The Tao of Natural Breathing by Dennis Lewis Read Free Book Online

is associated with a restricted, suffocating breath, and an overall sensation of being weighed down. And we may see how boredom is associated with a shallow, lifeless breath, and little sensation anywhere in ourselves. We may also notice how feelings such as love, compassion, kindness, and wonder are associated with deep, comfortable breathing, and an open, energized, receptive feeling throughout the entire body. Each of us, of course, will discover variations in his or her own physical and emotional topography.

    “EVERY STATE OF MIND IS A STATE OF OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM”
    Such observations are important not only from the standpoint of self-knowledge, but also from the standpoint of our health and well-being. Though many traditions and teachings besides Taoism speak of the intimate relationship of mind and body—the way in which our thoughts, emotions, and body influence one another—it is only recently in the West that science has begun to uncover the underlying chemistry of this relationship. At a lecture I attended in April 1995, at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, Candace Pert, Ph.D., a worldrenown pioneer in the area of neuroscience, stated that the evidence now shows that “every state of mind is a state of our immune system.” She spoke dramatically about how “messenger molecules” called “neuropeptides” carry information from brain to body and body to brain to direct energy in the organism. She asserted that these neuropeptides, which include the chemicals known as endorphins, are the “biochemical correlates of emotions,” and can have a powerful influence on our health. 15 When someone asked Pert how she would use this knowledge if she had to undergo serious surgery, she replied that she would spend time with the surgeon to understand the operation—to know which organs and procedures would be involved. She suggested that this understanding, combined with visualization of the healing process, could help release those neuropeptides necessary to promote healing.
    Self-knowledge Can Improve Our Health
    From both the Taoist and scientific perspectives, it is clear that in the right context self-knowledge can have a powerful and beneficial influence on our immune system. But to acquire this knowledge in a way that is useful to us, to gain a deep understanding of the various mental, emotional, and physical forces acting on our health and well-being, we need to learn how to sense our bodies—our muscles, organs, bones, tissues, and so on—more impartially. We need to learn how to take “sensory snapshots” of our organic functioning. As we do, we will begin to observe the various habits of our psychophysical structure, along with the physiological principles that give these habits their power to influence our health. We will begin to see the particular ways that we respond mentally and emotionally to the various stresses of our lives, to the threats and demands that we often unconsciously perceive in relation to new or changing circumstances. This is important, since it is now believed that stress-related disorders account—either directly or indirectly—for 50 to 80 percent of all illnesses. Such disorders include chronic colds, hypertension, heart disease, high blood pressure, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, arthritis, insomnia, certain types of cancer, and many more.
    One of the ways that stress undermines our health is by increasing the production of the hormone cortisol, which in turn suppresses our immune system. A study published in the early 1990s in The New England Journal of Medicine found, for instance, that healthy participants who were given nose drops containing a cold virus were susceptible to the virus in direct relationship to the degree of emotional stress they were experiencing at the time. Other studies have shown that stress—and the fear and anxiety often associated with it—can cause autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid