Decoding the science of breath for modern times

We breathe without giving it a second thought and take this particular bodily function for granted. Yet, scientists are now telling us that giving each breath a thought might actually lead us to deep and lasting happiness and health. According to neuroscience, the act of breathing consciously paves the way to enhanced immunity, inhibits fight-or-flight response to stress, induces a state of relaxation, creates emotional stability, improves cardiovascular and respiratory health, is the perfect antidote to depression even when drugs have not worked out entirely and helps in the drug-free management of pain. This list of effects is by no means comprehensive; it is just the tip of the iceberg.

Pranayama is a technique in yoga that puts control over breathing back into your hands. Literally, the word means ‘extension of life force’, and the practice engages you with the nuances of breathing. This special and ancient yogic technique switches the light back in the dark spaces—the places in your body and mind that may have otherwise remained inaccessible. Pranayama vastly improves the mechanics of the nervous system because it affects what we always thought was beyond our influence.

Conscious breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve which runs from the base of the brain all the way to the abdomen. This nerve is responsible for managing the nervous system responses and reducing the heart rate, to name only two of its most important functions. The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is released by the vagus nerve and plays a pivotal role in increasing calmness and focus.

Therefore, the more you stimulate the vagus nerve, the more acetylcholine it releases, directly lowering anxiety levels.

Adults who experience higher levels of vagal tone (activity in the vagal nerve), also experience enhanced feelings of connectedness and positive emotions which further amplifies the vagal tone. Consistent practice of conscious breathing can reduce blood pressure and calm the heart. This, in turn, scientists say, increases the life span of the blood vessels. Regular and long-term practice of pranayama can, therefore, prevent diseases of the nervous system such as stroke, migraines and Parkinson’s.

Another benefit of pranayama is that it stops grey cells from diminishing with age; your ability to perform at your best remains relatively intact as you grow older. Your memory and focus also improve in the process. An interesting scientific finding on the benefits of pranayama is that the expression of genes involved in stress response can be changed in a way that can potentially slow down the body-mind’s reactivity to stress.

This improves immune functions, metabolic activity and insulin secretion.

Pranayama is a great example of how matter can be influenced through the subtle act of awareness or objective observation. Your entire biology can be influenced by simply becoming aware of your breath and then manipulating it to move the controls from the primitive brain to the pre-frontal cortex—a direct effect of infusing the breath with your conscious attention. For example, emotions come under the authority of the pre-frontal cortex, as do many other mental and emotional aspects of being. Therefore, when you focus your consciousness around your breath, your consciousness is able to alter your body-mind for optimum wellness.

Meditation has been shown to sustain the health of our telomeres, the caps on the ends of chromosomes which determine longevity, to a certain extent. “Telomeres sit on the end of chromosomes (like the plastic tips on the end of shoelaces), stopping them from fraying and scrambling the genetic codes they contain. In healthy people, telomeres shorten progressively throughout life, more than halving in length from infancy to adulthood, and halving again in the very elderly,” writes the BMJ editorial. Latest research in the field of ‘epigenetics’ seems to suggest that genes have the capacity for both, normal and abnormal, responses to an environment. If one wants to derive maximum benefit from these practices, one has to be consistent and practise these with dedication and sincerity.

As in all such practices, what matters most are lifestyle changes in keeping with the eight core principles of Patanjali’s yoga.

(Professor Dr BM Hegde, a Padma Bhushan awardee in 2010, is an MD, PhD, FRCP (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dublin), FACC and FAMS.)