Christians and Yoga

Christians have strange views about yoga. Some of them have said to me, "I don't want to empty my mind; something might jump in." Or, "I don't want to get into that New Age stuff." Or, "I would not let them do yoga in our church hall." Or, "It might draw you into Eastern religions." Yet when I recommend yoga to others they cannot thank me enough once they get into the practice. It has thoroughly stretched them, sorted out their aches and pains and improved their posture and breathing.

So is there a basis in the Bible for the ideas and practice of yoga? Genesis Ch. 2:7 reads, "And the LORD God formed a man's body from the dust of the ground and breathed into it the breath of life. And the man became a living person (or soul)." The strength behind all yoga practice is the prana or breath. By breathing slowly and deeply while you practice yoga you will not only provide plenty of oxygen to your muscles but make your physical practice all the more rewarding. The majority of people who come to see me with irritable bowel, mid-back pain, poor circulation, lymphoedema, tiredness and low energy have one thing in common. They do not breathe deeply enough. I teach them exactly the principles of breathing or prana that I have learned in yoga. Guess what? Their energy improves, their eyes clear as toxins are removed. Movement of lymph and venous blood improves, digestion starts working again, the gall bladder starts to work and they have more energy.

"Yoga is a path to find God"

Some people do find that yoga deepens their spiritual walk and we should respect them for that. Others simply use yoga stretches to improve their physical condition. Teachers vary in their approach. One of my teachers (Andreas of course) said recently, "If you think that you can find God through stretching your head down to your big toe you will be disappointed. All you will find is athletes foot."

The apostle Paul wrote, "I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified." 1 Cor. 9:27. Paul was clear that his spiritual goals came first but he also brought his body into subjection. Yoga does exactly that if you practise regularly. It teaches you that you are in charge of your body. Too many Christians are inactive, unfit, complaining about their poor health and making every excuse to do nothing about. You should go some yoga sessions and bring your body into subjection to your mind. It will not do you any harm and might do you a lot of good.

What if when you go there is a little statue of a Buddha sitting in the corner? Yoga in practice originated in Hindu philosophy so there might be a Krishna instead. As it spread through northern India and on into China via the Silk roads yoga picked up Buddhist adherents.

In a previous chapter (1 Cor. 8) Paul discusses whether Christians should eat meat offered to idols or become vegetarians. He laid down a principle, that those Christian who have more faith can eat meat offered to idols. Those with a weaker faith might choose to abstain. In effect, he is saying that you are free to choose but don't make other Christians with a more sensitive conscience make themselves feel guilty. I have never met a yoga teacher who tries to force you into their philosophy although some come across quite strongly with their own thoughts.

Personally if a yoga teacher asks us to meditate I sit quietly do just that. Except that my meditation invites the presence of Jesus Christ and the Creator God. I don't object to saying the Om which is a Hindu name for God. It is a great sound that resonates through the chest cavity but means nothing to me as a name for God.

Having been to Iyenga, Hatha and Anusara yoga sessions I settled for Ashtanga. I call it 'Man yoga' because it mainly involves hard physical practice with few breaks. It fits none of the stereotypes where you think of people lying around relaxing. There are some great yoga teachers in Milton Keynes of all persuasions.

Here are some names whom I know and recommend,

Andreas Wren at Shenley Leisure Centre http://www.mkyoga.co.uk,

Toby at Axis yoga Newton Longville http://www.axisyoga.com,

Bridget Rooney Anusara yoga http://www.brigitteyoga.co.uk,

Debbie Twigger M: 07764 391687

Katie James: katiesarahjames@hotmail.co.uk,

Jenny Wong: jennywellbeing@gmail.com,

Helen Stephenson http://www.helenstephensononline.co.uk.

If you are a Christian and nervous about going to yoga I suggest that you try Axis yoga in the methodist church in Newton Longville. They meet on a Monday and Wednesday from 7.30 pm to 8.45 pm. The church has a pleasant setting with familiar posters around. Toby is not allowed to say the Om. His music is neutral, he welcomes beginners and draws them into the class. You will feel quite at home there then you can try other classes.

What Causes Back Pain?

Specialists who treat back pain are missing something important. The back is like the spine of a corset that supports the trunk. A wise osteopath called Caroline Stone used to remind us, "Remember that people have a front." First we could ask, How does the back support the trunk? The backbone is a stack of bones called vertebrae. Muscles move the vertebrae but without the bones your body would collapse. Muscles attach to the bones by tendons. Ligaments are straps that join the vertebrae and limit movement. Tendons are more elastic than ligaments; they contain a protein called elastin. Ligaments contain more of a protein called collagen. You have 12 pairs of ribs hanging onto your back bones. The first rib start right at the top of your sternum (the breast bone), runs under your collar bone and round to the base of your neck. The last two ribs are attached to the spine but not to the breast bone. They are called floating ribs. The ribs protect your heart, lungs, stomach, spleen, liver and gall bladder, pancreas, kidneys, aorta (main blood vessel), veins and lymph glands. They give shape to your chest and support the breasts or pectoral muscles. Lower down the back your small intestine and colon have some folds of internal skin that attach to the back of the abdominal cavity. The folds of skin are called mesenteries, lit. 'middle intestines'. The bag around the abdomen is called the peritoneum, lit. 'stretched around'.

Any of these structures or organs could cause back pain. Some are more likely to cause pain than others. Ligaments for instance, are very pain-sensitive. Under an electron microscope they look like a matrix of fibres that crinkle and straighten but do not stretch very easily. In my experience the most common cause of back pain is muscle fatigue allowing the muscles weaken more on one side than the other. Muscle imbalance leads to ligament strain. Ligament strain leads to back pain. Of course there are lots of other causes. If you read a standard orthopaedic medical book they will tell you the causes that they see most commonly like disc injury, bone tumour, vertebral collapse, arthritis, bony spurs. In practice these causes are not very common. Other assumed causes like obesity, poor abdominal muscle stability are not common causes either. How often does a professional say, "lose weight and your back pain will go." It might be true of knee pain but not back pain. Muscle imbalance leading to pelvic asymmetry is a much more common cause of back pain. If the core abdominal muscles are out of balance back pain will get worse with pilates for instance.

Ticks, removing ticks

Canoeing in Scotland

Ticks live in areas where deer are common, and amongst bracken.
They are tiny brown creatures that can move rapidly over the skin.

Try and wear light coloured clothing to help you see them.
Ask a close friend to check your skin if you have any doubts.
Carry fine pointed tweezers and avoid touching ticks with your hands. Wash your hands well afterwards if you have to remove them.
If you do find one biting you need to grasp the tick between the body and the skin and gently pull until the legs come out. Make
a note of the date you found it.
For more helpful information look at this website: http://www.oklahomapoison.org/general/tick.asp
If a rash appears between one and thirty days later you must see a doctor and tell them that you want to be tested for possible Lyme disease. I have treated several people who have had arthritis that affected them all over the body,
motor neurone disease (wasting of the muscles), and other nervous system disorders, and lung disease all of which we suspect came from tick bites.
I carry a plastic pot of alcohol gel to clean my hands after any risky contact, and after the toilet.

The midges can be fierce. The following ideas have all been tried: obviously insect repellent, rubbing mint, aloe vera sunscreen, Avon Cosmetics cream, lavender or tea tree (diluted not neat),
taking B complex vitamins and vitamin C. B vitamins make your sweat unpleasant to midges and vitamin C acts as an anti-histamine. Personally I take MSM as well.
Eating garlic helps you but not everyone else. Eating half a grapefruit a day and rubbing the inside of the skin (the pithy stuff) over your skin. It is quite good as it saves
you having to wash.

European Health Insurance Card

This card replaces the E 111 that we used to use for medical treatment abroad. You can apply on-line but you have to very careful which website you use. If you search for EHIC you will be directed to a government site that charges you nearly £10- for the priviledge of using it. I suggest that you use another site http://www.ehic.org/requirements.html. On this form you simply say that you are renewing an old or expired card. That is exactly what you are doing if you replace the E 111. There is no charge for the card using this site.

Cholesterol

Cholesterol

You have been your doctor. They say that your cholesterol is too high. You need to reduce it urgently. You are a little anxious to say the least. What do you do? 

Scaring people by telling them their cholesterol levels is a red herring. Cholesterol is something that can be measured and lowered through drugs called statins. That makes a fortune for pharmaceutical companies and the doctors and scientists who developed them. Statins might open up the arteries and reduce heart disease or stroke but by some other mechanism than simply reducing cholesterol. Before you consider statins try flushing your body of unwanted fats and changing your lifestyle to lower the stress on your body.

The real culprits are too much salt, processed food, food eaten in a hurry and not digested slowly, lack of exercise, too much processed sugar like refined fructose corn syrup or processed glucose, too much alcohol, too much stress in your life putting pressure on the systems in your body, smoking or recreational drugs, too many stimulants like drinks that fire you up then leave you exhausted and angry. (It is said that if an animal is tired it takes a rest, if a human being is tired they take a stimulant). Simply making sure that you give enough time to sleep will take some of the demands off your body.

If you want to take some practical steps to clean your body stop eating processed food. Change the fats you consume. Use Benecol, Pura, Flora or butter and reduce the amount. Eat plant fats in preference to animal fats. Cut all of the fat off meat. Eat outdoor reared chicken and pork instead of red meat. It is easier to remove the fat from chicken and pork than from beef. Squeeze fresh lemon juice onto lamb, it helps to digest it and the vitamin C releases the iron. Cut out bought pizza with plastic cheese on top and too much salt, cut out pies, salty processed foods and eat real food, prepare your own lunch at take it to work. Take a large spoonful of oatbran on your cereal. Take a large spoonful of wheatgerm a day as well. Try a teaspoon of linseed or linseed (flax) seed oil a day (don't soak it simply crunch it). Snack on plain cashews, almonds, pine nuts, unsalted pistachios, oatcakes, dried unsulphured apricots, organic carrots. Eat lots of green vegetables, watercress, broccoli, courgettes, lettuce, cabbage, colourful fruit like fresh mango, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, grapes, red grapefruit. Drink at the most one smoothie a day. Don't overdo the fruit. There is a lot of fructose that might upset your digestion.

What is the thinking behind this advice? Benecol and plant fats contain phystosterols. They help to flush out unwanted fats. Oatbran, oatcakes and linseed contains soluble fibre. It helps to clean the bile duct that leads from the gallbladder. Regularly take a spoon of lecithin (extracted from soya). Lecithin helps to dissolve cholesterol in the bile duct. Egg yolk also contains lecithin so eat up to six eggs a week. 

Other plant fats include low salt peanut butter, palm oil, avocados, dessicated coconut and coconut oil, almonds and almond oil, plain, unsalted cashews, extra virgin olive oil.

What is cholesterol and how does it act?

"Chole" means bile; "sterol" means solid; "-ol" comes from alcohol. So cholesterol is a waxy, bile alcohol. It is a repair substance that the body uses for plugging leaks in the plumbing. It insulates the faster conducting nerves. It helps your brain to make connections. It is used to make hormones to cope with stress and help sexual arousal. It was found when the arteries of dead people were examined. Other substances like calcium were there as well. When your body is under stress the blood vessels get inflamed and leak. Cholesterol is a waxy substance carried around in fatty / protein molecules. The fatty / proteins plug the leaks. Macrophages (lit. 'big eaters') come along and engulf the mixture turning it into plaque or hardening of the arteries. The macrophages drive the plug into the artery walls leaving porridge like plaque. Cholesterol is not the cause of plaque it is the consequence of inflammation. Inflammation is the body's attempt to repair damage. The answer is to tackle the causes of damage not cholesterol. The nations with the highest cholesterol (around 7.1) are the Austrians and the Swiss. The ethnic group with the lowest cholesterol (around 4.5) are the displaced aboriginal tribes in Australia. The group with the lowest rate of heart disease are guess who? The Austrians and the Swiss. Possibly because they have more cohesive social groups and live amongst beautiful mountains affects their stress levels. The group with the highest rate of heart disease are the Aboriginal Australians. Read the book "The Cholesterol Cure". In his book Dr ... puts the view that stress on whole groups in society leads to stress in their bodies. His view is that overwhelming stress is the major factor in heart disease. The original findings of substances in the blood vessels including cholesterol, was done on young men who had died in the Vietnamese war. You could not ask for a more stressful effect on the body than being in a war. 

Other causes of inflammation

The answer is not as simple as stress. South West Scotland had extremely high levels of heart disease. Displacement of whole communities was a factor when the tenements were cleared. However Scotland is also the home of deep fried everything from haggis to mars bars. In the Orkney Islands where we used to live, you could catch wonderful wild brown trout in the lochans. If you visited Balfour's restaurant in Evie you would find those beautiful trout, deep fried in batter. 

Hydrogenated or Altered Fats are another factor

Oils are liquid at a cool temperature; fats are solid, monounsaturated fats go waxy when cold.

Oils include sunflower, rape seed, soya, almond, flax seed. Fats include lard, most animal fats. Monounsaturated fats include duck or goose fat, olive oil, peanut butter, coconut, safflower.

Overheating oil alters it chemically into hydrogenated fat. You could call them altered fats. They are unusable by the body and block the action of helpful fats. They turn into flabby cells clogging up your blood vessels. In brief, your body does not need processed, hydrogenated fats. 

If you are going to fry food or roast potatoes it is healthier to use duck or goose fat, lard, coconut oil or butter. Lower the temperature if you fry with oil. For instance add a little water if you are cooking mushrooms, onions or garlic. It keeps the oil at boiling not frying temperature.

Your body needs cholesterol. If you don't eat it, your liver and other cells will make it, (unless you are on statins). Good sources are eggs, prawns and other shellfish. The older you are the more important cholesterol becomes. An older person, especially female, is more likely to die of liver disease, mental dysfunction or cancer if their cholesterol is too low. Don't worry about cholesterol. There are more important things in life to keep your attention.

Anaerobic Exercise

Your body has two ways of burning energy: aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic or with oxygen is much more efficient. Fast sprinting, cycling, paddling or rowing uses glycogen and creatine phosphate to burn anaerobically (anaerobic means without oxygen). Immediate fuel or glycogen is stored in your muscles and your liver. Anaerobic exercise is very inefficient but when uses wisely can increase muscle bulk and power. You might be doing it already but 30 second bursts at full power with recovery periods of 90 seconds will build muscle power. With conditioning you can increase your maximum bursts to 2 minutes with 6 minutes recovery. The recovery periods are essential; otherwise you will exhaust yourself by depleting your resources. The by-product is lactic acid that increases muscle acidity causing pain and stiffness.

Some athletes take creatine phosphate to increase power. Initially it increases water levels in muscles. A higher dose followed by a maintenance dose is recommended if you use it at all. Personally I use a mixture of L carnitine and alpha lipoic acid. Studies show that this combination maintains muscles rather than turning to fat when exercise levels are lower. Many injuries that I see come from ex-sports people who have let their muscles de-condition and turn to flab.

Aerobic conditioning or endurance sports increase the strength of your heart muscles in particular the left ventricle. That is the chamber that ejects the blood into the bloodstream. 

Carbohydrates are your main energy source. A habit for many athletes is to top up carbohydrates just before or during sports. There are drawbacks to this approach. By taking in high energy drinks you release insulin into your bloodstream. That diverts adrenaline from energy production. It also diverts water from muscles convincing your stomach that food has arrived. Sports drinks during hard exercise will dehydrate your muscles. It is better to drink water. Cola type drinks are too acidic possibly increasing muscle soreness. I knew of an Asian sportsman who developed the beginnings of diabetes because he was taking in sports drinks just before hockey matches. His doctor was wise enough to think through his diet and drinks, knowing that Asian people are more prone to diabetes.

The time to take on carbohydrate is straight after an event. Re-fueling with carbohydrates within an hour will replenish your muscle stores of glycogen ready for the next event. Caffeine helps absorption, a cup of tea or coffee with something sweet is ideal.

If you are going to take on carbohydrates you need to give your body time to absorb them. For instance a tin of Devon custard or Ambrosia creamed rice 90 minutes before a race would be a high energy source that your body could use. Stick to foods that you are familiar with or you will upset your digestion.