Meditating with a cold?

zenbiker

Ok, this sounds silly but I need advice!

I have a cold and am having a heck of a time meditating. I normally breathe through my nose for meditation, but it's completely stuffed. Breathing through my mouth leads to coughing fits.

Any advice? I don't really want to just postpone meditating until I feel better, since we're traveling for the holidays and I was hoping it would help keep me sane.

MindGate

If you can't breathe out of your mouth or nose, how do you breathe at all? Just wondering.

zenbiker

I'm breathing through my mouth, but I'm coughing a lot.

ShiftPlusOne

Hey, I have a cold as well. I've been trying to increase my meditation, since it's great for the immune system. I breathe through my nose and cough once in a while. Go gargle some bicarb soda and salt (heaps and heaps of salt... you can't have too much salt) then go and blow your nose and your nasal passage should be clear.

MindGate

@ShiftPlusOne

In regards to "I've been trying to increase my meditation, since it's great for the immune system," wow! I didn't know that. Care to cite your informational source?

ShiftPlusOne

@MindGate, sure.
http://www.eubios.info/EJ141/ej141j.htm

...
The frontal lobes, the amygdala, and the hippocampus are all extensively interconnected with the body; particularly with the immune system, the endocrine (hormonal) system and the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system. Understanding this interconnectedness also provides an understanding of how the mind influences the body and how emotions impact not just on mental health but also on our physical health and wellbeing.

...schnip...

If the main motivation for the practice of compassion is self-interest - then this is an important evolutionary insight. Another insight comes from the realization that individuals who use humor to cope with stress have a more resilient immune system and age more gracefully. Moreover, psycho-immunologists have confirmed what we all know instinctively, that the immune system is boosted by helping others and, ingeniously, just hearing about other people's good work appears to boost our immunity. The scientific evidence again confirms the point that not only are we physiologically constructed to need others, we are also constructed to want to be needed (Pollard, 2003b). That is, during critical periods in our evolution, Homo sapiens' social drive for personal survival became interdependent with our collective survival. Put in anthropomorphic terms 'our immune system knows that helping others ultimately helps our own wellbeing' - the result 'I feel less fear, more happiness' (Pollard, 2002b). This biological insight also seems to be the common substance of all religious faiths, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or any other. In all cases, religious faith is preoccupied with rendering service to the Deity and fellow human beings. And in the final analysis, we do know that people who score high on measures of positive emotions also report engaging in more altruistic actions.

...

6. Meditation and the Immune System

The discipline of psychoneuroimmunology investigates how loss of personal control - disempowerment - causes unhappiness which, in turn, adversely modifies hormonal secretory profiles, causing a cascade of secondary effects leading to the gradual degeneration of the body. The ability to control decisions depends on changed behavior, which requires relevant information within the context of empowerment (Pollard, 2002b).

Negative emotions not only affect our happiness and mood levels, they also affect our health and wellbeing. As we have seen, the prefrontal lobes, along with two other areas of the brain that play crucial roles in the initiation of emotions - the amygdala and the hippocampus - are closely tied to blood pressure, hormones and the immune system (Pollard, 2003a). In the experiment described in section 5A, Davidson and colleagues (Davidson et al, 2003) conducted additional tests with the Promega workers by giving them influenza vaccinations after their initial eight-week meditation course. When subsequently their blood was tested for infection-fighting flu antibodies, the meditation group had significantly larger amounts of the antibodies compared with the control group. Interestingly, the larger the leftward tilt in a person's brain activity, the greater the beneficial response to the flu vaccine indicated by the level of antibodies in the circulatory system. A follow-up check four months after meditation classes ended revealed that the meditation group retained a significantly increased left-sided activation compared with before their meditation course. Subsequently a correlation was observed between high antibody titers and decreased likelihood of flu infection.

...snip...


Pollard, I. (2002b). The state of wellbeing: on health and ill-health. In: 'Life, Love & Children: A Practical Introduction to Bioscience Ethics and Bioethics' pp. 87-95. Norwell, Kluwer Academic.

Pollard, I. (2003b). Choose between cooperation and annihilation: A mental mapping project towards a more generously directed altruism. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 13:44-48.

Davidson, R., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S, Urbanowski, F., Harrington, A., Bonus, K. & Sheridan, J. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine 65:564-570.

Sorry, one of the references above is a book, so I couldn't find an online copy for you.

buddhajunkie

I understand.

Sounds like walking meditation is in order. Walking meditation is awesome. You'll be surprised how concentrated you can get doing it. It's definitely an under prescribed practice.

There are good articles, one youtube video, and at least one podcast (Zencast/Audio Dharma) on the topic.

MindGate

Thanks ShiftPlusOne. Interesting.

ShiftPlusOne

By the way, when they talk about the "leftward tilt" they are referring to positive emotions. The whole article (the first link, at the start of that post) is worth a read.

buddhajunkie

@ShiftPlusOne

In regards to "I've been trying to increase my meditation, since it's great for the immune system," wow! I didn't know that. Care to cite your informational source?

This probably relates to the beneficial effects of stress reduction on the immune system.

ShiftPlusOne

zenbiker, here's my full tried and true routine:
*Drink lots and lots of water.
*Warm fluids are good, but make sure they're not hot. That would irritate the throat further.
*Take a long, hot bath. Steam is your friend.
*Take a cough lozange (like a strepsil) to numb the throat and help clear the throat.
*Have some green tea and make sure you breathe in the steam as you do, that will loosen the phlegm that you can't cough or gargle out.
*Do the salt and bicarb soda gargle (make sure you go through the whole cup and take your time, it may feel like the pathway is clear, but it could be clearer).
*Eat some garlic to kill the bacteria (you shouldn't be going out anyway).
*Then 'course there's the good ol' fashioned warm milk with honey or lemon tea with honey.
*Drink some cough syrup (Ribotussin is pretty good, make sure you get the right kind). You'd want something that will loosen the phlegm and help stop the cough reflex.

The order is important there, but skipping any of them is fine.
I do some of those if I really want to go all out on an annoying cough.

Do NOT take paracetamol, unless you really have to, it helps with the symptoms, but it extends the cold.

When the phlegm is cleared up and stops coming back, I get a dry cough. The lungs get irritated from all the coughing. The coughing irritates the lungs more and you're stuck in a loop. In that case, ibuprofen, aspirin or some other anti-inflammatory is great.

That should at least help you for long enough to meditate without the cough and phlegm getting in your way too much.

ShiftPlusOne

@buddhajunkie as far as I can tell, meditation, dare I say even Buddhism as a whole, is all about stress reduction.

[DeletedUser]

It is great that you understand meditation could not be postphoned as the journey towards grave is so cruel that it never wait for you either. Wear mouth mask or you may imagine breathing in and out through your mind. :bawl:

Dazzle

Inhaling steam regularly will help to ease blocked airways. Boil up some water, pour it into a bowl and inhale the steam .

Glycerin, lemon and honey cough medicine is soothing for a sore throat and cough.

footiam

There are many types of meditation to consider but even with a cold, you would be able to carry out your type of meditation if it is not too difficult to note how your normal breathing has changed.

Jeffrey

Do you cough when you breathe normally? If so why not try that?

If it only happens when you meditate then don't meditate. Just sit down and feel your body and your seat. When your mind wanders no big deal. See if that affects the coughing.

I also feel the steam has a warming affect and clears the lungs. Post below is a good guide.

sukhita

Inhaling steam regularly will help to ease blocked airways. Boil up some water, pour it into a bowl and inhale the steam.

Steam always helps...

Place a (very small) pinch of menthol crystals in the bowl before pouring in the boiling water. Instead of menthol crystals, you could, add two to three drops of eucalyptus oil to the water. Place a towel over your head and breathe the vapour. Breath gently at first as the menthol vapour can be quite strong.

Safety: The bowl containing the hot water should be placed on a firm surface and you face should be a reasonable distance from the bowl. Don't let children or pets be near you.

Whoknows

I generally can't breath through my nose anyway, its always blocked, or at least blocked enough to prevent comfortable breathing. If you practise mindfulness of mind and body, try looking at your symptoms and using then as the focus for your meditation. Meditation on pain and sickness can be very beneficial, you can also focus on the observer.

Cheers, WK

ShiftPlusOne

Oh, one more thing. If you know anyone Chinese, try to get some Watermelon Frost in lozenge form from them.

My lungs were messed up from all the pollution in China. I thought I had an infection of some sort, but it turned out to be just the pollution. Anyway, we went to a Guilin pharmacy to pick something up for that and they gave us these 'watermelon frost' tablets. I made sure we bought a few more packets since it worked so great. I have no idea why the West doesn't have anything that works so well.

sukhita

Just sit and, intsead of watching the breaths, watch the thoughts as they come up, note them, and let them go. After a while, the thoughts seem to shy away, leaving you with a "light" pleasant feeling. I tried this only a few times when I had breathing difficulties. I don't even know if this is a "real" meditation practice.

Jeffrey

My teacher's husband recommends that practice, sukhita, when the breath becomes irregular. Then return to normal practice when the breath gets back into its rhythm.

zenbiker

Thanks guys! I was able to meditate today and it felt so good. Only 10 minutes but that's better than nothing.

The steam suggestions have really helped. I also used a saline spray and neti pot right before I meditated. Between that and a cough drop I was able to sit for the 10 minutes. Yay!

Sukhita, I'll try that tomorrow if my breathing is still wonky. Thanks!

jlseagull90

Hi Zenbiker, not sure what everyone else will think of this but last time I had a cold I got fed up of using steam and only getting 10m of meditation, so I tried Sudofed. Its a nasal decongestant that you spray up your nose, and its last about 7 hours. It really saved my practice.

The only thing is you really must follow the advice on the bottle of not to take it more than 2 days in a row (or whatever it is), because if you don't you start to need it all the time (you get blocked up without it, even when you don't have a cold). I made this mistake the first time I used it but now its ok.

Lostandfound

For those of you with colds, I just heard on the News a few days ago that Neti pots help, because they cleanse the nasal walls, which become clogged (and/or dry)
so are no longer able to trap bacteria and viruses as we breathe. They are much more accepted in Europe, but perhaps we Americans should start catching on as well. They will unclog your nose, help you to breathe properly, and if used as prescribed (I believe daily) will go greatly towards helping to prevent your next cold or flu.
http://www.amazon.com/Sinus-Health-Nasal-Irrigation-Little/dp/B002U501H0