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Brain and Yoga Pathways to longevity and happiness
The Yoga Sutra described the root causes of suffering as “Ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred and clinging to bodily life”. The Third Noble Truth is the cessation of suffering by refraining from doing things that make us suffer (Yoga Sutra 2.3). But how do we make sense of this or enact this in modern day life, which is arguably more complicated and less straightforward than life 2000 years ago.
Neural Pathways in the Brain, which if well used, becomes an easy route and over time becomes a super fast highway. Used often enough it might leave you acting without considering why. Fast forward to a testing day, the usual way in which one might manage this may involve a quick hit of something that makes you feel a bit better than before, a glass of wine, a delicious bar of chocolate or something more harmful. It’s understandable why you would want the immediate hit of something to make you feel good, this is what we call the dopamine effect, it hits the reward and pleasure centre of the brain and the thing that keeps us coming back for more. The job of Dopamine is to regulate reward, motivation, and pleasure and is associated with positive feelings, such as happiness and excitement.
For a moment let’s consider another feel good hormone – Serotonin and its primary function which is to regulate mood, sleep and appetite. Often called the “natural feel-good chemical,”it can help with the maintaining of emotional stability and happiness. The key differences being that Dopamine provides temporary pleasure in response to rewards, whilst serotonin creates a longer-lasting feeling of well-being.
Why does this matter? Returning back to the ‘testing day’, and knowing that the ‘easy and quick wins’ might be little innocuous dopamine filled acts, on this occasion you decide to try the path which is less well trodden. Sure it’s a bit (or a lot) over-grown, less defined and unclear but perhaps it’s worth the try and instead you take actions that increase the serotonin, such as an Epsom Salt Bath, a slow walk in nature, three minutes of breathing, or a 20 minute Yoga practice. These never need to be huge things and often it’s the little things that can make a difference in the longer term. However it takes repetition and time to help these over-grown pathways in the Brain become well trodden paths.
If you are looking to find ways to cultivate healthier habits, habits that have longer lasting effects on the brain, body and nervous system please check out my Yoga offerings and class schedule for more details.
