Tag Archives: mind

BOOK REVIEW: Your Brain on Yoga by Sat Bir Khalsa

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Your Brain on YogaYour Brain on Yoga by Sat Bir Khalsa

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This Harvard Medical School Guide presents the findings of many scientific studies on the benefits of yoga, and it does so in a manner suitable for the layman. The book is written by Dr. Sat Bir Khalsa, a long time practitioner of Kundalini Yoga and a neuroscience researcher at Harvard, and is co-authored by a science writer trained in journalism.

I became aware of Khalsa’s work when reading William Broad’s The Science of Yoga, a book that is complimentary of Dr. Khalsa and his studies—a favor which Khalsa doesn’t return as he rejects Broad’s work as being overly sensationalist. The book does talk about Khalsa’s research, such as a study with young musicians at Tanglewood that examined how the practice of yoga increased their equanimity. That said, this isn’t merely a summation of Dr. Khalsa’s work. It’s what in academia would be called a literature review, but “literature review” implies a far more dismal reading experience than one gets from this book. It does present anecdotes in a way that is useful for a layman’s book, but would not be well-respected in an academic setting. This work isn’t designed for medical colleagues but rather to be of benefit to run-of-the-mill yoga students and teachers.

This is a very short book at only about 50 pages. The book consists of five chapters after an introduction which sets the stage and gives some relevant background on Dr. Khalsa. Chapter one delves into the effect of stress on the body and mind, and how yoga (and meditation more generally) has been shown to help counter the effects of bad stress (not all stress is inherently bad, as is addressed in the chapter.) Chapter two examines the effect of yoga on the body and in countering a number of common ailments. The third chapter considers how yoga might actually help one to be smarter and more creative. Chapter four presents the results of studies of how yoga can counter depression and improve one’s mood. Chapter five is in a different vein, and might well have been included as an appendix. The last chapter gives an overview of the various types of yoga to assist readers new to yoga on what style might best meet their needs and disposition. This is a nice feature for those new to yoga, but also for veteran practitioners who’ve practiced one style and might not be aware of the wide range of styles out there. (A few of the styles mentioned are popular in India, but I don’t think are as well-known in the West.)

For such a thin book, this work covers a wide range of topics including–but not limited to–the effects of yoga on sleep, the immune system, neural plasticity, memory, math skills, and mood. A nice feature of the book is a series of brief exercises that one can practice to help reduce stress or achieve a desired goal. These practices are generally located at the end of chapters. Finally, while this book isn’t written primarily for doctors and other scientists, it’s endnoted so those interested in tracking down the studies the book references can readily do so.

I’m a big fan of applying a scientific approach to the study of ancient methods such as yoga. I would, therefore, recommend this book for yoga teachers and students who are interested how precisely these practices can assist them. It’s extremely short and easily digested. It’s in no way overbearing with medical jargon and is readily understood by anyone with a basic education in biological science.

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TODAY’S RANDOM THOUGHT: “That” Doesn’t Make You So Mad

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Source: Avengers Movie

Source: Avengers movie

“That makes me so mad!” One hears it all the time. It has to be among the most commonly uttered phrases in the realm of emotional experience. And, of course, it’s completely and utterly wrong. Your anger is a wholly contained neurochemical response. To credit something external with your anger is to grant that person or thing power over you–to enslave yourself. (Stoic philosopher, and former slave, Epictetus was known to piss off gentlemen citizens by asking them if they were “really free.”)

 

This isn’t to say there isn’t just anger.  However, think about what emotions are. Our emotions are a system evolutionarily evolved to allow us to make decisions with limited or no information. Without emotions our species, if we ever came to be, would have likely become extinct by way of “paralysis by analysis.” We know that happens to people who have neurological damage that keeps them from experiencing emotion. You might think they would become cold and rational Mr. Spocks, but the defining characteristic of such people is that they become paralyzed by indecision. It turns out that we make a lot of decisions with limited information or from an inability to determine a clear winner by way of facts and reason. Emotion plays and important role in those cases.

 

Chances are that if your immediate gut reaction to something is anger, you probably haven’t worked out a rational argument for your preference. If one has a clear line of reasoning rooted in fact, anger isn’t necessary to justify a position or decision. If your gut reaction to something is emotional, see whether you can  noodle out a rational reason before you swing into too rash an action…. unless the crosstown bus is careening at you.

 

 

 

BOOK REVIEW: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceFlow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Recently, I read and reviewed Steven Kotler’s The Rise of Superman, which is about how extreme athletes use a mental state called “the flow” to pull off some miraculous feats (e.g. “hanging righteous air” to use an appropriate term of art.) That book got me intrigued about the flow, and wanting to learn more. The logical next read was the book by the man considered the godfather of flow, the man who coined the term, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is a Professor of Psychology at the Claremont Graduate University and formerly of the University of Chicago.

A Note on Editions: The book I read is the 2013 edition of a book that was first published in 1990. The two editions have different subtitles. The 1990 edition was entitled Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and the 2013 edition is Flow: The Psychology of Happiness. It’s not hard to imagine what happened. The 1990 version was titled to appeal to scholars, and the former title both has more syllables and suggests that one might be able to use LaGrangian Methods (the calculus of constrained optimization) to maximize bliss—which would be double bliss for an academic. As Csikszentmihalyi’s work attracted widespread attention, there was a need for a title that didn’t sound painfully dull. To be fair, the word “happiness” has gained some purchase in scholarly literature in recent years, but in 1990 saying one was studying “happiness” would be akin to saying one would study the “cuddliness quotient” of kittens (actually the latter, having the word “quotient” in it, would test better with department chairs and funders.)

Flow is a state in which one’s entire mind and body is devoted to overcoming a challenge that is intrinsically rewarding. There’s a lot packed into that definition. First, the task must be difficult but within the skill-level of the individual. If it’s too easy, it’s too boring for flow. If it’s far too challenging relative to one’s skill, it may become frustrating before one can build enough skill to achieve it. Flow states can be achieved via many different kinds of tasks, and the middle chapters of the book are devoted to different types of flow-inducing events. Chapters 5 through 8 address, respectively: physical activities like yoga and the martial arts, mental activities like poetry, word play, and chess, work activities, and solitude and social activities.

Second, tasks must usually be autotelic, or intrinsically rewarding. If the only reason that one is doing an activity is for a paycheck, to stave off nagging, or to attract attention, one will be unlikely to find the flow. That doesn’t mean that one can’t receive external rewards, but the activity has to have something intrinsic that keeps one at it. Csikszentmihalyi’s approach was to interview people to access how happy they were, and what activities allowed them to achieve said happiness. He shares many anecdotes about individuals who were blissful, including people who derived happiness from work activities such as factory work, work that most people would find unpleasant and only tolerable to earn a living. Of course, these happy individuals didn’t just do the job in the manner of the poor schlubs who hated their work-life. Instead, they found ways to make the work challenging and, in doing so, they often made themselves indispensable and gained not only job security but also the respect and admiration of others. What is key is that one’s mindset determines all of this, and the book focuses on the notion of controlling one’s inner life to achieve happiness via the flow.

Third, flow is not achieved in a distracted state; all of one’s being has to be surrendered to the act at hand. Multi-tasking is not conducive to the flow.

The ability to override one’s evolutionarily-programmed instincts is key to being able to obtain a flow state. One must be able to stay on task and devote one’s consciousness to the action at hand. This is the central theme in chapter 2, entitled “The Anatomy of Consciousness.” The book also speaks to a subject that I’m currently interested in, which is how states of mind and body that have been known since ancient times, but whose mechanism of action weren’t well-understood, are explained in the world of modern science. Csikszentmihalyi refers to yogis and Taoist masters as he describes the flow. Flow state isn’t new; it’s just newly put in the context of science, rather than mythology.

I enjoyed this book and found the chapter on the flow in movement and bodily activities particularly educational. Csikszentmihalyi has written a few related books on creativity and the flow applied specifically to sport. I would like to learn more about the neuro-anatomy and neurochemistry of the flow, as this book doesn’t delve into the hard science of the flow, and much of this science has occurred since the time this book was first published anyway.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku

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The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the MindThe Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind

by Michio Kaku

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Amazon page

The Future of the Mind continues a line of inquiry that Michio Kaku has been following with his earlier books Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future. The central question remains: what sci-fi imaginings might come to fruition, which of them are impossible given the laws of physics in the known universe, and what breakthroughs or discoveries would be necessary to achieve the achievable. Technology is the inevitable gateway to these advanced breakthroughs. Humanity has eliminated gross evolutionary pressures through technology—this might not remain true, but we can certainly not expect X-men style mutations as a result of the foreseeable progression of humanity (which is more likely to be described by the horrible—though probably presagious 2006 movie Idiocracy than it is by the X-men movies.)

The theme of the book, as the title suggests, is the mind. As the most complex system that we know of, the human nervous system offers fertile ground for investigation. Among the sci-fi mainstays considered by Dr. Kaku are telepathy, telekinesis, false memories (think Total Recall), intelligence enhancement, mind control, artificial intelligence, and the nature of alien minds. Along the way he considers the challenges of reverse engineering the brain and whether consciousness could take a non-material form (e.g. embedded in a beam of light.)

As always, Kaku’s book is easy to follow, even for the scientific neophyte. Few others write on the topic with such clarity. While part of Kaku’s book deals with the same concepts covered by Roger Penrose in his book Shadows of the Mind, the Kaku book scores much higher in readability. Of course, the flipside is that Kaku’s book offers less explanatory power. So if one isn’t looking for pop science simplification, The Future of the Mind is probably not for you. However, if you want the jist of the science and have neither the background nor the energy to digest the mathematical and biological nuance, you’ll find this book readable.

Incidentally, Kaku is more optimistic about the ability to computationally replicate consciousness than Penrose, which the latter argues is impossible. Professor Kaku’s optimism runs through all of his books. He takes the stance that if one can imagine it–and figure out a technological or theoretical loophole around the known barriers –one can achieve it. Therefore, some of his discussion of what could come to pass depends upon theories about, for example, black-holes being true. It should be noted that Kaku is quite clear about the differences of opinion that exist about these theories and the role that differences between theory and reality could play in making science fiction into scientific reality.

I enjoyed this book. I’ve been reading a lot about neuroscience lately—entirely on the pop science level- and found this book to be beneficial to my understanding of the subject. It begins by discussing what is known about the brain and consciousness—it turns out that a lot remains unknown, but the technology of recent years has vastly improved our understanding of the brain, and it continues to do so by the day. The book also delves into the depths of what could come to be. There is definitely pragmatic understanding to be gained as well as outlandish, but fun, science fiction ruminations.

For sci-fi fans and writers, it’s definitely worth reading. I had many new conceptions of the future as I read the book. (I might suggest reading Physics of the Impossible first, which gives an overview many “impossible” technologies and explains how few are just flat impossible regardless of technological development and scientific discovery. My review of that book is here.) Many of the ideas covered may seem a bit eccentric, such as what first contact with an alien race would look like. (Kaku is of the notion that the transmission of an immaterial consciousness(es), possibly in conjunction with self-replicating machines would be the likely shape of such an alien presence.)

I recommend this book for almost anyone. We are really only beginning to venture out of the dark ages understanding the mind, and this book provides an interesting map what might be possible.

As I mentioned it, sadly, this may be the more likely future of the human mind:

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BOOK REVIEW: The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler

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The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human PerformanceThe Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance by Steven Kotler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This is NOT a book about the comic book hero. It’s a book about a mental state called “the flow” and how adventure and extreme athletes have used it to make tremendous strides in their sports. The characteristics of the flow include extreme focus, time dilation / time distortion, a vanishing sense of self, extremely high performance, fearlessness, and a falling away of everything non-essential to the task at hand.

Kotler is by no means the first author to write about the flow. The term was inaugurated by a book entitled Flow first published in 1990 by a University of Chicago Psychology professor named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi coined the term in the process of conducting a study on happiness. He found that happy people tended to engage in activities in which they could immerse themselves and find the zone. Contrary to the early part of Kotler’s book–in which it sounds like adventure athletes cornered the market on flow–Csikszentmihalyi says that said activity could be work or hobby and that the flow is to be found in poetry writing, yoga, martial arts, copy writing, or potentially any activity in which the skill level and challenge are both high.

(To be fair, Kotler does get around to recognizing that extreme athletes neither invented nor exclusively exploit the flow. However, his—well-taken—point is that such athletes are unusually good at finding, and dropping deep into, the flow in part because risk-taking behavior is an important trigger. And for free climbers [rock climbers without ropes], mega-ramp skateboarders, and bodysuit skydivers sometimes there are only two possible states of existence—the flow and being scraped off a rock.) It should be noted that some of the elements of flow sound a lot like the states that have been described by various mystical religious traditions for centuries, e.g. the dissolution of a feeling of separation between self and the rest of the universe. Warning: religious readers may find it disconcerting to read that there are scientific explanations for states that were once attributed to communion with god or the like.

While I’ve given Kotler’s book high rating, I haven’t yet given one reason to read it—and I do recommend people read it. First, while Csikszentmihalyi is the “father” of flow research, his methods were decidedly low tech–i.e. surveys and interviews—but Kotler reports on more recent studies involving neuroanatomy, neuroelectricity, and neurochemistry. Second, while Kotler delves into the science of the flow, he does so in a manner that is approachable to non-scientists. Finally, all of the narrative accounts of extreme athletes interspersed with the more technical commentary make for a very readable book, even if one is not particularly knowledgeable of—or interested in—such sports. I gave this book a high rating both for its food-for-thought value, and because of its high readability.

I will admit that I was not so enamored of the book when I first began it, and other readers may find the same irritation. For one thing, Kotler’s adoration of extreme athletes comes off sounding like diminishment of mainstream athletes and others involved in “flowy” activities. A prime example of this is seen in Chapter 1. Kotler gives us an endearing description of how gymnast Kerri Strug won the gold in the 1996 Olympics by sticking a landing on a shattered ankle. However, he then comes off a bit douchey when he suggests that Strug’s achievement pales in comparison to Danny Way’s skateboard jumps at the Great Wall of China.

For another thing, in his zealousness to prove that extreme sports practitioners are full-awesome while mainstream athletes are “meh,” Kotler makes some comparisons that seem apples and oranges to a neophyte such as me. If they are fair comparisons, he certainly doesn’t explain why they should be considered so. The best example of this is when he states that Olympic divers took decades to achieve increases in rotation that extreme skiers and skateboarders surpassed in much less time. This seems unreasonable for two reasons. First, divers have a very standard distance in which to achieve their acrobatics. In other words, they don’t get to build a “mega-platform” that’s 50% taller like Danny Way creates “mega-ramps” that were bigger than ever before. Of course, if you can increase the distance between yourself and the ground you can increase your spins, rotations, or whatever much more quickly (yes, your danger goes up vastly, I’m not diminishing that.) Second, the divers gained zero advantage from technological improvements, but the same cannot be said for skiers and skateboarders. In other words, if you go from skis made of oak to ones made of carbon nanotubes (that are 50 times stronger and 1/100th of the weight) of course you’re going to make gains faster.

Perhaps, I’m overstating Kotler’s disdain for mainstream athletics, but that’s what happens when one uses a national hero as a set up to show how much more awesome a relatively unknown skateboarder is (among skateboarders Way is extremely well-known but he’s not a household name as the Olympian was–at least for a short time in the late 90’s.) I suspect that Kotler was just trying to convince a general audience that the athletes he’s speaking about aren’t pot-smoking knuckleheads who are as likely to be seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos crushing their nads on a handrail as setting a new world record. These men and women are serious people engaged in serious activities, and they give it their all. They do deserve more respect for that than they are probably given by broad sectors of the populace. Perhaps, the importance of what these folks are achieving does need to be conveyed because the demographic that reads books and the one that follows extreme sports probably has wide wings of non-overlapping area. (I’m not saying skateboarders are illiterate or bookworms don’t skate–just that the Venn diagram has substantial areas of mutual exclusivity.)

As I indicated above, in each chapter we get both some insight into the nature of the flow and its triggers and stories of adventure / extreme athletes that serve as examples of what’s being discussed. In chapter 2 we learn what the flow looks like in terms of brain waves (i.e. high theta/low alpha, or between meditation and a relaxed / resting state of wakefulness.) In chapter 3, we learn about the neuroanatomy of the flow in terms of what areas of the brain it lights up, and what areas shut down–which is more important to flow states. In chapter 4, we learn about the neurochemistry of the flow and that a cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide, and serotonin makes up the chemistry of flow, but, critically, not so much with the adrenaline. The subsequent chapters deal with triggers of the flow, and what conditions best set up achievement of this state of mind.

Chapter 9 stands out as an important, but quite different, portion of the book. It deals with the downside (or dark side) of the flow. This has a lot to do with the fact that the aforementioned internal substances (and the flow state in general) are quite addictive. While it’s unfair to say, and unlikely, that the extreme athletes Kotler writes about (i.e. the ones at the top of their games) are drug addicts as some might assume of skate boarders, snow boarders, and the like, it may not be unreasonable to say that they have a kind of monkey on their backs—albeit a perfectly legal one rooted in their own neurochemistry.

As I’ve said, I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in this state of mind. One needn’t be interested in extreme sports to get a lot out of the book.

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Paleo-Stressing: Acute v. Chronic Stress

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"What happened to the good ole days when I ate you people--not lived in your cages?"

“What happened to the good ole days when I ate you people–not lived in your cages?”

Paleolithic dieting is all the rage these days. I’m no expert on the paleo-diet, but–as I understand it–this refers to the practice of eating the foods consumed by our pre-agrarian ancestors. The idea is that if one consumes the foods that our species is evolutionarily-optimized to eating, one will be healthier.  Whether one believes in the merits of the paleo-diet or not on the whole, it’s hard to argue that one wouldn’t be better off eating less highly-processed and highly-refined foods and more things that look like food at a glance.

 

Our diet isn’t all that has changed since the days of our pre-agrarian ancestors. Modernity has brought with it an entirely new way of experiencing stress. Eliminating or reducing stress is a common topic of discussion, but not all stress is created equal. There’s a necessary form of stress, a stress that makes one better, stronger, faster, and smarter. We don’t want to willy-nilly eliminate stress; we want to reduce the wrong type of stress.

 

Our ancestors—like animals–experienced brief periods of intense stress (e.g. saber-tooth tiger attacks), followed by longer periods in which they were free of deadlines, carpools, and after-school activities. Now, no one likes to have a saber-tooth tiger stalking them. It’s unpleasant. Modern humanity has gone to great lengths to eliminate those short bursts of terror, but not without cost. (If you don’t believe me read Robert Sapolsky’s Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.)

 

Whether or not you believe that eliminating acute instances of terrifying stress is bad for mankind, it’s hard to argue that modernity’s leveling process didn’t eliminate stress, but instead resulted in a chronic stress on a smaller scale. People today have impossibly long daily to-do lists, and they have to accept trade-offs between work, family, and personal development.

 

It’s true that you don’t get eaten by a giant cat when you drop the ball, but life is so packed diverse events that one may feel like one is dropping some ball constantly. If your boss thinks you’re a model employee, then your kids are probably going to need therapy. If you have a contented home life, your boss may have his or her eyes open for someone who can give the firm consistently 70+ hour work weeks. If you feel you’re doing alright on both the work and family front, your body and / or mind is probably a train wreck.

 

Chronic [mini] stress may feel better than acute [catastrophic] stress, but it takes its tolls in various ways. First, with our sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight reaction) constantly engaged our body’s power to heal itself is reduced. When the parasympathetic nervous system is engaged, the body devotes resources to long-term goals like getting healthier, but in stress mode activities not relevant to immediate survival shut down. This is a great system if you have periodic life and death stress, but is not so good if you’re under constant stress.

 

Second, chronic stress reduces sleep, and sleep is essential to one’s mental and physical well-being. There are a wide variety of symptoms associated with sleep deprivation such as forgetfulness, decreased concentration, decreased alertness, reduced reasoning ability, diminished problem-solving capacity, and depression—all of which can diminish our physical health through accidents, ailments, suicide attempts, and lack of energy for exercise.

 

Third, chronic stress can make one fat, with all the health issues that result. Some people use food as a coping mechanism. Other people eat too fast or choose their food poorly because of time constraints or because they are not mindful of eating as their monkey minds churn at a mile a minute. Then there is the more convoluted and complex issue of cortisol–a hormone released under stress that is linked to weight gain in at least some cases. Even if you don’t have a problem on the calorie intake side, the stressed individual may not do so well on the calorie burning side—either because of a lack of time to exercise or a lack of energy.

 

Modern humans are uniquely suited to chronic stress because we are the only species that achieves the same physiological stress response by remembering and obsessing about a stressful event as experiencing it. Abandoning the modern approach to living isn’t an option most are willing to entertain; but there are ways to combat chronic stress.

 

Move – Meditate – Mindfully Breath: The bad news is you’ve got to shoehorn these activities into your schedule daily (or at least several times a week.) The good news is that they don’t need to take up a lot of your day. There are a number of systems that address all three components in one handy package such as Qi Gong, Yoga, and some martial arts. I don’t think it matters so much which one chooses as how one goes about one’s practice.

 

Movement strengthens and strategically stresses the body, but it also increases one’s bodily awareness so that one becomes aware of how stress is manifesting itself in one’s body. Meditation teaches one how to live in the present moment, and it trains one to recognize the seeds of negative thought and emotion earlier so that one can counter-act them. Obviously, breathing is essential to life, but learning to be aware of one’s breathing patterns and to “manually override” the breath patterns associated with harmful emotional states is a beneficial skill.

 

Massage / Bodywork: Whether self-administered or other-administered (the latter allowing greater distressing–particularly if the masseuse is skilled) massage is an activity, like movement, that can help one become aware of where one is physically holding one’s stress. These physical manifestations of stress can exacerbate the whole experience of stress. One should take time periodically to have bodywork done. A day rarely goes by in which I don’t work on my own neck, shoulders, head, or face, and I occasionally get professional Thai Yoga Bodywork done.

 

The Places that Scare You: Force yourself to go someplace (not necessarily literally a “place”) that scares you once in a while. This needn’t be skydiving or hand-gliding—but it could be. It may be a martial arts class in which one has to put on the gloves occasionally and go at it. It may be joining Tostmasters and having to give a speech in front of a crowd. It may be traveling to some backwater where you don’t know the language, but you want to learn. This is a very personal issue. (i.e. A Type-A personality he-man may not find that skydiving is outside his comfort zone. If so, sorry, skydiving doesn’t count, he may need to learn ballroom dancing, or something else that truly takes him outside being comfortable.) KEY POINT: The problem with hiding from all stressors is that it doesn’t result in a stress-free life, what happens is that smaller and smaller stressors loom bigger and bigger in one’s mind. Which brings us to…

 

Perspective:  One must put life’s challenges in perspective. Each person’s problems are important to them, and I don’t want to diminish anyone’s problems, but—come on—you’re not going to be eaten by a freaking saber-tooth tiger.

BOOK REVIEW: The Science of Yoga by William Broad

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The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the RewardsThe Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards by William J. Broad

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I brought a great deal of interest and enthusiasm towards this subject as I began reading this book. As I proceeded to read, my feelings about The Science of Yoga became much more mixed. At its best, the book shows the state of scientific research on yoga and crushes myths that are deeply ingrained, and it points out risks of which yogis and yoginis should take notice. At its worst, it is sensationalism run-amok–suggesting hugely expensive solutions to issues that are either relatively small problems or that the author fails to prove are really problems at all. Put more simply, at its best it’s outstanding, but at its worst it’s tripe. What I will say about this book is the same thing that its author says about yoga, which is that—on balance—it does more good than harm.

The book is arranged into seven chapters, each of which discusses the scientific research on a different dimension of controversial beliefs about yoga. These include the historic claims of supernatural yogic abilities, the issue of whether yoga increases cardiovascular health, the role of yoga in mental health and well-being, the safety of practicing yoga, the role of yoga in healing, the sexual claims of yogis, and whether yoga enhances creativity. It is written in a scholarly format, heavily end-noted and with bibliographic citations. There is front matter giving information about key people, time lines, and yoga styles in outline form.

In an afterword, Broad points out that this has been his most controversial book to date. I can see why, but, to be fair, I’m sure much of the criticism is unfairly based on a failure to read the book or a desire for the author to treat many of yoga’s mythical aspects as science (as many of its practitioners do.) The former problem was exacerbated by the fact that a single chapter excerpt was published in the New York Times as a teaser for the book. Designed to spark controversy (always good for readership), it was one of the most negative of chapters—the one dealing with yoga injuries. Some who took umbrage probably didn’t realize that Broad is a yoga practitioner, and that there are chapters that are overwhelmingly positive on yoga (e.g. the chapter on “mood” which deals with yoga’s influence on psychology has mostly great things to say about the discipline.) While all of the chapters combine a mix of good and bad news, one comes away from some of them seeing a positive picture of yoga and others with a negative one. In the first half of the book it seems as though chapters may have been arranged to alternate positive and negative dimensions.

Of course, there will also be people who are outraged because of the discussions of the debunking of the con games of their beloved yogis, or for a failure to discuss the critical importance of things like Chakra fluffing. It should be noted that Broad doesn’t deride or mock such spiritual beliefs, he more or less ignores them beyond the occasional off-hand mention—as one would expect in a book about science.

My primary criticism with The Science of Yoga is a common one consideration of problem-solving utilizing public policy (not just with respect to yoga), which is to become so impassioned about a problem that you lose all sight of cost-benefit considerations or the negative feedback effects incentivized by your “solutions.” The problems about which Broad gets so exercised as to suggest an overhaul of yoga as we know it, largely fall into two categories. First, there are problems that are exceedingly rare but catastrophic for in individual involved. This is exemplified by the apparent heightened incidence of strokes among individuals engaged in certain inversions (e.g. a shoulder stand in which the neck is under compression.)

In an interesting turn away from science, Broad makes assumptions in the face of lack of evidence about the incidence of stroke in yoga practitioners. He assumes that yogis have at least the same incidence of stroke due to vertebral artery injury as the general population because of inversions and other yogic activities that put pressure on blood vessels in the neck. He does make clear that it’s just a guess, but one could equally well speculate that those who practice yoga suffer a diminished rate of such strokes because of greater flexibility and strength in the neck. (For the most part the human body is an anti-fragile system, i.e. it grows stronger when subjected to stresses—up to a point—than when shielded from stresses.) While he does call for increased study of the issue, he’s also simultaneously calling for expensive reforms. In essence, he’s calling for a solution before awaiting the evidence that there’s actually a real problem. Stroke is the 800 pound gorilla of the risks the Broad writes about in terms of damage, and so it’s not surprising that he paints the risk in ominous terms. He criticizes the Yoga Journal for dismissing it as a “minuscule number of cases”, but even taking his estimate of 300 (and realizing it could be much lower and is compared to 800,000 cases of stroke per year in the US according to the CDC) “minuscule” does not sound that out of line in a country of 314 million people.

Second, there is the issue of bad information being spread by yoga teachers and authors either because they don’t know any better or because they have an incentive to deceive. This is exemplified by the widespread notion that yoga (and particularly pranayama— breathing exercises) increases one’s cardiovascular fitness. Is it wrong? Yes, but it’s not clear that this propagation of bad information has hurt anybody. That may sound harsh, but—think about it–many people lead long and fruitful lives believing things that aren’t true. Now you may say, “Yes, but people who believe the Earth is flat can’t get hurt believing that, but yoga practitioners can be hurt by wrong information.” I would agree that some wrong information could be damaging, but consider the example given, which–I might add–is one of the main thrusts of Broad’s book. If it were the case that many people got fat because they thought yoga would help their cardio when instead it decreased their metabolism (as the evidence suggests it does), then no one would believe the myth. The idea wouldn’t have the strong hold that it does. What happens more often is that people either lose weight because they stress and eat less or they stay the same—either way they haven’t been hurt any more by bad information. Even if someone came to yoga to lose weight and gained some, they will abandon yoga and go to Zumba or Taebo with greater flexibility and probably a diminished risk of injury for having done yoga.

By spreading information about the risks and the state of scientific understanding of them Broad is doing good work. However, he goes on to suggest that we need lots of bureaucrats to monitor and license yoga and that we need much more rigorous requirements for yoga teachers than the 200 or 500 hour Yoga Alliance certifications that currently exist (or the teaching certificates issued by the gurus or teacher trainers of various styles of yoga), and herein lies two problems. It’s not clear that a problem exists to merit such an expensive solution.

First of all, many of the worst cases that he points out were people engaged in questionable practices on their own. I’m sorry for my frankness, but you can’t regulate stupid out of existence. There was one kid who sat for hours in Vajrasana (sitting on haunches), one who fell asleep in a forward bend, and another who had a stroke after holding a shoulder stand on a hard surface for hours. Now, my experience may not be as extensive as others, but I’ve attended yoga classes in the US, India, and Thailand. I’ve had teachers tell me to hold a pose for 5 deep breaths. I’ve even had teachers tell me to hold a pose for 10 deep breaths. No teacher has ever said to me, “Hold that pose for four hours or until you have a stroke, whichever comes first.” Even teachers with a couple hundred hours of instruction and a couple hundred more of experience don’t—as a rule—give patently stupid advice. (To the degree that there are rare exceptions, thinking that no teacher would ever again give a piece of bad advice if they just all had PhDs is a little presumptuous.)

The major problem with Broad’s suggestion of a need to overhaul the system and install bureaucratic gatekeepers and overseers and to make teachers jump through vastly more educational hoops is that it increases the cost of doing yoga with a teacher. Now, I know that yoga is associated with relatively affluent people, but—believe it or not–there are yoga practitioners who aren’t SUV-driving, Abercrombie&Fitch-wearing, maid-hiring suburbanites. If the monthly cost of attending yoga class goes from tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars because every yoga teacher has to have a PhD in Kinesiology and every studio has to comply with the extensive regulations and licensing fees of the newly formed Department of Yoga Management, then many people who are happy with the level of instruction they are currently getting are going to be emulating books and videos and injury rates could actually go up.

Another example of a “problem” that is not definitively shown to be a problem is Broad’s extensive criticism of an author of a popular book on yoga (i.e. Larry Payne) for using a Ph.D. designation that was from a southern Californian diploma-mill. While there is something objectionable about putting a PhD behind one’s name that wasn’t justly earned, it’s not at all clear that this was a problem. One expects to hear how Larry Payne left a pile of wrecked souls in his wake. However, while Broad devotes pages to ridiculing Payne for putting PhD after his name, the few mentions of the Payne’s interactions with others suggest that he helped them get healthier (e.g. Dr. Ursatine) and that he furthered the state of his professional field. The implication being that the credential matters vastly more than the individual’s experience and diligence. Interestingly, Dr. Fishman (for whom Broad has nothing but kind words—presumably because he holds an MD) is quoted as speaking glowingly about Payne and his contributions to the field.

Another example of sensationalism can be seen in the chapter on sexuality. While we would expect this chapter to be entirely about the claims of yoga being able to enhance one’s sex life, a fair amount of it is devoted to pointing out instances of lecherousness among yogis. I’m not saying that it’s bad to point out bad behavior of gurus in terms of harassing or molesting their female students, but unless there’s some evidence that this inclination is tied the sexual practices of yoga, this would seem to be the wrong venue for the discussion. In other words, if yogis are no more lecherous on the whole than other teachers or coaches, then it would seem that mention of this issue is just to titillate. If yogis are uncontrollable horn-dogs because of yogic practices, then fine, but you’ve got to establish that there’s evidence for that somehow.

Overall, I’d recommend that individuals interested in the scientific literature on yoga read this book. It provides a good overview of the literature, and is well-cited. The books weakness comes from insisting that a large number of mole hills are really the Himalayas. These mole hills can be addressed with education, but can never be eliminated. Suggesting we upend the apple cart to produce “solutions” to marginal problems is ridiculous. We may think a world in which there was never another fatal traffic accident would be nice, but I assure you we would not want to live in the world in which all the actions were taken necessary to achieve said goal. If one compares the extrapolated estimates of hospital visits for yoga injuries, they are really quite few and we have no reason to believe that the vast majority aren’t life-threatening or permanently disabling.

For me it would have been a great book if it laid out the risks and rewards, and suggested caution. Of course, then it probably wouldn’t have gotten any more attention than the many books that already exist on the subject of yoga injuries, so maybe some good can come of Broad’s implication that going to the yoga studio is akin to storming the beaches at Normandy and that we need to stop the horrors or yoga practice.

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Yoga for Martial Artists

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Long before I ever took a yoga class, I was doing a kind of yoga. It may have even had its roots in India, but it also might have blossomed independently. In the Japanese martial art I study, we called it junan taiso, and many of the poses would be recognizable to a yogi. While it didn’t include the complex and balance-challenging poses seen in yoga, stretches like the butterfly (Poorna Titali Asana), straddle stretch (Upavistha Konasana), and the back stretch (Pashchimottanasana) were virtually identical. As with yoga, the manner of breathing was as important as the nature of the stretch.

Butterfly Stretch (Poorna Titali Asana)

Butterfly Stretch (Poorna Titali Asana)

Back Stretch (Paschimottanasana)

Back Stretch (Paschimottanasana)

Straddle Stretch (Upavisthakonasana)

Straddle Stretch (Upavisthakonasana)

Flexibility is key in the martial arts, and not just the ones with high-flying kicks. Even grapplers and practitioners of the less fancy striking systems gain from increased flexibility, but it isn’t only increases in range of motion that yoga offers.

Let’s consider a modest front kick to a target no higher than the solar plexus. One might be inclined to say, “I don’t need yoga to help with that, I do that kick all the time, and have no problem reaching my target.” Do an experiment. Take a full 30 seconds to do the kick, from the time the foot leaves the floor to the time it extends out, and then hold it for 15 seconds, or so. If you succeeded in this without any problem, you may be good to go.

Front kick, slow-motion style.

Front kick, slow-motion style.

However, there are three problems that might plague one, and yoga is tailor-made to fix two of them. First, you may not have adequate range of motion. You may have thought you did because you can kick at speed and reach the target. But, you say, “Why would I need to kick in slow motion?” You wouldn’t, but this exercise shows you that you are having to use inertia to kick through the resistance of your own muscles. Unless you’re a hardcore bodybuilder that resistance might not seem too daunting, but you are essentially having the brakes applied–albeit softly–to your kick and that’s costing you speed and power.  Yoga can help you develop that range of motion. Consider the pose below, which requires the same type of flexibility.

Hand to Big Toe (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)

Hand to Big Toe (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)

Maybe you can raise your leg, but keeping it cantilevered in place is too much for you. This means you don’t have the strength to support your own leg. Either your leg is  heavy, your strength is lacking, or both. Building this kind of strength isn’t necessarily yoga’s forte. There are styles and approaches that may help you build that strength, but there are other things you can do that may be more efficient for that purpose–not the least of which is doing a whole bunch of kicks one after the other without a break until your leg is burning, and then doing some more.

You may have had the strength and flexibility, but found it hard to stay on balance. The naysayer says, “Yeah, but that imbalance would never be noticeable at speed. That is (as with the lack of flexibility) one can hide weaknesses with speed. While there maybe some truth in this, a lack of balance will cost you in subtle ways, and yoga can help. There are a number of postures that enhance one’s balance, balance on one’s foot, one’s head, or one’s hands (the latter could be useful for the ground grapplers.)

Warrior III (Virabhadrasana III)

Warrior III (Virabhadrasana III)

Headstand (Shirshasana)

Headstand (Shirshasana)

The Crane (Bakasana)

The Crane (Bakasana)

Tree (Vrksasana)

Tree (Vrksasana)

There are a couple of other areas in which yoga can help one’s performance as a martial artist. One is expansion of bodily awareness of issues of alignment and posture. These might not seem so crucial, but if you are in the martial arts for the long-haul, then having the awareness to make small adjustments can be the difference between chronic ailments or a lack thereof. It can be difficult to discover a misalignment in the quasi-combative environment of martial arts training. It’s easier to notice these issues in the slow and controlled practice of yoga.

Postures like Warrior II and the Side Angle Pose and show you where you are holding tension that you might not otherwise be aware of.

Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II)

Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II)

Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)

Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)

It must also be remembered that asana (postures) are only a part of yoga. Another aspect that can be extremely helpful for martial arts is pranayama, or the discipline of breathing.  There’s no substitute for cardio, but that doesn’t mean that one can’t benefit greatly from learning more about how to breath, and the science of breath. This is an area in which yoga excels. The great yogis made extensive study of breath and the effects that are achieved by various types of breathing, and these exercises can expand and strengthen the diaphragm and the muscles of the rib-cage. One tends to see the coup de grace strike and think, “There’s your problem.” However, often it’s fatigue that’s the underlying culprit. Better breathing can reduce fatigue.

Of course, meditation is another critical skill for calming the mind and learning to live in the present. Many martial artists already practice some form of meditation, but this is another option.

There is one more benefit and that is building greater confidence in your ability to exercise control over your body. There are many challenging postures in yoga. I don’t advocate all asana that have been taught historically because there can be such a thing as too much flexibility for a martial artist and some poses exercise joints in ways that were not meant to operate. There needs to be a proper balance of strength and flexibility, a proper tension within /between the skeletal and muscular systems. However, there are many poses that just take a bit of time and effort to develop the skill without putting too much wear on the body.

8-Twists Pose (Astavakrasana)

8-Twists Pose (Astavakrasana)

BOOK REVIEW: The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh

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The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of MeditationThe Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thích Nhất Hạnh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book by the renowned Vietnamese Buddhist monk, activist, and poet, Thich Nhat Hanh, offers pointers on how to live a life of mindfulness. Like most of Hanh’s works, this one is brief, concise, and the front and back matter account for about as much verbiage as the chapters themselves.

The seven chapters that make up the book proper examine mindfulness from various angles, with various approaches, and have a loose organization. The most readable of these chapters–owing to its narrative format–is the last, which retells a Tolstoy story about an Emperor who receives three questions and–unable to find suitable answers by offering a reward to his subjects–dons a disguise and visits a hermit sage. Needless to say, the sage (and life events) enlighten the Emperor, and the answers revolve around the theme of mindfulness. Among the most thought-provoking of the chapters is one that proposes that one take one day of the week to focus on mindfulness. Hanh offers advice on how to best select and structure such a day.

While the appended matter of some of Thich Hhat Hanh’s books can read like filler (intended to reach a page quota), that isn’t so much the case with this book. The most valuable of the appendices gives 32 exercises for building mindfulness. Many of these exercises are variations on a theme, and some are much more extensive than others, but it’s a crucial section and might even be called the heart of the book. Likewise, there are five sutra translations that will be appreciated by readers who are actually Buddhist. (Non-Buddhists may find the sutras to be a less colorful and more repetitive restatement of what Hahn has told them in the chapters. If one pays attention to the chapters and does the exercises, reading the sutra’s isn’t necessary for those who are not students of the religion.)

There is an odd postscript by one of Hanh’s students that is like those I’ve seen in other Hanh books. It’s an odd little testimonial. I put it in the filler category as anyone buying the book knows who Thich Nhat Hanh is and about the accolades he has received and, therefore, they don’t need a prologue telling them how awesome he is. It actually detracts from his persona as a wise man, because it makes one wonder who inspired the little ego trip. I suspect this is more a publisher desired addenda than an author inspired one, but, at any rate, it’s not useful. It can be interesting to hear about the war days, but there’s an outlet for that. Furthermore, I would think the place to tell us how awesome the author is would be at the beginning of the book–not the end. If one gets to the back matter, he must have done something to impress one.

I’d recommend this book for meditators, would-be meditators, and anyone who thinks that life is slipping through his or her fingers because of constant stress and a runaway mind.

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BOOK REVIEW: Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin

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Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal YourselfMind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself by Lissa Rankin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This book is one of many that challenge the conventional approach to medical care in which a patient is a passive character who just goes to the doctor and does (or ingests) whatever the doc tells them to. In the vein of works by Deepak Chopra and Bernie Siegal, this book is written by medical doctor who has different beliefs on healing. So what’s the niche of Mind Over Medicine, given that there are already a number of prominent medical doctors preaching the same message? That message is that your body is a healing machine and will do MOST (not ALL, none of these individuals advocates abandoning modern medical science) of the heavy lifting of healing, if you create the right conditions. Rankin presents results from scientific studies as the thrust of her book. I’m not really that familiar with Siegal, but you’ll find Rankin’s work a great deal less spiritual and more scientific than the works of Deepak Chopra.

There’s a lot of scientific interest in understanding why some people experience spontaneous remissions from the most lethal of ailments while others succumb to diseases that most people weather with ease. While many people will chalk it up to divine will or chakra nudging or having one’s demons expunged, these aren’t satisfying answers for the scientifically minded individual. However, neither is the extreme skeptic’s suggestion that these are just randomly distributed flukes of nature—and it’s a waste of time to try to explain the outliers. The latter being unsatisfying because phenomena like the placebo effect are well documented.

So what conclusion does Rankin draw from the scientific literature. As suggested earlier, the conclusion is that the body is extremely good at healing what ails it, but it has to be in the right mode to have this healing take place. What’s the right mode? It has to be in relaxed mode, or, in scientific parlance, the parasympathetic system must be engaged. The problem is that when a person is under stress, the body switches into a fight or flight mode. Humanity hasn’t really come to grips with the fact that work deadlines, fears about ailments, or fears that our spouse may be cheating aren’t really the same as our ancestor’s experience of being chased by a saber-tooth tiger. When that ancestor was being chased by a tiger, his or her body shut down everything that wasn’t germane to immediate survival (e.g. digestion is interrupted, blood isn’t evenly distributed but goes to lungs and skeletal muscles, etc.) The tiger chase is over shortly, and the body returns doing its regular at-rest functions (e.g. digesting, healing, etc.) However, if we let our stressors kick us into that immediate survival mode–and just having a disease can be stressing enough in itself–then our healing can be severely or completely curtailed.

Can faith healing, karma cleansing, chakra fluffing, or sugar pills contribute to healing? Sure, but not in the way that the faithful thinks. These systems–each of which has proponents who’ll swear they witnessed first-hand the power of faith or magic or invisible energy (and they are probably not lying)–work because the person who firmly believes in these therapies is able to relax and let their bodies can do what they do.

Does this mean that those who don’t believe in religion or cosmic energy manipulation are out of luck? No. You just skip the middleman and engage in activities such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, or breathing exercises that allow you to put the body in a relaxed state. Secular meditation works just fine if practiced consistently, and particularly if one confronts, addresses, and eliminates the long-terms stressors in one’s life.

At the heart of the book is a discussion about how to go about performing one’s own diagnosis and writing one’s own prescription. As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t about cutting the doctor out. In this case one is diagnosing one’s stressors and prescribing activities to eliminate them. This doesn’t mean one should pass up medical treatment or doctor’s advice. However, it may entail switching doctors if you have a doctor that firmly believes you are incapable of getting better—you don’t need any doubts about your body’s ability to do its thing being foist upon you.

I’d highly recommend this book for scientifically-minded individuals interested in learning how they can help their bodies get into a state conducive to healing.

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