Body Wisdom With Dr. Michele by Dr. Michele Summers Colon

May 20, 2020 #87 Why Taking Care of Your Five Senses is Vital to Feeling Young, Part 1

Welcome to Season 3 of the Body Wisdom Podcast with Dr. Michele.

This season the podcast will be focusing on healthy habits. As your host, I’ll be recording solo episodes which will answer some of the most common questions I’m asked as a physician such as “how do I build a new habit?” "which habits are essential to get healthy again?" "what can I do to lose weight?" "how can I look and feel younger again?" "how can I start exercising again if I haven't done it in years?" and more. I will also be coaching patients and clients live on-air, and conducting interviews with other health & wellness experts. Of course, I am always open to new topic ideas, so if there is a topic you would like me to address or if there is a question you would like answered, please reach out. Email me directly at [email protected].

Today Dr. Michele explains "Why Taking Care of Your Five Senses is Vital to Feeling Young."

I hope you enjoy the show!

About Dr. Michele:

As a physician & surgeon, certified Ayurvedic and Autoimmune health coach, yin yoga teacher, anatomy & physiology professor, and overall health & wellness expert, Dr. Michele Summers Colon is an Advocate for Women's Health. Her passion is helping women help themselves to heal their body. She is the author of Body Wisdom: 10 Weeks to Transformation, the creator and host of the Body Wisdom with Dr. Michele Podcast, and the leader of the Body Wisdom Membership Program.

She has been interviewed and quoted in many prominent publications including USA Today, US News & World Reports, Health Magazine, Yahoo! Makers, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek. One of Dr. Michele’s greatest strengths is her ability to help women create balanced, healthy lives by looking at the whole picture. She combines the best of Eastern and Western medicine to create individualized health & wellness plans for her patients and clients. For 25 years, Dr. Michele has dedicated herself to maintaining a private medical practice and providing exceptional care to her patients while at the same time studying holisitic and integrative medicine. Dr. Michele believes that food is medicine and that yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation are the keys to perfect health.

Dr. Michele has a Bachelor’s degree in Physiology from UCBerkeley, a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences and a Doctorate degree in Podiatry from Barry University, and graduated from a Foot & Ankle Surgical Residency in Los Angeles. Dr. Michele is also certified in Ayurvedic as well as Autoimmune Health Coaching, Yoga, Reiki, Reflexology, and Laser Therapy. Dr. Michele specializes in Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Therapeutic Yoga to provide the most healing, relaxation, and rejuvenation to her patients and clients. Dr. Michele has studied Ayurvedic Medicine extensively and has worked with some of the best practitioners throughout the United States to bring Ayurveda to the forefront of medicine.

Combining yoga, Ayurveda, and meditation is one of Dr. Michele’s passions so that she can spread the word to as many people as possible that this is the path to perfect health.

Show Notes:

In Ayurveda, it is believed that there are 3 causes of disease: making poor choices, using your senses improperly, and living out of rhythm. This week's habit, caring for your five senses, deals with the second one. When you are not taking care of your Sense Organs, it’s called Asatmen-driy-artha Sam-yoga, or “Using Your Senses Poorly.” When we make unwise choices, we confuse our senses. Astmaya means inappropriate, indriya means sense organs, artha means the objects of the senses, and samyoga means to combine or to link. It's a mouthful that packs a punch, I know. So let's unpack it, starting with inappropriate.

You and I both know what taking an appropriate or inappropriate action feels like. If you're attentive to your body, you know when music is too aggressive, food too processed, or your eyes too tired to read the screen. Disregard your senses and you create disease in your body, your mind, your relationships, and/or in your spiritual life. That is asatmen-driy-artha sam-yoga in a nutshell -- our senses interacting inappropriately with specific things. Respect the wisdom and sensitivity of your senses.

But, which specific things are appropriate to interact with? Our senses are delicate instruments able to discriminate between that which brings long-lasting balance and that which is damaging. Pay very close attention to what you taste, see, hear, feel, and smell. Notice what delights and nurtures your senses. Tune into your senses to learn. Your senses will tell you when they've had enough. Your job is to pay attention and respond appropriately. If you continually make smart choices that respect the wisdom of your senses, you won't have a problem with the second cause of disease.

When you make inappropriate choices, you confuse or damage your senses. Confusion blocks the flow of consciousness. Damage destroys consciousness. Making decisions from an unconscious place will destroy you over time.

We need to understand why sense organ care is such an important habit. Your senses are how you perceive the world. We all know that taste, sight, smell, touch, sound is how we take in the world around us. We know this, but on some level we forget that these are instruments. And that these instruments are extremely sensitive. And that sensitivity is how we learn what we want to connect with, what we want to merge ourselves with, our consciousness with. And yet we disregard our senses.

We are often too tired but we are still reading or watching something. Our tongue may taste food and say oh, this doesn’t taste this good, but we swallow it anyway. Or we have a coating on our tongue so we can’t taste food that accurately. Sometimes we listen to music but it’s not really resonating with us but we don’t turn it off. Or sometimes the news is on in the background but we leave it on in the background even though it’s driving it us. Or we don’t update our relationship agreements or deal with our relationship issues even though they are making noise in our presence.

These are some of the things that we have to deal with and pay more attention to on the yogic path or on the body wisdom path. We are preventing disease in the Ayurvedic manner. We are attuning to learning from our experiences which relates to the #1 cause of disease, Prajna-paradha which is “Making negligent choices” or making poor choices or not learning from your experiences. So if you’re tired and you go to bed too late and then you do it again tomorrow, that is Prajna-paradha. The idea is that we are offending ourself, we are hurting ourself, we are trespassing against ourself. We are not correcting behavior today based on what we learned yesterday.

The second cause of disease is disrespecting our senses, or not keeping our senses really clear, super sharp, and learning from our senses as we get older.

And the third cause of disease is living out of rhythm with the cosmic clock, living out of rhythm with the seasons and the times of life. We have talked about this a lot with the other habits.

Back to working on the senses. We know that the senses are super subtle instruments. If we pay attention to the senses, we will naturally be attune to the life that we really want to live by knowing what we want to take in through our eyes, through what we touch, through what we hear, through what we taste, through what we smell. And we start to live more and more through our senses. We wake up in a little bit to our more mammalian animal self.

How do we do this? How do we attune our senses and up-level our self-care as we age?

Each sense organ corresponds to one of the 5 elements. The tongue is water, the ears are ether, the eyes are fire, the skin is air, and smell is earth. If your tongue is dry, you can’t taste. If you put your hands over your ears and take out that space element, you can’t hear. If you’re in the dark with no fiery light of the sun, you cannot see. The sense of smell is your oldest sense, it is the most primitive sense, it has the most memory. We can recognize smells from our earliest memories.

Let’s start by looking at the tongue. We want to scrape our tongues every morning before we drink water. You can get a tongue scraper from a grocery store or online from yogahealer.com/banyan or banyan.com. This is where the tiny habits come in. Use these little practices to trigger other habits. You can habit stack your habits in the morning like this: I wake up, I go to the bathroom to urinate, then I scrape my tongue, then I drink my water.

Why do we need to scrape our tongue? Scraping your tongue enables you to

Take stock of your health
Remove bacteria from your mouth
Prevent bad breath
Prevent oral decay
Detox your mouth
Stimulate digestion + elimination
Crave healthy foods
Taste more accurately

The tongue itself is a map of the organ system of the body: the heart, the lungs, the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, the stomach, the intestines, the pancreas. It’s all laid out on a tongue map. There are nadis or energetic pathways that connect the tongue to the corresponding organs. As you scrape, you stimulate the pathway. So on the other end of the nadi, it gets the action of scraping which is stimulating.

So we scrape our tongue and as we scrape our tongue, we are taking stock of our health. What do we want to see? What are we looking for exactly? Are there different patterns and patches on your tongue? If there is a big patch on your tongue, look at a tongue map to see where that corresponds on your tongue. If there is a big patch of yellow goop over the intestines, then you know that you have ama in your GI tract. If you’re aware of that and you scrape it off, that will provide the function of stimulating digestion and elimination.

We also want to look at the sides that correspond to the kidneys that are stressed out. It may mean you have some adrenal fatigue going on. If you’re relying too much on caffeine or sugar or stimulants or alcohol, it is telling you to pay attention.

We can also see malabsorption going on by looking at the edges of your tongue. It will look like scallops. It’s teeth marks that go along the edge.

Look for cracks on your tongue. This corresponds to a vata imbalance, especially if there are multiple cracks. Look at stress level. Look at if you are eating meals regularly at the same times every day. Do you need more sleep? Do you need more time sitting in silence? Do you need to eat more of a vata pacifying diet or have more a vata pacifying lifestyle? This is all about rhythm and regularity.

If the tongue shakes and you can’t hold it still, this means there is excess movement in the nervous system which can become anxiety. It is also a sign of a vata imbalance. Also look at excess caffeine or too many stimulants in your diet which can cause excess movement in your nerves.

Look for too much frothiness around the front sides of your tongue. This is a sign of too much kapha in the lungs, which is mucus, heaviness and dampness. So you may want to have a cup of ginger tea.

Look at big patches on the tongue. Look to see where they correspond on the map of the tongue.

If your tongue looks really red and dry and has cracks, there is a pitta imbalance. There is too much heat and not enough moisture or kapha.

If your tongue is really sensitive or has canker sores, this is another sign that there is a pitta imbalance.

A Kapha imbalance is more pale, coated, and watery.
Vata will look dried out.
Pitta tongues will look more inflamed.

A deep crack down the center of your tongue corresponds to your spine. The very front of your tongue is the crown of your head. The back of the tongue corresponds to your root.

Know your tongue. Your kids should know their tongue. You want to see how much goop you’re pulling off of your tongue in the morning. This is a sign of ama, or undigested food in your GI tract. Maybe you ate too late, maybe you’re in a detox phase, or maybe you overloaded your gut. These are signs that you have ama so you’ll want to drink a ginger tea and follow all of the other habits so that you can get back into rhythm and stop developing ama.

Your tongue is responsible for absorbing and tasting all of the 6 tastes in your diet.

Another practice we can do for oral care and our tongue is Oil Pulling. You can do it any time of day when you haven’t eaten for an hour, but a lot of people like to do it in the morning before breakfast. It’s bizarre at first because it’s a practice that most of us are not used to doing.

How to Oil Pull:

Why are we doing this? Oil pulling can start to pull some of the ama out of the other senses. Our skin will improve on our face, it loosens up goop in our throat, it can improve hearing, it can pull mucus out of our sinuses and into our mouth (then you spit it out).

If 20 minutes is way too long, use a Kaizen approach. Maybe it’s only going to be a 2 minute practice for you in the beginning for a month. It only takes a few seconds to put the little scoop of oil in your mouth.

Another Kaizen move with oil pulling is to start with a tiny bit of oil.

Oil pulling will also whiten your teeth and make them stronger and less sensitive to temperature. Your gums will also feel healthier.

In Ayurveda, we have an oil for every orifice in the body.

Let’s move on to the nostrils. There are two nasal care practices: Nasal Rinsing and Nasal Oiling.

Nasal rinsing helps to get the goop out of your nasal cavities. Do it until snot stops coming out. Sometimes it’s superficial snot and sometimes it’s deeper snot. It’s important for kids who are full of mucus and Kaphas who tend to be more mucus-y.

This works better in prevention, not if you have a sinus infection or a cold or flu.

Parents can teach their kids how to do it using a rhino horn in 5 minutes. Bring your chin toward your chest and lift your neti pot or rhino horn. Let gravity do the work. Use 2 fingers to blow the nose. Kids love to notice how their bodies work.

Water can go into the throat when the head isn’t aligned horizontally or is tilted back. Tilt your head forward, chin to shoulder, nose to crown aligned horizontally. Lift the pot up and let gravity feed the water down.

It's good to get the snot out of the nasal passages for snotty kids and kapha adults because extra snot trapped up there traps bacteria and viruses, but well lubricated nasal passages are a good barrier to bacteria. It can be done everyday during the season or for just a few days until they’re snot free. Its also a sign that their diet should be cleaned up by first removing dairy and wheat. Start to connect diet with snot.

A teaspoon of seasalt mixed with warm water is all you need. If the neti pot comes with its own little spoon, then use that to measure the sea salt.

If you are a very dry vata, then this might not be the best practice for you. Nasya, or nasal oiling, would be better for you.

Nasya is applying oil into the nostrils. You can use an eye dropper to drop a few drops of oil into the nostril.

What kind of oil should be used for nasya? Use what you have, but a good oil to use is sesame oil mixed with essential oils such as tulsi, peppermint, coriander, and eucalyptus. You can also buy a special nasya oil. You can buy the Sinus Lube nasya oil from shop.yogahealer.com. Different nasya oils have different qualities; some are better for vatas, some are better for pittas, and some are better for Kaphas. The practice remains the same to just use the lubricant into the nostrils. If we have dried snot or crust in our nose, we just need more lubrication. We can just do a few drops in the morning or before bed every day. When kids pick their nose a lot, its because theres a lot of dried mucus up there.

The nasal hairs can then do their job better.

If you do too much nasya oil, it can come out in your mouth so just be aware of that.

If you have sinus issues, you can find an Ayurvedic practitioner to do a full nasya treatment for you. It’s a pretty amazing experience.

Benefits of Nasya:

Balance your mind and emotions
Clear your nervous system
Optimize your breathing and pranic absorption
Clear debris from your nasal passages
Strengthen your
immune function

In terms of a Kaizen approach here, choose if you are going to do a nasya practice or are you going to do a neti pot? And just work that into your morning routine. If you work in a place with a lot of dust like construction or if you hike a lot on dusty trails, then you should do the neti pot. It will help you breathe a lot better. If you swim or surf in the ocean, you are already getting the effect of the neti pot with the salt water.

Today Dr. Michele explains "Why Taking Care of Your Five Senses is Vital to Feeling Young."

Now let’s move on to eyes. Our eyes can get really tired in today’s world. So let’s talk about some Eye Care Practices. Let’s do it together, unless youre driving.

1. The first one is called Figure 8’s:

Roll your eyes in figure 8’s for 10 slow easy breaths. This simple therapy increases the flexibility of your extra-ocular muscles. Smile and relax while you do your eye exercises which releases tension in your eyes. Don’t over do it. If you feel strain in your eyes at all, back off.

2. The next one is called Palming:

Rub your hands together to generate heat. Place your right fingers on top of your left fingers. Gently place your hands over your eyes, applying no pressure. Relax for 10-15 breaths to release unnecessary tension from your body. Notice the darkness and the light pressure. You are giving your eyes a little break. You are now pulsating between lightness and darkness. Notice if your body starts to relax. You might yawn and feel a deeper relaxation. Now let go of your hands and simply notice if your body is more relaxed.

3. Next, we are going to Zoom Out:

This exercise is recommended especially for individuals who suffer from computer vision syndrome, but it can also help relax the eyes after any other strenuous activity. Choose an object that is located six to ten meters away from you, and focus on it for about twenty seconds, without moving your head. Doing so provides rest to the ciliary muscles that we tend to put a lot of stress on when we focus intensely on the computer screen.

4. Now we are going to Zoom in:

This simple (and somewhat hilarious) exercise can be performed by holding a pencil in front of you at arm’s length, then slowly moving the arm closer to the nose, while focusing your eyes on the tip of the pencil. The goal is to bring the tip of pencil as close to the nose as possible, until your eyes can’t keep focus. Doing this exercise ten times in a row helps improve eye movement control and strengthens the eye muscles.

5. Next is Repeated blinking:

This simple action, that we often take for granted, plays a vital role in eye health and vision — it replenishes the tear film that covers the surface of the eye (the cornea), lubricating it and protecting it against dryness, dust particles and other irritants. Some research shows that when we watch TV or use the computer, we tend to blink less, which dries and irritates the eyes, potentially causing headaches and other types of discomfort. Blinking every three or four seconds for about a minute is thought to help reduce eye strain by clearing the cornea and allowing the eyes to rest.

6. Finally we are going to Look At The Horizon:

We are going to look outside, so if you are inside you may want to stand by a window. You are going to look as far as your eyes can see. What do you see on the horizon? You may be able to see the mountains miles away or you may only be able to see the building across the street and the sky. If that’s the case, look at where the building meets the sky. You may be able to look up and see the clouds which are also miles and miles away. Allow your eyes to zone out or space out. It’s really important to look at nature like mountains, the sky, clouds. We want to take in elements straight from the elements. As you do this, release your eyeball into the back of the eye socket, just as you did with Palming. It should feel relaxed, not strained or bugged out.

So we just did a few minutes of eye practices, we did not spend a huge amount of time on them. If you’re someone who uses the computer a lot, pulsate your work on the computer with spacing out and looking at the horizon. Set a buzzer for an hour when you’re working or every 20 minutes and just stand up from your desk, walk to a window, and look at the horizon.

There is another eye therapy that you can do at home using eye goggles and organic ghee. Melt the ghee to body temperature, fill your goggles with the ghee, lay down with your head on a towel, and open your eyes. This is a great therapy that lets your eyes relax backward, it’s great for anyone with dry eyes, it’s very nourishing and amazing to experience. You can do it as often as you want. Don’t do it if you’ve had eye surgery.

You can also do this practice at an Ayurvedic clinic or spa using a dough dam called Netra Basti therapy. It’s placed over the eye and ghee is poured into it. It is usually done after another therapy like a massage or a full body steam. The goggles version is like a home version of this.

Let’s move on to the ears now.

There is a simple therapy of putting warm sesame oil into the ears. Put an old towel under the head. It’s an amazing therapy at the seasonal junctures. The ears are ether. They are extremely light. This is a very deeply nourishing therapy for the ears. It’s more of a water earth therapy, so it’s very grounding; it decreases sensitivity throughout the entire NS. It is a very subtle and sublime therapy.

You can also do it by putting a few drops of oil on your fingertips as you do your self-massage. Then put your fingertips into the ears and do a few little circles with your fingers. It opens up the cervical lymphatics. You’ll be able to oil your ears in a faster way.

If you have kids, do this practice every month. Have them lay there for 3 minutes, then flip over and do the other side. Make sure you have an old towel under their head.

We already covered Skin, or touch, in the habit of self-massage in Episode #83 because it’s such a big habit.

Doing each of the other sense organ care practices doesn’t take you much time at all, except in the very beginning when you are learning how to do them. Doing tongue scraping is only going to take you 10 seconds, neti pot is only going to take a minute, putting a few drops of oil in your ears is only going to take you a few seconds, eye care practices is only going to take a minute or two.

Pick out what you want to do now. Which one can you do now easiest? Which one can you start incorporating into your day now?

Remember that your little habits are always triggered by something else like brushing your teeth or sitting down at your computer.

So write down right now which one of these microhabits of sense organ care are the most important to you and which ones you can start doing right now this month.

Click here for: Your 5 Senses Tip Sheet.

Namaste,

Dr. Michele

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If there is a topic you would like me to address or if there is a question you would like answered, please reach out. Email me directly at [email protected] or schedule a coaching call with me so we can dive deeper to find out what is going on and come up with a plan of action for you: drmichele.com/schedule

Today’s show was brought to you by the Body Wisdom Membership Program. For more information, head on over to my website drmichele.com and click on the JOIN NOW or WORK WITH ME tab. All of the information is there about my group programs as well as 1:1 coaching.

If you have questions about your health that you would like me to answer on air, you can email them to me or go to my website drmichele.com/get in touch to contact my team.

If you have questions you’d like to discuss with me directly, sign up for a coaching call at drmichele.com/schedule.

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