Meditation : Some Science Behind it and how our body reacts. Interesting Article

February 10, 2004

feeling of tension as normal, even inevitable. It isn’t. Like the hero in the

story, we have a choice. There is another door, another response to the

challenges of everyday living that is also hardwired into our nervous system.

And unlike the hero, whose destiny rests with chance, we can discover which

door is which. A general understanding of the nervous system and how it

responds to stress, coupled with training in three fundamental yoga techniques,

make it possible for us to distinguish one door from the other. Practicing these

techniques gives us the power to choose the lady while leaving the door that

unleashes the tiger firmly closed. Releasing the tiger The autonomic nervous

system controls all the body’s involuntary processes: respiratory rate, heart

rate, blood pressure, gastric juice secretion, peristalsis, body temperature,

and so on. It has two main components or branches—the sympathetic and the

parasympathetic. When we feel stressed, our brain

activates the sympathetic nervous system, which has come to be known as the

fight-or-flight response. This causes the adrenal medulla to secrete adrenaline

(also called epinephrine), a hormone that circulates through the bloodstream,

affecting almost every organ. Adrenaline revs up the body to survive a threat

to life and limb: The heart pumps faster and harder, causing a spike in blood

pressure; respiration increases in rate and moves primarily into the chest;

airways dilate to bring more oxygen into the body; blood sugar rises to provide

a ready supply of fuel; some blood vessels constrict to shunt blood away from

the skin and the core of the body, while others dilate to bring more blood to

the brain and limbs. The result? A body pumped up to fight or run, and a mind

that is hyperalert. This response is a crucial reaction to a life-threatening

event: when we find ourselves face-to-face with a mountain lion, the stress

response dramatically increases our chances of

surviving. And we’ve all heard stories of fantastic feats: the mom lifting a car

off her trapped child, the firefighter carrying a man twice his size from a

burning building. These are the benefits of the sympathetic nervous system. Any

time we respond quickly and decisively when a life is at stake, this is the

system to thank. The fight-or-flight response is meant to be triggered

sporadically, in those rare moments when we are actually in peril. Ideally, it

remains dormant until the next close call (weeks, months, or even years

later!). But in many of us this response is triggered daily, even hourly. Some

people—soldiers, tightrope walkers, members of a SWAT team, for example—do find

themselves in life-or-death situations frequently. But for most of us, such

situations are rare: a mugging, a traffic accident, a close-up with a bear in

the backcountry. Once the threatening event is over, hormonal signals switch

off the stress response, and homeostasis is reestablished.

The problem is that for many of us the fight-or-flight response rarely switches

off, and stress hormones wash through the body almost continuously. The source

of our stress is psychological rather than physical—a perception that something

crucial to us is threatened. Fear of the unknown, major changes in our

circumstances, uncertainty about the future, our negative attitudes—all these

are sources of stress. Today we worry more about our jobs, our relationships,

or getting stuck in traffic than we do about fighting off a wild animal, but

even though the perceived threat is psychological, it still triggers the

archaic survival response. The upshot is that our bodies are in a constant

state of tension, ready to fight or flee, and this causes a host of physical

problems. You can see what some of these are if you look again at what happens

when adrenaline courses through the body: elevated blood pressure, rapid

shallow breathing, high blood sugar, and indigestion.

What is more, adrenaline makes our platelets stickier, so our blood will clot

quickly if we are wounded. This increases our chances of surviving a physical

injury—but chronically sticky platelets are more apt to clot and create

blockages in our arteries. And this sets the stage for a heart attack or a

stroke. The damage doesn’t end there. When we are constantly in fight-or-flight

mode, the adrenal cortex begins to secrete cortisol, a steroid whose job is to

help us adapt to a prolonged emergency by ensuring that we have enough fuel.

Cortisol acts on the liver and muscle tissues, causing them to synthesize

sugars (glucose) and fats and release them into the bloodstream. From the

body’s viewpoint, this is a reasonable response—dumping fat and sugar into the

blood will help us survive a shipwreck, for example. But when this fuel is not

metabolized in response to prolonged physical duress, disease results. Excess

sugar in the bloodstream leads to diabetes, and excess fat to high

cholesterol/high triglycerides. Both conditions boost our chances of developing

heart disease. The steroids cortisol and cortisone quell inflammation in

autoimmune diseases and asthma, and so are useful when used infrequently and

for brief periods, but their constant presence in the bloodstream suppresses

immune function. This causes the white blood cells—those hardy defenders

against bacteria, viruses, cancer cells, fungi, and other harmful

microorganisms—to become sluggish. And this makes us more prone to disease,

especially cancer and chronic infections like Lyme disease, hepatitis, and the

Epstein-Barr virus. Sounds grim, doesn’t it? It is. It’s a tiger. A chronically

activated sympathetic nervous system keeps the body under constant pressure. If

we ignore early warning symptoms—tight shoulders, digestive upset, recurring

headaches, an increasing tendency to lose our temper or become easily

upset—sooner or later the tiger will tear us up. But we can make another

choice. The autonomic nervous system has another component, the parasympathetic

nervous system. Rather than living under the tyranny of a ramped-up sympathetic

nervous system, we can learn to trigger the parasympathetic system, the

rest-and-digest response, instead. Just as the fight-or-flight response

automatically kicks in at the threat of danger, the rest-and-digest response

automatically responds to our sense of equilibrium. When it is activated, the

heart rate drops, blood pressure falls, and respiration slows and deepens.

Blood flow to the core of the body is reestablished—this promotes good

digestion, supports the immune system, and infuses us with a sense of

well-being. We unconsciously achieve this state on vacation, in the throes of a

hearty laugh, or in deep sleep. It feels good, and it offers a much needed

respite from the hectic pace we set for ourselves. But we have come to accept

stress as the norm and to expect the feeling of relaxed well-being to

come about only sporadically—and so it does. We release the tiger a dozen times

a day, even though the other door is also there in every moment. Once we learn

to open it at will, we can override the harmful habit of triggering our stress

response by activating the rest-and-digest component of our nervous system

instead. greeting the lady I use a variety of natural therapies in my medical

practice, but the basic treatments are drawn from yoga—stretching, breathing,

relaxation, and meditation—and these techniques are especially effective when

it comes to managing stress. You already know from personal experience that

aerobic exercise is excellent for dissipating stress-created tension, and that

sugar, caffeine, and spicy food contribute to jangling your nervous system and

shortening your temper. You are probably also familiar with the relaxing

effects of practicing yoga postures—they teach us to move and stretch our

tense, strained bodies and to focus on the breath. But do you

know that breathing slowly and deeply is the easiest way to activate the

rest-and-digest system? That is one reason yoga classes are so popular—they

soothe frazzled nerves and quiet anxious minds. But yoga also works at an even

deeper level: it reestablishes healthy breathing patterns, teaches us to relax

consciously and systematically, and gives us the opportunity to explore the

inner workings of our minds through meditation. These techniques—both

separately and in combination—nourish and strengthen the parasympathetic

nervous system so that the relax-and-digest response becomes our normal mode.

The fight-or-flight response is then reserved for emergencies, as nature

intended. So let’s take a look at some ways we can open Door Number Two.

diaphragmatic breathing • Babies and young children breathe deeply and fully,

using the dome-shaped diaphragm that separates the chest and abdominal cavities

to move air in and out of their lungs. Their bellies are relaxed and move in

concert with their breath. This is the natural, healthy way to breathe. But as

we grow up we are taught to constrict the abdomen (Pull your stomach in and

stand up straight!), and that training, coupled with an unconscious tendency to

tighten the belly when we experience stress, disrupts the natural flow of our

breath. With the abdomen pulled in, the breath is confined to the upper portion

of the lungs (from about the nipple line up). And because this breathing pattern

is perceived by the body to be a stress response, it reinforces the

fight-or-flight reaction. Diaphragmatic breathing, on the other hand, activates

the relax-and-digest response by stimulating the primary mediator of the

parasympathetic nervous system, the vagus nerve. This nerve travels from the

brain to nearly all the thoracic and abdominal organs (“vagus” comes from the

same root as “vagabond”), and triggers a cascade of calming effects. Most of

the time we wait for it to be activated by something pleasant

and hope for a trickle-down effect, not realizing that the nerve (and hence the

entire parasympathetic nervous system) can be turned on from the bottom up by

diaphragmatic breathing. Of all the processes regulated by the autonomic

nervous system (heart rate, blood pressure, secretion of gastric juices,

peristalsis, body temperature, etc.), only breathing can be controlled

consciously. And in doing so, we stimulate the branch of the vagus nerve that

innervates the diaphragm (which carries a message to the other vagus branches

and the brain) to activate the entire rest-and-digest response. This is why the

first step in reversing our chronic stress response is to learn to breathe again

the way we were born to breathe. If you haven’t been trained in diaphragmatic

breathing, find an experienced teacher and practice every day until it once

again becomes a habit. Then, as you develop the skill of breathing from the

diaphragm in the course of your daily activities, you will

begin to experience your breath as a barometer for the nervous system. As long

as you are breathing deeply and from the diaphragm, you will find that you can

access a feeling of calm and balance even when you are confronted with an

unpleasant situation. And you will also notice that if you allow your breath to

become shallow by breathing from your chest, anxiety creeps in, your muscles

tighten, and your mind begins to race and spin. When this agitated breathing is

prolonged, it creates an unsettled and defensive outlook on life. Once you know

this from your own experience, you can make a different choice. systematic

relaxation • To activate the parasympathetic nervous system, diaphragmatic

breathing makes an excellent beginning. But we need to do more, particularly

when we have spent years unconsciously flinging open the door to the tiger’s

cage. Daily periods of relaxation are a must. When I tell my patients this,

many of them say they relax while they watch TV or read or

knit or socialize. The problem is that while these activities distract the mind

from its usual worries (and so provide some relief), they do little to relieve

the stress we hold in the form of muscular contraction and tension. To reverse

well-established habits of holding tension in our bodies, we need to work with

what the yogis call the energy body (pranamaya kosha). Systematic relaxation

practices offer a precise, orderly technique for releasing tension from head to

toe. There are a number of these techniques, and like all yoga practices, they

are best learned from an experienced teacher, and then honed through patient

practice. They range in complexity from simple tension/relaxation exercises and

point-to-point breathing practices to techniques that require making fine

distinctions among various points in the energy body. But all involve moving

our attention through the body in a methodical fashion, usually while resting

in shavasana (corpse pose). And all require that

we withdraw our attention from the drama of our lives. For the duration of the

practice, we let go of our memories, plans, worries, and fantasies, and focus

on what we are doing here and now as we move our awareness calmly and quietly

from one part of the body to another. Breathing from the diaphragm, while

systematically bringing our full attention to one point in the body after

another, not only releases tension and fatigue in the places where we rest our

attention, it also augments the energy flow among those points. This promotes

both healing and cleansing. Further, because full engagement with a systematic

relaxation practice requires that we clear our minds and attend fully to the

present moment, we are also refining a skill that opens the door to meditation.

meditation • Since stress begins with the perception that our lives (or at least

our sense of well-being) are in danger, working with the mind to alter our

perceptions is the most powerful technique for

quieting our stress response. Most of what activates our fight-or-flight

response is not a matter of life or death. We may feel pressured to accomplish

a certain task or worried about what will happen at tomorrow’s meeting—but our

lives don’t depend upon the outcome. With rare exceptions, the habitual thought

patterns that create the experience of stress for us are overreactions to events

in our lives. Instead of responding in a way that floods the body with

adrenaline, however, we can reframe the experience to make it not only less

stressful, but also more accurate in reflecting what is really happening (“I’m

only in a traffic jam, I’m not at death’s door.” “I want to please this person,

but if I don’t, I’m not going to be fired.”) This goes a long way toward

quieting the fight-or-flight response, and it is a skill that comes with

experience in meditation. Meditation helps us understand our mental habits by

giving us the opportunity to observe them from a neutral vantage

point. This is why I often prescribe meditation to my patients as a way to

manage stress. I don’t mean to minimize meditation as a means of spiritual

transformation, but in its early stages, one of the most delicious benefits of

meditation practice is seeing that it is possible to avoid getting sucked into

the banter and hysteria of our mental chatter. Meditation allows us to witness

that banter—to observe it impartially—without being smack in the middle of it.

It’s like watching a rainstorm from a warm, dry room. The peace we feel when we

are watching our minds rather than identifying with our thoughts is the peace

that is at our core. When you are first learning to meditate, the mind will

wander away from the object of meditation to dwell on some other thought. This

will happen again and again. Your job is to gently and repeatedly bring your

attention back to your object of meditation, and to do it patiently, without

judgment. Sometimes it may seem as if the distracting

thoughts are like movie images projected onto a personal viewing screen in your

mind. And some may be strange and wild. But you are in the rest-and-digest

mode, and as strange as they are, your projections don’t trigger the

fight-or-flight response. The ability to simply observe them is evidence that

they aren’t you. And the ability to distinguish between the inner observer in

you and the chaotic jumble in your mind means that you can respond with

equanimity, rather than react and flood your body with stress hormones. The

more we practice meditation, the more we will be able to discriminate between

what is real and what is not—between what is truly life-threatening and what is

just a habitual overreaction. And once we begin to see that almost everything

that triggers our sympathetic nervous system is merely a habitual overreaction,

we can begin to make different choices. Instead of reacting to an unpleasant

event, we can cushion the jarring effect on our nervous system by

observing it in the same way that we observe our mental chatter in meditation

and by consciously breathing from the diaphragm. This is likely to prove

challenging in the beginning. When your spouse or a coworker snaps at you, you

may find yourself halfway into an angry retort before you notice that you have

switched to chest breathing. Then you need to remind yourself to breathe from

the diaphragm and to find a neutral vantage point. But this skill comes with

time, particularly when you are sitting for meditation regularly, practicing

diaphragmatic breathing, and punctuating your day with a systematic relaxation

practice. And as you choose to activate your rest-and-digest response

consciously and continuously, you will find yourself in fight-or-flight mode

only when your car skids on a patch of ice or the cat knocks over a candle and

sets the curtains on fire. Your health will improve, to say nothing of your

outlook on life. You have learned to choose the right door.

•Carrie Demers, M.D., is a board-certified internist who is the medical director

of the Center for Health and Healing at the Himalayan Institute, where she uses

yoga, ayurveda, and other holistic techniques in her medical practice.

Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online

February 10, 2004

It is a wonderful article and I appreciate your efforts to put it up in this

forum.I am not a very spiritual person and believe more in scientific reasoning

and this article has given me all the reasons to believe in meditation etc.

Thanx

ManoshiSanjay Chadha <chadhatony > wrote:

Chaos or Calm? Rewiring the Stress Response By Carrie Demers, M.D. Remember the

tale “The Lady or the Tiger?” As it ends, the hero is standing before two

identical doors: one conceals a beautiful maiden; the other, a ferocious tiger.

The hero must open one of these doors—the choice is his—but he has no way of

knowing which will bring forth the lady and which will release the tiger. I’m

sometimes reminded of this story when a patient is describing one of the

symptoms of chronic stress: headaches, indigestion, ulcers, tight muscles, high

blood pressure, or some combination of these. When I point out that the symptom

is stress-related, the patient seems resigned—stress is such a constant in most

people’s lives that all the doors seem to have tigers lurking behind them. Most

of the people who find their way to my office know the fight-or-flight response

is hardwired into our nervous system and many have come to accept a constant