MINDING YOUR BODY – In addition to knowing your mind-body type and its requirements, it is also important for your mind to know how to listen to your body. We have heard the term “listen to your body” for years only no one has ever told us how to do it. In the past we have been taught to listen to our body by jogging at a pace that allows us to hold a conversation with our partner. To me this technique sounds more like listening to someone else’s body rather then your own.
Inadvertently many of us have been conditioned to distract our mind from our body during exercise. Oftentimes exercise is found too boring unless we have a TV to watch, a book to read or a magazine to flip through. It seems we have resigned ourselves to the fact that exercise is mindless and boring so we engage our minds in one activity while our bodies do another. High-tech distraction devices have emerged on the scene as virtual reality workout centers and TV-ridden cardio theatres fill health clubs. People can now exercise beyond their tolerance without the boredom and without feeling the pain. No pain-no gain has been replaced with, if we distract you, you won't feel it.
The degeneration of even moderate levels of exercise has been recently documented in a landmark study by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, who is considered a leading authority and visionary in the field of exercise physiology. His recent findings fly in the face of all our current exercise standards yet match up perfectly with the exercise requirements laid down over 5000 years ago in the Ayurvedic texts. He found that when people exercise at 60% of their maximum heart rate for four hours a week or more, they will produce a significant amount of harmful exercise induced free radicals which are the leading cause of aging, disease, cancer and death.
Mind you, current exercise requirements state that we need to get the heart rate over 60% before any cardio-health benefits are gained. The results of this study were so controversial and radical the fitness industry for the most part the industry has chosen to ignore Cooper’s advice. He says if you insist on exceeding this limit then you must take large doses of antioxidant supplements to combat the harmful effects of moderate exercise.
Does this mean we should be restricted to a walk around the block to ward off this free radical onslaught? The Ayurvedic approach to fitness, which made its more public debut about 1500 years ago as the original martial arts of China, utilized physical techniques in order to access one’s full human potential. It is in this light that I discuss a new approach to how and why we exercise. The human body is unlimited in potential, it is just a matter of knowing how to access it. In this case less will definitely be more.
THE SECRET TO LIFELONG FITNESS – In Ayurveda, the first requirement for health, fitness and longevity is that the body’s life force or “prana” must flow effortlessly into every cell of the body. This is accomplished primarily via the breath. It is with the proper use of the breath during exercise that will bring harmony between the mind and body and create a measurable experience of calm and rejuvenation into each workout. Most of us do not realize that our body responds to exercise as an emergency. The fight-or-flight nervous system gets maxed out even during moderate exercise. This emergency response during each workout not only produces stress-fighting degenerative hormones but it is likely the key factor in America’s chronic aversion to exercise.
Normal people would never intentionally subject themselves to an emergency day after day after day. Yet when we ask people to engage in regular conventional exercise that is exactly what we are asking. It is no wonder that eighty percent of America doesn't do it. To make exercise fun again we must replace the degenerative emergency response with a rejuvenative calming one. It is this experience of calm, like the eye of a hurricane, that will act as a hub as we engage in the most dynamic physical, mental or emotional activity. In nature, the bigger the eye of the hurricane, the more forceful the winds. It is this experience of calm that we seek to reproduce in the midst of even the most extreme stress. In athletics and in life, when people are at their best they often find it effortless and euphoric. When tennis great Billie Jean King was at her best she said, “I would transport myself beyond the turmoil of the court to a place of total peace and calm.”
CREATING THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE – If you were to see a bear in the woods, you would most likely take a quick upper chest gasping emergency breath. This breath would trigger a fight-or-flight response in your nervous system as the upper lobes of the lungs are primarily innervated by the sympathetic nervous system. The kind of gasping mouth breathing much like a hyperventilation breathing pattern is a normal breathing response to extreme stress. Unfortunately this how most people breathe during exercise triggering the same neurological response.
In contrast, the nerves that would calm, rejuvenate, regenerate the body are in the lower lobes of the lungs alone with the majority of the blood supply. The problem is that most people never breathe into these lower parasympathetic dominant lobes. The most noteworthy reason is that the rib cage has what’s called “elastic recoil” which means it is constantly contracting and squeezing on the heart and lungs 24 hours a day. Over time the rib cage can literally become a cage making it very difficult to breath into this lower lobes thus forcing us to breath through the mouth into the upper lungs and triggering a minor but constant emergency.
Exercise can act as a double-edged sword where it can either incur stress or remove it depending on the quality of the breath. The best way to consistently breathe into the lower lobes of the lungs is by nasal breathing. The nose is really an intricately designed breathing apparatus that will prepare the air perfectly for access into the lower lobes. In short the nose filters, moistens and rarefies the air so it penetrates the lower lobes. Probably the most unique feature lies in the turbinates of the nose which act as turbines to swirl the air into vortices that drives the incoming air into the small and distal alveoli of the lungs. It is when these distal lobes are fully perfused that the body produces a neurological state of composure even while under extreme stress – thus the eye of the hurricane.
YOUR FIRST AYURVEDIC WORKOUT – Go for a walk and for the first ten minutes breath deeply in and out through your nose as you walk fairly slow. Here you are exercising your lungs first making sure that each breath is deeper, longer and slower than the one prior with the emphasis on comfort. It is this experience of comfort that you will be taking into higher levels of exertion. Then begin to walk faster and then faster and be sure to maintain the exact same rhythm of the breath you established from the beginning.
At some point you will notice it becoming more difficult to get the air in through the nose and an ensuing urge to take a mouth breath. When your exercise forces you to take your first mouth breath, you have just then lost the eye of the hurricane and your body was at that moment forced into an emergency response to maintain that pace. At that time, immediately slow down and recapture the original deep, long and slow rhythm of the breath. Once it is reestablished, try to walk faster again, telling your body you want more performance. When the breathing gets labored and you open your mouth, then slow down on cue again, constantly telling your body you want more performance and we will not create an emergency. Soon your body will accommodate a higher level of a natural and more permanent fitness.
Because of the years of lower rib cage constriction you will more than likely find this difficult at first. But, what you couldn't do the first day you will find yourself effortlessly doing within two or three weeks, comfortably breathing through your nose. When this happens you rib cage is not a cage any more – rather twelve rib-like cleavers that can massage your heart and lungs up to 28,000 times a day. When this starts happening, a natural calming influence stays with you all day while you deal with all kinds of extreme stressors. This is the first step of living in the eye of the hurricane and the provider of the most important health benefits of exercise.
