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Posts Tagged ‘Emotion’

rs33977775

Posted in Amygdala, NPBWR1, Uncategorized, Ventral tegmental area, tagged , , , , , on November 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Hey genome, why U make me stink at networking?

If only there was an allele that LESSENED the apprehensive and uncomfortable feelings I get when meeting new people.

As such negative feelings are the work of my amygdala, I’m wishing for some sort of LOSS-OF-FUNCTION allele that REDUCES the activity of neural circuits involved in the emotional processing of fear … but leaves other neural circuits untouched.

I just want something that takes the edge off new social experiences … yunno?

How about rs33977775 ? It contains a derived (as opposed to ancestral) T-allele that causes a Y135F change that disrupts the binding sites of the NPBWR1 receptor to its neuropeptide ligands (ie. LOSS-OF-FUNCTION).  Amazingly, this receptor has a restricted pattern of gene expression only among limbic circuits involved in emotion and reward processing (ie. EXPRESSED IN EMOTION PROCESSING CIRCUITS ONLY).

In their report, a team of authors measured the reactions of 126 university students to various social stimuli and report that individuals who carry one of these loss-of-function T-alleles (about 30% of the population) show a more positive response to social interactions.

“… the AT group perceived facial expressions more pleasantly than did the AA group, regardless of the category of facial expression. Statistical analysis … also showed that the AT group tended to feel less submissive to an angry face than did the AA group.”

So it seems that rs33977775 may dial down the amygdala response to social stimuli … just enough to ace the job interview, but not so much that you inappropriately hug your new boss. Nice!

Unfortunately, this SNP is not covered by 23andMe v3 and there is no report yet on linkage disequilibrium via 1000 genomes.  Since the frequency of the T-allele is low in African populations (1%) and about 10%-ish in other non-African populations, I guess the odds are that I’m an AA or AT.

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rs2237717 & rs1130233

Posted in AKT, MET, Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Are you good at reading faces?  You can test yourself  (here, here, here) or just get off the interwebz and go talk to a real person.

The MET and the AKT genes encode proteins that are involved in early brain development and in the production of new synapses.  Since reading faces requires a lifetime of trial-and-error learning (ie. making new synaptic connections), these genes would likely support the development of facial recognition skills.

From the original article:  “When the individuals who were [MET/AKT rs2237717/rs1130233] C carrier and G carrier simultaneously were used as the reference group, their facial emotion perception was better than that of those with TT/AA  (p=0.015).”

I’m a MET/AKT rs2237717/rs1130233 CC/GG and, as my genome predicts,  a pretty good face reader … but am not sure if this is a good thing.  Why are you looking at me like that?

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The world’s most distinguished limbic system scientist is also a kick-ass rock star

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The article here:

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Too little MAOA

Posted in MAOA, tagged , on February 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »


Science article here.

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I’m so ashamed of …

Posted in Yoga and Meditation, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Are there events in your past that you hide from your friends and colleagues?  Are there parts of your body that you keep covered at all times?  You may think to yourself, “If people see this side of me, they won’t want to associate with me”.

Are you afraid of losing your job?  Losing your spouse or partner?  Creditors who who leave threatening messages?  A physical ailment that could be serious?

If you are an American, you are (statistically) likely to be overweight, over indebted and under increasing threat of losing your job and health benefits.  You may have friends that have “dropped out” of the social loop while being overwhelmed with these many adversities.  They themselves may feel stigmatized or too ashamed to face their usual circle of friends, and might rather stay out of touch.  Its an awful irony how feelings of shame and fear can cause our social relations to deteriorate just when we need them most.

Even if you haven’t dropped out, you may eat, drink or otherwise seek to numb these feelings of fear or shame.  But, deep down inside you may already be aware that by numbing your feelings of fear and shame, you also suppressing other emotions such as affection and joy – and thus undermining the social-familial bonds you are so afraid of losing.  Again, its an awful irony how fear, shame and anxiety can lead us to self-inflicted ruin.

Nevertheless, the grim reality remains.  Our bodies are unsightly, unfit and falling apart as we age.  Our careers paths are no longer certain in the new global economy.  We owe a lot of money and have barely the means to pay it back.  We do not have the resources to pay for old age.  Holy crap!  This is a dire view of the world hunh?!

What to do?  How to avoid the downward spiral of fear and anxiety?  Is there an upside to a deteriorating body?  a loss of career?  a down-shift to a much lower standard of living?

Check out this lecture by Dr. Brene Brown, who has carried out a great deal of social science research on this topic.  You will be amazed.  You will be uplifted.  You will begin to see that THERE IS an upside, and a way to break out of the cycle (unlike corporations, we won’t be getting a bailout).

Yoga and meditation practitioners may enjoy the parts of her talk on “self-love” and “courage” – a word whose origins lie in “cor” the word for “heart” and an ability to look inwardly and face the truth – a common theme, especially in Anusara yoga.

Note to readers:  Lately I’ve been focused on various personal and introspective themes, rather than the usual molecular-cognitive science-ology.  These themes set a base for exploring the basic biology of our emotional and cognitive lives and I’ll be digging into the brain-biology of these themes in the year to come.

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A yogi's guide to what women want

Posted in breathing, Mindfulness, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

A young woman and man embracing while outdoors.
Image via Wikipedia

Please forgive the absurd title here … its just a play on words from a flabby, middle-aged science geek who is as alluring to “the ladies” as an old leather boot.

Like a lot of males (with active fantasy lives I suppose), my interest was piqued by the recent headline, “What Do Women Really Want? Oxytocin” – based on a recent lecture at this years Society for Neuroscience annual conference.

Oxytocin is a small hormone that also modulates brain activity.  Many have referred it as the “Love Hormone” because it is released into the female brain during breastfeeding (where moms report feeling inextricably drawn to their infants), orgasm and other trust-building and social bonding experiences.  So, the premise of the title (from the male point of view), is a fairly simplistic – but futile – effort to circumvent the whole “social interaction thing” and reduce dating down to handy ways of raising oxytocin levels in females (voila! happier females more prone to social (ahem) bonding).

Of course, Mother Nature is not stupid.  Unless you are an infant, there is no “increase in oxytocin” without a prior “social bonding or shared social experience”.  Mother Nature has the upper hand here … no physical bonding without social binding first!

So, what the heck does this have to do with yoga?  Yes, its true that yoga studios are packed with friendly, health conscious females, but, the practice is mainly a solitary endeavor.  Aside from the chatter before and after class, and the small amount of oxytocin that is released during exercise, there is no social bonding going on that would release the so-called “love hormone”.  Thus, even though “women want yoga”, yoga class may not be the ideal location to “score with chicks”.

However, there may be one aspect of yoga practice that can facilitate social bonding (and hence oxytocin release).  One benefit of a yoga practice (as covered here, here) is an increased ability to “be present” – an improved ability to pay closer attention to your own thoughts and feelings, and also, the thoughts and feelings of another person.

The scientific literature is fairly rich in research showing a close relationship between attention, shared- or joint-attention, trust and oxytocin, and the idea is pretty obvious.  If you are really paying attention to the other person, and paying attention to your shared experience in the moment, the social bond will be stronger, more enjoyable and longer-lasting.  Right?

Soooo – if you want the oxytocin to flow – look your partner in the eye, listen to their thoughts, listen to your own reactions, listen to, and feel their breath as it intermingles with your own, feel their feelings and your own, slow-down and enjoy the minute details of the whole experience and be “right there, right now” with them.  Even if you’ve been with the same person for 40 years, each moment will be new and interesting.

Yoga will teach you how to do this.

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The vagus nerve as a living Kundalini serpent

Posted in breathing, chakras, metabolism, Mindfulness, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2010| 2 Comments »

What if you had magic fingers and could touch a place on a person’s body and make all their pain and anguish disappear?  This would be the stuff of legends, myths and miracles! Here’s a research review by Kerry J Ressler  and Helen S Mayberg on the modern ability to electrically “touch” the Vagus Nerve.

The article,  Targeting abnormal neural circuits in mood and anxiety disorders: from the laboratory to the clinic discusses a number of “nerve stimulation therapies” wherein specific nerve fibers are electrically stimulated to relieve mental anguish associated with (drug) treatment-resistant depression.

Vagus nerve stimulation therapy (VNS) is approved by the FDA for treatment of medication-resistant depression and was approved earlier for the treatment of epilepsy20.  …  The initial reasoning behind the use of VNS followed from its apparent effects of elevating mood in patients with epilepsy20, combined with evidence that VNS affects limbic activity in neuroimaging studies21. Furthermore, VNS alters concentrations of serotonin, norepinephrine, GABA and glutamate within the brain22–24, suggesting that VNS may help correct dysfunctional neurotransmitter modulatory circuits in patients with depression.

This stuff is miraculous in every sense of the word – to be able to reach in and “touch” the body and bring relief – if not bliss – to individuals who suffer with immense emotional pain.  So who is this Vagus nerve anyway?  Why does stimulating it impart so many emotional benefits?  How can I touch my own Vagus nerve?

The wikipedia page is a great place to explore – suggesting that this nerve fiber is central to the “rest and digest” functions of the parasympathetic nervous system.  As evidenced by the relief its stimulation brings from emotional pain, the Vagus nerve is central to mind-body connections and mental peace.

YOGA is a practice that also brings mental peace.  YOGA,  in so many ways (I hope to elaborate on in future posts),  aims to engage the parasympathetic nervous system (slowing down and resting responses) and disengage the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight responses).  Since we all can’t have our very own (ahem) lululemon (ahem) vagal nerve stimulation device, we must rely on other ways to stimulate the Vagus nerve fiber.  Luckily, many such ways are actually known – so-called “Vagal maneuvers” – such as  holding your breath and bearing down (Valsalva maneuver), immersing your face in ice-cold water (diving reflex), putting pressure on your eyelids, & massage of the carotid sinus area – that have been shown to facilitate parasympathetic (relaxation & slowing down) responses.

But these “Vagal maneuvers” are not incorporated into yoga.  How might yoga engage and stimulate the Vagal nerve bundle? Check out these great resources on breathing and Vagal tone (here, here, here).  I’m not an expert by any means but I think the take home message is that when we breathe deep and exhale, Vagal tone increases.  So, any technique that allows us to increase the duration of our exhalation will increase Vagal tone. Now THAT sounds like yoga!

Even more yogic is the way the Vagus nerve is the only nerve in the parasympathetic system that reaches all the way from the colon to the brain.  The fiber is composed mainly of upward (to the brain) pulsing neurons – which sounds a lot like the mystical Kundalini Serpent that arises upwards from within (starting at the root – colon) and ending in the brain.  The picture above – of the Vagus nerve (bright green fiber) – might be what the ancient yogis had in mind?

some updates:

– here’s a great post on the importance of, and teaching of exhalation

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Love is space and time measured by the heart

Posted in breathing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Have you ever lost track of time in yoga class?  On a good day, I’ll get so into the practice that my awareness of “how much time still to go?” comes at the very end.  Other days, I might feel time dragging as if the class is taking forever (best not to glance at a wristwatch).

We – as human beings – have a very poor sense of time.  Intensely new and wonderful experiences may pass too quickly, but remembered years later, seem greatly expanded.  In flashes of intense fear, time has a way of moving very slowly, yet un-recallable in repressed memories.  Sitting and waiting for a bus makes time pass so very slowly, until an attractive or interesting person sits next to you.

Somehow its not time, per se, that we measure, but rather the intensity of our emotional experience that makes time expand and contract.

Yoga texts are chock full of references to “consciousness” and the “illusions” of everyday thinking.  Sometimes, these notions can sound hokey when spoken in the NJ suburbs where I practice, but that doesn’t mean they are not true.  Just consider how illusory your perceptions of time are.  Your sense of time is just a by-product of your experience – its not an absolute “thing” you can measure.  Your sense of YOU and the events in your life – as they stretch out over time – the mere jumble of memories – is very far from the objective reality you might want think.  We all live in the illusions created by our own minds.

When it comes to the illusions of time, somehow, it seems, our perception of time is tied mainly to the intensity of our emotional experience.   People seem to understand this.  Folks like Marcel Proust who wrote, “Love is space and time measured by the heart.”   And folks like Craig Wright who wrote the play – Melissa Arctic – that made me acutely aware of the illusion of time in our all too brief lives.  Check it out if you ever get the chance.  The play – wherein a young child plays the role of “time” – pulls you through the course of one man’s tragic life and deeply into your heart to realize that time is, indeed, measured by the heart – captured and measured by the intensity of emotional experience.  Consider how Time, the young child, invokes the audience at the start of the play, “Everything be still. Can everything be perfectly still?”

Needless to say, this all sounds much like the common yogic counsel to “stop thinking and start feeling” and “live in the present moment“.  Perhaps its worth recognizing how fallible, illusionary and fanciful our sense of time really is.  Perhaps also, emotions are the key here.  Perhaps I should try harder to engage my heart in life (and in yoga class) –  the key to really experiencing now and living in this present moment.

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Yoga defies scientific test – better to not know

Posted in clinical trial, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Yoga Class at a Gym Category:Gyms_and_Health_Clubs
Image via Wikipedia

One of the most mysterious aspects of modern medicine is the so-called placebo effect.  Imagine a drug company that has a new pill.  To see if it works, they give one group of people (the “test” group) the real pill and they give another group of people (the “control” group) an identical looking pill that does not contain any medicine (sugar pill).  If the the “test” group improves in health and the “control” group does not – voila! – one can conclude that the medicine works.

What happens when the “control” group gets better?  Hunh?  but there was no medicine … how can they get better? This is known as the placebo effect – wherein a persons EXPECTATIONS lead them to feel better.

Believe it or not, it happens all the time in scientific research and in the pharmaceutical industry.  Apparently the brain has a way of convincing the body that things are getter better (or worse).  You probably have probed this complex mind-body interface at some point … “is the pain really in my back, or perhaps just in my head?” Indeed, you can almost hear the frustration among the blue suits in a big pharma board room,  “Mind and body are connected?” “How much is this damned mind-body problem going to cost us?”  Its a multi-billion dollar problem!

Ancient yogis seemed to understand the placebo/mind-body phenomenon.  Its a part of what makes yoga so interesting.  Its ALL ABOUT THE CONNECTION between mind and body – not one vs. the other.

Most folks who practice yoga will attest to its mental and physical benefits.  This is true.  However, one can still ask the valid question of whether the actual benefits are real?  The purely physical benefits (muscles) are not in doubt.  But, does yoga really improve a person’s mental life – or do we just want to think so (a placebo response)?  I mean, have you left the yoga studio (fully relaxed) only to honk the horn after being cut off in traffic?  Did yoga really change you?  Is there evidence – in the scientific sense – that yoga leads to mental well-being?

Hats off to Dru worldwide – an organization that is “passionate about positive health and wellbeing. With yoga and meditation at [its] core.” – for taking on this important question!

In an article entitled, “The effectiveness of yoga for the improvement of well-being and resilience to stress in the workplace”  [PMID: 20369218]  published in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, researchers from Dru Education Center, University of Gothenburg, Harvard Medical School and Bangor University used the scientific method and compared 24 people (mostly women with mean age of 39) who participated in a 1 hour yoga class each week (for 6 weeks) to 24 people who did not participate in the yoga training (the control group).  Importantly, these groups were selected at random and showed similar profiles for age, prior yoga experience and health condition.

Specifically, the investigators sought to “measure” the effects of yoga using 2 instruments:  the Profile of Mood States Bipolar (POMS-Bi) and the Inventory of Positive Psychological Attitudes (IPPA – you can take the assessment here).  As noted by the researchers, these questionnaires allow investigators to track changes in both positive and negative feelings.  To determine whether the yoga experience conferred a psychological benefit, the investigators measured the POMS and IPPA scores at the start and at the end of 6 weeks and then asked whether the change in score was different between the “test” and “control” groups.

The results (nice graph on the Dru website) show that the improvements in score (benefits) were higher in the yoga “test” group than the “control” group (who were on the waiting list for the 6 weeks).

In 7 of the 8 POMS-Bi and IPPA domains, scores for the yoga group improved 2–5 times more than those in the control group over the course of this study. The interaction term from a two-way ANOVA showed that in comparison with the control group, the yoga participants at the end of the program felt significantly less anxious, confused, depressed, tired, and unsure, and had a greater sense of life purpose and satisfaction and were more self-confident during stressful situations. Although the yoga group reported feeling more agreeable (less hostile) than the control group at the end of the program, this difference was not statistically significant.

Thus, the research team validly concludes that the yoga experience was associate with improvements in mental well-being.   This is remarkable given the small size and short duration of the study.  I do recall, when I first started yoga (9 months ago) that I felt sooo much better, so I think I can understand what the participants might have been feeling.

BUT, was this just the placebo response?  Like me, did the study participants want to THINK that it was the yoga that made the difference?  In other words, were the mental wellness benefits due to the EXPECTATION of feeling better – the placebo effect?  The investigators are not unaware of this issue:

Because participants in our study were self-selected, it can be assumed that they were a highly motivated group who wanted to practice yoga. Participant expectations may have included a desire to feel less stressed by the end of the six-week sessions and this may have contributed to their perceived benefit.

So, the data suggest that yoga made a contribution to the mental well-being of the participants.  This is a valid conclusion – and hats off to the research team for conducting the study.  Are the effects “real” or “just in the mind” of the participants?  Does it really matter?

Personally, I don’t think so.  That’s the fun of exploring the mind-body interface via yoga and meditation.  Not “knowing” but rather, just “feeling”!

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Sitting on my thesaurus while meditating

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2010| 4 Comments »

Peter Mark Roget (Roget's Thesaurus)
Image by dullhunk via Flickr

On Fridays, after a regular practice session, our shala is open for quiet meditation.  This is a new experience for me, even as I’ve read much about the mental and physical health benefits accrued by experienced practitioners.  As someone who is totally exhausted after practice – indeed, I couldn’t move another muscle even if I wanted – I always think it will be easy to settle in, and pass 30 minutes  in quiet stillness.

Sure enough though, even as my body is spent and motionless, my mind starts to wander, and wander, and wander some more.  “Damn”, I think, “here we go again”. Just a few minutes in, and I’m losing a battle – with myself.  “This is going to be the longest 30 minutes of my life!” What to do?

Some experts say to simply LABEL your thoughts and feelings.  Just find a word to place on the thought or feeling – and then – let it go.  Does this really work?  How does this trick work?

Recent brain imaging studies seem to show that when a word is applied to a negative emotion,  the brain changes how it processes that emotion and shifts processing to neural systems that avoid centers of the brain (the amygdala, in particular) that send neural projections to our face, gut and heart (areas where we tend to physically “feel” our bad feelings).   It seems that our ability to use words is an important tool in how we cope with emotional experience.  Either we succumb to the storms of negative emotions that can well up inside us from time to time (and feel lousy inside), or we can manage these feelings – using our words – and feel less lousy inside.   Apparently, the use of words, alters neural processing – leading us to experience less tightening in the chest, clenching in the gut, etc.,  etc. than we would otherwise feel when negative emotions come over us.  One of the researchers, David Cresswell, remarks: “This is an exciting study because it brings together the Buddha‘s teachings – more than 2,500 years ago, he talked about the benefits of labeling your experience – with modern neuroscience.”

But this is easier said than done.

How do I label a thought?  How do I label an emotion?  I mean, “I feel, um, um, frustrated, lousy, anxious … crap … I’m not exactly sure how I feel?  What’s the word I’m looking for?”

Indeed – the words – the words – as in, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” WORDS.  Do I know enough words?  How many words are there anyway to describe all the possible feelings that a person can feel?  How many do you know?

Check this list out.    There are more than 3,000 words in the English language to describe various feelings.  Thank you Peter Mark Roget (who, ironically, worked on the first thesaurus as a means to cope with negative feelings associated with depression).  I will bring my thesaurus – full of these tools to help me label my feelings – to meditation practice from now on!

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Yoga spirit, southern style

Posted in artist, tagged , , , , on September 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Are they practicing breath control?  No.  Are they practicing postures?  No.  Are they desperately seeking meaning and a connection with divinity?  Yes.  Are they pulled in one direction by the wants of the body, and in another direction by the wants of the spirit?  Yes.  Do they cope day to day with grim realities of suffering and loss in a place where, “gravity is stronger and you can feel it pulling you closer into the earth everyday”.  Yes.

These are the very themes of yoga.  Beautifully captured in picture and sound in the 2003 film “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus“.

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Jung illuminates the fires of the solar plexus chakra

Posted in alchemy, Carl Jung, chakras, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 24, 2010| 1 Comment »

Manipura chakra
Image via Wikipedia

More on CG Jung‘s famous “chakra lectures” …

In lecture 2 he opines on symbolic and psychological aspects of the 3rd chakra – Manipura – shown here with a yellow center and red triangle that symbolize fire.  Interestingly, the location of this chakra overlaps with what we, today, call the “solar” plexus – not because of its symbolic connections to the fiery sun – but rather, simply because the neural projections from this plexus, located between the stomach and the spine, radiate outwardly in a sun-like fashion.

Jung notes that fire symbolism often follows water symbolism – just as occurs in the chakra hierarchy where the previous chakra is symbolized by water.  This ancient pattern of symbolism is common across many religious traditions.

“One sees all that very beautifully in the Catholic rite of baptism when the godfather holds the child and the priest approaches with the burning candle and says: Dono tibi lucem eternam (I give thee the eternal light) – which means, I give you relatedness to the sun, to the God.”

So, I guess, after a person emerges from the murky depths of water, the next stage of their spiritual journey or subconscious “awakening” is a time in their lives when they grow to feel connected to something greater than themselves, to something eternal, beyond the everyday world, perhaps cosmic or goldly, etc.  Jung suggests that this initial connection to “god” has long been symbolized by the sun and by fire.

“This is a worldwide and ancient symbolism, not only in the Christian baptism and the initiation in the Isis mysteries.  For instance, in the religious symbolism of ancient Egypt, the dead Pharoh goes to the underworld and embarks in the ship of the sun.  You see, to approach divinity means the escape from the futility of the personal existence, and the achieving of the eternal existence, the escape to a nontemporal form of existence.  The Pharoh climbs into the sun bark and travels through the night and conquers the serpent, and then rises again with the god, and is riding over the heavens for all eternity.”

Furthermore, Jung suggests, there is a shared, underlying psychological reason why so many ancient cultures used the common symbols of fire for this phase of their development.  It would seem that for many, that once they let go of the closely-held, relatively petty details of their day-to-day life and acknowledge a connection between themselves and the wider universe and things divine – that, upon letting go – their own fires of passion and emotion become alight.

So it is just that – you get into the world of fire, where things become red-hot.  After baptism, you get right into hell – that is the enantiodromia.  And now comes the paradox of the east: it is also the fullness of jewels.  But what is passion, what are emotions? There is the source of fire, there is the fullness of energy.  A man who is not on fire is nothing: he is ridiculous, he is two-dimensional. … So when people become acquainted with the unconscious they often get into an extraordinary state – they flare up, they explode, old buried emotions come up, they begin to weep about things which happened forty years ago.

I think I can relate to this notion.  Perhaps when you accept that you’re just a part of a larger plan, or just a single link in a long continuum, you stop worrying about the petty stuff which then allows your own deeper passions and emotions to flow more freely.  Both the good emotions related to creativity and love as well as feelings of sadness and loss that come along with recognizing your fate and limitations  – all begin to emerge.  These feelings make a person feel more “alive” than they would just playing it safe, workin’ 9-to-5 payin’ the bills etc., etc. and never allowing themselves to embark on their spiritual journey.

So it seems, as suggested by Jung, that we begin our spiritual awakening as humans have for thousands of years, by “taking the plunge” and choosing – not the “safe career” path – but a path in life that “means something” to us.  From the dark, uncertain waters, we emerge – and then the inner fires begin to burn, to inflame our passions and give us energy, to live and to create.

… can’t wait to see what’s in store next!

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Moving from earth to ocean on the mat

Posted in Carl Jung, chakras, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This picture depicts the seven major Chakras w...
Image via Wikipedia

Am really enjoying reading  Carl Jung‘s 1932 lectures on The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga edited by Sonu Shamdasani.

Jung focuses on the chakra symbols – which have many different biological, physiological and psychological interpretations.  To Jung, the chakra symbols reflect a natural psychological process of self-awareness and spiritual development.  In the Kundalini Yoga tradition, there begins a “natural awakening” that occurs in life that motivates a person to pursue endeavors that have some sort of personal “meaning” rather than be content with just the basic ordinary existence.  I guess we all get tired of just payin’-the-bills, so to speak?

According to the ancient vedic texts, the “Kundalini” refers to a symbolic female serpent that awakens and starts to rise up inside of us.  In the very earliest stages of this awakening one goes from the low self-awareness of ordinary day-to-day life to a higher state of self-awareness – a more personal inner-awareness of our devotions, purpose or motivations.  His words from lecture 1:

Some strange urge underneath forces them to do something which is not just the ordinary thing.

This is a common, wonderful aspect of our lives right?  Don’t we all hit a point where we want to do something “special” with our lives?  I can’t help but think of all the coaches, music teachers, artists, etc. etc., that I’ve met in my life who weren’t happy just payin-the-bills and opted to do something “special” with their time.

But there lies some danger in trying to do something “special” !

If we step off the path of the ordinary, practical concerns of daily life to do something unconventional or “for the love of it”, we risk losing the safety and stability of our everyday life.  The banker who leaves work early to coach a little league team may put his career at risk.  The kid who chooses music as a major instead of accounting similarly trades a staid (boring) future for a more impoverished (but perhaps fulfilling) future.  And so on and so on.  We’ve all been there.

In terms of the chakra symbols, the shift from this lowest, ordinary, root, muladhara stage to the next swadhisthana stage involves a symbolic shift from earth to water.  This can be seen in the images on the chakra symbols:  a stable elephant in the root chakra and the sea with a leviathan as depicted in the next higher level chakra symbol (shown here).  Jung says the shift from “ordinary life” to the pursuit of a “meaningful life” is naturally fraught with psychological fear given the inherent risks, uncertainty and possibility of failure.

This very normal and common human psychological transition, he points out, has long been recognized by other ancient cultures.  Similarly, they characterized this very common psychological shift as one from earth to water.  I guess its not all that surprising if you think of the fear you’d have if thrown in the water and unable to swim (no such thing as swim lessons back in the day).  Jung opines:

The way into any higher development leads through water, with the danger of being swallowed by the monster.  If you study the beautiful mosaic pictures in the Baptistry of the Orthodox in Ravenna … you see four scenes depicted on the wall: two describe the baptism of Christ in the Jordan; and the fourth is St. Peter drowning in a lake during a storm …  Baptism is a symbolic drowning.

So perhaps the very first steps in taking on a new “meaningful” direction in life – from simply payin’ the bills to doing something personally fulfilling – is to face the inherent uncertainties and fears.  To move into the murky depths and confront the possibility of failure and loss.

OK.  I will try and ground my sit bones into the water – rather than the earth!

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Why attaining Samadhi may be only half the journey

Posted in Mindfulness, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Nehru gandhi
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As much as I might fantasize, I know I’ll never attain the lofty state of Samadhi or enlightenment that purportedly comes with a lifetime of dedicated practice to yoga.  For one thing, my life presently revolves around raising my 2 children – meals, homework, sports practices, camps, yoga lessons etc. – leaving just a small amount of time to write and practice yoga.  This is, of course, far from the ideal ascetic life of a yogi on a mountaintop – even though the thought of all that peace and quiet seems, itself, rather divine.

Alas, I’m all too aware that to attain the “great inward awareness”, one must withdraw from the typical everyday routine and sequester to a place of solitude.  Mircea Eliade remarks in his book, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (p.45):

The resistance that the subconscious opposes to every act of renunciation and asceticism, to every act that could result in the emancipation of the Self, is, as it were, the token of the fear that the subconscious feels at the mere idea that the mass of as yet unmanifested latentcies could fail of their destiny, could be destroyed before having time to manifest and actualize themselves.

To me, this very dilemma – to step out of, or to renounce the world vs. to live and partake in it – is one that seems at the core of any aspiring yogi’s spiritual journey.  Eliade continues:

This thirst for actualization on the part of the vasanas is nevertheless interpenetrated by the thirst for extinction, for “repose”, that occurs at all levels of the cosmos.

Its a deep personal conflict for all of us.  The desire to focus oneself and seek simplicity and perfection vs. the desire to embrace the diverse workaday world with family, friends and always lots of fun stuff to do.  The conflict may even bubble up into discussions of national identity where some political leaders advocate a quiet, withdrawn, simple life (ie. Mohandas Gandhi) while others advocate an embrace of modernity and internationalism (ie. Jawaharlal Nehru).  Indeed, almost every country copes with some type of internal conflicts of religion vs. secularism – perhaps just a macroscopic side-effect of this deep personal conflict.

Of course, I’m not qualified to offer advice on these BIG questions, but much enjoyed a blog post by Mark Eckhardt’s Zen Bite column over at This Emotional Life.  He makes the case that attainment of “enlightenment” might not be THE final endpoint and that ascending the mountain is only HALF the journey.

Integrating your enlightenment is where the work really begins — this is “Descending the Mountain.” Doing so is humbling, often turbulent and requires that you face some tough realities. By this I mean that you accept the impact of your thoughts and actions on yourself and others.

Through regular practice, greater awareness, understanding and acceptance of ourselves develops. As this happens, the ability to detect a wider spectrum of emotional and psychological states makes it possible to take advantage of the small gap between thought and action.  In fact, neuroscience researchers have discovered that this is approximately 2/10 of a second — more than enough time to take or prevent action that otherwise would be unheard of. In Zen we refer to this as pausing and growing thoughtful, and it is the gateway to improved relationships, courage, inspiration and satisfaction.

So, it seems that I should try and climb the spiritual mountain (like Gandhi), and then come back into the world (like Nehru) and use the benefits – to live – rather than withdraw.  Perhaps just a little bit each day.

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Suffering begets empathy and the spiritual journey

Posted in Bhagavad-Gita, tagged , , , , on July 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Gita Chapter 11:32
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Pointer to a neat lecture on humans’ natural predisposition toward empathy which seems to be rooted deeply in our species’ need for social belonging as well as “grounded in the acknowledgment of death” (related post here).   The virtue of compassion is obviously deeply rooted in Bhagavad Gita and certainly a mental and emotional capacity that should grow and flourish with yoga practice.  Nice to see its biological roots under investigation in mainstream science!

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Tracking your inner yogi on the web

Posted in Mindfulness, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Mood Broadcasting
Image by jurvetson via Flickr

Like many folks, I generally feel better ever since I started practicing yoga.  Outwardly, my body is (slowly) growing stronger and more flexible and perhaps (hopefully) soon, I’ll even lose a few pounds.  However, even if I was to convince myself that looked slimmer (skinny mirrors?), the only way to really know if I’ve lost weight, is to stand on a scale and record my weight each day (darn! no fatness lost so far).

That takes care of the body right – but what about the inner, emotional improvements I might be experiencing?  How to measure these?

Here are some mobile- and web-based tools to help one track one’s emotions.  Most of these websites, like Moodstats, Track Your Happiness, MoodJam, MoodMill, Finding Optimism and MoodLog seem to function as online diaries which keep a running tab on aspects of ones moods and emotions.  Perhaps such tools – if used over long durations – would enable one to verify a shift toward a less anxious and more contented inner feeling?  I don’t know.

Perhaps the real proof of “inner” progress would be that I had closed my computer and put away my mobile device and, rather, was outside enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.  Perhaps best to avoid mixing yoga and digital distractions.

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Reaching Samadhi through a latent evolutionary adaptation

Posted in evolution, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Samadhi Statue
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In some ways, the 8 limbs of yoga described in the yoga sutras, seem a bit like a ladder, rather than a concentric set of outreached arms or spokes on a wheel.  It seems like I’m working toward something.  But what?  I certainly feel healthier, and also enjoy the satisfaction of getting slightly more able (ever so slightly) to shift into new postures – so am quite motivated to continue the pursuit.  Perhaps this is how yoga got started eons ago?   Just a pursuit that – by trial and error – left its practitioners feeling more healthy, relaxed and more in touch with their outer and inner worlds?  But where does this path lead, if anywhere?

I was intrigued by a report published in 1973 by an 8-day study carried out on the grounds of the Ravindra Nath Tagore Medical College and Hospital, Udaipur, India and subsequent letter, “The Yogic claim of voluntary control over the heart beat: an unusual demonstration” published in the American Heart Journal, Volume 86 Number 2.  Apparently, a local yogi named Yogi Satyamurti:

Yogi Satyamurti, a sparsely built man of about 60 years of age, remained confined in a small underground pit for 8 days in what according to him was a state of “Samadhi,” or deep meditation, with all bodily activity cut down to the barest minimum.

The medical researchers had the yogi’s heart and other physiological functions under constant watch via electrical recording leads, and watched as the yogi’s heart slowed down (their equipment registered a flatline) a remained so for several days.  Upon opening up the pit, the researchers found:

The Yogi was found sitting in the same posture. One of us immediately went in to examine him. He was in a stuporous condition and was very cold (oral temperature was 34.8O C) [the same temperature as the earth around him].

After a few hours, the yogi had recovered from the experience and displayed normal physiological and behavioral function – despite 8 days underground (air supposedly seeped in from the sides of the pit) with no food or human contact!

An amazing feat indeed – one that has some scientists wondering about the psychology and physiology that occurs when advanced meditators sink into (very deep) states.  John Ding-E Young and Eugene Taylor explored this in an article entitled, “Meditation as a Voluntary Hypometabolic State of Biological Estivation” published in News Physiol. Sci., Volume 13, June 1998.   They  suggest that humans have a kind of latent capacity to enter a kind of dormant or  hibernation-like state that is similar to other mammals and even certain primates.

Meditation, a wakeful hypometabolic state of parasympathetic dominance, is compared with other hypometabolic conditions, such as sleep, hypnosis, and the torpor of hibernation. We conclude that there are many analogies between the physiology of long-term meditators and hibernators across the phylogenetic scale. These analogies further reinforce the idea that plasticity of consciousness remains a key factor in successful biological adaptation.

Practice, practice, practice – towards an ability to engage a latent evolutionary adaptation? Sounds hokey, but certainly an interesting idea worth exploring more in the future.

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A remarkable mixture of the Bhagavad Ghita and the New York Herald

Posted in Mindfulness, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Walt Whitman. Daguerreotype
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I’m enjoying some summer reading of Jonah Lehrer‘s Proust Was A Neuroscientist.  Chapter 1 does not disappoint! – on the life and poetry of Walt Whitman who was among the first modern western artists to reject dualist notions of a dichotomy between mind and body that stemmed from early Christian writings and the philosophies of Rene Descartes (1641), and rather, embrace  longstanding eastern notions of a synthesis and continuity of the mind and body.

This may relate to the ancient yoga sutra II.48 tatah dvandvah anabhighatah “from then on (after the perfection of asanasa), that sadhaka (yoga student) is undisturbed by dualities”.

Whitman’s poem, I Sing The Body Electric captures some of his youthful ardor for the unified human body-soul and the human condition.  Just 2 lines from Chapter 1, line 10:

“And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?”

Ideas with such eastern influence earned him accolades as, “a remarkable mixture of the Bhagavad Ghita and the New York Herald” in his contemporary 1850’s press.  Lehrer also traces the birth of modern neuroscience to early pioneers such as the psychologist William James, who, it turns out, was a great admirer of Whitman’s poetry.

A wrong turn with Descartes in the 1600’s, steered back on track by Whitman and James in the 1850’s!

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Move, breathe deeply and consume LESS oxygen

Posted in breathing, clinical trial, metabolism, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Practice Yoga, Be Healthy! {EXPLORED}
Image by VinothChandar via Flickr

Have you ever noticed how everything healthy these days is “anti-oxidant” this and “anti-oxidant” that?  Green tea, dark chocolate, vitamin E and vitamin C – just to name a few.  Surely, its all the rage to be “anti” oxygen these days (indeed, there are currently 458 clinical trials open now for the study of anti-oxidants!).

But wait.  Isn’t oxygen the stuff we BREATHE?  Don’t we need it to live?  How can we be so “anti” oxidant?

Herein lies a very sobering chemical fact of life.  We need oxygen to breathe – while at the same time – the very same oxygen produces so-called reactive oxygen species (hydrogen peroxide, hypochlorous acid, and free radicals such as the hydroxyl radical and the superoxide anion) which cause damage to our lipids, proteins and even our genome.  What gives us life – also takes away life – a little bit each time we breathe.

Such is the basis for the healthy foods and myriad dietary supplements that (promise to) counteract and biochemically scavenge the toxic reactive oxygen molecules in our bodies.  But for the fact it would make me even fatter, I’d promptly say, “Bring on more dark chocolate!“.

But what if we could just forgo all those dietary supplements, and just USE LESS oxygen?  Might that be another way to enhance longevity and health?

With this thought in mind, I enjoyed a research article entitled, “Oxygen Consumption and Respiration Following Two Yoga Relaxation Techniques” by Drs. Shirley Telles, Satish Kumar Reddy and H. R. Nagendra from the Vivekananda Kendra Yoga Research Foundation in Bangalore, India.  The article was published in Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, Vol. 25, No. 4, 2000.

In their research article, the authors noted that – with practice – yoga can help an individual voluntarily lower their cardiac and metabolic levels.  A number of previous studies show that advanced meditators and yoga practitioners can lower their heart rate and respirations to astonishingly low levels (more posts on this to come).  The scientists in this study asked simply whether a relatively brief 22min routine of “cyclic meditation” (CM) consisting of yoga postures interspersed with periods of supine rest led to a greater reduction in oxygen consumption when compared to 22mins of supine rest (shavasana or SH).  Their question is relevant to the life-giving/damaging effects of oxygen, because a lower metabolic rate means one is using less oxygen.  According to the authors:

“We hypothesized that because cyclic meditation (CM) has repetitive cycles of ‘activating’ and ‘calming’ practices, based on the idea from the ancient texts, as discussed earlier, practicing CM would cause greater relaxation compared with supine rest in shavasan (SH).”

In the results and discussion of the data, they found (using a sample of 40 male adults) that the when they measured oxygen consumption at the beginning and at the end of the session, that the yoga postures/rest routine (CM) resulted in a 32% reduction in oxygen consumption (this is the amount of oxygen used when sitting still at the end of the session) while just laying in shavasana led to only a 10% reduction in the amount of oxygen used at the end of the session.

Wow!  So even after moving through postures – which admittedly gets one’s heart pumping and elevates one’s breathing – I would be using less oxygen (when sitting at the end of the session), than if I had just decided to lay in a supine position.  In this instance, I guess I may be using more oxygen overall during the session, but perhaps would be glad to improve the efficiency of my breathing – and intake of oxygen – in the long run (after many years of practice I’m sure).  Maybe this is a physiological/biochemical basis for the longevity-promoting benefits of yoga?

How does the effect work?  Does the act of moving in and out of postures engage the sympathetic nervous system (something not observed for shavasana)?   Much to explore here.  The authors point out that these effects on improving the efficiency of breathing and oxygen consumption may not be specific to yoga, but to any MODERATE exercise regimen, where exercise and some sort of mental focus is practiced (Tai Chi for example).

Move and pay attention to your breath.  I will keep this in mind tonight in my beginners class.  By the way, there are currently 93 clinical trials involving yoga!

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