Life and Breath
Breathe in. Salute the sun.
The autonomic nervous system, or involuntary nervous system, is wonderful. Usually, we don’t think about it and are not aware of it functioning. How amazing. It’s keeping us alive without us needing to make it do so. Our brain stem holds the control tower that is in charge of breathing, digestion and circulation and which leaves the higher functioning parts of the brain to get on with other things.
Life outside the womb begins with a deep inhalation, a baby’s first breath. At the end of our life it ceases with one last exhalation. During our lifespan breath is a life force. In yoga we focus inward on it, we are mindful of it. When practicing a vinyasa flow, each motion is matched with an inhalation or an exhalation. For instance, in a sun salutation we breathe in as we raise our arms and we breathe out as we bend forward. Concentrating on the breath this way is calming. It is meditation in motion.
Here’s a fun fact. Breathing is the only autonomic response that if we choose, we can control. Ah, you may say, what about the yogis who are able to control their heart rates, also an autonomic response. They do so by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, part of which is done by controlling the breath. The parasympathetic nervous system triggers the rest and digest response which regulates heart rate by decreasing it.
On the other hand, the sympathetic nervous system triggers our fight or flight response, which regulates heart rate by increasing it. It used to be someone coming at us with a stone axe that would trigger that, but today it is other stresses which are not always so obvious. What about that work presentation you may be giving today and are nervous about? Modern stresses can cause lack of sleep and the blood to rush away from the organs to the muscles. You may notice it in others who are nervous and while sitting are bouncing their knee up and down. Their sympathetic nervous system is telling the leg muscles to be ready to take flight. Through controlling the breath we can be present, be calm, slow our heart rate.
The first Yoga Sutra of Patanjali who put the practice into written form states that yoga begins in the now. The second explains that yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. Focusing on prana, the breath, is central to stilling the mind. It takes our thoughts away from stressing about what is our past and what is our future. The mind being what it is flits off in multitudinous directions, but as soon as we are aware of that we can help still it again by focusing on prana. We can bring it back to the present moment, the haven where we may choose how we act.
The third Yoga Sutra describes how when our mind is calm we can experience the undistracted essence of consciousness in the present moment. Being calm helps us make well considered choices. It gives us some control over our future. Things may be about to occur, but how we think and act in the now determines how we navigate the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. When Hamlet said that, his mind was NOT calm. He was deeply depressed and contemplating life, death and possibly suicide.
Let’s digress a little and for fun take Hamlet as a fictional example. Here is a troubled soul. He learns from the ghost of his father, the past king, that he was murdered by Hamlet’s uncle, the present king. Hamlet’s mother, the queen, is now married to this same uncle. The ghost of Hamlet’s father wants him to avenge his murder. This past history plays on Hamlet’s mind as well as what he will do about it. His mind is definitely not in the present moment. It is being sent skittering like a schizophrenic rabbit between rage at the past and depression about the future. Hence the famous soliloquy, “To be or not to be”.
Hamlet sets in motion a course of action that is devastating. By the end his girlfriend Ophelia has committed suicide after Hamlet kills her father and by the time all is ‘resolved’, the play finishes with the death of his uncle, his mother and Laertes, the brother of Ophelia. Oh and of course, Hamlet himself dies having been wounded by a poisoned sword. His last words are, “The rest is silence”.
My goodness, I wonder what would have transpired had Hamlet sat with his breath for a while and reeled his mind back into the present moment to still it before making any decisions! Had he acted with a calm mind, he may have experienced ‘rest’ and ‘silence’ in life rather than only finding it as his dying exhalation leaves his body. Mind you, being confronted by the ghost of a father demanding revenge is quite a mind unsettling experience and we must also consider that Shakespeare’s intention was to write a tragedy after all!
Pranayama, breath control, is one of the eight limbs of yoga, one of the spokes keeping the wheel moving smoothly around the axle.