Research Shows Effectiveness of Breathwork in Healing
Breath, most of us take it for granted, and yet as an influx of recent studies show, when we learn to control it, it can be the key not only to our physical wellbeing but to our spiritual transformation.
Breathwork is the conscious awareness and control of the breath through the practice of various techniques. While breath practices have been incorporated for millennia in many religious and spiritual traditions, they were largely forgotten with the rise of the modern western world. Today, however, we are in the midst of a massive resurgence in interest in these ancient practices.
Ben Stewart is a filmmaker who has been researching and practicing breathwork for years. “We always have breath, it’s free, and it’s relegated to the subconscious for the most part of our lives,” he said.
When we bring it back into the conscious realm, just the very act of bringing awareness to the breath is something that augments the experience of what the breath is doing to us, but also just becoming aware of your breath allows you to realize how much we actually hold our breath, how interrupted and inconsistent our breathing really is.”
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You Can Rewire Your Brain to Eliminate Chronic Back Pain
A groundbreaking new study shows the remarkable efficacy of a brain-based treatment for chronic back pain. It provides new hope for a debilitating problem.
One in five Americans suffers from chronic pain, most often without receiving many benefits from invasive and costly treatments.
The most common type of chronic pain is chronic back pain- in 85% of cases of which no physical cause can be identified.
Dr. Yoni Ashar is a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist who studies psychological treatments for chronic pain. He recently led a study at the University of Colorado Boulder to determine whether a psychological treatment can eliminate chronic back pain — something no other therapy has ever before been scientifically proven to do.
“Our society predominantly thinks about chronic pain through a biomechanical, medical perspective. The most common treatments are physical; they’re injections or physical therapy, something targeting the body. What we’re learning more and more is that in many cases of chronic pain the problem lies in the mind or the brain. And we now have decades of research, both in neuroscience medicine and psychology, showing that there are a lot of changes that happen in the brain during chronic pain. In many cases, these can cause the pain to persist after an injury has healed.”
An important distinction that should be made when discussing chronic pain is that between the two types — primary and secondary.
“With secondary chronic pain, the pain is secondary to some medical problem or disease. With primary pain the pain is the primary problem, it is not secondary to anything else. What really is driving it are neuroplastic changes in the brain, and fear and avoidance. Fear is at the heart of chronic pain, so pain is a danger signal. The fundamental function of pain is to guide a person or animal away from things that are dangerous and when we perceive things to be dangerous that can amplify or even create this pain in our brains.”
