Breathing, Relaxation, Meditation and Visualization in Medicine and Healing

The objective of this research paper is to approach some psychosomatic techniques such as breathing, relaxation, meditation and visualization, understanding how they run through the psychophysical connections and thus how they can be applied as complementary practices in medicine towards health and healing

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Breathing

Let us begin with breathing. In accord with some studies cited by Takashi Nakamura in “Oriental Breathing Therapy”, the practice of pranayama, the breathing exercises of yoga, can facilitate digestion, stimulating and massaging various parts of the digestive system, due to the vertical movement of diaphragm and the contraction / relaxation of the abdominal muscles. This improves the pressure on the digestive organs, stimulating their functions and the secretion of enzymes as well. 

The breathing exercises also aid to eliminate the exceeding fat in the intestines and on the abdominal wall, increasing the excretion of waste material, besides facilitating the function of kidneys. According to a study conducted by Jack Shields, a lymphologist from California, diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the cleansing of the lymph system through a vacuum effect, sucking the lymph through the channels. Therefore, breathing has an important role in cleansing the whole organism.

The breathing exercises still improve heart function, encouraging blood circulation through the body and avoiding the accumulation of cholesterol in the blood, besides stimulating the functions of red and white blood cells. Therefore, breathing has a positive effect on the immune system. We must still remember that the circulatory system is responsible for carrying nutrition and oxygen to all parts of the body. So its function is essential to the organism.

The connection between the breath and the mind is highly emphasized in yoga. The more the mind is calm and focused, the more the breathing is slowly rhythmic. That’s the reason why pranayama is used to calm the restlessness of the mind and to prepare for meditation. The manipulation of the breathing has a clear effect on the nervous system. It seems that the regular movement of diaphragm stimulates the solar plexus, which is connected to the brain, stabilizing the mental functions and in turn it determines the stabilization of the respiratory system. Therefore, that results in a regulation and improvement of mental and physical conditions, as all the organs and tissues of the body are under the control of the central nervous system.

Gerald Epstein in “Healing Visualization” points out that expiring longer than inspiring stimulates the vagus, a nerve that extends down from the basis of the brain, sending branches to the lungs, heart and digestive system. This nerve runs helping to go down the blood pressure, to decrease the cardiac and the respiratory frequencies besides the contractions of intestines. When these functions are quieter, the body becomes relaxed and the attention is more available to the work with images or to meditation. According to Patanjali, a Hindu philosopher of Yoga Sutras, pranayama is one of the eight steps that can lead to Samadhi.

As characterized by Antonio Blay in “Fundamento y Tecnica del Hatha Yoga”, the diaphragmatic breathing is made using the lower part of lungs, having a prolonged exhalation. It’s the natural breath of babies when they are quietly sleeping. Unfortunately, when we grow, we forget it and we usually begin to breath using only the upper parts of the lungs while keeping the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles contracted. It occurs that this kind of accelerated breath is characteristic of fight-or-flee response present in stressful situations and anxious states. It means that it is linked to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, whereas the diaphragmatic breathing stimulates the parasympathetic one, having a sedative effect on the nervous system, eliminating tensions and facilitating the relaxation of muscles.

In other words, the diaphragmatic breathing leads to the equilibrium between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems, regulating the secretion and functions of various hormones, which are under the control of the nervous system. This way, the physiologic functions of different organs and tissues are restored and enhanced.

Besides, breathing is the unique function that is under the control of both voluntary and involuntary nerves. So it’s possible that pranayama can provide a bridge between these two nervous systems, allowing the conscious will to access and affect in anyway involuntary functions and mechanisms in the body. That’s a good path to psychosomatic researches!

Relaxation

Another meaningful expression of body-mind interaction is the neuromuscular activity. Nerves and muscles are so intimately related to each other that the state of the muscles shows the state of the nervous system.

When feelings of anger or anxiety activate the sympathetic nervous system, it can lead to physical symptoms and a number of chronic disorders in cardiovascular, digestive, immune and musculoskeletal systems through the action of adrenaline and cortisone hormones, such as high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmias, ulcers, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, immune suppression, headaches, backaches and tendinitis among others. These symptoms, in turn, bring about more anxiety in a vicious cycle, which has been described by Herbert Benson, M.D., of Harvard Medical School. 

According to his studies, relaxation can modify the reaction to adrenaline hormone, decreasing its effects on the body. In other words, relaxation can block the action of adrenaline and, consequently, interrupt the vicious cycle reported above. It allows the body to deal with usual stressful events without injury, keeping however the capacity of reacting to stronger threats. It occurs because, after relaxation, the body needs more adrenaline to increase heartbeats, blood pressure, to contract muscles and so on.

Relaxation decreases metabolism (and, consequently, oxygen consumption), blood pressure, heartbeats, respiratory frequency, muscular tension, while increasing more slow brain waves, usually associated with sensation of pleasure. This set is exactly the opposite of the fight-or-flee response in stress, when the body goes to a hypermetabolism to deal with a perceived threat.

Benson states that in general patients who use relaxation along with medical treatment become first less worried with their physical symptoms, then these symptoms become less intense. Then they are present less time and there are short periods of complete release. These periods become longer until the symptoms disappear or stay in a way that they don’t affect the daily activities. Patients also refer changes in their lifestyle, feeling a calm that stays after the relaxation process.

As Carl Simonton pointed out in “Getting Well Again”, for people who suffer a life-threatening disease, the body is felt as an enemy and they tend to keep far from it, mistrusting its abilities to fight against the disease. Relaxation can be useful to reconnect them with their bodies, believing in their capacities to work together, mind and body, toward health. Gradually the body becomes again a source of pleasure and comfort in opposition to the pain and the limitations from the disease. By relaxation people can still learn to listen to their bodies, becoming aware of their way of living and how it has been affecting their health.

Relaxation also helps them to reduce fear, breaking the cycle of tension and providing them a way of recharging their energies. This process has two important effects. On the one hand, it allows the body’s innate mechanisms of healing to run better, improving the body response to the medical treatment. And, on the other hand, it becomes easier for people to develop positive expectancy related to their recovery and their life, which in turn also affects positively their body.

Benson mentioned that the physiological state of relaxation corresponds to the pre-suggestive phase of hypnosis. It implies that in this state people open a door in their mind, becoming more receptive to new messages. That’s why affirmations and visualizations are more useful and effective to change negative patterns of thinking and feeling when used after relaxation.

He also clarified that the relaxation can be evoked by various techniques such as autogenic training, progressive relaxation, yoga, t’ai chi, meditation, pray, including jogging and swimming. The main point, according to Benson, is to offer to the mind a peaceful island in the middle of the daily worries and pressures, cutting the ordinary process of thinking by using a quiet focus for your attention.

Meditation

Talking about meditation, there are basically two types – mindfulness meditation and concentrative meditation. In the first one, we pay attention and become aware of the flow of sensations, feelings, images, thoughts and sounds, letting them simply pass away. Differently, the concentrative meditation is practiced through focusing the attention on the own breath, an image or a sound, becoming absorbed in this focus.

The transcendental meditation (TM), on which most researches have been carried, is a kind of concentrative meditation, where we use a “mantra” as a sound to focus. No matter the way, the goal is always to stop the ordinary process of thinking and daydream from the past to the future, keeping the mind in the immediate present. This way, we can cut the two major sources of stress, which are to remind and experience again past events, and to become worried with the future.

As Harold Bloomfield stated in “Transcendental Meditation”, it seems that the lack of integration between the lower centers of the brain, related to the emotions, and the higher cortical centers, responsible for the thinking, can lead to the instability in the body functions. Besides, according to Elmer Green and colleagues in the Menninger Clinic, all change in the physiological state comes together with a change in the mental/emotional state, and vice versa.

During TM, a hypersynchronization in the brain waves takes place from the back to the front of the brain, between the two hemispheres, and between the lower, visceral, emotional brain and the higher, cortical, rational one, integrating thus emotion and reason, intuitive thinking and analytical thinking.

Studies on meditation still showed patterns of brain waves that are not present in other states of consciousness. Firstly, alpha waves (frequency of eight to twelve cycles per second) appeared. Then, they gained more amplitude and their frequency decreased. And finally, rhythmic frequency of theta waves (four to seven cps.) appeared. New researches correlated the spiritual development of Zen monks with the degree of change in their brain waves. Besides, in people with advanced practice, alpha waves and sometimes theta waves remained after meditation, even when they have the eyes open.

In accord with Bloomfield, it also seems that during TM the impulses come from the two hemispheres down to the limbic system, decreasing the limbic activity. This fact, in turn, will reduce the cortical activity as it is greatly dependent on the limbic one. Besides, on the one hand, the decreased limbic activity moderates the hormonal system, reducing the fight-or-flee responses and, consequently, the stress. On the other hand, it feeds the parasympathetic tonicity, enhancing the stability of the autonomic nervous system. Therefore, people who practice TM present lower cardiac and respiratory frequencies, lower blood pressure and less anxiety, besides decreased blood level of cortisol, a hormone responsible for many disturbs brought about by chronic stress. 

 Deepak Chopra, in “Creating Health”, calls our attention to the fact that the human being, as a part of the larger universe, is also composed by quantum energy and in this level of the reality there is much more energy available. Then he states that through TM we can contact the quantum level within and then generate deeper changes than those that come when we deal only with the physical level of the organism. For Chopra illness comes from the mind to the body and so we must work with the mind to lead the body more effectively to health.

According to Janet Hranicky, Ph.D., of the American Health Institute, our thoughts and emotions affect directly our energy level and the bioenergy field that involves our physical body. She also states that disturbances in this bioenergy field precede in weeks, months or even years disturbances in cells and tissues. Similarly, changes in consciousness alter the bioenergy field, which in turn can affect the course of disease.

Related to the psychological effects of TM, there is an increase in intelligence, creativity, perceptual ability and concentration that leads to a better performance in one’s work or study. The decrease of stress and anxiety brings about an inner steadiness and calm along with more vitality and more sensibility to physical sensations, biological rhythms and deep feelings.

Researches also found positive personality changes, which foster self-realization as a consequence of TM practice. It improved self-steam, self-confidence, independence from external sources of evaluation, intuition and self-knowledge. In terms of interpersonal relationships, people demonstrated more spontaneity and tolerance with others, developing deeper relationships, although they tend to stay more time alone in contact with their own selves.

Those are the reasons why meditation can be used simultaneously with psychotherapy and psychiatric treatment to improve the patient’s psychological growth, besides being used along with clinical treatments to enhance the inner mechanisms of healing and balance in the body.

Visualization

And what about visualization? First of all, Burton Goldberg in “Alternative Medicine” points out that imagery is one of the two ‘higher order’ languages of the human being, side by side with the verbal language.  In terms of human evolution, the communication with images seems to precede the communication with words. And nowadays the language of images stays meaningfully present in our dreams and daydreams.

According to Martin Rossman, M.D., of the Academy for Guided Imagery, imagery can arise from both the cerebral cortex and the older brain centers. And its effects are due to its ability of sending messages from the higher centers of the brain to the lower ones, which control most autonomic physiologic functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, immunity, digestion and so on. Imagery is the natural way to the nervous system to store, access and process information.

Besides, when a person visualizes things, the optic cortex is activated. In a similar way, when he or she imagines feeling sensations, the sensory cortex is active. In sum, the cortex can create imaginary realities leading the lower centers of the brain to respond to the information, inducing biochemical and physiological reactions in the body, no matter the imaginary nature of such reality. Those are the reasons why imagery becomes so useful and effective to establish a dialogue between mind and body in the healing process. The powerful characteristic of working with images is that it can directly affect physiology.

Another point to emphasize is that imagery is intimately connected with emotions that are at the root of many health problems and diseases, especially these emotions that have been blocked, not experienced or expressed. Needless to say, the most distressing ones are fear, anger and grief. Each emotion affects our physiology in a different way through different biochemical reactions attaining different tissues and organs. Imagery can be used to access and deal with these emotions, becoming aware of their effects on health and thus altering them. The emotions can be in turn a path to meet neglected needs that are expressed by physical symptoms and illnesses.

As Gerald Epstein stated, any feeling may have a mental expression – an image, and a physical expression – a bodily felt sensation. Working on and modifying the image, the individual works on and changes the emotion and the sensation associated with it.

By another perspective, pointed out by Shakti Gawain in “Creative Visualization”, the Quantum Physics has demonstrated that all around us is made of energy, vibrating in different frequencies. And, according to a basic law in this level of reality, energy tends to attract energy of the same vibration. Thinking and feelings have their magnetic energy that attracts energy of the similar nature. It means that we attract to our life that which we think more frequently or vividly. So in the creative visualization, after relaxing and quieting the mind, the person produces a mental image that represents that which he (or she) wishes to happen, and repeats it daily, experiencing it as if it has already happening, having the emotions and the sensations associated with the imaginary reality.

On the other hand, in accord with the motivational psychology, when a person creates a mental image of a desired event and repeats it daily, he (or she) develops a positive expectancy, believing that it will in fact occur and, therefore, he (or she) will act in a way appropriate with the desired event, helping to bring it about.

Nevertheless, Andrew Weil in “Health and Healing” states that the beliefs and suggestions that count are not purely cortical beliefs and voluntary commands, but those ‘gut-level’ beliefs that stir emotions, connecting thus to the body through the lower autonomic centers of the brain. In other words, they must be bodily experienced as well as thought.

Besides, through the processes of association and synthesis, imagery can provide insight and develop self-awareness, helping the person to achieve a wider view on himself and his illness, and to establish relationships between his health conditions and his behaviors in order to change the latter to improve the former, finding thus meaning in his illness.

As emphasized by Carl Simonton in his work with cancer patients, imagery can be utilized by people with a life-threatening disease for relief from anxiety and pain, for more tolerance to medical treatments, reducing their side-effects, for stimulating the immune system to fight the illness, giving the patients an increased sense of control over their bodies and helping them to develop positive beliefs and expectations related to the treatment and their recovery.

In sum, researches and clinical experiences has been demonstrated that learning to relax is fundamental to healing and that a meaningful change in consciousness may influence positively the course of the illness. So psychosomatic techniques of breathing, relaxation, meditation and visualization can really affect physiology, having great value in medicine by promoting a better integration between mind, body and spirit. For health is wholeness and balance.

Besides, to practice these psychosomatic techniques on their own is a way of people to become actively involved in their treatments, taking responsibility for their healing. It improves their recoveries, enhancing through the psychophysical connections the innate mechanisms of their bodies, moving them towards health. 

Bibliography:

• Benson, Herbert – Beyond the Relaxation Response. Times Books, 1984.

• Benson, Herbert – Timeless Healing. New York: Scriber’s, 1996.

• Blay, Antonio – Fundamento y Técnica del Hatha Yoga.

• Bloomfield, Harold et al. – T M: Discovering Inner and Overcoming Stress. 1975.

• Chopra, Deepak – Creating Health. N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

• Epstein, Gerald – Healing Visualization. N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1989.

• Gawain, Shakti – Creative Visualization. Whatever Publishing, 1978.

• Goldberg, Burton – Alternative Medicine. Berkeley (CA): Celestial Arts, 2002.

• Nakamura, Takashi – Oriental Breathing Therapy.

• Simonton, O. Carl et al. – Getting Well Again. N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1992.

• Weil, Andrew – Health and Healing. N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.