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Asana as a route to relaxation and mastery of mind and body

Relaxation is literally a life or death issue. Deep relaxation induces a response of the part of the nervous system that brings about mental and physiological bliss. This is when our heart rate is low, our muscular and nervous system is relaxed, our brain waves are in alpha and our whole bodymind system can maximise metabolic efficiency. But many people can't relax. They might think they are relaxed but really their system is still wired. Many people don't really relax even when they are sleeping; waking in the morning and still feeling tired.

We live in a world that is not conducive to relaxation, so we need to learn techniques to help us systematically relax our entire system so that we can, for increasing periods of time, experience a deep state of relaxation and bliss. It is during deep relaxation that our cells renew, so we age less; deep relaxation improves our cognitive and brain functions so that we can use more of our creativity and intelligence; our personality is also affected by deep relaxation we become more expansive, accepting, tolerant, compassionate, gracious, joyous, peaceful, loving, kind, humble. Deep relaxation helps us to live to our fullest potential as a human being.

Yoga postures (asanas) are a way to deep relaxation: ultimately they help us tread the path to higher consciousness so that we can begin to understand our relationship with existence. But let's start with relaxation! Yoga postures help us to relax much more so than any other 'exercise' because asanas demand two important things from us: 

1. a focus on the breath - we practice asanas with a conscious effort and control of the breath. Asanas bring about a change in our breathing. Rapid and irregular breathing is a sign of tension in body and mind. The breath is a bridge between the body and mind. Breathing coherently during asanas (deep, smooth breathing) tonifies the parasympathetic nervous system (the relaxation side of the NS) and has a calming expansive effect on the mind. Asanas bring about mental and emotional balance by slowing down and deepening the breathing.
2. Mindful awareness - the best systems of yoga (such as my Satyananda system) use awareness and mindfulness as an essential feature of the asana practice. Whilst performing the postures we need to be fully aware of what is going on, the mind is focused on feeling tone of the body during the work. We are aware of the breath movement. we are aware of the subtle or not-so-subtle sensations of the body, we are aware of the subtle moment-by-moment changes in our mental and emotional state. In doing this we relax our very personality - we become more of who we could be. Moment by moment.

Asanas have a massive influence on one's mental outlook. They help us have a more optimistic and resilient attitude to life. How? Under the guidance of a good teacher, asanas influence many important systems of the body.

One of these is the endocrine system. The endocrine system and is various glands located around the body, is controlled by the brain via the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. This system has a major impact on our emotional makeup and personality (can be the root of depressive and anxiety illnesses etc). Asanas automatically and gently bring this system into balance and proper working order.

Asanas bring other major bodily systems into harmony. These systems are rythmical in nature and work as a gestalt, as a whole, together. The blood, nervous, respiratory, digestive and endocrine systems are all affected positively by asanas.

Mental problems or tension is the main cause of most diseases which afflict us today. Yoga asanas release all mental and physical tension. It helps the body to heal itself. By ridding the body of disease and the mind of tension, asanas help the body to resist disease and have strength and flexibility and overall wellbeing. Regular practice of yoga asanas (and regularity is key) helps to make us master of mind and body, bringing about a strong, healthy mind and body.

That is what the 2500 system of yoga is designed to do. It is not a passing fad, a system based on only a few years' experience; it is a well tested system for attaining physical and mental health. And when we have attained health and eliminated 'dis-ease' we can work to higher levels of human consciousness. Little by little.

16 point exercise for deep relaxation

How does relaxation happen? We can't just tell ourselves to relax because

often we simply don't know how to. The patterns of tension have become so ingrained and deep that we don't even know we are doing it. This tension, mental, emotional and physical, is the root cause of many illnesses and ailments from headaches and high blood pressure to chronic pain and anxiety disorders.

Tension most often starts in the mind. The brain sends neurochemical signals to the muscles to tense up. And some areas of the body are quicker to tense than others, partly because they have a larger area of the brain dedicated to them and hence more motor control governs these areas. This includes the eyes, jaw, throat and tongue, diaphragm, perineum, hands and feet. Whilst these areas tighten and tense with lightening speed, letting go is a slower more difficult process. Sometimes tension may never fully leave these areas, because the mind has a constant baseline of tension, so these areas are held tense. This restricts the flow of energy in the body, affecting our breathing, and circulation etc.

This simple exercise will help you to relax deeply and let go of tension in these areas:

Balance the autonomic nervous system for perfect wellbeing

In my 6 years' experience of working with people therapeutically with my Embodied Living programmes, I can honestly say that stress and disease happen when the autonomic nervous system is out of balance.Harmony, wellbeing, balance and performance happen when there is balance between the two sides of the nervous system: the sympathetic (SNA) and the parasympathetic (PNS).
These are like yin and yang. The SNS is the active, dynamic side and the PNS the passive, relaxed and expansive side. We need balance between the two for an optimal state of being where we are creative, open, relaxed yet active and engaged enough to get things done.
But the SNS gets a bad press: it is associated with the fear, flight or fight response and stress. But we need it.
Nevertheless for most of us today, our SNS is in overdrive to a greater or lesser degree.
We feel tired and wired. We have poor memory, short attention spans, feel fuzzy headed. We over react to situations and people. All sure signs that the SNS is hyper and all illustrative of how this 'out of balance' state affects the mind.

The SNS is easy and quick to engage: we perceive something (or someone!) that is challenging and instantaneously various muscle centres (particularly the eyes, jaw, throat, tongue, hands, feet, diaphragm and pelvic area) tighten and tense up. These muscle centres find it hard to subsequently let go; it takes time. Often we are in over drive so much of the time that they never fully relax (this leads to conditions such as chronic pain, chronic fatigue perhaps ME). The PNS invariably is under used, and often like anything that we don't use, has atrophed to such an extent that it is useless.

The very nature of the autonomic nervous system (involuntary) implies that we have no control. But there is a unique window into this system - not only to see how out of balance it is, but also to control it. Heart rate variability (HRV) is related to the frequency, regularity and responsivness of the changing beats of the heart. It is intimately linked with breathing and in particular, with the range of movement of the primary muscle of breathing: the diaphragm.

Yoga, though likely you will find no book that says this, is all about bringing the autonomic nervous system into balance through extending the range of the diaphragm (especially the exhalation phase, which is key to PNS engagement) to achieve high HRV. This brings about emotional and physiological coherence - a state of bliss, flow state where we are expansive and whole, ultimately the state of turya or samadhi. 

The yogic approach to depression

Depression, anxiety and stress are all interrelated. Perhaps it starts with stress. We get 'stressed'. This may be chronic (long term consistent level), or acute (short term intense spike) or both (ie acute on top of chronic). This stress affects our breathing, compromises our immune system and puts our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) into overdrive. This results in many psychological, physiological and behavioural symptoms that reduce the quality of our life.

Stress can lead to anxiety, a state of over arousal where fears, worries and negative thoughts can take over. Ultimately, I believe this over arousal of the 'cognitive' (thinking) mind, the 'left brain', and SNS can lead to a kind of cognitive 'burn out' which is wear depression comes in. (Remember the normal brain uses up the calorific equivalent of two kit kats and a packet of crisps, just in the process of thinking. Can't remember exactly how many calories - i think its about 400 /day!).

Depression is when our nervous system is completely out of whack.

"Depression is not so much a condition of having no energy, as a kind of psychic constipation blocking our energy flow."  Swami Satyananda

Depression is classically shown as excessive tiredness, apathy, no energy, lifelessness, intense introversion and inferiority - these are all classic signs of depression.

In yogic terms we look at the energetic state of the person, not the causes of the depression. And those of us trained in yoga for mental health, can put together yoga practices to balance the nervous system. After all the 'hatha' of hatha yoga is about balancing left and right, yin and yang, ida and pingala nadis. This rebalancing of the nervous system is central to yogic treatment of depression.

We achieve this through:

•  Asanas - postures such as strong backward bending movements (cobra, camel, bow) are ideal because of their effect on the adrenal glands and thyroid, sidebends are good, and dynamic work of yang yoga and sequences such as surya namaskara as these release endorphins and testosterone helping us to feel good and connect to a sense of inner power
• Shatkarmas - cleansing practices such as kunjal and neti can release emotional blockages and rebalance us
• pranayama - classically nadi shodana (alternate nostril breathing) is ideal, and bastrika type breathing will vitalise energy. Ujjiyi is also good for calming agitated states.
• psychophysiology/psychotherapy - we address the subtle bodies and also the psychic knots (granthis) and aim to address somatic change before we address the mind
• relaxation
• meditation - antar mouna is especially powerful

Lifestyle factors such as diet, are also very important.

Living in Bliss with the Breath

In yoga we use breathing as a fundamental tool in both posture work and more overtly through the practice of pranyama. There is a way to breathe - known as coherent breathing - where we can synchronise heart rate and even blood flow, with respiration. This brings about emotional and physiological coherence.


When we don't breathe coherently, and for many of us unproductive breathing is a lifetime habit, the sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant (we're in the realm of fearing, fleeing or fighting). And the parasympathetic nervous system, the relaxation responsive system that we all have inherent access to, becomes dysfunctional and is no longer able to counteract the stressed nervous system and rescue us from a pretty negative and unpleasant way of being in the world.


With sympathetic nervous system dominance, caused by unproductive breathing, we experience:

• poor circulation (cold hands, feet, tingling, numbness)
• muscle tightness (particularly trapezius in neck and shoulders)
• headaches
• anxiety
• pain (can lead to chronic pain)
• increased rate of ageing

And a myriad of other symptoms!

We can learn how to breathe in yoga. And in my classes, workshops and one to ones, I teach coherent breathing. There are several aspects to coherent breathing:

1. Diaphragmatic action - the diaphragm is a strong sheet of muscle that sits in the torso separating the abdominal organs from the thoracic cage. It is a very important organ. It can move in a range of 10 cm. Yet many people don't use it - it's range may be 1 cm or less. When the diaphragm is used to at least 60% of its capacity in breathing it works on the enteric nervous system (the ENS, the gut) to entrain this body-brain (the ENS has 100,000 neurons, as much as the spinal column!!). It also massages deeply into the gut to keep the myofascial connective structure free of blockages and the body fluids healthy.
2. Effect on the Heart - the diaphragm is connected to the heart via the central tendon and connective tissue. Its action massages the heart - the other body-brain. As much as 65% of heart cells are neural cells, identical to those found in the brain, your heart has thoughts and a 'mind'! In addition, the heart is a powerful EMF energy generator (the electromagnetic energy that a coherent heart kicks out can be measured up to 15 feet outside of the body!!), and can affect the energy of brainwaves (a process called entrainment) and also of other people.
3. Engage the parasympathetic nervous system - the diaphragm is connected to the vagus nerve, part of the PNS, and its action serves to increase the functionality of the PNS
4. Entrainment - through coherent breathing we can entrain the ENS (the gut), the heart into coherence (high HRV), and the brainwaves into alpha or even theta.

These four points mean that when we learn how to breathe coherently, we notice changes in both body and mind.

To begin with, many of us may simply feel MORE pain, more tiredness or exhaustion. This is because we are actually really exhausted and/or in pain but it has been 'hidden' by the over active SNS - stress hormones such as cortisol are at permanently elevated levels and serve to mask this.

But if we practice consistently and regularly these problems will diminish and we will start to feel the many benefits of coherent breathing:

• reduced pain
• more energy
• improved sleep
• reduced blood pressure
• reduced symptoms of depression and/or anxiety
• increased performance
• improved emotional control
• increased resilience and less stress
• better decision making

Coherent breathing is the key to more confidence, happiness and bliss.

Salamba Sirsasana - The Headstand

King of all the postures, the Headstand is a fabulous pose - there is an effortlessness in it (believe it or not!) and it is easier than it looks. But it can be encounter with fear! This is because perfect point of balance, where you feel weightless, light, is just before the point of falling over backwards! For beginners this is a scary place to be, but as you gain familiarity with it, it will feel secure. The balance should be light, grounded through the arms, sure and steady. There should be no strain.

The arms and upper body need to be strong enough to carry all the weight (there is hardly any weight on your neck as you do this posture),and the abdominals (and moola bandha) need to be strong to lift the legs effortlessly (do not 'jump up').

Headstand should be preceeded by bridge (dwi pada pittam) posture and followed by locust (Salambhasana). (Many thanks to Yoga Journal for help with the step by step)

Watch a short video here

Step by Step

1. Kneel on the floor. Lace your fingers together and set the forearms on the floor, elbows at shoulder width. Hands flat. Roll the upper arms slightly outward, but press the inner wrists firmly into the floor. Set the crown of your head on the floor. Press the your palms into the floor and snuggle the back of your head against the apex of the triangle made by the hands. Curl the toes under.
2. Roll up onto the crown of the head, pressing your energy through into the floor. Keep the shoulders down and the shoulder blades drawn into the back. Roll up through the buttocks so that the thoracic spine becomes more vertical and then, keeping the upper spine vertical, drop the buttocks back down a little to elongate the spine.
3. Pushing into the toes, inhale and lift the knees off the floor and straighten through the back of the legs, pushing the seat bones up into the air. Using your abdominal muscles (and you shouldn't be doing headstand if you don't have strong abs), draw the feet towards the head, bring the whole spine to the vertical.
4. Actively lift through the top thighs, forming an inverted "V." Firm the shoulder blades against your back and lift them toward the tailbone so the front torso stays as long as possible. This should help prevent the weight of the shoulders collapsing onto your neck and head.
5. Exhale and lift your feet away from the floor. Take both feet up at the same time, even if it means bending your knees and hopping lightly off the floor. As the legs (or thighs, if your knees are bent) rise to perpendicular to the floor, firm the tailbone against the back of the pelvis. Turn the upper thighs in slightly, and actively press the heels toward the ceiling (straightening the knees if you bent them to come up). The center of the arches should align over the center of the pelvis, which in turn should align over the crown of the head.
6. Firm the outer arms inward, and soften the fingers. Continue to press the shoulder blades against the back, widen them, and draw them toward the tailbone. Keep the weight evenly balanced on the two forearms. It's also essential that your tailbone continues to lift upward toward the heels. Once the backs of the legs are fully lengthened through the heels, maintain that length and press up through the balls of the big toes so the inner legs are slightly longer than the outer.
7. As a beginning practitioner stay for 10 seconds. Gradually add 5 to 10 seconds onto your stay every day or so until you can comfortably hold the pose for 3 minutes. Then continue for 3 minutes each day for a week or two, until you feel relatively comfortable in the pose. Again gradually add 5 to 10 seconds onto your stay every day or so until you can comfortably hold the pose for 5 minutes. Come down with an exhalation, without losing the lift of the shoulder blades, with both feet touching the floor at the same time.

Benefits
The headstand is an inversion and these cleanse and nourish us at deep levels: the brain is flooded with blood flow and nutrients, the mind clears, thinking improves.  Headstand activates the body's master glands - pineal and pituitary - which controls the chemical balance of the entire body. It strengthens the body, and focuses and concentrates the mind - is conducive to meditation.

•Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
•Stimulates the pituitary and pineal glands
•Strengthens the arms, legs, and spine
•Strengthens the lungs
•Tones the abdominal organs
•Improves digestion
•Helps relieve the symptoms of menopause
•Therapeutic for asthma, infertility, insomnia, and sinusitis

Contraindications - DON'T DO THIS IF YOU HAVE:
•Back injury
•Headache

•Heart condition

•High blood pressure

•Menstruation

•Neck injury

•Low blood pressure: Don't start practice with this pose

•Pregnancy: If you are experienced with this pose, you can continue to practice it late into pregnancy. However, don't take up the practice of Sirsasana after you become pregnant.

•Sirsasana is considered to be an intermediate to advanced pose. Do not perform this pose without sufficient prior experience or unless you have the supervision of an experienced teacher. Some schools of yoga recommend doing Sirsasana before Sarvangasana, others vice versa. The instruction here assumes the former order.