Download Meditation

Health and Spirituality
Vinod Kochupillai
Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
New Delhi
Poll Conducted: “Are
you happy with your
life”
• High percentage: “Yes”
• Surprise
• Contradictory to statistics
• Anxiety, depression, Suicide increasing
• If people are happy:
– Why increase in depression and suicides??
Emotions: unaware or
not expressed
• Unaware of feelings
• Ashamed to admit
• Pretending to have fun
• Emotions: may seem to be under control
-- but!
Suppressed Emotions:
Explode
• Affect: Work out put
• Interpersonal relations
• Depression/ anxiety
• Heart attacks, ulcers, migraine, High BP,
cancer
Scientific Studies
Every change in the mental-emotional state,
conscious or unconscious is accompanied by an
appropriate change in physiological state and every
change in the physiological state is accompanied by
an appropriate change in the mental-emotional state
Elmer Green - Mayo clinic Physician
Body physiology, mind &
emotions
How are these linked ??
Neuropeptides &
receptors: Biochemical
Messengers
• Tiny in size, but highly intelligent
• Communicate: each other
• Regulate:
– conscious and unconscious activities
– Behavior, physical activity, even mood
Neuropeptides and
receptors: Not only
brain and nerve cells
•
•
•
•
Present in many parts:
Blood cells (mono & lymphocytes)
Respiratory centre
G I tract - entire lining: esophagus - large intestine
Density of receptors:
– Gut feeling
– Distressing news: diarrhoea
– Dyspepsia: grouchy & irritable
Biochemical messengers:
Neuropeptides and their
receptors
• Manifest as our emotions, beliefs and expectations
• Profoundly influence our responses and
experiences in the world
• Unite mind, spirit and emotions with physical body
• Biochemical base: awareness and consciousness
Dr. Pert: Molecules of Emotions
Biochemical
messengers: Molecules
of Emotions
• Massive information transfer:
Over a network linking all systems and organs,
emotions, thoughts and spirit
• “Mobile brain”
Through which intelligence
moves through entire body
in all places at once
not just in the head
Emotions: needed
• Anger to define boundaries
• Grief to deal with losses
• Fear to protect from danger
Emotions denied;
chronically
suppressed - Stress
• Toxic situation
• Flow of peptides (messengers): blocked
• important body functions:
breathing, blood flow, Immunity:
adversely affected
• Manifest as diseases
• Healing processes: adversely affected
Free Flow of Emotions
• Emotions allowed to move: naturally
• Inner chemicals flow: freely
• Experience:
freedom, joy, healthy state of being
Blocked or suppressed
emotions
• Blood vessels: Constricted (narrowed)
• Blood flow: restricted
• Deprives :
important part of brain
and other organs : of vital nourishment
Frontal Contex:
Inadequate
Nourishment
• Foggy and less alert
• limited in awareness
• Decision making processes: Interfered
• unable to respond freshly to world around:
gets stuck in the past or the future
• Lack of fresh ideas
Emotions and body
sensations : Link
• Each emotion: Physical sensation
• Attention over physical sensation : allows emotions
to move rather than get suppressed
• However, one is often not aware of this sensation
• Elimination of stress : one becomes aware and
brings the sensation into consciousness
Elimination of Stress
Over centuries
Yoga, meditation, Pranayam
Yoga is living life skillfully
Meditation allows long buried thoughts and
feelings to surface, it is a way of getting the
peptides flow again, returning the body and the
emotions to health.
Meditation
A mind without agitation is meditation.
A mind in the present moment is meditation.
A mind which becomes no mind is
meditation.
A mind that has no hesitation, no
anticipation
is
meditation.
A mind that has come back to the source
H H Sri Sri Ravi
is meditation.
Shankar
Sudarshan Kriya (SK)
and Pranayam (P)
More recently
His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi
Shankar
Introduced a powerful process Sudarshan Kriya
Rhythmic breathing process Three rhythms followed
cyclically.
Regular practice: SK,
P, yoga and meditation
• stresses: eliminated
• peptides flow freely
• one becomes aware
• living in the present
• focused, alert and yet relaxed
• This is what spirituality (consciousness) is all
about
• Productivity, efficiency and relationships
automatically improve
Underlying mechanisms:
Effect of Yogic Breathing
: Physiology
SK & P: Alleviation of anxiety, depression and
stress
• Increased Parasympathetic drive
•Calming of stress response systems
•Neuro endocrine release of hormones
Dr. Richard Bro
•Thalamic generators
Psychiatrist
•Neuro-peptides & their receptors Columbia Univer
SK and P : EEG studies
Resting EEG :
2 groups:
practising SK and P x at least 2 years
vs controls:
beta waves
EEG during SK and P -
alpha waves:
relaxed alertness
Manveer Bhatia
Neurologist & EEG Incharge
EEG Changes
During SK & P
EEG Changes
Resting EEG:
Control Vs
practitioners of
SK & P
SK & P : Effect on brain
EEG Studies :
Increased connectivity & information processing
in the brain
Bhatia M, Kumar A, Bhardwaj NK, Pandey RM
and Kochupillai V.
Electrophysiological evaluation of Sudarshan
Kriya; EEG, BAER and P-300 study.
Ind J Physiol & Pharmacol
47(2): 157-163, 2003
SK & P : effect on blood
cortisol & ACTH
• Studies : AIIMS and NIMHANS, Bangalore
• Fall in blood cortisol and ACTH (Stress
hormones)
• Consistent: relaxing effect of SK and P
NIMHANS: Alcohol addicts & patients with
depression
• 70% required no medication
• SK & P No side effects
• Cost effective
Jankiramaiah et al. A Therapeutic Efficacy of
Sudarshan Kriya yoga 9SKY) In Dysthymic
Disorders.
NIMHANS Journal 17;21-28,1998
Naga Venkatesha et al. P300 Amplitude And
Antidepressant Response To Sudarshan Kriya Yoga.
Journal Affective Disorders 50;45-48,1998.
Jankiramaiah et al. Antidepressant Efficacy Of
Sudarshan Kriya Yoga 9SKY) In Melancholia.
Journal Affective Disorders 57; 255-59, 2000.
SK & P : Fall in blood
lactate
• Police trainees - highly stressed group
• Blood lactate increases during physical
and/ or mental stress
• Alter 5 months of SK and P practice :
remarkable fall in blood lactate in those
practising SK & P :
consistent with relaxation effect
Neeta Singh: Prof. Biochemistry: AIIMS
Blood lactate: Effect of Sudarshan Kriya
p=highly significant
1 .8
( 3x10-10)
1 .6
L a c ta te (m m o le s /L )
1 .4
1 .2
1
C o n tr o ls
Pr a c tio n e r s
0 .8
0 .6
0 .4
0 .2
0
o m in
4 5 m in
p=0.013
p=0.0006
6 5 m in
SK & P : Antioxidant
defense
• Police trainees
• Studied at base line, after 5 months of SK and P
practice and during SK and P
• Study Group vs controls
Neeta Singh, Prof, Biochemistry, AIIMS.
• Significant in Antioxidant enzymes in
Menopausal women
Dr. Geetha