I have been practicing sleep fasting/night vigil or Ratri Jagaran for past 1 year and I have seen some amazing results with it. This post is specially about my experience with night vigil on Ashtami night of 12th Jul.
As a child I always suffered from stuffy nose, so much that i won’t be able to go to sleep without Otrivin in my nose, sometimes many times during the night. Over the years, I might have developed mucus deposits in my sinuses. Fortunately, there was never any infection so I never has pain as in the case of sinusitis.
However, I got to know about these deposits when I started Ekadashi fasting and night vigil a year back, because during every Ekadashi fast, I would feel the excessive mucus flow from my head towards my throat. So, during these fasts, all the kapha got melted and flowed down to be excreted
During this week, I faced some minor health issues due to frequently changing weather and diet pattern. I started no grain meal a few months back, and it had great results on my sleep and energy levels. This week I started “one meal a day” plan. And varsha ritu (monsoon) is a bad season to try anything new.
Possible Reasons
Since I started one-meal/day plan, I would always have this psychological need to eat, even when I was not hungry. So, in every meal, I would normally stuff myself till my stomach pained. At the same time, I would skip hunger in other parts of the day to train my body. But that was a mistake! I over-stretched my stamina.
I had ear pain, tooth pain, and for the first time I suffered from sinusitis pain in my right maxillary sinus. And I believe many people might have faced ear pain, tooth pain etc. in this season.
And it was surprising as I thought that after so much of dry fasting, there should be no more pathogenic deposits in my body. However, we forget that our body is a dynamic system and one input does not lasts forever. So, you need to be on constant health vigil.
Basically, my right maxillary sinus caught infection and the pain in ear and tooth was the referred pain from the hyper excited nerves in the infected sinus. There was no problem in the tooth or ear! I attribute this to abnormal food that I consumed this month.
The mucus is constantly formed and drained through the sinuses. The problem happens when there is an infection that creates excess mucus, blocking the normal drainage pathway and causing pain.
So, now I know that even after so much of mucus flow throughout a year of Ekadashi fasting, my sinuses are still not clear. At least not the right maxillary sinus.
Ayurvedic Treatment for Sinusitis Pain
After suffering the sinus and ear pain for half a day, I remembered what I keep telling other people – use Anu Taila. I used 15 drops of Anu Taila only for the right side of nose twice in the day. Along with Anu Taila, I practiced full night vigil on 12th Jul night.
Ayurvedic Basis for Night Vigil
According to Ayurveda, sleep increases kapha dosha. And all mucus related problems originate with excess kapha in the body. When we do night vigil, we are naturally reducing the amount of kapha in the body. I have personally seen the excellent results of night vigil in all kinds of kapha related disorders like common cold, seasonal flu, sinusitis, and all kinds of respiratory disorders.
Results
And next morning! the sinus pain, the tooth ache and the ear pain everything vanished completely.
Currently, I am not using Anu Taila as I want to experiment with the effects of fasting, cold water bath, night vigil and diet on sinusitis. But for anyone suffering from acute sinusitis pain, referred tooth ache, chronic head ache or ear pain, I would sincerely suggest use of Anu Taila, coupled with night vigil.
Anu Taila – Ayurvedic Usage Method
However, it is important that you should not force your body to stay awake. Start the night vigil and sleep whenever you feel sleepy. In my case, I started night vigil 6 months back. Initially, I would go to sleep around 2 am. However, now I can stay fully awake for 24-28 hours, without any tiredness or weakness.
I sincerely wish that everyone suffering from sinusitis benefits from this information.
Ritucharya 