Here is my cool discovery of the day: your lungs actually developed by ‘out pocketing,’ by emerging out, from your intestines!
“The gut tube is the primitive precursor of both the respiratory and digestive systems.”
This occurs very early in the fetus by ‘pinching off’ a bit of the gut tube; this section then develops, separating many, many times to form the alveoli, the tiny sacs inside the lungs, which are very much like the villi in the intestines. Both have a vast amount of surface area where the actual transfer of nutrients into the blood stream happens.
Breathing can be described as a kind of digestion, just of nutrients in the air rather than from food and drink. In Ayurveda, digestion is considered to be the “central pillar” of health. Previously, I knew that Ayurveda considers everything we ingest, be it food or sensory perceptions or even our own thoughts and feelings, to require careful consideration so that we not only take in the nourishment our body needs, but also so we don’t make ourselves sick by taking in unhealthy things, or taking too much. Now I see how “good digestion” also refers to the air we breathe just as much as to the food we eat, the amount and quality of media, and our own internal thoughts and feelings and moods, we consume.
Related factoid: Did you know that the regular, rhythmic movements of full breathing assist in the peristaltic movements of your intestines to move food along the digestive tract?
