“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.”

Buddha

Do you think affirmations are new-agey and trite? I mean, really, as if, “I am the very source of abundance and love itself” taped on your mirror is going to pay that credit card bill? I’m going to suggest that you have a rethink and try on the possibility that affirmations may be at the cutting edge of neuroscience and its sexy sister, PNI, or psychoneuroimmunology. And while an affirmation in itself may not be enough to help you pay your bills, practicing affirmations can reshape your brain and thus cause you to incorporate behavioral changes which will help you to do everything from having more successful working relationships to managing your finances.

“Plasticity” refers to the brain’s ability to reconfigure itself, to establish and to dissolve connections between its different parts. Consider the phrase, “neurons that wire together fire together.” What exactly does it mean? When one neuron (nerve cell) wants to “talk” to another, it communicates by way of an electrochemical signal. An electrical signal is released from the soma (cell body) and travels down the axon (a threadlike protrusion of varying length that carries nerve signals ) until it can go no further because it has reached the synaptic cleft (the space between two neurons).

Since an electrical signal can’t cross the gap, the charge is converted into a chemical packet, or neurotransmitter, which diffuses across the synapse where it latches on to a receptor cell on the other side. When the molecule binds to the receptor, an electrical charge is released which travels up the dendrite (similar to an axon, but receives nerve signals) to the second nerve cell.

The link between cells is an electrochemical pathway. Many of these chemicals have specific emotional signatures, such as oxytocin, which creates feelings of trust and attachment, ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone), which signals the adrenal glands to release the stress hormone cortisol to create feelings of arousal, and serotonin, the happy chemical. To quote the late pioneering neuroscientist Candace Pert, neurotransmitters are “molecules of emotion.”

These chemicals are essentially drugs which affect how we feel because of how they interact with the limbic system (emotional brain), as well as the autonomic nervous system (fight or flight and rest and restore) and digestive, immune, and respiratory systems. To somewhat oversimplify, this means that when you think a certain thought, recall something, or repeat something mentally, you initiate a neurochemical reaction and an associated feeling ripples through different parts of your body. For example, when you feel stressed out in response to particular thoughts, it is because your sympathetic nervous system is activated and you feel aroused. Depending on how you feel, your mouth may become dry, your palms clammy, and your stomach may feel as though it’s doing double flips.

Each of us repeats habitual thought patterns that we know have unwelcome consequences because they make us feel bad about ourselves and have a negative impact on the ability to pursue our goals and interests and to feel happy and actualized.  Researchers in the area of PNI are reporting that negative, stress-inducing thoughts adversely affect our immunity and raise our white T cell count. An elevated white T cell count usually means inflammation, a sign that the body thinks it is under attack.

Just as negative thought patterns have adverse effects, positive thoughts can create positive effects, thus leading to increased feelings of happiness, well-being, and confidence. It turns out that happier people who enjoy a generally positive state of mind and cultivate positive thoughts also enjoy better health and deal with stress better. As anyone who’s ever sat for an exam knows, your state of mind is not merely important; it actually determines exam success. If you go into an exam feeling confident and upbeat, you are much more likely to perform well. By a similar token, when I was writing my application letter to get into a PhD program in philosophy in Chicago, my academic advisor cautioned me to write the letter when I was feeling good and good about myself, otherwise the letter would not convey an attitude of confidence.

Specific thoughts elicit related feelings, which in turn influence our overall disposition and our propensity towards behaviors. Our thoughts create our stance within and towards our world, and consequently, our experience—change your thoughts and you change your world. Now this doesn’t seem so new-agey. . . I take it that we all want more happiness, satisfaction, and abundance in our lives, and if changing the way we think helps to bring that about, that’s something attainable over time.

We all have had (or are having) the experience of getting stuck in habitual ways of thinking and acting. Frequently, we would like to change such patterns but find that we are repeating the same old groove, even when it doesn’t feel good. Given the neuronal connections between different parts of the brain that result from neurons in one wiring to those in another, our habitual responses become hardwired. Add in the fact that we can become addicted to the chemicals released by neurons firing (think about gamblers and the dopamine response, or chronic self mutilators), and we have a tricky situation.

Every time we react habitually to a given stimulus, we activate neural pathways and the brain regions housing those neurons. As the same areas are activated over time, they become thicker and denser, possibly because the associated neurons in that area branch out to make connections to other neurons, or increase the number of cells in those areas, or increase blood flow. The more these areas are activated in our day-to-day experience, the more we react habitually. This is akin to the yogic discussion of samskaras (latent mental impressions) and vasanas, the behavioral patterns arising from their activation.

Take, for example, the release of one of the molecules of emotion: dopamine consolidates neuronal connections responsible for the behaviors that lead us to accomplish our goal. We experience a hit of feeling good from dopamine because it is involved in reward pathways. This is helpful when we are trying to replace negative mental tapes with positive ones. For example, if I catch myself making a negative judgment about someone I feel has wronged me, I can replace that thought with a positive statement. Every time I manage to do this, I experience a shot of dopamine because I have made good on my decision to stop allowing this belief about how that person treated me to keep affecting me negatively. In this case, the reward comes as a result of my following through on my meta-intention to change my mental tapes.

The practice of recognizing the thoughts that cause suffering and feelings of alienation from others and replacing them with thoughts or attitudes that engender feelings of harmony and connectedness is what Patanjali calls pratipaksha bhavana—the process of using discriminative awareness to restore balance and reduce suffering.

It is this ability to form meta-intentions, or big-picture decisions that impact our behavior, that is distinctive about human psychology and rationality. Such executive mental functions take place in the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for long-term planning and goal setting.

Neurons fire in response to experiences (thoughts, stimuli, et cetera) and the neuronal connections between neurons in different parts of the brain grow stronger and thicker each time the neural pathway is activated. Long-term potentiation (LTP) is the term given to the strengthening of connections between neurons. The stronger the connection between neurons, the more difficult it becomes to break thought, and hence behavioral patterns. Unsurprisingly, our behavioral propensities contribute not only to our experience of the world, but also our experience and conception of ourselves; we become identified with ways of thinking and behaving and mistakenly think that this is who we are.

The good news is that we can shortcut neuronal connections and thus rewire our brain, and thereby our self-conception. By changing our mental tapes and choosing new thoughts and beliefs, we can use the brain’s inherent architecture and formal capacities to recreate ourselves.

Long-term depression (LDP) is the process whereby the brain unlearns associations and disconnects neurons. Given this, using affirmations to create positive feelings in the body/mind continuum may well be smart, self-interested, and forward-thinking. Just like asana, or meditation, using affirmations is a practice. We must keep doing it in a sustained manner in order to see positive effects manifest in our lives over time. Since it involves rewiring the brain and the mental tapes running in the brain, an affirmation isn’t a quick fix; rather it’s a tool to help you become more empowered, better able to attain your goals, and ultimately a happier, more fulfilled person. Who can argue with that?

Choosing An Affirmation

In order to be maximally effective, an affirmation must satisfy four criteria. It must be:

1. Personal – what is it your heart most desires? Often, it’s our own negative self-beliefs that prevent us from accomplishing our goals and living our dreams. Make your affirmation entirely about you. Since you only have control over your own behavior, this is also a pretty smart thing to do.
2. Specific – if you want to create change, or bring more of something into your life, you need to know what exactly it is that you want. Similarly, if you want to replace negative thoughts with positive ones (pratipaksha bhavana), you need to choose the replacement statements with care so that you’re not left spinning when the negativity rises. You have a backup plan, so to speak.
3. Positive – the whole point of affirmations is to create positive change; to reduce suffering and help you accomplish your goals and live a happier life. Humans already have a negativity bias; our brains are hardwired to spend more time focusing on the negative. Our ancestors needed to do this to ensure they were able to recognize threats to their survival, for example, wild animals, poisonous berries, facial gestures indicating anger, envy, or hatred – potential reasons for a member of an unfamiliar tribe to attack. We can use affirmations to overcome the negativity bias and strengthen neuronal connections emphasizing the positive.
4. Present tense –  why put off your heart’s deepest desire until the future? Welcome it home now so that you feel it’s already happening.

Daily Practice

Creating new habits and forging new neural pathways takes committed practice, it doesn’t happen overnight. Try repeating the affirmation three times on awakening, so that the day begins on a positive note and you call to mind what it is that you want to cultivate, to have more of in your life.  Repeat the affirmation three times before going to sleep, or possibly even repeat it as a mantra, so that it filters through your unconscious as you sleep and you drift off feeling positive and upbeat.

Five Ways To Use Affirmations

1. Repeat as a mantra. You can say it while driving, in line at the grocery store, waiting on the line for customer service, you can even you use a japa mala to count the repetitions.
2. Breathing meditation. Silently repeat the affirmation as you inhale; as you exhale, know that you are releasing residual energetic patterns that cause suffering in your life.
3. Prevention is better than cure! Before you go into a situation that you know may be stressful, or trigger an old destructive pattern, practice saying your affirmation several times so that you feel fortified in your resolve.
4. Pratipaksha Bhavana. When you notice a destructive thought process starting (and you’ll often become aware of how you feel before you notice the thought), congratulate yourself for noticing and then switch gears by repeating your affirmation as many times as necessary until you feel better.
5. Yoga Nidra. Before beginning your Yoga Nidra meditation, repeat your affirmation three times and then set it free, trusting that it will be fully integrated during your full-body meditation.

Dearbhla Kelly

Dearbhla Kelly is Los Angeles-based writer and yoga teacher, she leads workshops and retreats worldwide.

durgayoga.com

The post Plasticity and the Power of Affirmations appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Nearly naked, sitting a straw mat in a sparsely furnished room in Kannur, Kerala, simultaneously vulnerable, curious and expectant, I waited for my first treatment session to begin.

I had traveled half-way around the world to Kerala to receive Kalari treatment, the initial entré for many into Kalarippayattu, an ancient martial art developed in Kerala guided by Ayurvedic principles. Treatment is administered by the Gurukkal (the senior-most teacher and overseer of the Kalari school) and advanced practitioners, who are highly skilled martial artists and masterful massage therapists, physiotherapists and neurologists with a deep understanding of anatomy and the subtle body. They are adept at controlling the flow of prana (vital life-force) in their bodies and able to channel this energy through the hands while giving massage.

The flow of prana through this treatment is done by direct manipulation of the body via oil massage and application of hot medicinal oils (kili). Understanding the energetic body and its system of nadis, the energy channels through which prana flows is fundamental to creating balance. Most important here is the prana of vyana vayu, which governs the circulation of the entire body and manages the functioning of the nervous system.

The marma points are found at points of intersection of the nadis and the skin itself is a vast marma zone, thus Kalari therapy, which includes marma therapy, treats dis-ease and ailments by stimulating the flow of vyana vayu through touch, the skin naturally being the place of contact. When the flow of vyana vayu is disturbed vata (the air humour) is aggravated. Whenever there is a marma injury, vata is disturbed. Wherever there is pain, vata is disturbed. This disturbance can cause anxiety, insomnia, agitation, irritation, hypersensitivity, excessive dryness and other related problems. Disturbance or provocation of vata can be the result of injury, trauma (including emotional trauma), weakness or debilitation in the tissues, exhaustion, overwork or stress or restrictions in movement and the free flow of energy in the body. The imbalance can sit beneath the surface, not revealing its nature for years or even decades. For example, someone sustaining a head injury may develop asthma or bronchitis after thirty years.

Every function of the body is dependent on the condition of vata and in Ayurveda, vata must first be brought under control. The massage in Kalari treatments unblock restricted channels allowing vata to course freely through the nadis.

My doorway to receiving Kalari treatment was an act of grace. Several years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Kalari workshop with Gerhard Schmid, a senior Kalari student from Hamburg, Germany. He noticed and asked me about the misalignment of my skeleton. After hearing that I’d sustained multiple fractures in a severe car accident when I was nineteen, sixteen years previously, he suggested that Kalari could help and advised me to spend a month with his teacher, Sherifka. He also said that it would help pacify my (often-aggravated) vata. I was intrigued and encouraged. Gerhard was the first to suggest that my post-accident lopsidedness could be reversed; over the years it seemed to become progressively worse. to put things in perspective: the aforementioned car accident left me with a fractured skull, five broken ribs, a punctured lung, smashed elbow, broken humerus and clavicle (all on the left side) along with multiple cuts, severe bruising and swelling. Although I healed successfully and underwent physical therapy, my left shoulder sloped and drooped forward and over the years I developed a slight scoliosis in my mid-spine. Years of leaning left tilted pelvis and I developed sciatica on the right side, a frequent source of pain. Finally the stars aligned, my visa arrived, my classes were subbed and in February, 2010, I was Kerala bound.

After acclimatizing, Sherifka (our gracious and ever-good-humored host and Gurukkal) asked me to write down every significant illness, trauma and injury I’d experienced, then took me to see an Ayurvedic physician who looked at my nails, listened to my heartbeat and examined my tongue. When we left, Sherifka took me to get a fresh coconut and told me that coconuts were part of my treatment. I was to have at least one day to help cool my body and fight the urinary tract infection I had developed before leaving the States. Coconuts as part of my treatment? Yes! That I could live with. Later that evening, Rajeev, one of the Kalari teacher-therapists (who had possibly the biggest smile I’ve ever seen) brought me several types of pills and kashayams, Ayurvedic herbal medicinal potions. Mine were to strengthen and purify the bladder and kidneys.

My treatment program consisted of seven days of marma massage followed by a purging day and then seven days more massage and kiri (hot oil treatment). After having a cup of delicious morning chai, I walked across the garden to the treatment house to sit on my personal massage mat, woven from reeds, destroyed when our series of treatments sessions were over. Sherifka and another senior kalari practitioner/healer named Ramesh massaged me as I wore the customary lunghi (large piece of rectangular cloth) tied around my neck, sarong style over a lunghoti, basically a loincloth.

The experience was quite ritualistic and throughout, I felt curiously vulnerable. I began, seated, legs crossed, in just the lunghoti. Ramesh lit incense and rub oil on my head, the oils chosen by the Ayurvedic physician who prescribed one type of medicinal oil for my head and a combination of two different oils for my body. Then I would lie on my stomach and both Ramesh and Sherifka would begin the full body massage.

The massage’s broad sweeping strokes and varying degrees of pressure followed the same format in each session. Some aspects of my treatment (for my sciatica and neck) addressed my particular (and in my case also long-standing) imbalances and because of their specificity and intensity, were administered by Sherifka, the Gurukkal. Some days involved Sherifka’s “thumbs in bum” technique during which I was on my knees, bum in the air, arms on the floor in front of me, with Sherifka standing behind me using his thumbs to dig around in each buttock. It was excruciating, particularly on the right side, because of the sciatica, but after a few sessions the pain eased considerably.

Sometimes the strong emotions instigated by the bodywork elicited tears – even of relief. Sometimes I would cry from sheer relief as space opened up in my body. The gradual unwinding of my lopsidedness started to shift. On the afternoon of the tenth day of treatment, I was meditating when I noticed an unfamiliar sensation in my left rib cage. I continued focusing on my breath as tears streamed down my face. I felt a part of my body that I had not been able to access for over sixteen years because I had become so collapsed on my left side. I was flooded with a mixture of relief and enormous sadness, the overwhelming emotion that had been stored inside for so long.

A few days in, I began to understand the importance of resting and being quiet. It is such deep internal work, and even though on one hand it seemed as if nothing was happening during the massage treatment, on the other hand I knew that below the surface everything was happening. This was unlike any other type of massage I’d had before (and I’ve had a lot). It was simultaneously gentle, deep and subtle. But even more profound, the whole experience was outside any paradigm I’d previously encountered. I wasn’t in a Yoga environment, I wasn’t on a retreat, there were no set activities or services I had to partake in, nor belief system. Rest, three delicious freshly cooked meals daily, endless cups of chai and treatment were the agenda items. Yet, I was undergoing shifts that were entirely new and I was becoming lighter, not just physically, but energetically.

Day eight, people began telling me I looked completely different, something deep had shifted. Even in the absence of mirrors I knew something of what they meant; I was lighter, less anxious. Daily massage bathing in warm oil, applied rhythmically and deep was working magic on my nervous system. According to Sherifka, the accidents and repeated trauma left my nervous system in need of rejuvenation. The combination of marma therapy, massage, medicinal oils and nourishing food cooked for us, clothes (hand) washed for us, rest and walks on the beach were the rasayana, the rejuvenative alchemy. The warmth and friendliness of our Indian caregivers and the love and concern they lavished on us, as well as the fact that they seemed to be always smiling, always laughing and joking, meant that the general atmosphere was conducive to rest and relaxation. And there really was nothing to do but relax.

I loved the feeling of being covered in oil even though some of my housemates would rush back to scrub off the oil immediately after treatment. The oil made me feel at ease and more relaxed. I particularly loved killi, the hot oil treatment. The room it took place in was, like the massage room, stark with oil-splashed walls. Clad only in my lunghoti I sat on a stool, behind me I heard oil sizzling away in a wooden bowl over a gas flame. Anil, the killi therapist applied an herbal poultice (like the oils and other medicines the herbs were specifically chosen) dipped in hot oil directly to the skin using long strokes. After each application, he massaged the area with his hands. Over the ten to fifteen minutes of the treatment’s duration, the oil became progressively hotter and sweat would be literally pouring down my arms. Still I loved it. My body felt something I had never experienced before, and I still can’t articulate.

In my case, the killi treatment was concentrated in the areas where my body was so injured: the left side of my neck and upper back and my lower back, buttocks and thighs because of the sciatica. In the previously injured areas especially, I felt a softening, an opening I had never before experienced. Anil explained that this treatment worked not just on the gross physical level of the muscles, but more importantly the nerves and the subtle body. I was ecstatic when I heard the instructions to let the oil remain on the body for five hours or more so it could continue to seep into my skin and into the deeper tissues and shift the subtle body.

As my time in Kannur came to a close I could feel the deep internal shifts. I was so much less anxious: I felt softer, more open, I was less lopsided. And I was laughing more; I was just being. I came to understand that my previous almost-constant low-grade anxiety (which had been present since the accident at nineteen, and which had worsened over time – and after more accidents) was not something that I needed to judge, but a natural side effect of the many physical traumas I had endured. And, although I never did to practice the outwardly physical forms and movements Kalari while there, Sherifka told me the secret at the center of the practice: be humble and strike like a tiger. I’m still working on it.

Dearbhla Kelly is a Los Angeles-based Yoga teacher, writer and philosopher: durgayoga.com.

By Dearbhla Kelly

Photos by Amir Magal

Dearbhla Kelly

Dearbhla Kelly is Los Angeles-based writer and yoga teacher, she leads workshops and retreats worldwide.

durgayoga.com

The post The Healing Art Of Kalari appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Saturday, 11:45 P.M., the Pod nightclub, Dublin. It’s been twenty-five minutes since my boyfriend and I dropped E and washed it down with Bacardi and Coke before switching to water (alcohol dilutes E’s clean high). We’re waiting to “come up,” we’re waiting for the high to kick in. We smile and nod to the familiar faces filling the club. Later on, when we’re all high and open, we’ll hug and hold hands as we dance to uplifting house music. But now I’m still vaguely anxious and somewhat tense since waiting to come up is always a bit fraught. We dance but can’t completely relax into the groove, so we stand off to the side, sip some water and tap our feet. Then the scag hits, the gnarly bit: vague nausea, dry mouth, shaky lower jaw. From here it’s only a few minutes until the high kicks in, and I’m up.

My heart is expanding, my head is clear; I am liquid gold. I must dance. The music is pulsing in my veins, taking over. I am an atom in the music, and my very being is merging with the rhythm. Every part of me is pulsating with the music; it’s inside me, causing me to expand. I am riding a wave of love and bliss. I am connected to everyone around me. There’s only here, only now. I AM LOVE.

The next day never felt that good, but the lingering hint of a residual high made it bearable. As two, then three days passed, the come-down blues kicked in as the chemicals continued to wear off. I felt lucky I didn’t succumb to the severe “Tuesday downer” that leveled a lot of people I knew. For me, going clubbing and taking E was a way of joyfully tapping into a very real sense of community. It was beautiful, the closest thing I’d known in my lift to being part of a congregation. But the comedown was a bummer, and I was concerned for my brain cells. Ultimately, I became more interested in intellectual pursuits than chasing a chemically-induced high and left the party circuit to pursue graduate studies in philosophy.

Although I don’t advocate the use of E, I can’t honestly say that I regret having used it. Under its influence I experienced something previously unavailable to me: the sense of profound connection to others, the feeling that my heart was exploding with love, the music pulsing in my veins. It was undoubtedly spiritual, and I transcended the limits of my own hang-ups and self-consciousness to feel a part of something much bigger than me.

It was several years until I experienced my next hit of that same overflowing joy and sense of deep connection to the music and everyone around me. The next experience had no E. I was at a kirtan at Moksha Yoga Center in Chicago marking the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks where I was blown away by the chant. I felt like my heart had been blasted open, and I experienced a profound sense of connection to everyone in the room. Later that night, I lay awake unable to sleep (another side effect of Ecstasy) and I knew without a doubt that my spirit had come home.

At another Moksha kirtan I had the visceral realization that chanting Sanskrit mantra to the divine took me to the same place of open-heartedness and connection with something much bigger than myself that Ecstasy had taken me so many years before in clubs in Dublin and London. I was once again exploding with love, but this time I was chanting to God in a Yoga studio.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised by the commonalities among my experiences of bliss. On the surface, they had seemingly different causes, but beneath the skin, at the molecular level, all our emotional and physiological states can be explained in terms of different biochemical combinations. Taking drugs alters our biochemistry, and therefore our feelings. My ecstatic state was just as drug-induced when I was chanting mantra as when I actually took E, but when chanting, the drugs were my body’s own. Of course I didn’t know this at that time; most of us don’t tend to understand our experience of the ineffable through the lens of science, especially when we’re dancing the high. When I journeyed deeper into studies of Yoga and philosophy, I began to fully appreciate the sophisticated connections between body, mind and emotions.

Just as a sunset is no less beautiful when we understand the Earth’s rotation on its axis, our experiences of bliss and transcendence are no less extraordinary because they can be explained in terms of biochemistry

As a philosopher by training (at the time of my Moksha bliss-out I was a PhD candidate), I am perennially linking conceptual threads and searching for the connections between seemingly disparate views. To my frustration, however, as a graduate student and full-time philosopher I was unable to reconcile my intellectual commitments with my increasingly robust spiritual life. So, after devoting almost half of my life to the pursuit of knowledge in the domain of analytic philosophy, I acquiesced to my heart and chose to follow the path of spirit and focus on experiencing God, rather than finding ultimate explanations.

It was only when I left academic philosophy that I fully began to appreciate its creativity. Analytic philosophy was perhaps the main theatre in which I tried to come to grips with my own need to impose meaning on a random sequence of events and causes. Just as the sculptor imposes her creative vision on the surrounding world by giving form to matter, the philosopher imposes meaning through the articulation of concepts. The creative act is at its source spiritually, and spirit doesn’t care how it manifests, but manifests it will. The domains of the heart and the head, and science and spirituality are not necessarily opposed; our limited aunderstanding and way of carving up the world of our experience makes it so.

Spirit in Manifestation: God is in the Molecules
In scientist Candace Pert’s book Molecules of Emotion, (on which the cult movie What the Bleep Do We Know? was based), she claims that God is a neuropeptide. By most people’s lights, this could be controversial. But Pert is not making this statement in jest; she credits her scientific research as leading her to a spiritual path. As a graduate student in neuropharmacology, Pert discovered the endorphin receptor in the brain. This led her to assert that we are hard-wired for bliss; the experience of bliss is part of our physiology. The mind translates biochemical changes into emotions. Endorphins and other neuropeptides make us feel good; therefore our own biochemistry is the key to our ongoing happiness.

Peptides are protein molecules that use chemical signals to convey information throughout the body. These come in two types: receptors and ligands. Receptors are binding sites, often on the surface of our cells. Ligands travel throughout the body to bind with receptors to form a new information packet with a new chemical formula. The subsequent reaction and interaction allow us to experience the change in biochemistry on the cellular level as a change in how we feel emotionally. Peptides are the body’s own drugs, when these drugs are produced within the body, we call them endogenous. Categorized by type, neuropeptides live in the brain and central nervous system, other peptides are the messengers in systems such as the endocrine (many hormones are peptides) and immune.

Oxytocin is one of the endogenous peptides stimulated by taking E. It’s also released during sex and helps pair-bonding and stimulates feelings of trust, as countless lovers can testify. Oxytocin is also released during childbirth and when nipples are stimulated, so it’s implicated in maternal behavior and it increases empathy and feelings of love and connection to others (which is why being on Ecstasy feels so good).

Endorphins represent a category of peptides; they are the body’s natural opiates modulating pain and producing feelings of well-being. Acupuncture and massage can alleviate pain by stimulating the release of endorphins into cerebrospinal fluid. Exercise and movement including running and Hatha Yoga stimulate endorphin production and the resultant feelings of wellness. Pranayama (yogic breath techniques) and deep breathing have the same effect; a fact well-known by practitioners of Yoga and meditation and doctors, nurses and midwives.

Peptides mediate communication and one of the areas of the brain involved in pain perception and management is the periaqueductal gray (PAG), part of the midbrain. Stimulating the PAG causes the release of serotonin and enkephalins (another type of endogenous opioid, feel-good chemical and pain reliever, like the endorphins). Advanced breathing techniques used by women in childbirth and in Yoga and by meditation practitioners influences the PAG and resets pain thresholds. Changing the rate and depth of the breath influences the release of peptides. Breathing rapidly and retaining the breath accelerate peptide diffusion throughout the cerebrospinal fluid, accelerating their pain-relieving effects.

Our connection to our bodies and our intuitive understanding of the intimate connections between body and emotions gives us a deeper understanding of the power of the breath. Many years ago, when my mother was dying of cancer, I stayed up with her until the early hours going over her medication regimen, trying to calm her down and put her mind at ease. Nothing worked. Eventually it dawned on me that if I could just get her to focus on her breath, her anxiety would lessen. And it did. In the long, black nights following her death, breathing meditations helped me fall asleep. It was the only thing that helped me stay in the moment and find some modicum of peace.

It’s no wonder that chanting results in such heightened feelings of well-being: when we sing our practice of pranayama and connection to the breath stimulates the release of endorphins and other peptides. Combine this with chanting with a large group of people and it seems to lead us to a place of deeper connection to the mystery, a more profound sense of merging with the collective.

The bliss breakdown looks something like this: chanting, via pranayama, causes the body to make and metabolize its own (endogenous) drugs which produce heightened feelings of well-being; taking Ecstasy (an exogenous drug that stimulates our endogenous neuropeptides serotonin, oxytocin and dopamine) gets us to a similar place experientially, although the health benefits of chanting clearly outweigh those of taking Ecstasy. The point is that the mind is fooled and doesn’t necessarily discriminate between endogenous and exogenous drugs. Similar changes in our emotional landscape result from both scenarios.

The discovery of peptides, and the ligand-receptor relationship, has expanded our understanding of the mind-body connection. Explaining our emotional lives in terms of changes in biochemistry does not have to diminish our wonder and awe at the range and vibrancy of shades in the emotional spectrum. Just as a sunset is no less beautiful when we understand the Earth’s rotation on its axis, our experiences of bliss and transcendence are no less extraordinary because they can be explained in terms of biochemistry. This understanding helps us to appreciate even more the sophistication of the ancient yogis who developed and refined breathing techniques and asana (posture) designed to yield beneficial results even without the advantage of microscopes and discovering receptors.

Pert’s work, and that of other scientists, has deepened our understanding of how body, mind and emotions operate as an integrated system. In most circumstances, our minds and bodies are immediately available to us as objects of our experience; our emotions are the way we experience peptides. The system functions optimally when peptides are flowing freely and migrating from one area of the body to another to find their mating partner. When the connection occurs, the diffusion of information throughout the body is expedited, and the endocrine, immune and nervous systems can talk to each other.

Karma Becomes Chemistry
Just as people routinely become addicted to drugs like heroin, we can and do become addicted to the body’s own drugs. In some circumstances our endogenous peptides can be harmful. For example, the interconnected communication system of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA Axis) modulates our stress response through a complex system of hormones and peptides that send messages between the hypothalamus, the pituitary and the adrenals, and from there, throughout the rest of the body. Our stress response can be mediated and mitigated by our life experience. Sometimes this is positive, at other times less so. Corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) is a peptide secreted by the hypothalamus in this cascade response that communicates with the pituitary, which in turn, releases hormones to signal the adrenals to produce and release stress hormones. Scientists speculate that CRF production is increased by negative childhood experiences, which get stored in the body as somatic memory. Subsequent negative expectations can stimulate CRF production and chemical cravings for CRF, and so a vicious cycle begins. As CRF levels in the blood increase, CRF receptors become desensitized, shrink, and decrease in number. So the body’s inbuilt response system malfunctions and fails to signify that there are already enough steroids in the blood, and increasing numbers are pumped out, chronically elevating stress levels.

Our addictions elicit specific behavior and in the case of endogenous drugs, (those produced by the body), we are often unaware of the addiction. But as in the previous example, many habitual reactions and thought patterns can be explained in terms of those addictions, much like the role of samskara and karma (the law of cause and effect, action or reaction) in the yogic view. Our samskara are the latent mental impressions, which, when activated, can cause a habitual mode of thought and/or behavior. They are tendencies toward a specific way of thinking or behaving, a mental groove or neural pathway. The habitual receptor-ligand connection and sensitivities are a biochemical manifestation of this. The old adage that we don’t engage in any behaviors without a payoff can be parsed in terms of an unconscious craving for certain chemicals: karma becomes chemistry.

Our body’s storehouse of memories frequently directs our behavior. These memories are stored in the brain and beyond, in a psychosomatic network that extends throughout the body, including the HPA axis and the receptor-ligand complexes throughout our system. We experience this on a visceral level. Imagine for a moment that you are biting into a wedge of lemon and feel the effect on your tongue. Next, think of a situation in which you were very happy and note your body’s response, then recall a situation where you were anxious or fearful and feel your body’s contraction.

Neurobiologists describe memory as a stored pattern of links between nerve cells. A memory is created when synapses in a network of neurons are activated for a short time. The more often the memory is recalled afterwards, the more likely it is that permanent links develop between nerve cells. Every time the memory is recalled, a specific neuropeptide is activated along with the emotional tone that accompanies the memory. The activation of the neuropeptide causes a biochemical change on the physical level, which the mind translates as an emotion.

Alarm bells may be furiously ringing in some of your heads at the moment: Wait! mystical states are paradigm instances of transcending the merely physical. The ecstatic writings of such mystics as Teresa of Avila, Rumi and Kabir represent the very apotheosis of spirituality. How can such states possibly be explained in something as crude as the language of biochemistry? But there’s a poetry and elegance to the scientific description that does justice to our sense of the mystical as sacred.

The process by which receptors and ligands find each and join together is akin to a mating ritual, a dance where both parties move towards each other. Using a process called chemotaxis, they pick up on each other’s scent and then travel toward each other, vibrating as they move. When ligand and receptor unite the action of the ligand binding with the receptor, it causes it to dance and sway. The imagery is redolent of the dance of Shiva and Shakti, male and female, yin and yang, the age-old movement from separation to closeness, division to unity.

We are hard-wired for bliss, that the experience of bliss is part of our physiology. Our own biochemistry is the key to our ongoing happiness

Altered emotional states are a common feature of spiritual experiences, as countless mystics can testify, among them Timothy Leary, Ram Das and other champions of the mind-altering drug LSD in the late 1960s. In such altered states the limitations of our conventional way of being are overcome and awareness expands beyond the realm of the normal. The mundanity of life is superseded by the immediacy of pure presence and the concerns of self dissolve in the experience of Self; the particular is enveloped in the universal: Sat Chit Ananda. (Sat Chit Ananda is experience of transcending our limited sense of ourselves as atomic beings. It is a deep intimacy with the eternal self, the Godhead.). This is exactly what I experienced as a clubber in the mid-1990s in Dublin, but I didn’t have the language to articulate my experience.

Imagine my relief and joy when I encountered Yoga. Here was a system that not only allowed me to contextualize my experiences of altered states, but allowed me to see them as pathways to the divine, a relationship with a God whom I intuitively related to. Coming to understand that karma can be explained in terms of biochemistry has enhanced my understanding of samskara and helped me to see that, although love can be understood as a function of physiological states, the feelings it produces are no less magical, its effects no less real.

Dearbhla Kelly is a Los Angeles-based Yoga teacher, writer and philosopher. Find more information about Dearbhla and her work at: durgayoga.com

By Dearbhla Kelly

Dearbhla Kelly

Dearbhla Kelly is Los Angeles-based writer and yoga teacher, she leads workshops and retreats worldwide.

durgayoga.com

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