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Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

psychologytoday.com

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Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#81

People! please be careful with these casual references to breathing exercises and other mind-body techniques. Breathing changes can hurt you. Please seek an experienced teacher.. for example, another post mentioned a cessation of breathing rhythm as a gateway.. BS, and dangerous too. Blood pressure, cardiac rhythm, mental balance, are all deeply effected. thanks and take care

" Breathing changes can hurt you. Please seek an experienced teacher."

Could you provide some reference of the dangers? That sounds like a generic marketing speech for yoga instructors.

I don't mind finding guidance, but empty scare tactics are the cheapest trick in the salesmans arsenal.

If there are explicit dangers, give external reference. Otherwise you just sound like a snake oil salesman.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#82
post #5

Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…

From Wikipedia's entry on Kundalini[1]

>This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (August 2014)

the flagging goes on ...

A brief online search on K. found only articles and fora that have the same issue - weasel words, embedded superstition, subjectiveness, etc

Curious whether this has been examined from a strictly physiological viewpoint minus the typical subjective, superstitious spin that I've found so far.

[1}: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#83
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that be a strong effect on an uncontrolled basis? (I.e., fast irregular shallow and/or interrupted breaths tending to reinforce anxiety etc.?)

I'm not entire sure I understand your question. Maybe I can clarify what I said and that will help. Holotropic Breathwork was created by Dr. Stan Groff as an alternative to LSD Therapy after prohibition. His thesis was that symptoms were just a half expressed cure. Meaning, if you have anxiety, the trick is to actually "make it bigger" - in this case using breath work, to release whatever trauma was at the core of it…

Where did you learn? There seems to be a large divide between the training, time, and money required to become certified, and the one-off Saturday event. I'd like to use it but I'd also like to understand how it works. Grof's book doesn't contain a how-to and the knowledge seems a bit cloistered...too much so given that it's hard to hurt yourself in this method.

I'm already "sold" on the healing potential of these modalities: psychedelics, float tanks, Lucid Lights, etc...HB would be good to add to the list, mostly because it's probably a great gateway for others to direct spiritual practice and more healing. Thank you!

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#84
post #82
post #5

Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…

From Wikipedia's entry on Kundalini[1] >This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (August 2014) the flagging goes on ... A brief online search on K. found only articles and fora that have the same issue - weasel words, embedded superstition, subjectiveness, etc Curious whether this has been examined from a strictly physiological viewpoint minus the t…

You'll keep coming up empty, so to speak, trying to nail down the result of spiritual disciplines into a concrete definition. Science's point of view is verifiability by repeatable, direct observation. With spiritual stuff, the healthy attitude that you'll usually get is, "try it for yourself!" The direct experience of the result usually precludes further need to verify from other perspectives.

All that said, I think understanding the science underlying the remarkable experiences people have during or as a result of "mystic" experiences (for which we have pretty decent scientific definitions; see the Johns Hopkins psychedelics questionnaires) is probably what's holding us back from spreading more and better healing. We're not going to move forward giving everyone the usual "Well, it's definitely weird, but it works, just trust me."

Disclaimer: not a Kundalini practitioner. My healing has mostly been reading-, meditation-, and psychedelic-flavored.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#85
post #83
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entire sure I understand your question. Maybe I can clarify what I said and that will help. Holotropic Breathwork was created by Dr. Stan Groff as an alternative to LSD Therapy after prohibition. His thesis was that symptoms were just a half expressed cure. Meaning, if you have anxiety, the trick is to actually "make it bigger" - in this case using breath work, to release whatever trauma was at the core of it…

Where did you learn? There seems to be a large divide between the training, time, and money required to become certified, and the one-off Saturday event. I'd like to use it but I'd also like to understand how it works. Grof's book doesn't contain a how-to and the knowledge seems a bit cloistered...too much so given that it's hard to hurt yourself in this method. I'm already "sold" on the healing potential of these mo…

Are you based in NYC? I'm actually going to a day long session this Saturday - it's about $150 for the day including lunch and dinner. You get an intro session for an hour with someone who trained with Grof; then you either breathe or sit with someone for 3 hours; lunch; switch and sit/breathe; dinner & integration.

I love it and have been going every few months.

email me if you like and we can chat more.

A@175g.com

Ps, while it's simple enough to put on a Breathwork playlist and turn up the volume and to breathe faster and deeper for a few hours, having a trained sitter to hold the space is useful for getting at and working with material you may not allow yourself to confront on your own. Also, can be a little risky if, say, your deep abandonment terror comes up and you are all alone.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#86
post #82
post #5

Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…

From Wikipedia's entry on Kundalini[1] >This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (August 2014) the flagging goes on ... A brief online search on K. found only articles and fora that have the same issue - weasel words, embedded superstition, subjectiveness, etc Curious whether this has been examined from a strictly physiological viewpoint minus the t…

I'm not sure if it has, at least not rigorously. I've seen various research quoted in several books, but I tend to ignore those sections because "research" can pretty much come up with any conclusion depending on who's paying. Plus there's little point accepting the conclusions without investigating the methodologies, participants, etc. for which I have neither the time nor inclination. All my "research" is based on trying to experientially validate the experiences for myself.

I'd love to see rigorous research done on this, and I'm sure over time it'll happen. But first, I think there needs to be a general increase in awareness of this phenomenon, certainly in the West. While we've leapt on the meditation bandwagon, it's far less common knowledge that these practices traditionally were focussed towards a specific "end-game", i.e. they are intended to lead to certain definite, reproducible outcomes, rather than being practiced as techniques in their own right ad infinitum.

It seems to me as if the "first generation" of Western practitioners went to the East around the 60s and the majority came back with superficial knowledge and someone else's culture ("let's do all this cool exotic stuff people..."). Now, slowly and gradually, more Westerners are discovering the stuff that the first generation didn't bring back, and are having profound, authentic experiences for themselves. One benefit of this should be an increase in the clarity of teachings since different cultures have their own metaphors, language and mental models that can be used to convey meaning. Western teachers should be able to strip out the Eastern dogma and superstition and leave only those practices that do actually aid or accelerate the process (and incidentally describe the roots of Western religious dogma and "morals" as well, since Kundalini is alluded to in Christianity, just less explicitly and couched in different terms. If you can ignore the author's enormous ego, Electrical Christianity explains all, also on Kindle if you're interested).

One interesting thing to note is that there is generally broad, cross-cultural and cross-temporal agreement of some of the subjective experiences that result from these practices and Kundalini awakenings. So while looking purely from a physiological perspective would certainly be interesting, it seems that experiences are almost always accompanied by "spiritual" experiences (much like hallucinogens), often involving:

* a dissolution of the ego (the mental narrator/individual personality) * a greater sense of connection, deep feelings of love and altruism * common imagery/symbology * heat, feelings of electricity/"energy", and points of high electrical/energetic conductivity that can be perceived as lights, commonly called "chakras" * that we are all part of a single, pure consciousness out of which everything else arises. Nothing else fundamentally, permanently exists.

Jung came up with his "collective unconscious" as a result some of his own experiences.

So given these experiences suggest a very different world-view to the prevailing Western one (that we are in fact "spirits" with material bodies vs material bodies with some emergent property called consciousness), could it be possible to really understand this process objectively? It would appear that the conscious subject - indeed consciousness itself - is inherent in the process. Western science more or less proceeds from the standpoint of "if you can't poke it or work out its physical foundation, it doesn't exist", while here we have something diametrically opposite that says the physical only exists because of consciousness (BTW I may be way off here but doesn't Quantum Theory stipulate something similar - the result of a quantum probability isn't decided until it's observed, so the observer is required for the uncertainty to collapse to a specific state? Ignore me if I'm wrong, I'm not a physicist).

So anyway, back to your point. Some resources out there do contain what comes across as subjective, superstitious rubbish, but perhaps for the reasons above (i.e. they may be recounting experiences that are subjectively real, but which seem so fantastical and are so far removed from our normal day-to-day experiences they put people off this whole subject). And to be clear, some are legitimately, complete drivel. However, there are a few people putting stuff out in a much more neutral manner, more like "try this and see what happens", "what if you add on this extra practice?", etc. The latter approach provides fewer points of resistance to the Western, science-orientated mind, and better yet, actively engages you as the scientist. Yogani at aypsite.org is one such author.

Based on my own experiences, I believe science will catch up in due course. I'm pretty open to entertaining the possibility of some of the wilder claims now since so much of what I heard would happen up to this point has indeed happened, but I await my own verification.

In the end, should you investigate this for yourself, you'll be the judge of whether this stuff is real and yours will be the most important opinion to you.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#87
post #5

Yoga (proper yoga, not the gymnastics they do in most gyms) is all about stimulating the vagus nerve and several others. The "locks" (bandhas) and various breathing exercises (pranayama) all work on it in different ways and stimulate different parts of the nerve. If you really want to juice it up add in some breath retention. Eventually you reach a sort of homeostatic state where your breath just naturally suspends,…

Whatever I am saying I have no "scientific proof" but I come from a traditional family of meditators. We have history of monks and sanyasis in my family who in their prime youth just went to jungle and meditated and died their just sitting. If you come to east India, you will find many small shrines built at places where my ancestors died.

Whatever @nsouth has said is correct. What Westerners call Yoga are actually Asanas. What I want to add is a warning that is passed in my family from generation to generation. If you are a materialistic and sexual person dont try to do exercises that will arisen the Kundalini. If you are are materialistic and sexual Raja Yoga is not for you. Have a good life(marry, earn and be a force of good in society(what we would traditionally call Dharma)), you can definitely do Asanas and even meditation but you should never ever start a practise that specifically targets Kundalini. In breathing exercise, you can do all breathing exercises sans the retention part. I have no proof or logic behind this warning but I just stated what has been stated in my family for ages.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#88
post #86
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia's entry on Kundalini[1] >This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (August 2014) the flagging goes on ... A brief online search on K. found only articles and fora that have the same issue - weasel words, embedded superstition, subjectiveness, etc Curious whether this has been examined from a strictly physiological viewpoint minus the t…

I'm not sure if it has, at least not rigorously. I've seen various research quoted in several books, but I tend to ignore those sections because "research" can pretty much come up with any conclusion depending on who's paying. Plus there's little point accepting the conclusions without investigating the methodologies, participants, etc. for which I have neither the time nor inclination. All my "research" is based on…

It turns out there is a site with some impressive sounding scientific stuff on it: http://biologyofkundalini.com.

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#89
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One note: fresh and clean airflow is important, don't do this indoor with high co2 ppm (high co2 is basically poison)

Unless you're locked in an airtight space (or small closet, etc) high CO2 should not be a concern whatsoever. Any normal living space is going to be fine. Even a relatively "tight" super-efficient modern home changes air over several times per hour (and have fresh-air injectors on the heating/cooling systems to introduce fresh air and prevent staleness). Even there, a house full of people wall-to-wall could not signi…

That's true for major health effects, but research is showing that lower than previously assumed CO2 levels may affect cognition and health, especially in poorly ventilated indoor environments. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311844520_Carbon_di...

Re: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and the Vagus Nerve (2017)

#90
post #34
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of negative side-effects are you referring to? I've heard a fair number of people talk about high-level Yoga stuff being dangerous, but I've never really understood what they meant. Is it related to the suspension of breath, like risk of unconsciousness? Long term joint damage? (BTW, thanks for the book rec -- Kundalini Exposed looks pretty interesting).

Gopi Krishna is the canonical worst-case scenario of an unprepared Kundalini awakening, so check out his "Kundalini: Evolutionary Energy in Man". I've heard that if you're careful, you should have an easier ride. However some people can have spontaneous awakenings, sometimes following traumatic (near death) events. One guy suggested there was a link between the adrenals and kicking off this process. The endocrine sys…

Wow, been digging into the AYP site. Thank you for passing this on. Some of the best stuff I've ever read, and I've read a LOT.
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