Aged Body Evacuation in Yoga
There are many changes which occur in the genetic structure of the body, such that certain benefits which one enjoyed from doing yoga with a youthful body, are no longer experienced. The aging process causes deterioration of certain cell structures and the removal of certain functions. But such changes, may not be reset merely by doing yoga or by taking medications.
An example is evacuation.
In the youthful stages of a body, evacuation of solid waste may be prompt, but then as the body ages, this efficiency in the process of digestion of food, and expulsion of feces, decreases. It happens slowly over a period of years but someone, even a yogi, may not observe it, until the reduction adds up to complete shut down of the excretion process.
In a medical report which I read recently, it was declared that as the body ages the digestive process slows down. The colon and rectum have less lubrication, because the cells do not lubricate the passage as fluidly as before. This results in slow passage of the stools, which in turn causes increased dryness which results in constipation.
If by the time the food travels through the intestines and colon, it is a paste or is a dry mass, the colon cilia will be unable to move the waste efficiency and speedily as it did during the youthful years. The muscular pressure applied to evacuate will no longer be enough to expel the waste.
Even though downward muscular pressure in the abdomen, did in the youthful years cause prompt rapid evacuation of any waste which reached the rectum, that same downward pressure may not be sufficient to expel waste which is in the rectum or is located at the joint of the rectum and colon.
This is because the downward pressure in a youthful body was assisted by profuse lubrication. It is a fact, that nature manufactured the expulsion apparatus so that it works efficiently only when there is profuse lubrication in the passage. With little or no lubricant, the operation of downward pressure results in no expulsion, even if the rectum is full with dried-out or compacted stools.
What can yoga practice for tensing and relaxing the muscles of the lower abdomen do about this?
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Good report!
I have seen Papaya helping and pushing out the waste due to dense gelly texture in the intesting and colon.
Papaya or other lubricating food might balance the low lubrication in the colon.
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This is a reply to a response on linked In:
Sadly, after observing this for past twenty-five years, my conclusion is that it does not help much if the lubricant from the cilia in the intestinal tract, all the way through to the rectum is not lavishly produced by the body. In fact, bearing down to expel stool, even when it reaches the colon valve (where it meets the rectum) does not work, unless the lubrication is there either from the body itself, or from taking some type of substance which produces a non-violent lubricant.
If there is no lubrication, those muscles, like in any friction system, cannot work properly. Like in an engine for instance, remove the oil, and see how long you will get the pistons or any other parts to move.
As the body gets older the system simply refuses to provide the lubricant. That is interpreted as constipation. Asana postures do not, and simply cannot, fill in the gap. There are methods of inducing lubrication or fluidity. Once that is done, then yes, the stomach pumps and other related postures which churn the intestinal system can be done. Otherwise even if one does these hatha yoga techniques, they will have no effect.
People who have this non-lubrication problem, should find a cure for it through taking some substance which will produce liquid along the track. Instead, people usually use the word constipation which I feel is misleading.
The inability to press the stools out of the body, is mostly due to the cells in the tubing walls which do not produce lubrication. The stool becomes drier and drier as it moves through the colon and as it is held in the rectum. This is because the body extracts nutrients from the waste, and some of the waste is converted into gas. With no lubricant along the walls of the tubing, the pushing action does nothing. In fact, it makes for the risk of hemorrhoids and hypertension (increased bood pressure and heart beat irregularities).
The body sucks the stools dry as they pass through the system. That is not a muscular problem. It is a genetic malfunction which happens at about fifty years of the body and which gets worse as the years go by.
