The Science Of Yogic Breathing | Sundar Balasubramanian | TEDxCharleston

hello when I come I'm a cell biologist trying to study ancient science using modern biological techniques you may be laughing if I ask you how many of you are breathing I certainly hope you all are but do we really pay attention to how we breathe do we know how to regulate our breathing because regulated breathing has lot of health benefits there are so many ways to regulate breathing yogic breathing or pranayama is just one of them if you all could join me for one long humming please sit up and take nice deep breath fill your tummy fill your chest and hum thank you isn't it wonderful now you learnt one yogic breathing technique and you are one step closer to your better health by the end of this talk I will convince you that yogic breathing is good for health I'm from India from the state called Tamil Nadu we speak a language called thumber tammer is also an ancient culture and civilization we practice and natural medicine called Siddha medicine I was born in a small village called kerim bakui my grandmother's we're medical practitioners we practices the medicine my grandmother sure midwives as well they help young women deliver babies and take care of their young infants our grandfathers were medical practitioners as well when I was little my father and uncles would teach me yoga as a child I didn't like it just like my children right now when I was in high school my father would send me to one of my uncle's cedar clinic as soon as you enter into the clinic you can smell the wonderful aroma of cumin coriander cinnamon cardamom and so many herbs it's a wonderful aroma one side you will see freshly squeezed leaf extract the other side you will see the boiling decoction of barks and roots my uncle is a very wise man he would feel the pulse of a patient and then would ask a question how long have you been having this tummy ache or how long the chest pain bothering you then he would give them those natural medicines I was so fascinated by this I was wondering what is in these natural compounds that make them feel better I really remember we were always often visited by one grandfather he would talk about yogic and he would just show the sky and they'd say I'm going to drink milk and then start inhaling it looked strange to me at that time and I was but I was wondering what is in the air that nourishes him I wanted to understand the chemistry behind it I took my chemistry from my bachelor's degree I was fortunate to go to a college where I can do yoga meditation chanting and get a degree in chemistry later I applied that chemistry into biological systems did my masters and PhD in biochemistry came to this country to do research in cell biology all these years I've been carrying yoga with me during tough times I found a lot of relaxation from yoga I was wondering what is in yoga that changes me how is it good for me one important clue came from one of my visits to India I bought this book called theramin theorem written by saint through mullah several centuries ago there was one chapter I was fascinated to it was on yogic breathing I found one song or poem or Sutra on how to do the yogic breathing I decoded the meaning of it I devised a method to practice it after some time of practice one fine morning I found there was small salivary stimulation I was surprised maybe it's just one day but every time I practiced there was more salivary stimulation I thought wow this is a great way for people with dry mouth conditions say Sjogren's syndrome radiation therapy aging and so on as a biochemist I also know that saliva has so many compounds it is not just a digestive fluid it has proteins hormones growth factors and so on one of them was nerve growth factor as the name say it is a protein that helps the nerve cells the neurons to grow survive withstand stress and live longer and nerve growth factor is reduced found in lower levels in Alzheimers patients so nerve growth factor is administered as a therapeutic agent to those patients I was thinking that this may be a great way to treat or prevent Alzheimer's disease so I went to a eminent scientist in this area I told him my idea he said I like this idea I trust you but I want to verify you probably are familiar with the term trust and verify so I went home did the yogic breathing exercise brought the sample to the lab tested it yes there was more induction of nerve growth factor maybe it's just me so I called my son 10 years old by then I asked him to do the exercise and he looked at me and said you want me to spit in this tube you well that's what father's do to the children he did the exercise and gave me the sample and then I tested it yes there was more inner growth factor in his sample also then I conducted a clinical trial one group of people with controls one group of people doing the yogic breathing exercise now I have a name for the yogic breathing exercise thermal or pranayama so those people who did the yogic breathing exercise had more nerve growth factor so proof of principle not only nerve growth factor we found later 22 different proteins growth factors hormones and those are involved in various conditions including cancer immune response stress and pain we are so thrilled by this finding you may be wondering what is there in this pit that is going to make me better right this is my proposal so your gig breathing stimulates salivary secretion and the saliva can the the compounds are the principles in the saliva say nerve growth factor are several other factors in the saliva can be transported to the central nervous system through specific transport mechanisms or it can be absorbed into the bloodstream and available throughout the body or it can just stay there in the world cavity to help us fight germs this is a fascinating idea that you can you can change your behavior or you can practice something that will change the components and let you feel better physically and mentally now I'm taking this to the community to cancer patients seniors mental health patients students and even schoolchildren in India where Yoga is not it accessible remember this is just one poem from the book which contains 3,000 points there's wast amount of literature which is not it transcribed from palm leaf manuscripts not it translated into English my goal is to make a bridge with that ancient wisdom I want to end my story with one more message from Trivandrum by the way this is me my only picture from when I was little don't you like the bowties we all want to control our minds but controlling mind is not easy mind is very elusive as the eastern philosophy puts it mind is a monkey it's not a normal monkey it's a drunken munkey stung by scorpion it's crazy we cannot control it but theorem Euler says there is an easy way mind cannot travel on its own mind needs a vehicle mind is using a horse that horse is your breathing so if you want to control the mind the rider you have to control the vehicle the horse the breathing so controlling the mind is possible by controlling the breathing therefore whether you sing chant or hum or practice sophisticated yogic breathing techniques mind your breathing it will improve your health thank you when I come

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 902,672

Rating: 4.8826532 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Science (hard), Behavior, Benefit, Biology, Biomechanics, Cancer, Cells, Health, Medicine, Microbiology, Mindfulness, Monkeys, Neuroscience, Poetry, Public health, Research, Science, Teaching

Id: aIfwbEvXtwo

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2015