Alkalize Your Body Through Breathing With Healthy Lungs and Sinuses

Thursday, February 14, 2008 by: Kal Sellers
Tags: breath therapy, health news, Natural News

(NewsTarget) I had a daydream just today. In it, someone asked me, "What is the number one most important reason that people become acidic?" Without a second thought, I replied, "It is the way they breathe."

It is interesting to be so startled by a daydream that it jolts you into action! This nevertheless happened to me. I thought it through and remembered my studies in human physiology. There is absolutely no mechanism that so quickly can turn your blood acidic or alkaline than breathing.

In his revolutionary work on applied lymphology, Dr. C. Samuel West related that certain Native Americans would never die of disease and frailty, but would sit without moving, breathing very shallow and in 24 hours that person would be dead. This may have to do with many things, not the least of which would be a highly acidic blood stream.

Your blood is actually alkalized when you breathe out carbon dioxide. It follows that there must be a constant exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in order to keep that process working. So the next question arose: what are some of the reasons that people do not breathe properly?

The first and easiest reason is that the person might not know how to breathe or might be impacted strongly by modern society which can be pretty sedentary. Movement causes people to breathe.

In her interesting book "Oxycise!", Jill Johnson has a whole program of breathing combined with stretching and muscle tension designed to create weight loss and health. She says that you can consciously breathe in a way that eliminates fat through carbon dioxide. She says, in fact, that fat is released only through carbon dioxide. She claims that it works 100% of the time.

Other reasons might be diet related. For example, if someone does not take in adequate amounts of high quality glucose, there will need to be a correspondingly lower portion of oxygen since the whole purpose of oxygen is to be used with glucose in manufacturing ATP in the cells, which powers the whole process of life.

High quality glucose is found in only four places: Honey, ripe fruit, non-starchy vegetables and sprouts. These must be raw and enzyme rich so that they will convert to abundant glucose in the digestive tract prior to entering the blood. They also must be whole foods in natural form so that all the components needed for the cells to immediately use the glucose are naturally included.

If a person is low in dietary high-quality glucose, they will tend to breath shallower because the extra oxygen just cannot be used. I recommend that all my clients eat one of the above sources of high quality glucose 20 minutes before each meal on an empty stomach. The results are revolutionary.

Another reason might be that the blood cannot carry oxygen efficiently. Ironically, acidic blood might have this problem, meaning that once you become acidic it is going to take extra work to get back to alkaline. Thankfully, there are other mechanisms to restore alkalinity besides breathing.

Blood might also be weak or anemic. This is where herbal medicine shines brightest. Nothing will restore strong blood as fast as plant foods/medicines. Bowel herbs, particularly yellow dock root, enhance the assimilation of iron and build the blood. Other herbs like wheat grass, alfalfa, astragalus, nettle, burdock root, prickly ash bark, beet root and top, carrot tops, ginger and raspberry leaf are powerful at building blood and increasing oxygen-carrying ability and iron content.

My favorite herb of all for this is comfrey leaf, though it has a bad rap today for a potential danger. I personally use the herb freely and give it to my wife and children and give it in particularly high doses to my wife when pregnant. I feel that it is one of the best things I can do for them. Herbalists for many years have used comfrey leaf for pernicious anemia and it seems to work very fast for this.

I make a wonderful herbal tea that I call "Food Tea." This we keep around and drink freely. It consists of equal parts of the following herbs: Nettle, raspberry leaf, comfrey leaf, oat straw, lemon balm, peppermint, spearmint, lemon grass, shave grass (aka horsetail), pau d'arco, alfalfa leaf and 1/4 part of blessed thistle (which seems to really help with facial acne). On occasion I make a variation with hibiscus flowers (2-3 parts or enough to make it good and red).

This tastes wonderful and builds blood and bones and teeth. We sweeten it with plenty of honey and keep it around.

We use it at our house like a multi-vitamin-mineral. I feel that such a blend is far better than what most people drink in leisure and is probably better than about 99% of the multi-vitamin/mineral supplements on the market today.

Anyone who registers on (www.kalsschool.com) can get all the information they need on making teas from the "Downloads" page of that website under Preparations Printout at no cost.

Next we shall discuss problems with the lungs and sinuses. Certainly if the lungs are weak, exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide will be poor. If the sinuses have problems, the breathing will be altered, particularly at night.

The most common reason for lung and sinus distress is a highly congesting diet. This would include any food you happen to be reactive to as well as all chemical dyes, dairy, wheat (unless sprouted) and sugar. To learn more about your food reactions and how to prevent them or cure them, you can also go to (www.kalsschool.com) > Free Info > Downloads > Understanding Food Reactions. This is a pdf file and can be downloaded freely.

The next most common problem with lungs and sinuses is constipation. The average American has 3-5 bowel movements per week. Healthy people in rural areas living natural lives have 2-5 bowel movements per day, or one after every major meal. According to Dr. Richard Schulze, this puts the average American 70,000 bowel movements short in their lifetime!

Constipation causes thick, congested mucus in the lungs and sinuses and a good, complete cleansing of the bowel will cause drainage of lymph and a thinning of that mucus. This will result in better immune response and freer breathing.

I recommend regular bowel cleansing and the use of a strengthening bowel formula that will repair the bowel over several months of use.

Then there are some cases of lung and sinus problems that are weak, damaged, diseased or malformed. In these cases, there are wonderful herbs that will help those conditions to heal.

When someone comes to me with lung complaints there are a few herbs that I always go to. I use lobelia tincture if the congestion is recent. Typically, I will give a dropper full of the tincture every half hour until the congestion is loose and moving (yes, they do sometimes throw up, but with that throw up will come more mucus from the lungs than food from the stomach).

If that does not work, I go back to bowel cleansing and I actually use an enema made with cayenne, garlic and apple cider vinegar. This recipe is also in the Preparations Printout from (www.kalsschool.com) as discussed above.

If the congestion is long term, I will usually use Dr. Christopher's Sinus Plus formula. Wind River Herbs' Mullein Blend is also very good. Dr. Christopher's formula was made for shorter term infections, but is actually my choice for rebuilding the lungs too. This is what I use for ex-smokers who have serious lung problems as a result of it. It may take several months to re-build the lungs and if no other dietary changes are made it may take longer.

I recommend, as a diet that supports healing and is as friendly to people who have average American tastes as it is to raw foodists, Traci's Transformational Kitchen Cookbook and Traci's Transformational Health Principles which can be found at (www.bestfoodist.com) .

I suppose I must acknowledge the trouble with air today. Someone suggests about every other day that the government is releasing dangerous toxins into the air or intentionally creating chemtrails behind military airplanes, etc. While this is possible, I only know one thing to do about it, and that is to get our bodies healthy and capable of dealing with lots of such toxins. This means a healthy diet and regular maintenance of the lungs along with the rest of the body. I cannot help you overthrow a government conspiracy, I can help you survive it and thrive during it!

Let us go on to sinuses:

Occasionally, I will meet someone who has problems with sinuses only, and not lungs. I will still use Dr. Christopher's Sinus Plus and I will encourage looking for food reactions, but I also recommend doing something for the sinuses specifically.

Usually, we make a tea out of oak bark and lobelia. Today I would add oregano in an equal portion. This tea is strained and then a nasal douche is performed with it several times per day if the sinuses are closed or morning and night if the sinus condition is not serious, but is ongoing.

The lungs and sinuses are not hard to heal, but it is important to remove the load from them while using herbs specific for them. The idea is not just to disinfect, but to heal and rebuild.

It is always a good idea to change patterns too. This suggests learning about breathing exercises like those found in "Oxycise!"

Finally, sometimes people will need to do some changing of thinking too. My favorite book for this kind of information is Louise L. Hay's "Heal Your Body A-Z."

About the author

Kal Sellers, MH currently operates KalsSchool.com and teaches a 2-year curriculum for Natural Medicine, via live teleclasses.
Kal is a Master Herbalist and holds several other certificates and licenses for hands-on healing modalities. He maintains a current practice in the Atlanta area.
Kal and Traci have six children, the last four of which were delivered at home. They live now in Powder Springs, GA where they teach live classes on food and medicine. Kal is also a full time Chiropractic student.