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Mental health without medicines

An inexpensive and effective anti-depressant: "sea salt"

Anti-depressants is multi billion dollar industry world over.
Ayurveda and yoga offer several inexpensive techniques to "manage"
and also to "cure" depression of all types. In message No. 2719,
Sarika gives an example how simple home remedies and a bhasma along
with diet, could "cure" bipolar depression.

Author thanks Dr Mankikar for presenting the "modern" knowledge
describing Central nervous system(CNS) including spinal connections
to various important organs. If he keeps posting in this manner,
author would request him to "dominates" the list. Author would also
like to note here that ayurvedic acharyas did not coin many terms,
but they knew some of the facts. Nose being the door to cranium,
containing "shringatak marma" is already mentioned in Msg# 1825,
2286. The Nasya therapies and spinal and other massage techniques are
direct consequences of this CNS knowledge. For instance, some of the
menstrual/incontinence problems were treated by massaging lumbar and/
or sacral area with Mahanarayan oil by this author.

While iodized salt has been judged for its capabilities to suppres
thyroid gland problem, the lack of essential minerals in it has never
been given much importance. Homeopaths treat insomnia, depression,
anxiety etc as mineral deficiency problem and accordingly give
various medicines containing those minerals.

Author experimented with Neti and nasya for a long time, and found
some interesting experiences:

While Jal-Neti has has been mainly used for decongesting nose, and
has been advised to be done say once or twice a week, as the need
demands. However, doing it daily with warm water with sea salt
dissolved, gave the advantage that thickness of mucosal lining
reduced and more air could be breathed. The wet passages offer less
resistance to air, reducing load on lungs. 1 table spoon of salt per
litre was used, but at least three table spoons was needed for
saturation. Increasing the quantity to saturation was not needed.
Small quantity of salt water which goes to sinuses cleansing them. It
is well known that brain breathes a little though these passages, a
result of very thin membranes in between.

When salt is absorbed, brain also gets some quantity of minerals,
essential in Cerebro Spinal Fluid(CSF). We all know how CSF is tapped
and tested for deficiency and excess of certain components for
diagnosing several CNS diseases. Modern science also tells us that
deficiency of minerals can cause osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, auto-
immune diseases, and dys-functioning of entire endocrine system.

On this backfrop, author carried out Neti daily with salt water and
breathing exercises therafter. The kind of calm, lack of anxiety,
lack of anger, improvement in digestion, bowel habits, sleep etc
convinced him that CNS was absorbing minerals through Neti. Extra
oxygen in blood by hyperventilation was driving out accumulated
toxins in CNS or subconscious. If it can absorb nicotine in smoke,
why not minerals? One day, as sea salt stock was over, he used
iodized one and ended up with inflammation of nasal passages, sinuses
etc, which can be attributed to iodine. It took another half hour and
several neti applications to subside the inflammation.blood oxygen,

Encouraged by this idea, author tried it on a patient taking SSRI
drugs, but had to use date crush and milk also as serotonin
balancers. Today, after eight months, patient is free of those
addictive drugs, and free of depression.

A blind boy aged 20, who lost sight by steroid injections, is
doing this sea salt neti daily. He is cured of brain tumor. He is
able to listen to breathing sound of a person about 6-7 feets away.
And he is able to sense the presence of someone in proximity, and
knows who he/she is, if familiar. What he says, he detects the person
by body odour. Perhaps loss of sight is adding to energy supplied to
other nerves. This case is not pure Neti treatment, but PanchGavya
medicines also. But what is remarkable is that the progress rate
increased very much after he was given daily Neti and breathing
exercises.

Conclusions:
One way of treating depression is through balancing minerals by
feeding sea salt water to brain by simple Neti technique.
Pranayama followed by Hyperventilation increases blood oxygen and
balances nadis.

Shirish Bhate ([email protected])
Message No. 4788 on http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ayurvedaonline

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