The Herbal Handbook by David Hoffmann

Author:David Hoffmann
Language: spa
Format: epub
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2014-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM

Its Function and Role in Health and Wholeness

The clear and open flow of breath in our bodies is one of the keys not only to health but to a deep experience of wholeness. There is a technique of meditation that focuses attention on the free flow of the tides in and out of the chest, and at the ‘right’ moment poses the question - ‘who is the breather?’.

The ebb and flow of life, prana or breath provides us with a direct experience of the vitality and dynamism of our world. All that lives breathes, and we partake of this planetry lung whenever we inhale and give to it with each exhalation. Our oneness with the whole in action!

But what do we do with this miracle. We smoke, have cars, oil-fired power stations, acid rain, and all manner of air-borne pollutants. A very sorry state for the planetary lung, but even more for our own!

The best preventative measure against lung disease is clean air, which of course means cleaning it up and changing our social lifestyle. The implications of all of this are wide, but if you have asthma, don’t just take medical steps - join Friends of the Earth!

The health and vitality of the lungs is not only important for the body to obtain its oxygen, but the lungs are also a pathway of excretion. Even if Garlic is rubbed into the soles of the feet, the absorbed oil will be smelt on the breath within twelve hours! If someone has a chest disease then there will be extra pressure on the other organs of elimination. If this is taken into account herbally by supporting the kidneys etc., the lungs have some of their excretory load removed and can recover faster. Similarly, promoting respiratory health may be appropriate in digestive or skin problems. How this is done we shall see below.

The lungs are prone to infections, allergies, pollution, dietary overload as well as the more inherent auto-immune and genetic problems. A vast field which we shall only review here. As has been stressed throughout the book, competent diagnosis is essential and for more complex problems herbal advice should be sought from a qualified medical herbalist.

Herbs and the Respiratory System

Not only does herbal medicine offer valuable remedies to put right respiratory ‘disease’, but also tonics and normalizers that can help prevent problems developing. The question of how they do this job of healing and strengthening is often unanswerable, either because no research has been done or that they work in a way that is subtler than our methods can perceive. In the hands of a skilled medical herbalist, there is little that cannot be achieved in respiratory illness. Here we can only talk in generalities as each person is unique and each person with asthma will have a different set of factors to take into account.

Here we shall consider the actions that are most commonly called for and then see how the herbs can be used for easing general patterns of respiratory dis-ease and some specific illnesses.

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