Main menu:


  • Categories

  • Meditation Q&A with Deepak

    Question: I came across an article that you wrote about meditation in which you said that to to be content in life spiritually, emotionally, physically and mentally, you should ask yourself three  questions everyday before you meditation and wait for the answer: “Who am I?” “What do I want?”  and “What is my dharma or purpose in life?”

    What should I hear when I ask these questions?

    Deepak Responds: What you should hear is what your higher self answers. There is no correct answer or one thing that you are supposed to hear. It is an ongoing dialogue of self-discovery that unfolds more and more each day. What you should learn about yourself over time is that who you are is less and less defined by your physical characteristics and personal beliefs, and more and more by the unchanging, universal attributes of your higher self.

    You will also find as you go deeper and deeper into your nature, that what you want is less about having money and objects and more about becoming abundance,  fulfillment, and bliss itself. But don’t try to jump ahead to the ideal;  just listen and follow what you really hear. It is more productive to follow that authentic voice of what you are and what you want right now, because that is what unlocks the transformation to deeper wisdom.

     

    Meditation Q&A with Deepak

    Question: I learned a mantra-based meditation practice more than thirty years ago. Meditation has been wonderful for me until several years ago. For some reason it does not work anymore, there is no joy and nothing happens  and when I try to meditate my mind just does not want to meditate. What has happened to me? I certainly would like to be able to enjoy meditation as I did for so many years.

    Deepak Responds: The meditation still works, it’s just that the contrast of feeling in meditation and out of meditation has been erased. This is because the meditation has done its job of establishing that sense of peace and stability of the Self in your everyday awareness.

    This doesn’t mean that your evolution is complete or that you no longer need to meditate, but it shows that you have developed enough familiarity with the inner Self that it no longer feels inner. It is just your Self — as much inner as it is outer. The experience of meditation that you enjoyed from the past and made you feel like it was working, relied upon a sense of transition from your active waking life  to a more quiet, joyful state that felt more permanent and unlimited.

    Now after thirty-plus years of transcending, you close your eyes, and you are already there. You open your eyes and you are still there. So from the perspective of needing meditation to get there, it no longer feels like meditation is doing anything.

    The value of meditation lies in how it effects your life outside of your practice sessions . . .
    I can’t tell you how many people I run into with your experience. It is very common.  We’ve become so trained to evaluate meditation based on the contrast of feelings we have  in vs.  out of meditation that we forget that the purpose of meditation is to give us constant access to that inner intelligence, energy, and love. When we have that connection fully open, it feels different and changes the quality of meditation.

    Meditation from this point forward is still important because spending focused time in that state of self-referral consciousness  will allow you to develop the full potential of your Self. It’s one thing to move out of your old house into a new house. It’s another thing to  set it up as a fully functioning home and really start living in it.  The same applies to your present stage of growth.

    It is important to use meditation now to simply be in that awareness and become fully conversant with the full stature of the Higher Self. Many masters will tell you that  this is where the journey begins in earnest.

     

     

     

    Meditation Q&A with Deepak

    Question: I’m relatively new to meditation and am still finding my feet. I  deeply want to discover my true spiritual self, yet I have so many material desires that I want fulfilled as soon as possible.  I’m looking for miracles that I trust will happen.

    My concern is that I don’t want to lose the real purpose of my spiritual quest while playing the tempting game of material acquisition. I know desires are never ending and I’m only human. I don’t want to find myself lying on my death bed and wondering why I wasted my “powers”  chasing things that I had to leave behind.

    How can I have the courage to look beyond creating abundance after a certain level?

    Deepak responds: Congratulations on starting your meditation practice. This will naturally cultivate your mind and desires to become more aligned with your highest spiritual purpose.

    You don’t have to try to only have non-material, universal desires in order to be spiritual. Too often, we fall back on archaic, misguided notions of spirituality that tell us that spirituality must come through a rejection of the world and the body. In that view, wealth and sex are considered unspiritual, while  spiritual ideals are associated with vows of poverty and celibacy.

    Spirituality must include the wholeness of life, the inner and outer, the sacred and the profane. So instead of fighting against the mind’s tendency to generate desires, which is impossible anyway, it makes more sense to use that irrepressible force of life within us to carry us forward to our highest spiritual aspirations.

    The desires that arise within us are part of that evolutionary force of universe that impels all creation forward toward its ultimate fulfillment. Maybe your desires don’t feel very cosmic and altruistic right now, but instead of trying to squash your natural impulses and try to manufacture spiritual desires in their place, just let yourself easily move toward the attainment of your desires as they are right now.

    As you continue with your meditation practice, you will find that the next desires that pop up in your mind will be more inclusive of the needs of others. You will also find that you can want something, but not feel desperate for it and not mind when circumstances change to bring you a different outcome from your original wish, because you can now trust that the new result serves your highest purpose more perfectly.

    This is how you can relax in the knowledge that  the natural flow of your desires in conjunction with your meditation practice will inexorably lead you to the highest state of spirituality.

     

     

     

     

    Meditation Q&A with Deepak Chopra

    Deepak Chopra, M.D.


    Question:
    How can meditation help me with releasing emotions?

    Deepak responds:
    The practice of meditation is a powerful ally when it comes to relieving emotional distress such as anxiety, depression, and anger. As many scientific studies reveal, when you meditate, breathing slows, blood pressure decreases, and stress hormone levels fall. Even as our body is resting deeply in meditation, our mind is awake, though quiet. In mantra meditation practices including Primordial Sound Meditation, a mantra or sound is used as an object of attention. The Sanskrit word mantra means “vehicle of the mind,” for mantras transport us beyond the mind’s inner dialogue and emotional turbulence into higher states of consciousness.

    As we silently repeat a mantra, we begin to gain some distance from our thoughts and emotions. We observe them and gently return our attention to the

    Meditation allows us to experience the peace underlying our thoughts and emotions.

    mantra. As we witness our mental activity, without attempting to resist or change it, there is a spontaneous calming of the inner commotion.

    Over time we begin to notice that some space has been created around the nturbulent emotional state. We start to see that there is more to who we are than our moods or thoughts, and we may also observe that the sensations associated with our emotional state dissolve altogether.

    How wonderful to know that we don’t have to repress what we feel in order to feel this inner peace! In fact, repressing emotions never leads to emotional freedom but only adds to the accumulation of emotional toxicity or ama in our body.

    By not repressing or fixating on emotions, they can move through and out of our bodies. With a regular meditation practice, we spend more and more time in the silence and peace of pure awareness. The sense of spaciousness and ease in our daily lives grows and it becomes easy to let go of old patterns of thinking and feeling.

     

    Ask Deepak: Is there an Ayurvedic view of plastic surgery?

    Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    Dear Deepak,

    Lately, out of my insecurities, I have been toying with the idea of doing plastic surgery for my nose.  Yet at the same time, I am aware that  I want to develop my spiritual life (I have been practicing yoga for 11 years and I’ve been teaching it for the past three years) in more depth.  I am starting to meditate again.  However, being so self-conscious physically (especially as I age) and being drawn to the spiritual life are creating a lot of chaos in my mind as I don’t know what the drive for either is, although obviously the drive to meditate seems to make more sense to me.

    Can you let me know what the yogic/Ayurvedic/and your perspective is about the subject of changing one’s physical appearance?

    Thank you so much for your help.

    Deepak Responds . . .

    I don’t know if there is an official Ayurvedic position on plastic surgery, but the basic idea of yoga philosophy and Ayurveda is to restore balance and wholeness – physically, mentally, and spiritually.  A treatment such as plastic surgery would only be considered if it were essential for the overall wellbeing of the patient. Certainly in cases of disfigurement, reconstructive plastic surgery would make sense. In fact, in India  rhinoplasty has been practiced for well over two thousand years for severed noses.

    In your case, since you state that your motivation arises from insecurity and concerns over the effects of aging, you will probably gain more lasting benefits by addressing your underlying insecurities, fears, and beliefs than you would from plastic surgery.  Making an effort to draw your self-value and worth through your essence rather than your outer appearance will have a profound influence on all aspects of your wellbeing.

    Love,
    Deepak

    Mindful Eating: A Mind-Body Approach to Carbohydrates

    by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    In a world plagued by food shortage that are reaching crisis level, carbohydrates are the easiest salvation and yet the greatest temptation to abuse. Ironically, the same is true in prosperous countries but for opposite reasons. Where food is desperately needed, vast portions of the ecosystem are obliterated to make way for a small handful of crops, particularly rice and wheat, that can provide abundant, cheap calories to a mass population. In well-fed societies where food can be channeled for diversion rather than raw fuel, refiners mangle natural carbohydrates to produce refined sugar and flour.

    Either way, it has taken thousands of years to move from the first farmers, who paved the way for civilization by cultivating wild grains, to our present situation. Most of the world cannot survive without more grains and vegetables – our primary source of carbohydrates – while a small portion of the world faces an epidemic of obesity and diabetes linked to over consumption of sugar and fat. What will give us a balanced use of the body’s main source of energy without falling into gross misuse?

    When Our Mind Rules Our Eating
    Since the reader is almost certain to belong to a prosperous society, balance begins with two steps: refusing to join the processed food glut and putting sugar and starch back in place where they naturally belong. The issue isn’t really how much fat, protein, and carbohydrate to ingest every day. It’s more important to stop abusing your body’s great gift of adaptability. Because human beings can adapt to almost any diet, you are in a situation no other living creature faces: our minds rule our diet.

    Some people are naturally sensitive to bodily sensations. When they say, “My body is telling me” or “I need to eat such-and-such,” there’s a real basis for the statement. The rest of us, the vast majority, eat out of our heads. We are susceptible to advertising, suggestive selling in restaurants (“Did anybody save room for our delicious chocolate cheesecake?”) diet fads, diet scares, and endless “breakthroughs” over how to lose those extra pounds. In the massive food industry, the cheapest calories for sale are processed sugar, which leads to the disturbing fact that the average American consumes 156 pounds of added sugar per year. “Added” is the word that should shock you. As people consume 31 five-pound bags of processed sugar a year, much of it in processed corn syrup and white cane sugar, even more comes to them in fruits and vegetables.

    Scare tactics haven’t altered this picture, which has been the same for decades. A recent study showed that adult males who regularly consume sodas are 20% more likely to suffer a heart attack. That seems like a strange finding, since a typical can of pop, although it contains from 12 to 18 teaspoons of sugar, is still free of fat, the molecule that eventually can clog coronary arteries. But soda is most often met in fast-food chains combined with high-fat burgers and fries. Lured by the three addictive tastes of sweet, sour, and salty, we think we are making choices with our minds when in fact the persistent message from our taste buds – along with mass media – have made the American diet mindless for millions of people.

    Satisfy Your Desire for a Better Life
    Your goal should be to bring your mind back in control of your diet. This step is more important than any fad or crusade. Forget food groups and remember yourself. You are here to satisfy your desire for a better life, and that means reaching in a state of well-being. As with protein and fat, carbohydrates fall in line with well-being if you ask a few basic questions:

    • How much junk food am I eating for junk satisfaction?
    • What does it take to stop taste addiction?
    • Which foods make me feel good for the rest of my day?
    • What’s the best way to meet my emotional needs?

    The glut of sugar we consume is tied to how you answer these questions, because sugar can be abused so easily that it leads to junk satisfaction (a brief sugar high), taste addiction (craving sugary foods even when you are not hungry), broken connection to bodily signals (not knowing when your stomach is empty or full), and reaching for emotional surrogates (eating in order not to feel bad). None of this abuse is part of sugar itself. None of it relates to what your body actually needs as fuel. The best nutrition a=advice in the world is pointless until your relationship to food has been straightened out.

    That’s a major process that reaches far beyond three meals a day. Carbs are only a sliver of the solutions, but since they play a big role in the problem, let’s arm ourselves with some basic knowledge.

    What Are Carbohydrates?
    To your body, carbohydrates are the most readily digested fuel. They are converted into energy, which everyone needs not only for physical activity but for basic metabolic functions. Every cell needs fats and proteins as well, but carbs provide quick, easily accessible fuel. Once metabolized by enzymes in the digestive system, most carbohydrates break down into simple sugars, which permeate the intestinal wall and then course through the bloodstream to deliver a caloric payload to your cells.

    There are three main categories of carbohydrates:

    • Simple sugars (simple carbohydrates), such as those responsible for the sweetness in fruit (fructose) and table sugar (sucrose).
    • Starch, the most common complex carbohydrate in our diet.
    • Fiber, another complex carbohydrate. Fiber can’t be broken down and passes through the system essentially undigested.

    Most people naturally associate sugar and sweetness. But in scientific terms, sugars are not identified by flavor but by their chemical makeup. All sugars are based on a simple union of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules (C, H, and O). The sweetness of sugars will vary depending on how many molecules each of C, H, and O are in the sugar’s chemical formula.

    Carbs have long been neatly grouped into two categories that also make diet choice more clear cut: simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates. You’ve heard many times that we should be eating complex carbohydrates and shunning simple carbohydrates. It would be convenient if one group represents “good” carbs and the other “bad” carbs. However, the health implications are not quite so neat and tidy.

    Simple carbohydrates are so named because they are built on just one or two molecules. The structure of other sugars is termed “complex” because they have a molecular structure that is constructed of two or more joined molecules. (There are more complicated ways that sugars combine in nature, but we don’t need to go into those.) In this case, simple doesn’t equate with bad. Only the smallest molecules of sugar can pass through the intestinal walls and into the bloodstream. That’s why foods ingested as simple carbohydrates (single- and double-molecule sugars) can be used immediately. Complex carbohydrates (three or more molecules) require more time and action to break down and be absorbed.

    Some simple sugars occur naturally in vegetables, milk, honey, and other unprocessed foods. Synthetic sweeteners such as corn syrup and high fructose are simple sugars as well. The problem with all of them arises because simple carbs cause a rapid rise and fall in glucose, or blood sugar, leaving you feeling hungry faster. Like pieces of wood going into a chipper, simple carbs resemble narrow branches and leaves that are quickly shredded. Complex or “long chain” carbs are bigger pieces, like thick branches and tree trunks that have to be fed slowly through the chipper to be broken down. Due to their bulkier, compound structure, complex carbs remain in the system for a longer time, providing slow-burning energy and longer durations of satiety, or feeling full. (Athletes who “carb up” begin the night before, taking advantage of the body’s ability to use long-term fuel sources.)

    The threshold for a normal fasting glucose level in healthy people is 99 mg/dL; that is, 99 milligrams of glucose per 1/10th liter of blood. Lower than normal levels are characterized as hypoglycemia, indicating around 70 mg/dL and lower. This condition can be traced to three causes. The body may be using up the available blood sugar, or the glucose ingested may be released into the bloodstream too slowly. It’s also possible that too much insulin is being released.

    Higher than normal levels of blood sugar are an indication of the opposite state, hyperglycemia. It exists as a threshold condition known as prediabetes (between 100 and 125 mg/dL) and further on clinical diabetes (126 mg/dL and higher). Elevated blood sugar is caused either by too little insulin being released by the pancreas or the body’s inability to use insulin properly. After you eat and sugars pass from the small intestine into the bloodstream, the pancreas detects this increase in blood sugar and secretes insulin in response. Most cells of the body have insulin receptors, which bind to the insulin molecule. The cell can then turn on other receptors that absorb glucose through the cell wall. Once absorbed, glucose may be used for energy or stored for the future.

    Understanding Glycemic Ratings
    The glycemic index (GI) ranks hundreds of foods on a scale of 0-100 according to their impact on blood sugar. The GI indicates how intensely and rapidly a food will influence glucose and insulin levels.Glucose, being the sugar that cells can immediately use as food, is the GI’s measuring stick and tops the index at a rating of 100. Foods in the lower range, which include many complex carbohydrates, are absorbed into the blood slowly. With a gradual and prolonged effect on blood sugar and insulin, low GI foods have a proven health benefit. The conviction of GI proponents—which include the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Harvard School of Public Health, and others—is that diet should be based on low GI foods to prevent and even treat diseases that are in epidemic proportions in the Western world; namely, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

    Instead of fretting over recommended allowances and food pyramids, it’s simpler to eat within a “calorie budget.” As your basic expenditure, you need to cover the essentials—vegetables and fruits, and possibly whole grains and dairy products—before the budget can afford to spend calories on foods that offer minimal nutritive value. Luxury isn’t bad – every life should have a sense of abundance – but wasteful spending is different. You don’t have to forbid yourself a treat here and there, but consider how it fits into your dietary budget.

    Tune into Your Own Individual Needs
    Yet every road leads back to holistic well-being. You can eat too much and harm your body. You can eat the wrong foods for what your cells actually need. You can eat all the “right’ foods but neglect to exercise, and exercise fanatics can forget to be relaxed and content simply with being. As nutrition becomes more scientific, it becomes more reductionist. Remember that no one ever became healthy by memorizing calorie charts and the government’s RDA of vitamins.

    Millions of Americans make the numbers their enemy, as we are inundated with data. The scariest and probably the most useless data concerns food and dieting. Facts won’t make you achieve the ideal figure, a healthy heart, or freedom from aging and disease. Life isn’t a puzzle with many pieces that need to fit where they belong. Life is an unfolding process, and it’s your choice to make that process into one of continuous evolution.

    About the Author

    Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    Deepak Chopra, M.D. is a best-selling author and founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California. Along with co-founder Dr. David Simon, Deepak created many of the Chopra Center’s signature programs and workshops, including Journey into Healing mind-body workshop and the Perfect Health program, combining authentic Ayurvedic treatments, a medical staff trained in both Western and Eastern medicine, and instruction in yoga, meditation, and Ayurveda. To learn more about the Chopra Center’s programs, workshops, and retreats, please visit www.chopra.com/programs or call 888.736.6895.


    What Your Back Pain Is Trying to Tell You, by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    At one time or another the misery of lower back pain is felt by everyone, which is no surprise. Our upright spine is as unique to being human as having an opposable thumb. But where anyone can see that using our hands involves every aspect of life, we don’t say the same about our backs. But it’s just as true. You can read a great deal standing behind someone, reading victory or defeat, success and failure, pride or shame, and every degree of self-esteem. More hidden are the stresses that shape the back. On the day that you feel that first twinge of back pain, an entire personal history has already unfolded.

    Can we use that history to treat lower back pain?

    The factors to consider are as varied as each person is, but the most salient include:

    • Physical stress to the lower back
    • Sedentary jobs
    • Lack of exercise
    • Untended psychological issues
    • Depression, anxiety
    • Sudden changes in physical routine
    • Bad sleep
    • Coping mechanisms, how you deal with stress
    • Aging
    • Old traumas such as car accidents and sports injuries
    • Unknown predispositions

    That’s a lot to consider. As you can see, saying “My back went out” or “I must have hurt my back” falls short of an adequate explanation. Everything on the list needs to be considered as a contributing factor. It’s important to distinguish between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute pain is intense and lasts from a few days to several weeks. Acute back pain is generally due to sprains or strains and usually gets better in a few weeks. Chronic pain lasts longer than three months. Chronic back pain is more complicated in terms of its causes and its treatment.

    What We Already Know About Back Pain
    We can start with a very general picture. Medicine knows a lot already about this chronic problem. About 1 in 6 Americans suffered from back pain continually for every day of the last month; a quarter of the population reports that they have had back pain in the last three months. Back pain is the number two reason people visit their doctor (number one is colds and flu).

    And back pain is on the rise. The percentage of people getting care for spine problems increased from 10.8% of the US population in 1997 to 13.5% in 2006. The healthcare costs of back pain are up, too — way up. Expenditures for opioid medications for spinal problems increased an incredible 660% during that same period of time, and health expenditures for spine problems rose from about $19 billion to $35 billion, an increase of 82%.

    These dramatic increases go hand-in-hand with the rise in back pain surgery. Almost one million spinal surgeries are performed in the US each year. About a quarter of them are spinal fusions, costing an average of $60,000 each. Most of these surgeries, besides being notoriously unpredictable in their success rate, are unnecessary, and a great many of the unsuccessful ones require re-operation. Surgery often leaves patients in pain, unable to return to work and dependent on opiate medications. We need to realize, on the positive side, that most back pain will respond to conservative treatment that leaves the patient able to return to work and free of the need for opiates.

    The Most Common Causes of Back Pain
    The complex architecture of the human spine makes us susceptible to accidental sprains and strains of the back muscles and ligaments. These passing incidents are by far the most common cause of lower back pain. Sprains occur when ligaments are overstretched or torn from their attachments. Strains happen when muscles are ripped or torn. The injury generally happens when you fall, lift something improperly, carry a heavy object, or make a sudden movement. Just having poor posture can cause sprains and strains, too. Other, nonspinal causes of back pain include fibromyalgia and depression (often accompanied by anxiety). Fibromyalgia is thought to be an inflammation of the connective tissue (including the muscles) of the body. Depression and anxiety often manifest with physical symptoms.

    The good news is that most of the factors that put you at risk for back pain can be changed or modified: look carefully at stress, depression and anxiety, heavy backpacks, poor posture, being overweight, not getting enough exercise, smoking, unhealthy diet, certain medications, and job hazards. Risk factors you can’t do as much about may include aging, family history of back pain, and having had a previous back injury. Still, there are people with healthy backs who have such risk factors but overcome them.

    In about 85% of back pain patients, no clear cause is ever identified. In order to diagnose back pain, a number of imaging technologies are now regularly employed — X-rays, CT scans, and MRI scans are the most common. But it is still very difficult to find out why someone is experiencing chronic back pain. Quite frequently imaging tests reveal abnormalities of the spine, such as spondylolisthesis and herniated discs, and it’s tempting to immediately ascribe back pain to these abnormalities. But bear in mind that these conditions are often found in people who have no symptoms of back pain at all. These abnormalities might have absolutely nothing to do with the pain you feel.

    Surgery Rarely Required, Rarely Helpful
    The majority of back pain heals without any significant medical intervention. Only a very small minority of back conditions require surgery. Worse still, about a third of spinal surgeries fail to relieve back pain, often requiring re-operation. This happens so often there’s even an acronym for it: failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS).

    Fusion surgery is an increasingly popular type of back operation in which two or more vertebrae are fused together. Fusion surgery may be useful for slipped vertebrae or some types of fractures. But it is often prescribed for herniated discs, degenerated discs, or nerve problems. One large-scale study of almost 1,500 people with back pain found that after 2 years, only a quarter of people who had fusion surgery had returned to work, while two thirds of people who hadn’t had the surgery were back on the job. There was also a 41% increase in the use of opiate painkillers by the surgery patients compared with those who hadn’t had surgery.

    Other studies have found that people who have fusion surgery for degenerative disc disease have worse outcomes than people with the same condition who choose not to have surgery. In spite of these startling numbers, fusion surgery for degenerated discs is the fastest-growing type of spinal operation. Spinal surgery should be reserved for cases where spinal nerves are compressed and are causing the loss of bladder or bowel control, or creating weakness or numbness in the legs. Only under these conditions, or when someone has chronic, debilitating back pain and has given all conservative, nonsurgical methods a fair trial, is it time to consider back surgery.

    There are many nonsurgical measures for treating back pain, and they are generally most effective if used in combination with one another. If you have acute back pain, the first line of defense is “fire and ice”— hot pads and cold packs for easing pain and inflammation. After a few days of rest, you should start to become more physically active and gradually begin to do gentle exercise. Consult with a physical therapist to determine when you’re ready for stretching and strengthening exercises. NSAID medications or spinal injections of steroids or anesthetics can provide enough pain relief to allow physical therapy. Massage helps stimulate circulation to the back tissues and aids flexibility. Chronic back pain may be helped by psychological therapy as well.

    The Role of Complementary Medicine

    Complementary therapies can be helpful. Many people swear by acupuncture and chiropractic manipulation. Trigger-point therapy treats muscle pain by injecting anesthetics or steroids into painful areas of muscle. If you want to prevent lower back pain, the single most important measure you can take is to stretch and strengthen your core muscles through regular exercise. Yoga and Pilates are ideal for this. Aerobic exercise is helpful because it strengthens your cardiovascular system, increasing circulation to the tissues of your back. Be aware of your posture: avoid slouching, which places a great deal of strain on your back.

    Being overweight strains your back as well, so lose weight if you need to. If you smoke, quit — smoking literally starves your vertebral discs of oxygen and nutrition. Eat high-nutrition, whole foods to keep your bones and back tissues healthy. Finally, find ways to relax if you’re stressed out, because tension alone can create back pain.

    We have a national disposition to rely on drugs and surgery that is not abating. Our lifestyles are not going to become less sedentary; our lack of exercise and reluctance to treat stress are endemic. So lower back pain waits in the wings to test if each of us can take advantage of the knowledge that exists about this problem, and then to turn it into practice in our only day-to-day habits.

    Why Is Asthma on the Rise? by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    Asthma is one of the most common diseases in the world, with as many as 300 million sufferers. We’ve all seen what an asthma attack looks like, the typical symptoms being shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing, and tightness in the chest.  Because natural breathing is something most of us take for granted, asthma is a distressing disruption. Each day you breathe a huge volume of air, from 2,100 to 2,400 gallons. Even for people who manage it well through medication and avoiding risks, there is a major psychological component. Attacks are dreaded, and a silent threat lurks with every breath.

    The psychological aspect of asthma is undeniable – even to witness a severe attack makes your own breath alter – but the causal link hasn’t been proved. Ask experts and sufferers alike if high stress and emotional upset contribute to asthma, and almost everyone will say yes without being able to prove it.

    The fact that relief can come from practicing yoga, doing daily meditation, or training oneself in conscious breathing techniques (known as pranayama or yogic breathing) is not disputed. Some sufferers stand by acupuncture treatments as well, even though no studies have proven its efficacy.

    The Baffling Increase in Asthma
    The picture that emerges, then, is of a disorder that mysteriously links mind and body. There is no proven cause for asthma, a fact that is underlined by the unexplained increase in cases that has occurred since 1970. Our lungs are sensitive to pollutants, yet asthma is 8-10 times more common in developed countries than in the developing world. As with the sharp rise in allergies, which is also more common in the developed world, the situation is baffling – air quality and pollutants are worse in those countries that are not affected, or less affected, by the rise in disease. (In the US, about 7% of adults and 9% of children have asthma.)

    Every Cell Is Connected to Our Breath

    No disease can be fully understood without a cause. However, every cell in your body is intimately connected to your breath, and therefore a whole complex of factors seems to be involved. Completely healthy athletes, including 15% of those participating in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, are diagnosed with asthma in numbers two to four times higher than the general population. Yet exercise is good for increasing your lung capacity and strengthening the muscles you use to breathe.

    Let’s look at the basics of the disorder, most of which are physical at this stage of medical understanding.

    Asthma is a chronic inflammation of the airways in your lungs, tiny pockets called alveoli where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged as you breathe; there are a vast number of alveoli, about 500 million. The state of inflammation exists invisibly even when there is no visible attack. In simplest terms, when lung tissue is inflamed, oxygen can’t enter the bloodstream as easily and carbon dioxide cannot be expelled. Patients are test for lung capacity through a simple test where the amount of exhaled air is measured. The condition will be diagnosed as mild to severe in a range where the FEV (forced expiratory volume) is no worse than 80% of normal to less than 60%. In acute attacks, however, the patient may be completely unable to breathe, even with an inhaler, and death can result.

    The Role of Inflammation in Asthma
    As soon as the word “inflammation” is used, medicine faces a larger mystery. Inflammation is the immune system’s healing response to injury, a normal and necessary process. Once the pathogen has been disposed of – meaning an invasive danger to the body like a virus or bacteria – or the injury has healed, inflammation subsides. It isn’t needed anymore. But in asthma, the inflammatory response becomes self-perpetuating. Airway tissue becomes filled with immune system cells, which actively recruit other immune cells to the site. Blood flow to the affected airways increases. Mucus is released, airway tissue becomes filled with fluid and swells.

    It is indisputable that this kind of inflammation represents a breakdown of the healing process. What is supposed to help the body starts to harm it. In some way, the body’s innate intelligence has made a mistake and keeps making it. The same can be said of allergies, where your immune system attacks harmless dust, pollen, and animal dander as if protecting you from a threat. My long-held position – seconded by a wide range of physicians, both mainstream and alternative – is that we must learn what causes such drastic mistakes to be made.

    Unfortunately, every event in the mind-body system is connected with the body’s intelligence, and since doctors are trained to be focused only on one aspect, the physical, research results in asthma remain largely confined to physical findings. Here is what we know about the triggers and risk factors of asthma.

    Triggers of Asthma

    • Indoor air pollution and allergens such as tobacco smoke, animal dander, dust mites, and mold and mildew
    • Irritants and allergens such as pollen, dust, air pollution, pesticides and fertilizers, and car fumes
    • Cold air, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and viral respiratory infections

    About half of asthma sufferers have allergies. Avoiding such triggers becomes a major part of managing the disorder once you develop asthma.

    Risk Factors of Asthma

    There are many risk factors for asthma. Some can be controlled while others can’t.

    Risk factors that can be modified include:

    • Obesity.  The greater a person’s body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference, the greater their risk of asthma.
    • Smoking
    • Secondhand smoke exposure
    • Exposure to environmental pollutants and irritants (for instance, household cleaners, industrial chemicals, dust mites, pollen, and animal dander)
    • Taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) including aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen

    Risk factors that can’t be modified include:

    • Gender. Before adolescence asthma is more common in boys, but when asthma occurs in adulthood it is more common in women.
    • Genetics. A tendency to develop asthma can be inherited, but environmental factors are just as important.
    • Having allergies
    • Mother smoking during pregnancy, which leads to impaired lung function in the baby
    • Premature birth

    The symptoms of asthma vary from person to person. The four major symptoms are:

    1. Coughing spells, usually worsening after exposure to cold air
    2. Shortness of breath that gets worse with exercise or at night
    3. Wheezing, especially when exhaling
    4. Feelings of tightness or pain in the chest

    Asthma attacks are a worsening of existing symptoms. Exposure to a trigger makes the ongoing inflammation in the lungs worse. The bands of muscle surrounding the bronchioles normally constrict in the presence of an irritant or allergen, but then they release. In asthma, they stay constricted. Edema (swelling) increases. Excessive amounts of mucus are released by the airway lining. The airways become swollen, constricted, and clogged by mucus, and both inhaling and exhaling become more difficult.

    But what is considered an attack varies widely between individuals. For people who have no symptoms of asthma most of the time, an occasional coughing spell might be considered an attack. For someone with chronic symptoms, however, such as coughing and wheezing, an attack might include those symptoms along with new ones, like chest pain and shortness of breath.

    A very severe asthma attack can come on over a period of hours or become serious in only a matter of minutes. These attacks are very dangerous because very little air moves in and out of the lungs, and the airways don’t open in response to bronchodilators. Emergency treatment is required.

    Controlling Asthma

    Asthma control has made considerable advances, which is why, even though incurable, asthma is successfully controlled in various ways.

    Medications. There are two main types of asthma medication: quick-relief medications (bronchodilators), used before exercise or when you are having an attack, and maintenance medications, used even when symptoms are not present in order to keep inflammation under control.

    Monitoring. By monitoring symptoms and keeping track of when they occur, you can understand what triggers your attacks. Using a peak flow meter, you can find out when your lung function is getting worse and take action.

    Trigger avoidance. Once you’ve found out what triggers attacks, you can take steps to avoid or eliminate the triggers. For instance, if you are allergic to dust mites, you can encase your pillows in mite-proof covers. If pollen is a trigger, you may want to avoid exercising outside when levels are high.

    Exercise. Some people with asthma avoid exercising because they fear exercise-induced asthma (EIA), but this is a mistake. Exercise strengthens your breathing muscles and increases your lung capacity, as we discussed.

    To minimize the risk of exercise-induced asthma:

    • Take maintenance medications regularly if they have been prescribed for you
    • Use bronchodilators before exercising
    • Warm up before you begin exercising and cool down afterwards
    • Wear a scarf or mask over your face if you exercise outdoors in cold weather

    A Call to Expand Our Knowledge of the  Body’s Innate Intelligence
    So far, no treatment for asthma without medication has proved successful. Complementary treatments like meditation, stress management, and yoga are used in addition to your regular medication – they are not alternatives.  Even so, I feel that the conquest of asthma, along with associated disorders where the immune system makes drastic, sometimes lethal mistakes, depends on understanding the innate intelligence in every cell. Intelligence has physical markers that everyone agrees upon, such as the brain, but we now know that no part of the body lacks a kind of supreme intelligence. Right now medicine is only beginning to comprehend what this intelligence is and how we control it – or it controls us. When we put much more effort into expanding our knowledge, I’m confident that the breakdown of the body’s intelligence will be repaired by that same intelligence.

    The Fat You Eat: A Study in Paradox, by Deepak Chopra, M.D.

    Deepak Chopra, M.D.

     

    The whole issue of fat in the diet should be simple, as it once was. Doctors followed the dictum of “fat puts on fat,” assigning blame for overweight on a fatty diet. Of the three major sources of calories – fats, proteins, and carbohydrates – the one with the most calories per gram (8) is fat. It only makes sense that cutting back on this component should lead to weight loss. But to say so is like time traveling back to 1950, before the great cholesterol revolution.

    America was in the midst of an epidemic of heart attacks back then. Lacking any effective drug treatment for prevention – indeed, lacking any real model for risk factors – and without the emergency room trauma care that we now take for granted, medicine scrambled to find answers to the sudden upsurge in heart attacks and strokes. A consensus built around cholesterol as the primary villain, and so a vast public campaign went forth that hasn’t subsided ever since.

    Cholesterol: The Real Story

    The problem with the cholesterol story is that it complicated matters far more than it clarified them. To begin with, high cholesterol in the diet was never a strong correlation with premature heart attacks. The strongest correlation had to do with psychological factors, in fact, but these were considered too “soft” to present to the public. Cholesterol was simpler and easy to communicate. But there was another major problem. The cholesterol you eat isn’t the same as the cholesterol that winds up in your bloodstream, so-called serum cholesterol. In between eating a fatty food and raising your serum cholesterol, there’s the process of digestion. In particular, fats are processed in the liver, and it’s the liver ability to select various fats that determines how high or low your serum cholesterol is.

    In their zeal to deliver a simple story, however, heart experts demonized basic foods like eggs and milk when there was no evidence that either leads to increased heart attacks. Fifty years on, the anti-cholesterol campaign has become a billion-dollar juggernaut, thanks to the involvement of drugs that are supposed to correct imbalance in blood fats. We’ve been indoctrinated to think in terms of LDLs, HDLs, and triglycerides, yet the actual cause of heart disease is unknown. In addition, the simple formula that the “good” HDLs will rise as a drug lowers the “bad” LDLs has been proven wrong.

    As with all disorders, the story of heart disease involves all the messages being sent to and from every cell in your body. Invisible factors like stress are just as important, if not more so, than the fats you eat, along with psychological factors like the difference between tense, perfectionist Type A personalities and relaxed, easy-going Type Bs. The only natural way that is proven to reduce the risk of heart attack combines meditation, exercise, and a low-fat diet.

    Wellness Principles for Fat in Your Diet

    To really know what causes heart attacks and strokes, we would have to discover why the tiny cracks develop inside the smooth, slick lining of blood vessels. An answer to that mystery is far from clear. So for the time being wellness in terms of the fat you eat encompasses some basic principles, as follows:

    - Eliminate the hydrogenated fats or trans fats and reduce saturated fats in our diet, preferring fats like vegetable oil, omega-3 oils in fish, and olive oil.
    - Whatever fat you eat, don’t demonize it. Fear isn’t part of wellness.
    - Don’t rely on drugs to change your serum cholesterol until you have given prevention a chance.
    - Forget so-called diet foods and processed foods with reduced fats. You don’t need the added chemicals. In addition, it has never been shown that eating diet foods helps reduce obesity.
    - If you are overweight, make it a top priority to get your weight back in control. Reducing total calories is more important than fine-tuning the kind of fat you eat.
    - Body fat appears to be more active in a harmful way than we used to think. To offset the hormonal effect of body fat, the easiest counter is regular, moderate exercise.

    I’ve deliberately avoided going into detail about the war over dietary fat, because singling out one factor misses the holistic point: wellness is never about one villain who needs to be vanquished. It’s about changing the entire mind-body picture. There will always be fads and controversy swirling around America’s weight problem. One year the magic bullet is a high-protein, high-fat diet, while the next year it’s gluten allergies or switching to a vegan lifestyle. For healthy adults, these fads are harmless. In the end, they offer short-term benefits to almost everyone who flirts with them and long-term benefits to a very small minority. There is no replacement for holistic wellness.

    For readers who want to hear about the technical details, however, here’s a brief rundown about the physiological nature of fats.

    Not All Fats Are Equal

    From bananas to bacon, there is fat in virtually every food, differing in amount and type. And whether we eat a burger, a sardine, or an avocado, we are eating a mixture of fats, both “good” and “bad.” According to the USDA, a stick of butter, for example, contains 51% saturated fat, 21% monounsaturated fat, 3% polyunsaturated fat. Olive oil has 14% saturated fat, 73% monounsaturated fat, and 11% polyunsaturated fat.

    How much fat should you eat? The Institute of Medicine says fats should be 30-40% of total daily calories for children ages 1-3, and 20-35% of total daily calories for older kids and adults.

    “Good” Fats

    Dietary fats can be classified into two categories: unsaturated (the “good” fats) and saturated (the “bad” fats). Unsaturated fats come in two types: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Replacing saturated fats in the diet with unsaturated fats lowers blood cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease. Desirable sources of these fats are healthy oils, nuts, seeds, fish and avocados.

    Saturated fats are risky because they raise LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels. As we touched upon, elevated LDL levels contribute to arterial plaque and increase the risk of diabetes, heart attacks, and stroke. Among the most common dietary sources of saturated fats are fatty meats and dairy products. The US population currently gets 11-12% of its energy from saturated fats and that hasn’t changed much over 15 years. It is generally recommended that saturated fat not exceed 10% of the daily fat intake, but some experts suggest getting it down to 5% would be healthier target.

    The roles and benefits of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are controversial and confusing. Both are essential fatty acids, which must come from our diet because our bodies cannot make them. They play key roles in every system in the body and are important in the regulation of many physiological processes and are crucial for the health of cell membranes and the neurological development.

    There is growing evidence that most Western diets have too little omega-3 and this may affect immune system function and cause inflammation. Some scientists believe that the natural ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids in the human diet is 1:1. In the typical modern Western diet, however, the ratio is about 1:16. That’s a big difference. Good sources of omega-3s include fatty fish, flaxseed oil, walnuts, and walnut oil.

    Trans fats, artificially modified vegetable oils widely used in fried and processed foods, are undeniably bad guys. Trans fats are considered more harmful to your health—and especially your heart—than saturated fats. They have been shown to raise LDL-cholesterol, lower HDL-cholesterol (the “good” cholesterol), increase triglycerides, and contribute to inflammation, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Even a small amount—say 5 g, about the amount found in a serving of fast-food French fries—is enough to increase inflammation.

    Body fat is complex
    Body fat is getting more complicated. It was once thought of as basically inert; fat cells were like microscopic oil tankers that took on a small or expanding load of fat. Now we realize that fat is a very sophisticated and complex tissue. Fat in fact functions as an organ. Rather than just a passive or inert storage depot, fat is metabolically active and constantly communicating with other organs, including the brain, through a variety of hormones and chemical messengers.

    The brain is the fattiest organ in the body. More than 50% of the dry weight of the human brain is fat. It is structural fat contained in the membranes of neural cells and a key component of the synapses, or connections, between neural cells.

    Reading Your Fats Is Not So Tough
    According to the American Heart Association, everyone over 20 years of age, regardless of their previous high cholesterol history, should have a blood cholesterol test at least every 5 years. If you’ve been diagnosed with high cholesterol, and are controlling it with diet, you should be tested every year. People who take prescription medications to control cholesterol levels, like statin drugs, may need to get their cholesterol tested at least twice a year to not only check cholesterol levels, but to also check liver function.

    Today, many people know their cholesterol and triglyceride levels, just as they know their blood pressure. The theory is that the more thoroughly you understand these numbers and are able to put them to use, the more you’ll be able to maintain cardiovascular health. Frankly, ruling your life by the numbers makes for a miserable existence. Keeping vigilance over yourself tends to be a combination of prison guard and prisoner at the same time. No one reaches wellness by being statistically perfect. True wellness is beyond statistics, and even if medical markers are helpful, as of course they can be, the core of wellness lies elsewhere.

     

    Ask the Doctors: Restoring Hormonal Balance in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

    Question

    It has been more than 15 years that I suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The traditional treatment was with birth control pills. That seemed to work for a while but then again the same problem appeared. I stopped them in August 2011 and am now trying a progesterone cream. As a result I have a menstrual cycle but the cysts are still there. I am not obese, rather slim (48 kg and 158 tall), I do yoga and dance 3-4 times a week.

    They tell me that due to lack of ovulation it will be very difficult to have children if not stimulated with hormone fertility medications.
    Is this the only way to restore hormonal balance?

    Thank you for your advice.

    Eva

    Dr. Patel’s Response:

    Sheila Patel, M.D.

    Dear Eva,

    As you have been coping with PCOS for quite some time, you’re no doubt aware that while medical research has not yet been able to find the definitive cause of this disorder, many doctors believe that PCOS itself is a symptom of an underlying hormonal imbalance.  From the perspective of mind-body  medicine, there are many possible factors that can contribute to hormonal imbalance,  including elevated insulin, emotional stress, and low-grade inflammation.

    The healing system of Ayurveda would also look at underlying imbalances in the mind-body energies, known as doshas, as well as other lifestyle influences on health, including your daily routine and sleep patterns. Based on your individual balance and imbalances, Ayurveda would prescribe a multi-dimensional treatment with the goal of restoring balance to the entire mind-body physiology.

    From an Ayurvedic perspective, an imbalance in the reproductive tissue layer is the end result of imbalances at multiple levels and therefore likely requires a multi-dimensional approach to the treatment.  A thorough history, physical exam, and lifestyle evaluation would need to be done to give specific recommendations.

    I recommend that you find a health care provider in your area who has a holistic approach to health for further guidance. Here are also a few general guidelines that may help you create greater balance.

    Meditation.  Meditation is one of the most powerful healing practices we know of for restoring balance in all the tissues of the body.  It helps reduce stress and the production of “stress hormones” such as cortisol and adrenalin and has many other beneficial effects for physical and emotional health.  You may want to consider learning meditation with a Chopra Center certified instructor.  You can see if there is one in your area by clicking here.  Another good way to establish a meditation practice is to complete the Chopra Center’s 21-Day Meditation Challenge, which offers guided audio meditations and instruction. Learn more here.

    Cleanse or gentle detox.  You may want to consider a cleanse that is designed to bring you back into balance.  This will address imbalances at all tissue levels and help restore balance to the doshas.  You can find further guidance in  a previous article I wrote on seasonal detoxification. Read the article here. You may want to  consider a gentle oral herbal cleanse, such as Purify to optimize the function of the vital organs and tissues.

    Exercise.  From your question, you sound like you are active and at a healthy weight. That is excellent!  Keep up your activity and be sure that it includes aerobic activity in which you  work at an elevated heart rate and break a sweat for 20-30  minutes at least several times a week

    Supplements.  There are certain herbs that may help as well, when included in a holistic plan of action.  The specific herbs that are right for you will depend on your individual health – please ask your health care provider for further guidance.

    Emotional clearing.  It is important to explore any unresolved emotional issues, which will affect your hormonal functioning.  There are many powerful emotional release techniques, including the process developed by Chopra Center co-founder David Simon, M.D.  His book Free to Love, Free to Heal is a guidebook that you can use on your own to identify and release toxic emotions.  If you’re coping with a particularly deep issue and want to be guided in the process, you may also want to consider attending the Chopra Center’s Healing the Heart workshop.

    I wish you the best on your healing journey.

    Dr. Sheila Patel

     

    Send Us Your Questions

    If you have a question you would like to ask the Chopra Center medical staff, please email askthedoctors@chopra.com. Due to the volume of questions we receive,  the doctors are not able to respond personally to every query. If your question is selected, it will be posted with our response on the Healing Wisdom blog.

    *Note: The information in this article is intended for your educational use only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition and before undertaking any diet, fitness, or other health program.