I am coming down off my informational high. That feeling I get when I am introduced to ideas that are either new to me or presented to me in a new way. I become flooded with inspiration and energy and I desperately want to hold on to that feeling that motivates me to step closer toward the best version of myself. I was fortunate enough this past week to attend two lectures that gave me that sensation. I want to share some of what they were about, but I am also hesitant because I know so much will be lost in my translation of their talks. What is most exciting for me is how both of the lectures relate to yoga and the classes I teach. Part of why this information excited me is that I have already seen evidence of their truth through yoga and these lecturers validated suspicions I have had for years. Through my teaching and personal practice I hope to dive deeper into the heart of both these lectures: The ability of the mind to define every aspect of our being.
I went to a lecture on placebo delivered by Richard Kradin. Dr. Kradin is a Harvard professor, medical doctor, and psychoanalyst. He has spent a vast amount of time studying placebo and writing about it. He said that almost all medicine and medical procedures have an aspect of placebo. This means that the state of the mind has a huge effect on how successful a medication or medical procedure will be. The mind has such a powerful effect in fact, that in placebo-controlled group studies on morphine, arthroscopic surgery, and the majority of psychotropic medications, the placebo worked as well as the medication over fifty percent of the time. Dr. Kradin says that doctors have the ability to cure, but the healing process is nature's responsibility. Most often the healing occurs unconsciously but there have been studies that show even when a patient knows they are receiving a placebo they still respond positively. There have also been studies that show a placebo can make the patient worse. They call this a nocebo. There are two factors at play here. One is the belief that something has the ability to help you. So many avenues of health and healing work solely off this ability to believe. Dr. Kradin also discussed the role shamans, religions, and magic play as a placebo because of a person's belief in their power. The other factor, which was completely new information to me, was the neural maturity of the bonds formed during maternal infant attachment. Researchers found that the areas of the brain that activate during a placebo response are the same areas that activate when an infant is exhibiting bonding behavior with its mother. If the attachment was secure, then the placebo response is strong, and vice-versa. A secure attachment helps the infant learn how to self-soothe. Placebo is the mind/body self-soothing. People with mental disorders such as borderline personality disorder will have a difficult time finding medication that works effectively because their body has a diminished capacity to self-soothe.
After the lecture I purchased his book, The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing. I told him I was a yoga instructor and I found the lecture fascinating from a yogi perspective. He said to me, "You know that yoga isn't a placebo." This was encouraging to hear, especially since earlier in the lecture he had included chiropractics, acupuncture, and most "new-age" therapies under the placebo category.
I think the reason yoga isn't a placebo is because it is a tool directly involved with strengthening the neural circuits of self-soothing. Yoga invites us to bring awareness to the connections of mind,body, and breath. Yoga recognizes and believes in the power within. Through this practice our ability to trigger relaxation/restorative responses in a variety of situations improves. I believe yoga can be a path to shift the placebo healing response from an unconscious to conscious endeavor.
This brings me to the second lecture I attended on yoga, stress management, and courage. This lecture with Atmananda Das(www.atmayoga.net, check out his dogma vs. dialectics blog) delved into the mental aspect of negative stress, its connection with the body, and how to begin the process of releasing stress(triggering self-soothing).
Now that we know yoga can heal, how do we begin? Atma says simply begin with noticing gravity, noticing the sensation of the weight of your body. When we become aware of the body we move from the thinking mind to the experiencing mind. We begin to focus on what we don't know. We let go of the fantasies of the mind. As long as we hold on to the fantasy/hallucination and try to make real what is not, we will struggle with anxiety and our mind will find itself stuck in a box. Often times this process can be uncomfortable and we will find ourselves not wanting to maintain a presence with our body and whatever we may be feeling in the body, especially if in the moment we are feeling pain, anxiety, anger, etc. When we do something we don't want to do we are courageously exercising free will. From this place of noticing, consciousness will begin to expand. Atma says, "It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Expanding consciousness means we are aware we are a part of something we don't understand." Choose to feel what you may not like. Do not act out, do not repress, but practice tatikshiva- feel everything. In feeling everything the dualism of matter becomes more greatly accepted and understood. What this means is that we begin to see that conflicting ideas, emotions, situations are equally valid and true. The complexity of the universe becomes more apparent in our purview. When we notice our desires shift from the material desires that will never end and never completely be fulfilled to the desire to know the unknowable, the anxieties of material desire will fall away. Choosing the initial discomfort of not knowing and actively being in the unknown are the initial steps down a path of conscious living, and from there, conscious healing.
I will end this blog with a poem from a great book I read on the effects of globalization and westernized development in India called Ancient Futures:Learning from Ladakh.
Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.
Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake the moon has never moved.
Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds, and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.
Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen, carts, and other things,
Nothing is as it appears.
-Samadhirajasutra
I went to a lecture on placebo delivered by Richard Kradin. Dr. Kradin is a Harvard professor, medical doctor, and psychoanalyst. He has spent a vast amount of time studying placebo and writing about it. He said that almost all medicine and medical procedures have an aspect of placebo. This means that the state of the mind has a huge effect on how successful a medication or medical procedure will be. The mind has such a powerful effect in fact, that in placebo-controlled group studies on morphine, arthroscopic surgery, and the majority of psychotropic medications, the placebo worked as well as the medication over fifty percent of the time. Dr. Kradin says that doctors have the ability to cure, but the healing process is nature's responsibility. Most often the healing occurs unconsciously but there have been studies that show even when a patient knows they are receiving a placebo they still respond positively. There have also been studies that show a placebo can make the patient worse. They call this a nocebo. There are two factors at play here. One is the belief that something has the ability to help you. So many avenues of health and healing work solely off this ability to believe. Dr. Kradin also discussed the role shamans, religions, and magic play as a placebo because of a person's belief in their power. The other factor, which was completely new information to me, was the neural maturity of the bonds formed during maternal infant attachment. Researchers found that the areas of the brain that activate during a placebo response are the same areas that activate when an infant is exhibiting bonding behavior with its mother. If the attachment was secure, then the placebo response is strong, and vice-versa. A secure attachment helps the infant learn how to self-soothe. Placebo is the mind/body self-soothing. People with mental disorders such as borderline personality disorder will have a difficult time finding medication that works effectively because their body has a diminished capacity to self-soothe.
After the lecture I purchased his book, The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing. I told him I was a yoga instructor and I found the lecture fascinating from a yogi perspective. He said to me, "You know that yoga isn't a placebo." This was encouraging to hear, especially since earlier in the lecture he had included chiropractics, acupuncture, and most "new-age" therapies under the placebo category.
I think the reason yoga isn't a placebo is because it is a tool directly involved with strengthening the neural circuits of self-soothing. Yoga invites us to bring awareness to the connections of mind,body, and breath. Yoga recognizes and believes in the power within. Through this practice our ability to trigger relaxation/restorative responses in a variety of situations improves. I believe yoga can be a path to shift the placebo healing response from an unconscious to conscious endeavor.
This brings me to the second lecture I attended on yoga, stress management, and courage. This lecture with Atmananda Das(www.atmayoga.net, check out his dogma vs. dialectics blog) delved into the mental aspect of negative stress, its connection with the body, and how to begin the process of releasing stress(triggering self-soothing).
Now that we know yoga can heal, how do we begin? Atma says simply begin with noticing gravity, noticing the sensation of the weight of your body. When we become aware of the body we move from the thinking mind to the experiencing mind. We begin to focus on what we don't know. We let go of the fantasies of the mind. As long as we hold on to the fantasy/hallucination and try to make real what is not, we will struggle with anxiety and our mind will find itself stuck in a box. Often times this process can be uncomfortable and we will find ourselves not wanting to maintain a presence with our body and whatever we may be feeling in the body, especially if in the moment we are feeling pain, anxiety, anger, etc. When we do something we don't want to do we are courageously exercising free will. From this place of noticing, consciousness will begin to expand. Atma says, "It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. Expanding consciousness means we are aware we are a part of something we don't understand." Choose to feel what you may not like. Do not act out, do not repress, but practice tatikshiva- feel everything. In feeling everything the dualism of matter becomes more greatly accepted and understood. What this means is that we begin to see that conflicting ideas, emotions, situations are equally valid and true. The complexity of the universe becomes more apparent in our purview. When we notice our desires shift from the material desires that will never end and never completely be fulfilled to the desire to know the unknowable, the anxieties of material desire will fall away. Choosing the initial discomfort of not knowing and actively being in the unknown are the initial steps down a path of conscious living, and from there, conscious healing.
I will end this blog with a poem from a great book I read on the effects of globalization and westernized development in India called Ancient Futures:Learning from Ladakh.
Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.
Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake the moon has never moved.
Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds, and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.
Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen, carts, and other things,
Nothing is as it appears.
-Samadhirajasutra
