Meditation and Compassion

by Nina 

Lake Tahoe by Melina Meza

“Nonetheless, the current finding is the first to clearly show the power of meditation to increase compassionate responding to suffering, even in the face of social pressures to avoid so doing. As such, it provides scientific credence to ancient Buddhist teachings that meditation increases spontaneous compassionate behavior.” —Paul Condon, et al

Just a quick heads-up today about a recent scientific study about the effects of meditation practice on compassion that was written up in last Sunday’s NY Times The Morality of Meditation.

In my post Practicing Yoga Off the Mat, I wrote about my desire to cultivate compassion toward others in my life to foster better relationships. In that post, I cited Yoga Sutra 1.33 in describing my off-the-mat practice:

By cultivating an attitude of friendship toward those who are happy, compassion toward those in distress, joy toward those who are virtuous, and equanimity toward those who are nonvirtuous, lucidity arises in the mind. —trans. by Edwin Bryant

Lately we’ve also been addressing meditation on the blog. In Is Meditation an Essential Part of Yoga Practice, Timothy wrote about the importance of meditation, describing it as “a fabulous tool to study your mind and slowly gain more control over it.” But according to Buddhist tradition, meditation also provides important inter-personal benefits as well. This is why a group of people, including psychologist Paul Condon, neuroscientist Gaëlle Desbordes and Buddhist lama Willa Miller, decided to conduct a study looking at these particular benefits to the practice:

“Contemplative science has documented a plethora of intra-personal benefits stemming from meditation, including increases in gray matter density (Hölzel, Carmody, et al., 2011), positive affect (Moyer et al., 2011) and improvement in various mental health outcomes (Hölzel, Lazar, et al., 2011). Strikingly, however, much less is known about the inter-personal impact of meditation. Although Buddhist teachings suggest that increases in compassionate responding should be a primary outcome of meditation (Davidson & Harrington, 2002), little scientific evidence exists to support this conjecture.” —Paul Condon, et al

For this study, the scientists recruited 39 people from the Boston area who were willing to take part in an eight-week course on meditation (and who had never taken any such course before). They randomly assigned 20 of them to take part in weekly meditation classes, which also required them to practice at home with recordings, while they told the remaining 19 that they had been placed on a waiting list for a future course.

After the eight-week period of instruction, the scientists staged a situation designed to test the participants’ behavior before they were aware that there was an experiment. Would a participant who was waiting in the lab’s waiting area give up his or her seat when a fourth person, using crutches and wearing a boot for a broken foot, entered the room and audibly sighing in pain entered the room in which all seats were taken and the other two people ignored her? The scientists reported that the results were significant because while only 16 percent of the non-meditators gave up their seats, the proportion rose to 50 percent among those who had meditated. And this after only eight weeks of practice!

Of course, the question that immediately arises is: why would eight weeks of meditation have this effect on a person’s compassion for others? At this point, they can only speculate. David DeSteno, one of the scientists, wrote in the NY Times article:

“Although we don’t yet know why meditation has this effect, one of two explanations seems likely. The first rests on meditation’s documented ability to enhance attention, which might in turn increase the odds of noticing someone in pain (as opposed to being lost in one’s own thoughts). My favored explanation, though, derives from a different aspect of meditation: its ability to foster a view that all beings are interconnected.”

Regardless of why it works, using meditation to cultivate compassion will no doubt help foster better relationships not just with total strangers but also with people in your life. If you’re not already meditating and want to start, see Timothy’s post Starting a Meditation Practice.

Starting a Meditation Practice

by Timothy

Berries by Melina Meza

In my last blog post (Is Meditation an Essential Part of Practicing Yoga?), I wrote about why meditation may be the most powerful tool in the yoga toolbox for improving health and well-being. Yet meditation is not part of most yoga classes, which tend to focus almost exclusively on asana. Indeed, many yoga practitioners who have become interested in meditation have looked to Buddhism or elsewhere to learn how to meditate because they weren’t finding it in the yoga world.

But, as I mentioned previously, meditation was traditionally an integral part of yoga practice, and within the yoga tradition there are dozens of different techniques. Contrary to popular belief, in yogic meditation you are usually not trying to make your mind empty, but instead the process begins by learning how to concentrate your focus. To facilitate this, it helps to focus your attention on one thing, perhaps a word or phrase (a mantra), an object like a candle or a picture of a teacher or deity, or simply on your breath itself. With sustained attention, you may slip into a meditative state.

So, strictly speaking, we do not sit down to meditate, but rather we sit to foster the state that may lead to meditation. Since the mind tends to wander—even among experienced meditators—there may not be much (or even any) actual meditation in any particular session of sitting. Still, this movement towards meditation all by itself brings physiological and health benefits. And, of course, with sustained practice, more and more actual meditation can happen. At first, it may just be for a moment now and again, and that’s just fine.

The first question then is how do you sit? Despite the pictures you’re likely to see of people meditating, you do not need to sit cross-legged on the floor, though if you can that may be one of the best ways. Kneeling in Virasana (Hero pose), perhaps with a block under your sitting bones, is an excellent alternative. What’s important is that you maintain your normal spinal curves, particularly the inward curve of your lower back (the lumbar curve). This is difficult for most people to do if they try to sit cross-legged on the floor, which is why one or more cushions should be placed under the sitting bones, allowing the healthy forward tipping of the pelvis that facilitates maintaining an easy lumbar curve. When you’ve got the height right, your thighs will angle down slightly toward the floor. If you've propped yourself up high to do this, you may need to put additional support underneath your thighs to remain comfortable. Getting all of this right is an art, and if you’re not sure how to proceed I suggest you seek the help of an experienced yoga teacher.

For many people, it will be much easier and much more effective to sit in a chair for meditation. You’re only going to be able to concentrate and/or meditate if you can remain in a comfortable upright position, and if you’re not comfortable sitting on the floor, it’s best to try a chair. For those sitting in a chair, I recommend scooting to the front of the seat, because if you sit back, most chairs encourage a flattening or rounding of the lumbar spine. If your feet don’t reach the ground comfortably, place blocks, thick books, or folded blankets under them. If your legs, like mine, are long, you may need to place a folded blanket on the chair to raise the seat. But no matter the position you choose, if possible, your head should be directly over your shoulders and pelvis. If you get it right, there should be very little work required to stay upright.

Although it may not be ideal, for those who can't sit comfortably, it is possible to meditate lying down. Some people in the yoga world would take exception to this, but I have found it to be useful in the yoga therapy work I do. One of the principles of teaching yoga is that we try to meet students where there are, and this is where some people are: they cannot sit comfortably. Yes, there is a greater tendency to get sleepy or zone out while supine, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The simple yet powerful practice I often suggest for beginners (and experienced students as well) is a meditation technique known as So Ham (sometimes written So Hum because that’s how it's pronounced). Settle into a seated position that balances ease and an upright spine, and notice the flow of air in your nostrils. Begin to focus on the sound of your breath. The ancient yogis felt they could hear in the inhalation the sound “Soooooooooh” and in the exhalation “hummmmmmmmm.” They didn't make the sound so much as they tuned into the sound that the breath naturally makes, believing it to be a mantra that’s built in. In Sanskrit so ham means “I am that,” which to the yogis signaled their connection to the greater whole. Try to stay focused on that sound, noticing your breath but not trying to control it. If you discover your attention has wavered, simply observe that without judgment, and gently bring your focus back to So Ham.

I'd recommend trying to stay for 3-5 minutes initially, working up gradually to 20 minutes or longer daily. As with all yoga practices, a little bit every day will bring greater benefits than longer sessions done intermittently.

Yoga Relaxation Techniques: They're Not Interchangeable

by Nina

Patterns in the Sand 2, by Brad Gibson

Okay, I admit it. It’s probably my fault. I’ve been going around saying that you can trigger the Relaxation Response (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga) using any of the following: restorative yoga, inverted poses, Savasana, pranayama, meditation, and yoga nidra, etc. as if all those practices were somehow interchangeable. This has led to questions like the following comment left on a Friday Q&A: Yoga Nidra, Restorative Yoga, Meditation and Savasana:

It is very helpful to read the distinctions between these four practices as I try to practice all of them, but it's hard to find the time. I'd be really interested to get your thoughts on whether it's important to do all four? For example, if you do restorative while listening to a nidra CD, do you also need to meditate? I'm interested to know what the various benefits are of these four practices, or are the benefits all the same?

Let me start by saying that what I said previously—that you can use any of these practices for stress management—still holds true. And it is also true that you can choose whichever techniques you prefer to trigger the Relaxation Response. However, these practices each have different roles to play in a balanced yoga practice.

The role of meditation in a balanced yoga practice is particularly important. That’s why I asked Timothy to write an article on the purpose of meditation (see his absolutely wonderful post Is Meditation an Essential Par of Practicing Yoga?). Basically, although you can use meditation for stress reduction, its role in classical yoga is to quiet the mind to allow union with the divine or “liberation”:

1.2 Yoga is the cessation of movements of consciousness.
1.3 Then the seer dwells in his own true splendor.

— from Yoga Sutras, trans. B.K.S. Iyengar

Meditation is also, as Timothy mentions, a “fabulous tool to study your mind and slowly gain more control over it.”

Pranayama is also an important component of classical yoga, which precedes meditation as one of eight steps on the path to samadhi (union with the divine). It is considered an instrument to “steady the mind” and a gateway to dharana (the first phase of meditation).

“Pranayama removes the veil covering the light of knowledge and heralds the dawn of wisdom.

Its practice destroys illusion, consisting of ignorance, desire and delusion which obscure the intelligence; and allows the inner light of wisdom to shine. As the breeze disperses the clouds that cover the sun, pranayama wafts away the clouds that hide the light of intelligence.” — Sutra 2.52 trans. by B.K.S. Iyengar

On the other hand, the two types of asana I recommended for triggering the Relaxation Response, restorative yoga and supported inversions, are brilliant 20th century inventions, mostly developed by B.K.S. Iyengar, which are designed specifically to maximize physical relaxation and reduce stress. Judith Lasater, one of the most renowned teachers of restorative yoga, writes in the introduction to her book Relax and Renew:

“The antidote to stress is relaxation. To relax is to rest deeply. This rest is different from sleep. Deep states of sleep include periods of dreaming which increase muscular tension, as well as other physiological signs of tension. Relaxation is a state in which there is no movement, no effort, and the brain is quiet.

"Common to all stress reduction techniques is putting the body in a comfortable position with gentle attention directed toward the breath.”

Likewise, yoga nidra is also a 20th century invention (though you may see some claims to the contrary) developed by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. The first sentence of his book Yoga Nidra defines the practice like this:

“Yoga nidra, which is derived from the tantras, is a powerful technique in which you learn to relax consciously.”

In yoga nidra, you lie in Savasana while the voice of a teacher (or a recording) guides you through a physical and mental relaxation process. So, like restorative yoga, yoga nidra is specifically intended as a relaxation technique, and as such does not replace meditation or pranayama in a balanced yoga practice. This would be true of any form of Savasana in which an external voice is providing instructions and/or imagery for you. Unlike other relaxation techniques, yoga nidra includes a sankalpa (an intention) that allows you to influence your subconscious (or so it is claimed). For example, “I will awaken my spiritual potential,” “I will be a positive force for the evolution of others,” or “I will be successful in all that I undertake.” So this may be something you wish to take into consideration when choosing your relaxation practice.

Unlike the modern restorative postures, Savasana is a much older pose. Based on what I’ve read about the original practice, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Savasana is a reclining form of meditation. For some traditional yogis, it was a meditation on death, hence the literal translation of the name Savasana is “Corpse pose,” and it was sometimes even practiced alongside actual corpses. To practice Savasana properly, however, you must actually do the work of meditating while you are in the pose (and make sure you don’t fall asleep). If you don’t actually meditate while in Savasana, then, well, you are simply relaxing. But that's okay, too, if that is what you are after.

So there you have it. Which of these practices you decide to adopt really depends on what your goals are as well as your preferences. If you’re just after stress management and better health, it doesn’t really matter which you chose. However, if your goal is the “liberation” that is yoga’s ultimate aim, both pranayama and meditation are essential steps along the path.

Sorry if I caused any confusion!

Ultimate liberation is when the gunas, devoid of any purpose for the purusa, return to their original [latent] state; in other words, when the power of consciousness is situation in its own essential nature. —Yoga Sutra 4.34 trans. Edwin Bryant

Is Meditation an Essential Part of Practicing Yoga?

by Timothy

Patterns in the Sand by Brad Gibson

Do you need to meditate? Can you achieve all or most of the same benefits from just practicing asana, restorative yoga, Savasana, and/or pranayama? Is it worth even trying if you feel like you're no good at it? We get questions like these at the blog from time to time, so I figured I'd tackle them today.

I can't help but notice that people often talk about yoga and meditation as two separate practices. But according to Patanjali, the great codifier of yoga, meditation was an integral part of the practice. By yoga, of course, most people in the U.S. mean asana, which is why people say yoga and meditation. And since most asana classes don't include any meditation, many yoga practitioners have looked outside of yoga, often to Buddhism, if they're interested in learning more. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think people forget that the Buddha was a yogi before he became the Buddha!

Meditation gets a lot of press as an effective tool to de-stress, to calm the mind and the nervous system. That's certainly true, but if that were all meditation had to offer, you could hardly view the practice as vital, since we've got so many tools in yoga that can foster relaxation: asana, breathing practices, chanting and restoratives to name a few.

To many dedicated yogis, however, meditation is the crown jewel of the practice. They recommend asana mostly because it prepares the body for meditation, to sit up straight comfortably for long periods of time. All the high levels of samadhi—absorption as it is sometimes translated—the eighth of the eight limbs of yoga that Patanjali describes in the Yoga Sutras, are said to happen only in meditation. And, more specifically, from its long-term practice over the course of years, even decades.

I have been meditating for a long time, and it has become in many ways the most delicious part of my practice. It didn't start out that way. My mind was very busy when I began, and it was extremely difficult for me to keep my attention from flitting from idea to idea. And it was hard to find comfort sitting in one place, without frequent position adjustments and fidgeting. Many people who try to meditate get discouraged at this point and give up. That, I believe, is a mistake. As with a lot of other areas of yoga, hanging in when things are challenging, even discouraging, can bring rewards. Yoga teaches that it is by strengthening our weaknesses that we become more balanced.

Meditation can be a fabulous tool to study your mind and slowly gain more control over it. (I'm not just talking about the conscious mind, which is mostly what gets dealt with, often quite helpfully, in psychotherapy, but the unconscious mind, which hugely impacts our behavior and happiness.) The first lesson for most of us on the meditation cushion is just how unruly our minds are, and how hard it is to maintain our focus for more than a few seconds. Seeing that reality may be uncomfortable, but it's the first step toward eventually changing it.

And there is real benefit in feeling your mind running all over the place, wanting to get up and move, and continuing to stay seated anyway, trying to bring your attention back to whatever you're focusing on, whether that's your breath, an image, or a mantra. Studies of the Relaxation Response, which were performed on people practicing a demystified form of yogic mantra meditation, have shown that even when practitioners don't feel they are doing it well, they gain the physiological benefits of lower blood pressure, heart rates, etc.

Even after years of practice, some days my mind is still all over the place. But usually, if I stay at it, things eventually settle down. One reason why some experts recommend 20 minutes of meditation daily is that it often takes about that long to settle down. But the more you practice the easier it gets.

You might wonder where you will find the extra time to add a 20-minute practice to your already busy schedule. Well, first off, you don't need to do it for that long. Even a few minutes in the beginning starts to build up the habit. Over time you can slowly increase the time you sit. Interestingly, about a decade ago when I upped my practice to an hour a day, I discovered that I began to need about an hour less sleep each night, as if the meditation were giving me some of sleep's restorative effects. It felt like I was getting to meditate for free, without carving any time out of my day!

In my yoga therapy work, I often recommend meditation, but not always. Sometimes when someone is very anxious or seriously depressed, if they attempt to close their eyes and go inward, they may go into an unpleasant—and potentially counterproductive—state of mind. But if we can use other tools, like breath and asana, to improve the acute situation (along with whatever medication, therapy or other tools they are employing), I will often try to add meditation later. I have come to believe that for the long-term care of anxiety and depression, meditation may be the most powerful tool we have. It gets to places that asana simply can't, as powerful as asana can be.  But unlike a lot of meditators, I don't think you should give up your asana practice once you get into meditating. Because asana also gets to some places that meditation can't, like your hip flexors, for example!

The bottom line is that the different yogic tools appear to work together in a synergistic fashion. Meditating can make you a better asana practitioner, and doing asana can help deepen your meditation. And regular pranayama can help both of them!

In my next post, I'll give more specifics on how to begin a meditation practice. If there are particular themes you'd like to me address, please let us know.

Meditation: A Bench Press for the Brain?

by Nina

Two recent articles in the NY Times suggest that practicing meditation may increase our cognitive abilities. The first article, How Meditation Might Boost Your Test Scores, discussed a study published last month in the journal Psychological Science  by University of California, Santa Barbara researchers. The UCSB researchers found that after a group of undergraduates went through a two-week intensive mindfulness training program, their mind-wandering decreased and their working memory capacity improved. They also performed better on a GRE reading comprehension test. Students in the control group had no similar improvement.

Granted, this study was on young adults, but increasing memory capacity in general sounds real good to me! Richard J. Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has studied brain function in long-term and novice mindful meditators, explained it this way, “You can improve the signal-to-noise ratio by reducing the noise. Decreasing mind-wandering is doing just that.”

The second NY Times article, In Sitting Still, a Bench Press for the Brain, discussed the many possible benefits of meditation in older people, citing several different studies. One study that intrigued me was The unique brain anatomy of meditation practitioners: alterations in cortical gyrification published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal in February, which looked at the extent to which meditation may affect neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to make physiological changes) Previous studies found that the brains of long-term meditators had increased amounts of gray matter—believed to be involved in processing information and white matter—believed to be the “wiring” of the brain’s communication system.

In the recent University of California, Los Angeles study, M.R.I. scans were used to measure the features of the subject’s brains and compare them to a control group of non-meditators. The meditators had a median age of 51 and had all been practicing meditation of various types for an average of 20 years. The oldest subject was 71 and the longest practitioner had been meditating regularly for 46 years. The study concluded that “the degree of cortical gyrification appeared to increase as the number of years practicing meditation increased.” The Times quotes the lead scientist of the study:

“We used to believe that when you were born, your brain would grow and reach a peak in the early 20s and then start shrinking,” Dr. Luders said. “It was thought there was nothing we could do to change that.”

Now it appears that we can! Although this study does not provide conclusive proof that meditation caused the brain adaptations or that the increased folds meant improved cognitive performance for these older adults, the results were certainly intriguing and I’m sure there will be more research in this area to come.

I don’t know about you, but keeping my cognitive abilities in good shape as I age is pretty high on my priority list! And these two articles at least give me some hope that there is something that I can actually do about it—something completely free, with no dangerous side effects, mind you.

Achieving Stillness in Turbulent Situations

by Ram

Cataract by Brad Gibson

In chapter 3 and verse 2 of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, we are introduced to the topic of meditation (dhayana) as follows:

“Tatra Pratyaya Ekatanata Dhyanam”

tatra = there, therein; pratyaya = the feeling, notion, idea, cognition; ekatanata (eka = one, single- tanata = continuous, uninterrupted); dhyanam = meditation

Swami Jnaneshvara translates this as: “The repeated continuation or uninterrupted stream of that one point of idea/notion is called meditation.” To put it simply, when the mind remains undistracted (stillness) for a length of time, it is called meditation.

I do not need to elaborate on this topic as this site has extensively dealt with this aspect. In addition to defining and explaining the term dhyana (meditation), Baxter also provided a lucid explanation about ways to meditate. Both Brad and Nina followed it up by posting very interesting articles regarding the science of/behind meditation and the effects of meditation on chronic stress and brain aging (see Meditation and Brain Strength and Stress Mind, Stressed Cells. Undoubtedly, meditation has been shown to produce immense medical benefits. Among others, meditation reduces emotional stresses - including fear, worry, anxiety, anger, rage, etc - reduces chronic pain, increases cognitive function, lowers blood pressure, alleviates post-traumatic stress syndrome, increases positive states of mind and slows down cellular aging.

Interestingly, each time I am asked to teach various aspects of meditation, the one common question that I encounter is if I could suggest some tips for meditating in a challenging environment (loud noise, room is cold, neighbor’s breathing is too loud, smell of incense is too strong, mosquito/flies buzzing overhead, etc.). In fact, one of our readers recently sent us the following question:

Do you have any tips on finding one's center when one's environment isn't quiet or warm?

I agree that it does get tough to come to stillness if you are being disturbed or getting distracted due to any number of reasons, including those previously mentioned. But life is never a bed of roses, correct? Life is a balance of opposites: positives and negatives, success and failures, good and bad, mobile and grounded, etc. Our goal is to do the best we can in the given set of circumstances and try to achieve the maximum. The same principle applies to the practice of meditation as well. No doubt, it is peaceful and invigorating to meditate in a salubrious environment, but is it always possible to expect such serene surroundings? My grandfather insisted that we practice meditation in the railway station (how much tougher could it get?). That’s because meditation can be done in a challenging environment. If it is a noisy environment, you can plug your ears, or if the room is freezing, you can put on several layers of clothes to ward off the cold. But remember physical comforts have no boundaries. How far would you go to get comfortable physically in order to achieve that stillness in mind?

The goal of meditation is to be at ease, relaxed and at peace with our surroundings. It is important to not resist the disturbing/distracting influence that comes in the way of your meditation practice (in your case traffic or the cold environment). So do not try to ignore the influence or to block it out, for if you try to do, you will only meet with stiffer resistance, ending in frustration. Instead, simply let it be (“thathaasthu” in Sanskrit) and continue with your meditation. Everything is a part of meditation, all the influences including the noise, the thoughts, the emotions, and the resistance from the mind. Treat everything that arises in meditation the same way—let it be and just be there!

Anger Management: Philosophy, Science and Yoga

by Ram

The Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna, and serves as a guiding manual for the daily conduct of life, spiritual uplift and self-realization. It is a treatise addressed to each and every individual to help him or her to solve life’s daily problems and progress towards a bright future (see also Nina’s post Acceptance, Active Engagement and the Bhagavad Gita).

Growing up in an extended family in India, we were regularly counseled by the elders on the spiritual foundations of human existence based on the principles of the Bhagavad Gita. Particularly striking and fascinating within its eighteen chapters are several references to sound mental health, which declare that the very goal of any human activity is to achieve a state of perfect understanding, clarity, renewed strength and triumph.

One particular verse that triggered my interest was regarding the death of an individual triggered by rage and anger.

Krodhad bhavati sammohah, sammohat smrti-vibhramah!

smrti-bhramsad buddhi-naso, buddhi-nasat pranasyati!!

“From anger comes delusion. From delusion loss of memory. From loss of memory the destruction of discrimination. From destruction of discrimination, the individual perishes.” —trans. by Swami Chidbhavananda

According to the textual commentary, the ignorant mind thinks that worldly objects will give it pleasure and happiness. Continuous thinking about the objects of senses creates attachment to them. Attachment leads to desire, and when the desire is not fulfilled, one gets angry (krodha), that in turn leads to delusion (moha) and confused memory (smriti). The confusion of memory causes destruction of reasoning (buddhi) due to which an individual is ruined and dies.

Prickly Catcus by Brad Gibson

I used to recall this relationship between anger and death during my college days and as a graduate student in neurosciences. How did these divine preachers suspect that anger could trigger the demise of an individual? Is there a causal relationship? What molecular pathways connect rage/anger to the death of a person?

Research from several diverse groups, including health professionals, behavioral scientists, psychologists and others, indicates that rage and anger are definitely hazardous to health. A high level of rage/anger has a powerful effect on the incidence of preventable cardiovascular death. Evidence indicates that anger evokes physiological responses that are potentially life threatening in triggering Coronary Heart Disease (CHD).

“When we are angry, not only do we spew out negativity to someone else, but our own body chemistry changes, and these changes can be harmful to our health” —James S. Brooks & Peter Anselmo from Ayurvedic Secrets to Longevity & Total Health

Anger triggers increased platelet activation and thrombosis, resulting in unwanted, pathological, and life-threatening clot formation. Anger also increases vulnerability to illnesses, compromises the immune system, increases lipid levels, exacerbates pain, and produces vasoconstriction of narrowed arteries. Finally, anger has been associated with chronic over-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. This increased sympathetic activity has been shown to result in increased blood pressure and heart rate, and alterations of ventricular function.

In addition, anger triggers the release of free fatty acids into the bloodstream, and elevates the levels of circulating catecholamines and corticosteroids, all of which ultimately trigger heart disease. According to the American Heart Association and National Institute on Aging, CHD patients with higher levels of anger/hostility are also more likely to engage in CHD-risk behaviors, such as, smoking, overeating, decreased physical activity, decreased sleep, and increased use of alcohol and drugs. Thus, it is imperative to understand the significance of the pathways that connect anger to death. Once a seeker understands these pathways, he or she can then master the technique of controlling/processing the anger process.

In the post by Nina, Baxter recommends pranayama techniques and certain specific asanas to curb anger and achieve calmness. Another method to control/process anger is through meditation (dhyana), the cheapest and simplest recourse to a healthy body and mind.

Meditation transcends gender, race, skin color, profession, monetary status and, above all, religion. It does not require any elaborate setup, materials, clothes, space, doctors, nurses, or hospitals. Anyone who has the time and interest can practice meditation. Its benefits are immense and it is becoming mainstream. While meditation does not cure a person of anger, a person who has a meditation practice sees and reacts to anger differently. The individual will not only have the capacity to transcend the anger process but this person will not evoke the same physical and emotional reactions that are commonly seen in a person who does not meditate. Awareness to the thought and its flow, and awareness to anger arising inside can have remedial effects. And all this can be helpful in the journey to the center.

Anxiety, Meditation, and Yoga Nidra

by Baxter

I couldn’t help but feel a kind of traveling yoga teacher kinship with Timothy as I read his post from yesterday Autumn, Healthy Aging and the Ayurvedic Dosha Vata!  My September and October are so packed with stuff (mostly all good and exciting, but just a lot!) that I have found myself feeling ungrounded as well. On my recent teaching weekend in Montana and Wyoming (big, dry, windy places!), I would even say a bit of anxiety crept into my mind and body. In addition, a 6:00 am flight had me feeling pretty tired at the start of things as well. I considered doing my usual asana practice, but then my intuition suggested another path: sitting meditation. So I did just that. For the next four days, I meditated for 20 minutes, twice a day. And quickly, I began to feel more rested and mentally grounded than I had for weeks. 

But there have been other times when I have been so wiped out and frazzled that even sitting meditation seemed like too much energy to expend. Fortunately, I had another tool in the old yoga toolbox for just such an occasion: yoga nidra! 

We’ve introduced this practice before, but this seems like a good time of year to re-introduce it and remind you of its possible benefits for anxiety. One hallmark feature of an anxious mind is the tendency to have urgent, repetitive thought patterns full of worry and fear that are hard to turn off. This leads to difficulty concentrating on normal everyday tasks or anything else for that matter, trouble focusing on communication with others, and perhaps most troubling, difficulty relaxing mentally and physically enough to get good rest.

Enter yoga nidra. In the yoga nidra practice, you are encouraged to set yourself up in the most supportive and delicious Savasana (Relaxation pose) you can put together, so that your body talk does not interfere with the yoga nidra process. Since most of us confronted with anxiety are searching desperately for help, the beginning of the yoga nidra guided rest offers us the opportunity to formally set an intention or resolve, known as the sankalpa.  It is stated by the swami who developed this relatively modern yoga practice that the resolve you set at the start of yoga nidra can lead to significant transformation in your life. Let’s hope so!

Marsh by Brad Gibson

From there on out, your only job is to follow along with the guiding voice that is taking you through the yoga nidra practice, while making a commitment to staying gently alert and awake for the journey. It’s recommended that you not use an eye pillow, which tends to trigger a reflex in the eyes that make you too sleepy. My friend and yoga teacher teacher Sharon Olson uses colorful bandanas as eye covers, as they are light enough to avoid that reflex. By setting your focus on following the exterior voice of the teacher closely and being guided through a series of sensing exercises and visualizations, you effectively short-circuit the constant stream of your everyday mind. In fact, it is likely that your brain wave patterns shift from the daytime active ones to the patterns associated with meditation brain states, such as alpha and finally theta waves. (I have yet to see research to support this, but techniques similar to yoga nidra have been used in other fields of inquiry with such results.)

And even though you are trying to stay awake in yoga nidra, if you do fall asleep for part or all of the session, you get a well-deserved nap. The more regularly you do the practice, the more likely you are to stay lightly awake and reap the benefits of the “relaxation response” we have written about elsewhere. Usually, yoga nidra is taught live by a teacher who guides you or a class through the 20-45 minute practice, or you can find many recordings of yoga nidra that can serve the same purpose. I have two loaded on my smart phone (from Richard Miller and Rod Stryker), so I can do yoga nidra anywhere I happen to be, including on an airplane, despite having to do it sitting up!  And for those who may have forgotten or did not know, we have a short yoga nidra available for you to try right here on the blog (click on the Audio Tracks tab at the top of the page).

And to my lovely student, Bobby, in Redlodge MT, I will do my best to record a full-length yoga nidra this fall for all of you try.

Meditation and Healthy Eating

by Nina

My friend Elizabeth told me that before I knew her she weighed 205 pounds, but that she was able to lose weight and keep it off by changing her eating habits. From my observations of people close to me who have weight problems and from what I’ve read, I understood how unusual this was. So I asked Elizabeth to share her story with us. Okay, fine, I admit it! I have an agenda. Because I know from our previous conversations that Elizabeth has a regular meditation practice as well as a regular yoga practice, and that she credits both with helping her stay focused on maintaining her healthy eating habits.

Cake and Photo by Brad Gibson (yeah, he bakes, too)

I also happen to be reading The Willpower Instinct by Kelley McGonigal, Ph.D. because I want to learn more about how to help people change their eating habits. That’s because, as I'm sure most of you know by now, maintaining a healthy weight and eating more nourishing foods is vital for healthy aging. And sure enough, in one of the early chapters in Dr. McGonigal’s book she tells us that one of the best ways to strengthen your self control (and don’t we all need that to help us resist the daily food temptations we’re exposed to, I mean, my own daughter is pastry chef!) is to meditate.

Here is what she says:

“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self awareness. People who meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support self-awareness."

And the good news is that it doesn’t take a lifetime of meditation to change the brain. Here’s another quote from The Willpower Instinct:

"One study found that just three hours of meditation practice led to improved attention and self control. The new meditators had increased neural connections between regions of the brain important for staying focused, ignoring distractions, and controlling impulses. Another study found that eight weeks of daily meditation practice led to increased self-awareness in everyday life, as well as increased gray matter in corresponding areas of the brain.

"It may seem incredible that incredible that our brains can reshape themselves so quickly, but meditation increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, in much the same way that lifting weights increases blood flow to your muscles The brain appears to adapt to exercise in the same way that muscles do, getting both bigger and faster in order to get better at what you ask of it."

I don’t know about you, but I find these results fascinating. Because while self control is important for healthy eating, it’s also helpful for many other ways of fostering of healthy aging, whether it is something you need to stop doing, such as smoking, or something you need to start, like exercising.

But enough about science! Let’s hear what Elizabeth says about putting theory into practice:

Nina: Can you tell us something about why you needed to change your eating habits?

Elizabeth: I was overweight (205 lbs) and unhealthy at 32. I also had Crohn's disease. The change started when I moved to California in 1999. Eventually, I lost 50 lbs and have kept it off for 12 years.

Nina: What changes were you able to make that led to the weight loss and helped you maintain it?

Elizabeth: I started by making small, realistic changes that I knew would be easy to maintain. For dietary changes, I started with milk. I went from regular to 2%, then 1%. If I had fat-I tried to make it a healthy one such as avocado or olive oil. I also created a cookbook of my favorite recipes, and revamped them so they are still flavorful but healthy. I'm a genius at the 30-minute healthy dinner. My favorite is Cuban Black Bean soup. I try to always make time in my day for exercise. If I couldn't go to the gym, I would make a point of taking the stairs or walking on my lunch break. I also changed my perspective by viewing eating healthy and exercising as a way to do something positive for myself, not something to dread. I have a nice variety of yoga and exercise DVDs at home, which is also very convenient.

Nina: What is your meditation practice like and how do you think it helps you maintain healthy eating habits?

Elizabeth: I practice Transcendental Meditation, which is typically done twice daily, for 20 minutes. I meditate in the morning—I feel it's a great start to my day. It helps me to get the rest and focus that I need. It also manages stress and helps me to be checked in with what's going on in my life. I'm more likely to defer my unhealthy snacks once I've checked in with myself.

Nina: What you said about meditation helping you get focus is very interesting. Kelly McGonigal says, “Meditation is not about getting rid of your thoughts; it’s learning not to get so lost in them you forget what your goal is.” So meditation is supposed to help you stay “focused” on your goals.

I know that you also practice yoga asana. Has this helped with you maintain healthy eating habits? If so, how?

Elizabeth: Yoga has been wonderful in many ways. I am more relaxed, have less back pain, and I am more aware of how I'm feeling. For example, for most of the time, when I'm hungry, I'm actually dehydrated or have low potassium. I'll have a glass of water and a banana and I'm fine. Yoga helps me to be quiet through an uncomfortable situation (there are many of those in my practice!). I've learned to just pay attention to my breath and it usually moves me through a situation feeling very safe and grounded.

Nina: What you just said is so important! I think self-awareness is vital for healthy eating. You need to learn, as you said, when you’re just dehydrated rather than hungry, when you’re full and should stop eating, and which foods make feel good rather than just tasting good. And the relationship between stress management and healthy eating is so key that you’ve given me an idea for a future post. Thank you so much, Lizzy!

The Effect of Yoga Poses on Your Mood

by Nina

“To sit in Lotus Pose and gaze at one’s nose is said to be a spiritual practice; to do Lotus Pose and concentrate on the coccyx or elsewhere is said to be a physical practice. Where is the difference? How can Hatha Yoga be only physical and Raja Yoga only spiritual?” —BKS Iyengar

Iyengar sounds a bit cranky in that quote, doesn’t he? I think that’s because back in the 60s he was getting tired of explaining his somewhat radical point of view that doing yoga poses was a form of meditation. Traditionally yoga poses were seen as physical exercises to purify and strength the body for meditation and other spiritual practices. But Iyengar argued that the poses themselves were a spiritual practice.

“A posture can be considered as much a mantra or as much as meditation.” —BKS Iyengar

I thought of this recently when I read an interesting article about a study about the affects of meditation on moods (see Meditation Induces Positive Structural Brain Changes). When I first heard about the article, I thought it was going to be about a study of traditional seated meditation, and I was excited about the possibility that there was proof that traditional meditation helped improve our moods. Instead, I found the study was done using a special form of Chinese meditation called Integrative Body-Mind Training (IBMT) that “differs from other forms of meditation because it depends heavily on the inducement of a high degree of awareness and balance of the body, mind, and environment. And the study found:

“Building on results from a study they published in 2010, investigators found that healthy college-aged volunteers who practiced IBMT for 4 weeks showed significantly improved mood changes compared with those who did not practice the meditation technique.

The researchers note that these mood changes coincided with improved axonal density and expansion of myelin in the anterior cingulate part of the brain, a region that is implicated in self-regulation. Previous research has linked deficits in this brain area with attention deficit disorder, depression, schizophrenia, dementia, and addiction.”

Orchids in the Mist by Michele Macartney-Filgate

Exciting results, certainly. But doesn’t IBMT sound like Iyengar yoga? I mean, isn’t the practice of yoga poses with a mindful focus on alignment and physical sensations the same as “awareness and balance of the body, mind, and environment”? So it’s pretty easy to extrapolate from this study that Iyengar yoga would have similar effects as this Chinese meditation technique.

Of course I don’t really need a study to tell me what I know from personal experience. My asana practice definitely affects my moods. I usually feel better after practicing almost any sequence, and when I’m feeling depressed or discouraged or stressed, I can intentionally design a practice that can improve my mood. But it’s always nice to find out about studies that back up what I know intuitively because, well, it seems I’m on a mission: I want you, whoever you are, to start practicing, too. Your moods will improve and your stress levels will be reduced, and your overall health will benefit as a result. And now there is the intriguing possibility the practice could also help with dementia (as well as attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and addiction)!

“Yoga is the harmony of the body, senses, mind, and intellect. That’s why there is no difference between physical and spiritual yoga.” —BKS Iyengar

Meditation and Brain Strength

by Nina

Recently I read an article on Science Daily called “Evidence Builds That Meditation Strengthens the Brain.” Naturally I was hoping that Brad would comment on the article (see here) and the original research (see here). But until then—oh, I live in hope!—I thought I’d share the links with you and let you know some of my own thoughts about it.

According to the article on Science Daily, Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and her colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification (“folding” of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. They also found a direct correlation between the amount of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity (its ability to adapt to environmental changes).

Particularly interesting was the positive correlation between the number of meditation years and the amount of insular gyrification. Luders said:
 
The insula has been suggested to function as a hub for autonomic, affective and cognitive integration. Meditators are known to be masters in introspection and awareness as well as emotional control and self-regulation, so the findings make sense that the longer someone has meditated, the higher the degree of folding in the insula.

The intriguing idea that your thoughts can affect the physiology of your brain is not a new one, however. Reading this article immediately made me think of the way Stephen Cope described samskaras in his book Yoga and the Quest for the True Self.

Yogis discovered that consciousness is dominated by highly conditioned patterns of reactivity—patterns that are deeply grooved, and very difficult to change once established.

Every action based on craving or aversion leaves a subliminal impression on the mind. These impressions are called samskaras, or literally, “subliminal activators.” Yogis sometimes think of these subliminal activators as being pressed into the “hot wax of the mind.”

Samskaras are like little tracks, little vectors, little ruts in the muddy road. The next time the car travels that road, these muddy ruts will have hardened into permanent fixtures, and the car wheels will want to slide into them. Indeed it’s easier to steer right into them than to try to avoid them.

Tide Between Rocks by Brad Gibson

Cope believes that with tapas, which he defines as “the energy of restraint,” we can start to avoid some of our harmful patterns of reactivity or samskaras.

I have said that samskaras are like ruts in a road, and that as the ruts deepen through repetition, it becomes inevitable that the car will slide into them unawares. Any intentional effort to restrain the car from slipping into the rut is called tapas.

Tapas requires a particular kind of attention—precisely the kind required when driving on a rutted road. We need to be awake. We need to be concentrated in order to avoid the edges of the ruts. And sometimes we need to pull the car wheels—with considerable effort—out of the ridges in the road.

And tapas, which is also a “burning effort,” is exactly what we need to establish and maintain a regular meditation and yoga practice, the very practice that may help us strengthen our brains as well as our bodies. To be continued....

Stressed Mind, Stressed Cells?

by Brad

Last Friday I attended a talk by Dr. Elissa Epel called “Telomeres, telomerase and mental states: Stressed mind, stressed cells?” According to the abstract Dr. Epel supplied in advance of her seminar:

"I will discuss our UCSF research on the telomere/telomerase maintenance system and relationships to stress and other psychological states and lifestyle factors. The length of our telomeres is a predictor of health status – early disease and mortality, and may serve as an index of biological aging. We now know from 8 years of research that shorter telomere length is related to states of suffering—anxiety, depression, trauma exposure, and chronic stress. Just how much can people stabilize their telomere length through interventions such as exercise and meditation? I will discuss initial findings, suggesting that this marker appears somewhat malleable."

Dr. Epel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF.  She is also a co-founder of Telome Health, Inc., a relatively new company located in the Bay Area to promote the use of telomere testing as a measure of biological age and overall health status. The basic idea that Dr. Epel was promoting is that chronic stress has a negative impact on telomere length, and that stress reduction through diet, exercise, and possibly other lifestyle changes can have preserve telomere length.

You may remember I posted a piece on this subject a couple months ago that discussed telomeres, yoga and aging ("Science, Aging and Yoga"). As a recap, telomeres are sequence of nucleotides or base pairs at the ends of your DNA that serve cap off and protect DNA integrity. One of the theories of aging asserts that decreased telomere length resulting from the failure of certain cell type in the body (immune cells, stem cells, etc.) to properly renew their telomere length after rounds of cell division via the action of telomerases (enzymes that add back lost telomere DNA) can lead to cellular senescence (a terminal, not dividing state) that could play a role in aging, acting as a sort of molecular clock. The question as to whether a reduction or low telomere length is responsible human aging or diseases is still hotly debate (see NY Times article here), despite many studies showing a correlation of shortened telomeres with cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s and other chronic diseases of aging.

Ferns by Joan Webster

Personally, I found much of the data presented by Dr. Epel not especially convincing, as it was mostly correlative, and did not provide much if any mechanistic insight. However, I was intrigued by her attempt to link the physical and mental state of “stress” that we experience daily (you know, “I’m so stressed out”) to cellular stress and damage (alteration in the physiological state of cells or tissues that can lead to damage at the molecular and cellular level). Although we are all familiar with the former use of the term “stress,” this second usage of the term “stress” is quite different, and its effects can remain hidden until it manifests into a pathological or disease state.

It is well known that emotional stress can lead to an increase in cortisol and insulin levels, as well as increases in catecholamines and inflammatory cytokines. What is less clear is how these signals are integrated at the cellular and tissue level, especially under chronic stress, some of which are not at all obvious. Most studies measuring telomere length are on carried out on immune cells present in blood, as these cells are relatively easy to collect and originate from actively dividing cells. 

The notion that chronic stress could alter telomerase activity in these proliferating immune cell types, resulting in the shortening of the telomeres and causing these cells to lose their capacity to divide (“Immunosenescence”) is certainly an interesting hypothesis. Indeed, immunosenescence is increasingly being seen as a new target for drugs and/or biologics therapy by both pharmaceutical and biotech companies. According to data presented by Dr. Epel, one group of people that apparently has a statistically significant decrease in telomere length are long-term primary caregivers, a group that is regarded as suffering from chronic stress. People with long-term depression apparently also have a similar phenotype.

And as I have discussed in an earlier post, meditation and mindfulness practices have been proposed as ways to ward off the presumed negative effects of telomere shortening. (I say presumed, because it’s still not clear to what extent shortened telomeres are by definition a bad thing, or how much shortening of telomeres is required for any negative consequences.) The science on all this is still in the very early days. It may turn out that telomere length will be one more false lead in the ongoing search for biochemical measures of biological aging. And I would be extremely wary of any company advertising to measure your telomere length or that suggests that taking supplements to increase telomere length makes any sense at all. Unfortunately, there are a growing number of companies out there they do indeed make such claims. (To their credit, Telome Health appears to be considerably more circumspect in their claims and services than most.)

I suppose what interested me the most from Dr. Epel’s seminar is that it once again reminded me of the many avenues of medical research that are converging on the notion that chronic stress is a negative factor in human health and possibly a driver in premature or accelerated aging. While the details of how this actually happens is unclear, it is interesting to consider that one of the main, if not primary, benefits of practicing yoga might be to reduce stress.  Who knows, maybe it will turn out that yoga reduces stress at both the psychological and cellular level? Too early to tell, but stay tuned….

How to Mediate

by Baxter

Happy 2012 to all of our readers out there! It has been an exciting first few months for Brad, Nina and me, giving birth to Yoga for Healthy Aging. And I’m so pleased to hear from you, our readers, with your questions and contributions to our discussions and topics. Thanks, and I look forward to your feedback this coming year.

My last post of 2011 (see here) dealt with understanding classical yoga’s recommendations regarding meditation. It can be helpful to get the context on where things come from, but it's even more powerful to have some practical guidelines to put meditation onto practice. I often hear from my students that doing asana is so much easier for them than sitting quietly and practicing some form of meditation. It seems “doing” is so much easier than the simple “being” of meditation. Yet, if you need any reasons for meditation, you might check out Pico Iyer’s article "The Joy of Quiet" from this weekend’s New York Times (see here). The sheer pace of modern life cries out for us to stop and find stillness from time to time. With the information we discussed last time, I’d like to shift to some practical ways to begin you home meditation practice. So here we go!

First, don’t get caught up in how long to do a practice. Keep it simple and doable, with just 5 or 10 minutes at first and for a while. Set a timer of some sort so you don’t have to have thoughts about worrying how long you’ve been meditating. Second, don’t get too hung up on how to sit to meditate. In fact, you can meditate in Savasana (Corpse pose), as long as you can remain gently awake. But if you do decide to sit, you can sit in any way that feels comfortable to you (read not necessarily Lotus!). Use a chair or any props to get as comfortable as you can.

Dock at Hadley Cove by Brad Gibson

 Third, pick a simple focus for your mind to fix its attention on. This can be as simple as your inhale and exhale. It could be an object that you look at or imagine in your mind. Or it could be a repeated word or phrase that has positive meaning for you, called a "mantra" in Sanskrit. Mantras I’ve explored during meditation include the word “Om,” the phrase “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna,” and my grandmother’s name, Genevieve. If you decide to focus on a mantra, try repeating it on the inhalation and the exhalation in your mind. Don’t be surprised if your mind manages to squeeze a few distracting thoughts in while you are focused on the mantra.

Speaking of thoughts… Fourth, you are not trying to stop thoughts from happening. This is a bit confusing, because if you’ve explored the Yoga Sutras, you know the famous statement about one of yoga’s goals:

1.2: Yoga Citta Vritti Nirodhah

The translation of this phrase is “Yoga is the quieting or cessation of the fluctuations of the heart/mind.” But despite this lofty and difficult goal, at the beginning, allow yourself the opportunity to simply become familiar with the behavior of your thoughts. Consider watching them like you might watch a three year old play at the park, and don’t be surprised if your mind and the three year old seem strikingly similar! And each time you get distracted or absorbed in the thoughts, notice this happening and gently guide yourself back to your chosen focus. 

The rewards of consistent meditation practice are varied, but can include a sense of inner peacefulness, even when life is very busy, improved mental focus and concentration, and improved memory, as well as others you will discover on your own. So get started this new year, using the above guidelines, and let us know how it goes for you!

Thoughts on Dhyana: Meditation over the Holidays

by Baxter

As I pass through yet another solstice and the modern winter holiday celebrations, I appreciate my own meditation practice, however sporadic it is at times. So I thought today would be a good day to begin introducing the topic of meditation on this blog.

Even trying to introduce the topic of meditation is a bit daunting, however, because there are many eastern traditions that have varied and unique approaches and emphases when they define meditation. So let’s narrow the scope and look at hatha yoga or even classical yoga, where we first find Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras placing dhyana or meditation within the context of the eight limbs of yoga, or the Ashtanga Yoga. 

In this model, meditation is considered the second of two stages, beginning with dharana, or one-pointed concentration, and then moving onto dhyana, or continuous concentration or focus on an object. An analogy that Mr. Iyengar and others have used to explain this goes like this: If the mind were a water faucet and the object of my meditation was the bucket below it, when I first begin to focus, the water comes out in drops and moves towards the bucket, but with breaks in between, which represent distraction of the mind from the object. If my practice gets stronger and steadier, a time arrives when my focus is unbroken, represented as a continuous stream of water flowing toward the bucket. This is the stage of “meditation” or dhyana.  I am still aware of “me” as the faucet, and the thing I am observing, the bucket, as separate from me, but I am really starting to understand what “bucket” is on a deep level.

Mushroom at Silver Beach by Brad Gibson

There still exists a subject-object relationship. However, in the process of developing this strong, unbroken focus, the normal everyday mental activity almost completely subsides, leading to a more peaceful yet fully present mind state that yogis felt truly beneficial. Modern PET scan studies of the minds of experienced meditators show dramatic quieting of certain areas of the brain and other brain wave patterns emerging that are often related to the state of consciousness seen just before sleep, as well as patterns seen in creative states of mind observed in artists and musicians.

For us, the process begins on a more practical note, when in our first yoga asana practices we are encouraged to simply follow the flow of the breath with our minds to the exclusion of other possible things to focus on. This is essentially the first stage described above: dharana. Anyone who has tried this, if they are really honest, will admit how hard it is to stay on track. One of my teachers used to say that if you could follow the breath for three full cycles of in and out without another distracting thought breaking your concentration, you would reach enlightenment immediately—his way of saying that this is really hard to do, even though it sounds easy. However, despite this difficulty, I’ve found it to be well worth the effort. On a very basic level, it is one direct way to elicit the relaxation response we’ve talked about in past posts (see here). And if it could eventually lead to some bliss state the yogis also talk about, bring it on!

In future posts we will discuss other meditation techniques, but for the holidays ahead, stick to the basics of simple breath awareness, done seated or in Savasana, and I’ll talk to you in the new year.

THE RELAXATION RESPONSE AND YOGA

by Nina

Last week I wrote about the stress response, and how dangerous chronic stress is for your physical and emotional wellbeing (and possibly your longevity). So at this point you might be wondering: wouldn’t it be nice if there were an easy way for you to switch off your stress? I mean, something quicker and less expensive than a month in Tahiti or a week in a spa.

Well, it turns out there is. Remember, between stressful situations, your body needs to rest, recover, and acquire new energy. So your nervous system responds by:

• lowering your blood pressure
• reducing your heart rate, diverting blood back to the skin and gastrointestinal tract
• contracting your pupils and bronchioles
• stimulating your salivary gland secretion, accelerating digestion, and promoting normal movement of food through the gut

Dr. Herbert Benson coined the term “the relaxation response,” to describe this phenomenon, and he discusses it in detail in his book The Relaxation Response (which I highly recommend). I’ve also heard the term “rest and digest” to describe this state, when your body is recovering and restoring itself, and I find this is a helpful way to think about it, as the opposite of “fight or flight.”

Of course when you are stressed out, you can’t just tell yourself to relax. (I remember when I was suffering terribly from chronic stress, a therapist told me to “stop worrying.” I said, “Are you kidding?” and, duh, never went back.) But this is where yoga performs so brilliantly. Because, as Dr. Benson discovered, to trigger the relaxation response all that is required is:

1. A quiet environment

2. A focus for your mind, such as a sound, word, phrase, physical sensation (breath or body part), or fixed gaze at an object

3. Passive (non-judgmental) attitude

4. A comfortable position

5. 10 to 20 minutes

A Garden Path by Joan Webster

If this makes you immediately think of meditation, you’re right about that. But yoga has bunch of different options that you can use to trigger the relaxation response:

1. Meditation. See here for information on how to meditate.
2. Breath practices (pranayama). See here for information your nervous system and your breath.
3. Restorative poses with a focus for the mind (such as your breath or the relaxation of your muscles).
4. Corpse pose (Savasana) with a focus for the mind (such as your breath, the relaxation of your muscles, or peaceful imagery). See here for information.
5. Yoga nidra (yogic sleep), a long, structured form of Savasana. See here for information about yoga nidra and here for a mini version of yoga nidra that you can stream or download.

Eventually, after his initial studies, Dr. Benson removed two items from the list: a comfortable position and a quiet environment. He soon realized that a mind-body practice, such as the yoga asana practice, can be a “moving meditation,” as long as there is a focus for your mind (such as the physical sensations of your body in the pose) and a passive attitude (refraining from judging yourself in the pose, such as how you look or whether you’re doing it “right”). See "What is Mindfulness?"

Finally, studies by Dr. Roger Cole proved that inverted and semi-inverted poses, where your heart is higher than your head, trigger the relaxation response through the mechanisms that control your blood pressure. This is why supported inversions, such Legs Up the Wall pose and Easy Inverted Pose (legs on a chair), are so effective. I’ll write soon specifically on inversions and how they work (see "Just in Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses").

And in weeks to come, we’ll provide further information about all seven of these options for triggering the relaxation response: meditation, breath practice, restorative yoga, Savasana, Yoga Nidra, mindful yoga practices, and inverted poses.

By now you may be saying to yourself that while these practices definitely seem like a bargain compared to vacations and spas (free to be exact), they seem like a bit of work. Can’t I just skip all this “practicing” stuff and get a bit of shuteye instead? Sorry, but it turns out the state of conscious relaxation you achieve by triggering the relaxation response is very different than sleep, and I’ll be discussing that difference in my next post (though, of course, a good night’s sleep is also important for your physical and emotional health). See here for a comparison between conscious relaxation and sleep.

What about turning on the TV or reading a good book? Activities, such as TV and reading, while good distractions, aren’t necessarily relaxing. Hey, suspense, though good for a plot, can be very stressful, and I not only cry at the movies, but sometimes during sad parts of a novel! I’m not saying you should never watch TV or read, just that these activities can’t take the place of the conscious relaxation that yoga provides. So as Baxter said last week, "Got 10 minutes?"

And now, dear readers, I’d like to ask you for your help. What are your favorite yoga stress management techniques? What do you find the most useful? And have I overlooked anything? Also, if you’d like to vote on which yoga stress management techniques you’d like to hear about first, let me know. Leave your answers in a comment to this post or email them to me (see Contact Us on the right side of the blog).

STRESS, TELOMERES, AND AGING

by Nina

In his next post, Brad will be writing about one of the several competing theories about aging: Nobel Prize winner Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s theory of the relationship between aging and telomeres (the protective caps at the ends of our chromosomes). Dr. Blackburn believes that telomere length is an indicator of the age and vitality of a cell, and that psychological stress actually ages cells, which can be seen when telomere length is measured.

We thought you might be interested in Dr. Blackburn’s work because she is so convinced about the effects of stress on cellular aging that she is studying the effects of meditation and yoga on telomeres. So for those of you who would like to learn a bit about her work before Brad’s post, here is a little background information. As a start, you can find a brief interview with Dr. Blackburn here. If you’ve got an hour or so, you can listen to her lecture on “Chromosome Ends and Diseases of Aging” here.

Gaudi Mosaic by Brad Gibson

Throughout your life, your cells may reproduce many times to repair and strengthen their host organs, to grow or to fight disease, and the telomere at the end shrinks each time the cell divides and duplicates itself. A chemical called telomerase helps restore a portion of the telomere with each division, but after 10 to 50 divisions or so (the number varies by tissue type and health, and biologists still do not understand the system well), the telomere gets so short that the cell is no longer able to replicate. Because some cells or tissues in our body (skin, blood cells, etc.) continue to replicate and be replaced as we age, or to be repaired after injury, if the progenitor cells needed for these processes cannot replicate due to telomere shortening, this can contribute to the aging process and increase our susceptibility to disease. See here for a short article on this.

For several years, Dr. Blackburn has been conducting research on the relationship between stress and telomere length. According to her, there is so much evidence that psychological stress actually ages cells that she and her colleagues have been studying the effects of mindful meditation on telomere length. See here for a full academic paper entitled “Can meditation slow the rate of cellular aging?” I've read that as a result of these studies, Dr. Blackburn has taken up meditation as regular practice.

To be continued....

Power napping, stress management, and jet lag

Many animals take naps during the day. Our ancestors probably napped during the day too. They certainly did not spend as many hours as we do under mental stress. In fact, the lives of our Paleolithic ancestors would look quite boring to a modern human. Mental stress can be seen as a modern poison. We need antidotes for that poison. Power napping seems to be one of them.

(Source: Squidoo.com)

Power napping is a topic that I have done some research on, but unfortunately I do not have access to the references right now. I am posting this from Europe, where I arrived a few days ago. Thus I am labeling this post “my experience”. Hopefully I will be able to write a more research-heavy post on this topic in the near future. I am pretty sure that there is a strong connection between power napping and stress hormones. Maybe our regular and knowledgeable commenters can help me fill this gap in their comments on this post.

Surprisingly, jet lag has been only very minor this time for me. The time difference between most of Europe and Texas is about 8 hours, which makes adaptation very difficult, especially coming over to Europe. In spite of that, I slept during much of my first night here. The same happened in the following nights, even though I can feel that my body is still not fully adapted to the new time zone.

How come? I am all but sure that this is a direct result of my recent experience with power napping.

I have been practicing power napping for several months now. Usually in the middle of the afternoon, between 3 and 4 pm, I lie down for about 15 minutes in a sleeping position on a yoga mat. I use a pillow for the head. I close my eyes and try to clear my mind of all thoughts, focusing on my breathing, as in meditation. When I feel like I am about to enter deep sleep, I get up. This usually happens 15 minutes after I lie down. The sign that I am about to enter deep sleep is having incoherent thoughts, like in dreaming. Often I have muscle jerks, called hypnic jerks, which are perfectly normal. Hypnic jerks are also a sign that it is time for me to get up.

After getting up I always feel very refreshed and relaxed. My ability to do intellectual work is also significantly improved. If I make the mistake of going further, and actually entering a deep sleep stage, I get up feeling very groggy and sleepy. So the power nap has to end at around 15 minutes for me. For most people, this time ranges from 10 to 20 minutes. It seems that once one enters a deep sleep phase, it is better to then sleep for at least a few hours.

Power napping is not as easy as it sounds. If one cannot enter a state of meditation at the beginning, the onset of sleep does not happen. You have to be able to clear your mind of thoughts. Focusing on your breathing helps. Interestingly, once you become experienced at power napping, you can then induce actual sleep in almost any situation – e.g., on a flight or when you arrive in another country. That is what happened with me during this trip. Even though I have been waking up at night since I arrived in Europe, I have been managing to go right back to sleep. Previously, in other trips to Europe, I would be unable to go back to sleep after I woke up in the middle of the night.

Power napping seems to also be an effective tool for stress management. In our busy modern lives, with many daily stressors, it is common for significant mental stress to set in around 8 to 9 hours after one wakes up in the morning. For someone waking up at 7 am, this will be about 3 to 4 pm in the afternoon. Power napping, when done right, seems to be very effective at relieving that type of stress.