When I was training to be a yoga teacher, one of the 6 purification techniques taught to us was Jala Neti. This is also called Jaaneti or simply Neti. Purification techniques are sometimes performed as a way of preparing the body for a yoga practice. Whenever the neti pots came out, I would disappear. I always needed to be somewhere else at that moment in time. I had many techniques to avoid it: the bathroom, the water fountain, the shop… Literally anything but the neti.

Pouring a saline solution up my hooter was really not for me and I have avoided it right up to today. I have got a steaming cold and, as a result, I now have sinus pain. So, I have decided to give it another go. Talk about waiting until your back is against the wall! So, I rushed to the Sivananda yoga studio nearby and bought myself a ceramic neti pot and salt. I only had one photographic image to guide me as the instructions were in German! Although I did not find it as unpleasant as some people describe, it was not as bad as I remembered. So I will use it over the next few days to see if it helps alleviate the problem.

Neti purification basically means pouring a saline solution up one nostril and allowing it to pour out of the other and then repeating the procedure on the other side. When I told my teenage son what I was doing he replied: “Urghhh… that’s butters!”, which – as I am informed – is teenage speak for “I don’t think that’s very nice”.

You will be grateful to know that I do not have a photograph of me performing neti. However, I have attached a photo of the aforementioned pot itself.