The Tibetan Yoga of Breath: Breathing Practices for Healing the Body and Cultivating Wisdom (8 page)

This is very different from life in the West, where society itself varies and where we can find a place to fit in no matter who we want to be. If we want to be an artist or a writer, we can join an artist’s community. If we live in an area we feel is too politically conservative, we can go somewhere else that matches our values, rather than trying to make ourselves fit in. Here we are free to allow our minds to wander wherever they want to go, whether or not this mental wandering is healthy or constructive. “Should I sell my house and get a new one? Should I leave my spouse? Should I change my job . . . my friends . . . my religion . . . my diet . . . my wardrobe . . . my hair . . .?” The number of choices we consider day by day, moment by moment, goes on and on. The irony is that we often resent roles and routines, thinking they limit our freedom of choice, when instead it is freedom of choice that often limits our ability to focus our energy.

The Stress of Choices

Our individualistic culture thrives on choice. It is our prerogative to do what we want to do, when we want to do it. We lose touch with the fact that food and rest are supposed to nourish body and mind so that we are balanced and healthy. Instead, we often eat
because it gratifies us or we sleep in because we feel like it. However, sometimes being free to make many choices contributes to the self-perpetuating energy of emotional and physical imbalance. There are so many ideas and possibilities before us that we are not sure which to choose. Uncertainty gives rise to stress and worry. Some research indicates that when we suffer from stress and anxiety, the chemical effect on the brain causes difficulty making connections and processing information, especially related to making choices.
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The inability to choose is exacerbated by the sheer number of choices available to us, adding to the energy and momentum of anxiety.

Other research shows that with increased numbers of choices comes decreased well-being.
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When we have more choices, we often focus on what seems to be the perfect choice. We find it hard to make a decision, searching for which choice is the best one, and wanting to avoid making the “wrong” choice. The time and mental energy we expend worrying about mundane things, such as which stereo system is best, or which brand of cereal to buy, contributes to our mental exhaustion. Have you ever been overwhelmed by searching for something in particular in the grocery store or the superstore? There are shelves and shelves of different varieties and options to choose from.

As a result, we often feel less satisfied with what we have and regret possibilities not pursued once we realize our choice was not perfect after all. Emotionally, we fail to understand that the end result of any choice we make can never be lasting happiness, because lasting happiness is impossible to achieve except on a spiritual level. Ordinary thoughts and actions cannot help us escape the suffering of the world we live in. Despite making even the best choices, all of the same old unknowns and uncertainties of life remain, and lasting happiness eludes us. No matter how many choices we have at our fingertips, we lack control over life and death. Although we tend to equate choice with freedom, choice alone will never free us from suffering.

Another aspect of choice that can be stressful is that it involves our appearance to the rest of the world. Our self-attachment can grow as a result. Every choice we make is a statement to those around us about “who we are.” Because we are so personally invested in our choices—because we identify with them—we feel even more pressure to make the so-called right choice and even greater regret if we feel we have made the so-called wrong one.

Constantly seeing life through the lens of countless choices can contribute to feeling a lack of stability and continuity in our day-to-day lives. It can also contribute to feeling a lack of purpose and commitment. When we are constantly considering alternatives to what we are doing right now, we may feel unsure about our present path. With the distraction of many possibilities, staying the course can be difficult. The stress and mental anxiety caused by this thought pattern also fuels other strong physical and emotional responses. As the energy of stress builds up and develops, we begin to worry unnecessarily about things that will never come to pass. We do not feel like ourselves. We lose sleep. We are tense and restless. This, in turn, leads to more stress, and becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

Stagnation.
Physical movement contributes to our physical, mental, and emotional health. But when we think about physical activity, we tend to think about serious exercise, such as running, hiking, or lifting weights. We do not have to run a marathon to bring ourselves more into balance. While physical training does support a healthy body, any kind of movement and any effort that we make toward balancing body and mind will benefit us.

In the past, when our own society was less technologically developed, movement was a part of everyday life. We walked or biked instead of driving everywhere. We did not spend eight to ten hours a day in front of a computer screen, and then time at home in the evening in front of the television. In less economically developed countries, most people are still very active. For example, in Tibet, farmers are out working with the livestock, or nomadic
groups are in the process of moving to a new camp. In such countries, staying in bed late and not doing daily chores and activities is not a choice—people have to move! They have to get up even if they are tired, and because they lack machines and technology to do things for them, they have to use their bodies to get things done. The end result is that in these societies, people are in constant motion and the body’s energy is not stuck and stagnant.

Without a physical response to stress, the stress hormones released within our bodies take longer to disperse and can accumulate. Stress builds up, and we get stuck in that stressed-out state. This is another way of saying that the energy within the body and the wind-mind cannot move, flow, or adapt properly. Physical movement helps to break down and disperse this stagnant state of body and mind, regardless of the cause of stress. Thus, movement helps to bring us back into balance.

When we think of yogis and retreatants, it may seem like they are not really working with the physical body. We may think that they are just sitting still all the time. But as we will talk about in the next chapter, sacred movement, proper posture, and wind energy training are all forms of movement that provide an important basis for mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Research shows that sacred-movement systems such as yoga reduce the presence of stress-related responses in the body, thereby reducing pain responses as well as the causes for stress-related disorders like anxiety and depression.
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Yogis and retreatants work with movement when they practice traditional forms of Tibetan Yantra Yoga, or engage in prostrations—devotional movements that align and soften the energetic channels in the body. As we will discuss in the next chapter, sacred movement, working with the wind-mind, and purifying the energetic channels are an integral part of a sacred society such as that of Tibet.

Physical rigidity.
Notice how your body feels when you get up in the morning. Often, the body is hard and cold, like ice. It hurts when we move, so we do not feel like doing anything. When the
body is inflexible, the quality of the body’s energetic channels is unnaturally rigid. However, this rigidity doesn’t just occur in the morning. It is often part of our daily life, and we carry that rigidity with us throughout the day. When the body and the channels are rigid, the wind-mind cannot move freely, and our energy gets stuck in certain patterns. The rigidity and inflexibility of the body contributes to the cycle of imbalance.

Anxiety.
Anxiety is a state of mind brought about by extremely high wind energy: wind energy that is so high it builds upon itself. When we experience anxiety, we overestimate the strength and number of stressors in our environment. As stress becomes chronic and repeated, the increase in the wind element becomes stronger and more pronounced. This disrupts our physical and mental health in more noticeable ways. For example, increased wind fuels racing and obsessive thought patterns that cause us to relive painful or uncomfortable situations. We chase after these thoughts, bringing worry and unease. Our unease gives rise to even greater wind energy, which brings even more thoughts to chase after. Whether or not these thoughts and worries are reasonable, we are so overwhelmed by the energy and the momentum of anxiety that we do not take the time to examine them. We do not, or cannot, dismiss them. Our emotions spin out of control. We long for rest, but the mind, riding the racing energy of the heart-wind, is moving so fast that we cannot seem to calm down. The harder we push ourselves without allowing the body to rest and recharge, the closer we get to a mental or physical breakdown.

Overstimulated mind.
We can feel that we are in a state of tremendous motion because of the motion of the wind-mind. Because of the experience of motion, we do not realize that anxiety is actually a state of stagnation, another expression of imbalance that we get stuck in. From a Western medical perspective, anxiety is a cyclic overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, or, using the concepts of Tibetan medicine, the buildup of heart-wind. Because of this increase in the wind element, the nervous system is unable to relax and reset itself.

Traditionally, according to Tibetan philosophy, the tendency toward high wind energy, or heart-wind, is more prevalent in intelligent individuals. Wind energy, or the air element, is related to thoughts, creativity, and mental flexibility. With intelligence naturally comes an abundance of thoughts and ideas. Working with wind energy training can help to relieve the anxiety caused by having an overabundance of thoughts and ideas, not only by helping to calm the sympathetic nervous system but also because it helps us gradually purify and let go of our habitual thought patterns.

When we experience anxiety, we engage in shallow, thoracic breathing, which stimulates the sympathetic nervous system so that we are unable to relax. We are in great need of rest and relaxation because the body’s normal mechanism to help us relax is not functioning properly. Even when the anxious body and mind does sleep, that sleep is often disrupted in quality or length, so we rarely feel recharged. Being deprived of rest, we also begin to eat improperly. Without proper rest and nutrition, mental imbalance leads to physical imbalance. As time passes, the body is not capable of sustaining its high energy, so the entire system can collapse and we can experience burnout. The energy of the body becomes heavy and exhausted.

P
ROFILE OF
D
EPRESSION

Like anxiety, depression is an imbalance of the air element, as it is accompanied by clouds of negative thoughts. However, depression is also an expression of an imbalance in the earth element. This results in the mental, emotional, and physical heaviness we feel when we are depressed.

From the point of view of Tibetan philosophy, depression is a state of mind that is highly influenced by our attitudes and thought patterns, our breathing, our karma—perhaps some of us might say our deeply ingrained habits—and our day-to-day behavior. And likewise, depression is treatable because contemplative practice
and wind energy training address all of these major causes of depression simultaneously.

From the point of view of Western medicine, depression manifests as a result of genetics, environment, nutrition, habits of mind and thought patterns, brain chemistry, and/or physical illness. When enough of these depression-prone factors present—or even a strong dose of one of these factors presents—a depressed state of body and mind can result. There may be no common cause of depression, but there is a common result.

Though the origins of depression vary, depressed individuals share the tendencies of feeling exhausted, defeated, and powerless. When we are depressed, we underestimate our ability to cope with daily stressors. Our outlook on life becomes gloomy, coloring our thoughts and interactions and causing them to spiral out of control. Feeling exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed, our ability to deal with everyday situations is compromised. We often choose to withdraw from everyday life.

Because depression arises from a variety of causes and conditions, it can also be treated in a variety of ways. Altering brain chemistry with medication clearly helps some people. Exercise has also been shown to be as effective at relieving depression as medication in some studies.
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But medical research also demonstrates that brain chemistry and function is altered by changes in the way we think! For example, cognitive therapy has been shown to be as effective as medication in the treatment of depression.
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There are clearly things you can do and practice to benefit your state of mind, regardless of the origin of your depression. Working with one or a combination of the contributing factors of depression helps us to put our energy in motion and create change in body and mind. If depression were solely based on one cause, such as genetics or the chemical balance in the brain, we might be correct in feeling that there is nothing we can do to heal ourselves. But thinking of depression as an imbalance in the elements can be empowering. We each have the ability to bring something that is out of balance back into balance.

We tend to think of anxiety and depression as being very different types of imbalances. However, as we have already learned, depression and anxiety frequently occur together, and depression is often preceded by anxiety. One way to understand this is that the racing thought patterns of anxiety and the continual release of stress hormones tax the system so much that it simply collapses, and can manifest as depression.

From the point of view of wind energy, depression and anxiety are different expressions of the same root. Western medicine has a similar view. For example, anxiety and depression often respond to the same sorts of interventions: cognitive behavioral therapy, medications, yoga, and breath yoga. Additionally, decreased oxygenation of brain cells is implicated in both anxiety and depression, and both conditions are characterized by shallow, thoracic breathing. This suggests that deep abdominal breathing is beneficial to those suffering from anxiety and depression.