. Meditation and visualization would be the best means of relaxing the body. Usually the state of mind affects our breath.
After relaxation, deep breathing is the third key to better performance.
Breathing is a crucial and vital function of our body and still we take it for granted. This approach should go. The patients should do regular breathing exercise. As part of exercise, they can buy some empty balloons and should practice inflating them. Ten balloons in the morning and ten in the evening could give them sufficient exercise. They should make sure that they should never inflate the same balloon twice. Every time they should use a new one. So they should have adequate quantity of balloons with them.
The act of breathing consists of four parts.
1 Breathing out, i.e. expulsion of foul air from lungs. This is very important as, to the extent of retained air in lungs, fresh air cannot get in. Therefore the emptying should be made as thorough as possible.
2 After expulsion, there should be a brief pause for resting the lungs.
3 Then comes breathing in, the drawing of fresh, pure air from outside; and
4 Finally the retention of it in the lungs to allow blood to draw the oxygen and get rid of carbonic acid.
The above four steps are better followed by practise of pranayama and increase the time taken for each breath. The pranayama should be done practised every day either early in the morning or in the evening when the stomach is empty. About 10 to 20 rounds of pranayama should be done each time.
One deep breathing exercise suggested by some experts is as under:
Breath in to the count of four
Hold your breath to the count of four
Breath out to the count of six
In the next round breath out to the count of 7
Don’t worry how you breath in, nature would take care of it
Count your breathing out only
After seven, then breath out to the count of eight
Continue practice till you achieve the count of twenty
This would give you awareness that breathing out is more important
The more you breath out, the more you can breath in
That helps you practice deep breathing
Another exercise suggested by some other experts
Take a news paper
Read it aloud as much as possible in one breath without effort
Now count the number of words you covered in one breath
After three hours try again reading it similarly
Try whether you can overtake your previous record
Tomorrow you try again
Day after try again and see what is your record
Make sure you don’t put yourself under any strain
This would help you breath better
Take following actions:
During the attack
1 Massage on chest and back mustard oil mixed with camphor. Also inhale steam from boiling water mixed with ajwain seeds. Fast, till the attack is gone . After the attack is gone, take lemon juice with honey.
2 Or roll a fistful of ajwain seeds in cotton cloth
Heat this bundle on a tawa
Apply on chest and neck when bearably hot
3 Take a ripe banana warmed on fire after scattering small drops of
powdered black pepper on it.
In general
4 Chew a bel [vilvam] leaf with 3 pepper corn early in the morning
Take 1 cup of warm milk
Do it for 40 days
5 Mix equal quantities of the juices of ginger and anar with honey
Take 1 tbsp three times daily
6 Take 1 tsp ground ginger
Pour 1 ½ cups of hot water over it
Take 1 tsp lukewarm at bed time
7 Powder equal quantities of dried ginger, pepper and long pepper
Mix with honey
Take 1 tsp thrice daily
8 Add 1 tsp of turmeric powder in a glass of milk and boil
Drink at bed time
9 Take ¼ tsp asafoetida powder
2 tsp of honey
½ tsp of betal leaf juice
½ tsp of white onion juice
Sip three times a day
10 Clean 4 figs with warm water and soak overnight in cold water
Take this water and the figs first thing in the morning – Do it for two months
11 Mix fresh or dry amla with honey and take every morning
12 Inhale steam coming from boiling water mixied with ajwain seeds
Similarly steam water with ginger and garlic cloves
13 Inhale the smoke from the burning leaves of Dhatura
14 Take decoction of tulsi leaves with honey and ginger
15 Avoid Yoghurt, butter milk, banana, gauva, chillis, pickle, tea, coffee and fried food
16 Add little ginger juice to warm water and drink at night
17 Take some tender neem leaves and boil in water, stain and drink at night
18 Take the Oomathankai seeds, put them in fire and inhale the smoke when in problem
19 Drink fresh cabbage juice every day – half cup
20 Mix one tbsp of camphor powder in half cup coconut oil and apply on chest
21 Take equal quantities of ajwain, amla without seed, dry sundaikkai, curry leaves, fenugreek seeds, dried ginger, mango kernal and rind of pomegranate. Fry them all in little ghee till become golden brown. Take, cool, powder and bottle. Put half tsp in milk and drink twice daily
22 Take equal quantities of powder of Thippili + dried ginger + black pepper thrice daily
23 Take juice from a fresh onion. Mix with it 1 tbsp ginger juice. Add 1 tsp . honey. Mix them all in 1 glass of warm water. Take it twice a day to clear mucous and reduce the frequency of asthma attack
24 Chew a small piece of dried rind of kadukkai every night. Make sure you don’t take the seeds of it. It is poisonous.
Problems in the Mouth
Taste loss
1 Boil 1 tsp mint leaves in 1 cup water, take off and add ½ tsp powder cardamom
Mix and drink
2 Mix cinnamon powder with honey; rub on tongue; allow to remain for sometime
3 Steep 1 tbsp pudina leaves in 1 cup water for 30 mts. Drink the infusion
Mouth ulcers
1 Make milk out of ripe coconut
Gargle or apply at the affected part
Or mix with honey and massage
2 Boil 1 tsp coriander seeds in 1 cup water
Gargle with this warm decoction frequently
3 Boil fenugreek leaves with ½ cup moong dal and 10 small onions
Eat regularly
4 You can gargle with fenugreek boiled water 5 times daily
5 Chew few leaves of tulsi
6 Chew coconut
7 Take amrood leaves, chew and spit
8 Steam half cup of manathakkali leaves, add equal quantity of freshly shredded coconut and take with meals every day for few days
9 Mix the milk of banyan tree with honey and apply on the ulcers
10 Chew few leaflets of jasmine for 10 minutes and rinse out the mouth in luke warm water. Repeat frequently
11 Wash the mouth frequently with the decoction of rose petals
Speech defects
Take 2 to 3 pinches of the root powder of vasambu with honey every morning on an empty stomach
Stammering
Stammering is not a disease but a habit formed in the child in his early years of speaking. Some parents are very strict with their children and this causes an anxiety in the child whose speech pattern gets affected. It only communicates that the child is internally tense and that tension has taken away the fluency in speaking.
. Parents can cure this problem in their children only by giving back the love and affection that our children best deserve. Parents might ask as to what to do if the child needs to be punished on certain occasions. Someone said that
“Children deserve love when they don’t deserve it”.
Following are some of the measures that parents can take
ü Be calm and confident that things will get well
ü Pour and shower love on the child
ü Never mimic and never make your child conscious of his problem
ü Enjoy being with your child
ü Be always gentle and tender and never force anything on the child
ü Remove the feeling of fear and insecurity in the child
ü Get acquainted with his teachers and solicit their support in boosting his self esteem
ü Let the child know that his parents love him
ü Make your guests know the child’s problems so that they do not make any negative remarks
ü Motivate and invite the child’s friends home for interaction with your child
ü Identify letters that generate trouble
ü Give that letter practice
ü Be aware the child has his inner strength. Only he feels shy
ü Have and give confidence that it would go away
ü Try the home medicine given for speech defects, as above
ü Also try the following exercises
The Exercises
Exercise 1
· Some people do find it difficult to talk without stammering. Their stammering is more caused by their self consciousness than due to any physical deformity.
· The cure for them lies in talking. Just talking. Continue talking. If they stop being self conscious and start talking, their power to talk well will return to them.
· They should start by doing what they can do easily. Then they should slowly build upon what they talk.
· Let them first start with talking to themselves silently.
· Let them take a good time on this ‘self talking’
· I am sure they would ‘self talk’ without any kind of stammer
· Then they should choose some time and place where no one is around
· During that time, they should whisper to the wall
· They should make whisper conversation with the wall
· Slowly they should increase the sound of this whisper talking
· They should make it louder and louder over a period of talking
· Till they come to the natural volume
· Once they have mastered talking to the wall without stammering
· They should start talking to the mirror
· These exercises are bound to increase not only their ability, but also their self confidence. And once self confidence is built up, there would be no turning back.
Exercise 2
· There is a second method also to cure stammering
· This is through an exercise called ‘Negative Practice’
· The stammerer should pick up a small passage of say 25 words
· After memorizing this passage, he should repeat this passage
· But the condition is he should stammer each and every word
· He should deliberately and consciously stammer each and every word
· It should look like actually practicing stammering
· He should force himself to stammer each and every word in that
· The stammerer would feel through this passage that he is stammering unnecessarily and that he can talk through the passage fluently
· This is the mindset, this exercise is supposed to build up
· Once this mindset gets developed, the stammerer would feel confident of himself and would not stammer
· From then on, it is simply a matter of learning the proper use of the voice in speaking and in overcoming self consciousness in talking to others.
Arthritis in the jaws
Before reading this, please go through the chapter on Muscles and Bones where the disease ‘arthritis’ is well dealt with.
Arthritis can also affect the joint at our jaw and it is called Temporomandibular disorder. It is an inflammation or misalighment of the joint that connects the jaw to the head. The symptoms may include muscle pain, clicking, noise in the jaw etc. First have it checked up by your dentist to rule out the possibility of dentures getting worn out. Once it is confirmed it is only mandibular arthritis, take the following actions:
1 Do not open your jaws wide
2 Avoid hard items like nuts for eating
3 Wrap some ice in a towel and hold it against your jaw for 20 minutes
4 Try doing this again and again with good intervals
5 If by two days, you don’t get relief, try a heat pad instead of cold pack
6 Consume vitamin C in the form of fruits and vegetables
1 Boil 1 tsp mint leaves in 1 cup water, take off and add ½ tsp powder cardamom
Mix and drink
2 Mix cinnamon powder with honey; rub on tongue; allow to remain for sometime
3 Steep 1 tbsp pudina leaves in 1 cup water for 30 mts. Drink the infusion
Mouth ulcers
1 Make milk out of ripe coconut
Gargle or apply at the affected part
Or mix with honey and massage
2 Boil 1 tsp coriander seeds in 1 cup water
Gargle with this warm decoction frequently
3 Boil fenugreek leaves with ½ cup moong dal and 10 small onions
Eat regularly
4 You can gargle with fenugreek boiled water 5 times daily
5 Chew few leaves of tulsi
6 Chew coconut
7 Take amrood leaves, chew and spit
8 Steam half cup of manathakkali leaves, add equal quantity of freshly shredded coconut and take with meals every day for few days
9 Mix the milk of banyan tree with honey and apply on the ulcers
10 Chew few leaflets of jasmine for 10 minutes and rinse out the mouth in luke warm water. Repeat frequently
11 Wash the mouth frequently with the decoction of rose petals
Speech defects
Take 2 to 3 pinches of the root powder of vasambu with honey every morning on an empty stomach
Stammering
Stammering is not a disease but a habit formed in the child in his early years of speaking. Some parents are very strict with their children and this causes an anxiety in the child whose speech pattern gets affected. It only communicates that the child is internally tense and that tension has taken away the fluency in speaking.
. Parents can cure this problem in their children only by giving back the love and affection that our children best deserve. Parents might ask as to what to do if the child needs to be punished on certain occasions. Someone said that
“Children deserve love when they don’t deserve it”.
Following are some of the measures that parents can take
ü Be calm and confident that things will get well
ü Pour and shower love on the child
ü Never mimic and never make your child conscious of his problem
ü Enjoy being with your child
ü Be always gentle and tender and never force anything on the child
ü Remove the feeling of fear and insecurity in the child
ü Get acquainted with his teachers and solicit their support in boosting his self esteem
ü Let the child know that his parents love him
ü Make your guests know the child’s problems so that they do not make any negative remarks
ü Motivate and invite the child’s friends home for interaction with your child
ü Identify letters that generate trouble
ü Give that letter practice
ü Be aware the child has his inner strength. Only he feels shy
ü Have and give confidence that it would go away
ü Try the home medicine given for speech defects, as above
ü Also try the following exercises
The Exercises
Exercise 1
· Some people do find it difficult to talk without stammering. Their stammering is more caused by their self consciousness than due to any physical deformity.
· The cure for them lies in talking. Just talking. Continue talking. If they stop being self conscious and start talking, their power to talk well will return to them.
· They should start by doing what they can do easily. Then they should slowly build upon what they talk.
· Let them first start with talking to themselves silently.
· Let them take a good time on this ‘self talking’
· I am sure they would ‘self talk’ without any kind of stammer
· Then they should choose some time and place where no one is around
· During that time, they should whisper to the wall
· They should make whisper conversation with the wall
· Slowly they should increase the sound of this whisper talking
· They should make it louder and louder over a period of talking
· Till they come to the natural volume
· Once they have mastered talking to the wall without stammering
· They should start talking to the mirror
· These exercises are bound to increase not only their ability, but also their self confidence. And once self confidence is built up, there would be no turning back.
Exercise 2
· There is a second method also to cure stammering
· This is through an exercise called ‘Negative Practice’
· The stammerer should pick up a small passage of say 25 words
· After memorizing this passage, he should repeat this passage
· But the condition is he should stammer each and every word
· He should deliberately and consciously stammer each and every word
· It should look like actually practicing stammering
· He should force himself to stammer each and every word in that
· The stammerer would feel through this passage that he is stammering unnecessarily and that he can talk through the passage fluently
· This is the mindset, this exercise is supposed to build up
· Once this mindset gets developed, the stammerer would feel confident of himself and would not stammer
· From then on, it is simply a matter of learning the proper use of the voice in speaking and in overcoming self consciousness in talking to others.
Arthritis in the jaws
Before reading this, please go through the chapter on Muscles and Bones where the disease ‘arthritis’ is well dealt with.
Arthritis can also affect the joint at our jaw and it is called Temporomandibular disorder. It is an inflammation or misalighment of the joint that connects the jaw to the head. The symptoms may include muscle pain, clicking, noise in the jaw etc. First have it checked up by your dentist to rule out the possibility of dentures getting worn out. Once it is confirmed it is only mandibular arthritis, take the following actions:
1 Do not open your jaws wide
2 Avoid hard items like nuts for eating
3 Wrap some ice in a towel and hold it against your jaw for 20 minutes
4 Try doing this again and again with good intervals
5 If by two days, you don’t get relief, try a heat pad instead of cold pack
6 Consume vitamin C in the form of fruits and vegetables
Problems in Teeth
People who lead a rich life style are more prone to have tooth problems because
· They are the people who eat more of cakes, chocolates and refined sugar.
· They have the habit of consuming snacks between meals.
· They are the people who take more of coffee, tea, etc.
Good Habits
· Rinse your mouth after every meal and clean your teeth of the food particles.
· Our teeth get stained by coffee, tea, tobacco and such other avoidable substances.
· Apple and guava are cleansing agents and they too clean your teeth.
· Avoid the sweets. If you can’t avoid them, take them along with your meals and not in between. Why you are asked not to take sweets between meals is that you may not rinse your mouth after taking a mere sweet.
· Brush your teeth twice a day. Especially it is important to brush your teeth before going to sleep at night. During sleep, your saliva outflow gets reduced and it means there is no chemical inflow into your mouth during sleep. That is the reason why, those who have no night-cleaning habits would find their mouth unpleasant when they get up in the morning. So brushing before teeth is important.
· Don’t be hasty while brushing your teeth but take time to softly and gently brush. Always use a soft brush
· Avoid going after whitening solutions which are concentrations of hydrogen peroxide as they cause irreversible cell damage and enhance carcinogens. Teeth whitening agents as above cause damage to exterior enamel, kill gum tissues and cause damage to teeth.
· Occasionally, add a little table salt to your tooth paste and then brush. It is has good whitening effect and also kills bacteria better.
· Once in a week, put your tooth brush in warm water added with salt to have a cleaned brush.
Home Medicines
Tooth ache
1 See under “Pain”
Yelow tooth
1 Burn the shells of almond and powder; use it as tooth powder
2 Finely powder the rind of lime
Mix salt; Use it as tooth powder frequently
3 Burn some betal nuts till charred. Powder and bottle. Rub on the affected teeth frequently with this powder every day
4 Squeeze out lemon juice in a cup and rub it on your teeth with a dental brush
Gum
1 For bleeding gum, mix equal quantities of salt and pepper powder and massage over gums
2 For inflammation in the gum, take some manathakkali leaves, clean them, and chew frequently
3 Add the milk of Banyan tree with honey and apply on the gums. Leave it for 10 minutes and garle. Also useful for loosening teeth
Tooth ache
1 Burn the shells of almonds and powder. Use it as tooth powder
2 Heat ½ tsp of asafoetida in 2 tsp lime juice
soak a piece of cotton in this solution and place it on the tooth cavity
2 Buy clove oil, Apply on the affected part with Jhonson & Jhonson
cotton buds
1 Heat 1 tsp coconut oil and fry 3 pieces of clove
Apply powder of fried cloves on the affected part
2 Make a paste of ginger along with little salt; apply
3 Apply nutmerg oil on the affected parts
4 A mixture of clove oil and powdered pepper can also be applied on affected parts
5 Make paste of tulsi leaves, warm it a little and apply to the aching tooth
6 Boil Amrood leaves in water. Use the water for mouth wash / gargling
7 Powder alam and put it in hot water and use that water to gargle
8 Take tamarind and salt of equal measure, mix them both well and keep at the pain spot. The saliva can be either spit out or swallowed.
· They are the people who eat more of cakes, chocolates and refined sugar.
· They have the habit of consuming snacks between meals.
· They are the people who take more of coffee, tea, etc.
Good Habits
· Rinse your mouth after every meal and clean your teeth of the food particles.
· Our teeth get stained by coffee, tea, tobacco and such other avoidable substances.
· Apple and guava are cleansing agents and they too clean your teeth.
· Avoid the sweets. If you can’t avoid them, take them along with your meals and not in between. Why you are asked not to take sweets between meals is that you may not rinse your mouth after taking a mere sweet.
· Brush your teeth twice a day. Especially it is important to brush your teeth before going to sleep at night. During sleep, your saliva outflow gets reduced and it means there is no chemical inflow into your mouth during sleep. That is the reason why, those who have no night-cleaning habits would find their mouth unpleasant when they get up in the morning. So brushing before teeth is important.
· Don’t be hasty while brushing your teeth but take time to softly and gently brush. Always use a soft brush
· Avoid going after whitening solutions which are concentrations of hydrogen peroxide as they cause irreversible cell damage and enhance carcinogens. Teeth whitening agents as above cause damage to exterior enamel, kill gum tissues and cause damage to teeth.
· Occasionally, add a little table salt to your tooth paste and then brush. It is has good whitening effect and also kills bacteria better.
· Once in a week, put your tooth brush in warm water added with salt to have a cleaned brush.
Home Medicines
Tooth ache
1 See under “Pain”
Yelow tooth
1 Burn the shells of almond and powder; use it as tooth powder
2 Finely powder the rind of lime
Mix salt; Use it as tooth powder frequently
3 Burn some betal nuts till charred. Powder and bottle. Rub on the affected teeth frequently with this powder every day
4 Squeeze out lemon juice in a cup and rub it on your teeth with a dental brush
Gum
1 For bleeding gum, mix equal quantities of salt and pepper powder and massage over gums
2 For inflammation in the gum, take some manathakkali leaves, clean them, and chew frequently
3 Add the milk of Banyan tree with honey and apply on the gums. Leave it for 10 minutes and garle. Also useful for loosening teeth
Tooth ache
1 Burn the shells of almonds and powder. Use it as tooth powder
2 Heat ½ tsp of asafoetida in 2 tsp lime juice
soak a piece of cotton in this solution and place it on the tooth cavity
2 Buy clove oil, Apply on the affected part with Jhonson & Jhonson
cotton buds
1 Heat 1 tsp coconut oil and fry 3 pieces of clove
Apply powder of fried cloves on the affected part
2 Make a paste of ginger along with little salt; apply
3 Apply nutmerg oil on the affected parts
4 A mixture of clove oil and powdered pepper can also be applied on affected parts
5 Make paste of tulsi leaves, warm it a little and apply to the aching tooth
6 Boil Amrood leaves in water. Use the water for mouth wash / gargling
7 Powder alam and put it in hot water and use that water to gargle
8 Take tamarind and salt of equal measure, mix them both well and keep at the pain spot. The saliva can be either spit out or swallowed.
Sore Throat
With your constant speech and eating, right from birth, your mouth and throat is one of the most over worked organ. If you had chewed it properly, the antiseptic chemicals contained in your saliva would have killed the germs in the mouth itself before they entered your throat. But unfortunately, we eat without chewing. We gobble food along with the germs contained in it. Now that we have gobbled it, we have the germs in our throat.
Thus a sore throat simply communicates the fact that you have abused your throat either by its over use or by wrongful eating. Quite naturally, you would get cured if you simply keep your mouth shut for the next forty eight hours taking ample fruit juice which is a great cleaning agent. If that does not work, opt for any of the following Home Medicines:
1 On a mixture of 1 tsp each of cinnamon and cardamom
Pour 1 glass boiling water
Filter and use for gargling
2 Boil ½ tsp each of powdered cinnamon and black pepper in one cup water
Add honey and drink
3 Boil fenugreek leaves with ½ cup moong dal and 10 small onions
Eat regularly
4 Chew a small piece of fresh ginger
5 Take a handful of leaves of lime; pour over it 1 cup hot water and take the water
6 Chew or suck a small piece of raw athimadhuram
7 Add 1 tsp turmeric powder to boiling water and inhale the vapour
8 If sore throat is due to cold, make pepper powder, add it to a spoonful of hot ghee and take
9 Before going to bed, take milk added with pepper powder and a little of turmeric powder for three days
10 Gargle with salt and ajwain seeds in warm water
11 Add a few dried rose petals to honey and chew frequently
Throat irritation
1 Powder 1 tsp fried cloves; mix with 1 cup warm water and gargle frequently
2 If throat irritation is due to coughing, chew 3 cloves with a pinch of common salt
3 Make a kashayam of Palm candy + little pepper + jeera + virali turmeric small piece and drink with one tea spoon of butter. Pepper and jeera to be fried and powdered before putting in kashayam
4 In case of ulcer in the throat, take jeera and palm candy and chew them together. After a little time, take warm water
5 Before going to bed, take milk added with pepper powder and a little of turmeric powder for three days
6 Lick a small piece of vasambu
Swelling in throat
Fry a handful of jasmine leaves in 1 tbsp gingelly oil and tie around the throat when bearably hot
Throat pain
1 Miix 1 tbsp each of lime juice and honey
Swallow tiny amounts slowly
2 Crush neem leaves in water, remove fibre, warm it up, add little honey
Use it for gargling
Thus a sore throat simply communicates the fact that you have abused your throat either by its over use or by wrongful eating. Quite naturally, you would get cured if you simply keep your mouth shut for the next forty eight hours taking ample fruit juice which is a great cleaning agent. If that does not work, opt for any of the following Home Medicines:
1 On a mixture of 1 tsp each of cinnamon and cardamom
Pour 1 glass boiling water
Filter and use for gargling
2 Boil ½ tsp each of powdered cinnamon and black pepper in one cup water
Add honey and drink
3 Boil fenugreek leaves with ½ cup moong dal and 10 small onions
Eat regularly
4 Chew a small piece of fresh ginger
5 Take a handful of leaves of lime; pour over it 1 cup hot water and take the water
6 Chew or suck a small piece of raw athimadhuram
7 Add 1 tsp turmeric powder to boiling water and inhale the vapour
8 If sore throat is due to cold, make pepper powder, add it to a spoonful of hot ghee and take
9 Before going to bed, take milk added with pepper powder and a little of turmeric powder for three days
10 Gargle with salt and ajwain seeds in warm water
11 Add a few dried rose petals to honey and chew frequently
Throat irritation
1 Powder 1 tsp fried cloves; mix with 1 cup warm water and gargle frequently
2 If throat irritation is due to coughing, chew 3 cloves with a pinch of common salt
3 Make a kashayam of Palm candy + little pepper + jeera + virali turmeric small piece and drink with one tea spoon of butter. Pepper and jeera to be fried and powdered before putting in kashayam
4 In case of ulcer in the throat, take jeera and palm candy and chew them together. After a little time, take warm water
5 Before going to bed, take milk added with pepper powder and a little of turmeric powder for three days
6 Lick a small piece of vasambu
Swelling in throat
Fry a handful of jasmine leaves in 1 tbsp gingelly oil and tie around the throat when bearably hot
Throat pain
1 Miix 1 tbsp each of lime juice and honey
Swallow tiny amounts slowly
2 Crush neem leaves in water, remove fibre, warm it up, add little honey
Use it for gargling
Hiccups
1 Take a deep breath
Hold it for few seconds
2 Breath into a paper bag
3 Gulp down hard
4 Plug the ears with your fingers
5 Hold out your tongue
6 Take mouthful of cold water and hold it in mouth
Plug the ears with your fingers and gulp the water
7 Take a spoonful of sugar and swallow before it becomes water
8 Take a glass of water with honey
9 Drink small quantity of hot and cold milk alternatively
10 Take juice of white raddish
11 Take sugar cane juice mixed with ginger juice
12 Take two tsp sugar and chew
13 Incase of hiccups from digestion problems, eat fresh papaya or pine apple
Hold it for few seconds
2 Breath into a paper bag
3 Gulp down hard
4 Plug the ears with your fingers
5 Hold out your tongue
6 Take mouthful of cold water and hold it in mouth
Plug the ears with your fingers and gulp the water
7 Take a spoonful of sugar and swallow before it becomes water
8 Take a glass of water with honey
9 Drink small quantity of hot and cold milk alternatively
10 Take juice of white raddish
11 Take sugar cane juice mixed with ginger juice
12 Take two tsp sugar and chew
13 Incase of hiccups from digestion problems, eat fresh papaya or pine apple
Acidity
You would feel a burn or fire in your chest
You could also feel some bitter taste in your mouth
Only the center of your chest is affected and no pain radiates to the shoulders or hands
Take plenty of water
No medication necessary
Take care of what you eat
Heart Attack
There is pain, pressure and squeezing in the chest
There could be nausea, vomiting, dizziness, sweating and breathlessness
Pain would radiate into shoulders, neck, arms, upper back, etc.
Lie down and keep an aspirin tablet or sorbitrate immediately under
the tongue. Seek medical attention immediately
It occurs due to dietetic indiscretions. There isi need to understand these:
Indiscretion in eating
More people suffer from eating when the stomach is already full and is already engaged in digesting the meal already in it. When the stomach is already full and engaged, any additional input stagnates and remains in the esophagus [the food pipe leading to the stomach] and cause irritation to it. This is one of the reasons which causes the feeling of heart burn.
Gulping food without chewing is another reason. Acids flow into our stomach when we eat some food. The food arrives with saliva which is anti septic, into the stomach and this salival chemical protects our stomach lining from acids. But when we gulp our food without proper chewing, food arrives into the stomach without saliva and we lose its protective value. We develop ulcer as a result.
Habitual over eating eating badly combined foods , eating improperly cooked foods, excessive intake of strong tea, coffee or alcohol, habitual use of condiments, sauces, etc. also cause acidity.
Acids also start flooding our stomach when we are tense. Now when the acids come into our stomach without there being food to digest, they affect the walls of the stomach and duodenum and we get the burning sensation. Thus we generate acidity and due to worry, anxiety, grief, tension etc. which have profound effect on our stomach.
When acid gets generated in our stomach, if there is food, the digestion process takes care of the acid. But when the acid gets produced due to our emotions, there is no food for digestion and then the acid spills into our esophagus. A lining of mucus normally protects the stomach from its own digestive acid. But the esophagus has no such protection. Therefore when the acid backs up into the esophagus, you feel the heart burn.
People affected by acidity take to antacids, which counteract the acid in the stomach. What is the function of this antacid? It does not get you the relief but inhibits the production of the acid itself in the stomach. Now the next time your food goes inside the stomach, the acid is not produced and you develop further indigestion.
The cure lies in eating less and less bland food so that the nature itself produces less acid. When more acid producing food is consumed, as above said, it belches up above the stomach and spills over to the esophagus breaking the intermediary safety value. The esophagus unfortunately does not have the protective lining that the stomach has been provided with. Thus with the excess acid entering the esophagus, you get the burning sensation. The problem is, once the safety valve is broken as above, subsequently you suffer acidity quite easily because there is no stopping the acid entering the esophagus subsequently. Thus, once acidity starts, every little violation you make, you immediately start suffering from the acidity. That is the price you pay for violating the nature’s law, even once.
In one way, acidity is your friend. Once you suffer from acidity, you start being careful from then on in your eating habits. It is the nature’s way of controlling you and your food habits. And therefore be thankful to your acidity.
The following could be the line of treatment:
1 Very often people prone to acidity know that they are likely to be attacked by acidity. Right at that time, they should take one tsp of jeera straight from their kitchen bottle and put the same into their mouth and chew and swallow. This is highly effective.
2 In fact this can be taken whenever you feel you have committed any violation in eating habit, such as over eating or wrongful eating. Many times, this small jeera saves you of the trouble.
3 Drink lots of water and undertake fasts and end with fruit juice
Mix 300 ml carrot juice + 200 ml Spinach juice + coconut water very good
After fast, to the best possible extent, adopt all fruit diet
Then move over to well balanced diet
Upon rising, take luke warm water with lemon juice and honey
Take fruits in break fast [fruits only, the best]
Whenever you feel like taking snacks, take banana
Take more of vegetables, i.e. salads in lunch and less of cooked items
Avoid having too many different foods at a given meal
Dinner should be on lines with lunch
Avoid alcohol, spices, non-vegetarian
Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water every day, but not with meals
Avoid caffeine and chocolates as they weaken the lower oesophageal portions
4 Take dry ginger and jaggery and powder them together
[You also get ginger powder in the market, mix it with jaggery powder]
Mix with little ghee
Take tbsp when acidity strikes
Otherwise twice a day
5 Take a glass of tomato juice
Mix a tsp of honey and juice of one lemon
Take twice a day
6 Take the following 20 grams of fresh ginger and 10 grams each of following
Kanda thippili / Peepal more
Chittarattai
Vasambu
Dry dhaniya
Cinnamon
Khuskhus / Poppyseed
Dry ginger
Add little of cardamom, clove, Nutmerg and Jathipatri
Mix them all and soak them in water for 5 hours
Remove from water and grind them to paste by using adequate quantity of same water
Heat 200 gms of jaggery and when it is liquid, add the above paste + little turmeric powder
Heat in slow fire, keep stirring until it leaves the sides
Add 2 tsp of gingelly oil and 4 tbsp of ghee
Mix well and remove and cool and store
Take in empty stomach 1 tsp every morning
7 Buy fresh amla and shade dry
Make powder from it and store
Every night, just before you go for sleep, take one tsp, add to some hot water and drink
Follow it by one glass of warm water – it prevents acidity on a long term basis
In case your sleep is disturbed by acidity, try sleeping on your left side or have your upper body elevated to six inches.
In case your heart burn is chronic affecting your eating and sleep, it is most serious. It can cause cancer called adenocarcinoma in the esophagus. So be careful.
You could also feel some bitter taste in your mouth
Only the center of your chest is affected and no pain radiates to the shoulders or hands
Take plenty of water
No medication necessary
Take care of what you eat
Heart Attack
There is pain, pressure and squeezing in the chest
There could be nausea, vomiting, dizziness, sweating and breathlessness
Pain would radiate into shoulders, neck, arms, upper back, etc.
Lie down and keep an aspirin tablet or sorbitrate immediately under
the tongue. Seek medical attention immediately
It occurs due to dietetic indiscretions. There isi need to understand these:
Indiscretion in eating
More people suffer from eating when the stomach is already full and is already engaged in digesting the meal already in it. When the stomach is already full and engaged, any additional input stagnates and remains in the esophagus [the food pipe leading to the stomach] and cause irritation to it. This is one of the reasons which causes the feeling of heart burn.
Gulping food without chewing is another reason. Acids flow into our stomach when we eat some food. The food arrives with saliva which is anti septic, into the stomach and this salival chemical protects our stomach lining from acids. But when we gulp our food without proper chewing, food arrives into the stomach without saliva and we lose its protective value. We develop ulcer as a result.
Habitual over eating eating badly combined foods , eating improperly cooked foods, excessive intake of strong tea, coffee or alcohol, habitual use of condiments, sauces, etc. also cause acidity.
Acids also start flooding our stomach when we are tense. Now when the acids come into our stomach without there being food to digest, they affect the walls of the stomach and duodenum and we get the burning sensation. Thus we generate acidity and due to worry, anxiety, grief, tension etc. which have profound effect on our stomach.
When acid gets generated in our stomach, if there is food, the digestion process takes care of the acid. But when the acid gets produced due to our emotions, there is no food for digestion and then the acid spills into our esophagus. A lining of mucus normally protects the stomach from its own digestive acid. But the esophagus has no such protection. Therefore when the acid backs up into the esophagus, you feel the heart burn.
People affected by acidity take to antacids, which counteract the acid in the stomach. What is the function of this antacid? It does not get you the relief but inhibits the production of the acid itself in the stomach. Now the next time your food goes inside the stomach, the acid is not produced and you develop further indigestion.
The cure lies in eating less and less bland food so that the nature itself produces less acid. When more acid producing food is consumed, as above said, it belches up above the stomach and spills over to the esophagus breaking the intermediary safety value. The esophagus unfortunately does not have the protective lining that the stomach has been provided with. Thus with the excess acid entering the esophagus, you get the burning sensation. The problem is, once the safety valve is broken as above, subsequently you suffer acidity quite easily because there is no stopping the acid entering the esophagus subsequently. Thus, once acidity starts, every little violation you make, you immediately start suffering from the acidity. That is the price you pay for violating the nature’s law, even once.
In one way, acidity is your friend. Once you suffer from acidity, you start being careful from then on in your eating habits. It is the nature’s way of controlling you and your food habits. And therefore be thankful to your acidity.
The following could be the line of treatment:
1 Very often people prone to acidity know that they are likely to be attacked by acidity. Right at that time, they should take one tsp of jeera straight from their kitchen bottle and put the same into their mouth and chew and swallow. This is highly effective.
2 In fact this can be taken whenever you feel you have committed any violation in eating habit, such as over eating or wrongful eating. Many times, this small jeera saves you of the trouble.
3 Drink lots of water and undertake fasts and end with fruit juice
Mix 300 ml carrot juice + 200 ml Spinach juice + coconut water very good
After fast, to the best possible extent, adopt all fruit diet
Then move over to well balanced diet
Upon rising, take luke warm water with lemon juice and honey
Take fruits in break fast [fruits only, the best]
Whenever you feel like taking snacks, take banana
Take more of vegetables, i.e. salads in lunch and less of cooked items
Avoid having too many different foods at a given meal
Dinner should be on lines with lunch
Avoid alcohol, spices, non-vegetarian
Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water every day, but not with meals
Avoid caffeine and chocolates as they weaken the lower oesophageal portions
4 Take dry ginger and jaggery and powder them together
[You also get ginger powder in the market, mix it with jaggery powder]
Mix with little ghee
Take tbsp when acidity strikes
Otherwise twice a day
5 Take a glass of tomato juice
Mix a tsp of honey and juice of one lemon
Take twice a day
6 Take the following 20 grams of fresh ginger and 10 grams each of following
Kanda thippili / Peepal more
Chittarattai
Vasambu
Dry dhaniya
Cinnamon
Khuskhus / Poppyseed
Dry ginger
Add little of cardamom, clove, Nutmerg and Jathipatri
Mix them all and soak them in water for 5 hours
Remove from water and grind them to paste by using adequate quantity of same water
Heat 200 gms of jaggery and when it is liquid, add the above paste + little turmeric powder
Heat in slow fire, keep stirring until it leaves the sides
Add 2 tsp of gingelly oil and 4 tbsp of ghee
Mix well and remove and cool and store
Take in empty stomach 1 tsp every morning
7 Buy fresh amla and shade dry
Make powder from it and store
Every night, just before you go for sleep, take one tsp, add to some hot water and drink
Follow it by one glass of warm water – it prevents acidity on a long term basis
In case your sleep is disturbed by acidity, try sleeping on your left side or have your upper body elevated to six inches.
In case your heart burn is chronic affecting your eating and sleep, it is most serious. It can cause cancer called adenocarcinoma in the esophagus. So be careful.
Fever
Human body is a working machinery and any machinery that is working is bound to generate heat. God has created a number of cooling mechanisms in our body that we let out our heat continuously by various means. But when you suffer fever, it is an indication that your body is generating heat faster than losing it and that your body is struggling to get rid of the heat. So the best thing you can do is to lie down and give the body adequate rest to do its work towards getting rid of the excess heat.
Thus mild fever is simply body’s natural response to fighting virus. Taking test or even sleeping is the best thing to do. If the patient is already sleeping, never wake him up even to give medication.
Don’t assume fever means you are seriously ill. Drink water frequently to clear urine every two hours [ except for heart and kidney patients]. Avoid heavy meals but eat when feeling hungry; stick to bland foods. Give sponge bath with lukewarm water [wait for an hour, if patient given paracetamol].
When to worry about the fever?
There is no cause for alarm so long the temperature is up to 103 degrees
But in the case of new born babies and those with heart or arthritis problems, consult the doctor just to reduce the discomfort to the patient
Also consult the doctor if
More than 100.2 degrees if the child is upto 3 months
More than 101 degrees for a child up to six months age
More than 103 degrees for a child above six months age including adults
More than 101 degrees for three days continuously in case of any one
If fever is accompanied by severe head ache, stiff neck, sore throat, aches and pains, coughing that brings sputum or blood, irritability, excessive sleepiness, rash, vomiting, difficulty in breathing, bloody diarrhoea or blood in stools or other infections
Home Medicines
You can facilitate your body lose its heat by taking any of the following measures:
In feverishness:
Take one cup of lemon juice, add it to tender coconut water and drink
In fever
To bring down the temperature, as an external application, apply leaf juice of agathikeerai all over the body or soak a handful of vettiver in a jug of water and apply the infusion over forehead.
1 Make tea by boiling fenugreek seeds
Take thrice a day, if necessary adding little honey or lemon juice for taste
2 Make a cup of fenugreek decoction
Add 1 tsp fresh juice of ginger and 1 tsp honey
Drink
3 Make decoction of neem leaves
Add pepper powder and take
4 Add in warm water ½ tsp ground pepper and palm candy
Take at bed time
5 Take Anar fruit juice frequently
6 Clean handful of mint leaves and crush
Make a paste of
½ tsp black pepper, ½ tsp long pepper and 1 tsp dry ginger powder
Put all of them in 2 cups of water and boil till reduced to one cup
Filter and divide in 3 doses; take one dose - for three times the day
7 Take a pinch of saffron two times a day
8 Apply chandan paste on forehead to bring temperature down
9 Mix 2 tbsp saunf in one cup of water
Boil it till reduced to half
Filter and take 1 tbsp every morning and evening
10 Take two cups of water
Add 10 tulsi leaves plus 1 tsp powdered cardamom and boil to 1 cup
Add to this decoction milk and sugar to taste and take 3 times a day
11 Drink tea made from fenugreek seeds twice a day
It is Malaria if the fever comes on alternate days with body shivering and head ache. Sometimes, the patient may also have stomach upset and too much perspiration.
For bone fever, one can take the prescription given under [1] of cancer. In chronic fever, mix ¼ leaf juice of pavazhamalli with 1 tsp honey and take with warm water
Fever, followed by head ache, vomiting, fits and unconsciousness means it could be brain fever. Instead of waiting till unconsciousness, better consult a doctor
Thus mild fever is simply body’s natural response to fighting virus. Taking test or even sleeping is the best thing to do. If the patient is already sleeping, never wake him up even to give medication.
Don’t assume fever means you are seriously ill. Drink water frequently to clear urine every two hours [ except for heart and kidney patients]. Avoid heavy meals but eat when feeling hungry; stick to bland foods. Give sponge bath with lukewarm water [wait for an hour, if patient given paracetamol].
When to worry about the fever?
There is no cause for alarm so long the temperature is up to 103 degrees
But in the case of new born babies and those with heart or arthritis problems, consult the doctor just to reduce the discomfort to the patient
Also consult the doctor if
More than 100.2 degrees if the child is upto 3 months
More than 101 degrees for a child up to six months age
More than 103 degrees for a child above six months age including adults
More than 101 degrees for three days continuously in case of any one
If fever is accompanied by severe head ache, stiff neck, sore throat, aches and pains, coughing that brings sputum or blood, irritability, excessive sleepiness, rash, vomiting, difficulty in breathing, bloody diarrhoea or blood in stools or other infections
Home Medicines
You can facilitate your body lose its heat by taking any of the following measures:
In feverishness:
Take one cup of lemon juice, add it to tender coconut water and drink
In fever
To bring down the temperature, as an external application, apply leaf juice of agathikeerai all over the body or soak a handful of vettiver in a jug of water and apply the infusion over forehead.
1 Make tea by boiling fenugreek seeds
Take thrice a day, if necessary adding little honey or lemon juice for taste
2 Make a cup of fenugreek decoction
Add 1 tsp fresh juice of ginger and 1 tsp honey
Drink
3 Make decoction of neem leaves
Add pepper powder and take
4 Add in warm water ½ tsp ground pepper and palm candy
Take at bed time
5 Take Anar fruit juice frequently
6 Clean handful of mint leaves and crush
Make a paste of
½ tsp black pepper, ½ tsp long pepper and 1 tsp dry ginger powder
Put all of them in 2 cups of water and boil till reduced to one cup
Filter and divide in 3 doses; take one dose - for three times the day
7 Take a pinch of saffron two times a day
8 Apply chandan paste on forehead to bring temperature down
9 Mix 2 tbsp saunf in one cup of water
Boil it till reduced to half
Filter and take 1 tbsp every morning and evening
10 Take two cups of water
Add 10 tulsi leaves plus 1 tsp powdered cardamom and boil to 1 cup
Add to this decoction milk and sugar to taste and take 3 times a day
11 Drink tea made from fenugreek seeds twice a day
It is Malaria if the fever comes on alternate days with body shivering and head ache. Sometimes, the patient may also have stomach upset and too much perspiration.
For bone fever, one can take the prescription given under [1] of cancer. In chronic fever, mix ¼ leaf juice of pavazhamalli with 1 tsp honey and take with warm water
Fever, followed by head ache, vomiting, fits and unconsciousness means it could be brain fever. Instead of waiting till unconsciousness, better consult a doctor
Spondylitis
Problems in skeletal and muscular system arise due to want of proper activity and also due to wrong posture while walking, sitting and sleeping. Spondylitis when comes up, it initially affects our neck movement and thereon travels to affect our shoulder and arm movement as well. It can be cured only by correcting our posture and by doing exercises. The exercises are:
· Sit on a chair, look straight ahead, get ready to do slow gentle exercises
· Neck straight, then forward, straight, backward and straight [10 times]
· Neck straight, touching left shoulder, straight, right shoulder, straight [10]
· Neck straight, sidewards right, straight, left, straight [10]
· Neck straight, pull backward, normal, forward, normal [10]
· Rotate the neck clockwise and anti clock wise [3 times]
· Do the above exercises very slowly and very gently with no violence
· In days when pain exists, you can repeat this five to six times a day
· Sit on a chair, look straight ahead, get ready to do slow gentle exercises
· Neck straight, then forward, straight, backward and straight [10 times]
· Neck straight, touching left shoulder, straight, right shoulder, straight [10]
· Neck straight, sidewards right, straight, left, straight [10]
· Neck straight, pull backward, normal, forward, normal [10]
· Rotate the neck clockwise and anti clock wise [3 times]
· Do the above exercises very slowly and very gently with no violence
· In days when pain exists, you can repeat this five to six times a day
Your Heart
The most important part of our cardiovascular system is our heart. This heart is basically a pump. It pumps blood and reaches our various parts. In the left side, the pump A pumps the blood from the lungs to the tissues and reaches oxygen to them. The right side pump B, pumps blood from the tissues to the lung reaching the carbon dioxide to the lung for removal. This way our heart pumps about 5 liters of blood per minute beating about 70 times, thus beating 70 x 60 x 24hrs x 375 days x 70 years approximately 257,54,40,000 times non stop, i.e. in our life span, some two thousand million times without a single shut down for repairs.
The beating of the heart is called heart rate. This heart beat rate can vary from person to person depending upon their age and their health level. Based on this, the rate could vary plus or minus 20. With exercises or emotional change, it could even go up to 200 beats per minute.
The total blood in our body is only about 5 liters and all this five liters get pumped and recycled every minute on an average. This is one cycle. In this one cycle, our heart first contracts and then relaxes. The contraction phase is called systole. The contraction of the heart is basically to generate pressure for pumping of the blood. It can also be said that the pressure generated for the pumping of the blood is systolic pressure.
After contraction, the heart has to come back to normal. This is the relaxation phase. This is called diastole. In this relaxation phase also, the heart has to ensure that the blood pumped out does not back flow into the heart. For this too, certain minimum pressure has to be maintained. This pressure is diastolic pressure.
It is said that systole lasts three tenth of the second and diastole lasts five tenth of a second. This systole and diastole together form one cycle.
The pressures above change from person to person but the broad range is as under:
Pressure while pumping Systolic 100 to 140
Pressure while in relaxation Diastolic 60 to 90
Now we saw earlier that whenever you do an exercise or get emotionally charged, your heart beat increases. This effectively means that the time available for relaxation is reduced, i.e. diastole is reduced. When relaxation is affected, the heart over works. This would be bad for your health. We need to keep the above pressures normal at 120:80.
The pumping job that goes on in our heart also produces a sound which is generally observed through the doctor’s stethoscope. The sound is observed as “lub dub, lub dub, lub dub”. These sounds are also captured by ECG machine in a graphic form as under:
R
P T
Q S
This is a normal ECG where the total systole system gets picturised. Doctors call the P as the atrial systole and QRST as ventricular systole. The QRS jump in waves is the result of the heart beat influencing different parts of the ventricle. The T is due to some parts of the heart relaxing slightly before the other parts. In some ECGs, the Q may not be present. But if there are heart problems, the ECG can give pictures as:
R R
S
P T P
Q S T
Picture 1 Picture 2
In both the pictures you can see S and T segment is affected. In picture 1 the ST segment is elevated and whereas in picture 2, the ST is depressed. Doctors call the picture 1, anterior thrombosis and picture 2 as posterior thrombosis. We can understand the above as the case where our ventricle has an insufficient supply from the arteries which cause heart problems medically called ischaemic heart disease or miocardial infarction. So, keep your heart pump in good condition and enjoy good life.
The reflections of our heart beat can also be seen in terms of ‘the pulse’. Many doctors check the pulse to determine the heart rate. Pulse can be seen in the forearm near the wrist generally. Some patients could even be pulse-less.
Heart Attack
Heart attack is a short circuit in your heart. Heart attack occurs in diabetics a decade earlier than in normal people. Therefore if you have diabetes, have it under control. If cardiac complications are to be avoided, there should be early detection when the condition is reversible
People with aggressiveness, sense of time urgency, impatience and high drive are coronary prone personalities. Those having job dissatisfaction, grief, depression and hopelessness are also likely trigger heart attacks. On the contrary those who are relaxed and easy going are likely to be free from coronary heart problems.
The likely causes of a heart attack
· Narrowing and clogging of coronary arteries [atherosclerosis]
· High Blood pressure
· High blood sugar
· Cholesterol problem – Low HDL or High LDL
· Over weight
· Lack of physical exercises
· High work or relationship stress
· Sudden exertion like running, climbing, etc.
· Fat rich fast foods
· Smoking
· Alcohol
· Emotional excitements such as angry moods, worry, anxiety, fear
Steps to avoid heart attacks
· Avoid working long hours
· Curb your violent and quick emotional outbursts
· Reduce your weight
· Don’t be in a hurry to do anything such as climbing stairs, etc.
· Avoid worrying and anxiety. Be cheerful at all times
· Stop smoking
Keep physically active. Ten weeks of regular exercise would restore your youthful heart.
The oil controversy
As the incidence of heart ailments grows among people, there is a spate of advertisements on edible oils claiming to be fat free. These advertisements mislead the readers to believe that they have the choice of oils which are fat free.
There are various terms like saturated fat, poly saturated fat and mono saturated fat. Let us not get into these terminologies and the associated mathematics. Let us be simply clear that no oil is fat free. To live a fat free life, we need to avoid oils totally or have it to the very minimum. In typical cases, the arteries leading to the heart become narrow due to fatty deposits leading to chest pains like angina. We need to change our life styles and opt for oil free foods. The skimpier your diet, the healthier and longer you are likely to live, provided you do not touch malnutrition. This helps you release out toxic residues deposited in your bodies.
It takes 70% closure of an artery before, you even feel a symptom of a heart attack. So, keep the arteries healthy by eating a low fat, dairy free, diet and stay active
Surgery option to avoid heart attack
Of late there is an increasing acceptance of surgery as an option and a number of people opt for bypass surgeries. There is also an aggressive promotion of by pass surgeries by certain private hospitals and patients are even pushed into it. Since cost of bypass surgeries are earning lot of money to such hospitals, it is a money spinning exercise for them. Thus both bypass surgeries and angioplasties are overdone and such unnecessary surgeries ranges upto 25%. Patients should be clear that bypass surgery does not treat the basic disease whose progression can only be halted by non-interventionary treatment like exercise, meditation and diet.
Symptoms of a heart attack
· Unusual discomfort / sensation in or around the chest. If it is heart attack, you would feel a pressure and squeezing there instead of pain.
It may start in the middle or left side of the chest and spread to the whole chest, neck, shoulder, Left arm, hand and wrist. It could extend to the jaws and also towards the back, say the middle of the shoulder blades at the back.
· Or start from one of the above regions and radiate towards the chest
· You may start feeling heaviness or tightness in the region of your chest
· It may be associated with giddiness, breathlessness and sweating
· You could experience shortening of breath and sweating.
If the discomfort stops, don’t assume the problem is gone. It is good that it went away, but seek medical check up.
These are the warning signals The warning time could be as short as 10 inutes or last up to 1 hour. During this critical time, the patient may actually swing between life and death. He needs immediate medical help. Do not be under the impression that it is due to ‘gas’ or ‘muscle catch’. Rush him to the nearest medical help and save him.
Duty of relatives and friends
Those around the suffering patient, should avoid creating panic. They should concentrate on efforts to call for medical help. If possible, they should take the patient immediately to nearby center. In the meantime, they can give the patient an aspirin tablet / Sorbitrate for the patient to keep it under his/her tongue. And they should avoid over crowding around the patient
Transportation of the patient
The person who had had an attack needs to be transported to the nearest medical facility as early as possible. The maximum time one could survive is just one hour. So do things fast, but not get affected by hurry.
· Let there be minimum two persons accompanying the patient in the vehicle. One may drive the vehicle, and another may to attend to the patient
· Make the patient sit. Pain could increase when the patient is made to lie
· Enroute, stop at any medical store, have a nitroglycerin tablet and make the patient to have it kept under his tongue
· Don’t worry about the bumps on the road. Unless severe, they would not affect
A real life case on Heart attack
Recently, one of my friends suffered from the heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital and kept in ICU. After the crucial days were over, he was shifted to the general ward and I went over to visit him and was conversing with him. Initially I offered my sympathies and support and gave him enough of psychological boost which he needed most.
My second visit that followed after a few days was even more purposeful, because I introduced him to the new dimensions of the ailment as under. I introduced him to the famous writings of Napoleon Hill at this time
The author wrote that when his friend had suffered a heart attack, he sent a telegram to him congratulating for his heart attack. That made both the patient and his family members furious. After sending the said telegram, he also visited the friend in the hospital to congratulate him for his heart attack. The agitated family members pounced upon him when the author explained as follows:
· Many people who suffer a heart attack die. And this man has been saved. So he deserved all the congratulations for his second life.
· The very hospitalization suggests that God wants him to live long and so he deserves all the congratulations.
· The very heart attack had come because of either stress or bad habits like hurry, curry or worry. Now he had been afforded enough opportunities and time in the hospital bed to think about his life style and make the needed changes. And these changes would ensure that he lives longer. And this too deserves congratulations.
· Heart attack is your second birthday and hence congratulations.
The family members soon realized the good intentions and great teachings behind the congratulatory messages from the author and expressed their appreciation and apologies to the author.
Thus heart attack is nothing to be feared about, but has every positive intent of God in awarding this minor punishment. It is said that no person who lives as per the codes of God is ever hospitalized and that only those who had forgotten God and His commandments are hospitalized so that from the hospital bed, they have time to look upwards.
In case you develop some problems, you can consider any of the home remedies as under:
Home Medicines
Heart Problems
1 Eat ¼ tsp asafoetida with one large raisin every day
2 Boil 2 petals of Shoe flower in 1 cup water and strain
Mix with 1 tsp honey and take every day
3 Eat gulkand 2 tsp every day
Weak Heart
1 Boil 5 shoe flower in a cup of water till water reduced to ½ cup
Add to milk and sugar and take once a day
2 Regularly take ripe banana
Angina Pectoris
1 Mix well 2 tsp almond oil and 1 tsp rose oil and rub gently on chest twice a day
2 Boil 1 tsp fenugreek seeds in 1 ½ cups water; strain and add 2 tsp
honey
Take twice daily
3 Mix some heeng powder to water and drink
4 Make rasam out of murungai leaf and take. Make rasam by putting the leaves to water added with tamarind juice and salt to taste and boil. After good boiling, put into it paste of pepper, jeera and little chillis and boil once more.
Post Heart attack life style reform
As already stated above, the heart attack and the attendant hospitalization is a good time for introspection and reform. The question now is how do you make changes in your life after the heart attack. Here are some advices:
· You were in bed for quite a good time. It means your body and muscles were inactive. So you would feel weak. To overcome this weakness, start your activities slowly and increase gradually and introduce moderate exercises in your daily activities. Ask the doctor as to what you can do in this direction. But I can tell you, walking is the best exercise. Walk, increasing your distance a little daily.
· Take to meditation. Read the chapter “All Time Medicines” in this book.
· Take bath in warm water. Avoid using cold or hot water, as it would affect your blood circulation.
· Control your diet. Cut your fat intake and step up your consumption of vegetables and fruits.. Take to fruit juices.
· Get your blood examined regularly for cholesterol and tryglycerides.
· Also check on your blood pressure and diaibetes
· Stop smoking and stop adding to your cholesterol.
· You would have more urge for sex. Tell yourself a NO till four weeks are over after your discharge from the hospital. Even afterwards, a gradual start only is advised. The timing should not be within three hours of your meal. Take care of your positions and be passive and allow your partner to be active.
· Don’t opt for driving your vehicle for quite a good time. If you have to travel, opt for train journey – of course, not in metropolitan electric trains.
· Take to regular stress tests as advised by the doctor and determine your progress.
· Laughter should be a part of your schedule. People with heart disease generally laugh less even in positive situations and they display more hostility and anger. Avoid this mind set.
· The greatest protection available to you is achievement of equanimity.
· Learn a new language
· Choose some activity you enjoy, say painting and submerge yourself into it.
· Read self development books
The beating of the heart is called heart rate. This heart beat rate can vary from person to person depending upon their age and their health level. Based on this, the rate could vary plus or minus 20. With exercises or emotional change, it could even go up to 200 beats per minute.
The total blood in our body is only about 5 liters and all this five liters get pumped and recycled every minute on an average. This is one cycle. In this one cycle, our heart first contracts and then relaxes. The contraction phase is called systole. The contraction of the heart is basically to generate pressure for pumping of the blood. It can also be said that the pressure generated for the pumping of the blood is systolic pressure.
After contraction, the heart has to come back to normal. This is the relaxation phase. This is called diastole. In this relaxation phase also, the heart has to ensure that the blood pumped out does not back flow into the heart. For this too, certain minimum pressure has to be maintained. This pressure is diastolic pressure.
It is said that systole lasts three tenth of the second and diastole lasts five tenth of a second. This systole and diastole together form one cycle.
The pressures above change from person to person but the broad range is as under:
Pressure while pumping Systolic 100 to 140
Pressure while in relaxation Diastolic 60 to 90
Now we saw earlier that whenever you do an exercise or get emotionally charged, your heart beat increases. This effectively means that the time available for relaxation is reduced, i.e. diastole is reduced. When relaxation is affected, the heart over works. This would be bad for your health. We need to keep the above pressures normal at 120:80.
The pumping job that goes on in our heart also produces a sound which is generally observed through the doctor’s stethoscope. The sound is observed as “lub dub, lub dub, lub dub”. These sounds are also captured by ECG machine in a graphic form as under:
R
P T
Q S
This is a normal ECG where the total systole system gets picturised. Doctors call the P as the atrial systole and QRST as ventricular systole. The QRS jump in waves is the result of the heart beat influencing different parts of the ventricle. The T is due to some parts of the heart relaxing slightly before the other parts. In some ECGs, the Q may not be present. But if there are heart problems, the ECG can give pictures as:
R R
S
P T P
Q S T
Picture 1 Picture 2
In both the pictures you can see S and T segment is affected. In picture 1 the ST segment is elevated and whereas in picture 2, the ST is depressed. Doctors call the picture 1, anterior thrombosis and picture 2 as posterior thrombosis. We can understand the above as the case where our ventricle has an insufficient supply from the arteries which cause heart problems medically called ischaemic heart disease or miocardial infarction. So, keep your heart pump in good condition and enjoy good life.
The reflections of our heart beat can also be seen in terms of ‘the pulse’. Many doctors check the pulse to determine the heart rate. Pulse can be seen in the forearm near the wrist generally. Some patients could even be pulse-less.
Heart Attack
Heart attack is a short circuit in your heart. Heart attack occurs in diabetics a decade earlier than in normal people. Therefore if you have diabetes, have it under control. If cardiac complications are to be avoided, there should be early detection when the condition is reversible
People with aggressiveness, sense of time urgency, impatience and high drive are coronary prone personalities. Those having job dissatisfaction, grief, depression and hopelessness are also likely trigger heart attacks. On the contrary those who are relaxed and easy going are likely to be free from coronary heart problems.
The likely causes of a heart attack
· Narrowing and clogging of coronary arteries [atherosclerosis]
· High Blood pressure
· High blood sugar
· Cholesterol problem – Low HDL or High LDL
· Over weight
· Lack of physical exercises
· High work or relationship stress
· Sudden exertion like running, climbing, etc.
· Fat rich fast foods
· Smoking
· Alcohol
· Emotional excitements such as angry moods, worry, anxiety, fear
Steps to avoid heart attacks
· Avoid working long hours
· Curb your violent and quick emotional outbursts
· Reduce your weight
· Don’t be in a hurry to do anything such as climbing stairs, etc.
· Avoid worrying and anxiety. Be cheerful at all times
· Stop smoking
Keep physically active. Ten weeks of regular exercise would restore your youthful heart.
The oil controversy
As the incidence of heart ailments grows among people, there is a spate of advertisements on edible oils claiming to be fat free. These advertisements mislead the readers to believe that they have the choice of oils which are fat free.
There are various terms like saturated fat, poly saturated fat and mono saturated fat. Let us not get into these terminologies and the associated mathematics. Let us be simply clear that no oil is fat free. To live a fat free life, we need to avoid oils totally or have it to the very minimum. In typical cases, the arteries leading to the heart become narrow due to fatty deposits leading to chest pains like angina. We need to change our life styles and opt for oil free foods. The skimpier your diet, the healthier and longer you are likely to live, provided you do not touch malnutrition. This helps you release out toxic residues deposited in your bodies.
It takes 70% closure of an artery before, you even feel a symptom of a heart attack. So, keep the arteries healthy by eating a low fat, dairy free, diet and stay active
Surgery option to avoid heart attack
Of late there is an increasing acceptance of surgery as an option and a number of people opt for bypass surgeries. There is also an aggressive promotion of by pass surgeries by certain private hospitals and patients are even pushed into it. Since cost of bypass surgeries are earning lot of money to such hospitals, it is a money spinning exercise for them. Thus both bypass surgeries and angioplasties are overdone and such unnecessary surgeries ranges upto 25%. Patients should be clear that bypass surgery does not treat the basic disease whose progression can only be halted by non-interventionary treatment like exercise, meditation and diet.
Symptoms of a heart attack
· Unusual discomfort / sensation in or around the chest. If it is heart attack, you would feel a pressure and squeezing there instead of pain.
It may start in the middle or left side of the chest and spread to the whole chest, neck, shoulder, Left arm, hand and wrist. It could extend to the jaws and also towards the back, say the middle of the shoulder blades at the back.
· Or start from one of the above regions and radiate towards the chest
· You may start feeling heaviness or tightness in the region of your chest
· It may be associated with giddiness, breathlessness and sweating
· You could experience shortening of breath and sweating.
If the discomfort stops, don’t assume the problem is gone. It is good that it went away, but seek medical check up.
These are the warning signals The warning time could be as short as 10 inutes or last up to 1 hour. During this critical time, the patient may actually swing between life and death. He needs immediate medical help. Do not be under the impression that it is due to ‘gas’ or ‘muscle catch’. Rush him to the nearest medical help and save him.
Duty of relatives and friends
Those around the suffering patient, should avoid creating panic. They should concentrate on efforts to call for medical help. If possible, they should take the patient immediately to nearby center. In the meantime, they can give the patient an aspirin tablet / Sorbitrate for the patient to keep it under his/her tongue. And they should avoid over crowding around the patient
Transportation of the patient
The person who had had an attack needs to be transported to the nearest medical facility as early as possible. The maximum time one could survive is just one hour. So do things fast, but not get affected by hurry.
· Let there be minimum two persons accompanying the patient in the vehicle. One may drive the vehicle, and another may to attend to the patient
· Make the patient sit. Pain could increase when the patient is made to lie
· Enroute, stop at any medical store, have a nitroglycerin tablet and make the patient to have it kept under his tongue
· Don’t worry about the bumps on the road. Unless severe, they would not affect
A real life case on Heart attack
Recently, one of my friends suffered from the heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital and kept in ICU. After the crucial days were over, he was shifted to the general ward and I went over to visit him and was conversing with him. Initially I offered my sympathies and support and gave him enough of psychological boost which he needed most.
My second visit that followed after a few days was even more purposeful, because I introduced him to the new dimensions of the ailment as under. I introduced him to the famous writings of Napoleon Hill at this time
The author wrote that when his friend had suffered a heart attack, he sent a telegram to him congratulating for his heart attack. That made both the patient and his family members furious. After sending the said telegram, he also visited the friend in the hospital to congratulate him for his heart attack. The agitated family members pounced upon him when the author explained as follows:
· Many people who suffer a heart attack die. And this man has been saved. So he deserved all the congratulations for his second life.
· The very hospitalization suggests that God wants him to live long and so he deserves all the congratulations.
· The very heart attack had come because of either stress or bad habits like hurry, curry or worry. Now he had been afforded enough opportunities and time in the hospital bed to think about his life style and make the needed changes. And these changes would ensure that he lives longer. And this too deserves congratulations.
· Heart attack is your second birthday and hence congratulations.
The family members soon realized the good intentions and great teachings behind the congratulatory messages from the author and expressed their appreciation and apologies to the author.
Thus heart attack is nothing to be feared about, but has every positive intent of God in awarding this minor punishment. It is said that no person who lives as per the codes of God is ever hospitalized and that only those who had forgotten God and His commandments are hospitalized so that from the hospital bed, they have time to look upwards.
In case you develop some problems, you can consider any of the home remedies as under:
Home Medicines
Heart Problems
1 Eat ¼ tsp asafoetida with one large raisin every day
2 Boil 2 petals of Shoe flower in 1 cup water and strain
Mix with 1 tsp honey and take every day
3 Eat gulkand 2 tsp every day
Weak Heart
1 Boil 5 shoe flower in a cup of water till water reduced to ½ cup
Add to milk and sugar and take once a day
2 Regularly take ripe banana
Angina Pectoris
1 Mix well 2 tsp almond oil and 1 tsp rose oil and rub gently on chest twice a day
2 Boil 1 tsp fenugreek seeds in 1 ½ cups water; strain and add 2 tsp
honey
Take twice daily
3 Mix some heeng powder to water and drink
4 Make rasam out of murungai leaf and take. Make rasam by putting the leaves to water added with tamarind juice and salt to taste and boil. After good boiling, put into it paste of pepper, jeera and little chillis and boil once more.
Post Heart attack life style reform
As already stated above, the heart attack and the attendant hospitalization is a good time for introspection and reform. The question now is how do you make changes in your life after the heart attack. Here are some advices:
· You were in bed for quite a good time. It means your body and muscles were inactive. So you would feel weak. To overcome this weakness, start your activities slowly and increase gradually and introduce moderate exercises in your daily activities. Ask the doctor as to what you can do in this direction. But I can tell you, walking is the best exercise. Walk, increasing your distance a little daily.
· Take to meditation. Read the chapter “All Time Medicines” in this book.
· Take bath in warm water. Avoid using cold or hot water, as it would affect your blood circulation.
· Control your diet. Cut your fat intake and step up your consumption of vegetables and fruits.. Take to fruit juices.
· Get your blood examined regularly for cholesterol and tryglycerides.
· Also check on your blood pressure and diaibetes
· Stop smoking and stop adding to your cholesterol.
· You would have more urge for sex. Tell yourself a NO till four weeks are over after your discharge from the hospital. Even afterwards, a gradual start only is advised. The timing should not be within three hours of your meal. Take care of your positions and be passive and allow your partner to be active.
· Don’t opt for driving your vehicle for quite a good time. If you have to travel, opt for train journey – of course, not in metropolitan electric trains.
· Take to regular stress tests as advised by the doctor and determine your progress.
· Laughter should be a part of your schedule. People with heart disease generally laugh less even in positive situations and they display more hostility and anger. Avoid this mind set.
· The greatest protection available to you is achievement of equanimity.
· Learn a new language
· Choose some activity you enjoy, say painting and submerge yourself into it.
· Read self development books
Blood Related Problems
Our blood carries out some of the very important jobs that keep us in good condition. The jobs carried out are:
¨ carries oxygen from the lungs to the various tissues and in return carry the carbon dioxide from these tissues to the lungs wherefrom it is let out.
¨ carries the food from the digestive track and reaches them to the various cells which get needed nutrients for their own functioning and removes therefrom waste products to the kidney for removal from the body.
¨ Carries the heat generated in tissues and cells to the skin so that our body temperature is retained at normal 98.4 degrees F.
The volume of blood present in our body makes up about one twelfth of our body weight. This measure can be used to identify the volume of blood in one’s body, especially of a child.
Blood cells
The blood cells are made in bone marrow found in the cavity of our bones. Thus bone marrow is our blood cell manufacturing factory. Here both red and white blood cells are made. In the normal course, per cubic millimeter of blood, we must have
about 8000 white blood cells and
about five million red blood cells
The total blood is said to be composed of about 25 to 30 thousand million red cells and of 50 thousand million white cells. These cells form a liquid called plasma. Blood carries to each tissue the proper nourishment and also takes away the waste products set free by the tissues. The purification of the blood is completed in the kidneys which separate from the blood , the substances that are eliminated through urine.
The red cells live for 100 days and then die. This means 1 percent of red blood cells need to be replaced every day. In fact both the white and red cells wear out very fast and they need to be continually replaced by the bone marrow. The failure to produce red blood cells is called anaemia. If we can maintain effective replacement of red blood cells by our bone marrow, we will not have anaemia. For this we have maintain a good diet of
protein [to supply amino acids]
iron [to make necessary haemoglobin]
vitamin B 12 and
folic acid.
Women need more iron [additional 10 mg a day] to compensate for the loss of blood in menstrual cycle.
Blood groups
The red cells, based on the nature of their outer coat, are categorised into blood groups. On this categorisation, we have
Blood Group A 42% of people
Blood Group B 9%
Blood Group AB 3%
Blood Group O Remaining people
In addition to the above, another substance called D is present in the blood of 85% of people. Those who have this D in their blood cells are called Rhesus positive [Rh positive].
When giving blood transfusion, care is taken to ensure that patients are given blood belonging to their own blood group and when that is not available, Group O blood is given.
Heart Beat
The human cardiovascular system is one of the most non-top hard working systems that we have been gifted with. With 70 beats every minute, our heart beats about 6300 times an hour and 1,51,200 times in a day. And this goes on non-stop over your entire life spanning say 70 years and it does not skip one beat. If it skips even one beat, what happens?
Blood circulation
Now this beating is not for nothing. It beats means it pumps blood into our various parts. It is said that it pumps 6300 gallons of blood over 96000 miles of blood vessels. To keep this system is good order, we should be concerned with presence of positive blood in adequate volume in our circulation. We should ensure proper blood flow by doing exercises which press out more blood into our tissues. Then we should take fruits rich in vitamin C, like lime, orange, papaya, tomato, gooseberry, leafy vegetables, etc. We should drink adequate water say 8 to 10 glasses per day. These would ensure that we have all the needed blood ingredients such as oxygen, iodine, iron etc. So the implication is that if this system does not function well,
our tissues would not get the oxygen,
the cells would not their food,
their heat would continuously shoot up,
their impurities would not get removed,
the carbon dioxide would not get removed from our body, etc..
All of these together mean ill health.
Blood Transfusion
In most cases of blood transfusion, the patient really does not need the whole blood from another person. He would need one of the three components of the blood, viz. Red blood cells, white blood cells or the plasma. For example, an anemic patient would require only red blood cells and a patient continuing to bleed, he needs plasma for immediate clotting. Now in such a situation, if the patient is given whole blood, he is over burdened with those components which his system does not need and thus develops complications arising out of transfusion.
Today, thanks to medical advances, we have what is known as Components therapy in blood transfusion. Under this, major hospitals and blood banks have the facilities and offer blood components in addition to whole blood. In such a favourable situation, patients need be aware of this and suggest to their doctors to look into this option before the patient is given whole blood transfusion. In this way, not only they would save themselves from any risks and complications, but would also help to conserve the other components of blood for the benefit of other patients requiring those components.
Home Medicines
In case of blood related difficulties, you can think of following home medicines
Blood deficiency
1 Buy fresh Amala
Remove the seed
Grind the pulp into a fine paste
Tie it in a muslin cloth and squeeze out the juice
Take 2 tsp of this juice
Mix it with 2 tsp of honey and lime juice
Add one tea cup of water and drink in empty stomach each morning for 120 days
When fresh amla is not available,
Soak 1 tbsp of dried amla in water overnight in a cup of water
In the morning, add 1/8 tsp of black pepper powder and 2 tsp of lime juice
Add more water and dilute
Drink every morning for 120 days
2 Soak 2 or 3 dried figs / anjir in a cup of water overnight
Eat them along with milk next morning
Do it for a month
Blood impurities
1. Take garlic cloves regularly for few days
2. For blood purification, take a pinch of safron regularly for few days
3. Or take tomato juice daily
4. Or add 2 tbsp drumstick leaf juice to one cup warm milk, stir well and drink daily
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure should normally depend upon the force with which the heart pumps the pressure. But the pressure in the blood vessel, also get affected with their diameter. If the diameter is small, the pressure would be more. The vessels get narrow if it contains also unwanted fatty deposits on their walls. Over eating could be one reason for the deposits to accumulate. There are also other reasons like smoking, drinking etc. This narrowing reduces the blood supply to the organs. When the blood supply is reduced to important organs like the kidney, brain or even the heart, the man is severely affected. This way one can get giddiness or headache at one time and attack at another time depending upon which organ lacks blood supply.
The usual remedies for control on blood pressure as under:
Reduction in body weight
Regular physical exercises
Reduction in salt
Reduction in alcohol consumption
Opting for relaxation exercises
Mental and physical relaxation
Meditation
Music
Yoga
If giddiness due to blood pressure:
Soak in a glass of water 1 tsp each of
Coriander seeds
Chandan paste
Dried amla fruits
Strain it and drink the water next morning for a few days
If High BP
1. Mix
1 tsp finely ground jeera powder
tbsp coconut water
Milk
¼ tsp of freshly ground chandan paste
Sugar to taste
Drink this mixture every morning for few days
2. Or take 2 or 3 garlic cloves every day
3. Or mix 1 tsp lime juice in 1 cup of butter milk
Drink frequently
4. Or finely powder dried bel leaves and store it in a jar. When needed dissolve 1 tsp powder in one cup of water and boil. Cool, filter and drink thrice a day
5 Or mix ½ cup drumstick leaf juice and ½ cup carrot juice.
Drink daily
If low BP
Take the juice of 15 tulsi leaves mixed with 1 tsp honey for few days
To control your blood pressure
Change your habits and take following measures:
Lose weight if you are over weight
Eliminate alcohol from your life
Increase physical activity and do exercises
Stop smoking
Reduce your fat and cholesterol diet and opt for zero oil food
Have regular blood pressure check up
Do meditation
Take leaves of shoe flower and boil in water.
Take that water three times a day.
Or take one glass of juice of arugam pul every morning in empty stomach .
Take a few drumstick leaves three times a day raw
Blood sugar
Take garlic cloves regularly for a few days
Cholesterol High
Cholesterol is a fatty substance manufactured by the liver and is of a vital component of every cell. And we need no external cholesterol as the body itself manufactures it which is called good cholestrol, HDL. In case your blood contains more of cholesterol, it only means you are taking more of external cholesterol, i.e. bad cholesterol, LDL, coming out of fatty things you eat. Initially this LDL Cholestrol attaches itself to artery walls and over period, it solidifies causing narrowing of arteries. This reduces the amount of blood, oxygen and vital ingredients passing through, triggering heart attacks and strokes. People affected by the cholesterol should quit smoking, opt for vegetarian diet, lose weight, do exercises, etc. You should be glad to know that intake of grape fruit lowers LDL levels and helps to reverse the situation.
Take Coriander tea in substitution of tea leaves
Or have regular intake of garlic cloves for a few days
Or, finely dice an onion
Mix it with 1 cup of butter milk and add 1 tsp of pepper powder
Drink
Anemia
1. Soak 8 to 10 almonds and 1 tsp of rice overnight
Remove the outer skin and grind into paste
Mix in milk of some quantity
Add turmeric power
Boil
Add sugar candy for taste
Drink every day morning
2. Or, grind Cinnamon 1 tsp
Dissolve in two cups of juice of Anar
Add 2 tsp honey
Drink half cup
3. Or, make coriander tea, i.e. add 2 tsp of coriander power to a glass of water / boil. Add milk and sugar to taste and drink frequently
4. Or, cook 1 cup rice with 2 tsp of fenugreek seeds. Eat with little salt if necessary for a fortnight. Also eat cooked fenugreek leaf regularly
5. Or eat papaya frequently
6. Or, take 1 ½ cup of water. Add 6 tsp each of crushed saunf and red rose petals. Boil and strain. Take twice daily
7. Or, take 1 tsp each of raw turmeric juice and honey. Mix. Take every morning
8. Or, soak 2 almonds, 5 pista kernels and 1 tsp khuskhus in 1 cup of milk for 1 hour. Grind and warm with more milk. Add sugar candy [preferably palmyrah candy] and drink. Do it daily for 3 months
9. Or, take beat root juice and add spinach to your food
10. Or, soak 7 almonds in water overnight; peel off the skin in the morning and consume
11. Or, take honey
12. Or, fry ½ tsp black pepper powder in 1 tbsp ghee. Add 2 cups fresh drum stick leaves and stir-fry for three minutes. Eat with chapatti or steamed rice for forty five days
Note: Those with hyper tension should avoid chewing betal leaves
Body Weakness
1 Cook one cup of shredded banana flower and add it to the meal
2 Take ripe bananas regularly
3 Mix 1 tbsp of ripe pulp of bel with
1 tsp of palmyrah candy or sugar candy
and eat frequently
4 Take cut ripe mango slices
Add / sprinkle 1 tsp honey, a pinch of safron, cardamom and rose water
Take twice daily
5 Take a glass of hot milk, add to it four dates, a pinch of saffron, cardamom powder, 1 tsp honey and drink at bed time daily
Giddiness
1. Take the seeds of ajwain. Make poultice and give dry fomentation for hands and feet
2. Or, take ½ tsp of cardamom seeds and 1 tsp of palmyrah sugar. Put them in 2 cup water and boil to 1 cup. Take twice a day at ½ cup each time
3. Or, soak cumin seeds in lime juice seeds overnight. Dry it in the sun and bottle. Chew ½ tsp after food and take a glass of warm water. Do it for few days
4. Or, take fresh juice out of fenugreek leaves. Take 2 tsp and add with honey daily
If giddiness due to BP
Soak in a glass of water 1 tsp each of coriander seeds, chandan & dried amla
Next morning stain it and drink – for few days
If unconscious due to giddiness, use raw onion juice as nasal drops
Varicose Veins
Varicose veins results from sluggish blood circulation due to various factors such as constipation, dietetic errors, obesity, lack of exercise, standing for long time, sitting in the same position for a long time especially keeping legs crossed, wearing tight clothes, pregnancy related inactivity, etc. What happens in these situations is that due to inactivity, the blood stagnates in the particular vein and movement of the blood towards the heart does not take place. Then the veins there swell and become bluish and is seen even to the naked eye. Very often leg cramps, itching, feeling of heaviness, etc also get associated with varicose veins.
Keep active
Take to yoga
Do breathing exercises which help blood to move / blood circulation
Take to exercises
Go for walking
Take plenty of raw vegetables and their juices such as carrot juice, spinach juice etc. Both can be taken in combination as well at 3:2 ratio
Pregnant women should elevate their legs above the heart level while resting
Heamophilia [Blood does not stop]
Normally when one is injured, blood comes out of the injury for sometime, but soon it clots. Heamophilia is a disorder in which the blood does not clot due to absence of clotting factor in their blood. When internal injuries take place, blood flows within their body. Non-stop blood flow, whether external or internal could sometimes be fatal. Such people should lead a very careful life and avoid travels and crowds.
As an emergency measure, sprinkle some sugar crystals on the wound for the blood to stop. But get in touch with Doctor
Stroke [cerebral haemorrhage]
A stroke occurs when blood supply to the brain is cut off. You know the stroke occurs in that place of the brain which controls our hearing, sight, speech and bodily movements, etc. Therefore stroke often accompanies the impairment of the connected organ that is affected by the stroke. This may lead to paralysis of the limbs, loss of vision, slurring of speech or imbalance while walking.
Stroke occurs either due to clotting of blood enroute or by rupturing of the brain artery, called hemorrhage. If the hemorrhage is severe, the patient could instantly die.
One point that we need to note is that a stroke does not come without warning. Months prior to the actual stroke, you get following warnings:
· Sudden trouble in speaking, i.e Temporary speech difficulty or you lose track of what you had just said. You become vague
· Sudden confusion, sudden difficulty in understanding
· Sudden numbness or weakness on legs, arms, face or one side of the body
· Suddenly you lose track of what you are doing or where you are
· Sudden loss of balance, co-ordination, dizziness or trouble in walking
· Sudden trouble in seeing or temporary blindness
· Sudden severe headache in the back of the head and neck
Such episodes last only for seconds. These are called transient ischemic attacks, which the doctors call as TIAs. These TIAs are warnings of danger ahead. If you ignore them, you are likely to face a full blown cerebral accident. So, when these things pass through you, make quick trip to the doctor for examination and attendance. Patients should note that these symptoms forewarn us for appropriate remedial action including in diet and in life style. And if one does it, he would make early recovery and attain normalcy.
When the above symptoms occur, seek immediate medical attention. Know what are the contributing factors to a stroke. They are:
High blood pressure
High blood sugar and diabetes
Irregular heart beats
Tobacco, smoking, alcohol and drugs
Elevated cholesterol
Obesity
Physical inactivity
Take honey plus dates regularly so that your iron content in the blood is well maintained. The red blood cells would also increase. You will also recover loss of blood.
¨ carries oxygen from the lungs to the various tissues and in return carry the carbon dioxide from these tissues to the lungs wherefrom it is let out.
¨ carries the food from the digestive track and reaches them to the various cells which get needed nutrients for their own functioning and removes therefrom waste products to the kidney for removal from the body.
¨ Carries the heat generated in tissues and cells to the skin so that our body temperature is retained at normal 98.4 degrees F.
The volume of blood present in our body makes up about one twelfth of our body weight. This measure can be used to identify the volume of blood in one’s body, especially of a child.
Blood cells
The blood cells are made in bone marrow found in the cavity of our bones. Thus bone marrow is our blood cell manufacturing factory. Here both red and white blood cells are made. In the normal course, per cubic millimeter of blood, we must have
about 8000 white blood cells and
about five million red blood cells
The total blood is said to be composed of about 25 to 30 thousand million red cells and of 50 thousand million white cells. These cells form a liquid called plasma. Blood carries to each tissue the proper nourishment and also takes away the waste products set free by the tissues. The purification of the blood is completed in the kidneys which separate from the blood , the substances that are eliminated through urine.
The red cells live for 100 days and then die. This means 1 percent of red blood cells need to be replaced every day. In fact both the white and red cells wear out very fast and they need to be continually replaced by the bone marrow. The failure to produce red blood cells is called anaemia. If we can maintain effective replacement of red blood cells by our bone marrow, we will not have anaemia. For this we have maintain a good diet of
protein [to supply amino acids]
iron [to make necessary haemoglobin]
vitamin B 12 and
folic acid.
Women need more iron [additional 10 mg a day] to compensate for the loss of blood in menstrual cycle.
Blood groups
The red cells, based on the nature of their outer coat, are categorised into blood groups. On this categorisation, we have
Blood Group A 42% of people
Blood Group B 9%
Blood Group AB 3%
Blood Group O Remaining people
In addition to the above, another substance called D is present in the blood of 85% of people. Those who have this D in their blood cells are called Rhesus positive [Rh positive].
When giving blood transfusion, care is taken to ensure that patients are given blood belonging to their own blood group and when that is not available, Group O blood is given.
Heart Beat
The human cardiovascular system is one of the most non-top hard working systems that we have been gifted with. With 70 beats every minute, our heart beats about 6300 times an hour and 1,51,200 times in a day. And this goes on non-stop over your entire life spanning say 70 years and it does not skip one beat. If it skips even one beat, what happens?
Blood circulation
Now this beating is not for nothing. It beats means it pumps blood into our various parts. It is said that it pumps 6300 gallons of blood over 96000 miles of blood vessels. To keep this system is good order, we should be concerned with presence of positive blood in adequate volume in our circulation. We should ensure proper blood flow by doing exercises which press out more blood into our tissues. Then we should take fruits rich in vitamin C, like lime, orange, papaya, tomato, gooseberry, leafy vegetables, etc. We should drink adequate water say 8 to 10 glasses per day. These would ensure that we have all the needed blood ingredients such as oxygen, iodine, iron etc. So the implication is that if this system does not function well,
our tissues would not get the oxygen,
the cells would not their food,
their heat would continuously shoot up,
their impurities would not get removed,
the carbon dioxide would not get removed from our body, etc..
All of these together mean ill health.
Blood Transfusion
In most cases of blood transfusion, the patient really does not need the whole blood from another person. He would need one of the three components of the blood, viz. Red blood cells, white blood cells or the plasma. For example, an anemic patient would require only red blood cells and a patient continuing to bleed, he needs plasma for immediate clotting. Now in such a situation, if the patient is given whole blood, he is over burdened with those components which his system does not need and thus develops complications arising out of transfusion.
Today, thanks to medical advances, we have what is known as Components therapy in blood transfusion. Under this, major hospitals and blood banks have the facilities and offer blood components in addition to whole blood. In such a favourable situation, patients need be aware of this and suggest to their doctors to look into this option before the patient is given whole blood transfusion. In this way, not only they would save themselves from any risks and complications, but would also help to conserve the other components of blood for the benefit of other patients requiring those components.
Home Medicines
In case of blood related difficulties, you can think of following home medicines
Blood deficiency
1 Buy fresh Amala
Remove the seed
Grind the pulp into a fine paste
Tie it in a muslin cloth and squeeze out the juice
Take 2 tsp of this juice
Mix it with 2 tsp of honey and lime juice
Add one tea cup of water and drink in empty stomach each morning for 120 days
When fresh amla is not available,
Soak 1 tbsp of dried amla in water overnight in a cup of water
In the morning, add 1/8 tsp of black pepper powder and 2 tsp of lime juice
Add more water and dilute
Drink every morning for 120 days
2 Soak 2 or 3 dried figs / anjir in a cup of water overnight
Eat them along with milk next morning
Do it for a month
Blood impurities
1. Take garlic cloves regularly for few days
2. For blood purification, take a pinch of safron regularly for few days
3. Or take tomato juice daily
4. Or add 2 tbsp drumstick leaf juice to one cup warm milk, stir well and drink daily
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure should normally depend upon the force with which the heart pumps the pressure. But the pressure in the blood vessel, also get affected with their diameter. If the diameter is small, the pressure would be more. The vessels get narrow if it contains also unwanted fatty deposits on their walls. Over eating could be one reason for the deposits to accumulate. There are also other reasons like smoking, drinking etc. This narrowing reduces the blood supply to the organs. When the blood supply is reduced to important organs like the kidney, brain or even the heart, the man is severely affected. This way one can get giddiness or headache at one time and attack at another time depending upon which organ lacks blood supply.
The usual remedies for control on blood pressure as under:
Reduction in body weight
Regular physical exercises
Reduction in salt
Reduction in alcohol consumption
Opting for relaxation exercises
Mental and physical relaxation
Meditation
Music
Yoga
If giddiness due to blood pressure:
Soak in a glass of water 1 tsp each of
Coriander seeds
Chandan paste
Dried amla fruits
Strain it and drink the water next morning for a few days
If High BP
1. Mix
1 tsp finely ground jeera powder
tbsp coconut water
Milk
¼ tsp of freshly ground chandan paste
Sugar to taste
Drink this mixture every morning for few days
2. Or take 2 or 3 garlic cloves every day
3. Or mix 1 tsp lime juice in 1 cup of butter milk
Drink frequently
4. Or finely powder dried bel leaves and store it in a jar. When needed dissolve 1 tsp powder in one cup of water and boil. Cool, filter and drink thrice a day
5 Or mix ½ cup drumstick leaf juice and ½ cup carrot juice.
Drink daily
If low BP
Take the juice of 15 tulsi leaves mixed with 1 tsp honey for few days
To control your blood pressure
Change your habits and take following measures:
Lose weight if you are over weight
Eliminate alcohol from your life
Increase physical activity and do exercises
Stop smoking
Reduce your fat and cholesterol diet and opt for zero oil food
Have regular blood pressure check up
Do meditation
Take leaves of shoe flower and boil in water.
Take that water three times a day.
Or take one glass of juice of arugam pul every morning in empty stomach .
Take a few drumstick leaves three times a day raw
Blood sugar
Take garlic cloves regularly for a few days
Cholesterol High
Cholesterol is a fatty substance manufactured by the liver and is of a vital component of every cell. And we need no external cholesterol as the body itself manufactures it which is called good cholestrol, HDL. In case your blood contains more of cholesterol, it only means you are taking more of external cholesterol, i.e. bad cholesterol, LDL, coming out of fatty things you eat. Initially this LDL Cholestrol attaches itself to artery walls and over period, it solidifies causing narrowing of arteries. This reduces the amount of blood, oxygen and vital ingredients passing through, triggering heart attacks and strokes. People affected by the cholesterol should quit smoking, opt for vegetarian diet, lose weight, do exercises, etc. You should be glad to know that intake of grape fruit lowers LDL levels and helps to reverse the situation.
Take Coriander tea in substitution of tea leaves
Or have regular intake of garlic cloves for a few days
Or, finely dice an onion
Mix it with 1 cup of butter milk and add 1 tsp of pepper powder
Drink
Anemia
1. Soak 8 to 10 almonds and 1 tsp of rice overnight
Remove the outer skin and grind into paste
Mix in milk of some quantity
Add turmeric power
Boil
Add sugar candy for taste
Drink every day morning
2. Or, grind Cinnamon 1 tsp
Dissolve in two cups of juice of Anar
Add 2 tsp honey
Drink half cup
3. Or, make coriander tea, i.e. add 2 tsp of coriander power to a glass of water / boil. Add milk and sugar to taste and drink frequently
4. Or, cook 1 cup rice with 2 tsp of fenugreek seeds. Eat with little salt if necessary for a fortnight. Also eat cooked fenugreek leaf regularly
5. Or eat papaya frequently
6. Or, take 1 ½ cup of water. Add 6 tsp each of crushed saunf and red rose petals. Boil and strain. Take twice daily
7. Or, take 1 tsp each of raw turmeric juice and honey. Mix. Take every morning
8. Or, soak 2 almonds, 5 pista kernels and 1 tsp khuskhus in 1 cup of milk for 1 hour. Grind and warm with more milk. Add sugar candy [preferably palmyrah candy] and drink. Do it daily for 3 months
9. Or, take beat root juice and add spinach to your food
10. Or, soak 7 almonds in water overnight; peel off the skin in the morning and consume
11. Or, take honey
12. Or, fry ½ tsp black pepper powder in 1 tbsp ghee. Add 2 cups fresh drum stick leaves and stir-fry for three minutes. Eat with chapatti or steamed rice for forty five days
Note: Those with hyper tension should avoid chewing betal leaves
Body Weakness
1 Cook one cup of shredded banana flower and add it to the meal
2 Take ripe bananas regularly
3 Mix 1 tbsp of ripe pulp of bel with
1 tsp of palmyrah candy or sugar candy
and eat frequently
4 Take cut ripe mango slices
Add / sprinkle 1 tsp honey, a pinch of safron, cardamom and rose water
Take twice daily
5 Take a glass of hot milk, add to it four dates, a pinch of saffron, cardamom powder, 1 tsp honey and drink at bed time daily
Giddiness
1. Take the seeds of ajwain. Make poultice and give dry fomentation for hands and feet
2. Or, take ½ tsp of cardamom seeds and 1 tsp of palmyrah sugar. Put them in 2 cup water and boil to 1 cup. Take twice a day at ½ cup each time
3. Or, soak cumin seeds in lime juice seeds overnight. Dry it in the sun and bottle. Chew ½ tsp after food and take a glass of warm water. Do it for few days
4. Or, take fresh juice out of fenugreek leaves. Take 2 tsp and add with honey daily
If giddiness due to BP
Soak in a glass of water 1 tsp each of coriander seeds, chandan & dried amla
Next morning stain it and drink – for few days
If unconscious due to giddiness, use raw onion juice as nasal drops
Varicose Veins
Varicose veins results from sluggish blood circulation due to various factors such as constipation, dietetic errors, obesity, lack of exercise, standing for long time, sitting in the same position for a long time especially keeping legs crossed, wearing tight clothes, pregnancy related inactivity, etc. What happens in these situations is that due to inactivity, the blood stagnates in the particular vein and movement of the blood towards the heart does not take place. Then the veins there swell and become bluish and is seen even to the naked eye. Very often leg cramps, itching, feeling of heaviness, etc also get associated with varicose veins.
Keep active
Take to yoga
Do breathing exercises which help blood to move / blood circulation
Take to exercises
Go for walking
Take plenty of raw vegetables and their juices such as carrot juice, spinach juice etc. Both can be taken in combination as well at 3:2 ratio
Pregnant women should elevate their legs above the heart level while resting
Heamophilia [Blood does not stop]
Normally when one is injured, blood comes out of the injury for sometime, but soon it clots. Heamophilia is a disorder in which the blood does not clot due to absence of clotting factor in their blood. When internal injuries take place, blood flows within their body. Non-stop blood flow, whether external or internal could sometimes be fatal. Such people should lead a very careful life and avoid travels and crowds.
As an emergency measure, sprinkle some sugar crystals on the wound for the blood to stop. But get in touch with Doctor
Stroke [cerebral haemorrhage]
A stroke occurs when blood supply to the brain is cut off. You know the stroke occurs in that place of the brain which controls our hearing, sight, speech and bodily movements, etc. Therefore stroke often accompanies the impairment of the connected organ that is affected by the stroke. This may lead to paralysis of the limbs, loss of vision, slurring of speech or imbalance while walking.
Stroke occurs either due to clotting of blood enroute or by rupturing of the brain artery, called hemorrhage. If the hemorrhage is severe, the patient could instantly die.
One point that we need to note is that a stroke does not come without warning. Months prior to the actual stroke, you get following warnings:
· Sudden trouble in speaking, i.e Temporary speech difficulty or you lose track of what you had just said. You become vague
· Sudden confusion, sudden difficulty in understanding
· Sudden numbness or weakness on legs, arms, face or one side of the body
· Suddenly you lose track of what you are doing or where you are
· Sudden loss of balance, co-ordination, dizziness or trouble in walking
· Sudden trouble in seeing or temporary blindness
· Sudden severe headache in the back of the head and neck
Such episodes last only for seconds. These are called transient ischemic attacks, which the doctors call as TIAs. These TIAs are warnings of danger ahead. If you ignore them, you are likely to face a full blown cerebral accident. So, when these things pass through you, make quick trip to the doctor for examination and attendance. Patients should note that these symptoms forewarn us for appropriate remedial action including in diet and in life style. And if one does it, he would make early recovery and attain normalcy.
When the above symptoms occur, seek immediate medical attention. Know what are the contributing factors to a stroke. They are:
High blood pressure
High blood sugar and diabetes
Irregular heart beats
Tobacco, smoking, alcohol and drugs
Elevated cholesterol
Obesity
Physical inactivity
Take honey plus dates regularly so that your iron content in the blood is well maintained. The red blood cells would also increase. You will also recover loss of blood.
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