An Indian Art

A Little Yoga Exercise

While inhaling, hold your hands in front of your chest with fingers spread. Hold your breath and stretch out your arms horizontally at your side. Now exhale and vigorously make a fist with each hand.
Then breathe normally, open the fists, and lower your arms. Repeat three times.

This little exercise expands the bronchial tubes, opens the lungs, strengthens the heart, and refreshes the mind. Asthmatic patients often cough during this exercise because it loosens the mucus in the bronchial tubes, and heart patients feel an intensified awareness of the heart. Use Middendorf, a leading expert in the field of respiratory therapy, has proved that a direct relationship can be established between the individual fingers and the corresponding areas of the lungs. The index fingers and thumbs influence breathing in the upper area of the lungs, the middle finger in the middle area, and the little finger in the lower lung region. You can confirm this statement yourself by placing the tips of the ring finger and little finger on top of each other. Where do you feel the respiratory impulse in particular? Sometimes this test works the first time you try it otherwise, it usually works after the first few attempts. Furthermore, the ends of the nerve paths of the hands, as well as the feet, occupy a particularly large area in the brain. This area is much larger than that of the arms and legs. Cerebral activity is activated and trained by touching and feeling, especially with the fingertips. For example, finger games are employed to remedy children's learning difficulties. These games stimulate the corresponding connections in the brain and activate the brain waves. When mudras are practiced consciously, which means that we focus on our fingers and whatever they are resting on, they activate large areas of the brain.

Isn't it wonderful that a mudra can have so many positive effects? Not only can we use mudras to influence all of our body regions and functions, but every act of touching and every movement of the hands has its special effect. Doing handicrafts, playing an instrument, washing the hands, or massaging—all of these acts have long-lasting effects.

• Particularly when you wash your hands, you can squeeze them vigorously and massage them at the same time: Press the four fingers of one hand together with the other hand and turn the fingers you are holding to both sides. Then make fists, open the hands again, and spread the fingers. Or vigorously rub both palms together.
• Or cross your fingers with each other, turn the palms outward, and stretch your arms. This will refresh you, improve your breathing, and strengthen your heart
• If you sit at a desk for a longer period of time and your neck becomes tense or painful, use the thumb and index finger (with the thumb touching the inside of the hand) to grasp each one of the eight finger-webs at the root of the fingers. Massage the point beneath it and pull the web to the front at least 6 times. When you do this, be sure to be in an upright and relaxed posture.
• If you place the index finger, middle finger, and ring finger of one hand on the longitudinal grooves of the back of the other hand and gently massage back and forth, this will have a regulating effect on the blood pressure.
• A pleasant game to improve your mood, refresh you in a holistic way, and stimulate every bodily function is hand tapping (it is hard to stay serious when you do this, and children can't seem to get enough of it). Clap or tap your hands at least eight times in rhythm. At first, clap in the usual way. Then let the hands hang down and clap the backs of the hands together, then the backs of the fingers, the fingertips, the outer side of
  the hand, the inner side of the hand, the wrists, the knuckles, etc. The only limit is your imagination. Now you will notice that depending on what you are tapping or how you are clapping, a different tone is created. Use your hands to play your own drum concert. Drumming has been used since time immemorial to initiate healing processes. Today, people are using it for this same purpose again.

With a bit of imagination, you can put together your own program of hand exercises. You can't do anything wrong here if you carry out every movement slowly and consciously. The following illustrations will show you various traditions that work with hand energy. This isn't meant to confuse you, but to show you how tremendously diverse this system is. If you take an exact look at it, you will even come across logical inconsistencies. These occur because the individual
systems engage various levels, connected like threads that get lost in mysterious unfathomableness—and probably interconnect there.