By Mark Leonas
Not long ago, I was listening to a recorded talk by the late Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. In his talk, entitled “Healing Is Possible At Every Moment”, he discusses the power of breathing to heal various aspects of human suffering, both physical and emotional. I was intrigued!
In an earlier talk, in 1997, Thich Nhat Hanh shared the following observations:
“We have to trust our body. To trust the power of our body to heal itself, we should learn how to allow our body to rest.”
“The animals in the forest, when they get wounded, deeply wounded, they know what to do. They find a place, a quiet place, and they lie down [for] many days. Not thinking about eating or anything else. There is wisdom in that. Because they know that resting is the only way by which they can heal themselves.”
Re-learning How to Allow our Bodies to Rest
“And we humans, we have lost that wisdom. We are over-worried. We don’t have the trust in our own body. And therefore, to learn how to allow our body to rest is very important.
“Many of us understand this in principle. And yet, we do not have the methods in order to allow our body to rest, including the method of not eating. Not eating, fasting is a very wonderful practice. But we are afraid that if we don’t eat, our body will not get the energy it needs. It is exactly that kind of worry that is responsible for the situation. There are many things you can learn in order to allow our body to rest in order for it to heal itself”.
How To Allow Our Consciousness or Spirit to Rest
“Just as we need to rest our body to help it heal, we must do the same with our spirit. People’s worry habit energy is generally strong, probably more so during troubling times like the recent pandemic. Worry prevents the healing of body and spirit.”
response that can help us to rest, to reduce worry and stress and to promote healing. I was struck by his observations and wondered if there were any limits to healing, from his perspective. His talks centered around alleviating suffering, physical and emotional, and the consequent unhappiness that most humans experience at various points throughout their lives. I became curious and began to explore what this might mean and what others may have said or written on the subject of stress, rest, and conscious breathing.
Conscious breathing, as described by Thich Nhat Hanh and many others, is a basic technique in meditation and what has come to be known as “mindfulness”, a simple awareness of what’s happening at this very moment in time. By focusing on our in breath and out breath, we stay in the present moment. We avoid the often stressful reviewing of past events of our lives and projecting what we think our unknown future may look like. In so doing we can effectively slow down breathing and reduce blood pressure. We can activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), the “rest and digest” process. It is a fact that this process will support the immune system, our innate capability to fight off and even heal various conditions and diseases.
The opposite part of the autonomic nervous system is the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which puts our bodies on “high alert”, the “fight or flight” response. It is responsible for many “automatic” functions of the body, including heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and urination. In a dangerous or stressful situation, the sympathetic nervous system may change these functions until the person is out of danger. Breathing becomes rapid and heart rate may increase, delivering more blood to parts of the body needing additional oxygen. Functions of the immune system may also be temporarily arrested until the danger has passed.
When stressful situations present themselves, the SNS kicks in, as it is programmed to do. In the modern world we live in, with wars, political unrest, and social injustice so prevalent, there is a ubiquitous sense of continuing psychological stress. Stress free times, where PNS is activated, where our bodies and brains can rest and digest, are increasingly rare. Unfortunately these extended periods of stress may become chronic. Over time such conditions may exacerbate certain diseases, as cited by the National Center for Biotechnology Information(NCBI). With some cancer patients, for instance, it has been shown that psychological stress increases disease progression and is related to higher mortality rates.
Managing Stress
How humans manage stress has become a topic of great interest. Many factors, including diet, rest, exercise, and emotional and spiritual health, have been identified as contributing to effective stress management. One of the building blocks of stress management has been identified as managing our breathing. As mentioned above, when we are in stressful situations our breathing may become more rapid as we attempt to get more oxygen in our lungs and hopefully have the ability to function at a higher level in fending off any imminent danger. While an effective strategy in the short term, long term rapid breathing may interrupt the normal functioning of PNS and the immune system, thus making us more vulnerable to disease or other adverse health conditions.
In a 2015 research article, “Current Directions in Stress and Human Immune Function”, published by NCBI, the authors support the belief that chronic stress is linked to weakening of the immune system and exacerbating symptoms of illnesses. Their research is extensive. They conclude that psychological stress, including early childhood trauma, can dysregulate the effective functioning of the immune system in adulthood. They anticipate further research that will address prevention and treatment of stress factors, thus allowing the immune system to function more effectively and healing to result.
Many others are writing about the various factors of stress management. Of particular interest is a relatively recent bestselling book titled “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art.” Author James Nestor, a much published journalist, shares his research and that of many others, on how our breath can enhance and even reverse certain health conditions. He combines information from ancient wisdom traditions and modern research to document what correct breathing can achieve.
Nestor explains how we humans have lost the habit of breathing effectively, thereby causing the advent or continuance of various health conditions, including high blood pressure, asthma, sleep apnea, bronchitis, pneumonia, and
ADHD. He presents extensive research that describes the evolution of unhealthy breathing, too rapid and primarily through the mouth. He documents how ancient indigenous cultures have been shown in archaeological studies to have excellent teeth, larger faces and larger airways. In some instances these cultures were known to practice nose breathing exclusively. Owing to their breathing practices, he postulates, they had better health and less of the pulmonary afflictions and chronic diseases many of us suffer from today.
Three hundred years ago, Nestor goes on to describe, the advent of industrialized foods marked the beginning of nutritional habits that led to less efficient chewing and breathing. Before that, humans ate whole foods, rich in nutrients that are required for development and maintenance of bones in the body, especially in the mouth and face. They had to chew for hours and consequently their mouths, teeth, and faces grew to be wide. These larger mouths of our ancestors included larger airways which weren’t easily blocked. However when soft foods became available and more desirable, humans chewed less. Less chewing changed our facial physiology to develop smaller airways. Conditions like sleep apnea, snoring, asthma and ADHD have come to be linked to smaller airways and resulting airway obstruction.
What struck me in this section of Nestor’s book was the importance of chewing and how that relates to what we know in macrobiotic practice. Michio Kushi recommended that we chew each mouthful at least fifty times (more is even better!) to get the maximum nutritional benefit from our food. Nestor suggests that eating whole grains and vegetables in current times would again require more chewing and more exercise of the mouth, hence increasing jaw size and airway capacity, possibly reversing some of the breathing conditions mentioned above.
I personally have great memories of Lino Stancich’s chewing table at the Macrobiotic Summer Conferences in Becket, MA. He would lead us, chewing in silence, for the whole meal. This practice helped reinforce how we chew in our personal lives, maximizing nutritional benefit and mindful relaxation, all contributing to better health. Fortunately, we can still benefit from Lino’s wisdom, via a YouTube video, “Lino Teaches Us To Chew”, as well as his book, “Power Eating Program: You Are How You Eat”.
Other writers and teachers have contributed to the evolving knowledge regarding our breath and how thoughtful practices benefit us. Anders Olsson, a Swedish author and teacher of conscious breathing practices, has explored the benefits of employing breathing patterns to overcome anxiety. In his writing, he describes how slow nasal breathing allows carbon dioxide to widen blood vessels and allow more oxygen rich blood to reach the brain, slowing a panic experience. Without a normal amount of carbon dioxide, enough oxygen can’t reach the brain and slow down the anxiety.
Olsson began his breathing work in 2015 and participated in a three week experiment with pulmonologists at Stanford University, where he and James Nestor both practiced breathing exclusively through their mouths for ten days, followed by ten days of breathing exclusively through their noses. The results were dramatic. The mouth breathing brought on snoring, sleep apnea, higher blood pressure, and other uncomfortable symptoms. Once they transitioned to nose breathing, the symptoms all disappeared! This experiment was the only the beginning of continued research and writing by both men on the subject of breathing. Two of their main conclusions were that slow nasal breathing is healthier, and that the body needs carbon dioxide to facilitate healthy breathing.
Other writers contribute to what we’re learning about breathing and healing. Max Strom, author of “A Life Worth Breathing”, tells his lecture audiences that intentional breathing can be a powerful tool for healing grief and depression.
If we can find a way to slow down and breathe, we can counteract the “fight or flight” response when confronted by stressful events. Breathing slowly and intentionally, we can move to the “rest and digest” response, resuming the immune system’s activities to heal the mind and body.
Dr. Andrew Weil has developed a breathing technique, the 4-7-8 or Weil Stress Reduction Technique, to reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep quality, lower blood pressure, calm the nervous system, and promote relaxation and mindfulness. James Kingsland, author of “The Siddhartha Brain”, describes the historical evolution of mindfulness, beginning with Siddhartha, the Buddha. Siddhartha found peace in the silence of meditative practice, including mindful breathing. Shared with his devotees, the practice continued and evolved over subsequent centuries.
In addition to personal relaxation, researchers like cardiologist Herbert Benson investigated the possibility that meditative practice might be related to addressing hypertension. Experiments showed practicing slow conscious breathing could effectively lower blood pressure. Adrian Farrell, teacher of the Alexander Technique, also shares online breathing techniques to address stress and resume the “rest and digest” response. There are many more talks online that address the healing properties of breathing and mindfulness.
Thich Nhat Hanh mentions research showing that mindfulness, based on breath work, may result in compassion for the self that reduces inflammation on a cell level and thus promotes longer life. The National Institutes for Health(NIH) cite several research papers that describe how mindfulness can create a calm relaxation that results in an increasing sense of compassion for oneself and other beings.
Another research paper describes breathing techniques that are shown to potentially reduce inflammation at the cellular level by mitigating stress responses which are known to trigger inflammatory processes in the body. The authors show a link between higher levels of compassion and lower levels of inflammatory biomarkers like interleukin-6 (IL-6), in response to stressors. Self-compassion, they propose, may be especially relevant for moderating stress-induced inflammation and increasing healthier immune functioning (Cohen & Wills, 1985).
Further, the authors note that modern humans are spared many of the physical stressors faced by our early ancestors, such as confrontations with predators. However psychosocial forms of stress are pervasive in everyday life, from social exclusion to workplace tensions and marital conflict. When chronic, they state, these forms of stress can be damaging to physical health. Psychosocial stress has been shown to elicit an inflammatory cascade similar to that brought on by illness or injury. Mindfulness practices have the capacity to manage stress and thus reduce illness or other related conditions.
As one may well imagine, there is potential for much more research in these areas. Suffice it to say that there is enough documented research for us to know that mindful breathing practices can allow us to effectively manage our stress. Such practices show measurable markers reflecting that our immune system is well at work to maintain or recover our health.
What remains to be learned is vastly significant in scope and implications! Is it possible to imagine that a well designed life practice of mindful breathing, along with lifestyle health factors of diet, exercise, emotional and spiritual healing, can succeed in eliminating or reducing the symptoms and progress of many chronic diseases? That’s an amazing thought, I’m sure we’d agree! It’s exciting to contemplate how more research could help humans to advance this knowledge. Further, how can we share that information within our circles of influence and beyond?
I will conclude by saying how much I have enjoyed this inquiry. I am not a medical professional or researcher. Like many of you, I’m a long term student of macrobiotics, someone interested in the well being of fellow humans everywhere. I can’t recommend the outcome of any specific techniques but I can encourage you to study and think about what i’ve described in this article. As Michio would remind us “Non credo!” Think for yourself and only believe what works for you.
I am hopeful that I may have piqued interest in how healthful breathing practices can complement what we have already learned through our macrobiotic lifestyles. And that in spite of the current challenges in our communities and countries, we can continue healthy practices and be hopeful for the prospect of One Peaceful World.
Although modern humans are spared many of the physical stressors faced by our early ancestors, such as confrontations with predators, psychosocial forms of stress are pervasive in everyday life, from social exclusion to workplace tensions and marital conflict. When chronic, these forms of stress can be damaging to physical health. As one potential pathway, psychosocial stress has been shown to elicit an inflammatory cascade similar to that elicited
Self-compassion may be especially relevant for moderating stress-induced inflammation because of its functional similarity to perceived available social support, which has been linked to healthier immune functioning (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Researchers have posited that self-compassion, which can be seen as a form of self-directed support, may produce physiological changes that also occur in the context of social support, such as the release of Oxytocin, in turn, has been shown to play a role in reducing social threat and may be especially relevant for moderating stress-induced inflammation because of its functional similarity to perceived available social support, which has been linked to healthier immune functioning (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Researchers have posited that self-compassion, which can be seen as a form of self-directed support, may produce physiological changes that also occur in the context of social support, such as the release of the hormone oxytocin.
Mark Leonas is a retired pre-school teacher, macrobiotic practitioner, and moderator at Planetary Health‘s macrobiotic conferences. He is co-author of the Spirit of Rice book. He lives in central Massachusetts.