Posted in chakras, tagged Chakra, Meditation, metabolism, mindfulness, spirituality on October 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Brain, Breathing, Emotion, Meditation, Mind, mindfulness, Neuron, Religion and Spirituality, spirituality, Thesaurus, Vocabulary Lists on October 6, 2010| 4 Comments »
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!
Posted in artist, tagged Emotion, Empathy, Poetry, Religion and Spirituality, spirituality 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“.
Posted in alchemy, Carl Jung, chakras, Uncategorized, tagged Emotion, Kundalini, Kundalini yoga, Manipura, Psychology, Religion and Spirituality, spirituality on August 24, 2010| 1 Comment »
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!
Posted in The Alchemical Body, tagged Carl Jung, History, John Friend, philosophy, Religion and Spirituality, spirituality, Yoga on August 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Is there such a thing as a “true” guru? A gentle sage atop a mountain who lives only to practice and nurture the spiritual growth of students? Like many students, I’ve always carried this idealized and universal notion close to my heart. Back in school, my favorite professors were the genuine, off-beat ones who really lived for their work. Today, as a new yoga student, I feel the same way about the teachers who genuinely seem to live and breathe yoga.
Nevertheless, in the real world, this ideal can, understandably, be hard to live up to. Ask Jews, Catholics and Protestants as to which group is more “true” or follows the “real”, “orthodox” or idealized tradition. Better yet – don’t go there. Nor Sikh, Hindu, Shia or Sunni, etc. etc. Since their dawn, spiritual pursuits have had a natural tendency to splinter and sub-divide as zealous followers strive to maintain the “pure”, “true”, “uncorrupted” ideals of their faith – hence, thousand years of religious war. Indeed, the desire for spiritual purity is a powerful force.
Recently, the blogospere was buzzing about John Friend, a well-liked and highly regarded teacher and founder of Anusara yoga (nicely summarized here). Some of the buzz centered on the age-old question of whether the new tradition of Anusara yoga is really, truly valid and also whether Friend is a “true” guru or more of a (now rather wealthy) profit-seeking entrepreneur.
True or phoney. Its an age-old, passion-inflaming topic to be sure – great for driving blogosphere traffic! Even for yoga, its an issue that is thousands of years old (see David Gordon-White‘s “Sinister Yogis“). From his book page:
Combing through millennia of South Asia’s vast and diverse literature, he discovers that yogis are usually portrayed as wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, money, and sexual gratification. As White shows, even those yogis who aren’t downright villainous bear little resemblance to Western assumptions about them. At turns rollicking and sophisticated, Sinister Yogis tears down the image of yogis as detached, contemplative teachers, finally placing them in their proper context.
Of course, the recent blogosphere buzz about John Friend is nothing of this sort – its just a few impassioned blog posts here and there (watch Yoga Inc. for a more intense debate).
Perhaps this reflects one of the great things about yoga. Even with its own age-old debate of “true guru vs. showman”, it remains so uniquely free of the epic strife and hard feelings associated with other spiritual traditions. Its bare-bones, bare-foot simplicity offers little for debate and intellectual hang-ups and makes it easy to accommodate its many splintered traditions within any given yoga shala.
I came across these remarks by Carl Jung made in 1936 in his work, “Yoga and the West” – who seemed to parse the issues quite handily and foresee the over-hyping to come:
“Yoga was originally a natural process of introversion. … Such introversions lead to characteristic inner processes of personality changes. In the course of several thousand years these introversions became gradually organized as methods, and along widely different ways.”
“I can, however say something about what it [yoga] means for the West. Our lack of direction borders on psychic anarchy. Therefore any religious or philosophical practice amounts to a psychological discipline, and therefore a method of psychic hygiene.”
“Yoga is mainly found in India now as a business proposition and woe to us when it reaches Europe.”
Posted in alchemy, The Alchemical Body, tagged Alchemy, Anomalies and Alternative Science, ego, philosophy, spirituality, Yoga on July 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »
As I mentioned earlier (here), I really enjoyed David Gordon White‘s The Alchemical Body – an in-depth exploration into the interplay of yoga with spirituality, alchemy and the local political economics of India from 1,500 years ago and even earlier.
Before science and spirituality became dis-integrated, separate explorations (in the past 200 years), they were tightly intertwined and integrated for thousands of years in the practice of ALCHEMY. Just as alchemists (yogis were among the first and best alchemists!) tried to transmutate lesser metals into gold, they also sought to improve and perfect their bodies and minds. Eventually, the process became quite standardized across cultures along both chemical and psychological dimensions.
Here is an awesome blog post from Modus Vivendi entitled, “What I learned as a scientist from the 7 steps in alchemical transformation“. I love the first of 7 steps:
Calcination – Basically this means to destroy the substance. Normally by burning it to ashes. Mentally it is the destruction of the ego.
Yoga postures can be so darn difficult. Practice certainly has a way of crushing the ego. Much to explore here as modern science increasingly seeks to re-integrate science and spirituality.
Posted in Mindfulness, tagged Buddism, Emotion, Inner peace, Jawaharlal Nehru, mindfulness, Mircea Eliade, Religion and Spirituality, Samadhi, spirituality, Yoga on July 17, 2010| Leave a Comment »
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.
Posted in evolution, The Alchemical Body, tagged evolution, India, Religion and Spirituality, savasana, spirituality, The Alchemical Body on July 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Am having a great time reading David Gordon White‘s The Alchemical Body (here also) – an incredibly in-depth exploration into the interplay of yoga with spirituality, alchemy and the local political economics of India from 1,500 years ago and even earlier.
Man, there is just so much to learn about the early history of yoga and the origins of the rituals and practices of today.
One basic and central theme that emerges early in the book is that ancient religious practices are rooted in a fundamental notion of “body-world”, “spirit-world” and various “in-between” or “transitionary” states. This 3-fold view of the world is rather universal to human cultures and perhaps extends very far back in human history – perhaps emerging early in our evolutionary tree as humans/neanderthals evolved a mental capacity to recognize and contemplate their own mortality. For instance, evidence for religious behavior and burial rites reach as way far back as 300,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic seems to suggest that early humans acknowledged “something” beyond the physical earthy body.
So it seems that the concepts I personally contemplate in my own practice – my inner self, reaching for a deeper connection to something beyond, etc. – are the very same issues that our ancient ancestors struggled with as well. Clearly the contemplative practices – like those borne out in yoga are old – Mohenjo-daro old – which makes it hard to know their ancient history. In some way though, it feels wonderful to partake in this very old, very primal tradition – to push my gaze inward as humans have been trying to do for millennia.
With a recognition of our mortality in mind, many contemplative and religious practices – just like yoga – are very much centered around making transitions or connections from the earthly body to the more pure and immortal spirit world. White points out that for millennia, one universally intuitive way that humans would make such bridges was via ritualized sacrifices. By offering animal, blood or other types of sacrifices to spiritual beings, early human cultures attempted to open a connection, offer appeasement or other intermediate linkage with the spirit world.
Interestingly, what seems to have happened at some point on the way to our modern yoga is that ritualized sacrifice morphed from the outward slaughter of an animal to an inward-looking type of self-sacrifice. From Chapter 1 of TAB:
Within a few centuries of the composition of [the Satapatha Brahmana], a revolution in Indian thought would issue into the notion that humans too could internalize the sacrifice and thereby entirely bypass the mechanism of external sacrifice. This inward turn, which would ground the entire gnostic and nondualist project of the Upanisads, also sowed the seeds for the innovation of a body of techniques for internal bodily transformation – i.e. for the practice of hatha yoga.
And from Chapter 9:
Of vital importance to the yogic tradition is the fact that the sacrificial fires in question are gathered together in one’s body. There they serve as both a cremation pyre – by which the now-obsolete mundane, social body is shown to have truly died to the world – and, in the post-crematory existence of the sannyasin (the “renouncer”), as the seat of sacrifice, which has now been internalized. It is here, in the inner fires of tapas, which fuel the offerings of one’s vital breaths in the inner sacrifice known as the pranagnihotra, that the practice of yoga very likely had its theoretical origins.
So perhaps at a very deep, very primal level, my yoga practice is a type of sacrifice – an ancient, hopeful attempt to make a connection with a spirituality or something larger and more everlasting than my flabby, aging body. To recognize – most poignantly during “corpse pose” – that I am mortal, but wish not to be so.
Posted in Mindfulness, tagged Brain, Buddism, Dalai Lama, Meditation, Nervous system, Neuron, spirituality, Teachers and Centers on July 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »
In this essay, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama addresses the question, “What possible benefit could there be for a scientific discipline such as neuroscience in engaging in dialogue with Buddhist contemplative tradition?”
Posted in Mindfulness, tagged B. K. S. Iyengar, Breathing, Buddism, Central nervous system, Consciousness, dualism, Emotion, Health, Human, India, informatics, Meditation, mindfulness, Mood, Nervous system, Neuron, parasympathetic nervous system, Patañjali, Personalized medicine, philosophy, Religion and Spirituality, Shopping, spirituality, Yoga on June 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »
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.
Posted in evolution, tagged Adaptation, Buddism, cardiology, Central nervous system, dualism, Emotion, estivation, Human, India, Meditation, metabolism, Mind, mindfulness, Neuron, parasympathetic nervous system, Patañjali, philosophy, Practices, Psychology, Reactive oxygen species, relaxation, Religion and Spirituality, Samadhi, spirituality, sympathetic nervous system, Yoga, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali on June 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
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.
Posted in breathing, clinical trial, metabolism, tagged B. K. S. Iyengar, Breathing, Central nervous system, Consciousness, dualism, Emotion, India, Meditation, metabolism, Mind, mindfulness, Nervous system, oxygen consumption, parasympathetic nervous system, Patañjali, philosophy, Practice, Psychology, Reactive oxygen species, relaxation, Religion and Spirituality, spirituality, sympathetic nervous system, Teachers and Centers, Yoga on June 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »
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!
Posted in evolution, tagged Biology, Brain, Buddism, Central nervous system, Charles Darwin, Dalai Lama, Emotion, Empathy, evolution, History, Human, Mind, mindfulness, Paul Ekman, People, Psychology, Religion and Spirituality, Social Sciences, spirituality, Yoga on June 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Just a few excerpts from a lecture by the renown social psychologist Paul Ekman who is known for his work on the biology of human emotion. Here he relates conceptual bridges between the writings of Charles Darwin and HH The Dalai Lama. Ekman notes that both Darwin and HH The Dalai Lama intuit the existence of an organic natural source of compassion wherein humans are compelled to relieve the suffering of others so that the discomfort we feel when seeing others in pain can be relieved. HH The Dalai Lama further suggests that these emotions are spontaneous, but compassion can be enhanced through PRACTICE!
Seems that science and ancient traditions can have a fascinating way of re-informing each other.
Posted in breathing, tagged B. K. S. Iyengar, Brain, Central nervous system, coherence, Consciousness, dualism, Input/output, Meditation, Mind, mindfulness, Nervous system, Neuron, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, philosophy, Psychology, relaxation, Religion and Spirituality, Rodolfo R. Llinas, spirituality, Yoga on June 21, 2010| 2 Comments »
One of the themes that emerges in I.I atha yoganusasanam, and runs throughout the yoga sutras, is the notion that a yoga practice will bring one into a deeper awareness of the self. To begin to explore the modern science notion of self-awareness, here’s a 2009 paper entitled, “The ‘prediction imperative’ as the basis for self-awareness” by Rodolfo R. Llinas and Sisir Roy [doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0309]. The paper is part of a special theme issue from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B with the wonderfully karmic title: Predictions in the brain: using our past to prepare for the future.
Without unpacking the whole (open access) article, here are a few ideas that seem to connect loosely to themes in yoga.
The main issue addressed by the authors is how the brain manages to solve the computational problem of movement. Here’s the problem: to just, for example, reach into a refrigerator and grab a carton of milk (a far cry from, say, scorpion pose) they point out that,
“there are 50 or so key muscles in the hand, arm and shoulder that one uses to reach for the milk carton (leading to) over 1,000,000,000,000,000 combinations of muscle contractions (that) are possible.”
Yikes! that is an overwhelming computational problem for the brain to solve – especially when there are 1,000-times FEWER neurons in the entire brain (only a mere 1,000,000,000,000 neurons). To accomplish this computational feat, the authors suggest that brain has evolved 2 main strategies.
Firstly, the authors point out that the brain can lower the computational workload of controlling movement (motor output) by sending motor control signals in a non-continuous and pulsatile fashion.
“We see that the underlying nature of movement is not smooth and continuous as our voluntary movements overtly appear; rather, the execution of movement is a discontinuous series of muscle twitches, the periodicity of which is highly regular.”
This computational strategy has the added benefit of making it easier to bind and synchronize motor-movement signals with a constant flow of sensory input:
“a periodic control system may allow for input and output to be bound in time; in other words, this type of control system might enhance the ability of sensory inputs and descending motor command/controls to be integrated within the functioning motor apparatus as a whole.”
The idea of synchronizing sensory information with pulsing motor control signals brings to mind more poetic notions of rhythmicity and the way that yogis use their breath to enhance and unify their outer and inner world experience. Neat! Also, I very much like the idea that our brains have enormously complex computational tasks to perform, so I’m keen to do what I can to help out my central nervous system. Much gratitude to you brain!
Secondly, the authors then move ahead to describe the way in which neural circuits in the body and brain are inherently good at learning and storing information which makes them very good at predicting what to do with incoming sensory inputs. This may just be another strategy the brain has evolved to simplify the enormous computational load associated with moving and coordinating the body. Interestingly, the authors note,
“while prediction is localized in the CNS, it is a distributed function and does not have a single location within the brain. What is the repository of predictive function? The answer lies in what we call the self, i.e. the self is the centralization of the predictive imperative. The self is not born out of the realm of consciousness—only the noticing of it is (i.e. self-awareness).” Here’s a link to Llinas’ book on this topic.
The “self” is not just in the brain? but distributed throughout the entire CNS? Whoa! Much to explore here. Many thematic tie-ins with ancient Vedic notions of self and consciousness … will explore this in the future!
One last passage I found of interest was written by Moshe Bar, the editor of the special issue, who suggested that neural solutions to these inherent computational challenges make the brain/mind a naturally restless place. His words,
“As is evident from the collection of articles presented in this issue, the brain might be similarly flexible and ‘restless’ by default. This restlessness does not reflect random activity that is there merely for the sake of remaining active, but, instead, it reflects the ongoing generation of predictions, which relies on memory and enhances our interaction with and adjustment to the demanding environment.”
My yoga teachers often remind me that “monkey mind” is normal and with more practice, it will subside. Very cool to see a tie-in with modern research.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Addiction, Brain, Development, evolution, Mental health, religion, Social Sciences, spirituality, Twin on February 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Humans are spiritual creatures – there’s no denyin’. How & why we got this way is one of THE BIG questions of all time. Since our genome shapes the development of our brain and its interaction with our culture, its not a surprise to see that, from time to time, folks will look for and find genetic links to various forms of spiritual and religious behavior. Here’s a recent paper from Kenneth Kendler’s research team at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine entitled, “A Developmental Twin Study of Church Attendance and Alcohol and Nicotine Consumption: A Model for Analyzing the Changing Impact of Genes and Environment” [link to abstract]. An analysis of more than 700 pairs of twins found that the correlation between alcohol and nicotine consumption and church attendance (more church predicts less smokin’ and drinkin’) is more than 50% influenced by genetic factors – in adults. In children and teens, the genetic contribution to the correlation is much less and the strength of the correlation stems more from shared environmental factors (parents, school etc.). Is there a gene for going to church? Nope. Are there genes that shape a person’s inclination toward novelty or conscientiousness? More likely so. Are they distributed across all races and cultures? Yep. Lots to ponder next Sunday morning.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png)
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
Genes 2 Brains 2 Mind 2 Me 