International Yoga Day 2015 June 21

First International Yoga Day 2015 June 21

YOGA AND BRAIN

Dr M A Aleem MD DM
Consultant Neurologist
ABC Hospital
Trichy
Tamilnadu India

First I Thank our Prime Minister Narandra Modi for initiating to adopt an International day for our 5000 years old Yoga

Yogis had larger brain volume in the somatosensory cortex, which contains a mental map of our body, the superior parietal cortex, involved in directing attention, and the visual cortex. The hippocampus, a region critical to dampening stress, was also enlarged in practitioners, as were the precuneus and the posterior cingulate cortex, areas key to our concept of self. All these brain areas could be engaged by elements of yoga practice. The yogis dedicated on average about 70 percent of their practice to physical postures, about 20 percent to meditation and 10 percent to breath work, typical of most indian and Western yoga routines.



Yoga can supposedly improve depressive symptoms and immune function, as well as decrease chronic pain, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure.  These claims have all been made by yogis over the years, and it sounds like a lot of new age foolishness. Surprisingly, however, everything in that list is supported by scientific research. 

It may sound like magic that posing like a proud warrior or a crow could have such extensive effects, but it's not magic.  It's neurobiology.  This next statement may sound to you either profound or extremely obvious, but it comes down to this: the things you do and the thoughts you have change the firing patterns and chemical composition of your brain.  Even actions as simple as changing your posture, relaxing the muscles on your face, or slowing your breathing rate, can affect the activity in your brain (beyond, of course, the required activity to make the action).  These changes are often transient, but can be long-lasting, particularly if they entail changing a habit. 
 
    

yoga works not because the poses are relaxing, but because they are stressful.  It is your attempts to remain calm during this stress that create yoga's greatest neurobiological benefit.

Your brain tends to react to discomfort and disorientation in an automatic way, by triggering the physiological stress response and activating anxious neural chatter between the prefrontal cortex and the more emotional limbic system.  The stress response itself increases the likelihood of anxious thoughts, like "Oh god, I'm going to pull something," or "I can't hold this pushup any longer".  And in fact, your anxious thoughts themselves further exacerbate the stress response. 

Interestingly, despite all the types of stressful situations a person can be in (standing on your head, running away from a lion, finishing ) the nervous system has just one stress response.  The specific thoughts you have may differ, but the brain regions involved, and the physiological response will be the same.  The physiological stress response means an increase in heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension and elevation of cortisol and other stress hormones.

The fascinating thing about the mind-body interaction is that it works both ways.  For example, if you're stressed, your muscles will tense (preparing to run away from a lion), and this will lead to more negative thinking.  Relaxing those muscles, particularly the facial muscles, will push the brain in the other direction, away from stress, and toward more relaxed thoughts.  Similarly, under stress, your breathing rate increases.  Slowing down your breathing pushes the brain away from the stress response, and again toward more relaxed thinking.

So how does this all fit together?  As already stated before, the stress response in the nervous system is triggered reflexively by discomfort and disorientation. The twisting of your spine, the lactic acid building up in your straining muscles, the uneasy feeling of being upside down, the inability to breathe, are all different forms of discomfort and disorientation, and tend to lead reflexively to anxious thinking and activation of the stress response in the entire nervous system. However, just because this response is automatic, does not mean it is necessary.  It is, in fact, just a habit of the brain.  One of the main purposes of yoga is to retrain this habit so that your brain stops automatically invoking the stress response

Some people might think that the stress response is an innate reflex and thus can't be changed.  To clarify, the response is partly innate and partly learned in early childhood.  Yes, the stress response comes already downloaded and installed on your early operating system.  However, this tendency is enhanced, by years of reinforcement.  In particular, you absorb how those around you, particularly your parents, react to stressful situations.  Their reactions get wired into your nervous system. However, just because a habit is innate, and then reinforced, does not mean it is immune to change.  Almost any habit can be changed, or at least improved, through repeated action of a new habit.

The poses most people associate with yoga are just a particular way of practicing yoga called the asana practice ("asana" translates to "pose").  The asana practice challenges you in a specific way, but life itself offers plenty of challenges on its own.  Under any stressful circumstance you can attempt the same calming techniques: breathing deeply and slowly, relaxing your facial muscles, clearing your head of anxious thoughts, focusing on the present.  In fact, applying these techniques to real life is what yoga is all about.

Yoga is simply the process of paying attention to the present moment and calming the mind.  Over time you will start to retrain your automatic stress reaction, and replace it with one more conducive to happiness and overall well-being.
I am requesting our PM Modi to declare Yoga as our Indian National Excercise . I am Thanking our Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for including Yoga in school textbook in Tamilnadu the first state in India did this.