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This section was written by an ex-smoker of 40 a day for 15 years who,
through yoga, came to understand the real reasons for smoking and the
intricate personal web which causes both the initial as well as the continuing
adoption of such a habit.
It is well accepted by most people, that the smoking habit is both a strong
physiological as well as psychological addiction. It is now accepted that the
physical addiction to nicotine may even be stronger than heroin and other
illegal narcotics. The life-threatening effects of smoking are well documented
and the myriad non-specific ailments that smokers suffer are also well known.
There are many “quit smoking” campaigns and methods which have had
varying degrees of success with different people. These methods, which
depend mainly on the attitude and willpower of the person performing them,
along with a few lifestyle “tricks”, all focus on “giving up smoking”. They focus
on the cigarettes, the act of smoking and the substance of nicotine and tar as
the baddies. But the cigarettes and nicotine are not the problem, nor is the
smoking itself. They are only symptoms of the true problem. In reality, it is the
smoker who is the problem, since all of those things are wrapped up within the
organism of the person’s body, lifestyle and their unique personality. But as
well as neglecting this whole area of the personality of the smoker, what is
rarely addressed in this whole issue is - the interconnection between: (i) the
biological addiction to a known toxin, (ii) the psychological addiction to a social
habit, and (iii) the spiritual malaise which causes a continuity of actions
towards a slow and premature death by self administered poison.
To date, such a complex personal equation has never been satisfactorily
addressed by either the doctors, the psychiatrists or the religious teachers.
The science of yoga has methods which address each and all of these factors
in an integrated way. When recommending the use of Jala Neti and other yoga
techniques to help with giving up smoking, it is not intended that smoking be
given up straightaway. The symptom (ie smoking) is not the focus of the
“treatment” or work to be done. It may take some weeks, months or even
years as the habit tapers off, to get to the bottom of the real problem and really
cure the smoker.
Most smokers would each have differing degrees of difficulty conquering
and understanding each of those areas listed above, and therefore any
programme of giving up must cater for the individual personality and the deep
down motives of the smoker. For example, some people may well be able to
exercise an immensely strong willpower and stop the cigarettes on one day,
but even this is not enough to stop physical symptoms of withdrawal. The
cigarettes may have stopped but other negative habits may be taken up to
cope with the abstinence resulting in manifestations of alternate neuroses. The
withdrawal feelings and recurring cravings may still last for years. The tension,
irritability and frustration may never leave them.
Others take longer to cut down and eventually give up smoking by
stopping (and re-starting) many times over many years. This approach can
help to lessen withdrawal discomforts but, over that time, they will still have to
undergo the same processes of resolution in their body and mind that the
immediate stopping method would have caused.
Admittedly, some people never want to get to understand “why” they
smoke. All self understanding causes self confrontation and this might explain
the refusal of many to even try giving up. But with yogic methods, it does not
have to result in any discomfort – physical or mental. According to yoga
principles, smoking, like any addiction, habit or personality flaw, is not to be
fought against. Rather, it is to be understood as both a physical and mental
cause and result of ones own personality. This is why it is so hard to break
such cycles. A case of which comes first - the neurosis or the habit???
Given that there are always unconscious motivations for doing such a self
destructive thing, ones self awareness must be increased along the way to the
point of not wanting to be self destructive anymore. This is a much wider issue
than just the smoking aspect. Removing the cigarettes, or stopping the act of
smoking can still leave remnant self destructiveness which will, sooner or later,
just remanifest in other forms or most usually as smoking again. Ones
perception and understanding about living, breathing, thinking, feeling and
acting must change. Changing from cigarettes to nicotine chewing gum will not
help in this area, neither will sticking little nicotine patches on your arm help in
increasing ones awareness of thoughts, feelings and actions associated with
the causes of self destruction. Such methods can only ever be an incomplete
solution to a far more complex problem. In giving up any complex addiction,
each of these 3 interconnected areas need to be addressed.
The Physical Addiction
A smoker’s body needs its daily hits. The whole biology has been
modified over time to revolve around the regular intake of the cigarette’s
chemicals. Therefore as the habit is reduced, the body has to be re-educated
to what is normal and what is healthy. This cannot happen over night. So that
the body can begin to experience its natural state again, one needs to detoxify
the blood stream of nicotine gradually, so as to avoid the strong side effects of
going “cold turkey”. Of course, cutting down the input of the addictive
substances and gradual modification of lifestyle factors will accelerate this
process. Therefore the teacher or therapist must regularly assess the balance
between the body’s addictive needs and the desired cleansing regime. Too
much too fast will possibly cause regression. Everyone knows that there is
residual nicotine build up in the bloodstream, the muscle structure and the
brain which keeps maintaining the addiction. But who would think that reprogramming
the nostrils and using saline cleansing techniques would be an
effective way to start breaking such physical addictions? Jala Neti is only one
of the many yoga cleansing techniques which are of assistance in respiratory
remediation and circulatory detoxification. On a retreat or in a consultative
therapeutic situation, the student would also be taught all the other techniques
for body detoxification. These involve specific yoga postures, exercises,
breathing regimes and cleansing kriyas.
This whole area of blood cleansing is also tied in with diet, the digestive
system and the bowels. One cannot hope to clean out years of airborne toxins
(much of which is swallowed and absorbed into the digestive tract via the
nasal mucus) without addressing the matter of food and diet. Nicotine is well
known as an appetite suppressant and therefore as this crutch is removed, all
sorts of digestive difficulties and food trips are sure to manifest. After many
years, a smoker would have little or no sense of smell, little or no true palate
appreciation. Giving up smoking is the ideal opportunity to re-educate the
palate and set up a better eating regime. All these things are part and parcel of
yoga’s broad approach to physical therapy and healing.
In assisting the breaking of the smoking habit, Jala Neti is the first and
foremost technique to be employed. If you just think of Jala Neti as a pretty
neat way to flush out a bit of old mucus from the nose, then you have missed
many of the deeper elements which are at work in the realm of yoga’s psychic
methodologies. There exist subtle connections between the olfactory nerves,
the brain’s electrical impulses, the hormonal system and the patterns of mind
which cause ingrained habits and actions. Without even knowing it, whilst
clearing out mucus, you are “massaging” the nature of the mind and creating
better function of each of these, as well as better harmony between them.
As well as re-sensitising the mechanism of smell and sinus function, Jala
Neti helps to purify the nasal capillaries which carry the gases in the blood
which the brain analyses with each breath. Whereas odours can be detected
some distance away from the body by a healthy sense of smell, and their
meaning transmitted to the brain, a much stronger message is carried to the
brain by the gases actually inspired through the nose.
But - look what a smoker is doing! They are not inspiring through the
nose. They are drawing that toxic smoke in through the mouth. As a result, the
brain does not actually know that the body is ingesting that smoke, nicotine
and all the other chemicals of treated tobacco. The whole filtering, sensing and
protection mechanism is being by-passed by mouth breathing the smoke.
What chance does the brain or mind have of preventing or breaking such an
addiction under those circumstances? The only time when the olfactory
senses get any indication of smoking, is if the smoker exhales through the
nose, in which case, the spent smoke is much less potent since the lungs have
absorbed the desired chemicals. This exhalation through the nose actually
traps even more of the smoke particles in the mucous lining on the way out,
which then run backwards and are swallowed. The result is a mixture of
cigarette by-products in the stomach. If you wanted to let the brain know that
you were in fact smoking, put the cigarette filter up your nose and draw it in!
Then you’ll see what the body’s natural reaction would be! You would either
have a massive head spin, vomit or faint. Such is the true response of the
nasal mechanisms and the brain to cigarette smoke entering the body.
So for a smoker, wherever there is cigarette smoke in the air, the brain
adjusts the psyche and the physiology to what it is normally accustomed to,
and the addiction is maintained. But if the nasal passages have been reprogrammed
by Jala Neti on a regular basis to smell properly so that they can
identify good clean air, the brain thinks - “Hey, what’s this rubbish coming in, I
don’t like that” and sends a message of revulsion to the mind. Due to this, the
smoker will be less interested in the cigarette at an unconscious biological
level and can sometimes even feel nauseous in the presence of cigarette
smoke. That makes it much easier to give up if you are automatically turned off
the smell and taste of unnatural substances by the body’s own protection
requirements. These mechanisms of nature’s design are there to ensure that
all gases should enter the body through the nose, and that only liquids and
solids should enter via the mouth. That is the greatest trick of smoking and the
single strongest reason why it is so hard to give up. The brain has no defence
against it. If you give the brain back its defence mechanisms by cleansing the
nostrils and lessening mouth breathing the body will naturally start to reject
consuming the poison.
The Psychological Addiction
As well as the obvious physical factors which sustain smoking, there are
the psychological areas which also need to be addressed. To satisfactorily
resolve the emotional aspects of addiction, one must strengthen the
personality of the smoker who does so for reasons such as peer pressure,
image, rebellion, etc, and which is due to association with certain places,
people, events, etc. To take away or transfer such habits is no solution to the
inner weakness of a smoker. It can actually make them feel less powerful, less
capable, less in control of their own life. Therefore, some other form of self
image needs to be established, a new form which is built on ones true worth,
not one reflected by others.
All yoga practices in general, and specifically Jala Neti, help in making
one more of an individual, and therefore responsible for ones own actions,
even under great emotional or mental pressure. Relaxation and meditative
techniques help a person to confront their insecurities and neuroses safely and
gradually. Meta-physical tools such as resolutions, visualisations, thought
analysis, witnessing, concentration, all help a person to come to terms with
both their problems and the solutions arising from them.
Neti of all kinds affects the function of the pituitary and pineal glands. To
the yogis, a clear state of mental perception is dependent on the workings of
these two small, but important glands. By practising Jala Neti on a daily basis,
one is removing the dross of the mind as surely as one is removing dirt from
the airways. The mental effects of Jala Neti are frequently commented upon by
practitioners, although they often find it hard to articulate exactly what the
psychological changes are. They say things like “I just feel better in my mind”,
“I can understand better where I was before”. Such comments allude to
awakening of intuition. Such realisations help greatly in breaking the ignorance
of unconscious habits. Another effect of Neti is to help ones strength of mind.
Improving faculties such as discrimination, decision making, resoluteness and
intuition are useful in breaking the physical, social and innate personal habits
of any addiction. Detachment, such as being able to be in a room with all of
your smoking friends without either having to resort to a cigarette or run out of
the room screaming, is developed. In a spiritual sense, Neti helps to create a
vision of positivity, both of oneself and of others.
The Spiritual Issue
And last, but most importantly, one must resolve the deep spiritual
malaise inherent in a smoker, which causes them to even consider consuming
such a cocktail of unnecessary and poisonous substances. Why is their life not
satisfying enough to just get on with it without trying out a dumb thing like
smoking in the first place? What, deep down, is so wrong with their life and
their view of life that they would want to make it even worse in the long run by
smoking? Is the oral fixation of sucking on a small paper cylinder the only way
they know to create a feeling of peace and relaxation? Insecurity, fear,
boredom, anger, anxiety, low self esteem, self destruction, etc, are all
transference reasons for smoking. Yoga, meditation and neti cleansing all
work on resolving such unconscious conflicts within the psyche by expanding
self awareness and increasing relaxation at the physical, mental, emotional
and psychic levels of the personality. Giving up smoking then can be seen as
a trigger to discover more about ones make up and discover a better spiritual
self perception. This being the case, the real question is – “What is their
addiction to spiritual malaise?”
There are so many other areas of life which smoking interferes with, such
as digestion, vitality, sleep, thinking, nervous temperament, hormonal function,
motivation. Many of these things can be improved through all the yoga
practices as it works holistically on all areas. To get back to a healthier and
more balanced situation in which addiction to any substance has no place, all
these areas need to be addressed. In no small way the practice of Jala Neti
can touch all of these areas, both physically and mentally and can be a way of
making the first steps back to health and a normality which finds smoking a
very strange thing to contemplate – let alone do.
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