Originally published October 15 2008
Turn Deep Breathing Into A Second Heart
by Richard Stossel
(NaturalNews) With all the heart problems, heart disease and other health issues that are ever getting worse in today's modern society, learning that you can actually do something to create a second heart within your body sounds like a miracle or simply too good to be true. Of course science is always trying to create replacement organs using stem cells, cloning, cell regeneration technology and much more, but such "solutions" are nothing more than band aids as is everything else that western medicine does to treat various health issues.
People have also accepted these procedures due to lack of knowledge, being lied to, social conditioning and their own beliefs that there is simply nothing else you can do for your own health or health issues other than to rely on the promise of western technology and drugs to hopefully save them all. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The total lack and understanding of true health and the causes of illness in the western world is truly amazing. These ideas are thoroughly fostered by the media, medical schools, doctors, hospitals and many other organizations that have convinced people to eat foods that not only destroy their health but their bio energy as well. They've convinced people to just enjoy their sugary, destructive foods with zero nutrition, tons of chemicals, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup and more, all of which destroys their organs, pollutes their blood and energy and causes their organs to fail. Then they build up false hope that we can just get a replacement organ or use technology to keep them alive in the meantime. The waiting lists for organ donor recipients can be years long.
This whole throw away mentality of western society has also been transferred to medical field by treating the body strictly like a machine or mechanism. When something goes wrong, you just get a replacement part whether it is an organ, joint or some other part and you can go right on poisoning and destroying your body with the same junk foods, sugary drinks, recreational and prescription drugs or other destructive agents that most people today use. This is because people have been so taught that the only criteria you should follow when it comes to just about everything, including food and drink, is to follow your feelings and senses and only what feels and tastes good with a total disregard for ones health or longevity.
In the human body there are actually two separate bodies that determine the true state of your health. While the west has focused exclusively on the physical body, eastern medical traditions and especially Chinese medicine has focused on both the physical and what's called the "energy or spirit body". They have seen over the millennia that the quality and state of your chi or energy body is truly what governs the short and long term state of your health far more than any other single factor.
Of course most people have never heard of the energy body and even less know how to make this knowledge work for them to their benefit. In the west were SO taught that physics alone is what governs human health, so too learn that there are other forces at work is very surprising and sometimes hard to grasp. While it's certainly true to a large degree, science and physics have now also discovered that there are energies and forces both in the universe and in the human body that they don't understand and that these forces do govern human health. The Chinese in particular have spent millennia decoding this truth and now well understand the laws of chi flow, chi theory and how energy relates to human health, disease, diagnosis and more.
People have been taught for so long to use their body as a vehicle for pleasure and hedonism, to waste their vital energies and essences through various destructive lifestyle choices and many other sensory pleasures never realizing that it's this very mindset and actions that are causing so many of their health ills. They're then told that modern medicine will save the day when it nearly always makes everything worse. This very mentality is what must change if you're going to take greater control of your health. We must unlearn the wrong teachings that we have all been brainwashed with and start to do the right things that will truly make you healthy and rebuild your body on a physical and spiritual level from the inside out.
A Second Heart
So let's talk about this second heart that was mentioned at the beginning. How do you actually have a second heart within your body? The answer is really very simple...deep breathing! How does deep breathing create a second heart? Through deep diaphragmatic breathing from low down in the abdomen you're bringing the diaphragm itself into play for more than by doing upper chest breathing. The diaphragm is a muscular but flexible membrane that separates the chest from the abdominal cavity. When you inhale and the lungs expand it pushes the diaphragm down into the abdominal cavity. This gentle expansion during deep abdominal breathing is what helps to gently push huge amounts of blood throughout the system thereby taking a huge load off the heart.
The diaphragm is the most powerful muscle in the body and it acts as a perfect force pump which compresses the internal organs such as the liver, spleen, intestines, lymphatic and blood vessels and greatly aids the venous circulation from abdomen to thorax or middle and upper chest area. Due to the large surface area of the diaphragm a large amount of blood is moved throughout the body when it is employed via the mechanism of deep breathing. Even though this muscle is moving slower than the heart on a per minute basis, the greater surface area and the amount of blood it moves means that it actually functions as a "Second heart" in the body and thus greatly reduces the amount of work that the heart itself must do.
If you ever see the hearts of people who die of heart disease, doctors tell how its as though their hearts were literally on fire and burned up from the inside out. This coincides perfectly with the Chinese description of heart disease as a disease as excessive heart fire or yang chi. Peoples hearts are working so hard today that the organ is generating too much fire energy and burning out before it's time or collapsing under the strain. By using deep breathing techniques to help move blood throughout the system, which also cools the fire energy of the heart at the same time, we`re helping to reduce yang fire energy in the body and restore the proper functioning of the heart itself.
This great discovery is something that all of us can benefit from in a many ways. Deep breathing from the lower abdomen or Dan Tien (Sea of Energy) not only helps take a huge strain off the heart but pulls in more life giving oxygen and Chi! By breathing low down and employing the diaphragm were not only helping to ease the load on our hearts but building up and strengthening our spirit or energy body at the same time. Since energy or chi is the true regulator of your health, vitality, mental functions, e-motions (Energy in motion) and so much more, doing everything we can to increase the amount of chi in the body is of paramount importance especially in this polluted world. Chi is what truly powers the cells and muscles and this includes the heart too. The more chi you have, the stronger all of your muscles and organs will function. It's really that simple.
Be aware that when you first start practicing deep breathing, because most people are chronic chest breathers and this is especially true of the elderly, sedentary and overweight, you may feel some tightness or discomfort in that area as this muscle begins to be used and stretches out. With practice and time this should disappear and you'll be able to breathe lower and lower down without this discomfort. In time abdominal breathing will eventually become second nature. Humans are meant to be abdominal breathers not chest breathers. By only using the chest your cutting out the amount of oxygen and energy you take in with each breath by as much as 2/3rd's, not to mention you`re slowly starving yourself of oxygen and energy over time which can leads to many serious health issues including cancer.
If you have never tried breathing from low down, start off slowly by taking just 5-10 abdominal breaths per day and eventually work up to at least 30 or more. Outside is the best place to practice all breathing exercises as long as the outside air is relatively clean. If your in a large city or polluted area then inside might be the better place to breathe. If you have house plants, an air purifier or ionizer better to breath in an inside room like that than outside with industrial pollutants.
Focus your mind on the Dan Tien point which is about 1 � inches below the navel and about an inch inside the abdomen. This low down focus not only helps you keep your breathing from becoming chest breathing again but also helps to begin to connect your mind with the very source of chi or life force energy in the human body. By building this connection and building up more and more chi, your overall health, energy, immunity, mental functions, mood and more will be greatly enhanced with continued practice.
It can't be stressed enough how important it is to learn correct breathing and to build up and use your life force energy. This is completely ignored in the wes, but it is vital and crucial to all health issues and concerns. Many in the west don't even accept that chi is real, but with time and continued serious practice you too will come to know that chi is indeed very real and the benefits to your health, strength and life will continue to grow as you continue to practice. It is more true and more real than the physical world that we think is so real to us.
New discoveries in science, medicine and physics are only backing up these claims all the time. But even physics teaches that matter is nothing more than energy in a certain state of resonance or vibration that causes it to exist in the third dimension. That when they break matter down to the smallest parts, below the level of quarks and leptons, that the matter itself disappears in a brilliant flash of light and winks out altogether from this very universe.
So we are all made up of energy and this is how advanced adepts are able to literally sustain themselves on nothing but wind, chi and sunshine with a little water for hundreds of days and beyond. Through years of training which starts with deep abdominal breathing from the Dan Tien and other breathing techniques they are able to take in and store huge amounts of chi in their bodies. By merging mind and body through meditation they're able make their bodies so much more efficient at absorbing and using that energy to rebuild all the cells in their bodies and this is how they're able to live on almost nothing.
They literally survive on pure energy or the force itself. It takes decades to get to that point, but even those who have learned simple breathing sets to like the "8 Pieces of Brocade" which is taught on the Chinese Health and Fitness video have noticed that their hunger would often disappear after practicing a session of this breathing set. This is simple proof that your body is not really seeking the matter when you eat, but the chi or life force itself which the body extracts from the food via the spleen. That is what's truly keeping everything together and keeping all living being and creatures alive.
So if you're concerned about your heart health as we all need to be, then start breathing from low down in the Dan Tien area every day. Learn other breathing techniques to make deep diaphragmatic breathing a daily habit and in time this will become second nature. Then you`ll be gently moving large amounts of blood through the body with each deep breath, taking a huge load and strain off the heart and making your heart last a lifetime as it was designed to do.
About the author
Richard is a network engineer and longtime practitioner of Chinese martial arts, medicine and chi-gung for over twenty six years. Having learned many Chinese health and healing arts from old world gung-fu and healing masters and practitioners, he has helped many people to overcome their health issues and achieve their fitness goals. Through diligent study and experience he has taken this knowledge even further over the years including reading scores of books on Chinese medicine, health, chi theory, science, physics, nutrition, supplements, meditation, martial arts, and many other subjects. Utilizing the web, health and fitness videos, newsletters, articles, teachings and lectures, Rich is passionate about spreading the true knowledge of health, healing, fitness and spiritual truths. I'm proud to be writing articles for NaturalNews.com You can read many articles, hear audio interviews, and learn more about the highly praised Chinese Health and Fitness video by visiting Chinese Health and Fitness.com
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