The Breath as Master
There is an adorable story in ancient yoga philosophy that describes a dispute among the eyes, ears, speech, mind and breath of who was the most important of them all. To resolve the conflict, Lord Brahma decided that each would take a turn leaving the body for one full year, allowing the body itself to decide who amongst them was the greatest.
As each left, the body spent a year without speech, a year blind, a year deaf, and a year without thought. When it came time for the breath to leave something extraordinary happened. As soon as the breath began to depart the body, the tongue lost its powers of speech, the eyes lost their power to see, the ears lost their ability to hear and the mind lost its intelligence. Before the breath could get too far they all begged the breath to return declaring it as master.
A deeper understanding of heart-brain interactions and autonomic nervous system dynamics allows a realization of truth in this ancient story through the eyes of modern science.
There are countless functions in the body, including the breath, that occur at any given moment regardless of our conscious awareness, thanks to the control of the autonomic nervous system. They occur whether we are thinking about them or not. The breath is the only ANS function that we also have direct conscious control over at any given moment we choose.
The Heart Connection
It becomes easy to appreciate the connection between the breath and heart. Gently place your fingertips on the thumb side of your inner wrist and start taking long, slow, smooth breaths. You will feel your heart rate slowing.
With each inhale and exhale there is a subtle slowing and speeding up, or variability, of heart rate. The medical term is respiratory sinus arrhythmia, also known as heart rate variability (HRV). HRV occurs proportionately to the balance of the autonomic nervous system, in generally healthy people. The more balanced the ANS, the more heart rate variability there will be with each cycle of the breath. HRV reflects the dynamics of the two sides of the ANS, the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches.
Parasympathetic function calms and stills and sympathetic activates and speeds. Inhalation temporarily suppresses the parasympathetic branch, causing an immediate increase in heart rate. Exhalation then decreases heart rate as it causes parasympathetic activity to resume.
Through a complex integration of feedback loops in the physical, emotional and mental bodies, an evanescent flux of sensation and perception ultimately creates the quality in which we experience our existence.
A rhythmic, steady pattern of HRV creates a wave of resonance and harmony within the body, breath and mind trifecta. Each time your heart beats, signals through direct neural pathways are received by the amygdala and thalamus. The amygdala is an anatomic region in the brain responsible for the fight or flight response and assessing for potential danger, the “stay safe” center. The thalamus is responsible for synchronizing the electrical impulses of the higher thought areas in the brain. The thalamus also downloads data from emotions and the senses and processes this information before uploading it to areas of higher brain functioning. The smooth and accurate processing speed of both the amygdala and thalamus is directly related to the order and structure within the patterning of HRV. When the breath is smooth, regular and gentle to a count of 5 or 6 or to comfort, a rhythmic and steady frequency pattern of HRV is initiated making potential space for a state where we feel our best and perform our best in an optimal state of equanimity, clear perception and completely in the moment of NOW.
When the breath is shallow, fast and jagged HRV becomes chaotic and so does the signalling to the brain. Sensations and perception become choppy and past experiences fill in the blanks. Resonance is lost and there is a lack of harmony within the systems of the body. This also creates an imbalance of sympathetic and parasympathetic activation. Feelings and emotions associated with a chaotic HRV are often reflected as stress, anger, depression, anxiety and overwhelm. These depleting emotions in turn further alter the perception of reality in any given moment and can potentially create recurring negative thought patterns.
The Breath as Mirror
There is another powerful and sometimes vicious cycle that originates in the mind and works its way down to the heart and ultimately is reflected in the breath. Emotion is the lens in which we experience our perception of reality. When we are angry, stressed or fearful we feel and experience our surroundings in a much different way than when we are in a state of love, joy and bliss.
Remembering emotion as the lens of perception, perception causes thought patterns and thoughts further solidify the emotional state. Emotions, which also affect our energetic body, cause signals within physiology, altering heart rate, HRV, breath and ultimately our entire physical body. This cycle creates a double feedback loop to doom or bliss depending on the thoughts and emotions and/or breath driving it.
Regenerating emotions such as gratitude, forgiveness, love and compassion can produce a rhythmic, steady frequency pattern of HRV automatically without conscious control of the breath. Inversely, depleting emotions create an irregular, jagged HRV pattern.
Take a moment to observe the quality of your breath, is it smooth, gentle and long? If not, observe the emotion your breath is mirroring and what thoughts are being formed based on that emotion. Remembering the breath as master, you have the power to control the breath, shift your emotions and ultimately change the quality in which you experience your own existence. Practice.
Consider breath as a control interface in the process of modulating the quality of our consciousness, for hacking physiology, the emotional body and mind.
Practice
Breathing in and out through the nose. Observe the quality of your breath, is it smooth, gentle and long? If not, observe the emotion your breath is reflecting and what thoughts are being formed based on that emotion. Spend time visualizing the breath and stretching it with the utmost comfort to a count of 5 or 6 or whatever is comfortable for you. Making sure the breath is smooth and gentle. The inhale and exhale even.
After at least 5 or more minutes of smooth, gentle breath… Start to induce thoughts related to a positive, regenerative, heart felt emotion like love, happiness, kindness, compassion, gratitude or peace. It could be thoughts of kittens playing, or baby goats in pyjamas doing yoga, a walk on a beach, the love you feel for a particular person or animal… get creative. Pick something that works for you.
Once you feel the emotion in your heart center let the feeling spread through your body… Imagining the heart as a conduit of the positive emotional energy you’re creating, direct it to places and spaces in your body that need healing.
You can take it further and start sending that positivity to those in your immediate family, and social circle. Then expand even more to beings you don’t know, other people, plants, animals, nature, the trees, the mountains, the streams, rivers and oceans… keep doing this until you have expanded your generosity to the entire planet and beyond, wherever the imagination takes you. Namaste.
