Niraj Naik teaches breathing techniques meant to oxygenate your gut and kill harmful bacteria after antibiotics. He describes specific practices like throat locks and inversions that move air into your intestines, claiming oxygen suppresses pathogens and eases heartburn.
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I've just finished a course of antibiotics because I was doing some, some surfing in Costa Rica that the James Nest retreat I told you about. I got an infection, they left it way too long. So anyway, they've battered me with antibiotics recently. So is any advice in terms of how I can get my gut biome not to be as bad as it's going to be at the end of this course of biotics other than probiotics, I guess, what breathing things might I be able to look into, do you think?
That's a good question. So there is a technique in Pranayama called Kati mudra. Right. It's really more of a yogic technique because what you're doing is you're getting oxygen air into your bowels, right. First you are bringing the air in through the esophagus into your gut and then you're doing certain poses to get the oxygen or the air from your stomach through your gut into your intestines and then out the backside. And you're, you'll know it works because you're fart and it'll be no smell to it at all. And you see, in colonic clinics, they actually administer oxygen up the bowels.
Yeah.
They give it either in a form of a capsule or some kind of supplements and device where they even used to squeeze air like through a syringe up people's butts because they found that most of the bad bacteria that causes all the problems, right. H. Pylori and amoebas and things like that, they actually are anaerobic. So they hate oxygen. Right. So the oxygen cleanses the system and kills bad bacteria, allowing then the proliferation of aerobic good bacteria, right. That live in harmony with the gut. So there's a method to do that.
Yeah.
I, I just, look, I didn't get. I don't know if I got that term, but they, they talked about that a little bit, the retreat. And it's so funny because, you know, when you're a kid, you can teach yourself how to burp. You kind of swallow some air.
Yeah.
And then you make a big burp sound. And I remember at school a teacher saying to me, you make sure you burp that out or you're going to fart it out. And I was like, oh, that's so stupid. And then 40 years later, here we are talking about, well, there's a lot.
Of, there's a lot of colloquial sayings like don't hold your breath and basically don't slurp your tea if you Actually look at them, that they're actually quite good for you. Like, holding your breath in a controlled way is actually therapeutic. It can do a lot good. But slurping tea, when you go.
Like that, I wish I had my cup with me. I've got it. So I could demonstrate. Yeah, if you've got a cup, let's have a go. Yeah. Slurp the tea and then swallow, right? Yeah. So if you have like spicy, hot, really hot Indian tea full of ginger and cardamom and cloves and peppers and very spicy tea. Yeah, slurp that. What it does is it gets air into the bowel, but also gets those beneficial antioxidants and anti inflammatories that are found in masala chai into the bowels too. And it's actually a cleanse because the air comes in and you're. You're sucking air in and it clears the. The bad gut bacteria.
Yeah.
And then there's certain poses you do. Like basically inversion, child's pose, but putting your head on the floor, so you're raising your intestines up right above you and that starts to push the air up into the bowels. So what you do is you. You drink air. So there's one way is the slurping tea. Another way is basically imagine you're sucking air in and you feel it going into the back of your throat.
Swallow, keep your throat shut and close your. Do the energy, lock the jalandha bandha and just give it a few seconds. You'll feel the air going to your gut and then you just keep repeating. That's. That's an easy way, but it's not the most effect efficient. Another way is what crows do, right? It's called kati mudras because it's the crow's beak. You're. When you jut your neck out like this, right, like that, right? What it does like this, that action.
Yeah.
Opens the epiglottis slightly. So if you go like this, it's almost like a kind of a hiccupy sound. You suck the air into the bowel automatically and you'll feel it go into your bell.
Yeah, Air comes in, you'll feel it and you'll feel like a gurgle and you know you've done it and then you do the inversion and that gets the air into the intestines and then you fight it out. And if you do that when you're fasting, it satiates the appetite, it calms the hunger pangs because it creates a bit of air Space. It also soothes heartburn. So if you've got that fiery indigestion or hunger pains and. Or just even fiery heartburn because of stomach bacteria or whatever. Yeah, it soothes that.
Yeah.
And so if you fast with it, it's a great way to not feel hungry, satiate appetite, and also clean your bowels at the same time. I do it. I do it like often every day, actually. I do this technique. And yeah, what this is famous for is longevity. So Pranayama's. By studying animals a lot. A lot of it's developed from studying animals in nature. And crows are famous for living very long time. Ravens, crows, then they have this weird action of Ben. They do this a lot. Yeah.
So who. I don't know if they're drinking air or not, but the yogis copied that. And they drink air into the bowels. And you'll see in India, babas who can drink so much air into the bowels that their stomach extends like this and they get this, like, they almost look, they're pregnant. They get these big air bellies and they float in the Himalayas. And so they, they have this famous legends of yogis who can walk on water. Right. And they float on water. Right? Yeah. But it's just air in the bowels. Yeah.
Bloody hell. You know What? I've done 50 of these now, these podcasts. And I always think back of my. How many more conversations can we have about breath? And then I hear something like that, like, Jesus, so much is such a. Because you think breathing, obviously, you know, because you're deep into it, but then from an outside perspective, you think, you know, my mother in law often jokes, what's he talking about? Breathe in, breathe out. You know, and then, yeah, obviously you peel back that curtain, you know, so that. Thank you. That's. That is super interesting. I know people are going to find that fascinating. I need to play with that a bit more.
