YOGA = GABA = PEACEFUL RELAXATION
Harvard Medical released a study showing that the practice of yoga increased brain concentrations of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter best know for its effects with use of the GABA drug Valium. Yoga = Valium high?
The study was a small investigational study, but resulted in significant findings regarding the ability to change your own brain chemistry through yoga. In the study, they compared yoga to reading, which I would guess would increase dopamine levels rather than GABA levels. They found no change in GABA levels in the reading group, but a 27% increase in GABA release in the yoga group.
This might not be shocking or revealing to those who practice yoga, but for the rest of us, it might provide the needed motivation to start a yoga practice.
GABA is a brain chemical that provides a feeling of peaceful relaxation. In the brain, there are chemicals that speed up the brain and others that slow it down. GABA is balancing to the chemical Glutamate. You may have heard of glutamate from monosodium glutamate, which is a manufactured source of glutamate that does affect the brain negatively. Glutamate is naturally occurring in less concentrated doses, which excites the brain. Too much of this chemical causes over excitation of the brain resulting in anxiety and digestive problems. Some studies have shown that “normal” intake of processed glutamate from sodas causes neuronal death in lab animals (Brain cells die). GABA is the natural balance to excitation, allowing our brains to relax. Low GABA is associated with anxiety, digestive upset, and muscle stiffness similar to an excess of glutamate.
While I occasionally see clients that need to be “excited,” a more common presentation in today’s world is stressed and over excited. For those people, this study is a medical prescription.
My interest in this study is the effects that body movement or lack of movement has on the chemistry of the brain and body. From a chemistry background, I might treat a GABA deficiency with precursors of GABA… what makes GABA chemically? GABA is made from a protein, several B vitamins and calcium. I might try to enhance production using one or several of these raw materials. I would also counsel on avoiding glutamate additives.
A medical doctor might “skip to the chase,” and give a GABA drug. Just knock the person out! Which may be advisable to “interrupt a pattern” chemically for someone who can’t function neurologically.
A “self medicater” might reach for a glass of wine or a beer. Alcohol is a GABA drug as well. And for those who have used alcohol, you probably would describe the effects as relaxing.
I find it fascinating, although not surprising, that slow stretching your body while deeply breathing has the same or similar effect as a drug. It also increases your choices for dealing with stress. Now you can add yoga to your list of solutions to “having one of those days.” And, a healthier alternative at that!
On a deeper level it makes me consider the concept of the holographic universe. This theory suggests that there are no separate pieces or elements of life and existence, but rather everything is a part of the whole thing. If you choose to look at a piece and separate it from the whole, you are vastly distorting the whole. You may see a part or perspective that brings you fear or sadness, but it also contains love and peacefulness.
David Bohm, who died in 1992, taught the principles of the holographic universe. He ascribed that this belief in separateness was the main cause of world wide fear, conflict, and confusion.
While I am not a physicist, and can hardly do his theory justice in description, I think this study is an example of how everything is part of the whole thing. When you move your body or have a thought, your chemistry is changed. When you change your chemistry, you change how you move and think.
My focus, not as a physicist, but as a clinician, is to help others find a sequence of moving, thinking or eating that will have the greatest impact on the whole. I have found that living in fear will circumvent the best diet and supplements. I have found that lack of motion will circumvent the best thoughts and attitudes. I have found that “seeing” the whole picture can help your body to detoxify, repair and restore health, and, as this study shows, that moving your body can change your brain and mind.
If you have low levels of GABA, you will see and experience the world differently than if you have optimal levels of GABA. With low levels, you might think someone is talking about you, and with high levels you might think the same person is bragging on you.
Where I am currently in my studies, I believe that belief is the most difficult part of you to change. I hope that changes over time, and I can help people see their way of thinking and change towards healthful thinking as easily as I can adjust a low back.
That is not to say that anyone should see things my way or any certain way, but in a way that produces health and adaptability versus disease and inflexibility. And that is not hard to determine…if it feels bad the way you think, it is bad for your health…and if it feels good the way that you think, it is good for your health.
Through muscle testing, I can increase ones awareness of how they feel about a particular person, experience, or even themselves. If a thought creates a short circuit neurologically, meaning a muscle weakens, then it is more than likely bad and bad for you.
A person may not even realize they have such a negative feeling toward money because they really want money, or “money isn’t important to them.” Yet their body says that they have a “bad” feeling about money, which ultimately is resistance to money, and more importantly, bad for their health.
So the holographic model says movement will allow you to see, and seeing will allow you to move, and that is profoundness found in a study of stretching.
The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
May 2007, Vol. 13, No. 4 : 419 -426
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