The practice of yoga can profoundly alter the life experience. Stretching, meditation and yogic breathing involve the brain releasing certain soothing substances, which have a clear effect on the mood later in a session.
Yoga citta vritti nirodha
Yoga is the end of the disturbances of the mind. If you look for me early one morning, around seven in the morning, you are likely to find me on my mat, soaked in sweat. Feeling my heart beating strongly, observing my emotions in Sarvangasana.
Nothing is more satisfying than a yoga session full of movement. You may prefer an intense and sweaty practice of vinyasa, or a soft but intentional practice like viniyoga, or something in between like hatha yoga that provides an immense radiance when you tune movement and breathing.
When you do it, your mind stops the obsessive heartbeat and you start to free yourself. Your attention is focused on breathing and not doing, and you feel much better.
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The practice of yoga has passed in the last quarter of a century in this country from a yuppie fashion to a piece of bedside health, a recipe of any doctor. Most physicians recognize that it improves health, gives flexibility to the mind and is excellent for feeling happy. Some students ask me if it could not simply be regular exercise the fruit of improvement.
However, recent research in clinical applications and neurobiology of different exercises seem to show that yoga has an advantage over other types of aerobic activities, especially in terms of emotional stability and well-being.
If I have to recommend the practice of yoga from the psychological field, I would say that it can combat depression and promote the stability of a calm state of mind. Although for a neophyte a series of yoga may seem like simply a series of boring stretching exercises, students who persevere will realize how after a week or two they begin to gain conscious control of their emotions.
Patience is strengthened, pride is swallowed, you do the best you can without understanding too much. You learn that concentration, balance and breathing go hand in hand. You lose weight, and that makes you feel lighter ... It increases your tolerance to frustration and general malaise - there's nothing like a difficult pose. So you train your real life emotions.
A recent Harvard research shows that there is no significant difference between the results for the treatment of stress between meditation and doing yoga or a cognitive-behavioral therapy. So in summary, it seems to me that when we do yoga we do not really know what is happening in our brain.
What happens in the brain
The regular practice of yoga releases a chemical substance called GABA in the brain thalamus, which is a kind of great inhibitor of the brain and plays a major role in the suppression of neural activity. Classical anti-anxiety medications, such as benzodiazepines, work by promoting the release of GABA in the central nervous system. GABA increases in the brain of people who do yoga.
The study compared direct levels of GABA one hour before and one hour after the practice, and an increase of 27% appeared. Therefore stretching, meditation and yogic breathing involve the brain releasing certain soothing substances, which have a clear effect on the mood later in a session.
I do not want anyone to believe that I am encouraging the practice of yoga by giving up another type of treatment for anxiety or depression. There are no similar studies conducted with taichi or any other technique, therefore I suggest to continue investigating.
Promises kept
In short, yoga can profoundly alter the life experience. Thousands of years ago, the sage Patanjali and the Buddha promised that meditation and yoga could eliminate the suffering caused by a disturbed spirit.
They taught their students to cultivate focused attention, compassion and joy. They believed that it was possible to change one's own mental faculties and the emotional patterns that meditative states regularly experience. And they were strong promises.
The next time you do yoga, concentrate beyond the body and the object in the moment and in what is present at that moment. Imagine yourself as a mountain. Some thoughts will be stormy, like thunder, lightning, and winds. Others, dark and sinister clouds.
But keep in mind that what counts is "stability". Use your breath to focus on that present moment, and cultivate the ability to weather the storm. If you feel dragged by a thought or emotion, feel it and go back to breathing.
The key is to be presentin that constant moment, in that change of thinking instead of giving more content and meaning to your thoughts. In reality, your thoughts are just illusions. Do not believe everything you think, and continue the conscious practice of your thoughts, feelings and sensations.
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