The Body Electric, Part 2: Prana, Yin, Nidra, and Sound

In Part 1 of this article I looked at the human body's electrochemical activity, how it relates to the two branches of our autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic), and how the essential first step in becoming a more sane human being is learning to self-regulate the balance between these two.

Here in Part 2, I look at four specific teaching modalities I use with students to help them (and me!) restore balance to the nervous system's electrochemical activity, specifically engaging the parasympathetic nervous system and the relaxation response.

PRANA

As yogis have known for thousands of years, the breath is closely intertwined with the electrical activity of the nervous system. I examined this relationship in detail in a previous article, The Psychobiology of the Breath. Because of this close relationship, breathing practices are among the most basic tools for self-regulating nervous activity and inducing the relaxation response.

In the eight limbs of yoga taught in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, held sacred by most contemporary schools of yoga, one of the eight limbs is devoted to "pranayama," the science of breath work, using different breathing techniques to move or hold or clear "prana" or energy from the body in various ways.

Among the the principles and practices from pranayama that I find most useful in working with meditation students is the practice of ratio breathing. This technique involves measuring the length of the inhalation and exhalation so the whole cycle of breath moves at a specific ratio and pace. It might mean breathing in for a count of five and breathing out for a count of five (a 1:1 ratio, also known as "coherent breathing") or breathing in for a count of five and breathing out for a count of nine or ten.

Slowing down the breath and using more of our natural lung capacity, in itself, has a naturally calming effect on the nervous system and its electrical activity that can be experienced almost immediately, sometimes in just one or two breaths. Specifically, extending the length of the exhalation stimulates the vagus nerve, the main pathway to engaging the parasympathetic nervous system and the relaxation response.

YIN

Although I'm trained and certified as a yoga teacher, I don't really enjoy teaching the fast-paced, sweaty, flowing styles of movement and strenuous workouts that many people these days think of as "yoga."

The style of yoga I do enjoy teaching is one that's much more directly linked to relaxation and engaging the parasympathetic nervous system: Yin Yoga. Yin involves far less movement, and much more stillness. Less fire, more cooling. It's a unique approach to postural yoga that was designed to bring more elasticity into the connective tissues, specifically the great web of fascia that envelops the musculoskeletal system and all the organs of the body.

In Yin Yoga, we typically stay low to the ground, and we hold postures for extended periods of time -- sometimes up to a few minutes in a single pose. Rather than using our muscles to aggressively push or twist ourselves into a posture, we passively use the forces of gravity and time to slowly open the body and release tension within the tissues at a deeper level. Even the music I play in a Yin Yoga class has a slower pace, fewer beats-per-minute, to encourage the brain to stimulate the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system. The feeling coming out of a Yin Yoga practice can be a deep sense of relaxation within the body and mind.

NIDRA

Yoga Nidra, sometimes called "the yogic science of sleep," is actually a system of techniques for guiding students into a profoundly deep state of relaxation bordering on sleep -- but ideally not crossing the line completely.

In a Yoga Nidra class, I use my voice and a progressive series of passive exercises (body scan, visualizations, etc.) to guide students into the hypnagogic state -- a precursor to actual sleep, the state between waking and sleeping. When students are able to hover in this liminal space, this border zone between the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, the sense of relaxation that can be experienced is very deep. And because awareness is suspended in that in-between space, various kinds of communication between the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind can take place, creating a feeling of wholeness and integration unlike any other.

Needless to say, during the entire process of Yoga Nidra, we are engaging the parasympathetic nervous system and entraining our brains in producing the electrochemical activity that leads to the relaxation response.

SOUND

There has been a revolution in my teaching activity during the past year. Up until a year ago, I had been aware of the growing trend of "sound bath" classes in yoga and meditation studios, but I regarded this trend with a skeptical eye. I come out of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and we always had Tibetan bowls in the meditation hall, but they were used primarily for one thing only: they were struck to signal the beginning and the end of a meditation session. In 15 years of study and practice within that venerable tradition, I never encountered a single teaching about making the bowls "sing," or using sound for healing purposes. So when I would see people playing the bowls that way, I dismissed it as a bunch of New Age nonsense.

Fast forward to last year, when I started teaching classes at a local studio and got curious about their sound classes, which seemed to be more popular than any other class on their schedule. One day I decided to try one, just to see what all the fuss was about. In that first sound bath class, I felt a sense of relaxation so deep that the only thing in my previous experience that I could compare it to was Yoga Nidra. In fact, in explaining sound meditation I often draw comparisons to Yoga Nidra, because a skillful sound bath can also guide students into the hypnagogic state.

I was immediately hooked, and I signed up for a training in sound healing with a teacher at that studio. A few months later, I did a second training with another teacher, and a set of crystal singing bowls found their way into my life. Quite suddenly, I found myself in the role of a teacher of sound meditation and practitioner of sound healing.

When done skillfully, a sound bath can not only guide students' minds into a state of profound relaxation; it can also have powerful healing effects on the body. The vibration of sound waves is not merely perceived by the ears and the mind; those same waves carry into the cells and tissues of the body, interacting with the electrochemical activity of the nervous system and helping to restore balance and homeostasis. After all, at a cellular level the body is roughly 74% water, and sound waves travel easily through water, so in a sound bath you are not only hearing sound; the pulsations and vibrations of sound waves are literally washing through you, inducing effects  on the body that are beyond the mind's purview.

When I experience a good sound bath I leave feeling like a washcloth that has been wrung out. During the sound bath tension in the body melts away, the mind stops fighting with itself, and a whole range of metabolic changes take place: the heart rate and breathing slow down, body temperature drops, and electrochemical activity shifts very noticeably into the parasympathetic nervous system. I often have students in sound bath classes tell me they've never before experienced such a profound sense of relaxation.

That's good enough for me. I've gone from a sound bath skeptic to someone who teaches sound baths two to three times per week and attends them as frequently as I can. Along with breath work, sound healing is among the most powerful tools I've encountered for altering the electrochemical activity of the body and entraining the human brain and nervous system to relax.

With a relaxed body and open mind, the possibilities are almost limitless.

The Psychobiology of the Breath

As far back as we can trace in history, humans have always associated breath with life and spirit. The Latin words animus (spirit) and anima (soul) are related to the Greek animos (wind), and the Greek word pneuma (as in pneumatic or pneumonia, or the French word for a car’s inflatable tire, pneumatique) also meant spirit or wind. Our ancestors associated the breath with the soul or spirit or life force that “animates” all living beings.

On a strictly biological level, breath is the source of life. It maintains the body’s strength and vitality by enabling gas exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide at a cellular level. The overall health and well-being of our bodies and minds are influenced by how we breathe.

The breath is an autonomic body function, meaning it happens automatically whether we think about it or not—on average, 15 times per minute, 900 times per hour, and 21,000 times per day. But breath is the only autonomic body function that is also subject to voluntary control; you can hold your breath at will, or breathe consciously in any number of ways. Thus, breath is a unique bridge between body and mind, between our outer and inner worlds. Through breathing, we literally take substances from the outside world into the body, and we eliminate other substances back into the outside world.

Metabolically, breathing facilitates the accumulation and elimination of certain chemicals. For this reason, heart rate and breathing are intimately linked. As our body senses the need for more oxygen, the heart rate increases, sending oxygenated blood where it’s needed, and the breathing rate increases in proportion to support the heart. When fear strikes in a dangerous situation, the body responds by ramping up these systems quickly with a spike of adrenaline and stress hormones that facilitate fast reactions.

Our breath conditions our psychological and emotional state, and vice versa. How we breathe shapes our experience, and our emotional temperament shapes how we breathe. The rate, depth and quality of our breath change in response to our emotional and psychological outlook. Thus we can develop dysfunctional patterns of breathing as a result of psychological, habitual ways of responding to situations and stresses in our lives.

In the most simplistic terms, we have two major types of breathing: abdominal and thoracic. Abdominal breathing (aka belly breathing) is when the diaphragm deeply contracts and we appear to “breathe” into the lower belly because the viscera of the abdomen (the guts and internal organs) are pushed downward and bulge out slightly. Thoracic breathing is when we breathe into the chest cavity, using the accessory muscles of breathing to expand the rib cage. In yoga, the practice of full yogic breathing involves both of these actions.

It’s important to understand the difference between abdominal and thoracic breathing because the body and mind initiate these two basic breathing patterns—and respond to them—differently. Thoracic breathing is often more shallow and rapid, and can include a forced exhalation in order to trigger the next inhalation sooner. Thoracic breathing is activated when the body is exercising or under duress and blood needs to be oxygenated and circulated more quickly. It is associated with the sympathetic nervous system and the “fight or flight” response.

Abdominal or belly breathing tends to be more slow and deep and relaxed. When the body is at rest, abdominal breathing is generally considered the most healthy breathing pattern. Abdominal breathing is associated with the parasympathetic nervous system which governs relaxation and the “rest and digest” response.

Both types of breathing are necessary for different situations in life. Sometimes we need to activate quickly, move and respond to the environment, and our cardiovascular activity needs to be proportional; other times, we need to chill out, relax and slow down, and the body’s systems need to support that relaxation.

Problems can arise when we don’t understand how to work skillfully with the breath, and breathing becomes a conditioned behavior that is shaped by our emotional states, stress levels, and so on. For example, we may have a pattern of breathing more thoracically—taking in shallow, rapid breaths into the upper chest—even when we are at rest. This breathing pattern, in turn, keeps our sympathetic nervous system activated, which continually releases stress hormones that help the body prepare for “fight or flight” syndrome even when “fight or flight” is not an appropriate response to what’s happening in our environment.

Developing a deeper understanding of the psychobiology of breathing—how breathing influences mind and body, and how mind and body influence breathing—is essential for any human being who wants to live with a greater sense of health and well-being. For the yogi who practices with the goal of spiritual awakening, breath is the inspiration, the guide and the raw material for the practices of yoga and meditation.

Lost in Translation

Yoga and meditation have taken American society by storm. Starting from a few transplanted Indian teachers and their ashrams, countless styles and schools of yoga have evolved to address every niche market and demographic: bootcamp-style hot power vinyasa classes; body-image oriented yoga for glutes and abs; traditional Bhakti devotional yoga done in front of murals and statues of Hindu deities with chanting and incense, wearing white clothing; corporate yoga done in front of computer screens or at office desks, wearing suits and dress socks; yoga for children; yoga for the elderly; yoga for overweight people; yoga for women; yoga for men; prenatal yoga; postnatal yoga; alignment-based yoga; Christian yoga; dance-based yoga; pilates-based yoga; yoga for sleep; yoga for sex; martial arts-based yoga; acro-yoga; aerial yoga; and, yes, even hot nude yoga.

In the realm of meditation, something similar is now taking place. Starting from a few Buddhist meditation centers established by teachers transplanted from various Asian countries, “mindfulness” (and a host of related practices) has grown into a cottage industry and a household word in mainstream society. Mindfulness is taught at Google and in Wall Street banks to help employees be less stressed and more productive; it’s taught in hospitals to help patients cope with pain and illness; it’s taught in classrooms to help students concentrate and perform better on tests; it’s taught in church basements to help addicts in recovery and in therapists’ offices to help patients regulate mood disorders; it’s taught in temples to help spiritual aspirants reach towards enlightenment and in boutique meditation centers to help busy urban professionals find a time to slow down and relax; it’s taught by the military to help soldiers cope with the stresses of warfare.

With yoga and meditation finding their way into so many corners of American society, and taking on so many new — and frequently materialistic — manifestations, it may be time to take a step back and assess whether something essential is being lost in the translation of these ancient Eastern traditions into American culture.