[extropy-chat] IMMUNE: Nose picking is good for you...

[Johnius]

Mike Lorrey forwarded:
>Top doc backs picking your nose and eating it 
>[...]
>Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just
>can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

	Hmm.  I've seen a few children and young adults with 
	"virgin nostrils", and I've always thought they looked
	far healthier & more natural, at least regarding the
	delicate nose structures.  Their noses tend to look
	more like healthy young animal noses...

	A friend of mine studied yoga in an Indian ashram, and
	she doesn't pick, but uses a "neti pot" ... irrigating
	nasal passages with slightly salty warm water.  On the
	other hand, some yogis use thin towels which they thread
	through the nostrils or nostril-throat ... but most 
	people probably couldn't handle doing that.

	I also wonder how healthy/natural it is for so many
	people to have dried nasal mucus ... is it an indication
	that their systems are out of balance?  Perhaps water
	deficient, or protein overloaded?

	I'm not sure how much research has been done, but how
	do most mammals keep their nasal passages clean/open?
	When I stayed at a fire station in northern california,
	sometimes we would watch the deer, which came quite close.
	Their method seemed to be to snork-blow forcibly in rapid
	alternation, and it looked like their mucus tended to always
	be moist or liquid, not dried.  Of course, socially, even
	finger picking is probably more acceptable than snork-blowing!
	One advantage of the latter, if the article is correct,
	is that some of it probably gets ingested.

>"And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of
>strengthening the body's immune system.
>"Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do.
>In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great
>deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the
>intestines it works just like a medicine.


>He pointed out that children happily pick their noses, yet by the time
>they have become adults they have stopped under pressure from a society
>that has branded it disgusting and anti social.

	I've also seen young children playing with their sex organs, 
	which probably helps relieve stress and yield comfort.
	Of course nearly all of us are trained out of this one too,
	even though it probably would make all our lives just a 
	little bit (or a whole lot) nicer :-)

	I've also seen young childen sticking things in their mouths,
	and even eating dirt.  Some people in the alternative medicine
	movement still recommend eating a bit of dirt (or filtered
	clays) now and then...  At a recent new age event, I was helping
	in the kitchen to cut up some organic celery.  It was dirty,
	with organic dirt, and I mentioned that to the lady in charge
	of meal preparation.  She thought about it and told me not to
	clean them, that the organic dirt would be good for us to eat!

	And what about ear wax?  I've seen many people pick their ears
	but not so many eat that ... but according to the article it 
	just might be good to do so...

	Just one last thing, venturing off deeper into taboo.  There
	was a show on alternative medicine a few months ago, and one
	native american fellow was a big believer in sipping one's
	own urine.  He claimed it has all sorts of benefits, such as
	immune enhancement, and on the show he actually talked some
	people into giving it a try.  Before that, I'd only heard of
	the practice in connection with Siberian shamans trying to
	conserve precious psychedelic mushroom chemicals by drinking
	their own urine to keep the high going as long as possible...

	Johnius