“Come on,” I heard my friend say. “You are so uptight…why don't you just take a deep breath and relax.” Aware of its origins or not, she instinctively knew that controlled deep breathing helps relax our mind, emotions, and body.

Somewhere around three to four thousand years ago, a group of people in India developed a systematic series of exercises accompanied by controlled deep breathing and used it to improve the quality of their lives and to counter the effects of stress. Enabling them to become more in harmony with their environment, they called their system, “yoga.”

Those ancient people understood the many benefits that controlled breathing and yoga promoted. They knew that yoga breathing's fundamental purpose was to create a body-mind connection, to reduce stress, to promote relaxation; and thus, to maximize health.

Notwithstanding thousands of years of effectiveness, modern science has only recently been extolling the benefits of controlled breathing. We now scientifically understand the intimate link between the breath, body and mind and how controlled breathing has such a beneficial and profound effect upon brain and blood chemistry.

Everyone who has experienced sustained unrelenting tension, strain, or anxiety (stress) knows its negative affect upon health and happiness.

During periods of sustained stress, whether physical or emotional, real or imagined; stress-related hormones are released into the blood stream which over-stimulate metabolism. Known as the “fight-or-flight response,” heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and muscle tension all increase and left unchecked for sustained periods, can cause profound adverse health events.

Just as sustained stress promotes the fight or flight response, activating other areas of the brain results in its reduction. During the 1960's, Herbert Benson, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School, “discovered” a counterbalancing mechanism that he called the “relaxation response.”

The relaxation response, which in practice is similar to yoga, is a physical and mental state of deep quietness that alters one's physical and emotional responses to stress; that is, it decreases heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension. Benson said that when regularly practiced, the relaxation response has lasting effects and improves overall health.

But there is much more to yoga than simple breath control and exercises. I participated in a research program at Wright Patterson Air Force Base that studied the effects of yoga on the brain. As expected, we confirmed Dr. Benson's assertion that easy, quiet yoga-like activities slow brain waves and contribute to reduced stress. However, we also documented that vigorous and complicated yoga exercises, when appropriately practiced, can also reduce active brain-wave activity associated with stress.

It was only a few decades ago that medical science thought the mind was separate from the body. However today, science has established a clear link between the breath, mind, and body that promotes healing.

The above article was written by Sam Dworkis. This article and others can be seen on his webiste at www.extensionyoga.com