How yoga regenerates us

SAT BIR SINGH KHALSA is interviewed by VICTOR KANNAN about research and the applications of yoga in modern life. Dr. Khalsa has been an instructor of Kundalini Yoga since 1973, and has conducted research on yoga since 2001 on insomnia, chronic stress, anxiety-related disorders, and in workplace and public school settings. He is medical editor of the Harvard Medical School Special Report, Introduction to Yoga, and chief editor of the medical textbook, The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care.

Yoga in schools

Q: Can you tell us how some of the yoga practices help prevent physical and mental problems?

SBSK: I’ve been a strong proponent that we need more research on the implementation of yoga in our public schools, because I believe yoga provides fundamental skills children need to learn. The skills of self-regulation and mind-body awareness are preventive. They will prevent both physical and psychological conditions.

One of the biggest risk factors for all kinds of medical conditions is chronic stress and emotional disturbance. Self-regulation leads to emotional equanimity. Stress regulation and emotional regulation are absolutely critical in preventing aberrant behaviors as well as aberrant mental states. The degree to which our children and adolescents are experiencing adverse mental health conditions is disturbing. The answer is to teach them what has been called “socio-emotional learning”; the ability to self-regulate and be aware will change their behavior. It will change their mental state and it will change their emotional state. It will change their self-efficacy overall and improve their ability to cope with life.

Unfortunately, these skills are not taught in our schools, which are focused on acquiring successful occupations and not on successful health of the mind, emotions, and body. Not training our children to be able to be functional physically, emotionally, and mentally is a weakness of our society. Education should be about learning how to be an effective and functional adult, not just about getting a job.

Yoga has the potential to inculcate those skills, and that’s the reason I believe it should be taught in schools. But we need the research to demonstrate that bringing yoga into schools will accomplish that.

Q: You also mention that policies lag behind research, so we need more research.

SBSK: Our society functions and makes decisions based upon research evidence. Now, the problem is that research takes time. There are many forces and influences in opposition to research on topics that we believe are beneficial. One example, which is very dominant in modern society, is cigarette smoking. The research on smoking goes back to the 1940s and 50s. Scientists reported that smoking is associated with bad effects, and then came the evidence that smoking causes cancer. How many decades of research has it taken to create policies and regulations leading to no smoking in restaurants and university campuses? I’m hoping it will not take many decades to come up with policies for yoga and socio-emotional learning in our schools. It’s hard to predict.

There is a joke in modern society that science moves forward funeral by funeral. Scientists hold onto old dogma and refuse to be open to new evidence and new ways of thinking. When they die, those who take over are more open and will adopt and implement new policies.

We have so many examples. Go back to Galileo and the principle that the Earth revolves around the sun. It took decades to finally win over the opposing force, which was the Church arguing that it was against religious doctrine. That construct died with the people who defended it.

Yoga is not religion

Q: I’m also wondering about the misunderstanding that yoga is religious.

SBSK: There are actually two major misunderstandings, and they are polar opposites. One is that yoga is a religion. There is suggestive evidence that yoga was part of the Indus Valley civilization. We know that yoga evolved out of the culture from that part of northern India. India is predominantly Hindu, so many Hindus practice yoga, but to argue that yoga is a form of Hinduism is incorrect, both historically and philosophically. Although it is linked to other philosophical traditions in India, e.g., the Samkhya philosophy, all of which are related to each other, yoga stands on its own as a form of practical mysticism.

The focus of yoga is the experience of the unitive state of consciousness. There has never been a dogma associated with it. That, to me, is what distinguishes religious activity from spiritual activity. Yoga is a practical form of mysticism, a philosophy that argues for the experience of a higher state of consciousness. It’s an experience, not a dogma or belief.  That is the distinction between spirituality and religion.

In religion, you adopt a set of beliefs and behaviors that make you part of that religion. You align with those beliefs and dogma, and you practice the techniques, ceremonies, and rituals as part of religious behavior.

The focus of yoga is the experience of
the unitive state of consciousness.
There has never been a dogma
associated with it. That, to me,
is what distinguishes religious
activity from spiritual activity. 

Yoga is a mind-body practice. You do exercise, relaxation, breath regulation, and meditation. Over time, you hope to experience the unitive state of consciousness. In the beginning it may be an experience of simple peace, quietude and tranquility. But many people do experience the deeper unitive state of consciousness, the Samadhi state. If you do the practices, you have the experience, regardless of whether you believe or not. And there are many instances where people start with the belief that yoga is a joke; then they practice and change their minds because of the experience that yoga is real and beneficial. That’s one extreme.

Yoga in Western mainstream culture

The other extreme is that many people believe yoga is practiced largely by beautiful women in leotards doing acrobatic postures, and that you have to be flexible. This is the result of the media’s portrayal of yoga. In this view, men don’t practice yoga, children don’t practice yoga. If you have a medical condition or limitation, you don’t practice yoga because you’re not fit.

If you’re writing a media article, or want to sell a magazine, what are you going to show? An old fat man sitting in meditation? No, you’ll show a beautiful woman in leotards doing an acrobatic posture, because that’s what attracts readers. If you constantly put that kind of image in the media, then the public makes that association. The related conclusion is, “I’m not a young flexible woman, therefore yoga is not for me.”

Q: I thought the Happy Buddha was a good counter to that.

SBSK: The problem with the Happy Buddha is that you’re going into Buddhism. When you show a meditative posture, it’s associated with Zen and other forms of Buddhism. You’re going to the other extreme of yoga as religion. As a community, we have to disabuse the public of these two extreme notions, which are both false.

Q: I agree. We have a responsibility to promote yoga correctly, if it is to help everyone optimally, focusing on the latest research, from a perspective of promoting sleep and stress management, and preventing depression and addiction.

SBSK: We are seeing enormous advances in research on yoga, with studies that show the psychophysiology of individual yoga practices, and also the effects of combining all four aspects of traditional yoga.

There are four major outcomes of the basic research on the psychophysiology of yoga:

• Changes in the physical body.

There is increased flexibility, muscular endurance, muscle strength, and respiratory function. It works on the physical body and through the mind-body connection, affecting the emotional cognitive functioning.

• Self-regulation

There is now strong evidence that yoga can self-regulate our internal state. We’re starting to understand the neurophysiology of that self-regulation. The two most important self-regulation skills are stress and emotion regulation. We know that the prefrontal cortex is activated during yoga to calm the limbic system, where stress and emotion are expressed. There is growing evidence to show the ability of yoga to improve self-regulation of emotion and thought processes.

• Increased mind-body awareness, mindfulness

The engagement of the attention networks in meditation consistently over time leads to the skill of self-regulation of thought processes. We become capable of self-regulation of thought processes and come to an understanding of our thought processes. We come to realize that we are not our thought processes. They are not central to who we are, because we can self-regulate them and change our thoughts. This is referred to as metacognition in psychology. Metacognition is consistent with the most powerful and universal form of psychotherapy today, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is based on self-regulation of thought processes. That component of yoga is powerful.

• Longer-term yoga practice leads to deeper states of consciousness

People experience at both gross and subtle levels a sense of peace, quietude, and tranquility. Over time, it becomes stronger and evolves into a unitive experience, which approaches the state of the universe is one. This brings a deep oneness that leads to a change in life purpose and meaning.

That is really what we’re talking about when we use the word “spirituality.” People change. They may change their behaviors. They change their goals in life—there’s a shift from materialistic goals to non-materialistic goals. They become more focused on spiritual goals and less on materialistic aspects of life.

There is increased flexibility, muscular
endurance, muscle strength, and
respiratory function. It works on the
physical body and through the
mind-body connection, affecting the
emotional cognitive functioning. 

The research is convincing in the fitness component. This research goes back decades. If we give individuals asanas to practice, they become more flexible. We can measure this in inches and centimeters and degrees of motion. Pranayama practice increases respiratory function and the autonomic nervous system.

From brain scanning and neuroimaging, molecular biological techniques, and biochemical assays, we are now starting to understand how self-regulation and mind-body awareness develop, what the relationships are in the different regions of the brain, and how this manifests in the brain. This is the most powerful outcome we’ve had from research during the past three to four decades.

The area where we don’t have so much scientific research is spirituality. Many people have argued yoga is so profound that you can’t possibly study it. I disagree. If you have a spiritual experience, and you can describe it, you can measure it. We have many questionnaires and assays that measure states of consciousness. We also know these states of consciousness are produced by the brain. We know there are networks in the brain that are affected by yoga practice that produce these states.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence that it is the brain is the fact that psilocybin can generate unitive states of consciousness. Psilocybin is a drug that affects regions and networks of the brain. A subset of people who have taken psilocybin experience the full and complete unitive state of consciousness, which has the same degree of efficacy and life change that naturally-generated experiences have. We know there are regions and networks that can be activated to generate these states of mind.

From brain scanning and neuroimaging,
molecular biological techniques, and
biochemical assays, we are now
starting to understand how self-regulation
and mind-body awareness develop,
what the relationships are in the different
regions of the brain, and how this
manifests in the brain. 

The model of the psychophysiological changes with the four outcomes can automatically apply to any circumstance or behavior. You can address hypertension, diabetes, depression, or anxiety. The two research areas that have had the biggest impact on policy change have been yoga for low back pain and yoga for cancer. We are starting to see strong movement in other areas, for example, yoga for diabetes. India has put an emphasis on the treatment of diabetes because of the epidemic there.

In the West, we are seeing yoga in incarcerated populations, and the enormous potential for rehabilitation of criminal behavior. There are many areas where yoga is now used very effectively in mental health and the entire range of human disorders.

To be continued.

Illustrations by ANANYA PATEL