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In a famous book by Yogananda called Autobiography of a Yogi he shares miraculous stories of superhuman yogis who have become immortal who live in the mountains of the Himalayas. It seems super far fetched but it may be a real truth that can be explained by having a deeper understanding of yoga and its effect on your physiology and stem cells.

Stem cells are cells that can turn into any other cell. They are a hot topic right now with a big drive towards the research on how to harness the potential of stem cells to regrow new tissues, replace damaged cells and even brand new organs.

Stem cells are only active in hypoxic environments. There are a huge number of stem cells when you are still in your mother’s womb. They rapidly divide and grow into the cells that create intelligent life.

The womb is a very hypoxic environment meaning oxygen levels are around 10% of normal oxygen levels in the atmosphere (more like the top of Mount Everest). As soon as you are born they hide away in hypoxic areas of your body called niches as you get exposed to higher oxygen levels.

Bone marrow is where they are commonly found and they are usually extracted from here during very expensive stem cell transplant operations costing upwards of $20K. Other niches are in the tissues of organs where stem cells are surrounded by a ring of normal cells that consume all the oxygen and create a hypoxic environment in the middle.

The image above depicts some of the areas stem cells play an important role in our body’s regeneration.

So the theory goes – if we can activate our stem cells we should be able to live longer disease free lives as we can keep regenerating healthy cells and replace old ones. Science has still yet to prove this theory although they have had positive success with rats.

By practising Nisshesha Rechaka pranayama (which we will go into in more detail later on and by steadily increasing your retention times, it is claimed you can reach a state of eternal bliss called samadhi and become immortal.