Yoga Emotional Damage Control

By Dr Jonn Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati)

  Instant first aid for negative feelings!

Yoga offers direct routes to emotional control through Pranayama or breath control. It is established clinically that alternate nostril breathing balances the Hemispheres of the brain and Autonomic Nervous System and other types of Yoga breathing.

Elevate mood and provide energy. It is, however, best that such techniques are learned by direct tuition from a Yoga Teacher.

Note the following comment from an article by:

Aaarti Sood Mahajan and R. Babbar
Department of Physiology, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi.

"The different types of Yogic breathing procedures affect the ANS. Right nostril breathing activates the sympathetic nervous system and increases the heart rate. Alternate nostril breathing brings about a balance in the ANS (Shannahoff 1993). Kapalabhati practice showed an increase in the low frequency band and decrease in the high frequency band of the heart rate variability spectrum indicating increased sympathetic activity " (Raghuraj et al 1998)."

The Raja Yoga and Gnana Yoga traditions offer much instant relief and indeed this article is about such an approach and a "Western Yoga".

My friend, Swami Divyananda Saraswati, is fond of quoting Sri Aurobindo's statement:

"Most of our lives are lived in empty agitation"

Often that is the way we feel in our daily lives - and possibly much fuss about nothing!
Michel de Montaigne, in the 16th century, wrote:

"My life has been full of tragedies, most of which never happened"

Nothing has changed in 400 years and we can still become the victims of self-engendered turmoil that exhausts us. I have found it very useful to consider a particular Western therapy for directly tackling the source of self-induced agony. This system is the Western equivalent of Gnana Yoga and Vedanta. There exist exercises in both Gnana Yoga and Vedanta by which we can haul our misperceptions, or Maya, up on a leash by sheer reason.

I have always maintained that Psychotherapy is Western Yoga and what I am about to share with you I do not ask you to agree with but please experiment with this material - you will feel more positive, walk taller and maintain focus and direction by trying these principles.

The place to start is by realising we often have false ideas concerning ourselves and our expectations about life. These concepts or premises about living, if accepted as true, create emotional havoc in daily life.

The psychologists say "we progenerate our psychopathologies", meaning that the neurotic or incorrect attitudes that we adopt are learned as children, from our parents, teachers and the cultural influences under which we live. The real horror is that we often teach these emotionally destructive ideas to our children in turn.

Another way of expressing this is that unless we are careful we may merely exist in the shadow of our parents.

The American Psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis, developed a now well established school of therapeutic intervention, called 'Cognitive Therapy' or 'Rational Emotive Psychology' in which common fallacies are identified and rigorously challenged. If you get something out of what I am sharing with you may want to get his classic "A New Guide to Rational Living' (Paperback, Wilshire Book company, USA)

A wonderful internal freedom can result when we recognise and consciously reject these false premises and in so doing begin to enjoy a life devoid of self-torture and endless recriminations.

I have permission from Wilshire Book Co. to quote his Fallacies and I have selected nine of them for your consideration. I have extracted them from my Mind Magic Kit Appendix 3, Llewellyn Publishers USA. 1 234   >>   Dr Jonn Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati) is an International lecturer and author whose works include "Ecstasy through Tantra", "A Chakra & Kundalini Workbook", "Magical Tattwas - Hindu Tarot for the West" and "Mind Magic Kit". This article contains excerpts from his books "How to Clear Your Karma in 9 Days" and "Death: Beginning or End" (Llewellyn Publications, USA). For information on Dr Mumford's private consultations, Distance learning Programs contact:

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Swami Anandakapila Saraswati
Dr Jonn Mumford
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