lvis Constipation Addict® Killed Glutton King! Yoga overdoing Elvis undoing
Elvis® Constipation Addict ® Killed Glutton Yoga King!
Elvis® Constipation Addict Killed Yoga® Glutton King! Elvis Constipation Addict Killed Glutton King!Gluttons, Addicts, and Junkies, Oh My!
Elvis Constipation Addict® Killed Yoga Glutton King!
Your overdoing is your undoing and what killed Elvis
Now on to a rather delicate subject. Gluttons, addicts, and junkies, oh my! Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we have lost our way and are trying to get back home. The glutton, addict, and junkie in each of us threaten to obstruct our balance. It’s as if the Wicked Witch is chasing us, causing us to spin out of control, lost in a tornado of chaos. We are desperate to land in a safe place and get out of the moving house, except we are whirling like dervishes in our lives. We are trapped, stuck, our bodies tethered to a cycle of addiction, which is created by our culture of gluttonous excess that influences our lives until… 
we get sick and die!
The root of the problem of constipation/blockage/obstruction in the mind and body is that the vast majority of us and our contemporaries are addicted to something that we imagine can bring us relief from pain and suffering.
We crave anything that is more, better, and different in our lives—from the latest computers and cell phones, sports, television, movies, celebrities, the Internet, shoes, guns, sex, porn, tobacco, booze, beer, medication, sugar, fat, and massive quantities of fast food. We’re gluttonous junk food junkies, overeaters, and drug takers, and on average, as a culture, we are inactive and overweight couch potatoes.
Okay, I am being polite here; the majority of people I interact with every day are obese. I live in the South of the United States, a region that I love passionately, and, as a nurse, it is evident that even morbid obesity is the norm around me. Since it is, the folks here look around and see other people’s weight mirroring theirs, which makes it seem all right. But it is not all right, because that weight, and what causes it, is literally killing people.
So now we arrive at story time. Let me share a few alarming true stories in the hopes of capturing your attention and encouraging you to take stock of your behavior. Your personal story may not be as extreme as these, your physical health may not be as impacted … at least, not yet … but these are the consequences of a lifestyle of indulgence and gluttony.
Elvis Presley
A Memphis, Tennessee, newspaper reported on August 28, 1977 that Elvis Presley had been hospitalized for thirty-two days with an impacted colon. One year later, he was dead. Over thirty years later, Fox News reporter Hollie McKay spoke with his personal physician George Nichopoulos. In a May 5, 2010, article, she writes:
“It has been widely reported that Elvis Presley died in 1977 from cardiac arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat, possibly brought on by drug dependency, obesity and a weak heart. But the music legend’s longtime friend and physician, Dr. George ‘Nick’; Nichopoulos, has put pen to paper for the first time and revealed his belief that it was chronic constipation that actually killed the King of Rock and Roll.
‘We didn’t realize until the autopsy that his constipation was as bad—we knew it was bad because it was hard for us to treat, but we didn’t realize what it had done.’ According to Dr. Nick, the autopsy revealed that Presley’s colon was 5 to 6 inches in diameter (whereas the normal width is 2 to 3 inches) and instead of being the standard 4 to 5 feet long, his colon was 8 to 9 feet in length. Nichopoulos said, ‘Back in the ’60s and ’70s you didn’t talk about constipation much, you didn’t hear people complaining about it, or saying what they did or how much trouble they had with it.”
This was Elvis’s tragic story. I do not wish it to be yours.
Elvis was addicted to junk food and prescription medications. Stories abound regarding his penchant for illegal drugs. It makes me sad, even angry, but a yogic person does not judge or blame. It is as it is. Elvis simply did not know any better, and, even if he did, his multiple Joneses—the “Jonesing” of his inner glutton, addict, and junkie, got the better of him. His story is an extreme example of how badly our behavior can harm us—and extremes get attention and press. I venture to guess that some variation of the above is happening to other famous and ordinary folks all over the country—maybe even to you. Yoga Therapy helps you lose excess weight from your body and yes, lose weight from your mind, it relieves these dreadful symptoms and get things moving. Oh yeah!
COBRA: The Cobra is effective yoga for weight loss and gets things moooooving and makes you lighter. From my Kripalu Yoga Posture Sheets.
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Bhujangasana great for stimulating digestion and peristalsis, relieves neck and upper back pain, strengthens your spine, balances your kidneys and adrenal glands and feels absolutely fabulous!
From a belly-down position, place your hands palms down beneath your shoulders with your elbows close to your sides.
1. Bring up the squeeze ( squeeze your buttocks and kegel exercise at the same time) and press your pubic bone and feet downward, allowing your upper body to lift in response to the pressing. Do not apply any pressure to the palms of your hands.
2. Press the crown of your head away from your shoulders.
3. Press the tips of your toes away from your hips.
4. When you feel established in the posture, press your palms downward just enough to feel the stretch.
5. If you’ve entered into the full cobra position, expand your chest by pressing out through your chest points.
Release the pressure on your palms and gradually release the squeeze as your body returns to the starting position.
