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-PROGRAM
-PEACE
-
-Self-Care Exercises to Reprogram
-Your Mind and Body
-
-JARED EDWARD RESER, Pu.D.
-Did you know the most dominant apes and monkeys are usually the kindest?
-They share the most food, groom others more often, break up fights, are slow to
-anger, and breathe in a relaxed manner. Those on the bottom of the social hierarchy
-are the opposite. They are stingy, combative, irritable, anxious, depressed, and they
-breathe shallowly. It is not easy for a submissive primate to become dominant.
-They have mindsets, mannerisms, and muscle tension that keep them from
-escaping their subordinate social strategy and the chronic stress it produces.
-
-All of this generalizes to people. If you want to be free of negative emotion, you need
-to rehabilitate physical trauma in your breath, eyes, face, voice, heart, gut, spine,
-and brain. Program Peace will coach you to do precisely this by first retraining your
-breathing pattern, and then walking you through dozens of innovative and effective
-self-care exercises. After creating new mindsets and mannerisms, and learning to
-reinvigorate muscles you never knew you had, you will find yourself more confident,
-healthier, kinder, and reprogrammed for peace.
-
-PROGRAM
-PEACE
-
-Self-Care Exercises to Reprogram
-Your Mind and Body
-
-JARED EDWARD RESER, Pu.D.
-
-
-About Program Peace
-
-Program Peace is a self-care system that will guide you through more than 200 activities and
-exercises designed to help your body function optimally. Organs throughout the human body
-learn to function suboptimally due to daily stress, strain, and negative emotions. Even a good
-night’s sleep doesn’t completely reverse these effects, and they accumulate over time. Stress,
-especially when chronic, dysregulates the nervous system and impairs the performance of the
-muscular, respiratory, and cardiovascular systems. The results of these changes are wide-
-ranging and harmful to our mental and physical health. Using the corrective exercises offered
-here will help you rehabilitate the damage, freeing you from pain and allowing you to feel
-comfortable in your own body. This system was designed to help you experience more energy,
-increased self-confidence, improved posture, and the ability to breathe freely.
-
-Your goal will be to unlearn the submissive and aggressive nonverbal behaviors that cause
-us so much stress and to replace them with healthy ways of breathing, moving, and thinking.
-The text will explain how stress and physical trauma are rooted in defensive nonverbal behavior
-that we share with other mammals and lay out the Program Peace method of overcoming
-them. Throughout the book, | combine modern science with my personal experiences to
-explain key concepts related to optimal well-being. Each chapter addresses a different bodily
-system and explains why you should use the exercises, how they can help you, and what you
-can expect your progress to look and feel like.
-
-A little more background on the book: | started developing it, along with its philosophy on
-life, morality, and healing in early childhood. | have been working weekly on the present text for
-more than 20 years. Much of the material in it has been available on my blog for more than ten
-years. | have been training clients to perform the exercises for more than five. | have read
-hundreds of related books and hundreds of scientific journal articles to inform and refine the
-content. The intended audience is everyone including people without a hint of anxiety or
-depression. However, it is also for physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers,
-life coaches, personal trainers, and other health and wellness professionals looking for safe,
-effective, and free ways to bring about growth and progress in their clients.
-
-The Importance of Diaphragmatic Breathing
-
-The Program Peace methodology is applied to organ systems all over the body but begins with
-the breath. After introducing the method in Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3 will teach you how to
-breathe in a way that activates the resting and healing division of your nervous system. The key
-is to breathe with maximal activation of the diaphragm. Mammals in a calm and peaceful state
-breathe diaphragmatically. When they are exposed to adversity, they instead breathe without
-the diaphragm, relying on the breathing muscles in their upper torsos. Known as distressed
-breathing, this is the body’s way of preparing itself for a threatening and hostile environment.
-Distressed breathing is an integral part of how animals survive in the wild, but too much of it
-promotes chronic hyperventilation. An animal that experiences ongoing mental or emotional
-trauma will eventually turn distressed breathing into a deep-seated habit. Due to how this
-affects its brain, the animal ends up in constant fear for its life.
-
-5
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Our nervous system will always prioritize short-term survival over long-term well-being as
-long as it assumes our environment is dangerous. This strategy holds even though it is
-completely unnecessary in the modern world where we are rarely in immediate physical
-danger. Most 21st-century humans are stuck in a state of distress because non-diaphragmatic
-breathing has been ingrained in their nervous system. It convinces their bodies that death may
-be imminent, dramatically increases muscle tension, and results in constant fatigue. Non-
-diaphragmatic breathing may be the primary reason why so many people endure persistent
-pain, age rapidly, experience unceasing negative emotions, and can never fully catch
-their breath.
-
-Like most adult mammals, you and | have learned to stifle and strain our diaphragm.
-Cumulatively, the non-peaceful moments in our lives have programmed us to breathe
-shallowly. Program Peace is designed to teach you how to reverse this by recruiting the
-diaphragm with every breath. This is the process of transitioning from short, shallow breaths to
-long, deep breaths. As your diaphragm strengthens from consistent use, its range of motion
-increases and your neurological control over it improves, allowing you to breathe more deeply
-and easily without even trying. It will take months, but the results are worth it. Adopting
-diaphragmatic breathing is one of the most significant changes you can make in your life
-because your body interprets it as indisputable proof that your environment is friendly
-and safe.
-
-Shortcomings of This Book
-
-| created the reprogramming exercises in this book to heal my anxiety. As | developed them,
-
-| thought they were original. After researching the details, | came to find that variations on
-some of them already existed in different clinical, spiritual, and self-improvement circles. It is
-difficult to look for precedent in self-help literature because it is not organized as well as
-academic literature. This book focuses on methods rather than recounting a history of past
-contributors. | apologize in advance if | have not given proper credit to similar work. However, |
-am quite confident that most of the exercises in these chapters cannot be found anywhere else.
-
-Some readers may find the technical terms in this book to be overwhelming. | have tried
-my best to make sentences with jargon accessible so that you can get the gist even if you don’t
-know the word. | wanted to keep the science in the text for the science-minded and other
-interested parties, but please don’t get frustrated by it. If you encounter some unfamiliar
-terminology, just power through it and try to enjoy the read. There are only a few unfamiliar
-words that you will need to memorize because they pop up over and over. These include
-“parasympathetic nervous system,” “developmental plasticity,” and “partial muscular
-contraction.”
-
-The book is very long. Skim through it if you have to. You can get an overview by reading
-the bullet points at the end of each chapter. Please take your time reading and don’t feel
-pressured to finish it or to read it linearly. Chapters 3 and 11 may be the most valuable to
-people trying to change their breathing. By all means, dog-ear the pages, highlight text you like,
-and write your notes in the margins. This will increase its usefulness to you and allow you to
-more easily reference the passages or exercises you found helpful. The book can seem
-repetitive at times. | intentionally structured it this way to get the therapeutic and big-picture
-Preface
-
-messages across from different angles. | also often use imperative sentences, but | am not
-trying to be bossy—just a helpful coach.
-
-These pages contain over 800 illustrations. | created most of them by tracing photographs
-that | took. Each of the illustrations on the cover of the book corresponds to an analogy in the
-text. | hoped that it would be fun for the reader to uncover the hidden meanings and have a
-way to reference some of the major principles of Program Peace at a glance.
-
-Much of This Book Is Theoretical
-
-| must be clear that much of what is written in this book is speculative. | have strong convictions
-about it coming from scientific knowledge and personal experience. However, as with much
-else in alternative health, there is no authority to confirm these hypotheses. The writing
-alternates between offering personal anecdotes and theories and reporting on clinical findings
-and research literature. To help readers discern between speculation and fact, | try to make it
-clear which statements are supported by scientific evidence. They are often accompanied by a
-bibliographical citation of which there are over 350. Many of the uncited claims are my
-opinions. | think of them as unproven but heavily informed by scientific knowledge and based
-on a new synthesis of diverse fields.
-
-It would be difficult to reach a quick and firm conclusion about the efficacy of the
-techniques outlined here. Empirically validating clinical methods in psychology often takes
-decades. It can take just as long in medicine. The Program Peace activities and exercises have
-not been subjected to controlled, large-scale experimental studies. You can’t just assign
-randomly selected people to the treatment conditions like you would with drugs and placebos.
-To benefit from the exercises takes time, dedication, and discipline that only comes from having
-a deep understanding of why and how the exercises are beneficial in the long run. Of course,
-that’s exactly what this book attempts to provide.
-
-| have spent the last ten years stringently testing the exercises. In this time, | have used
-myself as a guinea pig to evaluate and hone the techniques. Since doing this, | have trained
-dozens of clients in the Program Peace method. Working with individuals, listening to their
-feedback, and seeing their bodies and minds transform have given me conviction that the
-exercises here can help you. | hope that as you read about them and perform them yourself,
-you can see clearly how and why they lead to improvement. Even if you never perform any of
-the exercises but simply read the book, you will learn actionable rules of thumb for maintaining
-and improving the condition of your body.
-
-This book’s exercises are subject to validation through your experience. | am quite
-confident you will quickly see and feel results that place you on a path toward expressing your
-optimal genetic potential. If this book helps enough people, it will influence scientists and
-doctors in behavioral medicine to look at the proposed methods carefully and further test and
-refine them. The present copy is merely the first iteration of this book. Future revisions will
-reflect further user feedback and research-based findings. | welcome community criticism and
-collaboration. | also want anyone to feel free to create content based on what is written here.
-If the program works for you and you think it can help others, please share it. | sincerely hope
-that the Program Peace method will be successful in expanding your repertoire of self-
-regulatory healing practices.
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Disclaimer
-
-| cannot guarantee that the activities recommended here are completely safe for everyone.
-Some of them ask you to perturb traumatized areas of the body that could become injured
-or lead to any number of medical complications. Although most of the activities here are
-harmless, some have the potential to cause damage if performed incorrectly or by someone
-with a preexisting injury or condition. The exercises that have the highest potential to cause
-harm are noted.
-
-The method and accompanying documentation are furnished “as is” and without warranty.
-You assume the entire risk as to the results you may obtain by use or misuse of the exercises.
-Please perform them with caution, restraint, and common sense. Most importantly, none of
-these exercises should produce pain or discomfort after the exercise is completed. If it hurts
-afterward or even the next day, you are doing it wrong. Discontinue participation in any
-exercise or activity that causes pain. In such an event, medical consultation should be obtained
-immediately.
-
-The materials, information, and techniques in this book are general in nature, reflect the
-opinions of Jared Reser, and are not intended to be a substitute for medical counsel.
-
-The content provided is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat,
-cure, or prevent any disease. No specific claims are made regarding the treatment of medical
-diseases or disorders. Always consult your doctor or health care provider before making any
-medical decisions. Many of the psychological topics brought up here should be explored with
-a qualified mental health professional. Importantly, the Program Peace activities and exercises
-are to be used with traditional therapies and not in place of mainstream treatment.
-
-How to Support
-
-This entire book was never copyrighted and can be found for free at www.programpeace.com
-as a series of webpages and also as a single downloadable PDF. | chose to self-publish the
-printed version of this book to keep the price as low as possible. There is zero profit margin as
-the price only covers the printing and distribution costs. All illustrations are in the public
-domain. The dedicated app, available for iOS and Android, is also free. The tutorial videos are
-free on YouTube. However, if you would like to contribute to Program Peace, you can do so
-through the Patreon link here: patreon.com/programpeace. You can also make a donation via
-PayPal here: paypal.me/programpeace. Your help goes toward future content and updates.
-Thank you for your consideration. To support, you can also join or engage with our online
-community. Find us on Instagram (@program_peace), Twitter (@programpeace1),
-
-and Facebook and YouTube (just type in “Program Peace”).
-
-Acknowledgments
-
-| express my gratitude to my brother, William Reser, and my parents, Daniel Reser and Paula
-Freund, for fruitful and encouraging discussions. | would especially like to thank my mother for
-providing incisive feedback on the manuscript. Special thanks to Tyran Grillo Ph.D., Matt Harvey
-Ph.D., and Beverly Gearreald, each of whom edited multiple chapters. Any remaining mistakes
-are my own. Thank you to Laura Duffy Design for help with the book cover. | want to thank my
-friends, clients, and all the people who have written emails, posted comments, and made other
-Preface
-
-contributions to this work. | greatly appreciate the thoughtful insights and criticisms of
-everyone who has been involved, and | dedicate this book to these cherished friends.
-
-About the Author
-
-Jared Edward Reser has been developing the Program Peace exercises for over a decade.
-
-He holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in brain and cognitive science from the University of
-Southern California. He also has a Master’s in psychology from Pepperdine University. He has
-been certified as a personal trainer and health coach. He specializes in writing theoretical
-research articles and emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to integrative biology,
-cognitive neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. You can find out more about his research at
-http://www.jaredreser.com.
-
-Welcome to Program Peace.
-
-Jared Edward Reser, Ph.D.
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-10
-Program Peace: Testimonials and Praise
-
-The following are unsolicited message board comments about Program Peace:
-
-Anonymous
-
-“| found this site several months ago and it has been such a blessing. Your method sounded too
-good to be true, but it made perfect sense and it worked. Thank you so much for sharing this
-with us.”
-
-Andrew S.
-“After looking through the techniques used in this article, | knew there was something to
-this...So | started doing it myself, 5 days a week, for about half an hour... and it works. “
-
-Jinu G.
-“| had immediate relief... | am going to try this every day. “
-
-Jennifer L.
-“Wow! So happy to finally find a resource about all of this! Seriously...this is a life changer.
-Thank you. “
-
-Dalia M.
-“Wow. Just wow... | just went through the whole routine and my splitting headache has been
-relieved. This is my new favorite thing to do. Thank you! “
-
-Jill
-“| bet I’m clearing away all sorts of garbage. | actually feel “clear headed” — like brain fog is just
-going away. | can’t wait to keep going. This is profound. “
-
-Anonymous
-“Fantastic, instant relief. “
-
-Jay M.
-“This has caused me a great deal of depression and anxiety in the past years of my life. Now I
-feel that a huge weight has been lifted. | can’t wait to continue with this for the rest of my life.
-
-Brian S.
-
-“Suffice to say that finding your website has been an absolute godsend. In the past | had never
-found a guide that actually taught me how to breathe diaphragmatically and not just faking it
-with stomach movement. Within a few months practice | have experienced a massive reduction
-in all negative emotions. | feel substantially happier, healthier, and more like myself.
-
-11
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-12
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-My experience with chronic stress was an extreme version of the same issue that everyone on
-this planet contends with. Thus, recounting my story of recovery provides a vivid case study
-with which to compare your experience. It also allows me to describe how the Program Peace
-exercises relieved my symptoms so that you can see how they can relieve yours. My symptoms
-were pretty bad.
-
-My breathing was shallow and rapid. My eyebrows were constantly raised. | was always
-squinting and had purple creases under my eyes. | couldn’t maintain eye contact for long before
-my eyes would dart away of their own accord. | had an enduring lump in my throat and a
-hoarse and high voice. | had persistent kinks in my neck, tweaks in my lower back, and a
-clenched jaw. | mumbled and stammered when | spoke. | held my breath during conversations.
-| gasped between sentences and looked at the floor when speaking. | had almost no capacity to
-glare, frown, flare my nostrils, or straighten my neck in the company of others.
-
-Throughout my twenties, | was deeply afflicted by anxiety, depression, and bodily
-discomfort. | was unaware that the symptoms described in the previous paragraph were causal
-factors in this discomfort. All | knew is that | felt perpetually distressed and couldn’t figure out
-why. The feeling would not abate and was resulting in chronic, low-grade pain. This made me
-wonder: “Where in my body do | hold this pain, and how can | access and extinguish it?” | found
-the physical manifestations of my stress to be completely elusive. | tried many different clinical
-and alternative methods to improve my condition without success. Popular breathing exercises,
-medical recommendations, psychological therapy, and stress reduction programs did nothing
-for me. So, | began experimenting on myself using methods derived from my knowledge of
-social cognition, neuroplasticity, and mammalian biology. The result was a system designed to
-train the body to reflect an optimal environment.
-
-The core idea is this: Had you been raised in a perfect world with zero negativity, the way
-you hold your body would be painless and symptom-free. But no one is raised in an ideal world.
-Our spines, facial muscles, breathing musculature, and brains have internalized trauma over our
-life course. Trillions of individual cells are altered on a molecular level. The alterations cause
-muscles and soft tissues throughout the body to become stiff and sore. These insidious changes
-rob us of our composure and put us in a metaphorical straitjacket. That straitjacket constricts
-more and more with the passage of time. Left unchecked, it fits a little tighter every day
-until death. The system presented here will teach you how to recompose yourself to escape
-this stranglehold.
-
-This book presents activities and exercises for you to practice, each accompanied by
-relevant scientific background for perspective. The focus will be on comparative physiology,
-explaining how our bodies function by comparing us with other animals. Considering these
-parallels helps us make inferences about ideal functioning in humans. We saw an example of
-this in the Preface: When mammals are calm, they breathe with the respiratory diaphragm.
-When they are distressed, they tense the diaphragm and breathe with other respiratory
-muscles. The more traumatized a mammal becomes, the more tense and inactive its
-diaphragm becomes.
-
-13
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-In fact, the diaphragm is one of your body’s main repositories of trauma. The tightening
-stranglehold discussed above partially corresponds to cumulative changes to your breathing
-style that make you breathe more shallowly, unevenly, and rapidly. You can release this trauma
-by training your diaphragm, which we will start later in this chapter before focusing on it in
-depth in Chapter 3. You will learn a series of methods to make your breathing permanently
-deeper, smoother, and slower. This sends an “it’s okay to relax” message to the entire body.
-
-By training your diaphragm to preside over your breathing, you can convince your body to
-assume that it resides in a habitat free from danger. The remainder of the book will guide you
-through exercises that combine this form of peaceful breathing with various postures,
-expressions, and forms of body language. In performing them, you will reprogram yourself for
-confidence, health, and peace.
-
-Stress Resides in the Way We Carry Ourselves
-
-Most of us have, knowingly or not, experienced intense, long-term periods of stress. In my case,
-it happened throughout my twenties. In the morning, | would wake up feeling anxious. After
-just a few social encounters, my heart would be racing and my adrenaline overwhelming.
-Friends and acquaintances were often alarmed by the way | behaved, wondering what | could
-possibly be so stressed about. | would greet a friend, and the expression on my face would
-cause them to scan the immediate environment for threats because the fear on my face
-suggested to them we were in immediate danger. People would ask me: “What is it that you’re
-so worried about?” To which | would reply: “I’m rarely worried about anything specific. It must
-be biological.”
-
-Under conditions of chronic stress, symptoms continually worsen over time. My default
-stress level had been elevated over many years. Upon going to bed, instead of allowing myself
-to return to a tranquil baseline, | fell asleep more frantic than the night before. When this
-happens, the body’s systems become stuck in a state of overdrive. Thought processes become
-overclocked. It becomes hard to fall asleep, difficult to rest, and impossible to relax. Many of us
-reach a point at which our experience of life is like a “bad trip,” infused with the sensations of
-both withdrawal and overdose. As tolerance to the sensations of stress builds, many people
-barely notice how deranged they have allowed themselves to become.
-
-Pressing social concerns and professional responsibilities cause us to ignore the symptoms.
-As we habituate to the physical and mental anguish, our body continues making long-term
-adjustments that further entrench us in overexertion. This is compounded by the fact that it has
-historically been very difficult to successfully treat chronic stress. Modern medicine has no real
-solution aside from drugs and rest. This is why most people do little to nothing about it.
-
-After a particularly bad day, while lying in bed trying to meditate, | had an epiphany. |
-recognized the way | was holding my body as the source of my mental suffering. For the first
-time, | could feel my anxiety not as diffuse and psychological, but as aching localized in my gut,
-stiffness in distinct spinal muscles, as agonizing contortions of my face, and as the misery of
-stiff, shaky breathing.
-
-Recognizing that | did not hold my body in this way as a child, | immediately wanted to
-know how | had come to do it. From that point on, | have been working to discover how the
-body and mind compensate after being exposed to trauma. In creating this system, | spent
-countless hours analyzing my behavior and how | carried myself in minute detail. After
-
-14
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-comparing my mannerisms with the scientific literature on the manifestations of stress in
-mammalian biology, | came to realize | was a model of precisely what not to do. This process of
-self-deconstruction took me from being the most nervous person | knew to the calmest.
-
-Why is stress so extensive in humans? It is because it had survival benefits. As a result of
-our prehistoric past, we react to minor threats as if they were matters of life and death. Most
-modern human stress derives from mundane frustrations that our body’s evolved mechanisms
-misinterpret as life-threatening dangers. Although most people don’t realize it, most of these
-minor “threats” are ultimately social in nature. | believe that the predominant source of stress
-is the apprehension of social conflict and the tension that it creates. Deep down, we are afraid
-that others will reject us if we are too calm. We make ourselves feel uneasy and excitable, so
-that our outward manifestations of stress communicate goodwill. | hope this book will convince
-you that you don’t need to manufacture and advertise stress to avoid conflict and make friends.
-
-Illustration 1.1: A. Facial muscles; B. Cross-section of the heart; C. Diaphragm and bottom of the rib cage.
-
-Submissive Nonverbal Behavior Is in Our Genes
-
-Nonverbal social displays perpetuate the majority of our bodily tension. In biology, a “display” is
-an innate behavior that has evolved to serve a communicative purpose in members of the same
-species. Many such signals are observed in the animal kingdom. They are often used to
-negotiate conflict. For example, among wolves, the pack leader has a dominant posture: head
-and ears up, chest forward, tail stiff, and a confident swagger.‘ The other members of the pack
-(especially if unrelated to the leader) walk with heads lowered, ears back, and tails low and
-wagging. They remain behind the pack leader when traveling. If the alpha wolf challenges them,
-they will back away, bend down, or even lie on the ground exposing their vulnerable
-underbellies. It is clear to see that constant submissive signaling imprisons beta wolves in a
-suboptimal state of being.
-
-Subordinate dogs use much of the same body language.” They lick or swallow nervously,
-display submissive grins, freeze, and tremble. Many dogs in the act of submission will dribble
-urine or pee on themselves without even lifting their leg. Canines are not unique in this. All
-mammals resort to their own set of subordination displays. They do it to avoid the escalation
-from contest to attack. To avoid outright fighting and bodily harm, lower-ranking individuals
-send a message: “You don’t need to undermine me, because | am already undermining myself.”
-
-15
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Due to how social primates are, submissive displays may be more important to them than
-to any other order of mammal. As primates, humans constantly send out signals about
-inferiority and resignation. Indeed, much of our nonverbal behavior exists to communicate
-deference to other humans. When we encounter a dominant member of our species, we
-restrict our breathing, subvert our posture, speak in a high voice, and tighten our faces.
-Monkeys and apes routinely do the same.’ It is essential to realize that these displays are
-controlled by innate, unconscious processes.° Although you may not think you are inferior, we
-were all born with neural pathways that cause us to adopt postures signifying inferiority. These
-pathways are encoded in our DNA and soldered into our nervous system before birth.
-
-Samuel Johnson said, “No two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire
-an evident superiority over the other.”® If this is true, the average person acts submissive at
-least 50% of the time. Even when we meet someone new, regardless of their status, we stoop
-our necks, stop flexing our buttocks, raise our shoulders, and stand shorter to make certain we
-do not offend them. This is the equivalent of the principal mammalian submissive display of
-rolling over to expose the belly.
-
-We have all known since preschool that bullies don’t want us to appear calmer than they
-are. If they think we are too relaxed, they are often willing to become violent. To address this,
-we learn to use anxiety as a form of social lubrication. | would go as far as to say that very little
-of my anxiety was due to the usual purported cause: physical trauma and rumination about it. |
-was not a victim of domestic abuse as a child and have never been molested. | believe that
-most of my anxiety and depression was due to the cumulative effects of submissive signaling.
-
-These ritualized, self-destructive displays extend to our breathing. We unconsciously
-assume that to be respectful and friendly, we must make our breathing shallow. We are afraid
-that if our breaths are deep and long, other people will find it offensive. Again, shallow
-breathing is inherited from our mammalian ancestry. It shows other individuals that we are
-taking the present encounter seriously rather than being too relaxed.
-
-The use of submissive “tells” communicates a history of victimization. They can also
-communicate that we are tired, distressed, possibly crippled, and are not poised for fighting.
-Instead, they show we are poised for flight. This would have kept humans safe during hunting
-and gathering times. It may also have kept us safe from larger kids on elementary school
-playgrounds. But it only holds us back in modern adulthood. Unless, of course, you are
-in prison.
-
-For an inmate to avoid attracting negative attention in jail, criminologists recommend using
-submissive body language. Their advice? Never puff up your chest, minimize eye contact, don’t
-whistle, don’t sing, don’t dance, and, above all, keep your head down (pointed toward the
-ground). Nonsubmissive body language is taken as disrespectful. Acting depressed keeps others
-from wanting to attack you. This was probably a major concern for our ancestors as many
-experts today believe the major predator of prehistoric humans was other humans.
-
-People who have close encounters with 400-pound silverback gorillas in the wild must do
-the same. The more subdued they act, the less likely they are to be attacked. So, primatologists
-in the field slump over, act sheepish, move very slowly, and look straight at the ground,
-avoiding any eye contact. Even though they are perfect strangers amid adult gorillas and their
-young, as long as they continue to do these things, they are usually completely safe. But you
-don’t live among wild gorillas, and you are likely not reading this book from a jail cell, so don’t
-
-16
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-resort to conciliatory gestures. It is not your responsibility to placate anyone with postural
-concessions. Instead, we should make it our responsibility to overcome our genetic inclinations
-to do so and influence others to do the same, even if only by example.
-
-Handicapping Signals Buy Mercy
-
-Animal behaviorists point out that the costs of handicapping signals may enhance their
-perceived value. Because submissive behaviors hurt us, others recognize them as valid. Tensing
-our muscles and using inefficient postures usually results in an energy deficit, meaning that a
-subordinate individual is “spending” energy to “buy” mercy. The crouching and cringing that
-nondominant wolves exhibit require extra energy and come with personal costs (such as
-muscular strain) yet communicate that they are loyal, servile members of the pack. Thus,
-capitulation responses are authentic signals that we are operating with an impediment.
-
-Blushing and crying have been conceptualized in a similar way.’ Indeed, a blush can be
-unwanted, but often the costs to the blusher can be outweighed by the benefits. The
-involuntary aspect of a blush declares sensitivity to social norms and proves to others that you
-feel shame or guilt and value the group. Crying is an extreme form of self-handicapping. Some
-scientists believe that its evolved purpose is to self-sabotage normal vision. It also simulates
-respiratory distress. Sobbing thus signals acquiescence to a potential assailant. It convinces the
-aggressor that we are no longer a threat. There are many similar displays among animals, all of
-which are ways of saying, “Look, I’m going to all this extra trouble just to prove to you that I’m
-not an enemy.”
-
-Chimpanzees have obvious ways to signal that they have been defeated: walking in an
-apathetic way, covering their face, hitting themselves, and lying prostrate. Primates depend on
-these submissive displays because they constantly compete with members of their close-knit
-group for mating opportunities and food. Generally, hierarchies among males govern access to
-fertile females, whereas female hierarchies govern access to food resources, as these are a
-limiting factor for pregnancy and lactation. As modern humans, we usually don’t fight physically
-over sex or meals, so why are our inclinations for submission so strong?
-
-The answer is that humans don’t just self-handicap to display deference. Unfortunately for
-us, we also do it to be likable. In humans, signaling a handicap can communicate modesty,
-conveying that one is not shameless or brazen. We demonstrate anxiety to build rapport with
-others, smooth over issues, and prove our friendliness. We do our best to act ingratiating,
-taking on bodily tension to do so. It is part of people-pleasing and the need to be accepted, but
-it is incredibly draining. This book will introduce a philosophy for dealing with these pressures,
-describing how to be a calm, confident, likable person without recourse to submissive signaling.
-
-We use submissive displays around those we see as our superiors, our equals, and even our
-inferiors. Even very dominant people use subordination displays to be endearing and get
-people to open up and trust them. Therefore, it is not always clear whether submissive
-signaling is better characterized as weakness or as a form of social intelligence. It depends on
-the circumstances: primarily on the specific display in question and how long it is used. Before
-we discuss this let’s look at comparable displays in other animals.
-
-17
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Submissive and Dominant Displays in Animals
-
-Dominant and submissive displays occur in almost all animal species, from insects to fish to the
-great apes.® Threatening intimidation displays are meant to impress, making the animal bigger
-or emphasizing its physical dominance. They involve bristling hair, ruffling feathers, raising skin
-folds, baring teeth, displaying horns, emitting loud sounds, making quick and powerful
-movements, and adopting exaggerated postures.
-
-When a western silverback gorilla wants to intimidate a rival, he will start throwing objects,
-pounding his chest, kicking his legs, and running sideways when approached. The fur of
-dominant chimps stands on end to make them appear larger, and they walk with exaggerated
-weight. They gallop, run in circles, hit things, perform somersaults, and produce a wide range of
-loud barking and hooting vocalizations.
-
-Dominant lizards perform pushups, bobbing their heads up and down, displaying their
-muscles and athletic prowess for others to see. This display shows off the bright coloring on
-their throats and sides and indicates that they are in prime physical condition. Many male
-lizards raise themselves on their legs and arch their backs to signify territorial dominance. And
-remember, lizards are not utterly distinct from people. Three hundred million years ago, before
-mammals, our ancestors were reptiles crawling the earth. We have inherited many of our most
-primal instincts and social signals—as well as the structure of the oldest and most reflexive
-parts of our brains—from these miniature dragons. This inheritance is the reason that the
-dominance displays of modern reptiles seem so familiar.
-
-illustration 1.2: A. Common lizard; B. Tyrannosaurus rex; C. Iguana.
-
-Submissive displays, on the other hand, usually make the animal look smaller and
-weaker. They involve bowing, cowering, stooping, shaking, and exerting efforts to minimize the
-appearance of physical assets. Some animals have bizarre, ritualistic signals, as with some lizard
-species that display submission by raising a front leg and waving it in a slow, circular motion.
-Like a loyal subject genuflecting in the presence of royalty, chimpanzees with poor fighting
-records cower immediately during a confrontation. They shrink down and whimper. They may
-vomit, their legs shake, and their posture collapses.
-
-For the most part, these displays are hardwired. For example, young male rhesus monkeys
-that have never been exposed to adult males will give subordination displays instinctively when
-they first encounter them. They involuntarily bow the head and adopt a bent-over posture. We
-don’t realize it or think about it, but our subordination displays are similarly instinctive.
-
-18
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-Submissive Displays in Apes Dominant Displays in Apes
-
-Withdrawal, flight, crouching, screaming,
-gaze aversion, ceasing activity, freezing,
-grimacing or grinning, peeking, trembling,
-pulling the limbs close to the body, moving
-out of the way of dominant members, and
-startling in response to their actions
-
-Open-mouthed threat, nostril flare, direct
-stare, thumping the ground, lunging, tense
-mouth, strutting, mounting, chasing,
-yawning, genital display, chest-beating,
-sprawling, gnashing teeth, barking/roaring,
-destroying vegetation, breaking up fights,
-dragging branches, drumming on trees
-
-Table 1.1: Common Hierarchical Displays Used by Chimps,
-
-Bonobos, Gorillas, Orangutans, and Gibbons
-
-Too often, being fair, fun, and friendly toward others involves suboptimal displays. This is
-because the neural circuits responsible for submissive behavior were repurposed by natural
-selection to help us get along. Just as adult pair bonding in mammals evolved from the same
-brain machinery that was initially responsible for creating the mother/infant bond,’ so many of
-our affiliative instincts evolved from submissive displays.
-
-Involuntary Submissive Displays are the Source of Our Stress
-
-Ordinarily, we don’t use optimal postures because we are afraid they will be threatening to
-others. This is why, for instance, we rarely stand completely straight or lift our hands above our
-heads. This is unfortunate because when authentic and combined with positive affect,
-dominant displays can be calming and reassuring to people around us. Any good leader uses
-them to this effect. But because most of us never learn to use dominant displays in positive
-ways, we grow up associating them with bad experiences. For instance, classmates might have
-seen us walking with our heads up, taken offense, and tried to intimidate us into adopting a
-compliant, head-down posture. Experiences like these are the reason that performing optimal
-displays makes you breathe shallowly and become tense.
-
-The table below lists submissive (suboptimal) displays and their dominant (optimal)
-counterparts. These are just a handful of those considered in this book, but they are a good
-start. While reading the table below, make a mental determination of which displays you use
-most and to what extent. Think about how you employ these displays in different scenarios,
-such as when you are by yourself at home, when you are with friends, and when you are
-
-in public.
-
-19
-
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Submissive Display Dominant Display
-
-Breathing short, quick, shallow, uneven,
-and through the mouth
-
-Breathing long, slow, deep, smooth, and
-through the nose
-
-Muscles tense and strained
-
-Muscles calm and relaxed
-
-Eyes looking down
-
-Eyes looking up
-
-Darting gaze
-
-Eyes capable of holding a prolonged gaze
-
-Minimized eye contact
-
-Steady eye contact
-
-Eyes blinking
-
-Eyes unblinking
-
-Eyes squinting
-
-Eyes wide open
-
-Raised eyebrows
-
-Relaxed eyebrows
-
-Face tense and wincing
-
-Face completely relaxed
-
-Jaw and chin tense
-
-Jaw and chin completely relaxed
-
-Trembling movement
-
-Smooth, steady movement
-
-Flinching and startling
-
-Zero flinch or startle
-
-Tense sneering, blushing, and crying facial
-muscles
-
-Relaxed sneering, blushing, and crying facial
-muscles
-
-Neck hunched
-
-Neck straight
-
-Head facing down
-
-Head horizontal or up
-
-Gluteus limp, hips tilted forward, genitals
-retracted
-
-Gluteus flexed, hips neutral, genitals thrust
-forward
-
-Middle back curved and tight
-
-Middle back straight and relaxed
-
-Shoulders raised
-
-Shoulders down
-
-Abdominals either flaccid or tense
-
-Abdominals appropriately toned
-
-Voice high, soft, and speaking quickly
-
-Voice deep, loud, and commanding
-
-Mumbling, stuttering, stammering
-
-Articulating clearly and with conviction
-
-Stilted, halting body language
-
-Free, open body language
-
-Body taking up as little space as possible
-
-Body taking up as much space as possible
-
-Table 1.2: Submissive Displays vs. Dominant Displays in Humans
-
-We often refrain from using the dominant displays in Table 1.2 above because they might
-make people feel uncomfortable. The more we suppress them, the more our ability to use
-dominant nonverbals withers away due to disuse. This book will provide a thorough description
-of healthy, safe, well-functioning use of dominant nonverbal behavior.
-
-How we carry ourselves has been molded by other people’s reactions to our posture.
-Hundreds of elements of our body language have individual learning histories and have been
-either positively or negatively reinforced until they reached their current settings. This
-reinforcement is sometimes outright, as when our parents tell us not to stare, but is often
-subtle, as when peers ignore us until we take the bass out of our voice. The people who
-influence you to send them submissive signals may not be doing so because they dislike you. It
-may just be because they take it as flattery and don’t want you to stop flattering them.
-Regardless, you did not choose your current postural settings; they were inadvertently chosen
-throughout the trial and error of your social learning. Most of them were selected during
-
-20
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-childhood and adolescence when you were surrounded by immature people and relatively
-immature yourself.
-
-As you step out of your room, get out of your car, or walk into the grocery store, you are
-constantly trying to determine how you should hold your body. You are gauging how much
-impunity you can walk around with. You unconsciously scan each area to see whether there is
-anyone you will have to cower before. This behavior traces back to experiences you had in
-kindergarten. Even in adulthood, we relate to people as if they are about to physically attack us.
-We overcompensate by being chummy and compliant, totally out of proportion with any
-existing social threat. This keeps us from being our authentic selves. Prepare to leave all that in
-the past and hold your body like there is nothing and no one to be afraid of.
-
-Use activities 1 and 2 below to get a sense of where you sit on this continuum, between
-the two extremes of submission and dominance, in your neighborhood.
-
-Introductory Activity #1.1: An Optimal Walk Around the Block
-
-Take a walk around your block. While doing so, observe your use of submissive displays.
-Remember that the dacile you is not the real you. It is a fake character you have come to play
-to get along with people. As you read through this book, you are going to dismantle this role,
-and you can start now.
-
-Think about the behaviors in Table 1.2 above and try to determine how submissive your
-posture and body language are. As you walk, experiment with using dominant displays. How
-many of them can you use at the same time before you start to feel self-conscious?
-
-Introductory Activity #1.2: An Invisible Walk Around the Block
-
-Take another walk around the block, but this time either put on a coat, hat, and sunglasses or
-simply pretend that you are invisible. Think: “No one can judge me because no one can see
-me.” If you were truly invisible, how would you comport yourself? How would your body
-language change? During this exercise, many people notice themselves using fewer
-suboptimal displays. What did you notice?
-
-In the past, | thought that interpreting social interactions in terms of status wasn’t
-productive or informative because the concepts of dominance and submission were passé. This
-proclamation of indifference toward the social hierarchy made me feel insightful and unique. It
-took time to realize that this stance was a play for status in itself.
-
-Most people publicly pretend that the status hierarchy doesn’t exist and that there is
-nothing submissive about them. However, many experts see dominance and submission as the
-fundamental concepts in social science, the same way mass and energy are the fundamental
-concepts in physics.?° They are also key concepts of most relationships, including working
-relationships, in which individuals rely on one another to achieve their goals. As such, it is
-crucial to identify and efficiently navigate dominance games. This book is not trying to influence
-
-21
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-you to think about status more than you already do. It is meant to get you to think about it,
-and be negatively affected by it, less.
-
-A Description of My Submissiveness
-
-At this point it is helpful to use my history as an example. From my teens through my twenties,
-| hung out with a rough crowd. A number of my friends were convicted criminals and former
-gang members. Several were brawny athletes, while others were drug addicts. | enjoyed their
-companionship, but | was unaware of the extent to which | felt compelled to send them
-subordination signals. | didn’t realize it at the time, but around them, | acted modestly at best
-and timid at worst.
-
-Incarcerated people adopt exaggeratedly meek displays and carry these with them after
-being released from jail. Burly athletes commonly demand tribute from others in the form of
-deferential body language. Drug addicts exhibit some of the worst composure and breathing
-habits of anyone. Having these people as companions caused me to unknowingly amplify my
-existing submissive signaling to prove that | was an ally, not a competitor. | often felt courteous
-and gracious while sending these displays, but even minuscule nonoptimal displays become
-entrenched over the long term. Moreover, the more often you are submissive, the more others
-expect that behavior, and the more likely they are to be offended when you try to switch to
-more assertive behavior.
-
-Ilustration 1.3: A. Snarling dog; B. Subordinate wolf licking the dominant wolf.
-
-You may have experienced trying to become more confident and assertive only to face
-social rejection. Here’s how it happened to me. In my twenties, | tried to be more assertive at
-work. Away from my friends, | attempted to reduce my subordination signaling, doing my best
-to be calm and confident on the job. But my coworkers could tell from my breathing and facial
-tension that | was accustomed to using inferior mannerisms. They saw that | was attempting to
-withhold submissive signals from them. This made them angry, caused them to dislike me, and
-led to social rejection.
-
-Submissive habits, social reinforcement, and accumulating tension continue to snowball
-once they start rolling. By my late twenties, | couldn’t even pretend to be calm around anyone
-| knew. Each new acquaintance immediately assumed, from the way | presented myself,
-that | was their underling. | constantly felt that people were condescending and dismissive.
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-| couldn’t see it, but it was my own fault. People couldn’t respect me because | acted like |
-didn’t respect myself. The condescension started to make me into a bitter, resentful person.
-
-Crucially, the social dynamics at play are not about what you say but how you say it. It’s the
-nonverbal behaviors that matter. If you saw a written transcript of my speech as a stressed-out
-28-year-old, you might think | seemed chivalrous. But if you saw a video, you would
-immediately perceive me as fainthearted and jittery. At the time, | thought that people
-mistakenly perceived my kindness as weakness. Rather, they perceived my shortness of breath,
-my cowering posture, and cringing expressions as weakness.
-
-Submissiveness is not just a social phenomenon. Once submissive actions become
-ingrained quirks, the stress and heartache they promote will negatively affect your mental and
-physical health. In my case, the symptoms were extreme. In addition to anxiety and depression,
-| showed other psychiatric symptoms of stress, such as a disrupted attention span, a working
-memory deficit, and panic attacks. | developed medical complications related to stress,
-including diagnoses such as esophageal achalasia, dyshidrotic eczema, male pattern balding,
-low testosterone, and outbreaks of cherry hemangiomas. | had back pain, frozen shoulder,
-tennis elbow, coccydynia, excessive cervical and lumbar lordosis, forward head posture, hip
-bursitis, unequal leg length, plantar fasciitis, Osgood-Schlatter disease, temporomandibular
-joint dysfunction, and numerous other structural misalignments and asymmetries. Medical
-professionals recognize each of these as linked to chronic stress.
-
-Since | developed the exercises in this book, all those conditions, disorders, and symptoms
-have disappeared, and none have returned. Having had this experience and familiarizing myself
-with the vast body of scientific literature that relates stress to disease, | have concluded that
-submissive displays and the associated bodily tension are among the most pressing public
-health problems worldwide. However, it is not only preventable; it is also entirely reversible.
-
-Even if all environmental sources of stress disappeared from your life, it would still be
-challenging to eliminate the lasting trauma already present in your body. Once your breathing
-has become hurried and your muscles have developed knots, it is very difficult to reverse this
-without employing the techniques in this book. Healing yourself with the Program Peace
-exercises can feel uncomfortable. To be free of trauma, you must work with and through its
-physical manifestations. Self-massaging achy muscles, overriding your shallow breathing style,
-flexing your way into better posture, and performing the various exercises within this book
-require resolve and determination. The good news? Even a little at a time adds up fast.
-
-Chronic Use of Submissive Displays Leads to Deep Trauma
-
-We often maintain a specific submissive display for long stretches of time. Many displays never
-abate. For example, some people spend their lives speaking in a voice that is much higher in
-pitch than is comfortable for them. Everyone overuses displays like this, allowing them to
-become fundamental components of their personality. These are rarely considered because we
-are usually utterly unconscious of them and lose perspective on how destructive they can be.
-Society has done little to recognize them, so there is scant relevant scientific research.
-Nevertheless, they constitute “bad form” that, when used habitually, comes at a steep price.
-
-As we will discuss in Chapter 5, any muscle that is significantly contracted for more than a
-few minutes, and thus deprived of rest, will begin to take on damage. Most submissive displays,
-such as squinting or stooping the neck, last for several minutes or even hours. Even when it is
-
-23
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-unnoticeable, strain accumulates. At first, you might only slightly raise your shoulders and your
-eyebrows. Over time, however, knots develop in those muscles, keeping them permanently
-raised. The knots starve the muscle of blood and force it to atrophy. This eventually makes the
-muscle achy, weak, and dormant, leaving it perpetually fatigued and creating a source of
-chronic pain." | will build on this concept of strain accumulation in almost every chapter of this
-book as we work through techniques for undoing its effects on different body parts.
-
-| believe that | developed each of the medical symptoms listed in the last section as either
-a direct or indirect consequence of submissive muscular strain that went on too long. Muscles
-that are strained repetitively send continuous pain messages to the brain’s emotional centers’.
-Sounds bad, right? Consider that the predominant form of social breathing in humans—shallow
-breathing in which the diaphragm is not utilized—increases muscle tension throughout the
-body. This dramatically compounds the strain and spreads it to the entire musculoskeletal
-system??. Below, Table 1.3 shows how prolonged use of the submissive displays listed in Figure
-1.2 strains muscles, leading to unhealthy consequences.
-
-Submissive Display Unhealthy Consequences of Strain
-
-Breathing short, quick, and Chronic nervousness, respiratory distress, whole-body
-
-shallow tension
-
-Eyes looking down Atrophy of the muscles that help you look up
-
-Minimized eye contact Eye contact triggers startle
-
-Eyes squinting Eyes tired with bags and dark circles
-
-Raised eyebrows Brow strained and wrinkled
-
-High voice Voice permanently high and hoarse
-
-Face tense and wincing Facial muscle strain and atrophy, increased inflammation,
-and facial fat
-
-Sneering muscles tense Permanent sneer burned into the face
-
-Jaw and chin tense Jaw and chin knotted and painful
-
-Head facing down Difficulty facing up
-
-Neck hunched Neck humped and deformed
-
-Gluteus limp, hips tilted Weak core, stiff lower back and hips
-
-forward
-
-Shoulders raised Shoulders permanently raised
-
-Abdominals either lax or Propensity for abdominal fat, poor core stability
-
-tense
-
-Pelvic and Genital Tension Reduced libido and sexual dysfunction
-
-Spinal Tension Collapsed posture, aches, and pain
-
-High Heart Rate Cardiovascular problems
-
-Digestive Tension Gut pain and digestive problems
-
-Table 1.3: Submissive Displays and the Unhealthy Consequences
-
-24
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-As the exercises in later chapters will discuss, the way to reinvigorate these bodily systems
-is to use them to their full extent. By completely contracting the muscles involved, you can pull
-them out of their partially contracted state and thus out of chronic fatigue and chronic pain.
-The problem is that contracting these muscles when breathing shallowly risks pushing them
-into a cramp or spasm. However, contracting them while breathing deeply will restore their
-normal range of motion, reinstate their proper blood supply, and remove all manifestations of
-tension, strain, and trauma.
-
-The Program Peace Method: Replace Submissive Behaviors with Assertive Ones
-
-Now that you know what submissive displays are and how they can be so damaging, let’s talk
-about fixing them. The goal is clear: To improve your health, you need to replace your default
-submissive habits with their assertive, relaxed alternatives. We'll start with a simple example.
-
-Consider sneering. The sneer is made possible by muscles that run along the sides of the
-nose and lift the upper lip when contracted. Mammals sneer so that they do not bite into their
-lips during an attack-bite. Most mammals also sneer when threatened or uncomfortable. This is
-because displaying the canines is the equivalent of flashing a dagger or putting a hand on a gun.
-
-Dominant primates rarely sneer, while subordinates do it constantly. The most socially
-damaged monkeys have tense, stiff sneering muscles that they cannot relax. Because they are
-always sneering, they always feel threatened. It is the same in humans. The tension in these
-muscles crushes our facial composure, making it difficult to appear calm and collected. Once |
-realized that my sneering muscles had painful knots in them, | developed exercises alternating
-between completely contracting and completely relaxing them, pairing both with
-diaphragmatic breathing. | also created a massage routine to release the cramps. Completely
-loosening the knots in my sneering muscles took me a couple of minutes a day for a few
-months, but it was well worth it. The once-painful, knuckle-sized knots are gone completely. |
-look much calmer now and feel less defensive. After completing the exercises in Chapter 9, you
-will, too. The next activity may capture your interest in this phenomenon.
-
-Activity #1.3: Fully Contract Your Sneering Muscles
-
-Open your mouth as wide as you can. Next reveal all your teeth as much as possible. With
-your top and bottom teeth fully exposed you should feel like a predator about to bite into
-something. Allow the sneer to fully contract muscles in your lips, cheeks, and nostrils.
-Even your nose should be fully crinkled. Try to hold this sneer for an entire minute. This
-will push many of the muscles involved into a full fatigue. After this extended full range
-contraction all these muscles should be able to rest more than they have in years.
-
-25
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Ilustration 1.4: Four animals baring their teeth.
-
-Most people would feel very uncomfortable performing the exercise above in public.
-Interestingly enough, most people also feel extremely unguarded when they let their sneering
-muscles go lax. This is why these muscles are stuck in “sustained partial contraction.” You can
-pull these muscles out of partial contraction by pairing both sneering and its absence with
-diaphragmatic breathing, which will afford your face a whole new level of composure. Each
-chapter in this book will guide you to combine a different set of displays, and the accompanying
-contractions, with proper breathing in a thorough, systematic approach. The next section
-explains how this approach works and why it relies on pairing both submissive and dominant
-displays with diaphragmatic breathing.
-
-The Methodology: Combining Optimal Behaviors with Diaphragmatic Breathing
-As shown in the figure below, breathing slowly and deeply with the diaphragm reduces your
-heart rate and stress response.
-
-26
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-Diaphragmatic Breathing Decreases Stress
-
-Breathing
-Volume
-] l
-Time 1 Time 2
-Heart Rate
-I I
-Time 1 Time 2
-Stress
-Response
-| it
-Time 1 Time 2
-
-Figure 1.1: Before time 1, this person is breathing short, shallow breaths with a high heart rate and a high stress
-response. At time 1, this person takes two slow, deep breaths. You see a corresponding decrease in their heart rate
-and stress response. At time 2, they resume shallow breathing, causing their heart rate and stress levels to go
-
-back up.
-
-Learning how to breathe deeply is not enough, however. We need to build it into the basic
-ways we carry ourselves, move through the world, and interact with others. The key to
-adopting dominant behaviors is to train your body to feel comfortable engaging in them. You
-can do this by practicing diaphragmatic breathing while using confident postures and displays.
-This will enable you to replace your long-standing associations between assertive behavior and
-the stress response.
-
-As another example, consider the involuntary placement of your eyes in social situations.
-Looking upward, above the eye line, is a clear dominance display. This is why most people feel
-uncomfortable looking up in public. If you spend 30 seconds on a crowded street looking
-
-27
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-upward, you will likely become very self-conscious. Your breathing will become shallow and
-rapid, your heartbeat will speed up, and your stress level will increase. Here is what that
-looks like:
-
-Optimal Body Language Increases Stress
-
-Breathing
-Volume
-1 I
-Time 1 Time 2
-Heart Rate
-iT iT
-Time 1 Time 2
-Stress
-Response
-! 1
-Time 1 Time 2
-
-Figure 1.2: These graphs show relaxed breathing that is slow and deep until the person uses an optimal display
-starting at time 1. Using the display causes their breathing to become more shallow than usual, and you see a
-corresponding increase in their heart rate and stress response. This lasts until time 2 when they cease performing
-the display.
-
-The unconscious fear of behaving dominantly keeps our body language withdrawn and
-demure. But there is a simple solution. If you spend a few minutes per day practicing slow, long,
-deep breaths from your diaphragm while looking up, then an upward gaze will stop recruiting
-the panicked breathing response. It will instead begin to feel natural and even occur
-involuntarily. You should start by practicing alone, then in public, and transition toward using it
-socially. Practicing for just a few minutes a day can train you to stop looking down in a few
-
-28
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-weeks. This technique can be used to make all forms of optimal body language feel comfortable
-and arise spontaneously.
-
-After Exposure to Diaphragmatic Breathing Optimal
-Body Language No Longer Increases Stress
-
-Breathing
-Volume
-1 I
-Time 1 Time 2
-Heart Rate
-pula pa on pO
-Time 1 Time 2
-Stress
-Response
-ptt ype ed ta ag
-
-Time 1 Time 2
-
-Figure 1.3: These graphs depict data from a person who has used the Program Peace method of exposing a
-dominant display to diaphragmatic breathing. Despite using dominant body language from time 1 to time 2,
-their breathing remains slow and deep, and there is no discernable change in their heart rate or stress response.
-
-Because they have calmed their body’s unconscious reaction to the display, it no longer provokes fear, guilt,
-or stress.
-
-The exercises in this book will first ask you to pair assertive behavioral subroutines that
-you would ordinarily find unnerving with paced breathing. After isolating and treating them
-individually, you will be asked to combine several of them together so that you can become
-comfortable using many assertive nonverbal behaviors at once. For instance, we will learn to
-breathe deeply with a calm face, upward eyes, straight neck, and relaxed vocal posture. You will
-
-29
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-also work on dissociating optimal postures from the submissive ones that often accompany
-them. For example, we will isolate widening your eyes from raising your eyebrows and isolate
-smiling from squinting and sneering.
-
-Your brain’s current records of how to hold your body correspond with remarkably high
-precision to where you think you fit in the hierarchy of your social group. Most people who
-want to be more assertive try to manipulate the environment by competing, conniving, or using
-power plays to change other people’s perceptions of them in hopes that they will be allowed to
-gradually assume a more dominant role. Unfortunately, this is a stressful process that tends to
-compound their problems. Instead, Program Peace will show you how to transform yourself
-from the inside out.
-
-The Program Peace method relies on established principles from the science of
-neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to restructure neuronal connections in
-response to new experiences and demands. This process underlies all learning, training, and
-rehabilitation.*4 It is always available, so you can start at any age and practice whenever you
-want. Another great aspect of neuroplasticity is that it makes things automatic. With time,
-neuroplastic changes consolidate and stabilize, making what you have learned second nature.
-The exercises in this book leverage neuroplasticity to optimize your composure by exposing
-your brain circuits for acting like a boss to the brain circuits for feeling safe. Coactivating the
-neurons in these circuits will allow you to override your autopilot and make the habits of an
-alpha your default.
-
-Ilustration 1.5: A. A neuron; B. Cross section of the brain; C. Coactive brain regions.
-
-Even behaviors that express positive emotions have been routinely coactivated with
-distressed breathing over your lifetime. Smiling is the quickest way to recruit shallow breathing
-in most people. We will use long, deep breathing in Chapter 10 to detraumatize your smile and
-in Chapter 25 to detraumatize your laugh. This book will provide you with a diaphragmatic
-makeover, restructuring dozens of behaviors and postures, dissociating them from the fight-or-
-flight response, and decoupling them from distressed breathing. By now, you may be curious to
-find out what diaphragmatic breathing feels like, so let’s get acquainted with it using the
-activity below.
-
-30
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-Activity #1.4: A Diaphragmatic Breath
-In part one of this activity, you will exhale, and in part two, you will inhale. For each part,
-focus on taking exceptionally long and deep breaths to fully engage the diaphragm. Try to
-make each last eight to 20 seconds.
-
-1) Diaphragmatic exhalation: Inhale completely before starting your exhalation.
-Purse your lips, and blow on your fingertip for as long as you comfortably can.
-While you slowly breathe out, pay attention to the sound of your breath and the
-sensation produced by the air hitting your fingertip, ensuring that both are steady
-and constant. Deep, long breaths with a constant flow rate are the keys to
-activating the diaphragm. Blow out until you have no more air left. You should
-notice that during the last few seconds, it is challenging to keep the stream
-steady. This is the aspect of the muscle most in need of retraining.
-
-2) Diaphragmatic inhalation: Do the same for an inhalation. Take a couple of normal
-breaths, and then exhale completely before starting. Purse your lips and place
-your finger on them. This will make your breath audible. Then inhale until you
-cannot inhale anymore. Breathe in slowly and steadily, ensuring that the sound
-you make is constant and unflinching.
-
-If you were able to make these breaths last longer than eight seconds and make your
-breath smoother than usual, then you experienced what engaging your diaphragm feels
-like. After you perform both activities a couple of times each, consider what it would take
-to make every breath a diaphragmatic breath.
-
-Next is the first Program Peace exercise, which pairs a long diaphragmatic exhalation with
-vocalization to strengthen both your voice and diaphragm. Being able to talk for an extended
-period before needing to inhale is a very dominant trait. To do it, you need a strong diaphragm
-that can push all the way through its full range of motion, squeezing most of the air out of the
-lungs. On the other hand, it is very common that submissive people with tense diaphragms
-have to gasp after every few words they speak. Partially because they are used to being
-interrupted, their diaphragm is not capable of unwavering, prolonged contractions. Once you
-extend the amount of time you can speak on a single breath, even by a couple of seconds, you
-will feel and appear much more confident.
-
-Introductory Exercise #1.1: Prolonged Vocalization
-You are going to vocalize for as long as you can, 15 times in a row. Before each
-vocalization, take a full inhalation. During each following exhalation, vocalize in a deep,
-but relaxed register. It can be loud or soft. Choose a low note and a vowel sound such as
-“ah,” “uh,” or “om” and maintain it as long as possible. Continue vocalizing until you
-cannot breathe out any longer. You should be able to do this for at least five seconds,
-
-31
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-but shoot for eight or even up to 20 if you can. You might pull out the stopwatch on your
-phone and time yourself. Do this 15 times in a row.
-
-This exercise is challenging for the diaphragm and the voice and can be somewhat
-uncomfortable because you are forcing the diaphragm to work in an unfamiliar and
-atrophied zone. Normally your voice is confined to a shallow range in which the
-diaphragm falters neurotically in response to emotional fluctuations, threatening stimuli,
-and interruptions. Keeping your voice steady will teach your diaphragm to contract
-more steadily.
-
-If you perform this exercise five times over the course of a week, it will cease to be
-uncomfortable. You will get used to it quickly and find that you can do it for several
-minutes at a time. Because it ensures diaphragmatic motion, it should make you feel
-very relaxed after just a few minutes. The longer you do it, the more relaxed you will feel.
-It is a great exercise to use if you are feeling anxious. You can also do it around others
-
-by humming quietly with your mouth closed. Within a few weeks, your voice will be
-noticeably more impressive and commanding. This is a skill that leaders and lecturers
-develop: the ability to use the diaphragm to put sustained, continuous pressure on the
-voice box using fluid, uninterrupted contraction.
-
-Not only will the exercise above strengthen your diaphragm, but it will also strengthen your
-
-voice. Let’s consider a hypothetical example of how sustained diaphragmatic breathing can help
-rehabilitate other parts of your body. Take the neck, for instance. Imagine that you have been
-forced to crank your neck into an uncomfortable position, like looking up and to the extreme
-left for five straight minutes. Now, imagine four scenarios:
-
-1) Inthe first scenario, you breathe very shallowly, as if you were frightened by something
-terrible. At the end of five minutes, you would likely have developed a cramp that would
-be painful for a few days.
-
-2) Inthe second scenario, you breathe normally. You might come out of this ordeal with
-your neck feeling a little tight and uncomfortable, and the feeling might disappear after
-a few hours.
-
-3) Inthe third scenario, you do your best to breathe slowly, deeply, and diaphragmatically.
-Breathing in this way, you might avoid neck pain entirely at the end of the five minutes.
-
-4) Finally, in the last scenario, you breathe as you will be able to do after you spend 12
-weeks completing the breathing retraining outlined in Chapter 3 of this book. In this
-situation, your neck would be much less likely to take on any long-term strain. Rather,
-it would be strengthened and toned by the five-minute effort.
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing protects us from the negative consequences of repetitive strain,
-
-while shallow breathing makes us vulnerable to it. Shallow breathing at our desks destroys our
-necks and lower backs. Shallow breathing during exercise limits our potential gains and
-recovery. Shallow breathing while grinning destroys our smiles. Shallow breathing while
-socializing drives chronic anxiety. The rest of this book will guide you to pair deep breathing
-
-32
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-with a diverse assortment of different muscle activation patterns. The exercises will engage
-muscles in the spine, gut, throat, face, genitals, and many other locations, building strength,
-flexibility, mobility, and optimal tone.
-
-The process of working through suboptimal postural habits to gradually retrain your body is
-emotionally cathartic and will give you an opportunity to reinvent yourself. The reprogramming
-you’re taking on will act like a “cheat code” allowing you to “hack” into the programming of
-your nervous system and reset it to a lower level of stress. Each chapter resets a different
-bodily system. Rather than listing them here, the specific topics that will be discussed can be
-found in the chapter titles in the Table of Contents. The figure below illustrates the problems at
-hand and how they are addressed by Program Peace.
-
-; Cranial, Facial,
-—>
-Physical Threat Amygdala _ Spinal, Vocal, .
-Submissive F ; Pain
-. . . Cardiac, Genital,
-Pain —> }——> | Distressed Breathing KX» & -— Digestive, -—- &
-Aggressive : : Anxiet
-. Ego Respiratory, y
-Social Threat —> Nonverbals & Skeletal
-Relaxed, Paced Optimal Debracing, Nonresistant,
-Assertive Diaphragmatic Postures & Massage, Nonfearful
-P P Personality Breathing Body Language Anti-Laxity, & Mindset
-[Kele} lanl nEISS Restructuring Retraining Training Anti-Rigidity
-
-Therapeutic &
-
-Rehabilitative
-Interventions
-
-Figure 1.4: Threats are interpreted by the brain and go on to affect breathing, behavior, and muscle tension.
-The Program Peace exercises address these issues individually.
-
-How This Book Is Organized
-
-This book features over 200 activities and exercises grouped by chapter. After the description of
-each exercise in the book, you’ll find the recommended length of time that exercise should be
-performed (e.g., five minutes). Also listed is the number of sessions you should expect to take
-to reach proficiency (e.g., four sessions per week for 12 weeks). Proficiency means you should
-expect to have made a considerable gain and created a self-perpetuating habit that will provide
-continued improvement with time. This is followed by the recommended number of sessions to
-maintain the ability after proficiency is reached (e.g., two times per month). Note that these
-details are only given for the exercises and not the activities. Activities are exploratory and
-intended to be completed only once.
-
-Example Exercise #__: Description Here
-
-The directions for performing the activity or exercise are in this box, including setup,
-steps to take, and the general parameters of the exercise.
-
-33
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Some exercises have a “risk of injury” warning, which means that it is quite possible to hurt
-yourself while doing the exercise as described. Take great care with these and ensure that you
-read the warning and disclaimer section in the book’s Preface. Some exercises are given five
-stars, which means that | highly recommend them and that they are especially valuable as part
-of your retraining. Nearly every exercise is intended to be performed with paced diaphragmatic
-breathing, synchronized with a breathing metronome, as explained in Chapter 3. Alternatively,
-you can synchronize each exercise with the breathing pattern from Exercise 1.1.
-
-My clients and | generally find that keeping a record of completed sessions is helpful and
-motivating. There are two worksheets at the end of this chapter to keep track of your initial
-progress. Each contains 14 key exercises and make it possible to log the number of times you
-have completed them. These are what | consider the book’s 28 most beneficial, five-star
-exercises. You can complete a three-month crash course in Program Peace by performing 14
-exercises two days per week over the course of 12 weeks. Each week, you can alternate
-between worksheets 1 and 2. Completing all 14 exercises in a worksheet takes less than an
-hour, and there is no pressure to complete these on consecutive days or weeks.
-
-This book also has a companion workbook called Program Peace: Exercise Manual and
-Journal, which comes complete with daily entries and a calendar in which you can record the
-exercises you have completed as part of a 12-week regimen. It is not necessary, but it is helpful
-and can be downloaded for free from the website or purchased online as a hard copy.
-
-Using Program Peace by Yourself and with Others
-
-Strangers aren’t the only ones who want us to use submissive displays. The people closest to us
-positively reinforce our endearing behavior, rewarding us for acting in non-threatening ways.
-They also punish assertive behavior, chastening us for acting self-assured. However, we cannot
-be mad at people for doing this to us because, whether aware of it or not, we do the same to
-others. It is an unconscious human instinct. We are constantly using body language to check
-and balance each other, and in doing so, we are mutually denigrated. Tearing each other down
-instead of building each other up is a waste of time and energy that ultimately programs our
-brains for sadness and our bodies for disease.
-
-If you immediately start practicing the activities in this book in social situations, they will be
-feeble. People will recognize this and may attempt to punish you for being what they may
-interpret as rude. When | first started practicing, some acquaintances were confused by the
-new way | carried myself because my assertiveness was not fully fledged. For this reason,
-it helps to begin developing these postures alone. Start in your room, while driving, or as you
-take a walk. Build up to active social engagement slowly. Once it is evident that your dominant
-behaviors have become ingrained, people will not question them. By practicing alone, you can
-build yourself a stolid countenance that is so convincing that it is beyond reproach.
-
-Alternatively, most of the exercises here can be performed with a close friend or ina
-group, and | encourage you to do so after first practicing them on your own. Fostering a low-
-stakes environment will make it dramatically easier to bring your new postures into the wider
-world. To this end, | recommend that you start by discussing the ideas in this book with close
-friends and family. You can create an understanding with your loved ones that your relationship
-is better off without submissive signaling. Instead of making each other weaker, you can train
-
-34
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-each other to feel comfortable and at ease in strength. Ask your roommate or spouse to walk
-around your home like they own the place. Tell them to expect you to do the same.
-
-If you don’t have this discussion with the people close to you, they may become
-disheartened, not understanding why you seem different. However, if you explain the practice
-to them, you can transform them whether they perform the program’s specific exercises or not.
-When they see you relaxed, standing straight, and speaking in a powerful voice, they will find
-themselves mirroring you without even thinking about it.
-
-Program Peace will give you the knowledge and exercises you need to progress to a point
-where you have the strength of personality to dominate everyone in your life. But you don’t
-want to dominate people. Domination is an aggressive attempt to get someone to submit. It is
-abusive and will repel even your close friends and family. You simply want to be dominant.
-Being dominant doesn’t stop others from also being dominant. It’s not a competition.
-Domination is one-sided and aggressive, but dominance is not. So that we are clear on the
-difference, for the final section of this chapter, let’s more clearly define aggression.
-
-Dominant Nonverbals Make Aggression Unnecessary
-
-A very early version of this book that | started working on in my late teens set out to describe
-the many costs of aggression. | saw aggression as a pitiful coping tactic that is often rewarded in
-the short term but, ultimately, results in negativity. | saw it as a vestigial instinct and a heuristic
-that people employ inflexibly and far too frequently. | felt that by living my life without
-aggression, | reaped many benefits. | wanted to share with others how to use diplomacy and a
-“nice guy” approach to navigate difficult social situations.
-
-However, to avoid appearing aggressive, | accentuated my subordination displays and
-debilitated myself through intense self-handicapping. | spent so much energy placating people
-and repressing my personality that | became perpetually distressed. In trying to let go of
-aggressiveness, | had also unwittingly lost my assertiveness. But this is only because | was
-confusing the two.
-
-Much of this book is about how to perceive the distinction between aggression and
-assertion so you can act confidently, knowing you are maintaining your ground without
-threatening others. What do assertion and aggression mean to you? In the animal behavior
-literature, the word “assertion” is constructive while “aggression” is destructive. An animal
-chasing down its prey is acting assertively because it needs to eat. An animal hurting another
-without benefit to itself is being aggressive. In mammals, the brain pathways controlling
-aggression, like fighting members of your species, are entirely distinct from the brain pathways
-for searching out and obtaining prey.*>
-
-For example, a cat pursuing a rat does not hiss or arch its back. The active brain areas
-reflect hunger rather than anger.?® If you were to wipe out the aggression and anger systems of
-a carnivore’s brain, it could still be a stone-cold predator. On the other hand, when a cat is
-aggressive toward another cat, it is almost always impelled by fear.” Aggression is a destructive
-use of force that is rooted in trauma and insecurity. If more people knew this basic neurological
-truth, they likely wouldn’t praise aggressiveness or confuse aggression with assertion.
-
-At its core, this book is about being assertive without being aggressive. That means being
-self-possessed but also kind at the same time. It is difficult. | have spent my life trying to be
-both but have only come close in the last few years. Many people see being “assertive” and
-
-35
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-being “nice” as two distinct modes that are incompatible or mutually exclusive. Religious
-leaders tell us to be nice at the expense of being assertive. Dating coaches and business gurus
-tell us to be assertive at the expense of being nice. Like most stressed primates, we mistakenly
-believe that we are forced to choose between these two options.
-
-Because our psychological schemas for assertiveness are often conflated with those for
-aggression, many people find it impossible to be one without the other. This means that as
-soon as they start acting non-submissive, they inadvertently also start being intrusive, pushy,
-and unkind. They can’t help it; they have never learned to make this fundamental distinction.
-Once you can discern between assertion and aggression, you can be powerful without malice.
-You can simultaneously be confident and friendly, poised and thoughtful, dominant and pure of
-heart. The key is exhibiting incorrigibly courageous body language while still having your
-intentions in the right place. Ultimately, you want to make your nonverbals ruthless,
-uncompromising, and unapologetic, but you want to temper this by making your words
-humble, considerate, and affectionate.
-
-Mammals that don’t feel threatened don’t get angry. They also don’t threaten others.
-
-As we will discuss in the next chapter, aggression usually follows desperation. It is a form of
-compensation for the inability to be calm while being assertive. In fact, in primate literature,
-aggression is often characterized as “submissive threat.” This indicates that threats come from
-monkeys that feel vulnerable or are trying too hard not to be submissive. Think of the times
-when you have been really aggressive in the past. You felt threatened and were breathing in a
-shallow, distressed manner. Correct? It is the straight jacket of stress, muscle tension, pain,
-and breathlessness that causes us to lash out. In preparing us for confrontation, it makes us
-confrontational.
-
-Learning to breathe slowly, deeply, and on long intervals will help you develop emotional
-maturity. Doing it in social situations will make you hardened to threats, immune to being
-dominated, exempt from defensive sentimentality, and unsusceptible to feeling offended. Once
-you use Program Peace to train yourself to breathe easily and stop sending submissive displays,
-you will no longer have to choose between being assertive and doing the right thing. This is
-because the combination of the two will come with ease.
-
-36
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-Chapter 1: Bullet Points
-
-e Submission and aggression are highly detrimental and we want to replace them with
-assertiveness and playfulness.
-
-e Allmammals use submissive displays to show subordination to more dominant animals.
-They do this to reduce social conflict over food, sex, and other resources.
-
-e Humans use submissive displays, too, often just to be friendly.
-
-e We commonly use suboptimal body language because we are afraid that, otherwise,
-we might come across as too aggressive.
-
-e = It is difficult to stop using submissive displays because they become habitual, and the
-people around us come to expect them.
-
-e Your composure, posture, and breathing style are all products of your social
-environment.
-
-e Ongoing submissive displays lead to muscle tension that is apparent to others.
-
-The chronic muscular strain caused by the display becomes a badge of self-perceived
-low status.
-
-e As you perform the Program Peace exercises, | think you will be surprised by how much
-and how often you use suboptimal body language due to modesty.
-
-e We all suffer from this to different degrees, and it causes suboptimal functioning of
-various muscles and organs. It also causes chronic pain, which contributes to depression
-and anxiety.
-
-e Our attempts to stop acting submissive and make our behavior more dominant are fear-
-inducing and cause us to breathe shallowly.
-
-e Shallow, distressed breathing is a submissive display.
-
-e Ask yourself how the following things affect your breathing: being isolated, being
-shunned, being attacked, being put down verbally, being put down nonverbally,
-being judged.
-
-e Using diaphragmatic breathing while practicing dominant displays and postures can
-make them very comfortable and make nonverbal assertiveness a new default.
-
-e Replacing submissive behaviors with assertive ones will improve how you feel, the way
-others perceive you, and how you get along with them.
-
-e Dominant animals are the most assertive, and submissive animals are the most
-aggressive. This should inspire us to be assertive without being aggressive. It requires
-that we learn to retain our composure and learn not to allow provocation or threat to
-affect the face, voice, spine, or breath.
-
-e This chapter is the first step in helping you reconceptualize yourself as dominant,
-pure of heart, slow to anger, and not easily offended.
-
-37
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Program Peace: Fxercise Tracker Week 1
-Date: Start Time: Finish Time:
-
-Exercise Name Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4
-
-# 1.1: Prolonged Vocalization 3 mins
-
-# 3.1: Deep Breaths 2 mins
-
-# 3.3: Practicing a Smooth 2 mins
-
-Inhalation
-
-# 3.4: Smoothing Over 2 mins
-
-Discontinuities
-
-# 4.2: Wide Eyes with No Facade 5 mins
-
-# 4.6 / 4.7: Relaxed Frowning / 5 mins
-
-Glaring
-
-# 4.9: Looking Up While Talking 5 mins
-
-# 4.15: Watching TV Upside Down 10 mins
-
-# 8.2: Conserving the Calm 2 mins
-
-# 8.4: Freeing Up the Face 10 mins
-
-# 9.1: Soft Facial Percussion 5 mins
-
-# 10.5: A Sneerless Smile 2 mins
-
-# 11.3: The Slowest, Smallest 1 min
-
-Breath
-
-# 11.6: Pant-hooting 1 min
-
-Meditation | Paced Sleep Total | Exercise | Flights Standing | Stretching | Self-
-(mins) Breathing | (hours) | Steps | (mins) Climbed | (hrs) (mins) Massage
-
-(mins) (mins)
-
-Thoughts and Feelings:
-
-38
-
-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-Program Peace: Exercise Tracker Week 2
-Date: Start Time: Finish Time:
-
-Exercise Name Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4
-
-#11.7: Isometric Contraction of 2 mins
-
-the Diaphragm
-
-# 12.2: Diaphragmatic 5 mins
-
-Vocalization
-
-# 12.9: Reading Out Loud 5 mins
-
-#13.8: Optimal Posture While 2 mins
-
-Standing
-
-# 14.1: Search Your Body for 5 mins
-
-Rigidity
-
-# 15.1: Anti-laxity and Anti-rigidity | 5 mins
-
-with Light Weights
-
-# 16.1: Neck Retraction 5 mins
-
-# 16. 3-11: Various Neck Anti- 5 mins
-
-rigidity Postures
-
-# 18.1: Take a Walk with 5 mins
-
-Exaggerated Posture
-
-# 20.3: Diaphragmatic Fasting 5 hrs.
-
-# 22.2: Compressing the Internal 2 mins
-
-Organs
-
-#22.3: Listen to Your Heartbeat 5 mins
-
-# 25.1: Diaphragmatic Laughing 5 mins
-
-#26.1: Diaphragmatic Phone 5 mins
-
-Conversation
-
-Meditation | Paced Sleep Total | Exercise | Flights Standing | Stretching | Self-
-(mins) Breathing | (hours) | Steps | (mins) Climbed | (hrs) (mins) Massage
-
-(mins) (mins)
-
-Thoughts and Feelings:
-
-39
-
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Chapter 1: Endnotes
-
-1. Cafazzo, S., Lazzaroni, M., & Marshall-Pescini, S. (2016). Dominance relationships in a
-family pack of captive arctic wolves (Canis lupus arctos): The influence of competition for food,
-age and sex. PeerJ, 4, e2707.
-
-2. van der Borg, J. A. M., Schilder, M. B. H., Vinke, C. M., & de Vries, H. (2015) Dominance in
-domestic dogs: A quantitative analysis of its behavioural measures. PLoS ONE, 10(8), 0133978.
-
-3. King, A. J., Johnson, D. D., & Van Vugt, M. (2009). The origins and evolution of leadership.
-Current Biology. 19(19), R911—R916.
-
-4. Petersen, R. M., Dubuc, C., & Higham, J. P. (2018). Facial displays of dominance in non-
-human primates. In Senior C. (Ed.) The facial displays of leaders (pp. 123-143). Palgrave
-
-Macmillan.
-
-5. Knowles, K. (2018). The evolutionary psychology of leadership trait perception. In C. Senior
-(Ed.), The facial displays of leaders (pp. 97-122). Palgrave Macmillan.
-
-6. Boswell, J. (1798). The table talk of Dr. Johnson. C. Dilly.
-
-7. Crozier, R. (2010). The puzzle of blushing, The Psychologist, 23(5), 390-393.
-8. Breed, M. D., & Moore, J. (2016). Animal behavior. Elsevier.
-
-9. Churchland, P. S. (2011). Braintrust. Princeton University Press.
-
-10. Dunbar, N. E., & Burgoon, J. K., (2005). Perceptions of power and interactional dominance
-in interpersonal relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22(2), 207-233.
-
-11. Werner, R. (2020). A guide to deep tissue neuromuscular therapy. Jones and Bartlett.
-
-12. Gerwin, R. D. (2001). Classification, epidemiology, and natural history of myofascial pain
-syndrome. Current Pain and Headache Reports, 5(5), 412-420.
-
-13. Fried, R. (2013). The psychology and physiology of breathing: In behavioral medicine,
-clinical psychology, and psychiatry. Springer Science.
-
-14. Douyon, P. (2019). Neuroplasticity: Your brain’s superpower. |zzard Ink Publishing.
-
-15. Panksepp, J. (December 2000). The riddle of laughter neural and psychoevolutionary
-underpinnings of joy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(6), 183-186.
-
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-Chapter 1: Optimal Quality of Life Training
-
-16. Gleitman, H., Fridlund A. J., & Reisberg, D. (2004). Psychology (6th ed). W W Norton
-and Company.
-
-17. Lorenz, K. (1966). On aggression. Methuen Publishing; de Waal, F. (2013). The bonobo and
-the atheist: In search of humanism among the primates. WW Norton & Company.
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” — Marilyn vos Savant
-(b. 1947)
-
-Our Bodies Compensate in Response to Suboptimal Environments
-
-Although our bodies are capable of finding peace, they were never designed to do so. Rather,
-they developed to internalize environmental hardship to ensure the perpetuation of our genes.
-Harmful experiences cause organisms to promptly deviate from otherwise optimal body plans,
-restricting growth and mobility while reducing their quality of life. The focus of this chapter is to
-explain why we retain stress in the form of bodily trauma.
-
-From microorganisms to monkeys, all life forms respond to stressors with innate biological
-programs.‘ They are prepared to alter their bodies and life strategies if they encounter adverse
-environments. To be clear, this is a form of non-mutational adaptation that takes place without
-natural selection during an individual’s lifetime.* We all have the potential to become highly
-stress-adapted, and this could happen to you in a matter of weeks if you were exposed to
-extreme hardship. The DNA (genotype) does not change; however, the genes that are
-expressed change and cause the body (phenotype) to change.? Your genes specify the blueprint
-and the foundation, but the environmental circumstances influence how soundly your structure
-is built.
-
-The changes bodies make allow conformation to occasional but regularly recurring
-environmental pressures faced by the species. These are usually stressors. Changes can be
-either transient or permanent and are examples of a scientific concept called developmental
-plasticity. How you responded plastically to your environment results in a unique
-developmental trajectory. For instance, if you were a sad child growing up, you are more likely
-to be a melancholy adult. Certain developmental windows close early in life, but we retain a
-great deal of plasticity even in old age. This means that your fundamental nature (dominant,
-submissive, calm, anxious, etc.) is in the process of being determined even as you read this.
-
-Developmental plasticity is any change in the body, good or bad, mediated by changes in
-gene expression as a response to the environment. When | say gene expression, | am referring
-to the process where the body’s cells determine that a particular protein is needed, they find
-the gene that encodes the protein from within the DNA in the cell’s nucleus and use it to build
-the protein. For example, when you exercise consistently, genes that encode the proteins
-needed for muscle tissue become highly expressed, resulting in muscle growth. That’s a clear
-case of developmental plasticity: your body responds to exercise by building new muscle to
-make the lifting easier.
-
-The same thing happens on a faster scale when your eyes adapt to darkness. Cells in the
-retina use the rhodopsin gene to build the rhodopsin protein necessary to see better in low
-light. The production of breast milk involves expressing milk proteins within the breast tissue
-that are not expressed before pregnancy. Tanning involves the production of the protein
-pigment melanin. The formation of long-term memories (neuroplasticity) involves physical
-changes to brain cells that necessitate protein expression. Each of the 25,000 genes in the
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-human genome codes for a protein that performs a specific function within our bodies when
-needed. Some of these genes, and their proteins, contribute to anxiety.
-
-The Tradeoffs of Adapting to Adversity
-
-Simple single-cell organisms respond to stress (excessive heat, starvation, and abrupt chemical
-changes in their environment) by tweaking their body plan. Molecular cues that they pick up
-cause them to express genes that may otherwise remain dormant, causing changes within their
-cell walls to respond to the demands at hand. Even in the simplest organisms like bacteria and
-protists, these emergency alterations have costs. Resources are funneled toward responding to
-the crisis rather than to longevity and upkeep. Over time, this negatively affects the health of
-the microbe.
-
-Humans also make unhealthy changes in response to bad environments. Constant muscle
-strain incites protein expression that changes the muscle, making it hard, inflexible, and limiting
-its range of motion. Shallow breathing becomes persistent because the body uses gene
-expression to retune the breathing apparatus to become maximally efficient at shallow
-breathing. The heart is similarly retuned to beat rapidly. Threat-sensing areas of the brain are
-reinforced after threatening experiences.> Stress stimulates the expression of a large variety of
-different proteins in organs throughout the body and brain that would not otherwise be
-expressed. These proteins are used in defensive structures, defensive maneuvers, and the
-creation of a defensive mind state. The effects of developmental plasticity can be lifelong or
-even multigenerational. Recent findings have found that many of the negative effects can be
-reversed, but the longer you wait, the harder it will be.
-
-These changes might be useful, for instance, if your environment is filled with predators.
-But they can produce drastic bodily changes, especially if they are triggered early in
-development. This is easiest to see in non-human examples like certain species of horned
-beetle. The beetle’s body type can vary sharply based on food availability. Visually, the two
-versions look very different. Even many scientists at first assumed these two morphs were from
-different species. When they don’t have enough food, developing males become smaller and
-weaker and never develop their characteristic horns. Their metabolism is reduced, and they
-utilize “sneaky” reproductive tactics rather than the direct combat typical of their better-fed
-peers. This morph is adaptive—it has better reproductive success—but only in environments
-where food is scarce and larger beetles cannot feed themselves.® Outside those environments,
-a hornless horned beetle has no real chance to compete.
-
-A similar thing happens to the water flea Daphnia. If exposed to the smell of their natural
-predators early in life, they develop a large protective covering that helps them resist being
-eaten. However, this armor also makes it harder to move and feed. These examples of plasticity
-involve fundamental tradeoffs. The same kinds of responses occur in mammals, although the
-effects are usually less obvious. Still, sometimes, you can visually recognize the ravages of stress
-in people who are extremely anxious, highly traumatized, drug-addicted, or on the bottom of
-the social totem pole. What these people share in common is that their stress system has been
-turned up too high for too long. For the beetle, the environmental cue predictive of adversity is
-malnutrition. For the flea, it is the smell of its natural predator. Can you guess what ours is? It is
-distressed breathing. Shallow thoracic breathing drives the threat system and a cascade of
-harmful cellular modifications that change our physical body plan.
-
-44
-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-‘
-Ze yo \¥
-va Qa VA
-
-XY SS /
-
-v
-
-illustration 2.1: A. Horned beetle and smaller hornless beetle; B. Water fleas with and without protective armoring
-
-How Mammals Adapt to Chronic Stress
-
-Decades of experiments have found that the offspring of nervous mothers are biologically
-programmed to also be nervous.’ Mothers exposed to adversity before, during, or after
-pregnancy upregulate their babies’ stress-response systems permanently. Mammals from mice®
-to monkeys? with stressed-out moms exhibit increased adrenal activity, which causes higher
-concentrations of stress hormones. Mammals with more active adrenal systems are more
-susceptible to stress, responding to mildly threatening events in exaggerated and
-
-inappropriate ways.
-
-These responses often last for the animal’s entire lifetime. They are a specific type of
-developmental plasticity called “predictive adaptive responses.” The idea is that if a mother’s
-environment is hostile, then her offspring are likely to face that same environment and ought
-to be prepared for it. For the same reason, rat pups born to calm mothers tend to be calm
-themselves. Those that received high levels of maternal care in the form of licking, grooming,
-and nursing show increased resilience to stress even in adulthood.?° All mammals begin to
-adapt plastically to stress in the womb and continue to do so throughout life. This is why it is so
-important to take control of your reactions to stress: you have the power to steer yourself away
-from suffering.
-
-We were all born with the capacity for unmitigated strength, consummate confidence, and
-unconditional dominance. Despite this, our body’s cells are constantly searching for cues about
-predation and social competition. Upon encountering these cues, stress hormones are turned
-up, the respiratory and cardiovascular systems are strained, muscles grow tense, and the brain
-is adjusted to make us angry, fearful, and paranoid." Again, these responses may result in
-subtle, microscopic changes or profound, visible ones. The Program Peace method aims to
-reverse the negative changes and create lasting, positive ones by providing your body’s cells
-with the cues necessary to cause them to interpret their environment as advantageous.
-
-The Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems
-
-The autonomic nervous system controls the function of our internal organs. It affects the heart,
-lungs, various organs in our abdomen, skin, muscles, and many areas of the brain. It generally
-influences our organs to either prepare for stress, as in the fight-or-flight state, or for calm, as
-in the resting-and-digesting state. The fight-or-flight state is associated with the sympathetic
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-branch of the autonomic nervous system while the “rest-and-digest” state is associated with
-the parasympathetic branch. These two systems are constantly working together to maintain
-homeostasis to meet organismic needs. Both are necessary for health and normal functioning.
-They work in unison, but at any given time, one is usually more active than the other.
-
-The activity of the sympathetic nervous system rises when we feel stressed and lowers
-when we feel calm. The sympathetic nervous system becomes toxic when it is augmented by
-developmental plasticity. This is when the body builds stress-adapted proteins into various
-organ systems. This keeps a person locked in a perpetual state of stress that scientists call
-“hyperarousal.”
-
-Specialists describe the retuning of the autonomic system toward stress as an imbalance
-that equates to a “shift toward sympathetic upregulation.” This is the antagonist of our story,
-and it is an adversary for each of us to different extents. It is important to point out that the
-sympathetic nervous system itself is not our enemy; the problem comes only from long-term,
-persistent sympathetic over-activation. This happens when fear and intimidation are regular
-occurrences. As you might expect, inferior and submissive mammals have greater sympathetic
-upregulation. For example, low-ranking baboons have the highest blood pressure, stress
-hormones, and heart rates.?2
-
-Moreover, the upregulation of the sympathetic system is almost always a ratchet, meaning
-that shifts toward stress are generally steady and irreversible. This is partly because many
-experiences coerce us to breathe more shallowly, but very few convince us that it is safe to
-breathe more deeply. The table below details the physiological changes associated with both
-branches of the autonomic system.
-
-Sympathetic Parasympathetic
-
-Nickname Fight or Flight Rest and Digest
-Breath Volume Shallow Full
-Breathing Rate Faster Slower
-Muscles Tense Relaxed
-Average Heart Rate Higher Lower
-Blood Pressure Higher Lower
-Stress Hormones High Low
-Short-term Memory | Poor Good
-Thinking Muddled Clear
-Emotion Anxious Calm
-Immune System Weakened Strong
-Social Defensive or Receptive or
-Communication aggressive assertive
-
-Table 2.1: The Autonomic Nervous System: Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Branches
-
-If | were to walk over to my cat and bang my fist on the counter next to him, his autonomic
-nervous system would react strongly, raising his sympathetic activity. This would be very
-apparent in the form of a full-body startle and increased defensive activity. After a few minutes,
-his autonomic activity would go back to baseline (but repeated threatening surprises would
-
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-shift his baseline toward sympathetic upregulation). If someone were to make a loud,
-unexpected noise next to me, | would also experience transiently increased autonomic arousal.
-Humans share a common ancestor with cats 85 million years ago. This funny-looking little
-mammal would have shared its habitat with dinosaurs and would have had an autonomic
-nervous system very similar to ours. But the autonomic nervous system is much more ancient
-than this.
-
-If you were to find a group of ants walking around on a tabletop, then strike the surface
-they were walking on, they would freeze for an instant before running about their business in a
-frenzy. The neural components that receive and interpret the quick blow to the tabletop are
-very similar in structure to our own. Mammals and insects both inherit their autonomic nervous
-systems from a common aquatic ancestor that lived around 590 million years ago, near the end
-of the Precambrian supereon*?. Yet, we still share this same basic structure.
-
-Not all animals have an autonomic stress system. Animals that live their lives attached to
-rocks, including corals, sea squirts, and anemones, have no use for it. Even some primitive
-mobile animals such as jellyfish also lack this system. We should consider ourselves blessed to
-have it. We just have to teach ourselves how to bring it under control because it is a great
-servant but a terrible master.
-
-Ilustration 2.2: Many orders of animals share similar stress responses and adapt to chronic stress in similar ways.
-
-| know a man who is a psychopathic bully. He is friendly to people at first to gain their trust.
-Then, he says whatever he can to confuse, upset, and undermine them for his amusement.
-Before long, his victims are breathless, trying desperately to mount defensive arguments
-against his red herrings. Eventually, he points at them, laughs, and says, “This man is fighting for
-his life right now.” We are no different. We overuse the sympathetic system during simple
-social confrontations as if we were fighting for our very lives.
-
-The sympathetic system retunes our organs for intense, uninterrupted physical exertion.
-This might be appropriate for a person forced to defend themselves against death on a minute-
-to-minute basis. But none of us do this in modern times. Our stress system is set to overdrive,
-even though most of us sit on our butts throughout the day and the most upsetting things that
-happen to us are minor verbal putdowns. The likelihood of you dying prematurely is very low,
-but your body is operating as if it is high. Persuade your body to stop this by choosing to
-breathe in a new and different way: as if your survival was guaranteed.
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
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-To bring the sympathetic and parasympathetic back into balance, we must recognize that
-we are not fighting for our lives. This is accomplished by spending more time with the
-parasympathetic prevailing over the sympathetic. How can we accentuate the parasympathetic
-system? Relaxed deep breathing. But, as you know, maintaining a relaxed breathing pattern can
-be extraordinarily difficult because we overreact to minor intrusions so strongly.
-
-Control Your Reaction to Stress by Mastering Your Startle Reflex
-
-Your body has an inborn reflex known as the startle reaction that controls the frequency and
-severity of stress. Startle is a panic response to something alarming. It is initiated in the
-brainstem and kickstarts the sympathetic system. It lasts for a fraction of a second (between
-one-half and one-fiftieth of a second) and can be elicited by threatening stimuli such as loud
-sounds and fast-moving objects. It can also be elicited by thoughts about unpleasant subjects
-such as dangers or deadlines. When it happens, our heart rate increases. The next heartbeat
-comes early, which is a jarring experience. This is often described as the heart “skipping a beat.”
-Adrenaline floods into the body. The breath shortens. We also gasp reflexively when startled,
-and this has the effect of making the breath shallower and more rapid. Repeated startle
-responses over weeks or months sensitize the startle pathway in the brain, which explains why
-anxious people are much more prone to startling.
-
-Startling can be very subtle, in which case you may not realize that you have been startled.
-When subliminal startling happens continuously, it is often recognized as nervousness. The
-submissive person will almost always experience more frequent startling than the dominant
-person. Highly submissive people will startle every few seconds during social interactions. They
-often startle during their own actions as if to apologize for them. | used to startle whenever
-talking to someone. It made me come across as shaken and fear-stricken. Sadly, for some of us,
-startling and trembling are part of being “nice.”
-
-Startling devastates our composure. You cannot look someone in the eye with a straight
-face and decent posture after you have been startled. Once another animal sees that you have
-experienced a full-body startle, you immediately become prey. With introspection and
-patience, we can learn to inhibit our startle magnitude and reduce our emotional reaction to it.
-To do this, we must keep ourselves from overreacting when it happens. When you feel yourself
-startle, don’t get caught up in it or let it carry you away. Instead, let it wash over you, like a
-wave you have ducked under. Reducing the startle reflex, despite not being acknowledged by
-mainstream science, is feasible. Some Buddhist monks have demonstrated significant inhibition
-of their startle reflex, even inhibiting almost all evidence of it.
-
-Startle also causes the body’s muscles to tense up. Some muscles, including those in the
-hands, feet, face, and abdomen are contracted intensely. Contractions in the back jerk frail
-spinal segments into unfamiliar positions. Sustained contractions from frequent startling can
-cause achiness and exhaustion. Much of your muscular pain is centered in muscles overworked
-by your startle response. This is why it is important to cultivate awareness of how startle
-manifests in your body so that you can ensure that you do not remain stuck in this
-configuration.
-
-Aside from questions of frequency and intensity, the posture you hold when being startled
-is telling. When your startle posture is indicative of surrender, people and animals can see this.
-The way you carry yourself at the point of startle affects your default posture and comes to
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-dictate many aspects of your personality. The full-body startle is accompanied by specific
-movements in mammals intended to protect certain body parts such as the neck and eyes. In
-human infants, the eyes blink, the face grimaces, the back arches, and the arms and legs flail
-out with elbows and knees bent. Adults form their startle postures over a lifetime. Many people
-flinch, cower, wince, slump over, flail, duck, backpedal, drop things, or buckle at the knees.
-
-In high-level military, police, and martial arts training, combatants are drilled to assume
-specific fighting stances when alarmed. Through repetition, we can reshape the automatic
-movement pattern that is recruited. Most people startle recognizably several times every day
-so you should have ample opportunity to correct your startle. To begin experimenting on your
-own, start with Stress Adaptation Activity 2.1.
-
-Stress Adaptation Activity #2.1: Designing Your Startle Posture
-Imagine yourself startling. How does it feel? How do you usually move? As you imagine it, or
-whenever it happens to you, turn your full attention to how you respond. Inspect your
-actions and carriage, and try to subdue the response. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the
-emotions it evokes. Also, don’t let yourself freeze, stay loose and unfixed. What do you want
-as your favored startle position? Look back at Table 1.2 from the last chapter and think about
-how it would feel to retain these optimal displays during and even after startling.
-
-| recommend maintaining an erect posture, a stable stance, a calm face, and steady,
-uninterrupted breathing. Remember that diaphragmatic breathing inhibits the startle
-response. How do you orient toward the stimulus that startled you? Face it head-on rather
-than turning away. How would your role models startle? How can you prepare or defend
-yourself in a respectable way without submitting, overreacting, or lashing out?
-
-If | touch my cat unexpectedly when he is nervous, he will startle. If he’s not nervous, he
-won't. We need to carry ourselves in a way that if something intense happens unexpectedly, we
-won't startle. Reducing and reshaping your startle response is an example of how you can begin
-to make progress in replacing anxious nonverbals with more healthy ones. The discussion of
-optimal postures throughout this book will help you determine what you want your startle
-posture to consist of.
-
-Stress Adds Tension to Our Organ Systems
-
-Over months or years, elevated activation of the stress response can be highly detrimental to
-health.*4 This is called “stress adaptation” and it reallocates the use of available resources in a
-way that hinders the organism in the long term. This is because most responses to stress are
-desperate efforts to keep the organism alive just a bit longer. The changes sacrifice long-term
-investments in health and biological maintenance for intense short-term expenditures. It’s an
-ecological wager that acknowledges that the organism will likely not survive for years in the
-present environment but may be able to survive long enough to reproduce one last time.
-
-Our modern bodies continue to make this same pitiful wager even though it is completely
-unnecessary in today’s environment. The sympathetic upregulation that bought our ancestors
-a little more time to reproduce today causes us strife, adversely impacts our health,
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-and sacrifices longevity. Getting stuck in survival mode is antiquated and anachronistic. It can
-be seen as a Stone Age, or even a Mesozoic (the age of reptiles), way of remembering just how
-bad the environment is.
-
-Parasympathetic Sympathetic
-Eyes: SES
-
-Constricts Pupils
-
-Te Eyes:
-Kor Dilates Pupils
-
-Salivary Glands: Salivary Glands:
-Stimulates Salivation Inhibits Salivation
-Heart
-Accelerates Heartbeat
-
-Heart
-Slows Heartbeat
-Lungs:
-Lungs: io Dilates Bronchi
-Constricts Bronchi
-
-Stomach:
-x) Inhibits Digestion
-Liver:
-Glucose Release
-CG 9 Kidneys:
-
-Adrenaline Release
-
-Stomach: —
-Stimulates Digestion a
-
-Liver:
-Bile Release
-
-e—
-Intestines: Cs) ——
-
-Peristalsis & Secretion Intestines:
-
-Inhibits Peristalsis
-
-Bladder:
-Contracts
-
-QO
-
-Bladder:
-Relaxes
-Chain of
-Sympathetic
-Ganglia
-
-Spinal Cord
-
-Illustration 2.3: How the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems affect the organs to prepare us for
-either “resting and digesting” or “fight or flight.”
-
-The sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system revs up various organs. Each of
-these organs responds by overexerting itself differently. Some people hold more trauma in the
-stomach while others hold more in the face. Each person has a different trauma setting, for
-each of dozens of modules and hundreds of muscles. This gives everyone a unique pattern of
-strengths and vulnerabilities. Some of these modules correspond to functional structures, such
-as the swallowing apparatus, the muscles of urinary control, or the intestinal sphincters. Some
-modules may correspond to plexuses, or clusters of nerves, such as the pharyngeal plexus, the
-cardiac plexus, or the solar plexus.
-
-These anatomical modules partially overlap with the ancient Hindu yogic structures called
-chakras. Chakras are thought to channel energy and correlate with both physical ailments and
-emotional strengths. Chakra-based practices are characterized as pseudoscience today because
-they stem from an ancient philosophy that made some assertions that turned out not to be
-true. However, the primary concept of the chakra has some validity. Modern medicine
-generally acknowledges that even the archaic descriptions of chakras bear a remarkable
-resemblance to contemporary anatomical descriptions of nerve clusters.
-
-For example, consider the “throat chakra.” All of us hold some degree of tension in the
-muscles that control the vocal tract. This traumatizes our voice boxes and manifests as a painful
-lump in the throat, which worsens as stress increases. It causes us to feel “choked up,”
-diminishes vocal range, and makes the voice weaker and hoarser with age. However, we can
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-retrain our vocal apparatus using a series of exercises designed to relax and strengthen the
-muscles, restoring a broader vocal range and effectively healing this chakra-like module. This is
-the subject of Chapter 12.
-
-illustration 2.4: A. Spinal nerve plexuses; B. Meditating yogi with chakras represented by circles; C. Internal organs
-
-The extent to which our chakras have been impacted by stress and trauma determines the
-extent of our submissive displays and our aptitude for composure. In other words, chronic
-stress disfigures organs through developmental plasticity. This includes tensing the muscles
-behind the face (nasopharynx), retracting the genitals, and contracting the smooth muscle of
-the gut. The people most afflicted are more susceptible to sensations like “the jitters,” a
-“bleeding heart,” “butterflies in the stomach,” the sensation of a heavy weight on the chest,
-and shortness of breath. These forms of chakra discomfort are the primary causes of anger,
-pain, shyness, introversion, and the background hum of persistent anxiety.
-
-Most of the time, we don’t notice our compromised displays, the physiological dysfunction,
-or even the pain they cause. Neither angry nor shy people understand that their behaviors are
-dictated by the discomfort that comes from unbalanced organs. Instead, and quite
-unfortunately, they often attribute their responses to aspects of their environment. They use
-violence or submission to try to change the environment instead of using self-care to change
-themselves. This lack of awareness allows their pain to control their behavior all the more
-effectively.
-
-Each chakra-like module has its own mini nervous system, and each sends and receives
-messages to both conscious and unconscious areas of our brain. Our mind is continually
-receiving updates from these modules and has the opportunity to send instructions back to
-them. However, if you neglect to guide attention to the sensations, the brain develops a blind
-spot, or scotoma, for them, making them almost impossible to self-regulate. Program Peace will
-help you develop an awareness of, and control over, these different modules. We will focus on
-sensing where the modules are, whether you are straining them, and by how much. The
-program will also help you learn how to hold them optimally while breathing diaphragmatically
-so that you can combine them into healthful ways of being.
-
-Often, when an individual attempts to withhold submissive displays, other signs of
-submission spill out despite their best efforts. When someone unintentionally emits signals that
-betray nervousness, psychologists call this phenomenon “tension leakage.” Examples of tension
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
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-leakage include a cracking voice, swallowing at inopportune times, body sway, increased
-blinking, trembling, fidgeting, stammering, and startling. People who show such leakage early in
-a confrontation are sometimes thought of as “weak” or “soft.” Unfortunately, most people
-socialize by default in a state of moderate physiological distress just below their threshold for
-tension leakage. This book will also help you become aware of your tension leakage and try to
-persuade you not to be afraid or ashamed of it.
-
-Stress Adaptation Activity #2.2: Accepting Tension Leakage
-
-Our bodies often betray us by showing others that we are anxious. We know that other
-people perceive this nonverbal tension leakage and make judgments about us. Because it is
-embarrassing, this can add an additional layer of stress and pain. When we know that other
-people can see that we are choked up, or our hands are shaking, we feel we have been
-humbled and fear this as a type of demotion.
-
-The next time you find yourself nervous in a social situation, don’t allow other people’s
-perceptions of your composure to throw you off or make things worse. Be a legendary
-warrior like Gilgamesh, Shaka Zulu, Athena, or Hattori Hanzo, who has the focus and
-gumption to continue unphased. Instead of being crushed by your body’s demonstration of
-its weaknesses, let your heart shine right through them. Push through the instability without
-denying it, covering it up, compensating for it with anger, or being defeated by it. Learning to
-do this will allow you to harness the energy seeping through the cracks and transform it into
-excitement and power that you can reroute to your advantage.
-
-If you had to point to places in your body and say, “My anxiety exists in the pain | feel
-here,” where would you point? Do you think it is possible to rehabilitate that area? | think it is.
-Do you think it involves muscles that can be contracted? | think it does. As Chapter 1 discussed,
-you can heal your chakras by bringing them to fatigue. Holding the muscles involved in a firm,
-sustained contraction for several seconds will exhaust them. If you are relaxed and breathing
-diaphragmatically, muscular exhaustion leads to recuperation.
-
-The chakra-like modules are pots that are boiling over, leaking everywhere. People
-engaging in tension management try to put a lid on the pot but find themselves constantly
-cleaning up the spillage. The exercises in this book take another route. Instead of trying to
-cover up the spills or hide them, they turn down the heat on the stove so that you can exhibit
-grace under pressure.
-
-Even Sea Slugs Take on Trauma
-
-One of Earth’s simplest animals provides a great model for trauma. The sea slug Aplysia
-californica is a large shell-less sea snail. The Aplysia has a defensive reflex to protect its
-respiratory organs from damage. When the area around its gill is touched, the animal retracts
-the gill up into the bulk of its body. The response is so simple and reliable that neuroscientists
-have used it to study the cellular basis of protective reflexes.
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-In 2000, neuroscientist Eric Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
-for his research on these animals. He decided to use the sea slug in his experiments because it
-has very large neurons, and there are only about twenty thousand of them. Contrast this with
-the one million neurons in a cockroach or honeybee and the 100 billion neurons in the human
-brain. This simplicity, however, is no barrier to effective function. The slugs are more than
-capable of learning carefully about when and how much to retract their gills, and, thanks to
-Kandel’s work, we have a clear understanding of the neural mechanisms involved.
-
-The Aplysia’s gill retraction reflex exhibits a phenomencn called sensitization, whereby the
-reflex can be strengthened by adding a painful stimulus. By shocking the animal with a small
-amount of electricity, experimenters cause it to startle. Pairing the shock with a touch to its gill
-can make its natural defensive response much more powerful. Sea slugs trained this way are
-constantly “on guard,” withdrawing their gills more forcefully and for up to four times as long
-when touched. This change occurs because the slugs on high alert have generalized the
-negative experience of the shock to other stimuli so that even a benign, light touch elicits a
-powerful withdrawal.
-
-Illustration 2.5: A. Sea slug Aplysia californica; B. Aplysia with gill fully relaxed; C. Aplysia with gill fully retracted.
-
-You could say the muscles and nerves involved in retracting the gill constitute a chakra.
-This is similar to how humans come to hold tension in muscles all over their bodies, overreact
-to unthreatening stimuli, and generalize traumatic experiences to everyday life. The Aplysia’s
-gill retraction reflex is analogous to the reflexes responsible for a wide range of submissive
-displays, from our squinting eyes to our hoarse voices, from our suppressed sexuality to our
-tense diaphragms. The only real difference is that the sea slugs are traumatized by actual
-painful stimuli, whereas most of our trauma comes from the way we interpret social
-competition.
-
-The good news here is that the Aplysia can very easily be desensitized, and so can we.
-When the slug is touched lightly and repeatedly without being shocked, there is a progressive
-decrease in how far it retracts its gill. Gradually, it relearns that there is no risk associated with
-light touching and it becomes able to relax. Such a decreased reaction to a stimulus is known as
-desensitization or habituation. Slugs cannot heal their own chakras in this way. However, by
-simulating an optimal environment through relaxed diaphragmatic breathing, and using the
-
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-right mindset, we can. Rather than researchers prodding us with electrodes, we have social
-contacts prodding us with provocation. This book will teach you how to desensitize your
-chakra-like modules to their competitive attacks.
-
-Stress and Competition in the Dominance Hierarchy
-
-Since the discovery of the pecking order among hens by Schjelderup-Ebbe in 1922, status
-hierarchy has been understood as the predominant form of social organization in vertebrates.
-Animals that live in social communities must actively compete in the same space for resources.
-When food, mates, or territory are disputed, dominant individuals will prevail over
-subordinates. Interestingly, a tiered social system helps the group become stable and viable
-over the long term. On average, it is beneficial for each member, even for those of the lowest
-ranks. This is because it minimizes violent competition over resources by defining the
-relationships among members. Dominance hierarchies improve reproductive fitness for all the
-animals involved by discouraging physical fighting, thereby saving time and energy and reducing
-the risk of injury.
-
-Unfortunately, a stable hierarchy necessitates constant signaling. Many mammals send out
-submissive signals even before any direct confrontation occurs. For instance, the subordinate
-dog will often whimper and place its tail between its legs in response to an immediate threat.
-Even in the absence of any threat, it will carry its head low, tremble slightly, and adopt a
-restricted tail posture all the time.
-
-In primates, being harassed or subjugated by higher-ranking individuals, even without any
-physical contact, is the major form of stress for many species.** But it is not just being
-dominated that is stressful. It is the compensatory response. Submissive displays activate the
-body’s sympathetic nervous system and create continuous strain on the muscles and organs
-responsible for them.
-
-Chronic Submission Turns into Social Defeat
-
-Most animals have a nearly equal propensity to display dominant and submissive displays in
-infancy, and young mammals often use both interchangeably in bouts of play. However, as the
-animal matures, one of the two types of display becomes more frequent and more
-pronounced. Their experiences with victory and defeat drive this shift.1° The term social defeat
-refers to losing a confrontation or dispute with a member of your species. This happens
-constantly in the wild. The more frequently you feel defeated, the stronger your submissive
-signaling becomes. It is anticipatory and preemptive. Animals that lose repeatedly exhibit
-chronic subordination, wearing the extent of their social defeat on their sleeves to advertise
-their place in the hierarchy.
-
-Cricket fighting is a popular pastime in China and provides a perfect example of social
-defeat. A cricket loses a match if it is thrown from the ring, runs away from a battle, or avoids
-contact. Studies have found that after just one loss, a cricket can “lose its fighting spirit” and
-will only fight again one time out of ten.!” Rather than engaging in actual combat, the insect will
-simply flee the next time it is approached without even taking the time to size up its opponent.
-
-Other examples are just as dramatic. In experiments with mammals, the “resident-
-intruder” paradigm is often used. This involves placing a subordinate rat near the cage of a
-more dominant one. Inevitably, the dominant rat will make a dominance display, resulting in
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-the subordinate animal being threatened and acting defeated. Sometimes, the submissive rat is
-placed inside the dominant rat’s cage, which leads to the intruder being attacked and forced
-into submission. Because the cage is small and escape is impossible, the intruder will lie on its
-back, emitting distress calls and freezing behavior to appease the attacker. In both
-experimental protocols, the submitting animal’s physiology is significantly changed*®.
-
-Social defeat is a source of chronic stress in animals capable of affecting both neuro- and
-biochemistry.*? In mammals, social defeat routinely leads to social withdrawal, lethargy,
-reduced exploratory behavior, anhedonia, decreased sexual drive, and reduced levels of
-testosterone in males and females.2° In humans, it is linked to low self-esteem, feelings of
-depression, avoidance, anxiety, and increased levels of stress-related hormones. One of the
-most dramatic changes is the attenuation of the breath. You may have noticed that after a soul-
-crushing defeat, the most notable change is that it sucks the wind right out of you.
-
-There is good evidence that social defeat in humans leads to poor health2? and goes hand-
-in-hand with sympathetic upregulation. Low social status is a robust predictor of death and
-disease in humans. Several large-scale public health studies have found that low
-socioeconomic status is strongly related to illness, disease, and mortality.2? The lower a
-person’s status, the more likely they are to have cardiovascular, gastrointestinal,
-musculoskeletal, neoplastic, pulmonary, renal, or other diseases. This association between
-disease and social status cannot be explained away by related factors such as age, income,
-health behavior, race, sex, or access to healthcare and is thought to be a direct effect of
-stress.** In places where everyone is poor, the effect is nowhere near as strong. It is the
-inequality that affects health, and it seems that social stress is the real culprit, as socially
-isolated people and those who receive less social care and inclusion have a greater risk of dying
-from any cause.2>
-
-Experiences of social defeat cause us to become preoccupied with matters of status. Male
-chimps are obsessed with it. They organize most of their lives around issues of rank, allowing
-social struggles to consume their time, energy, and mental lives. Chimps use intimidation,
-bluffs, isolation tactics, and obtrusive social maneuvers to challenge and undermine others and
-dethrone the leader.° Similarly, human glory-seeking behaviors, personal vendettas, crimes,
-and even large-scale political conflicts almost always involve efforts by individuals to improve
-their rank. Innate tendencies to resist social defeat form the basis of human egotism, hubris,
-false pride, and insecurity. The primate ego is the source of much of our existential suffering.
-
-Our egos reflect the place in the pecking order in which we imagine ourselves. This is why
-the ego plays such a pivotal role in our mental lives. The ego is a neurological mechanism
-designed to help us navigate the primate social hierarchy while avoiding defeat. It causes us to
-compulsively compare our attributes to those of others and to use these comparisons to guide
-our use of dominance and subordination displays. After using the exercises in this book to
-rehabilitate your breathing and other bodily functions, | hope you feel divested of your
-submissive inclinations and with them your susceptibility to defeat. When this happens, you
-should feel that your ego expands to include others rather than exclude them.
-
-We want to develop egalitarian relationships in which there is no vying for dominion. Don’t
-bother subjecting yourself to the never-ending, back-and-forth game of status displays. Rise
-above them. To do this, you must respond to other people’s aggressive and submissive displays
-toward you without feeling compelled to respond with those of your own. Doing so involves
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-subduing four central mammalian instincts. This means that whether they play submissive or
-aggressive, you choose not to respond with either aggression or submission. You will find that
-virtually anything else you respond with will be perfect.
-
-Trauma Devalues Us
-
-“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat,
-so that we can know who we are.” — Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
-
-This book’s premise is that, due to our molecular heritage and primate ancestors’
-preoccupation with social competition, we are highly susceptible to becoming stress adapted.
-This causes us to hold various lesions in modules throughout the body. It poisons our minds and
-causes our behavior to be desperate, combative, and vindictive. It causes us to perceive threat
-when it is not intended and appraise real threat as more dire than it really is. The resulting
-tendencies cause unnecessary negativity that significantly impedes humanity’s cultural and
-intellectual progress.
-
-Stephen Hawking once argued that the human race is equivalent to “chemical scum ona
-moderate-sized planet.” | used to think that we were scum in both senses of the world: 1)
-grotesque, biological waste and 2) miserable, immoral miscreants. Now, | think it is the
-symptoms and physical stigmata of stress that cause us to act reprehensibly. For that reason, |
-think that they make us scum. In my mind; however, if we can transcend our physical
-afflictions, we can transcend our propensity for evil. In doing so, we would also rise above our
-lowly biological origins.
-
-Dominant Animals Are the Least Aggressive
-
-What happens to an animal that reaches the top? Does an ape that becomes an alpha
-individual in their group become more aggressive or less aggressive? What is your guess? Many
-people tacitly assume that dominant individuals are more aggressive than subordinate ones.
-The opposite is true. When an ape or monkey is accepted as the alpha of its group, its violent
-tendencies evaporate. They are the most assertive while also being the least aggressive. There
-is no need for either violence or threat displays (except under unusual circumstances, as when
-a rival challenges the alpha). This is true of both males and females. It is, therefore,
-counterproductive for a human to act aggressively in an attempt to appear dominant. What
-they appear as, instead, is impetuous and foolhardy. According to primatologists Richard
-Wrangham and Dale Peterson:
-
-The male chimpanzee behaves as if he is quite driven to reach the top of the community
-heap. However, once he has been accepted as alpha (in other words, once his authority
-is established to the point where it is no longer challenged), his tendency for violence
-falls dramatically. Personality differences and differences in the number, skills, and
-effectiveness of his challengers produce variation in how completely he relaxes.
-However, once males have reached the top, they can become benign leaders as easily as
-they earlier became irritated challengers. What most male chimpanzees strive for is
-being on top, the one position where they will never have to grovel. The difficulty of
-getting there induces aggression.?’
-
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-Scientific observations like this document for us that acting aggressive is a sign of weakness
-and self-perceived inferiority. | believe that the main reason dominant primates are not
-aggressive is that their own subordination signals no longer haunt them. As with apes, so also
-with humans: we are kept controlled by our egos and obsessed with issues of pride because we
-want desperately to stop having to submit. | know this was the case for me. My nonverbals
-were so submissive that | was embarrassed by them. | didn’t want to appear weak so | would
-instead get angry, angry enough to cross ethical boundaries. Deep down, we know that
-submissive behavior is the source of much of our physical and emotional pain, so we are always
-seeking ways to feel confident in leaving submission behind. But the necessary confidence is
-elusive.
-
-In the last chapter, we discussed how once we stop sending submissive displays, we no
-longer have to choose between assertion and aggression because being assertive without being
-aggressive will become second nature. How is this so? Imagine you were always blushing,
-always sneering, and that you always looked like you were about to cry. Imagine how
-frustrating and difficult it would be to come across as assertive. To be assertive, you would
-almost have to be passive-aggressive. Right? Chapter 6 will show you that the tension we hold
-in the muscles surrounding our cheeks and eyes keeps us continually on the verge of blushing,
-sneering, and crying.
-
-Releasing the tension responsible for such displays will allow you to reach true equanimity
-and present you with a different option. At this point, you will have to choose between being a
-good person and being a bad person. You can utilize your newfound composure altruistically or
-malevolently. At this crossroads, | believe most people will realize that being good is the only
-real path because once your submissive behaviors have disintegrated, it will become clear that
-they were always the primary drivers for bad behavior.
-
-| can tell you from firsthand experience because | went from one extreme to another.
-When | felt | was on the bottom, | was sulky, ill-tempered, and hateful. | always felt like | had
-something to prove. The majority of my time alone was spent planning retorts and retaliation. |
-experienced “other people” as a type of hell. Since being desensitized by Program Peace’s
-exercises, | no longer feel these emotions at all. Other people are just not a source of negativity
-anymore.
-
-Our ingrained bodily habits make it difficult to just stop sending submissive signals. Even if,
-somehow, we could leave behind our mental concerns related to status, our bodies would
-continue to carry symptoms of social defeat like shortness of breath, the rock in the pit of our
-stomachs, and the hot tension in our faces. These are spiritual burdens that will inevitably drag
-us back into the hierarchical fray. This book will show you how to mend these symptoms and
-how to lay down the burden of submission, shame, and stressful social comparison. Where do
-we start? With the cornerstone of confidence: “breathing easy.”
-
-Breathing Easy Will Pull You Out of Survival Mode
-
-In most mammals, shallow breathing accompanies submission and aggression, while deep
-breathing accompanies dominance and assertion. A submissive chimp always greets a more
-dominant chimp first and does so using a sequence of short pant-grunts. These depthless pants
-are indicative of self-handicapped breathing. Chimps whimper when acting submissively,
-producing a high-pitched sound accompanied by attenuated breath. We also breathe shallowly
-
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-
-around others, especially when experiencing social anxiety. | believe that if it were studied,
-researchers would find that the extent of deep, diaphragmatic breathing is an accurate
-predictor of social dominance, the number of offspring, quality of life, and a wide variety of
-other positive outcomes in primates and all mammals generally. Unfortunately, there has been
-extraordinarily little related research on breathing style in animals or humans.
-
-Recent experiments have offered us glimpses into the benefits of breathing with the
-diaphragm. Study participants that practiced deep breathing achieved significant reductions in
-self-reported anxiety, stress hormones, heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, 7° and the
-activity of the sympathetic stress system. It also enhances mood, oxygen levels, pulmonary
-function, cardiorespiratory fitness, and respiratory muscle strength, as well as parasympathetic
-activity. Findings like these, along with the benefits | have experienced myself, have led me to
-believe that the most important message that you can send your body and its cells is, “Hey, it’s
-totally safe to breathe slowly and deeply.”
-
-The scientific community knows shallow breathing to be an indicator of stress and
-sympathetic over-activation. But it is rarely recognized as a submissive and conciliatory display.
-Recognizing it as such is important in understanding how to counteract it. We breathe shallowly
-to show people we are listening to them, that we are concerned and do not think of ourselves
-as better than them. We face strong unspoken social norms telling us to breathe shallowly.
-Tragically, however, it results in stress adaptation, increases our tendency to startle, creates
-tension in chakras throughout the body, and rewires our mind for negativity.
-
-It is possible to escape the social pressure to breathe shallowly. We can do so by building
-strong, consistent diaphragmatic breathing habits, training ourselves to breathe deeply under
-every possible circumstance. Deep breathing in social situations breaks the link between social
-friction and fight or flight. It allows you to stop responding to social pressures as if they are
-matters of survival.
-
-Whether you are sitting in a meeting, chatting with a friend, having an argument, or taking
-an exercise class, there should be only one competition that is going on in your head. Out of
-everyone in the vicinity, you want to have the most relaxed breathing. The only way to
-accomplish this is to breathe slowly, smoothly, and deeply, reducing the number of breaths you
-breathe per minute. Relaxed breathing will liberate you from the status hierarchy and is the
-only thing that you should do aggressively. The next chapter will show you how.
-
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-Chapter 2: Bullet Points
-
-e Your body is a “survival machine” designed to support a competitive molecular
-replicator: namely, your DNA.
-
-e Our biology prioritizes the DNA, and for that reason, our bodies are designed to sacrifice
-our physical and emotional well-being for the sake of survival and reproduction.
-
-e Asone example of this, we are built to adapt to stressful environments by upregulating
-our stress-response activity, resulting in anxiety and pain.
-
-e Even in the modern world, everyone’s stress system has been over-activated to some
-extent. This anxiety or “hyperarousal” results in chronic muscular, respiratory, and
-cardiovascular fatigue.
-
-e Anxiety and chronic stress negatively affect every organ in the body. These organ
-systems are roughly congruent with the ancient Hindu system of chakras—familiar body
-parts that need to be rehabilitated with love and care.
-
-e We use anxiety as a submissive display to prove to others that we are neither “too
-calm” nor “too good” for them.
-
-e The overuse of submissive signals leads to the accumulation of trauma within our
-tissues and organs, especially the breathing muscles. The result is often chronic defeat,
-otherwise known as depression.
-
-e Being nonsubmissive is not about being tougher than anyone else; it is about not
-wasting energy on competitive nonsense that leads nowhere.
-
-e Dominant mammals are usually the most composed, and the least traumatized and
-hyperaroused. They don’t feel any need to use anxiety as a form of social lubrication.
-
-e Deep, diaphragmatic breathing is the foundation of dominant behavior because it builds
-unconscious self-confidence.
-
-e You can escape the cycle of social anxiety by breathing deeper and longer breaths in
-social situations—fearing no one but treating everyone well.
-
-e Through developmental plasticity (new gene expression), you want your body to make
-persistent, beneficial adaptations that are responses to an optimal environment.
-
-To do this, you must give the body the right cues to trick it into assuming that your
-environment is safe and full of resources. This is accomplished by breathing with
-the diaphragm.
-
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-Chapter 2: Endnotes
-
-1. Dewitt, T. J., Sih, A., & Wilson, D. S. (February 1998). Costs and limits of phenotypic
-plasticity. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 13(2): 77-81
-
-2. Kelly, S. A., Panhuis, T. M., Stoehr, A. M. (2012). Phenotypic Plasticity: Molecular
-Mechanisms and Adaptive Significance. Comprehensive Physiology, 2, 1417-1439.
-
-3. Gabriel, W. (2005), How stress selects for reversible phenotypic plasticity. Journal of
-Evolutionary Biology, 18, 873-883.
-
-4. Pigliucci, M. (2001). Phenotypic plasticity: Beyond nature and nurture. Johns Hopkins
-University Press.
-
-5. Reser, J. E. (2016). Chronic stress, cortical plasticity and neuroecology.
-Behavioral Processes, 129, 105-115.
-
-6. DeWitt, T. J., & Scheiner, S. M. (2004). Phenotypic plasticity: Functional and conceptual
-approaches. Oxford University Press.
-
-7. Hoffman, K. M. & Trawalter, S. (2016). Assumptions about life hardship and pain
-perception. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 19(4), 493-508.
-
-8. Lin, K. N., Barela, A. J., Chang, M., Dicus, E., Garrett, S., Levine, M., Oray, S., & McClure,
-W. O. (1998). Prenatal stress generates adult rats with behavioral and neuroanatomical
-similarities to human schizophrenics. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts, 24, 796.
-
-9. Schneider, M., Roughton, E., Koehler, A., & Lubach, G. (1999) Growth and development
-following prenatal stress exposure in primates: An examination of ontogenetic vulnerability.
-Child Development, 70(2), 263-274.
-
-10. Talge, N. M., Neal, C., Glover, V., & Early Stress, Translational Research and Prevention
-Science Network: Fetal and Neonatal Experience on Child and Adolescent Mental Health (2007).
-Antenatal maternal stress and long-term effects on child neurodevelopment: how and
-
-why? Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 48(3-4), 245-261.
-
-11. Sapolsky, R. M. (1996). Why stress is bad for your brain. Science, 273(5276), 749-750.
-12. Sapolsky, 1996, “Why stress is bad for your brain.”
-
-13. Miller, T. A. (1997). Control of circulation in insects. General Pharmacology, 29(1), 23-38.
-
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-Chapter 2: Persistent Adaptation to Chronic Stress
-
-14. McEwen, B. S., & Stellar, E. (1993). Stress and the individual: Mechanisms leading to
-disease. Archives of Internal Medicine, 153(18), 2093-2101.
-
-15. Nelson, R. J. (2005). An Introduction to Behavioral Endocrinology (3rd ed.). Sinauer
-Associates; Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science,
-308(5722), 648-652.
-
-16. Hermann, H. R. (2017). Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals: The great
-game of life. Academic Press.
-
-17. Laufer, P. (2011). No animals were harmed: The controversial line between entertainment
-and abuse. Lyons Press.
-
-18. Alcock, J. (2005). Animal behavior: An evolutionary approach (8" ed.). Sinauer.
-
-19. Bjorkqvist, K. (2001). Social defeat as a stressor in humans. Physiology and Behavior, 73(3),
-435-442.
-
-20. Huhman, K. L. (2006). Social conflict models — Can they inform us about human
-psychopathology? Hormones and Behavior. 50(4), 640-646.
-
-21. Allen, N. B., & Badcock, P. B. (2003). The social risk hypothesis of depressed mood:
-Evolutionary, psychosocial, and neurobiological perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129(6),
-887-913.
-
-22. Sapolsky, 1996, “Why stress is bad for your brain.”
-
-23. Adler, N. E., Boyce, T., Chesney, M. A., Cohen, S., Folkman, S., Kahn, R. L., & Syme, S. L.
-(1994). Socioeconomic status and health. The challenge of the gradient. The American
-Psychologist. 49(1), 15-24; Kaplan, G. A., & Keil, J. E. (1993). Socioeconomic factors and
-cardiovascular disease: A review of the literature. Circulation, 88(4), 1973-1998.
-
-24. Pincus, T., Callahan, L. F., Burkhauser, R. V., (1987). Most chronic diseases are reported
-more frequently by individuals with fewer than 12 years of formal education in the age 18-64
-
-United States population. Journal of Chronic Diseases, 40(9), 865-874.
-
-25. Seeman, T. E. (2000). Health promoting effects of friends and family on health outcomes in
-older adults. American Journal of Health Promotion, 14(6), 362-370.
-
-26. Stanford, C. (2018). The new chimpanzee: A twenty-first-century portrait of our closest kin.
-Harvard University Press.
-
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-27. Wrangham, R. W., & Peterson, D. (1996). Demonic males: Apes and the origins of human
-violence. Houghton, Mifflin.
-
-28. Chen, Y. F., Huang, X. Y., Chien, C. H., & Cheng, J. F. (2016). The effectiveness of
-diaphragmatic breathing relaxation training for reducing anxiety. Perspectives in Psychiatric
-Care, 53(4), 329-336.
-
-29. Janet, K. S., & Gowri, P. M. (2017). Effectiveness of deep breathing exercise on blood
-
-pressure among patients with hypertension. /nternational Journal of Pharma and Bio Sciences,
-8(1), B256-260.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly,
-and on Long Intervals
-
-“Regulate the breathing, and thereby control the mind.” — B.K.S. lyengar (1918-2014)
-
-What is breathing? Breathing is the exchange of gasses used by land animals to provide their
-bodies’ cells with the oxygen. They need that oxygen to burn food into energy. Oxygen allows
-cells to break down sugars derived from food and provide us with energy to move and think.
-Breathing takes many forms. For example, crickets simply circulate air through open tubes
-while fish use gills to collect oxygen from water.
-
-In animals with lungs, breathing is called “ventilation.” During the ventilatory process, air is
-pulled into the lungs, where gas exchange takes place. Oxygen diffuses from the air into the
-blood during inhalation, and carbon dioxide diffuses from the blood into the air during
-exhalation. When the environment requires that an animal move more than usual, its breathing
-rate increases so that more oxygen can be delivered to its busy cells.
-
-Ilustration 3.1: A. Circulatory system of a cricket; B. Gills of a salmon
-
-Mammals have muscles in the chest that act to inflate and deflate the lungs. The most
-important of these is a specialized muscle located beneath the lungs called the respiratory
-diaphragm. Other land vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, and the late dinosaurs
-exhibit a similar structure, although theirs is simpler and sits above the lungs rather than below.
-The mammalian diaphragm changes its behavior depending on the immediate circumstances,
-focusing on efficiency in safe environments but producing paranoid overexertion in threatening
-ones. This chapter will describe how stress causes the diaphragm to produce quick, shallow
-strokes, and how deliberately practicing longer, fuller breaths can reinstate its proper function.
-
-Distressed Breathing vs. Diaphragmatic Breathing
-
-Breathing shallowly, at short intervals, is known as distressed breathing. It is also known as
-defensive breathing, nondiaphragmatic breathing, or thoracic breathing. The behavior is
-strongly associated with stress and anxiety disorders and tends to cause nervousness and
-discomfort. Distressed breathing is characterized by rapid, uneven breaths, punctuated by
-gasps, sighs, and breath holding. It can easily become habitual, leading to serious long-term
-dysfunction.
-
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-Distressed breathing has a reciprocal relationship with the brain’s stress and threat
-response systems. We breathe more defensively when we are afraid, and we become more
-afraid when we breathe defensively. Distressed breathing is also used as a signal of submission.
-This is why improving your breathing will not only help you control negative thinking but also
-help you become more dominant. Indeed, you will find that true diaphragmatic breathing is
-incompatible with anxiety, social and otherwise.
-
-People who breathe shallowly are usually unaware of the condition and do it unknowingly
-throughout the day. Most of us breathe by default with “bated breath.” We wait for everything
-in our lives with abated breathing as if a judge were about to announce our prison sentence.
-We do this even when circumstances are normal and unthreatening. Everyone understands
-more or less instinctively that inhibited, irregular breathing is a source of tension and stress.
-This is clear from the popularity of idioms like “waiting to exhale,” “sigh of relief,” “couldn’t
-catch my breath,” “breath of fresh air,” “give me some breathing room,” and “short of breath.”
-
-Breathing patterns are contagious and often modeled. Children learn how to breathe from
-their parents. For this reason, children often take on the anxiety level of their parents. We
-perceive others’ breathing patterns from their movements, speech patterns, sounds of
-inhalation and exhalation, and facial tension. We all alter our breathing to accommodate, or
-match, that of the people around us. | saw this clearly when my distressed breathing would
-contaminate the breathing of others.
-
-Is your breathing unhealthy? Likely so. Imagine that you are threading a small needle with a
-thin thread. As you line up the thread with the hole, are you holding your breath? You shouldn’t
-be. Experience pronounced distressed breathing firsthand by doing the following activity:
-
-Breathing Activity #3.1: Simulating Distressed Breathing
-Sit comfortably and focus on your breath. Time your inhalations and exhalations to last only a
-second each, and breathe like this for 10 seconds. Next, time each breath to last for just half
-a second. Continue to breathe this way for one minute or until you feel uncomfortable,
-whichever comes first. Now stop and observe your body and mind. How does your chest
-feel? How do your shoulders and neck feel? How has your mood changed? Wouldn’t it be
-terrible to be stuck breathing like this forever?
-
-After performing this activity, most people report uncomfortable sensations such as
-anxiety, panic, or tension, accompanied by increased heart rate, physical agitation,
-breathlessness, chest pressure, or even the feeling of starving for air. These are the typical
-outcomes of distressed breathing, and many of us unnecessarily subject ourselves to them
-daily. An anxious person will breathe at an average rate of 18 to 20 breaths per minute. A
-relaxed person practicing diaphragmatic breathing will breathe only five to seven times per
-minute.” Problems with diaphragmatic breathing are best conceptualized as falling on a
-continuum rather than as a threshold. There are no firm diagnostic criteria for distressed
-breathing; virtually everyone is somewhere on the spectrum.
-
-Newborns breathe diaphragmatically, but, by age ten, diaphragmatic function is usually
-minimized. This is because few of us experience childhoods that our bodies interpret as
-optimal. The transition away from diaphragmatic breathing occurs during early childhood as we
-
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-
-learn which environmental stimuli should be linked to concern and worry. The process is
-normal and prepares us to be especially cautious in specific situations. However, by the time we
-reach adulthood, nearly every situation recruits distressed breathing, just some more than
-others.? Distressed breathing is implicitly conditioned to occur alongside many activities and
-postures, and these associations are often never unlearned. That leaves us gasping when the
-telephone rings, holding our breath while sitting at the keyboard, and hyperventilating during
-everyday conversations.
-
-We cannot immediately switch from distressed breathing to competent, calm, diaphragmatic
-breathing because we are held back by long-term physiological changes wrought by years of
-breathing shallowly. These changes involve a multitude of alterations to the muscles and nerves of
-the respiratory system. They cause the diaphragm to atrophy and become stuck in partial
-contraction. These changes are driven by gene activity, constitute developmental plasticity, and are
-largely responsible for the sympathetic overactivation discussed in the last chapter. Fortunately,
-the changes are reversible. However, you cannot pay anybody to retrain your breathing for you,
-and there is no pill you can take. It requires time and discipline. As with the other exercises in
-this book, you will find the breathwork rewarding once you start to see the results.
-
-Many therapists, books, and self-help resources promote breathing exercises. Most of
-these exercises last only a few seconds, are intended to counteract panic attacks, and come
-with no guidelines for permanently changing breathing style. Moreover, users are often only
-told to “breathe deeply” or “focus on the breath” without being provided any further
-instructions. Simply focusing on the breath is beneficial because it prompts the individual to
-note when their breath is unnaturally shallow. It causes the person to think, “Wait, my current
-predicament is not all that bad, so why am | breathing like there is something at stake?” That is
-a productive first step.
-
-Awareness of desperation in the breath is a start, but it does not address the problem at its
-source. Rather than simply focusing on the breath, we need to actively lengthen and deepen
-our breaths throughout the day to strengthen the muscles and reprogram the unconscious
-breathing circuits in our brainstems. Consciously overriding its injurious commands will rewire
-your brain and retune your entire body.
-
-Diaphragmatic Breathing Utilizes the Respiratory Diaphragm
-Deep, non-distressed breathing is controlled by the diaphragm, a dome-shaped skeletal muscle
-that separates the thorax (containing the heart and lungs) from the abdomen (containing the
-intestines, stomach, liver, and kidneys). Only an eighth of an inch thick, it extends across the
-bottom of the rib cage and moves air into and out of the lungs by changing shape. It moves like
-a plunger. When it contracts, the diaphragm moves downward, drawing in breath, resulting in
-inhalation. When it relaxes, it moves upward, expelling air and causing you to exhale. The
-diaphragm can move as much as ten centimeters, but many adults use only around one
-centimeter or 10% of the total range. Expanding the range of your diaphragm is essential,
-and | designed this chapter’s exercises to do just that. But first, let’s explore how to move the
-diaphragm at all.
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing, also known as eupnea in the scientific literature and belly
-breathing in the vernacular, is an unlabored form of breathing seen in untraumatized mammals.
-You should be able to observe it in any young mammal resting peacefully.’ It is easiest to spot
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-in a sleeping infant, a kitten, or a puppy lying on its side. The animal’s stomach will move up
-and down with each breath. How do you know whether you are breathing with your
-diaphragm? Your belly should move in much the same way. Use the conventional guidelines for
-belly breathing in the activity below:
-
-Breathing Activity #3.2: Belly Breathing
-
-Lie on your back with a pillow under your head. Place one hand on your chest and the other
-on your stomach. Focus on how your belly moves. Ensure that it rises with each inhalation
-and falls with each exhalation. When you are breathing with the diaphragm, it displaces the
-stomach, causing it to move up and down. On the other hand, during distressed breathing,
-the chest, neck, and shoulders move and the stomach remains still.
-
-Distressed breathing makes you feel like you are growing taller and lengthening.
-Diaphragmatic breathing makes you feel like your belly, lower ribs, and lower back are
-expanding. Distressed breathing makes you feel like you are fighting to retain control over
-your environment. It can be hard to give up the false sense of security it provides.
-Diaphragmatic breathing may feel uncomfortable at first as if you are letting your guard
-down to an extent that is unsafe. You may find that letting your stomach rise takes courage
-and a bit of faith.
-
-You should notice that that at certain points during your inhalation the diaphragm locks up
-and the belly stops moving entirely. Watch for these impediments. It’s almost like you are
-trying to convince your diaphragm that it is safe to come out and play. Try different breathing
-styles until you find one that lets you easily and naturally keep your stomach rising and
-falling. It may help to place an object like a book on your belly. Give yourself several minutes
-to experiment.
-
-Exhalation Inhalation
-
-—N ——-
-( ) \
-Z /) y }
-Lungs rR \ Lungs { /
-Deflate XS IN \ Inflate LY
-}) >
-
-W\  ®&?
-
-|
-
-( \ |
-
-Diaphragm \ —_ ~~ J } Diaphragm } |
-Relaxes \Y \\ / Contracts / -—_
-\ J] \] / i
-| ft/ 2 \/
-Stomach | Y/— stomach | L Jf
-Pulled In| , |
-} \
-
-Expands | - |
-
-{
-
-IMlustration 3.2: A. Belly breather ensuring that the stomach rises and falls; B. Motion of the diaphragm
-during breathing.
-
-66
-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-The motion of one’s stomach is the telltale sign of diaphragmatic breathing, and this
-method works for many people.? However, most instructions for diaphragmatic breathing
-end here. This was discouraging for me because | felt there should be a more substantial
-protocol. Moreover, | realized my stomach was rising and falling only because | was using my
-abdominal muscles, rather than my diaphragm, to suck it in and push it out. No matter how |
-tried to vary my approach to each breath, my stomach would not move unless | used my
-abdominals to move it. My diaphragm was so tense that monitoring the motion of my stomach
-did nothing for me. | wonder how many other people following these guidelines simply use
-their abdominal muscles to mimic the movement without breathing diaphragmatically.
-
-After years of exhaustively reading the medical literature on anxiety, | became convinced
-that my problem lay with my dysfunctional breathing style. | was determined to correct it but
-couldn’t find anything that explained how. | would lay on the ground for hours trying to
-perceive the movement of my diaphragm to no avail. The diaphragm has relatively few
-proprioceptive nerve endings, meaning that it is difficult to tell how much it is contracting and
-where it is in space. That makes it very difficult to perceive consciously, which makes the
-problem all the worse.
-
-Why did natural selection hide our diaphragm from us? Perhaps, as with the heart, our
-genes don’t trust us to know how to control the diaphragm consciously. Grievously, the body
-has a vested interest in keeping us from interfering with trauma’s adaptive manifestations. If
-our environment is seemingly drastic, our genes want us to treat it as such. One of the few
-times we notice our diaphragms is when we have hiccups. With this in mind, try using the
-following activity as an alternative route to getting a feel for your diaphragm.
-
-Breathing Activity #3.3: Simulating Hiccups
-
-Fake a hiccup ten times. A genuine hiccup utilizes the diaphragm to generate force.
-
-Pay special attention to how it feels to move the diaphragm in the form of a hiccup. As you
-feel the muscle contract, remind yourself that this is the muscle you want to use to power
-your breath.
-
-A hiccup is initiated by a reflex arc that produces a spasm of the diaphragm (myoclonic
-jerk). Hiccupping involves rapid, abrupt diaphragmatic contractions. Of course, this is the
-opposite of how you want to breathe—i.e., slowly and smoothly. However, hiccupping helps
-you become acquainted with your diaphragm. Fake a few hiccups, and you will localize your
-diaphragm in space and sensorium. Another way to sense your diaphragm is to hold your
-breath for 20 to 40 seconds. You will feel a muscle between your stomach and chest pulsate.
-This is the diaphragm trying to jumpstart your breathing pattern.
-
-The key to sensing and recruiting the diaphragm is teaching yourself to breathe at a
-smooth, continuous, and constant rate. This automatically mobilizes the diaphragm because it
-is what the diaphragm is specialized for and designed to do. Shallow breathing stifles
-diaphragmatic movement. When the diaphragm is stifled, we use other, less efficient muscles
-for breathing.
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Illustration 3.3: A. Diaphragm, lungs, and respiratory airways; B. Diaphragm shown within and outside the rib cage;
-C. The phrenic nerves send motor commands to the diaphragm and receive sensory information from it.
-
-Distressed Breathing Utilizes the Thorax and Clavicles
-
-During distressed breathing, the stomach doesn’t move, but the chest does. It involves pivoting
-the ribs around the joints where they attach to the vertebrae. The thoracic (or intercostal)
-muscles of the thorax perform this function. The thoracic muscles form the meat in between
-the bones of barbecued ribs. The external intercostals swing the ribs upward and forward,
-powering inhalation. The internal intercostals pull the ribs inward and downward, powering
-exhalation. In a nutshell, diaphragmatic breathing presses the floor of the lungs up and down,
-whereas thoracic breathing expands the walls of the chest inward and outward. One effect of
-this difference is that thoracic breathing does not fill the lower portions of the lungs with air,
-while diaphragmatic breathing does. Thoracic breathing is inherently shallow. It is also less
-efficient because it requires more work—and more breaths—to transport the same amount of
-oxygen into your blood.
-
-Clavicular breathing is another form of distressed breathing that involves a shrugging of the
-clavicles and shoulders. It is even shallower and less efficient than thoracic breathing. It is also
-called upper thoracic breathing, as it only pulls air into the top third of the lungs. Clavicular
-breathing is a serious problem, as it can nearly eliminate the function of the diaphragm,
-leading to even weaker, less effective breaths.
-
-A respiratory physiologist can measure the extent of clavicular and thoracic breathing using
-electromyography by placing electrodes on the muscles surrounding the clavicles and upper
-thorax. The electrode readout indicates how active these muscles are and, thus, how defensive
-the person’s breathing is. You can observe this yourself by paying careful attention to the
-movement of your shoulders during breathing. If they move up with the in-breath, you are
-breathing with your clavicles. Clavicular breathing becomes especially pronounced during
-exercise. In general, you should never breathe with your shoulders. As Chapter 15 will explain,
-it is preferable to keep the shoulders still and pressed toward the floor.
-
-During ideal diaphragmatic breathing, the thoracic muscles and the diaphragm work
-together with every breath. The diaphragm should lead the thoracic muscles, setting the pace
-and making each breath long and smooth. As in the synergy seen between sympathetic and
-parasympathetic branches of the nervous system, the diaphragm is supposed to work in unison
-with the thoracic musculature. This synergy falls apart during anxiety when the thoracic
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-musculature and the sympathetic system take over. We have so far encountered two major
-antagonists in our story about chronic stress. First, we have the overactive sympathetic nervous
-system. Second, we have overactive thoracic breathing. It should come as no surprise that the
-two problems collaborate, exacerbating the detrimental effects. The resulting distressed
-breathing drains our energy, ties knots in our muscles, ages us prematurely, and turns us into
-nervous wrecks.
-
-The critical link between emotion and stress is the breath. The fear and grief circuitry of the
-brain activates thoracic breathing and inhibits diaphragmatic breathing. Habitual thoracic or
-clavicular breathing chronically overstimulates the sympathetic nervous system, keeping heart
-rate and blood pressure elevated while loading the diaphragm with muscular tension. This
-causes sympathetic overload. On the other hand, the neural circuitry for self-soothing, mood
-stabilization, and the calming branch (parasympathetic) of the nervous system is linked to the
-diaphragm.
-
-There is a simple explanation for this. The diaphragm is structured and situated to contract
-slowly and steadily to take in just the right amount of air to oxygenate the body at peace.
-
-It moves at the optimal rate to procure the proper amount of oxygen needed in a tranquil
-environment. However, its leisurely pace would be a hindrance to wild animals in a hostile
-environment.
-
-Thoracic musculature is optimized to produce accelerated breathing during a crisis.
-Thoracic breathing allows mammals to actively modulate their breaths in response to
-fluctuations in anticipated danger. In the short run, this would have helped our prehistoric
-ancestors prepare for the increased oxygen requirements they would need for “fight or flight”
-maneuvers. Sadly, most of us live in this mode, even though we are no longer protecting our
-bodies from predators or club-bearing maniacs. The modern world has “tricked” our bodies into
-thinking that our environment is too stressful to breathe peacefully when the opposite is true.
-
-Distressed Breathing and Social Rank
-
-If you would like to experience pronounced thoracic/clavicular breathing, watch an internet
-video of a violent street fight and pay careful attention to your breath. The shallow rapidity will
-become apparent. You could achieve a similar effect just by watching an internet video of an
-argument between two people. This is because, in primates, social confrontation dysregulates
-breathing nearly as much as physical violence. When you feel disrespected, cheated,
-
-or compelled to explain yourself, you enter a state of respiratory distress. When this happens,
-people usually act at two extremes, either becoming conflict-avoidant (submissive) or quick
-
-to anger.
-
-Respiratory distress is marked by breathing so shallow that it interferes with your speech,
-causing your voice to falter. You may feel like you are choking and suffocating at the same time.
-It is usually apparent to those around you, and most people are embarrassed when it happens
-to them. The truth is that awkward social encounters cause most of us to experience a state of
-respiratory distress throughout the day.
-
-My experience is that most people have little interest in using breathing exercises to
-deepen their breath until | explain to them that deep breathing is a dominant trait. Then they
-become eager. Our respiratory behavior affects our social standing and how we are treated and
-perceived. People hear changes in the cadence and pitch of your voice that are caused by
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-distressed breathing and use them to make judgments about your level of confidence.
-Breathing is one of the most common markers of social rank.
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing retraining will make you practically immune to respiratory
-distress. With enough retraining, people will be able to tell that you have little susceptibility to
-it. When your breathing shows no signs of distress, people will not want to challenge or
-provoke you because they realize they will reach respiratory distress before you do. As you
-develop your capacity for diaphragmatic breathing, you will come to understand that the
-people around you are constantly fighting wars of attrition to see who will show signs of
-respiratory distress first.
-
-We also breathe shallowly in a distressed manner to communicate friendliness. Because we
-don’t want to come across as overbearing or audacious or because we want to make others
-comfortable, we shorten our breaths and disengage the diaphragm. In other words, we breathe
-in a distressed manner when we are afraid, when we are mad, and when we are being nice. No
-wonder it seems inescapable.
-
-Stifling and Neglecting the Diaphragm
-
-Social and environmental stress are not the only causes of distressed breathing. It can also be
-the result of surgery or injury. After colon surgery, a gastric bypass, a Caesarean procedure,
-
-or an appendectomy, for instance, the patient will have an incision wound on their abdomen.
-It is common for recovering patients to inhibit normal abdominal expansion during breathing
-to avoid the pain of having their injury disturbed. They learn to actively stifle diaphragmatic
-movement out of fear of pain or stitches bursting at the incision site. This learned pain
-avoidance can be long-lasting, causing the patient to neglect the diaphragm and adopt thoracic
-breathing as a fixed habit. Chronic shallow breathing can result, along with breathlessness and
-anxiety. It is uncommon for such patients to revert to diaphragmatic use even after the pain
-from the surgery is gone unless breathing retraining therapy is undertaken.® You may have
-never had abdominal surgery, but, to some extent, past trauma and submissive signaling have
-stifled your diaphragm in a similar way.
-
-Fortunately, we have good models available for how to reinstate diaphragmatic use. The
-best of these is recovery from a ventilator. In situations where medical patients are having
-trouble breathing, a machine called an artificial ventilator can be used to move air in and out of
-their lungs. When a doctor takes a patient off a ventilator, they need to assess the person’s
-breathing mechanics to ensure the breathing musculature is strong and coordinated enough to
-support unaided breathing.’ Withdrawal from mechanical ventilation is known as “weaning.”
-
-Think of your thoracic breathing musculature as akin to a ventilator from which you need
-to wean yourself. Years of stress have caused the thoracic muscles to take control, and your
-diaphragm has weakened through atrophy caused by disuse. The good news is that the
-diaphragm can grow stronger quickly.® When you first start breathing diaphragmatically,
-it will be difficult. It will feel as if you have been taken off a ventilator; the muscles you are
-forcing to breathe for you are not yet up to the job. You will need to wean off thoracic
-breathing by training the diaphragm. | encourage you to use the exercises in the rest of this
-chapter to remove the ventilator of thoracic breathing and plunge headfirst into strengthening
-your diaphragm.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-The Four Rules of Diaphragmatic Breathing
-
-In the thick of my anxiety, | could tell that my breathing was highly dysfunctional. | used myself
-as a model for what not to do and slowly made inferences about how to do the opposite of my
-acquired tendencies. | read copiously about ventilatory mechanics and experimented with
-numerous breathing styles. Slowly, after ten years of research, introspection, and trial and
-error, | developed eight rules of diaphragmatic breathing. This chapter will address the first
-four, which are:
-
-1) Breathe Deep (high volume): Breathe nearly all the way in by the end of each inhalation and
-all the way out by the end of each exhalation.
-
-2) Breathe Long (low frequency): Engage in long-interval breathing, breathing in for four to ten
-seconds and breathing out for six to twelve seconds at a time.
-
-3) Breathe Smooth (continuous flow): Breathe at a steady, slow, nearly constant rate during
-all breathing.
-
-4) Breathe Assertively (confident): Do not permit social concerns or life stressors to conflict
-with the first three rules.
-
-Shallow Breath Short Breath Rough Breath
-Distressed
-Breathing SN.
-
-Deep Breath Long Breath Smooth Breath
-
-Diaphragmatic
-Breathing
-
-Figure 3.1: A graphical representation of the first three rules of diaphragmatic breathing. The vertical axis
-designates the depth of inhalation or volume of air in the lungs; the horizontal axis designates time.
-
-A helpful way to improve your ability to monitor your breathing is to draw your breathing
-pattern on paper. Use the examples in Figure 3.1 to work through the exercise below.
-
-Breathing Activity #3.4: Draw Your Breathing Pattern on Paper
-
-Sit down with pen and paper. Become curious about your breath as if it is a phenomenon you
-have never encountered. As you observe each breath, graph it with a free hand. Make the
-vertical axis correspond to the depth of the breath and the horizontal axis to how long each
-breath lasts. In other words, volume on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. Take different kinds
-of breaths at different depths and frequencies. Depict each as a curve on paper in real time.
-Just taking a few minutes to represent your breathing in this way will increase your breath
-awareness, helping you better visualize and monitor your breathing.
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-After my personal experimentation, | was convinced that adherence to these four rules
-guaranteed diaphragmatic breathing. | researched these concepts to find support for them in
-the scientific literature. Further research brought me to the realization that certain clinicians
-have been using tenets remarkably similar to these for decades. For instance, psychologist Erik
-Peper developed an excellent system he calls “effortless diaphragmatic breathing,” which
-consists of a large tidal volume (> 2000ml), slow respiration rate (< 8 breaths per minute),
-and continuous flow rate.? Additionally, “Resonant Breathing,” “Coherent Breathing,”?° and the
-“Conscious Breathing Method””! are similar breathing methods that | think are scientifically
-accurate and very helpful.
-
-Related techniques for diaphragmatic breathing retraining have been used by relaxation
-and biofeedback programs for decades.?? They have also become popular in psychiatry and
-clinical psychology and are now considered fundamental tools in cognitive behavioral therapy.
-Diaphragmatic breathing, in general, is now touted as an effective, evidence-based stress
-reduction intervention that is low in cost, easy to use, and can be self-administered with no
-equipment needed.*4 You might be wondering, “How is diaphragmatic breathing defined in
-medicine?” It’s simple. In the clinical literature, participants are considered as performing
-diaphragmatic breathing if sensors show that they are breathing longer and deeper (decreasing
-the respiratory rate while increasing the amplitude of the respiratory waveform).
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing is well known to slow the heart rate and decrease blood pressure.
-It has been proven to reduce sympathetic arousal, anxiety, panic attacks, and hyperventilation
-syndrome.* It is also an effective treatment modality in pain management,*® motion sickness,’”
-breathlessness,’® and a range of psychiatric and medical disorders.?? For all these reasons,
-diaphragmatic breathing retraining is used by healthcare providers around the globe.2°
-Participants in clinical stress reduction programs often report that “the breathing stuff” was the
-most important thing they learned.
-
-Let’s not forget that diaphragmatic breathing is also an ancient practice. Scientists and
-clinicians appropriated diaphragmatic breathing methods from India, where they have been
-used for thousands of years as part of religious and social customs. Diaphragmatic breathing is
-central to the practice of yoga. Yogis use long, deep inhalations and exhalations. The Buddhist
-form of meditation called anapanasati (“mindfulness of breathing”) and the Hindu practice of
-pranayama (“control of breath”) have both explicitly utilized the first two rules outlined above
-since antiquity. Yoga teachers in every tradition make it clear that the only way to control your
-mind is to cultivate control of your breath. These sages advocate that we never stop paying
-attention to it. Yogis who are masters of svarodaya, the yogic science of breathing, claim to be
-aware of every breath they take.
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing has been around for thousands of years and may just be the most
-powerful tool in psychiatry, if not medicine as a whole. Why isn’t it more mainstream? How did
-| finish a formal education in psychology and brain science without being introduced to it?
-| don’t know for sure, but | think this is partly because it has never been taught correctly.
-
-Most existing breathing practices don’t offer a systematic regimen to permanently increase the
-depth and duration of breathing. Consequently, they don’t provide enough of a benefit to make
-a substantial difference for most people and, thus, are only used for extreme cases of anxiety.
-
-| believe the unique program outlined in this book is so powerful that it can provide substantial
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-benefits for any user. Hopefully, by the end of this chapter, you will agree. Let us continue
-by looking more closely at each of the four rules.
-
-Depth of Breath: Increase Your Tidal Range
-
-The average adult human has a total lung capacity of five to six liters of air, but only a small part
-of this capacity is used during normal breathing. Nervous breathing will often involve
-inhalations of less than half a liter. We rarely breathe fully, and most of our breaths are
-confined to a narrow range. This range is called “tidal volume.” When you increase your tidal
-volume, which is done by deliberately breathing all the way in and out, you increase your
-likelihood of accomplishing the other two criteria of longer interval and constant rate.
-
-There is more than one way to deepen your in-breaths, but the exercise below is one of the
-most straightforward and reliable. It’s based on the work of Joseph Pilates, who saw forced
-exhalation as the key to full inhalation. He advised his students to squeeze out their lungs as if
-they were tightly wringing a wet towel. Doing so improves the strength of your breathing
-musculature quite rapidly. Take advantage of this to increase your tidal range.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.1: Deep Breaths
-
-Take five complete breaths. For each breath, inhale as much as you can and exhale as
-much as you can. To ensure that you are exhaling completely, purse your lips and blow on
-a fingertip, as you did in Chapter 1, until you can no longer feel your breath. Both the top
-and bottom of your exhalations will probably feel unfamiliar, stiff, and achy. Just one full
-evacuation of the lungs is often enough to kick-start diaphragmatic breathing because the
-resulting vacuum automatically pulls the diaphragm through its full, bottom-end range
-
-of motion.
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Deep
-Inhalation
-Inspiratory
-Reserve
-Volume
-Tidal
-Volume
-Expiratory
-Deep Reserve
-Exhalation Volume
-
-Figure 3.2: This graph shows a sine wave that indicates normal tidal volume. The increase on the fifth breath
-depicts a deep inhalation that extends the tidal range into the inspiratory reserve. This is followed by a deep
-exhalation extending the tidal range into the expiratory reserve. Regularly extending the tidal range in this way
-during breathing training will permanently broaden your default tidal volume and increase the involvement of
-the diaphragm.
-
-Using an inspirometer while practicing Exercise 3.1 can be very helpful. An inspirometer,
-which you can purchase online for about ten dollars, is an instrument that allows you to keep
-track of exactly how much air you can breathe in (vital capacity). Using one consistently can be
-helpful to track your progress. You might consider monitoring your lung capacity for several
-weeks with an inspirometer, recording the results and watching your tidal range expand.
-
-At first, it can feel uncomfortable when you breathe all the way in. You might cough. It
-might feel like your lungs are going to pop. It did for me. Within two months of performing
-Exercises 3.1 and 3.2, this all changed. There was nothing uncomfortable about being at either
-the top or bottom of my capacity, and it no longer made me cough. Before the training, it took
-me six seconds to inhale completely and about ten seconds to exhale completely. After training,
-it took me only one second to inhale completely and only five seconds to exhale completely.
-What is more, the maximum | could breathe in, as indicated by the inspirometer, went from
-4,000 to 5,000 milliliters.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-— (
-Illustration 3.4: A. Inspirometer or incentive spirometer; B. Patient on a medical respirator; C. Two chest views
-from the side depict a narrow diaphragmatic range versus a wide range.
-
-ye
-
-The next activity will help you develop comfort while breathing outside of your normal tidal
-range. Focus on the uncomfortable sensations that arise. Try to reinterpret them as
-pleasurable. | try to associate the sensation of taking a full breath with satisfaction, satiety, and
-fulfillment as if each full breath offers relief and rejuvenating sustenance.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.2: Breathe Outside Your Normal Range
-
-Start by taking a full breath in. Then, without pausing, resume breathing while remaining
-near the top of your lung capacity. In other words, allow yourself short, shallow
-exhalations but keep taking full breaths in, keeping your lungs full and your diaphragm
-expanded. Do this for ten breaths.
-
-Then, do the opposite for another ten breaths. Breathe all your air out, then begin taking
-very shallow inhalations, alternating with full exhalations. This will force your breathing
-muscles to work outside of their normal tidal range, expanding into the reserve volumes
-and building a sense of comfort there.
-
-VV VW AVN
-
-Figure 3.3: A. A graphical depiction of breathing above the normal tidal range for Breathing Exercise 2 above; B. A
-graph of breathing below the normal tidal range.
-
-75
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Length of Breath: Paced Breathing
-
-The typical adult breathing pattern is marked by shallow thoracic breathing at a rate of 12 to 20
-breaths per minute. Many people with anxiety average from 18 to 22, which means each
-inhalation and exhalation last only one and a half seconds. A breathing therapy technique called
-“paced breathing” will help you slow this down to a calmer and more grounded five to eight
-breaths per minute.
-
-The goal of paced breathing is to extend your default habitual breathing rate. Imagine that
-you customarily breathe at a rate of twenty breaths per minute. If you practice paced breathing
-at a rate of five breaths per minute for several weeks, the exercise will gradually decrease your
-default rate from twenty down toward five. The more you practice, the closer your habitual
-breathing rate will come to the target rate.
-
-ee DDADLA
-
-30 60 90 120
-
-Figure 3.4: This graph displays a breathing rate of twenty breaths per minute during the first thirty seconds, then
-ten breaths per minute during the next thirty seconds, then six breaths per minute, then only two.
-
-The sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) exhibits reduced activity when a person
-takes fewer breaths per minute.2+ The correlation is direct and immediate. Increasing the
-number of breaths per minute causes sympathetic nervous system activity to spike, whereas
-decreasing this number causes it to plummet within one minute.22 If you maintain a rate of five
-breaths per minute, heart rate and blood pressure drop, nervous sweating declines, and
-subjective discomfort in response to threat declines significantly.2? There is no easier, faster
-way to reduce sympathetic activation and the stress it causes. | believe that the most effective
-intervention for life stress is paced breathing and that it should be used outside of the clinic—
-by everyone—on a daily basis.
-
-| recommend using a breath metronome (sometimes called a breathing pacemaker) to aid
-you in pacing your breath. You can download one in the form of a mobile app for your phone or
-tablet. They generally cost between $1 and S5. All Apple watch users are prompted by the
-watch to use paced breathing daily. They are guided for one minute to take four breaths
-(around six-second inhalations and eight-second exhalations). This is a step in the right
-direction, but to retrain your breathing, it is necessary to spend several minutes per day
-consciously engaged in paced breathing.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-| developed a free app that you can use, called Program Peace: Paced Breathing. It is
-available for Android and Apple’s iOS. The app gives both audible and visual cues to help you
-time your breathing. It displays a cylinder that fills and empties in time with your target
-inhalation and exhalation rate. Alternatively, | offer free downloadable audio MP3 files with
-paced breathing cues on the Program Peace website. As another option, you can use the breath
-metronome videos on the Program Peace YouTube channel. My second favorite commercial
-app is called Breathe 2 Relax. It was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for veterans
-and individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Please take a minute to procure a
-breath metronome now.
-
-Recommended Breath Metronomes:
-
-1) Smartphone and tablet applications: Program Peace: Paced Breathing, Breathe2Relax,
-Breath Lesson, Breath Pacer, iBreathe, Breathwrk, Breathe Well, Breath Counter,
-Pranayama, BioBreathing, Calming Breath, Deep Breath, Essence, Tactical Breather.
-
-2) Audio MP3 tracks: www.programpeace.com
-
-3) Videos: The Program Peace channel on Youtube
-
-It is very difficult to maintain paced breathing without using an external aid such as a breath
-metronome. In clinical studies of paced breathing, most participants quickly return to baseline
-in the absence of an external pacing signal.2* You could use a clock or watch, or you could count
-the seconds in your head, but this quickly gets tiresome and can be extremely difficult to
-maintain, as it relies on unwavering focus. Unaided, most of us are unlikely to stick with paced
-breathing for more than a few seconds at a time. By contrast, using a breath metronome frees
-up your mind to attend to other things. You can do almost any activity with your breath
-metronome playing in the background. Having one—and familiarizing yourself with its use—
-is essential because the rest of this book’s exercises will require that you use paced breathing.
-
-z Pio
-788 7:55 Poe
-
-HOW TO USE THIS APP
-
-PROGRAM,
-
-prooraw, 5? BREATHING RATE
-ihe 5.0 Breaths Por Minute 5/0/70
-
-%) Intermediate hate fesse
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-
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-Begisner Face wearer ©
-
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-
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-
-Figure 3.5: The Program Peace Paced Breathing app is free on both Apple and Android devices. It contains a
-breathing bar on the left side of the screen that rises on the inhalation and lowers on the exhalation.
-
-77
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-The next step is to find a reduced “target” breathing rate that will help you slow and
-deepen your breath without overreaching. Try the rates in the table below for thirty seconds
-each until you find one that feels challenging but comfortable. For many people, the best
-starting point is four seconds in and six seconds out, for a total of six complete breaths per
-minute. This is an extremely healthy way to breathe. | want to encourage you to work up from
-here toward an ultimate goal of five breaths per minute, which is recommended by many
-experts.2° It’s fine if you want to stay higher or go lower. This standard of five breaths per
-minute varies slightly depending on size and age. For adults over six feet tall, the ideal rate is
-three to four breaths per minute, whereas for children under the age of ten it is between six
-and nine. Any extension of your breathing interval will be beneficial. Your goal should be to
-train yourself to breathe at your target rate without any sense of effort or air hunger. Be
-patient; this will take time. The practice should feel sustainable and good.
-
-Inhalation Exhalation Breaths Per
-(seconds) (seconds) Minute
-1 2 20
-
-2 3 12
-
-3 4 8
-
-4 6 6
-
-5 7 5
-
-6 9 4
-
-8 10 3.3
-
-9 12 3
-
-12 14 2.3
-
-14 16 2
-
-Table 3.1: List of Target Breathing Rates
-
-Notice that in each row in the table above, the exhalation is longer than the inhalation.
-This is because when you breathe out longer than you breathe in, you activate the vagus nerve,
-the parasympathetic system, and the body’s relaxation response.2° The longer you can extend
-your exhalations, the more your autonomic nervous system will be pacified, and the more your
-heart will decelerate. To augment this calming effect, try to consciously relax during the
-exhalations. Think of every breath out as a long sigh of relief and the acceptance of a moment
-of peace. When you’re ready to start, explore your ideal breathing pace by working through the
-activity below.
-
-78
-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-Breathing Activity #3.5: Using a Breathing Metronome
-Use the chart above to find a breathing pace to work toward. If you aren’t sure,
-4x6 or 5x7 are good starting places for most beginners. Once you’ve chosen a rate,
-set your breath metronome accordingly and sit or lie comfortably. Follow the
-metronome’s prompts.
-
-Settle into a constant rate of inhalation that brings you to the top of your lung capacity at
-the moment just before the metronome switches to exhalation. As you breathe out, find
-a constant rate of exhalation that will allow you to reach near the bottom of your lung
-capacity just before the metronome switches back to the inhale.
-
-Try working with the metronome for five minutes before a meeting or a date, and you will
-be amazed by your level of composure. Practice paced breathing for ten minutes in advance of
-an interview to give yourself a distinct advantage. At a party, excuse yourself for a few minutes.
-When you return, you will find your social equilibrium restored. It can help you relax your
-muscles after a workout, steady yourself after a stressful encounter, prepare for the day, or get
-to sleep.
-
-Over the next few weeks, find opportunities to include the breath metronome in your daily
-routines. | often use it in the morning when | wake up, before | go to bed, while reading, while
-watching TV, while working at my desk, and during my commute. | don’t use the mobile app
-when driving because pressing buttons on the phone can be distracting and dangerous. Instead,
-in the car, | listen to the breath metronome mp3s.
-
-Whenever you are doing monotonous busywork or your attention is otherwise free to
-roam, you can be breathing with a metronome. Watching a movie is a chance for two hours of
-calming, grounding practice. It can enhance the experience, too—we usually breathe
-thoracically when we watch film and television because of the suspense and tension that it
-creates, but paced breathing will de-traumatize your psychological orientation toward even the
-most intense scenes. Put the metronome on silent and simply hold it in your lap or place it next
-to the TV, computer monitor, or tablet so that you can use it passively while you attend to
-other content.
-
-Use it with headphones while walking, gardening, or in the gym. Let your use of it adapt to
-your routines. Regular use of a breath metronome will help you reestablish optimal breathing,
-and with it, an optimal life. | think that breath metronomes should be found in every classroom,
-in every workplace, in every therapist’s office, in every yoga and Pilates studio, in every
-ambulance, and beside every hospital bed.
-
-79
-
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-(=
-
-|
-|
-Ininalle
-
-Ilustration 3.5: A. Mobile phone with breath metronome application for paced breathing; B. Set your phone next
-to your television so that you can be cued to perform paced breathing while watching your favorite show; C.
-Grandfather clock with pendulum.
-
-Ago OoWoOonont
-~oyos
-
-When you start, staying with the metronome can be tricky. If you have not yet filled or
-emptied the lungs before the metronome switches, go ahead and finish the breath that you are
-currently on. Quickly inhale or exhale the rest of the air before catching up with the metronome
-on the next breath. You may feel that you are getting too much air (hyperventilating) or not
-enough (hypoventilating). This is normal and will pass, but, if it bothers you, just choose a rate
-that is closer to your default. Work gradually toward a lower rate.
-
-To Avoid Getting Too Much or Too Little Air
-
-1) If you are getting too much air or feel dizzy during work with the metronome, simply
-breathe more slowly. You should be breathing at the same pace but inhaling less
-powerfully, filling the lungs a little less completely.
-
-2) If you are getting too little air or feel faint, do just the opposite and increase the force of
-your in-breaths. Ensure that you breathe all the way in and all the way out. Sometimes,
-the metronome will be going too slowly, and you will feel air hunger. If you still feel air
-hunger, disregard the metronome and take a few deep breaths using whatever timing
-you need until you are ready to return to your target breathing rate.
-
-Paced breathing involves a learning curve. At first, it takes a fair amount of attention to
-follow the metronome’s cues and regulate the breath accordingly. After just a couple of hours
-of cumulative use, you will find that it takes almost no attention at all. This will encourage you
-to do it more often and allow you to combine it with numerous activities. If you’re having
-trouble settling on a breathing rate that feels comfortable, use the table below as a rough
-guide. It lays out estimated breathing rates for what your target pace should be under different
-conditions and cardiovascular demands
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-Beginner Experienced User Advanced User Inhalation Exhalation Breaths
-
-User Time Time per
-Minute
-
-Jogging NA NA 1 2 20
-
-Light Jogging NA 2 3 12
-
-Exercise
-
-Weights/ Light Exercise Jogging 3 4 8
-
-Walking
-
-Standing Weights/ Walking | Light Exercise 4 6 6
-
-Sitting Standing Weights/ Walking | 5 7 5
-
-Lying Down Sitting Standing 6 9 4
-
-NA Lying Down Sitting 8 10 3.3
-
-NA NA Sitting 9 12 3
-
-NA NA Sitting/ Relaxing 12 14 2.3
-
-NA NA Lying Down 14 16 2
-
-Table 3.2: Comfortable Breathing Rates by Experience and Level of Physical Activity
-
-When Not Using a Breath Metronome:
-
-1) Try to focus on your breathing frequently throughout the day, monitoring it and deciding
-whether it is too shallow or too fast. If so, consciously deepen your breath.
-
-2) Catch yourself preparing to switch prematurely from breathing in to breathing out (or vice
-versa) before you have taken a full breath. Instead of switching, prolong the tail end of the
-breath in which you are currently engaged.
-
-Advanced paced breathing at a rate of fewer than four breaths per minute can be
-powerfully relaxing. | should point out that it is not a comfortable or realistic default breathing
-rate, but training at this rate will help improve your default rate and train smooth breathing,
-which is the topic of the next section.
-
-Smoothness of Breath: Breathing at a Constant Speed
-
-The third element of healthy diaphragmatic breathing is the smoothness of your breath. This is
-a question of how fluidly you breathe, and it ties together the previous two elements of your
-practice. Paced breathing and deep breathing can still allow for too much variability on a
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-moment-to-moment basis. This is where the flow rate of each in-breath and out-breath
-becomes important.
-
-For instance, at the beginning of my practice, about halfway through each five-second
-inhalation, the speed of my breath would drop, leaving the second half of the inhalation
-weaker. After this lapse, | would try to make up for it at the very end of the five seconds by
-gasping. | was being lazy, holding my breath mid-count to get out of doing the work of
-strengthening the diaphragm. Instead, we should try to breathe at the same rate throughout
-each breath to keep the diaphragm engaged. This involves breathing slowly, gently, and
-steadily.
-
-The biggest barrier to smooth breathing is our tendency to switch from diaphragmatic to
-thoracic inhalation when you near the top of your tidal range. Every inhalation begins with the
-diaphragm, but once using the diaphragm outside of its default range, we transition to a swift
-thoracic inhalation to draw in that last bit of air. Resist this instinct. Instead, try to get to the top
-of your inspiratory reserve using only the diaphragm by breathing slowly and gradually. Do the
-exercise below to practice using your diaphragm throughout the entire inhalation.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.3: Practicing a Smooth Inhalation
-
-Exhale completely. Then, inhale as slowly as possible. Try to make the inhale last for at
-least eight seconds but aim for 15 to 60. Notice how this feels. It should feel natural and
-normal for the first few seconds until your lungs expand beyond your usual tidal range.
-Maintaining a slow and constant inhalation rate will become more uncomfortable as you
-reach the top of your tidal range. Notice the urge to switch to an abrupt thoracic gasp and
-resist it. Continue to inhale slowly and steadily. Take ten nonconsecutive inhalations in
-this way.
-
-You experienced the impulse to switch to a rapid thoracic inhalation in the exercise above
-because your diaphragm is not accustomed to providing steady suction for a breath outside its
-normal tidal range. | think of this weakness as a diaphragmatic speedbump at the end of the
-diaphragm’s habitual path. Forcing smooth inhalations steadily past this range will rehabilitate
-the muscular knot in your diaphragm responsible for this speedbump. It will also accustom your
-nervous system to utilizing the diaphragm more fully. Breaking down this restriction that limits
-your diaphragm’s range of motion is unique to the Program Peace system yet integral to
-diaphragmatic retraining.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-Figure 3.5: A. Each of the three graphs starts with four shallow breaths for comparison. In the first graph, the fifth
-inhalation is deep and long. However, the inhalation does not occur at a constant rate (the slope of the line varies).
-As you can see, it plateaus three times and ends with a gasp. This person is gasping and breath holding because
-they are uncomfortable breathing above their normal diaphragmatic range; B. The fifth inhalation in the second
-diagram is also very deep. However, it is short in duration, so it is basically a thoracic gasp (the line’s slope is very
-high); C. The fifth inhalation in the third diagram shows the optimal breathing pattern of a long, deep inhalation at
-a steady rate (with a constant slope).
-
-As you practice, keep your flow rate steady by imagining yourself smelling a rose, inhaling
-very slowly as you savor its fragrance. Or imagine that you are curled up with a small pet. Make
-your breathing as smooth and calm as possible to soothe it gently to sleep. Realize that hasty,
-quivering, jerky breaths would likely rouse and frighten it. It is interesting to note that when a
-cat purrs, its breathing is slow, even, and powered by the diaphragm.’ Above, | recommended
-that you invest ten dollars in an inspirometer to monitor the depth of your breathing. If you do
-so, purchase one with a flow rate indicator. This will provide real-time feedback on how steady
-and smooth your breathing is.
-
-Another option is to buy yourself a stethoscope to listen to your breathing. You can find
-these for around $15 online. When you put the “bell” of the stethoscope up to your mouth, you
-can hear tiny distortions and discontinuities in the breath—desperate little gasps. These gasps
-are more noticeable when you are self-doubting and are sometimes described as “fluttering” or
-“catches” in the breath. It sounds a bit like the voice when it “cracks.” While listening to these
-distortions in my breath, it became clear to me that breathing, especially breathing deeply, is a
-struggle. It doesn’t have to be.
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-The more slowly and fully you breathe outside of your tidal range, the more you can hear
-and feel these points of weakness in the breath. The technical term for them is apneic
-disturbances, and they usually last for tiny fractions of a second. They are such a basic feature
-of most people’s breathing that they seem natural and normal, but they are suboptimal without
-a doubt. These disturbances are caused by weakness in the diaphragm and correspond to
-absences in its range of motion. They are linked to the startle response and keep you feeling on
-edge. As the next activity shows, you do not need a stethoscope to hear these.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.4: Smoothing Over Discontinuities
-
-Cup both hands between your mouth and ear, creating a bridge for the sound of your
-breath. Your breath should sound louder, and the discontinuities in it should be more
-apparent. Listen for brief cessations or unevenness in the sound. Once you notice them,
-concentrate on modulating your breathing so that these disturbances disappear, making
-the breath perfectly smooth and even. The ribcage and stomach should be expanding
-evenly as well. Do not let the rate of your inhalation change. Each second, you should be
-taking in the same volume of air. Imagine that you are playing a single note on a trumpet
-and carefully keeping its volume steady. Try your best to ensure that the sound made is
-smooth, even, and progresses at a constant rate.
-
-Pt tg gt yl
-
-Illustration 3.6: Person cupping their hands from mouth to ear to amplify the sound of the breath; B. Depiction of
-a discontinuous, rough breath compared to a continuous, smooth breath.
-
-Buddhist and Hindu practices emphasize breathing through the nose and down the back of
-the throat. Many meditators concentrate on the “ha” or “so” sound this produces. Creating an
-even sound throughout each breath will ensure that the breath is being taken in at an even
-rate. To do this, focus on maintaining the same sound from the beginning of each
-inhalation/exhalation to the end. You know you are breathing diaphragmatically if the sound of
-your breath is not changing. Other ways to make sounds that you can monitor for constancy
-include breathing as if you are fogging up glass, making a hissing sound with your tongue,
-
-a “haaaa” sound with your voice, a buzzing sound with your throat, or a glottal sound with
-your vocal folds. Many meditators use mantras to accomplish this. Using a stethoscope,
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-cupping your hands, or making a sound of some kind all accomplish the same thing. So, perform
-Exercise 3.4 using any of these methods.
-
-| was concerned the first time | heard my breath amplified by a stethoscope because |
-immediately recognized that these irregular pauses and gasps were unhealthy. The irregular
-pauses are magnified by adversity and are responsible for the sensation of respiratory distress.
-Breathing is strained whenever a single inhalation pauses, slows, or speeds up. When someone
-is stressed, you can often hear them straining for more breath, as multiple rapid gasps or
-shudders will punctuate the inhalation. The gasps occur when one is continuing to inhale
-despite their body’s inclination to “switch” to exhalation. The weakness in the breath tells us to
-stop taking a full inhalation and go back to exhaling prematurely. This is the same mechanism
-that causes us to breathe shallowly, and that creates the diaphragmatic speedbump. This
-phenomenon of fighting against oneself for breath is sometimes called paradoxical breathing.
-
-We are constantly modulating the rate of each breath from second to second, depending
-on our level of air hunger and transient stress. We may alter the rate of a single breath many
-times. This is not ideal. Tell yourself that you will stick with the same rate for the entirety of
-each breath. If you need to change the rate because you need more air, change at the
-beginning of the next inhalation or exhalation, but not during an actual breath. One helpful way
-to assist you in this is through breathing exclusively through the nose, which we will discuss in
-Chapter 11.
-
-Imagine that your breath is an accordion that you have spent your life thrusting and
-thrashing in a distraught, feverish way. Imagine now playing the accordion by moving your
-hands very slowly and continuously stretching the accordion out to its full length and then
-gently pressing it closed, over and over.
-
-People who perform intricate manual work, or marksmen who shoot targets, find that
-holding the breath helps steady the hands. Once you reprogram your breath to be continuous
-and smooth, breath-holding is no longer necessary to keep you from shaking. As you paint an
-eyebrow on that tiny face on your canvass or take aim at a distant target, you will find yourself
-smoothing out your breath rather than holding it.
-
-Distressed breathing progresses like an automobile that is alternating between stalling and
-redlining. You want your breathing to be like a reliable car, engine purring, on a smoothly paved
-freeway, with the cruise control on.
-
-Breathe Assertively
-So far, we have covered methods for breathing smoothly, deeply, and at longer intervals.
-The fourth rule is to breathe assertively. We usually breathe as if we don’t have any faith in our
-breath. A thoracic breather knows that a negative thought could interrupt the breath at any
-time by prematurely turning an exhalation into an inhalation or vice versa. This causes them to
-breathe not only shallowly but cautiously and hesitantly as if they are tiptoeing. It also keeps
-them from breathing efficiently because they are not taking advantage of inertia. If a breath
-proceeds steadily, it can capture its own momentum, resulting in reduced effort.
-During hesitant, unsteady breath, the breathing musculature is constantly building and
-then losing momentum.
-
-Model your breathing on the motion of a pendulum or some other uninterrupted,
-inevitable oscillating process. Something that moves with certainty. Each stroke of a pendulum
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-fully captures its momentum until gravity reverses the swing. Any pendulum would be useless if
-it slowed or stopped midway. Picture your diaphragm stroking up and down in a slow but
-unfaltering, unagitated way. Breathe out with certain knowledge that you are not going to
-switch prematurely to a gasp. Commit to each breath steadfastly.
-
-To feel comfortable breathing with confidence, you will need to be willing to let the people
-around you hear your breath. You must not be afraid of being heard or noticed. Instead, be
-proud of how your breath does not waver, falter, or hesitate. Don’t think that people will hear
-it and be offended. Breathe decisively and audibly if necessary, for all to hear. Breathing
-assertively is the demonstration of true aplomb. Start by using your imagination.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.5: Uninterrupted Inhalation
-
-Take a deep, long, smooth breath all the way in. Make the inhalation last as long as you
-comfortably can, preferably from five to 20 seconds. Do this eight times, imagining each
-of the distress-provoking scenarios below in turn. As you do this, don’t let the upsetting
-aspects of the scenario interrupt or cause discontinuity in your inhalation.
-
-1) Someone says something to offend you.
-
-2) You realize you forgot your phone.
-
-3) You notice you misplaced your wallet.
-
-4) You pass by a stranger while walking down the street.
-
-5) You hear a car backfiring or an ear-piercing siren.
-
-6) You notice someone looking at you out of the corner of your eye.
-7) You tell someone what you expect of them.
-
-8) You are rudely awakened by a loud alarm.
-
-Many people who are widely admired and described as charismatic are merely assertive
-breathers. The self-taught dog behaviorist, Cesar Millan, is one such person. He is widely known
-for his Dog Whisperer television series, in which he works with aggressive and abused dogs.
-
-In 2009, The New York Times attributed his success to his sense of equanimity, describing this
-as, “a sort of uber-balanced mien.”22 Millan calls it “calm-assertive energy” and says that he
-approaches dogs as a pack leader.?°
-
-There is good reason to believe that Millan’s effect on dogs derives from his breathing.
-Throughout the episodes of his TV series, his breathing remains calm, constant, and resolute
-despite repeated problematic encounters with both the dogs and their owners. Cesar Millan
-and people like him have an autonomous breathing pattern that is not susceptible to being
-stopped short by the behavior or misbehavior of others. Dogs are in tune with how the status
-hierarchy is conveyed through breathing. | think the dogs know there is nothing they can do to
-disturb his breathing, so they listen to and respect him. Millan’s techniques work as well on
-abused and subordinated dogs as on aggressive and intractable ones.
-
-Respiratory rates, and fluctuations in them, constitute a language that all mammals speak.
-Try sitting near your cat or dog, breathing calmly, and then suddenly switch to short, quick, loud
-breaths. The animal will become concerned, appear nervous, and adopt your breathing pattern.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-If, instead, you breathe slowly and deeply, they are likely to relax, yawn, and start stretching.
-If you breathe slowly and deeply while training or correcting them, they will heed you.
-
-Health practitioners often need to assess their patients’ respiratory rate, the number of
-breaths (inhalation-exhalation cycles) taken within 60 seconds. The method a doctor or clinician
-uses to measure the respiratory rate of a child, an animal, or an adult can affect the
-measurement. Simply handling an animal will increase its respiratory rate, giving a false
-reading, unless the animal is handled very gently, in which case its respiratory rate may fall.
-Using a cold stethoscope to measure respiratory rate in a child will increase their respiratory
-rate, whereas other less “obtrusive” methods (like counting the number of times the chest
-rises) may not.
-
-Clinical texts refer to the “invasiveness” of different methodological procedures for
-assessing respiration. A doctor that acts either domineering or too accommodating can raise it.
-Different aspects of our environment are constantly “invading” our respiratory dynamics.
-Don’t allow your breathing rate or depth to be dictated by banal occurrences in your
-environment. Confidence starts with assertive, uninterruptable breathing.
-
-The Connection Between the Breath and the Mind
-
-Feelings of pain and frustration are compounded by shallow breathing. Pride, vanity, and guilt
-are also ramped up by distressed breathing, and | will focus on these relationships in later
-chapters. Shortness of breath makes us feel like we are suffocating. In such a state, we can’t
-help but think negative thoughts. Once you have internalized the four rules and are breathing
-deeply, smoothly, and at long intervals, it will become clear to you that the mental bondage
-chaining us to our ego and the social hierarchy is severed when breathing diaphragmatically.
-
-The discomfort from shallow breathing magnifies many addictive behaviors by making us
-feel desperation. Our breathing becomes shallower when we are hungry, thereby strengthening
-our cravings for food. People use the phrase “I’m starving” when they notice that their hunger
-is affecting their breathing. Similarly, many people turn to cigarettes, alcohol, and anger when
-they feel their breathing affected by unfavorable life circumstances. When people use drugs to
-change their emotional state, they are really changing the state of their breathing.
-
-One can transform disordered breathing into quasi-healthy breathing in minutes using
-barbiturates, sedatives, or opiates. However, that effect is short-lived, and the inevitable
-withdrawal symptoms actually accentuate disordered breathing. By contrast, metronome-aided
-paced breathing kicks in faster than drugs or alcohol and makes you a stronger person rather
-than a weaker one. Over time, expect paced breathing to vastly increase your distress tolerance
-and your capacity for emotional regulation.
-
-After | started practicing paced breathing, | experienced a process of self-re-creation.
-
-At the end of this process, | had a new aura, a new persona, and a new relationship with others.
-The change within me elicited a different set of reactions from the people | encountered.
-Strangers initiated pleasant conversations with me. Individuals in crowded, public spaces were
-polite and, at times, even kind. | was more easily accepted in groups and committees. | found
-that children and animals approached me without hesitation. However, it made some adult
-males uncomfortable. People who are competitive with you may assume at first glance that
-your undaunted breathing pattern is a facade. But, even after a brief interaction, they will
-realize you are not faking it.
-
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-You can’t feign the poise made possible by diaphragmatic retraining. Distressed breathing,
-on the other hand, is a signal to predators that you are in panic mode. When someone “smells
-fear,” they are actually sensing distressed breathing. It tempts bullies to close in for the kill and
-tends to intensify arguments into fights. Diaphragmatic breathing does the opposite by
-broadcasting assertive, noncombative calm. Diaphragmatic breathing safeguards you from
-violence, whereas thoracic breathing invites it.
-
-Many people only breathe easy in social situations in which they are with someone they
-feel they can patronize and talk down to. We should be breathing easy no matter who we are
-with. What people think about you, how they are judging you, and their current level of
-displeasure should not be a factor in the equation that determines your ease of breathing. |
-used to try to breathe more shallowly than everyone else around me to be polite. This quickly
-becomes dangerous to your health. You may not feel comfortable with how secure you appear
-to others when you breathe slowly and diaphragmatically. You may feel there is incongruence
-between it and your level of attractiveness, strength, or socioeconomic status. I’m writing to
-promulgate the idea that there is never incongruity among these things.
-
-A part of us is afraid that breathing calmly around others is the ultimate insult. We are
-afraid that the other person will become angry if s/he sees us breathing too deeply. We breathe
-the most shallowly around the most dominant people in our lives. This is partly because when
-we breathe deeply, our emotional reactivity decreases and our facial response time is delayed.
-Our faces become calmer and may appear less attentive. You might feel that this makes you
-look distant or disconnected.
-
-You will notice that you breathe at long intervals during a conversation, that your face goes
-blank and non-expressive. We need to get over the fear that someone will see us and think that
-we look too calm. As Chapter 7 will discuss, there should be no such thing as looking too calm.
-The best way to train this is to try to retain diaphragmatic breathing during all social
-encounters. It will become sincere with practice. Don’t let outside influences or internal fears
-about them perturb your optimal breathing pattern.
-
-Breathe Diaphragmatically in Public
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing in public is truly transformative. When you first try it, it will reveal
-your tendencies for agoraphobia and social anxiety. Within a few minutes, you will start to
-overcome them. Here’s what to do. Take your breathing app with you to a restaurant, coffee
-shop, café, picnic table, or bench in the park. Then, using headphones, listen to your breath
-metronome’s auditory breathing cues to practice paced breathing. You will gradually feel
-yourself letting go of social uneasiness. As this new attitude becomes your default, you will lose
-your apprehension about potentially negative social outcomes, making your outward
-appearance more assertive and less defensive. Other people will see in your face that you are
-not afraid. You will start to appraise the vast majority of people as harmless. Instead of being a
-potential assailant or judgmental critic, each person will become just another face.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.6: Diaphragmatic Breathing in Public
-
-Use your breathing metronome or paced breathing app in a public place (with
-headphones if necessary). Good options include parks, libraries, malls, and the block you
-live on. If you are moving, notice how you feel obliged to shorten your breaths when you
-
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-
-pass by someone. If you are seated, notice the same when they approach you. In either
-case, resist the instinct and continue paced breathing. Notice how you feel like other
-people are judging you for being “too calm” and realize how ridiculous that is.
-Alternatively, try recruiting a friend to paced breathe with you.
-
-Breathe Diaphragmatically While Speaking
-
-Once you’ve become familiar with breathing diaphragmatically in public, try it in conversation.
-This is more difficult. Many of us become short of breath during social encounters, especially
-when public speaking. | used to fully inhibit my diaphragm as soon as | began speaking. At first,
-| tried workarounds, like taking intermittent breaks from conversation to regain my composure.
-But that was socially disruptive. What you want is to learn to breathe deeply and
-diaphragmatically while speaking. This isn’t easy because you must formulate what you want to
-say and simultaneously focus on monitoring your breath.
-
-The best way to start is to read aloud while breathing diaphragmatically. It will likely be
-uncomfortable at first because we all normally speak within a very narrow tidal range. The trick
-to calming your speech is to prolong your speaking time and ensure that anxious gasps do not
-punctuate it. The following exercise will guide you through the process (note that it does not
-use a breath metronome).
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.7: Diaphragmatic Speech
-
-Sit down with a good book. Take a slow, full breath in and then start to read aloud. Keep
-reading until you have no breath left to exhale. Pause as you breathe in for five to ten
-seconds, and then resume reading. Repeat this cycle for five minutes or for as long as you
-like. To do this, you have to stop reading out loud for several seconds during the
-inhalations—do so patiently. You should find that you inhale for somewhere between five
-and 10 seconds and that you speak/exhale for between six and 20 seconds. Try to keep
-your voice at the same volume and pitch even when you approach the end of your
-exhalation. It helps to speak in a calm, friendly voice. If you speak loudly and deeply while
-doing this activity, your voice will become louder and deeper with time. This exercise will
-make your extemporaneous speech balanced and collected.
-
-Find your limit—how long you can read without inhaling—and then repeat that level of
-performance over and over. To determine where that limit is, try reading the remainder of this
-paragraph without breathing in. Continue until you cannot possibly speak another word. There
-should be a few seconds at the end where your voice changes appreciably and it becomes very
-uncomfortable to speak. Your voice will begin to waver and lurch. You will sound like someone
-in extreme respiratory distress, and it may even start to feel like you just got punched in the
-chest. If you work on Exercise 3.7 in this manner for only a few minutes every day, you will,
-in short order, alleviate this impediment and any related discomfort.
-
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-
-Breathe Diaphragmatically During Exercise
-
-Another effective way to strengthen your diaphragm is to pair diaphragmatic breathing with a
-cardiovascular workout. Try taking a short jog, focusing on the sensations you feel when
-alternating between inhalations and exhalations. You are likely alternating far too quickly. Try
-blowing nearly all the way out and breathing nearly all the way in with each breath. This can
-feel uncomfortable but is extremely healthful.
-
-Ironically, many people breathe shallowly while exercising because they are concerned
-they will not get enough air if they breathe too deeply. The sensation of elevated heart rate
-makes you want to take tiny breaths. Ignore the panic signals from your heart and ensure that
-you breathe in and out near full capacity. As long as you are breathing heavily, you are getting
-plenty of oxygen. When you persist in an exhalation, even when you feel your heart beating
-hard in your chest, you are restructuring your unhealthy breathing patterns and breaking
-through the trauma that underlies them. Don’t bother using your breathing metronome during
-cardio, just make sure you are taking full breaths. Use the next exercise to get you going.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.8: Diaphragmatic Jogging
-
-Take a light jog, well within your comfortable limits for cardiovascular exercise. As you
-run, begin extending your inhalations and exhalations. Focus on the effort involved in
-doing so and on the accompanying sensations. Instead of panting at a rate of multiple
-inhalations per second, try to breathe in for one to three seconds, and then breathe out
-for two to four seconds. Once you get a feel for it, use this technique for all forms of
-aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
-
-Breathe Diaphragmatically While Eating
-
-There’s one other daily activity that deserves specific attention. It is surprisingly difficult to
-follow a breath metronome while eating a meal. Attempting it makes us aware of just how
-entangled our appetitive drives are with distressed breathing. The first time | tried it, | realized
-that distressed breathing had created a starving, ravenous creature inside of me. The activity
-below offers a puzzlingly difficult challenge that should pique your interest in the benefits of
-diaphragmatic breathing. The last two activities do not require the use of a breath metronome,
-but this activity, like most of the activities in this program, is greatly improved by using one.
-
-Breathing Exercise #3.9: Diaphragmatic Eating
-
-Set your breath metronome at your preferred rate. Find space by yourself and set your
-meal in front of you. Start paced breathing. Attempt to slowly consume the entire meal
-while breathing at your pre-set rate. Notice how aspects of the biting, chewing, and
-swallowing are frenzied. Slow everything down and pay attention to how your body
-responds. This may be frustrating because you are accustomed to shallow, short-interval
-breathing while eating. After a few meals, though, it will start to feel normal.
-
-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-Generalizing Diaphragmatic Breathing
-
-For many people, distressed breathing is pervasive and affects every aspect of daily life.
-This book aims to help you develop just the opposite: an ingrained habit for deep,
-diaphragmatic breathing that you practice every waking moment. As Chapter 1 explained,
-this new habit will desensitize your stress system by pairing experiences that are normally
-stressful (and linked to thoracic breathing) with diaphragmatic breathing instead.
-
-| was partially inspired to create a system based on this concept by my experiences in the
-yoga studio. Hatha yoga revolves around yoking various stretches and poses with calm breathing.
-Since developing the present program, | have found that this concept is not even new in the
-clinical arena. It is a little-known technique called “generalization of diaphragmatic breathing.”
-
-Some therapists use diaphragmatic generalization to help clients associate peaceful
-breathing with distressing thoughts and other activities such as standing, sitting, and walking.
-Forming those associations ensures that proper breathing predominates in most life
-situations.*° Yoking relaxed breathing to various activities in this way can be considered a form
-of systematic desensitization.
-
-Systematic desensitization is a psychological method used to help people overcome
-phobias and anxieties. It is a popular form of exposure therapy that uses counter-conditioning
-(a Pavlovian process) developed by South African psychiatrist Joseph Wolpe. The idea is simple:
-
-If the source of the person’s anxiety is discovered (i.e., spiders), the person is trained in
-relaxation techniques (i.e., reappraisal, breathing, and muscle relaxation exercises) and then
-guided to use these techniques while they are exposed to increasing levels of fear-inducing
-stimuli. They might progress from talking about spiders to looking at pictures of spiders, then to
-videos of spiders, and finally to holding real spiders. Their fear of spiders is thus brought to
-extinction by gradual exposure. This cognitive-behavioral therapy technique is considered one of
-the most effective in clinical psychology today. It is used to help people become comfortable
-with all kinds of stressors, including things like elevators, dogs, knives, and public speaking.
-
-As the last three exercises have illustrated, you can apply the same principle to the
-simplest of behaviors. If you can maintain diaphragmatic breathing while you gradually and
-systematically perform actions that would normally increase your breathing rate, you can
-habituate to these stressors and reprogram the way your breathing system relates to them.
-Taking this a step further, you can even desensitize yourself to your attempts at assuming
-dominant or optimal postures that would normally cause you to breathe shallowly.
-
-The rest of this book’s exercises are intended to be performed with paced diaphragmatic
-breathing, guided by a breath metronome. This is done to make every nonsubmissive posture a
-safe and fun “place to be.” Having spent more than ten years pairing hundreds of different
-activities with diaphragmatic breathing, | am sharing the ones that benefited my clients and me
-the most. Below is the fundamental diaphragmatic breathing exercise that | would like you to
-combine with every other exercise and activity in the remainder of this book (please note that
-Exercise 1.1 from Chapter 1 can be used as an alternative to breathing with a metronome).
-
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-
-Breathing Exercise #3.10: Paced Breathing to Combine with Exercises
-Set your breathing metronome to your target breathing rate, which for most people
-should be at least four seconds in and six seconds out. Follow the metronome’s prompts.
-Breathe deep, full breaths. If you can, breathe through your nose. Breathe slowly,
-smoothly, and at a steady rate. Breathe assertively.
-
-Here’s a way to quickly and easily get a sense of just how powerful generalized
-diaphragmatic breathing can be. | am going to ask you to do a deep backbend without paced
-breathing, and then again with it. Lie down on your stomach on a carpet, bed, or soft surface.
-Then, use your arms to lift your torso off the ground while your legs and hips lie flat, performing
-a gentle “upward dog” pose. Notice how shallow and irregular your breathing becomes when
-you do a backbend? Lie back down and imagine what it would take for you to improve your
-upward dog. Lots of time and effort, right? Years of yoga training? Not quite.
-
-Spend five minutes practicing the paced breathing method in Exercise 3.10 above. Now, try
-
-the upward dog again. The position should be easier to hold and less stressful to perform.
-Your back should feel supported and safe, rather than exposed and vulnerable, and you should
-have a sense that you are stretching and strengthening your lower back rather than straining it.
-The reason this works so well is that diaphragmatic breathing affects muscles directly. Chapter
-5 will address how distressed breathing makes muscles throughout your body close down with
-tension, while diaphragmatic breathing makes them receptive to being toned.
-
-Every time you repeat a breathing exercise, you make innumerable cellular and molecular
-improvements to the function of your muscular, nervous, and respiratory systems. These
-beneficial alterations accumulate. As a bonus, all the mental work involved in learning to
-incorporate the diaphragm into your breathing is saved to procedural memory—in other words,
-routinized—which makes diaphragmatic breathing easier in the future.
-
-Conclusion
-
-After six months of paced breathing, | decided to try belly breathing again. This is the activity in
-which one places a hand on the chest and another on the abdomen to check for natural
-movement of the stomach with breathing (outlined in Activity 3.2 in this chapter). Before |
-started, there was nothing | could do to use my breath to raise my abdomen. Only half a year
-later, my abdomen rose and fell on its own with every breath. To get your diaphragm back in
-the groove, work toward the following goals:
-
-1) Belly breathing: once you’ve been pace breathing for a few months, every breath should
-move your belly.
-
-2) Aim to iron out all the apneic disturbances in your breath by breathing right through
-them, slowly and smoothly.
-
-3) You want deep inhalations and exhalations that reach the very end of their range to feel
-comfortable.
-
-4) Work toward increasing the target breathing rate you picked for yourself earlier in
-this chapter.
-
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-
-Your goal should be to progress to the point where you are training somewhere in the
-vicinity of five breaths per minute (5x7). Once you have trained here comfortably for around a
-dozen hours, you will be belly breathing. Spending time practicing at a much lower rate, such as
-10x12, is slower than optimal for everyday breathing but amounts to a form of cross-training
-that will help strengthen you overall.
-
-To accomplish these goals as quickly and efficiently as possible, | recommend spending at
-least 20 minutes each day practicing paced breathing with a breath metronome. That may
-sound like a lot, but it is easy. You can do it while you watch TV. In the coming chapters, we will
-talk a lot more about the breath and introduce four more tenets of optimal breathing.
-
-In Chapter 11, we will return to the material from this chapter and view it from the perspective
-of hyperventilation and nasal breathing. In the next chapter, though, let’s put what you have
-learned about paced breathing to work and pair it with exercises intended to rehabilitate the
-windows to the soul: the eyes.
-
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-
-Chapter 3: Bullet Points
-
-e The brain’s fear and grief circuits are tied to distressed breathing. They inhibit the
-diaphragm, causing breathing to become rapid and shallow.
-
-e The more traumatized a mammal is, the less its diaphragm moves with each breath.
-The animal instead recruits other muscles to power breathing and the diaphragm
-atrophies.
-
-e Disuse due to stress reduces the diaphragm’s range of motion and causes it to
-become stiff.
-
-e Most people breathe in a narrow diaphragmatic range. This range narrows further as
-stress increases. You want to expand your diaphragm’s range of motion by breathing
-more deeply.
-
-e To engage the diaphragm fully, follow these four rules: (1) breathe deeply, (2) breathe
-at long intervals, (3) breathe smoothly, and (4) breathe assertively.
-
-e Breathing slowly, deeply, and smoothly forces the diaphragm to contract evenly,
-increasing diaphragmatic strength, coordination, and range of motion.
-
-e It is common for people with anxiety to have inhalations that merely last one second
-and exhalations that last only two seconds.
-
-e To rehabilitate our breath, we should practice breathing at least three seconds in and
-five seconds out (3x5). To make this your default breathing rate, it helps to practice
-breathing at even longer intervals. Performing paced breathing at 5x7 and working
-toward 10x12 will accomplish this.
-
-e Weakness in the diaphragm is apparent in the form of tiny gasps or unevenness in the
-breath, called apneic disturbances, which are associated with the startle response.
-
-e You can iron out apneic disturbances by breathing smoothly at a slow and even rate.
-
-e Breathing assertively involves making sure that social concerns do not interfere with the
-first three rules. You want to breathe deeply, smoothly, and at long intervals while you
-are socializing.
-
-e Using a breath metronome daily is essential to developing a strong diaphragmatic
-breathing habit because it will allow you to train yourself to follow the four rules while
-you focus on other tasks and activities.
-
-e Monitor your breathing carefully during conversations; don’t let it become shallow.
-
-e Your breath should be a tiny but continuous sip of air that never pauses and always
-proceeds at a steady rate.
-
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-Chapter 3: Breathe Deeply, Smoothly, Slowly, and on Long Intervals
-
-Program Peace: Paced Breathing Session Tracker
-Starting Date: Ending Date:
-
-You can use this page by placing a check inside each box after you complete five minutes of
-paced breathing. There are 120 boxes for a total of 600 minutes. This equates to two, five-
-minute sessions a day, five times per week for 12 weeks. Once you have checked every box you
-will have completed the goal outlined in Exercise 3.10 and should be well on your way with
-diaphragmatic retraining.
-
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
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-Chapter 3: Endnotes
-
-1. Meuret, A. E., & Ritz, T. (2010). Hyperventilation in panic disorder and asthma: Empirical
-evidence and clinical strategies. International Journal Psychophysiology. 78(1), 68-79; Lum, L. C.
-(1987). Hyperventilation syndromes in medicine and psychiatry: A review. Journal of the Royal
-Society of Medicine. 80(4), 229-231.
-
-2. Ravinder, J., Crawford, M., Barnes, V. A., & Harden, K. (2015). Self-regulation of breathing
-as a primary treatment for anxiety. Applied Psychophysiological Biofeedback, 40(2), 107-115.
-
-3. Hamasaki, H. (2020). Effects of diaphragmatic breathing on health: A narrative review.
-Medicines (Basel), 7(10), 65.
-
-4. Lippincott, W. & Wilkins (2006). Stedman's medical dictionary (28th ed). Julie K. Stegman.
-
-5. Farhi, D. (1996). The breathing book: Good health and vitality through essential breath
-work. Henry Holt.
-
-6. Ford, G. T., Whitelaw, W. A., Rosenal, T. W., Cruse, P. J., & Guenter, C. A. (1983). Diaphragm
-function after upper abdominal surgery in humans. The American Review of Respiratory
-Disease, 127(4), 431-6.
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-7. McConville, J. F., & Kress, J. P. (2012). Weaning patients from the ventilator. New England
-Journal of Medicine, 367(23), 2233-2239.
-
-8. Levine, S., Nguyen, T., Taylor, N., Friscia, M. E., Budak, M. T., Rothenberg, P., Zhu, J.,
-Sachdeva, R., Sonnad, S., Kaiser, L. R., Rubinstein, N. A., Powers, S. K., & Shrager, J. B. (2008).
-Rapid disuse atrophy of diaphragm fibers in mechanically ventilated humans. New England
-Journal of Medicine, 358(13), 1327-35.
-
-9. Peper, E. & Tibbetts, V. (1994). Effortless diaphragmatic breathing. Physical Therapy
-Products. 6(2), 67-71.
-
-10. Elliot, $., & Edmonson, D. (2008) Coherent breathing: The definitive method, theory, and
-practice. Coherence Press.
-
-11. Olsson, A. (2014). The power of your breath. The secret key to reshaping your looks, your
-body, your health, and your weight. Anders Olsson.
-
-12. Gevirtz, R. N., & Schwartz, M. S. (2003). The respiratory system in applied psychophysiology.
-
-In M. S. Schwartz & F. Andrasik (Eds.), Biofeedback: A practitioners guide (3rd ed., pp. 212-244).
-The Guilford Press.
-
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-13. Hazlett-Stevens, H., & Craske, M. G. (2009). Breathing retraining and diaphragmatic
-breathing techniques. In W. T. O’Donohue & J. Fisher (Eds.), General principles and empirically
-supported techniques of cognitive behavior therapy (pp. 166-172. John Wiley & Sons.
-
-14. Hopper, S. |., Murray, S. L., Ferrara, L. R., & Singleton, J. K. (2018). Effectiveness of
-diaphragmatic breathing on physiological and psychological stress in adults: A quantitative
-systematic review protocol. JB! Database of Systematic Reviews and implementation Reports,
-16(6), 1367-1372.
-
-15. Gervitz & Schwartz, 2003, The respiratory system in applied psychophysiology.
-
-16. McGeary, C. A., Swanholm, E., Gatchel, R. J. (2014) Pain management. The encyclopedia of
-clinical psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
-
-17. Stromberg, S. E., Russell, M. E., & Carlson, C. R. (2015). Diaphragmatic breathing and its
-effectiveness for the management of motion sickness. Aerospace Medicine and Human
-Performance, 86(5), 452-457.
-
-18. Borge, C. R., Mengshoel, A. M., Omenaas, E., Moum, T., Ekman, |., Lein, M. P., Mack, U.,
-& Wahl, A. K. (2015). Effects on guided deep breathing on breathlessness and the breathing
-pattern in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A double-blind randomized control study.
-Patient Education and Counseling, 98(2), 182-190.
-
-19. Vranceanu, A., Gordon, J. R., Gorman, M. J., & Safren, S. A. (2016). Behavioral medicine
-strategies in outpatient psychiatric settings. In T. Petersen, S. Sprich, & S. Wilhelm (Eds.),
-
-The Massachusetts General Hospital handbook of cognitive behavioral therapy (pp. 243-257).
-Springer.
-
-20. van der Kolk, B. A., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D., Suvak, M., & Spinazzola,
-J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: A randomized
-controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 75(6), e599-565.
-
-21. Lichstein, K. L. (1988). Clinical relaxation strategies. Wiley-Interscience.
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-22. Elliott, S., & Edmonson, E. (2006). The new science of breath: Coherent breathing for
-autonomic nervous system balance, health, and well-being. Coherence Press.
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-23. Gervitz & Schwartz, 2003, The respiratory system in applied psychophysiology.
-
-24. Clark, M. E., & Hirschman, R. (1990). Effects of paced respiration on anxiety reduction ina
-clinical population. Biofeedback and Self-regulation, 15(3), 273-284.
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-25. Brown, R. P., & Berbarg, P. (2012). The healing power of the breath: Simple techniques to
-reduce stress and anxiety, enhance concentration, and balance your emotions. Shambhala
-Publications; Gervitz & Schwartz, 2003, The respiratory system in applied psychophysiology.
-
-26. Bae, D., Matthews, J. J. L., Chen, J. J., & Mah, L. (2021). Increased exhalation to inhalation
-ratio during breathing enhances high-frequency heart rate variability in healthy adults.
-
-Psychophysiology, 58(11), e13905.
-
-27. Remmers, J. E., & Gautier, H. (1972). Neural and mechanical mechanisms of feline purring.
-Respiration Physiology, 16(3), 351-361.
-
-28. Wallace, A. (2009, October 11). Whispering to Rottweilers, and to C.E.O.'s. The New York
-Times.
-
-29. Millan, C., & Peltier, M. J. (2006). Cesar’s way: The natural, everyday guide to
-understanding & correcting common dog problems. Random House.
-
-30. Peper & Tibbetts, 1994, Effortless diaphragmatic breathing.
-
-31. McGlynn, F., Smitherman, T., & Gothard, K. (2004). Comment on the status of systematic
-desensitization. Behavior Modification, 28(2), 194-205.
-
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-Wide Eyes
-
-“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter—often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter—in the eye.”
-— Charlotte Bronté (1816-1855)
-
-Eyes are essential for animals to perceive their surrounding environment and were among the
-first organs to evolve, even predating the development of gills and lungs. The vast majority of
-animals have eyes. Even some single-celled organisms have eyespots or patches of light-
-receptive proteins. However, mammals are one of only a few classes of animals that use their
-eyes to communicate.
-
-Mammals visually inspect other animals’ eyes for social cues, often determining where the
-other animal is looking, what its mental state is, and whether the other animal is returning its
-gaze. Humans, more than any other animal, use the eyes to communicate intention and
-emotion. How you look at others and how you use your eyes affects you on a deep
-psychological level. By modifying the involuntary patterns of your gazing behavior in the ways
-described in this chapter, you can foster your sense of well-being, improve the quality of your
-relationships, and ensure your social interactions are positive and empowering.
-
-This chapter focuses on four ways that subordination unconsciously impoverishes our eyes
-posture: 1) squinting, 2) raising the eyebrows, 3) looking down, and 4) avoiding eye contact.
-
-All four are relatively simple to change with the application of consistent effort. As you read on,
-you'll come to understand both how these behaviors can be harmful and why it is worth
-investing your time and energy in changing them.
-
-,
-
-Open the Eyes Wide and Refrain from Squinting
-
-Many mammals appraise the intent of other animals by the wideness of their eyes.
-
-Widened eyes are intense and bold, communicating fearlessness. Squinted eyes are defensive
-and associated with either attack or submissiveness. For instance, you may notice your dog or
-cat squinting slightly and looking at the floor after brief eye contact. They do this to
-demonstrate unobtrusiveness. Humans squint in social situations for much the same reason—
-it communicates propriety. However, when squinting happens too frequently, the muscles
-take on tension. Chronic squinting, like shallow breathing, is another example of a suboptimal
-display that has the potential to reduce our standard of living.
-
-Squinting is controlled by the orbicularis oculi—rings of muscle (technically, “sphincters”)
-that encircle the eyes and open and close the eyelids. Of all the muscles on the surface of the
-human body, the orbicularis oculi display the most conspicuous evidence of cumulative strain.
-This is because the skin surrounding the eye is unusually thin and easily reveals discoloration,
-creasing, inflammation, and the accumulation of fluid. These conditions are caused by chronic
-squinting and lead to purple rings, dark circles, and bags under the eyes. The muscle fibers of
-your orbicularis oculi have become tonically contracted, maintaining a squinting posture
-throughout the day without you being aware. The solution to this postural eye strain is to train
-yourself to widen your eyes so that they squint less frequently and to a lesser degree.
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-The activity below will ask you to position yourself in front of a mirror with your eyes as
-wide as possible. You will realize that it is not easy to keep them wide and that your lower
-eyelids become tense as your thoughts drift to other topics. That’s the force of habit reasserting
-itself. Your eyes are accustomed to squinting by default due to the actions of lower brain
-centers. You may even notice that they twitch involuntarily when you think negative thoughts.
-Squinting acts as an anchor in the face that recruits wincing.
-
-Once you have observed the habitual tension for yourself, you are ready to start changing
-it. Your goal is to stop overusing the orbicularis oculi muscles and, instead, start relying on the
-underused levator palpebrae superioris instead, which opens the eyes wide. After completing
-the exploratory activity below, you should notice that your eyes look wider and friendlier for
-several hours.
-
-Eye Activity #4.1: Watching the Lower Lid
-Sit or stand in front of a mirror with your eyes as wide open as possible. Ideally, you should
-be able to see your entire iris and a bit of white border above and below it. If you can’t, set
-this as the goal. You should notice two tendencies: 1) Your lower lid will tremble and tighten,
-revealing a tendency to revert to squinting; 2) Your eyebrows will raise on their own. Your job
-is to keep your eyes wide and your brow fully lowered and limp for five full minutes. You
-should notice that performing this activity is much easier when using a breath metronome.
-
-Illustration 4.1: A. Orbicularis oculi muscle encircles the eye and controls squinting; B. Eyeball in the eye socket.
-Eye movement is controlled by ocular muscles surrounding the eye. Eye wideness is controlled by the levator
-palpebrae superioris above it.
-
-A friend once said to me, “See these bags under my eyes? | never had these before. | spent
-two years partying: staying out late, smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, and drinking. They
-developed abruptly. And even after | stopped partying so hard, they never went away.” Most of
-us have creases under our eyes, and | had only seen them get worse with time, so | assumed
-that the change in my friend’s appearance was permanent. But his comments did start me
-wondering about the underlying biological reason for changes in the skin around our eyes. It
-took me years to realize that the problem is caused by muscular strain from excessive squinting
-and years more to confirm that it is completely reversible. Chapter 9 will show you how to
-massage the muscles of the eyes and forehead, which is necessary to fully release the muscles
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-and erase the dark circles. But this chapter will help you change how you use the muscles
-surrounding your eyes during daily life, which is arguably more important.
-
-At first, you may feel these eye exercises are driven by vanity, which is uncomfortable for
-most of us, but at a certain point, you will realize that your real motive is inner bravery.
-Reducing the appearance of eye strain is merely an aesthetic side effect of widening your eyes.
-Far more important are the effects on emotional prosperity. It is well documented that
-negative emotions generally cause squinting and that positive emotions cause eye-widening.!
-
-Squinting itself is never an emotionally neutral activity. Squinting is the continual elicitation
-of the defensive blink response, which evolved to protect the eye from damage. Animals squint
-unconsciously when they feel the safety of their eyes is in jeopardy. (Imagine pushing your way
-through face-height tree branches, for instance. You will feel your eyes instinctively narrow.)
-That is why most mammals squint when fighting or when they anticipate a fight erupting.
-Heavy squinting is a form of trauma that maintains a defensive eyelid posture and disinhibits
-the blinking reflex. Mammals that feel threatened blink hard and fast, whereas mammals that
-feel safe blink very slowly. Practicing a few slow blinks will help you widen your eyes and
-develop a calmer blinking pattern.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.1: Slow Blinking
-Blink ten times very slowly. Blink another ten times as slowly as you can. The calmer a
-mammal is, the slower it blinks. However, most people have no awareness of or capacity for
-slow blinking until they practice it.
-
-As you might have guessed, the startle response and distressed breathing both heighten
-squinting. They are all part of the same neurological circuit. Allowing unconscious brain centers
-to maintain tension in the eyelids sends messages to other threat centers in the brain,
-communicating that the current environment is potentially threatening to the eyes. This is
-ironic because, in today’s world, our eyes are rarely threatened. In the ancestral past, it was
-adaptive for anxiety and fear to potentiate squinting, but today, work and relationship stress
-are practically never indicative of impending damage to the eyes.
-
-Your stress response also spikes when you widen your eyes during social situations. If you
-were hooked up to a machine that measured your sympathetic nervous system activity,
-it would spike every time you opened your eyes all the way. Wide eyes give us a sensation of
-showing off, and that, in turn, makes us breathe shallowly in an attempt not to be too forward
-or noticeable. Exercise 1 overrides this by asking you to pair paced breathing with widening the
-eyes. Performing the exercises herein will make it so that your body becomes accustomed to
-having the eyes wide without breathing shallowly.
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-Illustration 4.2: Man raising eyebrows; B & C. Women with apparent strain in the orbicularis oculi.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.2: Wide Eyes with No Facade
-
-Do one or both of the following two things. 1) spend ten seconds gently rubbing your eyelids
-and upper cheeks to stimulate blood circulation, or 2) spend ten seconds squinting tightly.
-Both actions will potentiate squinting.
-
-Next, spend five minutes within four feet of a mirror trying to make your eyes as wide as
-possible while keeping your brow relaxed. Drop your social facade and just look into your
-own wide eyes. It is okay if you look insane or demented. After a couple of minutes, you may
-feel you are staring into your soul. You should feel comfortable looking at everyone this way.
-This will reset your eyes to a wider aperture and diminish your overreactive, superficially
-pleasing veneer. Once you have the coordination, you can achieve it without a mirror.
-Consistent practice will lead to continued improvement.
-
-Like rubbing the eyes and squinting them tightly, crying also encourages squinting to linger.
-When most people cry, they look sad, their eyes become puffy, and they continue to squint for
-hours afterward. However, this is not a necessary part of crying. Immediately after the next
-time you cry, sit in front of a mirror breathing diaphragmatically, and widen your eyes for five
-full minutes. For the rest of the day, your eyes will feel light, carefree, and wide instead of
-compressed and miserable. The reason for this is that crying actually involves deep squinting
-and a full healthy contraction of the orbicularis oculi rather than the continuous partial
-contraction that usually takes place. This sends blood to the muscles and makes them more
-responsive to efforts at widening. As we will discuss in depth in later chapters, one of the best
-ways to get a muscle to relax is to contract it to fatigue it and then give it a chance to rest fully.
-
-This means that crying is good for you as long as you help yourself recover in a healthy,
-emotionally uplifting way. That fits with its functional purpose. Humans are the only animals
-that cry, and biologists have hypothesized that it might serve a communicative function that
-asks for help and elicits altruistic behavior from others.? It has also been characterized as a
-reliable signal of appeasement and vulnerability because, by blurring our vision, it handicaps
-aggressive or defensive actions.? | think that, more than anything else, crying serves to fatigue
-the respiratory muscles and the facial muscles (especially the ones involved in squinting and
-sneering), enabling them a period of respite afterward.
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-Relaxing the orbicularis oculi will look and feel artificial at first. A few weeks of concerted
-effort combined with diaphragmatic breathing will fix this, making it your new default state.
-When | first attempted to stop squinting, | looked absurd. | appeared like a sickly drug addict
-that had been startled or like an uptight person trying too hard to appear calm. At times, | felt
-my face was a leering death mask. It took several weeks for the rings under my eyes and the
-general sleepless appearance to fade. With time, the cheeks and the areas under the eyes
-began to look less puffy, lose their discoloration, and appear healthier. When you are alone,
-shoot for a “bug-eyed” look. Soon, it will pass for normal. Once it does, do it in public. When
-you realize that your eyes remain wide open when speaking to others, you know you have
-gotten the hang of it. Once you do, going back to squinting will feel like glaring.
-
-Many military personnel and people suffering from PTSD have a tense look that is centered
-around the eyes. Pictures taken before and after warzone deployment illustrate this
-dramatically. Many martial arts instructors and students squint, often have one eye more
-affected than the other, and have dark circles under their eyes. This is because walking into a
-martial arts studio without squinting sends the signal: “| am not afraid.” Unfortunately, this sign
-of bravery is one that many people are too conscientious to allow themselves to make. This is
-also a case of art following life. The most heinous villains in cartoons and storybooks are
-portrayed with dark creases under their eyes. On the other hand, people who are candidly
-carefree and cheerful are often portrayed as wide-eyed. Many children look this way naturally,
-and their appearance is mimicked by artists and animators trying to create an impression of
-innocence, angelic virtue, or even naiveté. It usually works, as in the case of many Disney
-characters, because what we perceive are eye muscles with no signs of cumulative strain. If a
-person’s eyes don’t advertise a history of defensive posturing, we subconsciously assume that
-they can negotiate the world without defensive thinking. Common phrases in the vernacular,
-like “sensitive eyes,” “gleam in the eye,” “sparkling eyes,” “light in the eyes,” or “twinkle in the
-eyes,” describe this effect. Bring the brightness back to your eyes by living with your eyes wide
-all the time.
-
-wu
-
-Eye Activity #4.2: Techniques to Widen the Eyes
-
-1) Open your eyes wide and keep them there. Now, raise your eyebrows for a fraction of
-a second and widen your eyes even further in the same moment. Subsequently, allow
-your eyebrows to relax while keeping your eyes just as wide. This will help you “reset”
-eye wideness.
-
-2) Gently pull down on the skin just below your eyes, exposing the underside of both
-eyelids to the air, and open your eyes as wide as you can. Hold the position for a few
-seconds and then let go.
-
-3) Looking to the far right or left side of your visual field can help widen the eyes. Hold
-this “side-eye” posture for several seconds. As you move your eyes back to the
-center, the eyes may go back to squinting again. Don’t let them. It is possible that, like
-me, you have repressed looking to one side with wide eyes due to a natural fear of
-giving people the “side-eye.” Don’t be.
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-4) Practice widening your eyes while looking down. You can do this while watching TV in
-a reclining position from a couch, armchair, or bed. Notice your tendency to squint
-while you do this and, instead, make your eyes as wide as possible.
-
-5) Practice micro-squints. Start in front of the mirror with your eyes wide open. Fix your
-gaze on your lower lid, and practice briefly making the smallest squint you can and
-then releasing it. Your lower lid should move less than a millimeter. Repeat this
-twenty times. Developing this subtle control will help you build awareness of the
-unconscious muscular contractions involved in squinting.
-
-Think of actors with especially wide eyes. Your eyes can look just like theirs. The actors
-you’re thinking of may not have earned their ocular posture, having just fallen into it due to
-favorable or lenient early environmental circumstances. By following the neural reprogramming
-exercises in this chapter, along with the muscle massage and compression exercises in Chapter
-9, you can earn it. In fact, all the exercises from Program Peace zero in on optimal microhabits
-that you may not have fallen into but you can, instead, earn through repetition.
-
-Another aspect of the squinting problem worthy of our attention is squinting while
-sleeping. Many people sleep with their faces screwed up tight, their teeth clenched, and their
-eyelids clamped together. To determine whether you fall into this category, start by asking
-yourself this: What state are my eyes in when | wake up? Most of us clench them shut during
-the night, contracting the entire ring of the orbicularis oculi, from the cheeks to the eyelids. This
-amounts to hours and hours of low-grade, repetitive strain.
-
-To avoid nighttime muscular strain in your face, you will need to close your eyes with the
-upper lids rather than the lower ones. This involves contracting the inner palpebral portions of
-the orbicularis oculi (which perform eye blinks) as well as the ciliary portions (which control the
-rims of the eyelids). To do this, you need to learn how to contract those muscles and then
-strengthen them with consistent practice. If your upper lids are not strong enough to close the
-eyes on their own, the lower lids will rise to meet them, introducing the strain you are trying to
-avoid. Most of us have weak upper lids, which is why we end up squinting whenever we close
-our eyes.
-
-When you squint during sleep, your eyelashes are swallowed up by your lids and the skin
-around the eyes will wrinkle. However, if you close your eyes using your upper lids, your
-eyelashes will be fully visible and your eye area will be smooth. Every night before sleep,
-practice shutting your eyes very tightly using only the upper lids. | think of this as “eyes wide
-shut.” When you start to use your upper lids, the muscles may flutter and waver because they
-are weak. This will subside with time. Repeat the exercise until the muscles develop the tone
-they need for the action to become second nature. Enjoy the more relaxed sleep that results.
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-~
-
-Illustration 4.3: Eyes closed by straining the lower lids; B. Eyes closed by modest contraction of the upper lids.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.3: Stop Squinting in Your Sleep
-Spend two minutes closing your eyes using only the upper lids. Do this without squinting and
-while keeping the lower lids wholly relaxed. During the second minute, tightly clench the
-upper lids to exercise the muscles and help them develop tone. Perform this exercise while
-looking upward to make it harder. Also, spend a few seconds alternating between using the
-upper lids and the lower ones to isolate and dissociate the two actions.
-
-One common problem with eye-widening exercises is dry eyes. You will find that the outer
-periphery of the eyeball, which is normally covered when you squint, feels dry when exposed to
-the air. This is normal and happens only because the area is not used to being uncovered. Don’t
-let the dryness keep you from widening your eyes for prolonged periods. You can use eye drops
-a few times a week and then gradually transition off them. Another helpful option is to use the
-following simple technique to naturally stimulate your tear glands to lubricate your eyes.
-
-Eye Activity #4.3: Lubricating the Eyes by Stimulating the Tear Glands
-When your eyes begin to feel dry, keep them open for several more seconds until you are
-forced to blink. Once you do, close them tightly using only the upper lids. Keep them closed
-and wait for them to start stinging. That stinging sensation is the stimulation of your
-underused lacrimal glands and tear ducts. It is the feeling of secreting tears. Most of the time,
-you open your eyes when they sting, ending the secretion process. Instead, embrace the
-stinging, breathe through it diaphragmatically, and wait for your eyes to produce their
-natural aqueous lubrication. Doing this frequently will increase the natural moistness of your
-eyes and allow you to widen them further.
-
-If you perform these exercises, you will gradually develop the ability to keep your eyes
-open wider. Bright light is another hindrance. The next section will address how to keep your
-eyes wide even outside on a sunny day.
-
-Expose Your Eyes to More Sunlight
-
-Most people wince and squint heavily in both direct and indirect sunlight. Living most of our lives
-indoors, we get far less exposure to the sun than our ancestors did. We have become acclimated
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-to dim environments, which causes heavy squinting when we finally make it outside. You may
-have noticed that people with full-time outdoor jobs, such as gardeners and construction
-workers, often have no trouble keeping their eyes wide when standing in direct sun.
-
-The good news is that squinting in the sun is merely a habit and one that can be completely
-unlearned with practice. After performing the following exercises, you will be able to
-comfortably be outdoors with your eyes completely open. The most basic exercise is to increase
-your exposure: try to position yourself in just the right amount of indirect sunlight to let you
-bask in it wide-eyed. After a while, you'll be able to expose yourself to brighter and brighter
-light without squinting.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.4: Wide-Eyed Sunlight Exposure
-Go outside during the day and find a place in the shade where you can comfortably open
-your eyes all the way. Make sure that you aren’t squinting or raising or lowering your brow.
-Remain wide-eyed for at least five minutes. The next time you practice, try to find a place
-that is a little bit brighter.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.5: Sunlight Through Closed Eyes
-
-Allow yourself to sit or lie in the sun with the sunlight hitting your face. Close your upper lids
-without squinting. The sun should be hitting your eyelids. It should be very bright, and you
-should be seeing red. (Make sure never to look directly at the sun itself, even with your eyes
-closed.) Breathe diaphragmatically. Remain in the sun for a full minute. Over time, practice
-will allow you to tolerate more sunlight and improve the look of your eyes, making them
-healthier, calmer, and wider. You might consider performing this exercise from behind a
-window or car windshield to partially reduce your exposure to UV rays.
-
-Studies have shown a significant relationship between depression and diminished exposure
-to sunlight. The opposite is also true: increased exposure to sunlight may ameliorate some
-forms of depression and even common malaise.’ Traditional forms of light therapy, which use
-bright artificial lights, have shown great promise. | believe that this therapy is efficacious
-because it teaches patients to become comfortable, without squinting and tightening the face,
-in the presence of bright light. Unfortunately, this form of clinical therapy does not explicitly
-address squinting. However, you can, and using the sun, you can do it at no cost. Pairing bright
-light exposure with diaphragmatic breathing while remaining wide-eyed could help make you a
-“brighter,” happier person.
-
-It can be hard to maintain your new wide-eyed facial posture in social situations. One way
-to support your practice is through the strategic use of sunglasses. If the sun is making you
-squint, put them on. If you enter a social situation in which you know you are likely to squint,
-put them on. Then, with the sunglasses on, open your eyes as wide as possible. This will train
-you to feel comfortable keeping your eyes wide while speaking to and interacting with others.
-By the time you choose to take the sunglasses off, your eyes will be large and peaceful.
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-Refrain from Chronically Raising the Brow
-
-The next thing to focus on is the position of your eyebrows. Most of us cannot widen our eyes
-without raising the brow, and many people squint automatically when they let their eyebrows
-relax. This is because widening the eyes is not submissive while raising the eyebrows is, and we
-are conditioned by social experience to balance one with the other. We offer submissively
-raised brows as a peace offering to compensate for wide eyes. The problem, of course, is that in
-doing so, we are simply trading one form of tension for another.
-
-The biological details are interesting. The eyebrows are raised using a contraction of the
-frontalis muscle, which controls the movement of the forehead. Among many mammals—and
-primates especially—it is an appeasement display, while lowering the eyebrows in a frown is a
-display of dominance. The frown uses the procerus muscle to pull down the inner brows, which
-are then drawn together by the corrugator supercilii. Together, those two movements induce
-furrows in the lower forehead.
-
-Evidence regarding the social effects of eyebrow posture is compelling. The brows are
-generally raised in primates low in the hierarchy and lowered in those high in the hierarchy.>
-Raised brows correlate with the “tendency to flee” during disputes among human children.
-People rate pictures of models with lowered brows as more dominant than models with relaxed
-or raised brows. Monkeys seem to feel the same way. Rhesus monkeys submissively avoid the
-gaze of humans with lowered brows but gaze at humans with raised brows for prolonged
-periods.® The question is: Why are raised eyebrows subordinating? Researcher Caroline Keating
-offers one possible explanation:
-
-Some expressions characterizing the dominance encounters of nonhuman primates involve
-eyebrow position. Generally, the brows are lowered on dominant or threatening individuals
-and raised on submissive or receptive individuals. Theorists have speculated on the
-evolutionary origins of facial gestures. Darwin believed that many expressions evolved from
-“serviceable associated habits” or preparatory responses associated with attack, defense,
-locomotion, or changes in visual or respiratory functioning. Several current theorists agree.
-Selective pressures apparently shaped certain elements of preparatory or supportive
-responses into displays that reflected the original impetus of the behavior. Thus, submissive
-brow raising may have evolved by originally aiding the visual scanning of animals in
-threatening circumstances. Because lowered brows protect the eyes from physical harm
-and facilitate near-focusing during attack, perhaps this behavior evolved as a dominance
-gesture by forecasting physical aggression.’
-
-It is thought that our propensity to raise and lower our brows may derive from ear
-movements used by our ancestors before they lost muscular control of their ears. Many
-specialists believe that raising the eyebrows is a throwback to the ear retraction reflex that
-pulls the ears backward. Ears back is a submissive display seen in most mammals.® In contrast,
-lowering the brow likely originates from ear protraction, which pushes the ears forward and is
-an assertive display in many mammals. Like direct eye gaze, ears forward communicates that
-the sensory apparatus is focused on assertive or predatory action. Stated simply, the animal
-chasing has it ears forward, the animal being chased has its ears back.
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-Illustration 4.4: Eyebrows lowered; B. Eyebrows raised; C. Cat on top with ears forward, cat on the bottom with
-ears back.
-
-Whether you are raising or lowering your eyebrows, doing so too frequently for too long
-will lead to muscular strain and psychological tension. As we will discuss in Chapter 8, the
-optimal posture is neutral eyebrows and wide eyes. Again, this involves relaxing the frontalis
-and the orbicularis oculi and lightly and infrequently contracting the (eyelid-widening)
-levator palpebrae.
-
-Practice Frowning and Glaring to Increase Nonverbal Dominance
-
-You should make an effort to become comfortable frowning and glaring. Body language experts
-agree that frowning, measured by the decreased distance between the eyebrows and the
-pupils, is strongly associated with dominance and leadership.’ Unfortunately, many of us are
-afraid to frown because frowning in a social situation involuntarily recruits the stress response.
-You can conquer that reaction using the next exercise.
-
-Exercise 4.6 reduces eyebrow raising and increases the size and tone of the frowning
-muscles. Someone who appears accustomed to frowning (i.e., who does it spontaneously and
-effortlessly) comes across as someone who has spent a lot of time being in charge. When you
-start using your new frown around people, don’t use it to intimidate but rather to express
-empathy or resolve. Do it the way the king of the jungle, an empress, or a superhero might
-do it.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.6: Relaxed Frowning
-Spend five minutes frowning as hard as you can while engaging in paced breathing. Holding a
-firm contraction in the procerus may feel very awkward and may even sting, but it will
-reprogram you not to be afraid to use this highly dominant display. Keep your eyes wide, the
-rest of your face relaxed, and your breaths coming in deep and long.
-
-Most of us have grown up afraid of giving someone else the “evil eye,” so we have stricken
-this contraction from our repertoire and left a “glaring omission” in our ability to emote using
-our eyes. The glare is a temporary and intense contraction of the squinting muscles. Glaring is
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-considered dominant’? because you generally must be authoritative to get away with it. Let’s
-not use it to threaten people. Use it very briefly to demonstrate concentration, conviction, or
-valor. You might choose to do this exercise, as well as the previous exercise, in front of a mirror
-so that you can combine them with eye contact while monitoring your face.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.7: Relaxed Glaring
-
-Spend five minutes glaring as hard as you can while engaging in paced breathing. Squint your
-eyes tightly so that the opening is tiny and you can barely see through your eyelashes. Hold
-this contraction and try to keep it from wavering or trembling. As you do so, you might
-pretend that you are confidently leading a large group of people through a snowstorm or a
-sandstorm. Holding a firm contraction in the part of the orbicularis oculi that contracts the
-eyelids will help you develop its strength and coordination. Take a 10-second break every few
-dozen seconds so that you don’t push the muscles into persistent contraction.
-
-When | was in junior high school, my Dad asked me, “Jared, why do you always look timid
-and afraid in your yearbook pictures? Try not to make that face anymore, tiger.” At the time,
-| had no idea what he was talking about. | do now. | constantly raised my eyebrows and
-squinted (but never frowned or glared) so that | would appear friendly. Used briefly, eyebrow
-raising can communicate curiosity and engagement, but | overused it without giving the
-muscles any rest. It appeared affable in the short run but caused my face to become very tense
-and age rapidly in the long run. Use a brief eyebrow raise as an olive branch, but do not use
-extended eyebrow raises that go on for more than just a few seconds. Those are white flags.
-
-Look Upward
-
-The stress that overtook me at age 17 caused me to lose the hair on my head rapidly. Ashamed
-of my bald spots, between the ages of 17 and 32, | wore a hat seven days a week. For 15 years,
-the brim of a baseball hat blocked the sky from my view, training me not to cast my eyes
-upward. My whole behavioral repertoire involved looking down. Then, when | turned 32, |
-shaved my head and stopped wearing hats. Suddenly, | became aware that | had developed
-
-a behavioral blind spot for the entire space above me. That revelation galvanized me to train
-myself to look up.
-
-We have all learned to habitually cast our gaze downward. We often do this to avoid eye
-contact, all the while signaling submission, disinterest, or fear. The vast majority of us do this
-customarily, even when alone. Most people’s nervous systems are so conditioned to looking
-down that they do it even when they dream. How dismal.
-
-Most of us have grown up in an environment that discourages us from looking up in the
-presence of others. Other people’s reactions to our upward gaze have communicated to our
-unconscious brain systems that we should avoid looking up for fear of reprimand or reprisal.
-The subject matter that makes a person glance at the floor is very telling and provides a
-window into their insecurities. More than this, looking down is neurologically tied to depression
-and anxiety through numerous brain pathways. It is another habit that stifles our soul on a
-neurological level.
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-To overcome this, we can do two things: 1) train our nervous system to look upward
-through practice, and 2) build the ocular muscles responsible for lifting the eyes. The exercise
-below is a great way to determine whether the muscles responsible for looking up (superior
-rectus), have atrophied from disuse.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.8: Strengthening the Muscles that Allow You to Look Up
-
-Close your eyes and use your index fingers to press your upper eyelids and eyelashes down,
-pinning them against the top of your cheeks. Refrain from squinting. Next, look straight up
-for several seconds. Then look up and to the left, then up and to the right. Keep at it for 30 to
-60 seconds. It will likely burn and feel uncomfortable in the muscles around your eyes. If it
-does, then you know they have atrophied and can be strengthened by repeating this
-exercise. Simply repeating the exercise on five different days should vastly reduce any
-burning and help tone these muscles.
-
-| used to look at the floor unconditionally when speaking. | would look at the ground
-around my feet during most conversations. Somehow, | didn’t understand that this was a
-primary reason | couldn’t keep a conversation going. Try to stop looking down when you talk to
-people. People who are more severely affected can start looking at waist height, then shoulder
-height, and so on. Work toward being able to keep your gaze up around the height of your
-head. Once that starts to feel comfortable, work on looking up during conversations above the
-shared eye line.
-
-It is generally discourteous to look directly above another person’s head, so look off to one
-side. As you look up during the conversation, you might be concerned that the other person will
-become puzzled or suspicious of this. If you are not accustomed to looking up, are not used to
-breathing deeply when doing it, or if your ocular muscles are weak, the other person will likely be
-able to tell that it is unnatural for you. Again, the only way for it to look natural is for you to practice.
-
-People look up for many different reasons.’ With the head facing down, it can be coy and
-suggestive. With the head neutral or facing up, it can communicate boredom. Looking up when
-someone walks into a room can be interpreted as a sign of disdain or disregard. This is why
-people roll their eyes. Eye rolling is a nonverbal statement of superiority exclaiming, “That is
-beneath me.” You don’t want to adopt an upward gaze with these as your motives. Some
-people look up when they are thinking. Others do it to recall something from memory. Use
-these as motives. Pretend that you are using the ceiling or sky as a canvas for your imagination
-to paint pictures of the topic of conversation. Looking up appears natural to others when you
-use the upper visual field to imagine things in the mind’s eye. Encourage others to do it
-with you.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.9: Looking Up While Talking
-Simulate a conversation, or have an actual phone conversation, while looking upward. As you
-
-listen and speak, make certain your gaze does not drop below your eye line. Keep your eyes
-wide, and your eyebrows relaxed. Become aware of your tendency to look down. Instead,
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-alternate between looking at things around the same level as your eyes and things that are
-higher than them.
-
-There will be ample opportunities to practice during daily life. When you are standing at
-the register ordering fast food, look up at the menu on the wall calmly with wide eyes, even if
-the cashier is looking directly at you. Feel comfortable doing this while in line before you order
-or even after. As you pass a stranger on the street, feel comfortable looking up. While you do
-so, keep your head up, too. Gaze at the buildings, signs, telephone wires, and clouds. If you
-need to, remind yourself that looking up is your right. Your eyes are yours to use as you wish.
-As an added benefit, looking up naturally widens your eyes by engaging the levator palpebrae
-superioris muscles.
-
-Eye Activity #4.4: Take a Walk with Wide Eyes and an Upward Gaze
-Take a walk around your block with your eyes all the way open. Try to look at the ground as
-little as possible. Then, walk around the block again, this time without looking below the
-horizon. Do it a third time, now without looking below your eye line. It may help to focus
-your gaze on roofs, streetlights, or treetops. Finally, try walking around the block with your
-nose high in the air—that will compete with, and override, your tendency to point it at the
-floor. Notice how all of this feels, especially in your face, neck, and shoulders. See whether
-you can replicate that feeling in daily life.
-
-Improve Your Eye Contact Skills by Looking at Your Eyes in the Mirror
-
-When | first started trying to make concerted eye contact with myself in a mirror, it was
-uncomfortable. It became apparent that eye contact with others was awkward for me because
-eye contact with myself was awkward. After spending time holding my own gaze, | realized that
-instead of looking myself directly in the iris or pupil, | usually looked around the eyes rather
-than directly at them. Then, | found that | was doing the same thing when | made eye contact
-with others. Sometimes | looked at a person’s cheeks, nose, mouth, or ear, other times off into
-the space to the side of their head. | felt astounded when | realized that | virtually never looked
-anyone straight in the eye.
-
-The most interesting thing about this is what would happen if | tried to sustain eye contact
-with myself in the mirror. | could only look into my iris for a mere second or two before my eyes
-would flinch or dart away. This was caused by reflexive startle and was, therefore, unconscious
-and hard to resist. It happened because my brain areas devoted to controlling eye movement
-(such as the frontal eye fields and the superior colliculi) were not acclimatized to continual eye
-contact. My eyes were retreating out of fear.
-
-Everyone’s eyes autonomously flinch away from eye contact to different extents. They do
-so more when stress levels are high, and the extent to which they do it is another marker of
-social rank. Some of our worst social experiences, when threats forced us to avert our gaze,
-have traumatized the unconscious motor systems that control the eyes. We should all try
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-to break this neurological reflex to glance away from eye contact because it stunts our
-social growth.
-
-Do you make direct and sustained eye contact with the characters on television? If not,
-then you probably have an aversion to making eye contact, as | did. Make a concerted effort to
-always look the characters onscreen straight in the eye. Many of us must force ourselves to
-start taking simple steps toward building up a tolerance for eye contact, which will help you
-develop a preference for it.
-
-Illustration 4.5: A. Gorilla with wide eyes; B. A boy squinting and crying; C. Woman looking up and smiling.
-
-The best way to desensitize yourself to eye contact is to spend prolonged periods looking
-into your own eyes in a mirror. Notice and resist the impulse to glance away. You will achieve
-results quickly. After pairing the exercise below with diaphragmatic breathing for one week
-(five minutes a day), you should be able to make unwavering eye contact with yourself and feel
-calm while doing it. After practicing it for a few weeks, you can do this with anyone. Now, | only
-look away when | choose to. | also have a different relationship with myself now. Not only do |
-feel more confident, but | also feel more trustworthy.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.10: Making Eye Contact with Yourself
-
-Sit in front of a mirror and make eye contact with yourself for five minutes. Look straight into
-your irises or pupils. Do not raise your eyebrows and keep your eyes wide open. Start at a
-typical conversational distance, one to four feet from the mirror itself. Later, try it from other
-distances, from one inch to 10 feet. Try to maintain a tranquil and confident expression, and
-breathe long, deep breaths guided by a breath metronome. Ensure that you maintain
-steadfast contact with your irises throughout each smooth inhalation and exhalation. |
-thought that one of my eyes was smaller than the other, but this exercise proved to me that |
-was merely squinting my left eye harder and within a few sessions this asymmetry was
-healed. After you have practiced this alone several times, try maintaining eye contact in this
-way with a friend.
-
-One of the best times to practice is right after you wake up when the tension in the
-muscles surrounding your eyes is most apparent. Performing the above eye-contact exercise in
-the morning will help you settle your eye posture into a positive, healthy mode early in the day,
-making it easier to keep your eyes wide throughout the day. You might also want to try it right
-before meeting someone on whom you want to make a good impression. Breathing usually
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-becomes shallow during eye contact. If you can breathe diaphragmatically during sustained eye
-contact with yourself, you will be able to do it with other people. This is because most of the
-subcortical circuits involved don’t know the difference between looking yourself in the eye in a
-mirror and looking someone else in the eye. People will be surprised by how easy it is for you to
-sustain wide-eyed eye contact and impute saint-like qualities to you.
-
-Make Your Assertive Eye Contact Friendly
-
-Socially dominant wolves stare freely and casually at their packmates, but those packmates
-never stare at the dominant animal.?? The same is true with monkeys. Momentary eye contact
-with a dominant individual causes them to perform a submission gesture as an apology.!* These
-patterns also pertain to apes. For example, chimps avoid eye contact during confrontations and
-physical struggles, and subordinate chimps make much less eye contact when they are around
-their dominant peers. Chimps may charge at an individual from another group if it makes eye
-contact. Staring between unfamiliar apes is often interpreted as a threat signal. Even an
-unfamiliar human staring at a primate often elicits an attack response. However, chimpanzees
-and gorillas from the same group frequently share gazes and use their eyes for communication,
-much like us.!4 Familiar chimps that are similar in rank make concerted eye contact under
-normal conditions, especially when making up after a fight.
-
-Of course, eye contact behavior among humans is far more variable than among primates,
-with sizeable cultural differences in the frequency and significance of different ocular
-behaviors. In many cultures, direct and prolonged eye contact is seen as a challenge or a test of
-nerves, so everyday eye contact tends to be brief. In America, averting the eyes is interpreted
-as a lack of confidence, certainty, or truthfulness?> while sustained eye contact is taken to
-indicate sincere interest, forthrightness, and attentiveness.*° In the American context, people
-who make more eye contact are seen as more competent, likable, and trustworthy overall.?” In
-general, the longer eye contact is maintained, the greater the intimacy levels.*® Positive feelings
-toward another person generally increase as the length and frequency of a mutual gaze
-increase.?° This instinct seems to be built into us. We are born expecting and craving eye
-contact. Infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in mutual eye contact?° and cry less
-when exposed to them.??
-
-As a child, | made minimal eye contact with my parents, teachers, and classmates. | didn’t
-want to challenge anyone, | didn’t want to make any waves, and usually, | just wanted to be left
-alone, so avoiding eye contact worked for me. Also, most of my life, | felt like an ugly person,
-and | thought that by initiating eye contact, | was forcing someone to look at an ugly face. Most
-people have this worry to some degree. If you do, get over it. Also, keep in mind that refusing
-eye contact can be domineering, as when the alpha chimpanzee refuses to make eye contact or
-even look at some of their “subjects.” Release any unkind tendency you may have to avoid eye
-contact with people you may think are ugly or “beneath” you.
-
-Throughout my adolescence and young adulthood, | paid little attention to eye contact in
-general, and because | did not attend to it, | was clumsy with it. The next two exercises helped
-me tremendously. Making more frequent eye contact has opened doors for me, allowing me to
-meet new people, prolong conversations, build rapport, and prove to others that |am not a
-pushover. On the other hand, it also sometimes has the effect of making the person | am talking
-to feel uncomfortable, giving them the lurking suspicion that my eye contact is a way to assert
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-myself. That trade-off seems to be intrinsic. There is no way to avoid sometimes appearing
-overbearing. All we can do is work toward healthy eye-contact habits even if they sometimes
-make people uncomfortable.
-
-| spent years trying to figure out how to make eye contact in a way that is welcoming and
-not domineering. | eventually concluded that eye contact comes across as affable when it
-appears as if it takes no thought. However, it takes lots of experience for eye contact to
-become genuine and uncontrived. After some trial and error, | came across the following rules
-of thumb:
-
-1)
-
-2)
-
-3)
-
-4)
-
-5)
-
-6)
-
-Make as much eye contact with others as they make with you. You might want to look
-away first, but then, when you reinstate eye contact, feel secure that it is now their turn
-to look away. Keep in mind that rigidly keeping track of every glance takes away from
-the natural flow. Take turns, be fair, but don’t sell yourself short.
-
-The more expressive you are, the longer you can maintain your gaze without upsetting
-the other person. If you gesture with your hands, raise your brow momentarily, or build
-a slow-growing smile, you can maintain your gaze without coming across as intense. If
-you can get yourself to feel trust, respect, or even love for others, your eye contact will
-become trusting, respectful, and loving. This is, perhaps, the most powerful and
-endearing way to make eye contact.
-
-Do not look down when you look away from the other person’s eyes. When you look at
-the floor after making eye contact, it can be taken as a sign of defeat and often
-interrupts the flow of the conversation. Rather than looking down, try to look to the side
-of the person at the eye line. This will make them feel that you are listening, have
-remained engaged, and are ready to reinstate eye contact.
-
-Look someone in the eyes and wait until their eyes meet yours to start talking. If done in
-a friendly manner, this can motivate someone to connect with you. When in a group,
-take the time to look each person in the eye while you talk.
-
-Many experts in nonverbal communication recommend trying to make eye contact
-about 60% of the time during a conversation.? Be sensitive, however, to how the other
-person is responding to your extended eye contact. They may feed off it or actively
-avoid it.
-
-| think it is profitable to discuss eye contact with friends and acquaintances. | have told
-several friends: “| have been trying to make more eye contact recently. | want you to be
-comfortable with this. How do you feel about the dynamics of our eye contact?” | have
-even gone as far as saying things like: “Let’s work together on using more eye contact so
-that we can get better at it.”
-
-The following exercise combines several tactics into one larger practice to help you
-
-develop reflexes around a healthy, assertive social gaze that communicates to others your bold
-eye contact is a positive form of social engagement.
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-Eye Exercise #4.11: Well-Functioning Eye Contact Behavior
-
-Sit a foot or two in front of a mirror, staring into your pupils. Perform the following while
-engaging in paced breathing:
-
-1) Widen and then relax your eyes every few seconds.
-
-2) Deftly move your gaze between your two eyes without breaking eye contact. Try
-to alternate from one pupil directly to the other. Try doing it rapidly dozens of
-times.
-
-3) When you blink during contact, immediately reinstate eye contact without ever
-looking away. Try using the slow blink you worked on earlier in this chapter.
-
-4) Break eye contact by raising your gaze above your eye line, then reestablish eye
-contact.
-
-5) Raise your eyebrows in a friendly way, then let them lower completely. Do not
-compensate for lowering your brown by squinting.
-
-In apes and monkeys, dominant individuals stare down subordinate ones.2? The state of
-affairs is similar for humans. The visual dominance ratio (VDR) is a concept used in psychology
-to quantify eye contact behavior between people in a conversation.”’ A person’s VDR is
-calculated by taking the percentage of time that one spends looking into another person’s eyes
-while speaking and dividing that number by the percentage of time that person spends looking
-into another’s eyes while listening.
-
-VDR = (% eye contact while speaking) / (% eye contact while listening).
-
-This means that if you make about the same amount of eye contact while speaking that
-you do while listening, your VDR is roughly 1. If you make more eye contact while speaking,
-your VDR rises above 1, which is dominant. If you make most of your eye contact while listening
-(and look away when you speak), it drops below 1. Usually, a high VDR indicates that you think
-what you have to say is important.
-
-Studies have shown that when people speak to their peers and colleagues, they have an
-average VDR of around 1. When they speak to experts or high-status individuals, their VDR
-drops, and when they speak to people lower in status, their VDR rises. For example, when
-individuals in the military speak to someone of higher rank, their VDR goes down; when they
-speak to someone of lower rank, it goes up. The same has been shown to occur in the
-corporate hierarchy as well as in fraternities and sororities.2°
-
-The upstanding, genteel strategy is to aim for a VDR of around 1.00 with everyone
-regardless of their status. However, | was unable to achieve a VDR higher than .20 because |
-found it extremely difficult to maintain eye contact as | formulated my sentences. Making eye
-contact would leave me tongue-tied. Years of subordination made it so that | just didn’t have
-the processing capability to do both things at once. The exercise below cured this. Use the
-training exercise below to raise your VDR quotient.
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-Eye Exercise #4.12: Using the Telephone in Front of a Mirror
-When you speak to someone on the phone, sit or stand in front of a mirror and make
-constant eye contact with yourself. As you listen and speak, make eye contact with your
-reflection in the mirror, keeping your eyes wide and your eyebrows relaxed. Notice your
-tendency to look away while you are formulating your sentences. Perfect your ability to
-produce and deliver your speech while maintaining unbroken eye contact with yourself.
-
-Try to use eye contact to show the other person that you are curious about their facial
-responses to the topic of conversation. This will keep them engaged. It has been my experience
-that most people find eye contact that comes across as interested in them to be validating and
-endearing. Finally, the last major benefit of increased (positive) eye contact is that you learn so
-much more when you look at people than when you look away. It makes you better at
-processing emotions and will increase your empathy quotient.
-
-It was easy to help my cat become more comfortable with eye contact. First, | would hold
-him gently so that he was facing me in a way that allowed him to rest and be still. | would
-position my face close to his and make eye contact with him while petting him for reassurance.
-While breathing calmly, | would look into both his eyes for just under a minute. | would feed
-him afterward. This dramatically increased the frequency at which he sought eye contact. He
-even began to seek it out when he wasn’t hungry. Like most cats, his normal pattern had been
-to squint, look down, or break eye contact when looking at me. To help counteract that, |
-fostered his ability to make sustained contact by not staring him down, instead looking away
-about half the time. To help him stop squinting, | also gently massaged the orbits of his eyes.
-
-The results were noticeable quite quickly. Within a few weeks, he stopped squinting and
-his eyes were wider all the time. He now actively seeks wide-eyed eye contact from everyone.
-That, in turn, seems to have increased his social intelligence. This is probably because he is now
-exposed to more information from people’s faces as he interacts with them. | watched my cat
-become more personable and noticed a real increase in the strength of our bond. Studies back
-this up, reporting that extended eye contact between a dog and its owner increases the
-secretion of oxytocin, a neuromodulator involved in social connection, in both animals.7°
-
-Illustration 4.6: Friends talking with eye contact; B. Eye, iris, and pupil; C. A couple making intimate eye contact.
-
-From kindergarten through college, | could not hold eye contact with my female
-classmates. Unbeknown to me, this was likely the main reason why | had so much trouble
-talking to girls. Most of the boys in my elementary classes had the same problem, at least to
-some extent. There was one boy though who spent every recess with the girls. They all adored
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-him, and | never understood why. | also never understood why he would idiosyncratically roll
-his eyes up into his head every few minutes. | get it now. He would roll his eyes to engage the
-muscles that widen the eyes. The wide eyes are part of what allowed him to keep sustained eye
-contact with the girls. His eyes were as wide as or wider than theirs. Because he looked neither
-offensive nor defensive, the girls welcomed his gaze. There are reciprocal relationships
-between having wide eyes, looking up, and making eye contact. If you can widen your eyes and
-make looking up comfortable using the exercises above, you will find that others will seek out
-eye contact from you.
-
-Use Sensory Deprivation to Unmask Neurotic Activity
-
-Most of us are afraid that fixing our gaze on anything will make us look too calm. We keep our
-eyes busy to make others feel comfortable. Take a minute now and observe yourself looking
-around. You should be able to sense pressure to keep glancing neurotically. This comes froma
-form of anxiety in the eye motor centers that act below the level of conscious awareness. The
-restlessness makes it difficult for you to maintain eye contact and to fixate on anything if other
-people are watching you. The best way to retrain this nervous habit is to become more
-comfortable anchoring your gaze without worrying about how you may appear to others while
-doing it.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.13: Sustained Gaze
-
-Spend two minutes staring at a single point. Notice any impulses to glance away and gently
-override them. You might try to keep your eyes fixated on a single feature of the wall or
-ceiling, or you might try to keep your gaze limited to a circumscribed region of space like a
-light fixture. If you’re having trouble, cut out a picture of a face from a magazine and tape it
-to your wall or ceiling to gaze at contentedly. Allow yourself to feel free to space out like a
-child absorbed in a daydream. Don’t be concerned about looking dazed or stupefied and
-don’t worry if this level of ocular relaxation causes your eyes to cross for a few moments.
-
-Sensory deprivation can help uncover baseline neurotic tendencies. Let’s start with sight.
-Tracking your ocular behavior in complete darkness will make it clear how much of your eye
-movement is high-strung and unnecessary. The best way to do this is to wait until nighttime,
-turn off all the lights in your home, and lie down on the floor of a closet or bathroom. Do
-whatever you can to make this area completely dark. You may need to put up curtains or drape
-some towels over the cracks. Being in pitch blackness makes it easier to feel absolutely certain
-that no one can see your face, expressions, or eye movements. Think back to the way your
-submissive signaling diminished when you took that walk around the block while pretending to
-be invisible. Complete darkness allows you an even greater degree of invisibility and anonymity.
-No one and nothing can be offended by how relaxed you appear because you truly are invisible.
-Take the opportunity to relax fully and open your eyes very wide without compunction.
-
-In absolute darkness, | feel like a slimy, gelatinous sea slug that has been removed from all
-danger. | can feel the squinting contraction release in the same way that the sea slug we
-discussed in Chapter 2 releases its gill. The complete vacancy of visual stimulus will desensitize
-you and provide your eyes with the experience they need to grow wide. This phenomenon is
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-also a bit like eyestalk extension in snails. When you touch a snail, its eyestalks retract. The eyes
-invert within the eyestalks and travel down toward the head. This action blinds the snail but is
-an essential defensive reflex meant to protect the eyes. After several seconds, when the snail
-starts to feel safe again, the eyes slowly evert, the eyestalks reach full length, and the eyes pop
-out at the top. Use the exercises above to develop fearless, wide eyes and fully extend your
-“eayestalks.”
-
-In absolute darkness, you will also be able to see phosphenes, which are colored shapes
-that are produced by your visual system. These may take the form of dots, stars, lines, static,
-circles, or various other shapes.’ This visual activity will be accentuated if you lightly rub your
-eyes. The phosphenes represent a type of background noise that is usually not noticeable yet
-always ongoing. When the lights are on, phosphene activity is put to work, helping you make
-perceptual distinctions. When the lights are off, that activity hits a stumbling block, amounting
-to a low-level form of hallucination.
-
-| believe these phosphenes can play a role in driving anxious thought. Notice when they
-flash abruptly, and calm your reaction to this. You may notice that they flare when you look
-straight, keeping you from maintaining a fixed gaze. You may also notice that they burst in the
-corner of your eye. When they flash like this in the periphery of your vision, | believe they may
-be reminding you to scan for potential threats that are to the side of you or behind you. When |
-first started doing this, the phosphene activity appeared sinister and frightening. | even saw
-flashes of scenes from horror movies. This all contributed strongly to the feeling of being unsafe
-in the dark.
-
-This may have also been the case for my cat Niko. He cried like a kitten in the dark closet
-the first few times, but now he will join me of his own volition. Notice your reactions and try to
-bring peace to your conscious and unconscious responses to the phosphene activity by pairing
-the experience with diaphragmatic breathing. After doing Exercise 4.14 twice for five minutes, |
-never again saw any frightful apparitions. | strongly recommend that you use this technique to
-free the background activity of your visual system from unnecessary negativity.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.14: Vision in Complete Darkness
-
-Lie down on the floor in a pitch-black room. Keep your eyes as wide as possible and observe
-your eye movements. Practice looking in different directions and sustaining your gaze at
-different points with the eyes wide and eyebrows relaxed. You will notice your eyes dart
-around in the dark. They will display an intense, agitated tendency to move quickly on their
-own without any conscious deliberation. Simply observing this and practicing sustained
-gazing in utter blackness will allow you to reduce the intensity. Nonjudgmentally monitor the
-visual activity (colored phosphenes), the eye movement activity, and the feelings that come
-from being in utter darkness. Use this method to dismantle your fear of the dark.
-
-| recommend buying noise-reducing earmuffs to use in your dark closet. With the earmuffs
-on, you will be able to hear the background activity of your auditory system just as darkness
-reveals the background activity of your visual system. For most of us, background auditory
-function takes the form of a ringing or buzzing in the ears, which is known as tinnitus.22 When |
-first heard the hissing sound, amplified by the earmuffs, it was very upsetting. | abhorred it.
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-Many people feel this way, which is unfortunate because some degree of tinnitus is always
-there, whether we are conscious of it or not. | found that the practice of breathing
-diaphragmatically and listening to my tinnitus gradually reduced its volume and made it far less
-emotionally disquieting. Paced, diaphragmatic breathing will quickly help you come to peace
-with being alone, in complete darkness, with nothing but the background noise of your own
-visual and auditory systems. This will make it so that their default settings do not haunt you
-during everyday life.
-
-Conclusion
-The final exercise puts several of the routines from this chapter together into a single routine
-that you can perform while watching television.
-
-Eye Exercise #4.15: Watching TV Upside Down
-
-Lie on the floor, on your back, with your head near the TV and your feet away from it. Watch
-a movie or television program upside down so that you are looking straight up at the screen.
-Your eyebrows should be visible but out of focus, just below the bottom of the TV’s border.
-Do not allow your brow to raise. Keep your eyes wide and your face relaxed. Try to maintain
-constant eye contact with the characters on the television. Place your breath metronome
-next to the TV so that it can guide you in paced diaphragmatic breathing. Remain this way for
-the duration of a TV show or movie.
-
-Afterward, look in a mirror. You should notice that your eyes look fuller, happier, and calmer.
-Watching inverted video is also a challenge for your brain’s visual systems and may build
-cognitive and perceptual skills.
-
-Some of these exercises may seem strange, forced, and almost comical. Remember,
-though, that when you perform them, you are coactivating behavioral subroutines not
-ordinarily coactivated together because of social constraints. By pairing these with
-diaphragmatic breathing, you reeducate your nervous system to treat them as safe, making
-that combination of subroutines possible. The more you do it, the more probable it is to arise
-spontaneously in the future and, eventually, become a fixed part of your personality. You will
-rarely have the opportunity to make prolonged eye contact, looking up with wide eyes,
-breathing diaphragmatically in the course of everyday life. To build optimal behaviors into our
-repertoire, we must create artificially ideal worlds in which to practice.
-
-The next chapter widens our focus. Behaviors like squinting, looking down, and glancing
-away all have muscular components to them. Chapter 5 discusses repetitive muscular strain in
-detail and considers the panoply of negative effects on us. This will set the context for the rest
-of the book, which will guide you to overcome it.
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-Chapter 4: Bullet Points
-
-e Squinting, eyebrow raising, looking down, and gaze aversion are forms of trauma that
-fracture our composure but can easily be rehabilitated.
-
-e Widening your eyes, relaxing your brow, looking up, and practicing a fixed gaze have
-many benefits and will literally change your perspective on life.
-
-e Squinting is defensive and intended to protect the eyeballs. On a fundamental level it is
-a sign of defensiveness or submission. Deliberately widening the eyes can end excessive
-squinting and is especially easy to do when breathing long, deep breaths.
-
-e Raised eyebrows are analogous to the action of moving the ears backward in other
-mammals. This action is performed by an animal being chased so that it can hear its
-attacker behind it. It is submissive and so should not be strained for long periods.
-
-e Eyebrows lowered is analogous to ears forward, which is the posture for an animal
-chasing another. This should not be strained, either. However, becoming comfortable
-lowering your eyebrows into a full frown will increase your nonverbal dominance. The
-same goes for glaring and the side-eye.
-
-e Looking down is submissive and doing it habitually weakens the muscles that allow us to
-look up. Looking upward above the horizon more often strengthens your ocular muscles
-and conditions your nervous system to stop casting your gaze toward the floor.
-
-e Social trauma has caused us to become afraid of fixing our gaze on anything, especially
-another’s eyes.
-
-e Making prolonged eye contact with yourself in a mirror or simply gazing calmly at points
-in space will train your unconscious visual control systems to be comfortable
-maintaining a fixed gaze.
-
-e After making eye contact, look at or near the eye line rather than below it.
-e Looking at characters on the TV straight in their eyes will strengthen your ability to look
-real people in the eyes.
-
-e Speaking to someone on the telephone while making sustained, wide-eyed eye contact
-with yourself in a mirror will strengthen your face-to-face rapport with others.
-
-e Spending time in complete darkness while engaging in paced breathing will help you
-make your visual system’s default activity less chaotic and frightening. Using sound-
-reducing earmuffs can do the same for your default auditory activity.
-
-e Watching TV upside down can reinforce looking up and eye-widening
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-Chapter 4: Hold a Steady, Upward Gaze with Wide Eyes
-
-Chapter 4: Endnotes
-
-1. Pease, B., & Pease, A. (2004). The definitive book of body language. Bantam Books.
-2. Lutz, T. (2001). Crying: The natural and cultural history of tears. Norton.
-
-3. Hasson, O. (2009). Emotional tears as biological signals. Evolutionary Psychology, 7(3),
-363-370.
-
-4. Even, C., Schréder, C. M., Friedman, S., & Rouillon, F. (2008). Efficacy of light therapy in
-nonseasonal depression: A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 108(1-2), 11-23.
-
-5. Keating, C. F. (1985). Human dominance signals: The primate in us. In S. L. Ellyson & J. F.
-Dovidio (Eds.), Power, dominance, and nonverbal behavior (pp. 89-108). Springer-Verlag.
-
-6. Keating, C. F., & Keating, E. G. (1982). Visual scan patterns of rhesus monkeys viewing
-faces. Perception, 11(2), 211-219.
-
-7. Keating, 1985, Human dominance signals.
-8. Chevalier-Skolnikoff, S. (2006). Facial expression of emotion in nonhuman primates.
-In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review (pp. 11-90).
-
-Malor Books.
-
-9. Trichas, S., & Schyns, B. (2012). The face of leadership: Perceiving leaders from facial
-expression. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(3), 545-566.
-
-10. Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A. A., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of
-social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105-123.
-
-11. Tubbs, S. (2009). Human communication: Principles and contexts (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
-
-12. Hermann, H. R. (2017). Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals: The great
-game of life. Academic Press.
-
-13. Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science,
-308(5722), 648-652.
-
-14. Gomez, J. C. (1996). Ostensive behavior in great apes: The role of eye contact. In A. E.
-Russon, K. A. Bard, & S. T. Parker (Eds.), Reaching into thought: The minds of the great apes
-(pp. 331-151). Cambridge University Press.
-
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-15. Cruz, W. (2001). Differences in nonverbal communication styles between cultures:
-The Latino-Anglo perspective. Leadership and Management in Engineering, 1(4), 51-54.
-
-16. Sadri, H. A., & Flammia, M. (2011). Intercultural communication: A new approach to
-international relations and global challenges. Continuum International Publishing Group.
-
-17. Knapp, M. L., & Hall, J. (2010). Nonverbal communication in human interaction (7th ed.).
-Cengage Learning.
-
-18. Knapp & Hall, 2010, Nonverbal communication in human interaction.
-
-19. Hogan, K., & Stubbs, R. (2003). Can’t get through. 8 barriers to communication.
-Pelican Publishing Company.
-
-20. Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F. & Johnson, M.H. (2002). Eye contact detection in humans
-from birth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(14), 9602-9605.
-
-21. Lohaus, A., Keller, H., & Voelker, S. (2001). Relationships between eye contact, maternal
-sensitivity, and infant crying. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 25(6), 542-548.
-
-22. Van Edwards, V. (2017). Captivate: The science of succeeding with people.
-Penguin Random House.
-
-23. Chance, M. R. A. (1967). Attention structures as the basis of primate rank orders.
-Man, 2(4), 503-518.
-
-24. Dovidio, J. F., Ellyson, S. L., Keating, C. F., Heltman, K., & Brown, C. E. (1988). The
-relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women.
-Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 54(2), 233-242.
-
-25. Dovido at al., 1988, The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance.
-
-26. Nagasawa, M., Mitsui, S., En, S., Ohtani, N., Ohta, M., Sakuma, Y., Onaka, T., Mogi, K.,
-
-& Kikusui, T. (2015). Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds.
-Science, 348(6232), 333-336.
-
-27. Tehovnik, E. J., Slocum, W. M., Carvey, C. E., & Schiller, P. H. (2005). Phosphene induction
-and the generation of saccadic eye movements by striate cortex. Journal of Neurophysiology,
-
-93(1), 1-19.
-
-28. Baguley, D., McFerran, D., & Hall, D. (2013). Tinnitus. The Lancet, 382(9904), 1600-1607.
-
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-Chapter 5: Recognize Muscular Tension
-and Dormancy
-
-“You translate everything, whether physical or mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.”
-— F. M. Alexander (1869-1955)
-
-“Suppose you’re interacting with an abusive boss. Without realizing it, you hold some part of your body still in order
-to manage your behavior during the confrontation. Tension in your jaw, throat, or shoulders keeps you from lashing
-out and losing your job. Tension in your hips or feet keeps you from storming out of the room. Similar tensions may
-arise when you deal with a relative’s expectations of you or during a disagreement with a friend.”
-
-— Mary Bond (b. 1942)
-
-This chapter discusses a form of trauma that transforms muscles on a cellular scale: repetitive
-strain. The first half of the chapter introduces the concepts of bracing and persistent muscular
-tension and explains how to recognize them in your own body. The second half dives into the
-social and emotional aspects of muscle tension, laying out the relationships between long-term
-strain, pain, breathing, and submissiveness. Exercises are offered throughout to aid you in
-recovering from your bodily tension.
-
-Recognizing Excessive Muscular Tone
-
-It can be difficult to recognize the physical sensations of muscular strain. We become so
-accustomed to the pain and discomfort that they become effectively imperceptible, the same
-way we stop noticing unpleasant smells. It often takes a significant shift for us to notice how
-our bodies really feel. This happened to me after | strained my shoulder skateboarding. After
-the accident, a doctor prescribed me a dozen pills of meloxicam, a nonsteroidal anti-
-inflammatory drug (NSAID) with analgesic effects. After my first dose, | spent a few hours trying
-to analyze the effects of the drug. My muscles felt looser, and this quickly put me to sleep.
-
-| woke up in the middle of the night to feel my hamstrings burning intensely, but they had
-not been stretched or exercised recently in any unusual way. It took me a few minutes to
-realize that this pain was their normal baseline condition. The strain had simply been unmasked
-by the NSAID drug. | had become utterly accustomed to the fact that this tension went to bed
-with me every night. | quickly realized that the problem was widespread. My hamstrings were
-chronically strained from overzealous exercise, but so were my hips, lower back, shoulders, and
-neck. That night, as | focused on gradually relaxing these body parts, | began to realize just how
-much | had been clenching them in a bizarre, contorted way.
-
-This experience made me think of a lesson that my mother taught me. In my twenties, |
-developed a condition called plantar fasciitis that causes pain in the soles of the feet. She
-shared the method that she used to cure her plantar fasciitis, saying something along these
-lines: “Jared, it’s a medical disorder, but it comes from tension. You must be curling your feet
-into ‘fists’ at night. Right now, you are unconscious of this tendency, but it is possible to create
-awareness. Each evening before you go to bed, focus on the sensations in your feet and tell
-yourself that you plan to let the tension release and remain released as you sleep. Don’t allow
-your feet to remain clenched all night.” | had painful plantar fasciitis for a full year, yet after two
-nights of following her instructions, meditating closely on the sensations of tension, the pain in
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-my feet was gone. Right there, lying in bed, | saw the connection and realized that this same
-lesson applied not only to my heels, but to my hamstrings, my heartache, my headache,
-and my whole body.
-
-Tone, Hypertonia, and Hypotonia
-
-Muscle tone, also referred to as residual muscle tension or tonus, is a continuous and passive
-partial contraction found in all skeletal muscles. It is often conceptualized as the muscles’
-resistance to passive stretching during a resting state. Muscles receive continuous innervation
-from the nervous system ensuring that, even in rest, they remain in a semi-active default state.
-Thus, there is no complete rest in living muscle tissue.
-
-Both extensor and flexor muscles are constantly kept activated, which helps us maintain
-muscle readiness. For instance, your bicep (a flexor) and triceps (an extensor) are both always
-in a state of partial contraction. They complement and support each other, no matter how
-much you try to relax them. Muscles on opposite sides of a joint contract in unison to stabilize
-the joint. This kind of antagonism occurs all over the body. It is beneficial and necessary.
-
-Muscle tone is normal, but it can become too intense under certain conditions and begin to
-cause harm. Excessive tone is referred to as persistent muscle tension, muscle spasticity, or
-hypertonia. Hypertonic muscles can be found in crucial places throughout our bodies and are
-sources of chronic pain, stiffness, and premature frailty for every adult on the planet.
-
-The cause of excessive muscular tone and the accompanying pain we experience is
-multifactorial. Hypertonia can be exacerbated by bad habits, wear and tear, genetic risk factors,
-and injuries such as car accidents and falls. However, most of the preventable muscular pain
-that we suffer is derived from a low-energy injury to the tissues known as repetitive strain. A
-repetitive strain injury is caused by repetitious tasks or by sustained awkward positions. Almost
-any job, profession, or chore you can imagine involves monotonous contractions through which
-muscles are subject to continuous or near-continuous strain. While repetitive strain may occur
-intermittently, its effects build up over years, resulting in chronic conditions.
-
-Longstanding instances of muscular tension develop pathways in the nervous system that
-reinforce and perpetuate them. Simultaneously, an array of cellular changes takes place within
-muscle cells themselves, forcing them to contract permanently, forfeiting strength and
-flexibility. By becoming accustomed to such burdens, we force ourselves to carry them
-unknowingly. This is how we come to feel the weight of the world on our shoulders. We are all
-hauling an invisible, intangible load, forcing dozens of muscles throughout our body to push and
-pull against absolutely nothing.
-
-Refrain from Muscular Bracing
-
-Excessive tension in any posture is called muscular bracing, and it is pervasive. We brace
-muscles all over our bodies every day. Squinting and the raising and lowering of the brow
-discussed in Chapter 4 are also forms of bracing. Mostly, we brace as a reflexive response to
-things that make us worried or uncomfortable. Due to the false sense of security it can afford,
-some researchers have termed it “muscular armoring.” Bracing is intended to prepare us to
-quickly initiate offensive or defensive movements as when we protect the neck by keeping the
-shoulders raised. Small amounts of temporary bracing are healthy and can be helpful during
-rough and tumble play, contact sports, falls, or collisions. Unnecessary bracing, however,
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-keeps the body “on guard” and rigid. Thus, when you need to move, you are forced to
-overcome your own resistance, forfeiting grace and coordination.
-
-Keeping our muscles tense makes us feel in control but is a dysfunctional coping tactic.
-People generalize bracing from physical challenges to intellectual and social ones. This is why
-some experts refer to instances of bracing as “neurotic holding patterns.” For instance, we
-tense during social encounters, especially confrontational ones. People tense their bodies
-during standardized tests, social gatherings, and public speaking. This hinders their
-performance by interfering with productive efforts and by causing discomfort and autonomic
-stress. As we will discuss in Chapter 22, the sensation of fear in your gut and the sensation of
-having your heart in your throat are also manifestations of chronic bracing.
-
-Imagine that you are standing alone in a strange, dark parking lot with nothing nearby to
-grab ahold of. You hear someone yell, “Brace yourself!” What pose do you strike? Whatever
-pose you imagined is likely one that you commonly adopt during stress and startle. The muscles
-responsible for this pose are the ones you brace most often, and so they are likely currently in
-the process of becoming locked up. Explore this a little further using the first unbracing
-activity below.
-
-Relaxation Activity #5.1: Making a Claw
-
-Tense all the muscles in your hand, making it into a stiff claw. Curl your fingers so that all
-fifteen knuckles are partially bent. Keeping your hand in that formation, see whether you can
-tense it even further. Keep it tight as you open and close it five times.
-
-Now, use your imagination. Try to feel what would happen to your hand if you were forced to
-hold it like this for a week straight. It would become immobile, inflamed, and excruciating.
-Consider how often you tense your hand in daily life. Has it already taken a toll? Going
-forward, work on undoing that tension. Try to notice the claw whenever it materializes and
-allow it to revert to a soft, lithe hand.
-
-You also want your hands to be strong, so contracting their muscles firmly is necessary. The
-important thing is that you allow them to relax deeply after you stop using them. Make a
-very firm claw and then let it relax five times in a row. How you respond to the discomfort
-involved in the effort makes all the difference. Don’t allow the discomfort from the
-contraction to influence you to keep bracing. Rather, plunge into the deeper level of
-relaxation that is available after you have brought the muscles to fatigue.
-
-There are cyclical relationships between stress, bracing, and arthritis.1 Some specialists
-refer to forms of bracing as “prearthritic postures.” Joints can only be braced for so many years
-before they become inflamed and degenerative. My mother has osteoarthritis in her hands.
-Some of her knuckles are larger and more deformed than others. She firmly believes that the
-most affected knuckles are those that she braced more during stress over decades. An extreme
-example is the “raised-arm babas” of India. These are men who, for spiritual reasons, have
-decided to always raise one arm in the air. Over the years, their shoulders become stiff as a
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-board and completely useless. As you look over the table below, think about which bracing
-patterns you use.
-
-Internal Facial Postural
-Tightening the Jaw Squinting the Eyes Raising the Shoulders
-Constricting the Throat Raising the Eyebrows Bracing the Lower Back
-Sucking the Tongue Straining the Smile Hunching the Neck
-Constricting the Nasopharynx | Straining the Sneer Neglecting the Glutes and Abs
-Straining the Vocal Folds Pursing the Lips Bracing the Shoulder Blades
-Shallow Breathing Tightening the Cheeks Clenching the Hands and Feet
-Abdominal Tensing Drawing Down the Corners of | Tilting the Pelvis to One Side
-the Mouth
-
-Table 5.1: Common Forms of Bracing that Compromise Muscle and Cause Pain
-
-Bracing belongs to a more general category known as dysponesis, or the misdirected use of
-energy in the musculoskeletal system, of which unnecessary tensing of the muscles is just one
-example.’ This wasting of energy is destructive. For example, dentists and orthodontists make
-particular note of jaw clenching, teeth grinding, and tongue tension because those movements
-push the teeth out of their optimal alignment. In Chapter 13, we will discuss how bracing the
-back pushes the spine out of alignment. Muscular bracing is a factor in almost all joint disorders
-and is responsible for carpal tunnel, temporomandibular joint disorder, tennis elbow, and
-countless others. | believe that most chronic injuries, despite the fancy and distracting terms
-used by physicians, start with tension caused by bracing.
-
-One way a mammal remembers that it just glimpsed a predator is by crouching down and
-becoming very tense. We often use muscular tension to keep something in mind. When | need
-to remember something, or when there is an urgent need to do something that cannot be done
-right away, | become tenser. The specific part of my body necessary to carry out the task is
-often where the tension manifests. For instance, | will try to remind myself to write down a
-thought by tensing my fingers as if | were gripping a pencil. Recognize when this happens to you
-and try not to use tension as a mnemonic aid.
-
-We tend to be negligent of excessive increases in muscle tension even when we are
-performing simple tasks. We tighten muscles that are not involved in what we are doing and
-then keep those muscles tight even after we finish. If the action is built into your job or daily
-routine, you can start by improving the ergonomics of your workspace or taking more regular
-breaks. You can also teach yourself to selectively calm muscles that you are not actively using
-for the task at hand. The key is to constantly and creatively alter your body posture so that
-unused muscles are engaged and overused muscles are given a break.
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-Relaxation Activity #5.2: Monitor Your Bracing During Teeth Brushing
-The next time you brush your teeth, notice the movements in your hand, arm, shoulder,
-neck, face, and torso. Are you tensing muscles or expending energy that you don’t need to?
-For instance, you might be gripping the toothbrush too tightly, flexing heavily at the elbow or
-shoulder, locking your jaw, or craning your neck to one side. Do you alter your posture and
-vary the repetitive motions to give your muscles breaks? Use this activity as an example that
-you can extend to all your daily chores and rituals. Generalize this experience to as many
-other activities as possible, including writing with a pen, typing with a keyboard, or holding a
-phone, tablet, book, remote controller, or steering wheel.
-
-Microbreaks Allow Muscles the Short Rests They Need
-
-Not all muscle tension is bad. After all, there is no way to exercise without tensing your
-muscles. But bracing is very different from healthy exercise because it does not include tiny rest
-periods called “microbreaks.” Sometimes, all our muscles need is a few seconds, or even just a
-few fractions of a second, without being held taut. When the electrical activity of muscle is
-tracked with electrodes, these moments of downtime show up as “electromyographic gaps” —
-brief intervals during which the muscles slacken and relax. They are essential.
-
-For example, every step you take involves significant exertion as you push off against the
-ground. However, as one leg takes over, the other is given a break during the time it takes to swing
-it forward again. That respite allows the muscles to “regenerate” and prepare for the next step. If
-you didn’t have this microbreak after every step, walking more than a few hundred meters would
-be difficult. In much the same way, all the muscles in your body require microbreaks.
-
-Without momentarily reverting to a relaxed baseline tone, muscles cannot replenish and
-unwanted processes ensue. You have probably noticed the difference between fatigue caused
-by sustained bracing (hyperfatigue) and fatigue caused by exercise that contains microbreaks.
-The former aches and is unpleasant while the latter is both soothing and exhilarating. Indeed,
-the most important factor in building healthy muscle is to allow it to relax. The more relaxed
-your muscles are at rest, the more quickly they recover from exercise. This is why relaxed
-muscle responds dramatically to training, whereas tense muscle responds sluggishly. Whenever
-you are not using a muscle, allow it to go limp. It almost seems slothful, but it’s not; it’s the way
-you should live your life.
-
-Intermittent breaks and rests can help you disrupt long periods of unnecessary rigidity.
-Naps can work wonders in this regard. During sleep, and especially during REM sleep, changes
-occur in brain signaling that cause vastly reduced muscle tone, known as atonia. This is one
-reason why short (10- to 20-minute) naps can be so invigorating. Short naps can also restore
-alertness, mental performance, and learning ability.2 As you nap, you are even giving your heart
-a brief rest, which may be why naps have been associated with reduced coronary mortality.4
-Just remember that naps of 30 minutes or more often lead to sleep inertia, impaired alertness,
-and tiredness. When you feel depleted, after the gym, after an upsetting episode, or whenever
-you start to feel stiff and sore, set your phone’s timer for 20 minutes and allow yourself a
-recuperative power nap. Even if you don’t fall asleep, just giving yourself a few minutes to lay
-down during the day provides a reprieve that can be highly beneficial in the long term.
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-Why don’t we allow ourselves the microbreaks that our bodies call for? Often, it is due to
-social pressures. Propriety and intimidation related to the status hierarchy cause us to brace,
-then feel guilty about relaxing. Chronic submissive signaling disallows you from claiming the
-microbreaks that your muscles need. When at a dinner date or in a board room, we don’t give
-our neurotic holding patterns a single second of downtime. Well-composed people give various
-muscles involved in social displays microbreaks. In fact, we can conceptualize composure as skill
-in microbreaking. Of course, even our breathing muscles require microbreaks.
-
-Unbrace Your Exhalation with the Passive Exhale
-
-Diaphragmatic bracing is the central feature of distressed breathing and a core symptom of
-trauma. Remember Activity 5.1, in which you held your hand like a claw and kept it tight as you
-opened and closed it? This is exactly what you are doing with your diaphragm when stressed.
-This kind of bracing could be an excellent exercise for the diaphragm if it only lasted for 30
-seconds at a time, but we tend to do it for hours or days at a time. Continuously over-tensing
-the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles reduces their strength and range of motion,
-resulting in rapid shallow breathing.
-
-The inbreath requires muscular contraction, but the outbreath does not. It is not necessary
-to do any muscular work during exhalation. The positive pressure of air in your lungs is enough
-to create the force. This effortless return of the diaphragm to its resting position is called elastic
-recoil. The air naturally wants to be pressed out of your lungs as it would from a deflating
-balloon. Unfortunately, most of us keep our breathing muscles tense during exhalation, and this
-ensnares us in a state of fight or flight. Stopping this requires awareness and practice. To
-perform a passive exhalation, all you need to do is let your breathing go limp while you are
-exhaling. After a minute or two of practicing this, you should actually be able to feel the
-diaphragm simmer down.
-
-Relaxation Exercise #5.1: Unbracing the Diaphragm While Exhaling
-Perform paced breathing for five minutes. Take full inhalations, and when you start each
-exhalation, let go of the diaphragm completely. Every exhalation should be a completely
-passive form of freefall throughout which all the breathing musculature is relaxed. Imagine
-the leisurely descent of a parachute. You are not doing any work at all, and it should proceed
-at its own pace. The air should be oozing out of your nostrils on its own. Once you practice
-this for five minutes, you should be able to tell that you were holding your diaphragm like a
-tense “claw” during your exhalation before. Allowing the diaphragm to go limp during the
-exhale is extremely important for its health because, just like all muscles, it needs periods of
-inactivity to regenerate. Because you never stop breathing, its only chance for such a
-microbreak is during the exhalation.
-
-Imagine that for some reason you are responsible for driving a car up and down a low-
-grade hill, over and over again. For a while, you keep the engine on during the descent, but
-since the descent lasts for a few minutes, you realize that you can turn the engine off, put the
-car into neutral, and just let it coast without having to touch the brake, the accelerator, or the
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-wheel. This is what a passive exhalation should feel like. After you finish your inhale, just take
-the keys out of the ignition.
-
-Your inhalation is also braced; it is just much harder to notice. An inhalation requires the
-contraction of the diaphragm down into the gut to create the vacuum that draws air into the
-lungs. But this contraction is often braced beyond what is necessary, like the opening of a
-tightly clenched hand. This bracing impedes belly breathing and pulls the air into your upper
-chest. If you can interrupt it during an inhalation, you will feel your belly coming uncoupled
-from the bottom of your rib cage. The passive exhale will help you with this uncoupling. As you
-learn to sense your diaphragmatic tension during the exhale, you can teach yourself how to
-lessen the unnecessary tension occurring during the inhale. Once you have done this, your
-breathing will become much more efficient and less labored.
-
-It is worth mentioning that aside from bracing the inhale during the exhale, many of us also
-brace the exhale during the inhale. This is when we keep the thoracic muscles responsible for
-exhalation clenched while breathing in. This is also completely unnecessary. Spend some time
-trying to notice these effects in your own breathing.
-
-After performing the passive exhalation for a few days, a sense of irritation in your chest
-will dissipate. When this discomfort and inflammation is totally gone, you will feel a profound
-sense of relief. The passive exhalation is so important that | consider it the fifth tenet of optimal
-breathing. Expect it to increase the benefits you get from paced breathing. The passive exhale is
-such a fundamental routine that it is actually a reflexive response that all mammals use after a
-stressor has come and gone. Can you guess what it is?
-
-Once a stressful episode has resolved, all species of mammal exhibit “deep spontaneous
-breaths.” They inhale very deeply so that they can then exhale passively to reset and restore
-equilibrium in their autonomic nervous system. We know this as sighing. Even mice sigh, and |
-believe that, like us, they do it to provide the diaphragm with a microbreak. However, if you
-provide your diaphragm with a microbreak during every exhalation, you won’t feel the need to
-sigh anymore. The trick is to learn to exhale limply even after a shallow inhalation. Sighing is
-very frequent in people diagnosed with panic disorders. | used to sigh constantly, but after
-diaphragmatic retraining, | rarely catch myself doing it anymore. Master the passive exhalation
-because it is highly de-traumatizing.
-
-Persistent Muscle Tension Creates Trigger Points
-Excessive muscle tension and the absence of microbreaks eventually produce “knots” that can
-be felt under your skin. They occur all over the body. They are often palpable, raised nodules
-tender to the touch, producing a dull, aching pain when pressed firmly. In the medical
-literature, these knots are referred to as trigger points, trigger sites, or spasms, and they cause
-reductions in muscle mass, flexibility, strength, and endurance.° They are hyper-irritated spots
-in taut bands of skeletal muscle fibers created by chronic muscle overload. They usually involve
-a local contraction in a small number of muscle fibers within a larger muscle bundle.®
-
-Many scientists refer to these knots as “myofascial trigger points.” The “myo” is derived
-from the Greek word for “muscle” while “fascial” refers to the tough outer lining that keeps
-muscles in place (fascia is a type of connective tissue that forms a continuous scaffold around
-all the muscles and tendons in the body). Myofascial trigger points are small patches of muscle
-and fascia that pull together in an isolated spasm. They are different from whole-muscle
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-spasms like a charley horse or cramp, which are more transient, have a sudden onset, and
-involve hard contraction of the entire muscle. Although they can contribute to cramping, trigger
-points are different in that they are long-lasting, have a gradual onset, and involve partial
-contractions in small portions of the muscle.
-
-In addition to their immediate detrimental effects on muscle function, trigger points often
-cluster together and pull on tendons and ligaments, causing joint problems and “deep” pain.
-The tension they cause at joints can result in clicking, popping, and grating sounds. Over time,
-they can contribute to bone spurs, pinched nerves, and arthritis.” Trigger points can be seen in
-greatly magnified pictures of muscle tissue like the one below. They look like bunched-up
-distortions in a web-like matrix.
-
-connective tissue
-
-Figure 5.1: Knot of partially contracted sarcomeres in the muscle fiber from the leg of a dog at 240x magnification.
-Compare with the normal sarcomeres above and below it. This knot looks like an active contraction but has no
-electrical (EMG) activity and is, thus, stuck in partial contraction. Reprinted with permission from Simons and
-Stolov (1976).
-
-Dr. Janet G. Travell, MD (1901-1997) is generally recognized as the leading pioneer in
-trigger point diagnosis and treatment. It has been said that she “single-handedly created this
-branch of medicine.”® Travell, who was the White House physician during the Kennedy and
-Johnson administrations, emphasized that trigger points are demoralizing and devastating to
-quality of life. She called them the “scourge of mankind.” Advanced-stage trigger points are the
-worst. They usually present in clusters, are the most painful, and involve highly warped muscle
-fibers with large numbers of molecular aberrations. In reality, most people are practically
-covered in trigger points from old injuries, bad posture, poor workout techniques, and bracing.
-
-Muscle Tension Develops at the Molecular Level
-
-To better understand trigger points, we need a little more background on muscles themselves.
-Muscles are composed of fibers, which are themselves made of smaller fibers. The thinnest of
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-those hold sarcomeres, in which contraction takes place. A sarcomere is a microscopic structure
-built from two kinds of filament-like molecules: actin and myosin. Actin and myosin form
-interdigitating strands that can be activated. When active, they move past each other, quickly
-creating contractile force.
-
-Fascicle Fiber Myofibril all
-: I
-
-\
-Ui
-
-ml (=a a>
-=
-
-illustration 5.1: A. Muscle made of fibers, containing sarcomeres; B. Microscopic view of contracted sarcomeres in
-a muscle myofibril. An actual trigger point may contain dozens of these tiny knots.
-
-Millions of sarcomeres must contract to perform even the smallest movement. After they
-contract, the sarcomeres relax when their actin and myosin strands are uncoupled from each
-other and pull apart. In healthy muscle, actin and myosin wait patiently in a relaxed, decoupled
-state until an impulse from the nervous system tells them to pull past each other again. In
-unhealthy muscle, they are stuck. Many specialists believe that trigger points start to form
-when overuse causes actin and myosin to become fixed in an interlocked position. This
-interlocking puts the muscle into a static state of contracture, in which the strands no longer
-separate and relax.
-
-Relaxation Actin
-
-ele ACTIN
-
-Contraction
-
-Illustration 5.2: A. Relaxed sarcomere on top and a contracted sarcomere on the bottom with actin and myosin
-visible; B. Myosin curls like a finger, pulling on actin and allowing them to slide past each other to create muscular
-movement; C. Human neck and shoulders covered with clusters of trigger points.
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-Trigger points originate from a few different sources: (1) sustained low-level contraction,
-2) sudden muscle overload, (3) “eccentric” contraction when a muscle stretches and contracts
-simultaneously, and (4) gross trauma or injury to the muscle. Regardless of the cause, trigger
-points slow blood flow to the muscle and cause oxygen deprivation at the affected site.
-The reduced blood flow then causes sarcomeres to contract further, constricting the
-surrounding capillaries. Capillaries normally supply the muscle with blood, so when they
-constrict, it leads to reduced circulation or ischemia that impairs many cellular processes.
-
-Without blood flow, chemical waste products from muscular activity start to accumulate.
-Eventually, the waste stimulates pain receptors in nearby nerve endings, sending pain signals to
-the brain.’ Active trigger points demonstrate an unusual biochemical mix not seen in healthy
-tissue. It is an acidic milieu containing increased levels of proinflammatory, contractile, and
-pain-causing substances. And remember, we draw our very breaths with muscles that are
-affected by these symptoms.
-
-Muscle Shortening and Scar Tissue
-
-A muscle can change its resting length to adapt to the length at which it is habitually used or
-positioned. Muscles usually become shorter due to prolonged contracture. This is known as
-adaptive muscle shortening and places the muscle in a state of partial contraction. It is another
-pervasive clinical finding that affects every person who has ever lived.
-
-People confined to long periods of sitting exhibit debilitating shortening of the lower back
-and hip muscles, especially the hip flexors. Similarly, wearing high-heeled shoes causes
-prolonged plantar flexion of the foot, which results in adaptive shortening of the soleus
-muscles. Constant squinting shortens the muscle fibers of the orbicularis oculi, narrowing the
-eyes. Straining the sneer causes the muscles that lift the top lip to shrink, making the face
-appear hideous. When the muscles in your knees and ankles shorten, they leave you vulnerable
-to sprains and tears. Holding a hunched neck posture leads to shortening of the
-sternocleidomastoid and other muscles in the front of the neck, making it very difficult to stop
-hunching because the decreased length of these muscles pulls the head down. As Chapter 19
-will explain, bracing the muscles surrounding the genitals may play a role in sexual dysfunction.
-There are examples of adaptive muscle shortening in muscles all over our bodies.
-
-The pressure from prolonged contracture pulls on tendons, straining them and distressing
-the joints when they move. Next, ligaments and joint capsules retract. These changes perturb
-nerve endings within the muscles and joints, causing deep-seated pain. Muscle shortening also
-increases wear and tear, contributing to inflammatory and degenerative changes such as
-tendonitis, fasciitis, bursitis, and osteoarthritis. Many different tissue types are damaged by
-strain, including articular cartilages, connective tissues, tendons, fascia, menisci, ligaments, and
-spinal disks.
-
-Adaptive muscle shortening can be made worse by the accumulation of scar tissue. Scar
-tissue is a very tough, inflexible, fibrous material that binds itself to strained muscle fibers,
-attempting to draw the damaged fibers together. The result is a bulky mass of stiff tissue
-surrounding the site. In some cases, it is possible to feel and even see this mass under the skin.
-When scar tissue adheres to muscle fibers, it prevents them from sliding back and forth
-properly, limiting the flexibility of a muscle or joint.
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-Scar tissue tends to shrink and deform the surrounding tissues, diminishing strength and
-making the body feel heavy. It tends to adhere to nerve cells, leading to chronic pain. Existing
-research has found that scar tissue is weaker, less elastic, more prone to future re-injury, and
-up to 1,000 times more pain-sensitive than normal, healthy tissue. This results in chronic pain
-that, under most circumstances, lasts a lifetime. In people who brace the most, these effects
-create visibly apparent postural distortions.
-
-Excessive Tension is Debilitating and Constrains Your Physique
-
-Muscles encumbered by trigger points and adaptive shortening can be conceptualized as
-dormant muscles. This is so because they are difficult to recruit, don’t move with the rest of the
-body, and are starved of blood. Dormant muscles cannot recover adequately after a workout
-and are resistant to growth and strengthening because they can never fully relax, and thus can
-never fully heal. As long as they are under constant self-imposed strain, they will continue to
-grow harder, more fragile, and decrepit. Scrunched-up muscles crumple your body and cause it
-to buckle under every movement.
-
-Pregnancy itself does not necessarily adversely affect a woman’s physique. Rather, it is the
-months of prolonged bracing, absence of postural variety, and limited range of motion that can
-accompany the later stages of pregnancy for some women that have prominent, long-lasting
-effects. Moreover, although some of the natural variation in physique between humans is due
-to exercise, genetics, and exposure to testosterone, much of it can be attributed to differences
-in dormant muscle that arose due to bracing during stress.
-
-You have significant untapped reservoirs of muscle in your body that correspond to areas
-you brace and have been bracing for decades. For example, think about the hunch you probably
-have in your neck. Starting at birth, you had a natural tendency to straighten the cervical
-vertebrae in your neck, stacking them in a straight line. That straight-necked, upright posture is
-optimal. But social pressures can affect how we carry our heads and necks; the less safe, stable,
-or welcoming your childhood environment was, the more you were conditioned to hunch over,
-communicating modesty or submission. The standard submissive neck posture is to stoop over,
-jut your chin out, and tilt your head back. All of those changes reduce your height and help you
-appear guarded. But they also introduce a slant in your neck, which is an inefficient way of
-stacking vertebrae against the force of gravity. The excessive tension that develops leads to the
-proliferation of trigger points, and those, in turn, cause muscle dormancy in your neck,
-shoulders, and chest, and from there on down the spine.
-
-Chapter 13 will detail exactly how to reclaim your neck and regain its flexibility and full
-range of motion. But the neck is just one example of a reservoir of muscle that has been
-suppressed that you can tap into. These reservoirs can be found all over our bodies. Take your
-clothes off and look in the mirror. Any body parts that don’t appear nubile and supple have
-great potential. If all of our muscles were brought completely out of dormancy, we would have
-the physiques (if not bulk) of elite athletes.
-
-Injuries Lead to Muscular Bracing
-
-Injuries contribute to and interact with bracing. After getting hurt, individuals often try to avoid
-experiencing pain by tensing the area surrounding the site of injury. When someone sprains
-their ankle, they unintentionally contract many muscles in the ankle, setting it in a fixed,
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-defensive position. This is intended to protect the injury. In fact, it is known as “splinting”
-because it acts as a splint to immobilize the joint. Unfortunately, it also deprives the muscles of
-the rest, oxygen, and nutrients they need to heal. As a result, splinting worsens the pain in the
-long term by overtaxing the muscles involved. This happens partly because we tend to breathe
-extremely shallowly whenever we injure ourselves (because as you know, shallow breathing
-causes bracing). This is why, whenever | experience an injury, | pull out my breath metronome
-immediately.
-
-Injuries almost always result in some form of persistent muscle tension. Even major
-medical procedures can contribute. /atrogenic pain is a term referring to pain caused by
-medical treatment and is especially common with the use of braces, slings, casts, and surgeries.
-Immobilizing a broken forearm with a cast can easily lead to frozen shoulder syndrome, in
-which a group of deltoid muscles is barred from moving through its normal range of motion as
-tension gradually mounts.
-
-| had a melanoma removed from my shoulder blade in my mid-teens, and | recently found
-that | have a series of muscular knots under the scar from bracing the area. My brother
-received a large shot in the quadriceps during his appendectomy 20 years ago, and he says the
-same area troubles him often. Think conscientiously about past injuries, medical procedures,
-and other forms of trauma, identifying how they might be causing you to brace or tense
-muscles even today.
-
-Stress and muscular tension also make us more susceptible to physical injury because tense
-muscles fail and tear under excessive force, whereas relaxed ones are more resilient. The
-muscles strained by sitting in a fixed position at a computer for eight hours a day are the most
-susceptible to damage from a fall or car accident. Thus, injury can lead to bracing, and bracing
-can lead to re-injury.
-
-Tense muscle tissue can be conceptualized as an injury or as a trauma even if there was no
-precipitating accident. The word “injury” is defined as physical damage to a biological organism.
-The word “trauma” is defined as an abnormality in an organism’s tissues usually caused by
-injury. By these definitions, any form of persistent bracing, and the trigger points stemming
-from it, are both injurious and traumatic. Unfortunately, once they get bad enough, they can
-poison us emotionally.
-
-The Link Between Tension, Pain, and Negative Emotion
-
-“These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” — Najwa Zebian (b. 1990)
-
-Physical pain is an adaptive, evolved mechanism. The pain from a cut or burn informs us that
-our bodies are suffering damage. It gives us built-in motivation to withdraw from the source of
-harm and learn to avoid it in the future. But what about muscular pain, also known as myalgia?
-In contrast to physical pain, myalgia has more to do with restricting movement. It compels us to
-refrain from specific motions that might be damaging or harmful—it tells us not to over-stretch
-a strained muscle, not to bend a weakened joint too far. It also tells us when we approach the
-limits of our healthy range of motion, giving us important feedback about what our bodies can
-and cannot do. This would have restricted aging hunter-gatherers from movements that had
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-proven necessary and probably also helped them save energy.*° Due to the negative emotions
-it creates, however, muscular pain is destructive to our well-being.
-
-Suffering is not abstract or conceptual. It is embodied in the pain circuits of your nervous
-system. Nociceptive pain is pain caused by the activation of pain receptors known as
-nociceptors. Nociceptors respond to either thermal (e.g., heat or cold), chemical (e.g.,
-inflammatory), or mechanical (e.g., crushing or tearing) sources of harm. They come in three
-general types: visceral (organ), superficial (skin), and deep somatic pain (muscle). Deep somatic
-pain is triggered by the activation of nociceptors in ligaments, tendons, bones, blood vessels,
-fascia, and muscles. It is dull, aching, and difficult to localize. Strangely, we become so
-accustomed to it that we don’t consciously notice its presence until a painkiller takes it away.
-Drugs like heroin and ecstasy induce intense euphoric states, largely by alleviating this pain.
-
-Long-term bracing of our body parts and “chakras” causes deep somatic pain that poisons
-our minds. The toxicity is especially apparent in extreme examples, such as people with chronic
-pain. People living with long-term pain of any kind frequently display psychological disturbances
-and exhibit elevated levels of hysteria, depression, and hypochondriasis (the “neurotic triad”).
-Chronic pain patients also generally have low self-esteem? and higher-than-average levels of
-anxiety, fear, and anger.’? In fact, somatic pain is known to interact with psychogenic pain,
-which arises from social rejection, defeat, heartbreak, and grief. These two forms of pain
-comingle and exacerbate one another.** There is no telling how much the undiagnosed chronic
-pain from our muscular tension desecrates us emotionally.
-
-The experience of pain is transformed by paced breathing. Try it the next time you feel
-either physical or psychological pain. It takes all the edge off. One of the quickest and easiest
-ways to create massive amounts of non-damaging pain is to submerge an arm or leg in ice
-water. Without paced breathing, this is excruciating for the two to five minutes it takes for the
-body part to go numb. For me, it is usually so bad that | end up pulling my body part out of the
-water 4 or 5 times before | go numb. The discomfort is so intense that | practically involuntarily
-retract my limb. With paced breathing, however, the pain is tolerable and | have no inclination
-to pull it out of the ice. When we allow pain to control our breathing rate, we also allow it to
-control our behavior.
-
-Pain signals from nerve endings in tense muscles bombard our brains throughout the day.
-Those signals are relayed to brain areas involved in fear and grief, such as the insula, the
-anterior cingulate cortex, and the amygdala. These brain centers integrate pain input from
-anatomical landmarks all around the body to help compute the appropriate level of pained
-reactions: stifling, agitation, rage, dread, submission, and distressed breathing. Thus,
-we become tense, breathe shallowly, then respond to the ensuing discomfort with more
-tension.‘ This cycle is depicted relative to other concepts we have addressed thus far in the
-diagram below.
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-RESPIRATORY BEHAVIORAL MUSCULAR
-
-Muscular iti
-Distressed Breathing, Bracing, Resting Contraction, | Repetitive
-
-Partial Contraction,
-
-—_—________» . ———————_ »
-Shallow, Short, Rough, Tension Suboptimal Posture, ae Muscle Shortening, Ischemia,
-Unassertive, Tense, Submissive Displays, Fain Trigger Points, Scar Tissue,
-Gasping, Sighing, Persistent Muscle Tension, Hypertonia, Hypotonia,
-Stiff Diaphragm Rigid, On Guard, Closed Off Postural Misalignment,
-
-Disuse, Atrophy, Dormancy
-
-sian THE DISTRESSED Psa
-
-BREATHING CYCLE
-
-Anger, Anxiety, Depression,
-
-= eae : Sympathetic Upregulation,
-eens / Worldview, Emotional Aging, Advancing Morbidity,
-gorse ompetitiveness, < Rapid Heart Rate, Catabolism,
-Negative. uman Interactions; Pain Detrimental Developmental Plasticity,
-
-Submissiveness, Dominating,
-Frustration, Pessimism,
-Chronic Defeat, Negative Affect
-
-Adrenaline, Cortisol, Startling,
-Raised Blood Pressure, Inflammation,
-Amygdala Sensitization
-
-Figure 5.2: Distressed Breathing Cycle
-
-We feel like the emotional pain we experience originates from the content of our
-thoughts. But this is backward. Negative thinking is driven by the inability to take a full breath
-and by preexisting pain in our muscles and related tissues. These are the ultimate causes of our
-persistent background unease. Our thinking becomes oppositional only when it is imbued with
-pain. Tense muscles are leeches latched on to our souls. | believe that trigger points in our
-faces, spines, and internal organs are the physical embodiment of melancholy, world-
-weariness, ennui, and angst.
-
-Don’t Let Your “Pain-Body” Control You
-
-Spiritual author Eckhart Tolle has elaborated on a concept he calls the “pain-body.” According
-to Tolle, the pain-body is the accumulation of negative life experiences that create affective
-pain and discomfort. Tolle discusses how it is intrinsically tied to the ego and how
-environmental circumstances that assault our pride amplify the pain-body and its negative
-effects on our behavior. He advises that people “live in the present moment” so that they can
-recognize when the pain-body shifts from being dormant to being active. When it becomes
-active, it makes us act in desperation, distorting our interpretations and judgments and causing
-us to do things that we later regret. | believe that his assessment is correct and that a
-considerable proportion of the pain-body corresponds to deep somatic pain from the
-cumulative effects of muscular bracing. | also believe that the pain-body becomes active when
-latent trigger points become active.
-
-Specialists traditionally categorize trigger points as either active or latent. An active trigger
-point is painful, whereas a latent trigger point is not. Latent trigger points, which are far more
-numerous, generally cannot be felt unless deep pressure is applied. Latent trigger points can be
-activated by muscular strain, especially after an abusive workout, a sudden shock, or a long car
-ride. Alternatively, they can be activated by shallow breathing, which is why facial tension,
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-headaches, and back pain coincide with stress. Consider the unpleasantness of public speaking,
-for example. As we stand in front of a room of people with our eyebrows raised, our eyes
-squinting, our neck tense, our shoulders elevated, our stomach in knots, our vocal musculature
-taut, and our back stiff, latent trigger points in all those muscle groups become active.
-
-The resulting pain derails us, undermining our presentation and diluting our message.
-
-When latent trigger points become active, we become an inferior version of ourselves.
-
-The pain can also provoke us to lash out. Even rats exhibit pain-induced aggression. If you
-place two rats on a metal grid through which they receive an electric shock, they will attack
-each other ferociously when the shock is delivered.*® Hundreds of similar studies suggest that
-mammals have a tendency to displace aggression, reallocating blame for their physical pain
-toward other nearby animals.
-
-This is consistent with Tolle’s account. He explains that the pain-body is born of and
-enticed by pain. In his words, it is a “psychic parasite” that wants to provoke pain in others
-and then “feed on the ensuing drama.” He says that people’s pain-bodies possess them,
-causing them to do bad things that they would never otherwise do, and that they react to
-the pain-bodies of others with either revulsion or aggression.
-
-| believe that we constantly provoke one another’s pain-bodies (and latent trigger points)
-to establish social hierarchy by determining who has been debilitated more by chronic stress.
-Do we all do this constantly? Yes. Are we evil for doing it? No. Remember, competing for social
-dominance is an innate system for determining which animal has priority over resources. It is a
-highly preferable alternative to actual violence and represents the mammalian brain’s
-imperfect attempt at creating order. A considerable step toward becoming free of this
-evolutionary design flaw is to unburden yourself from the cyclic relationship between
-distressed breathing, bracing, and pain. Use Exercise 5.2 to start breaking the cycle.
-
-Relaxation Exercise #5.2 Desensitize Yourself to Pain
-
-The next time you feel angry, anxious, lonely, sad, or any negative emotion, try to find the
-root cause of it in the form of your bodily pain. Once you localize it in your body, take its
-power away by recognizing it for what it is. Use the following concepts to help you.
-
-To overcome our pain-bodies, we must change our relationship with pain. Our aversion and
-oversensitivity to discomfort are exactly what drive it. When pain makes us brace or breathe
-shallowly, we are fighting against it and making it worse. The way we bear our suffering
-should be dignified. Accept it with courage and grit. The unease we manufacture when we
-wallow in pain braces trigger points that keep us tense. Instead, like a warrior, we need to be
-tolerant and nonreactive in response to internal discomfort.
-
-The pain you feel is not you. It is just an annoying buzzer going off in the background
-reminding you that you have been going too hard on your body. This should cause you to
-ease up on your body rather than go harder. Recognize the limited validity of the discomfort
-and develop the ability to tune it out of your experience. Disidentify from it. Don’t allow it to
-flip your thoughts from positive to negative. Don’t allow it to make you attack others.
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-You will find that the raw, agonizing buzz of anxiety will fall away if you breathe as if you
-weren’t in pain. By breathing slowly and deeply while focusing on the subtle stinging
-reverberating throughout your body, you will learn to unbrace. This will heal you.
-
-The Link Between Distressed Breathing and Muscular Tension
-
-Scientists have documented that average muscle tension, especially tension in trigger points,
-increases during transient stress. Muscles will tighten up during a paper and pencil examination
-or during and after watching a horror film. The same is true for more chronic sources of stress,
-like long-lasting personal or work-related stress. Stress, and more specifically heightened
-arousal of the sympathetic nervous system, increases the risk of repetitive strain injury—
-especially during repetitive tasks.” This means that if you are stressed while sitting at the
-computer for hours, your body is fast at work, cementing your computer posture into
-
-your joints.
-
-Stress causes bracing via distressed breathing. Numerous brain pathways connect shallow
-breathing to muscle tension.?® This is a hardwired connection that prepares mammals for
-physical conflict. As our breath becomes shallow, we brace more in preparation for fighting.*°
-Relaxed breathing, by contrast, causes us to brace less and experience less pain. So, unbrace
-your diaphragm and let your outbreaths become passive and limp.
-
-Since childhood, my hands used to hurt and cramp after just a few minutes of
-uninterrupted writing or drawing. Since | started breathing diaphragmatically, however, my
-hands do not hurt or cramp even after an hour of pushing a pencil. When | do manual labor all
-day with friends, they all tell me the next day that their bodies are sore, but | notice that mine is
-not. This is because the way that | breathe now, after diaphragmatic retraining, is conducive to
-microbreaking. As you pursue the five tenets of diaphragmatic breathing described thus far,
-you will find similar examples in your own life.
-
-Find Calm Through Visual Imagery
-
-Imagine finding yourself alone on an inflatable raft following a nasty shipwreck. Your mind is
-racing, playing out the worst possible scenarios. You glance at the few remaining tins of food,
-realizing there is no way to know how many days you will be out on the open sea. The thought
-of starvation brings on a wave of panic and bodily constriction. Then, you hear a voice in your
-head: “Conserve your energy or you are going to die.” Imagine at that second, you have an
-epiphany. You recognize panic as an energy consumer that will only increase your caloric
-requirements. You realize that you needed a life-and-death experience to see how your familiar
-neuroticism is simply a metabolic state that can be adjusted. “Wow,” you say. “I’ve been
-carrying this frenetic tension for so long, but | can just let it go.”
-
-Picture yourself laying your head down on the plastic surface of the raft and making a
-concerted effort to placate your hectic reactivity. Let your body descend to an absolute
-minimum of activity. Your face goes lax, your heart beats slowly but steadily, you are breathing
-just enough to get adequate oxygen, and every muscle you aren’t currently using unwinds.
-
-You let yourself be still as the rhythm of the ocean lulls you. Now, this was an extreme example,
-but it was meant to help you see that stressing out on a survival raft is counterproductive.
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-Similarly, your baseline level of stress today is almost certainly out of proportion to your
-immediate physical challenges.
-
-There is no need to return to that raft. That was an intentionally provocative example.
-Instead, come up with positive imaginary. In mine, | am a man foraging on a sub-Saharan
-savannah 200,000 years ago, well before humanity split apart into distinct races. | am moving
-and working constantly, but at the same time, | am impossibly calm, cool, and level-headed.
-Most importantly, this version of me allows every muscle in his body to go lax unless it is
-needed for a particular motion. With hunger and nutrition major concerns, it would have been
-imperative for our ancestors to conserve metabolic activity, doing only what is required. So, this
-Jared walks and talks with incredible ease. His stride is fluid, his face is placid, and his posture is
-perfect yet effortless. | would like to encourage you to spend some time creating similar mental
-imagery that is compatible with calmness.
-
-Stress raises metabolism in the short term, and activation of the sympathetic nervous
-system can double our resting (or “basal”) metabolic rate. But it does so only for a few hours.
-Over weeks and months, chronic stress actually leads to a lowered metabolism and everything
-that comes with it, including weight gain, visceral fat, elevated blood pressure, cardiovascular
-disease, diabetes, and other health risks. One of many reasons for this is that, as you read
-earlier, when you start bracing a muscle, it burns a lot of energy, but if you keep bracing it, it
-shortens physically so that it doesn’t have to burn energy to remain in contraction.
-
-Scientists distinguish between catabolic states, in which energy is burned for movement,
-and anabolic states, in which energy is stored and used to construct necessary molecules like
-proteins. The parasympathetic system uses anabolism during periods of rest to build the body
-back up, leading to revitalization. The sympathetic system uses catabolism to burn energy for
-fight or flight. Catabolic breakdown that goes on too long consumes our energy stores,
-including important proteins, leading to depletion and corrosion. When we become stuck in
-anxious, stressed, or hyperactive states, catabolic pathways within our cells become overactive
-and place huge, unnecessary demands on our body’s other systems. Stress even burns away
-muscle, making it harder to stay fit and lean. We are lumbering cellular survival machines
-burning ourselves to the ground because we are stuck in overdrive. You need to let your body
-relax so that you can stop burning parts of the ship.
-
-If you need a role model for this kind of calm, look to those who naturally breathe with
-their diaphragm: toddlers. | have been fortunate enough to spend time babysitting my friends’
-children. One day with an imperturbable two-year-old girl was especially transformative for me.
-She was so sweet and pacific that my high-strung personality seemed likely to scare her. So, as
-we passed blocks back and forth, | worked on getting closer and closer to her level of wide-eyed
-peacefulness. Now, | often pretend that it is my responsibility to be a calming influence on
-others the way she was for me.
-
-Some people don’t want to be calmer. They enjoy being energetic and intense. The truth of
-the matter is that being energetic and being calm should be two sides of the same coin.
-Without the ability to dole out microbreaks, exhilaration turns into exhaustion in a matter of
-minutes. If a person cannot balance intensity with periods of rest, then they will burn out like a
-sprinter running a daily marathon.
-
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-Never Be Afraid of Being Too Calm
-
-One of the greatest barriers to relaxation is the instinct to keep alert, on edge, and ready to act.
-Some people are afraid that becoming too calm will result in tragedy. It is true that increasing
-the output of the stress system might indeed help you fight or take flight if your challenges are
-immediate and very severe. However, if you don’t know when the challenge will arise, then you
-are better off relaxing completely. This is because a chronically activated sympathetic stress
-system becomes a detriment in a matter of hours.
-
-For instance, if you were convinced that someone or something was going to threaten your
-life in the next few minutes, maybe you would need to activate the sympathetic stress system.
-This is because it just might free up enough energy or accentuate a reaction that saves your life.
-However, if you have no grounds for assuming that a physical threat could take your life in the
-next hour, then you are better off turning the stress system all the way down and allowing your
-muscles and mind the rest they need to stay strong. Even a mixed martial artist would benefit
-from being as calm as possible up until minutes before entering the ring. So, stop holding your
-breath, stop clenching your diaphragm, and allow yourself to let go of the suspense.
-
-Very few of us have life-threatening challenges. Most of the challenges we stress over are
-far from life or death and do not depend on adrenaline or split-second timing. Given our body’s
-design and the nature of our modern challenges, the best strategy by far is to develop a
-relaxed, low-energy disposition. Know that even when you are calm, you can still be strong,
-quick, and nimble. Let this knowledge validate your confidence in relaxation.
-
-Relaxation Activity #5.3: Stay Limp Until You Spring into Action
-
-We tend to brace because we are preparing ourselves to spring into action. We have a deep
-inner fear that if we relax too much, we will not be able to react in time when something bad
-happens. Ironically, stress leads to startling, trembling, and excessive bracing, all of which
-interfere with our ability to produce effective physical responses. With this in mind, imagine
-the scenarios below and envision your entire body remaining completely relaxed up until the
-point at which you must react.
-
-1) You are an actor in a play, waiting for your cue to come on stage.
-
-2) You are a professional basketball player leisurely dribbling down the court, with just
-three seconds before you will make a fast break toward the basket for a dunk.
-
-3) You watch your friend accidentally knock over a glass, and you prepare to catch it in
-midair.
-
-4) Someone is yelling at you and is about to strike at your face.
-
-5) You are a football player resting on the ground briefly between plays.
-
-6) You are sitting patiently in your boss’s office waiting for them to start your annual
-performance review.
-
-7) You are reclining with your phone on your chest. The ringer is on high volume, and
-you are expecting an important phone call at some point in the next five minutes.
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-
-Don’t think of resting as something you have to earn, and never feel guilty for taking
-downtime. We are animals. Breaks are not a reward; they are a necessity.
-
-Bracing Is Submissive
-
-Another reason we are afraid to let go of our bracing patterns is that we use them as
-submissive displays. During an encounter or confrontation, the less dominant individual will
-brace more. It is a visible proclamation that exclaims, “Look, I’m wasting energy, handicapping
-myself during this encounter. Don’t attack me; I’m not looking to fight.” When we engage in
-this “social paralysis,” we strain many muscles and drastically restrict their range of motion. The
-more serious the situation, the stiffer we become.
-
-Submissive people adopt tight, symmetric stances, often pinning their arms tightly to their
-sides. They minimize the amount of space that their bodies occupy by collapsing themselves
-inward as much as possible and then freezing in place. When you brace your muscles in this
-way, you submissively close yourself off from the world. Dominant postures, on the other hand,
-emerge naturally when bracing is at a minimum. Once you stop bracing, you take up space.
-Dominant people appear the least stifled in their body movements. Their motions are fluid and
-open. This is why expanding your range of expressive movement will help you convey
-dominance. So will asymmetry, openness, and repose in your body and limb positions.
-
-Relaxed physical bearing and relaxed body language are highly characteristic of dominant
-primates. Dominant monkeys and apes are even-tempered and collected, while subordinate
-animals are uptight and agitated.2° Of course, none of us want to think about dominance and
-status when trying to relax. Still, it should be reassuring to know that your unbraced and
-relaxed posture is the antithesis of inferiority in primates. Whether you are at a party, at work,
-or passing time with friends and family, be the most carefree, laid-back, slack-muscled monkey
-you can be.
-
-Find Calm Through Corpse Pose
-
-Another way to confront tension is through physical relaxation techniques. An indispensable
-one is “corpse pose,” or shavasana. Corpse pose is a recumbent yoga pose in which you lie on
-your back and focus on the total relaxation of your muscles. Although the name is a little
-morbid, it drives home the reality that you must embrace some aspects of death to truly rest.
-You must retire certain defensive muscular contractions that are intended to keep you alive.
-While lying down in shavasana, focus on retiring all the defensive contractions that you use
-while upright, including those that keep you from falling while walking. Most people take those
-contractions to bed with them every night; this is a chance to let them go.
-
-Relaxation Exercise #5.3: Corpse Pose
-Assume corpse pose, lying on your back. You can lie straight or with your arms out at 90-
-degree angles and your legs spread at about 45 degrees. Try your best to completely relax
-every muscle. Scan your entire body for muscular tension of any kind. Become a fresh
-
-cadaver with no trace of rigor mortis. Become a carcass resting in peace. Become a limp pool
-of flesh.
-
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-After the first two minutes of corpse pose, you will feel your neck and lower back start to
-writhe. Focus closely on this tendency to twist about. Try to remain still. Notice the
-discomfort that stillness creates in your muscles and how it makes you want to squirm, toss,
-and turn. By inhibiting your tendency to squirm, you quell the bracing patterns. Building
-comfort with complete motionlessness will greatly enhance your composure.
-
-When | began practicing it, | found corpse pose to be a chore. | was so restless that trying
-to lie still was stress-inducing. Paced breathing changed my experience completely. As you
-confront individual pockets of tension, the long, slow breaths dismiss and discharge them one
-after the other. A week of practicing paced breathing while in corpse pose for just five minutes
-a day is profoundly transformative. A hot bath can do much to reduce muscle tension and
-increase blood flow,2? so use corpse pose while soaking. Epsom salts, aromatherapy, candles,
-and a breath metronome may help. | believe that diaphragmatic breathing and corpse pose
-similarly enhance cold body therapy, also known as cryotherapy, in which cold air, ice packs,
-or ice baths are used to reduce pain and tension.
-
-There are numerous muscles in our bodies that we simply do not know how to relax. Our
-necks and hips are full of them. We toil all day without giving these muscles even a few seconds
-to regenerate. Use corpse pose to provide that time. At least three times per day, lie down
-wherever you happen to be, and replenish. Eventually, work toward a walking corpse pose,
-and then imagine extending that same kind of utter relaxation to all your waking movements.
-
-Find Calm Through Relaxation Training and Unbracing
-
-As we have discussed, most people are entirely unaware of the tension they carry in their
-muscles, even though it causes them pain.?? One way to develop awareness is by engaging in
-bidirectional control. Bidirectional control, or increasing and then decreasing muscle tension, is
-used to treat many disorders that are made worse by bracing. When you find a posture that
-you brace within, let it go, then incrementally bring it back and let it go again. The more familiar
-you become with specific instances of bracing, the better you will be at noticing them,
-interrupting them, and bringing them to rest.
-
-When you first find and relax a particular bracing pattern, you may notice yourself
-breathing more shallowly. This is because bracing gives us a false sense of protection and
-security, and when we interrupt it, we feel naked and unguarded. Re-bracing the area puts us
-back into our comfort zone. The only way to circumvent this pattern of escape and relapse is to
-practice unbracing while overriding distressed breathing with paced diaphragmatic breathing.
-The unbracing protocol below will guide you through the process.
-
-Unbracing Protocol
-
-1) Recognize a pattern of tension that you brace within. It might be in the face, neck,
-tongue, eyes, jaw, hands, arms, legs, back, shoulders, stomach, etc.
-
-2) Spend time discovering how to brace it further and how to bring it into a full
-contraction. Explore the muscle’s range of motion and degree of freedom.
-
-3) Use bidirectional control to relax it, tense it, then relax it again. Use this method to
-gradually identify the most relaxed resting state that you can achieve.
-
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-
-4) Notice that when the muscle is unbraced, underlying pain and discomfort become
-apparent. Deep, slow breathing will become more difficult than usual. Focus on the
-discomfort involved as you continue to breathe diaphragmatically. The discomfort will
-slowly subside. This is what it feels like to heal trauma.
-
-Bidirectional control and the unbracing protocol can be used in conjunction with
-“progressive relaxation,” a tool developed in the early 1920s by Edmund Jacobson. In
-progressive relaxation, different muscle groups throughout the body are relaxed one at a time.
-As a therapeutic exercise, it has been shown to lead to reductions in neuromuscular tension,
-breathing rate, and sympathetic activity.2? | recommend that you search online for guided
-progressive relaxation exercises and videos. You might also try searching for a similar practice
-called “body scan.” Make a record of the videos that you like and practice them weekly. We
-need to delve into this inner space if we are to bring peace to it. Below is a progressive
-relaxation exercise that you can combine with the unbracing protocol above.
-
-Relaxation Exercise #5.4: Progressive Relaxation for Bedtime
-
-Lie down in bed and assume one of your typical sleeping postures. Hold each of the following
-12 forms of bracing with moderate to high intensity for 10 seconds, then let them go utterly.
-Release the muscles abruptly and enjoy the feeling of limpness. Allow the relaxation to
-develop for at least 10 seconds.
-
-1) Flex or curl your feet, and let go.
-
-2) Bending at the knees, pull your heels up toward your butt to engage your hamstrings,
-and let go.
-
-3) Arch your lower back, and let go.
-
-4) Use the muscles of your pelvic floor to pull your thighs together, and let go.
-
-5) Tilt your hips to one side, then the other, and let go.
-
-6) Raise your shoulders, and let go.
-
-7) Flex your biceps, and let go.
-
-8) Tighten your hands without making fists, and let go.
-
-9) Brace your neck in different directions, and let go.
-
-10) Squint your eyes, and let go.
-
-11) Press your tongue firmly against the roof of your mouth and suck, and let go.
-
-12) Finally, assume the spinal position you would be in if you were in an atrocious amount
-of physical pain. Hold that position, and let go.
-
-Throughout the book, we will build on this concept of forcing a partially contracted muscle
-to contract completely and then letting it relax. Chapter 14 will detail how this can be used to
-reverse all the partial contraction and pain in your body using a technique that | call “anti-
-rigidity training.” As discussed in that chapter, this involves using physical poses that activate
-underutilized joint configurations. It narrows in on poses that ache and cause the joints to
-crack. Once you find these achy configurations in your body, you will work on contracting the
-muscles involved to full fatigue. It feels like a good stretch, but it is much more than that.
-
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-
-The process of holding the contraction outside its normal range of motion encourages blood
-flow, unlocks trigger points, and elongates muscles to their optimal length unlike anything
-else—aside from massage, that is.
-
-Massage Counteracts Partial Contraction and Dormant Muscle
-
-Despite the growing recognition that muscle tension causes most common pain, targeting the
-trigger points that cause it is not part of mainstream medical education. Physicians,
-psychiatrists, and psychologists rarely consider muscular dysfunction despite it being a major
-contributor to a wide variety of diseases and disorders. The medical establishment has found
-that it is more profitable to direct funding toward pharmaceuticals, medical devices, surgeries,
-and other medical procedures than toward massage and the manual compression of trigger
-points. This is true, even though there is overwhelming support for the concept of trigger points
-and the use of massage in resolving them from distinguished medical institutions such as the
-American Pain Society.
-
-| am generally aligned with and fond of the modern medical establishment, but its neglect
-of bracing, repetitive strain, and trigger points is unacceptable. Today, many experts worldwide
-recognize that muscle pain may be the biggest cause of disability and loss of productivity in the
-workplace. Nonetheless, clinicians focus on major surgery and on masking muscle pain with
-drugs rather than less invasive, safer, and more effective solutions that are already known. We
-can’t expect doctors to solve all of our problems. We need to let the doctors off the hook and
-take responsibility for our muscles into our own hands.
-
-Physically massaging trigger points with firm pressure breaks them up, allowing blood and
-oxygen back into the muscle. Massage is thought to be the least invasive, most cost-effective,
-and safest way to reinstate circulation and reverse the self-sustaining contraction that
-maintains them. The next chapter will explain precisely how to perform compressive massage
-on your own muscles.
-
-Trigger point massage and anti-rigidity are easy to do and work wonders. However, there is
-a simple explanation for why you and everyone you know aren’t already using these techniques
-regularly. The body only allows muscle groups to open up if the person is breathing
-diaphragmatically. This means that these two techniques don’t work nearly as well for people
-who have not undergone diaphragmatic retraining. However, combining long breaths with
-massage, achy poses, and contraction into the most painful muscles in my body liberated my
-neck, shoulders, hips, and lower back from a state of stinging rigidity. After reading Chapters 6
-and 14, you will have all the knowledge you need to do this for yourself.
-
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-
-Chapter 5: Bullet Points
-
-e Tense muscles with excessive tone burden us. Their tension develops from extended
-periods of uninterrupted use. This prolonged use is known as repetitive strain or
-persistent muscle tension.
-
-e Much of the muscle tension that we experience comes from unnecessary bracing.
-Bracing is largely involuntary but is avoidable because we can become aware of it.
-
-e Rest and microbreaks give strained muscles the downtime they need to regenerate.
-
-e Deprived of breaks, overused muscles become ultra-fatigued. But, given the proper
-microbreaks, the same muscles could have been healthy and toned.
-
-e Long-term strain changes our muscles physically, leading to adaptive muscles
-shortening, scar tissue, and the formation of trigger points.
-
-e Adaptive muscle shortening is a form of partial contraction in which a muscle can
-neither rest nor contract completely. The fact that the muscle is shorter can distort
-posture and proper skeletal alignment.
-
-e We have partially contracted muscles in the face, vocal tract, spine, abdomen,
-genitals and other areas.
-
-e Muscles that have been in partial contraction for years go dormant. Dormant muscles
-limit movement, promote frailty, and lower metabolism. They are atrophied, weak,
-inflamed, surrounded by fat deposits, susceptible to injury, and, worst of all, painful.
-
-e Most people have unknowingly allowed muscles in the crux of their necks and lower
-backs to become completely dormant to the point where they are immobilized and can
-hardly be contracted at all. If they happen to contract fully, as during a fall or when
-lifting something heavy, it would be painful and would result in injury.
-
-e We brace our breathing muscles, including the diaphragm, when we are nervous. This
-can push them into partial contraction. To unbrace the diaphragm, allow your
-exhalations to become passive. This involves doing no work during the exhalation and
-letting the breathing muscles go limp. The exhalation provides a brief opportunity for all
-the breathing muscles to relax and receive a microbreak.
-
-e Pain signals sent to our brain from tense muscles overwhelm our emotional lives.
-
-They cause the “pain-body” to flare up, heightening aggression, ego, and competition
-for status.
-
-e Muscular tension is a fundamental medical and biological problem. Due to its relation to
-stress, it is responsible for a wide range of downstream pathologies and health issues.
-
-e Several studies have shown that relaxing the muscles of the body reduces anxiety.
-
-e Distressed breathing results in muscle tension and increased bracing. Chronic distressed
-breathing results in copious dormant muscle.
-
-e Diaphragmatic breathing reduces excessive muscular tone, allowing muscles the
-microbreaks they need to regenerate. This makes it so that the repetitive strains of
-everyday life strengthen our muscles rather than weaken them.
-
-e Your body has learned to be tense, but you can teach it to let go of the tension.
-
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-
-Unbracing, which can be accomplished by allowing muscles to go limp, is an acquired
-skill that can rehabilitate your entire body when combined with diaphragmatic
-breathing.
-
-Corpse pose involves lying on the back and focusing on full-body relaxation.
-
-Progressive relaxation involves systematically scanning over the entire body, tensing
-muscles, then completely releasing them.
-
-The most dominant primates are the least affected by bracing and brace the least during
-confrontation and opposition. So, unbrace.
-
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-
-Chapter 5: Endnotes
-
-1. Reser, J. (2009). Does rheumatoid arthritis represent an adaptive, thrifty condition?
-Medical Hypotheses, 74(1), 189-194.
-
-2. Whatmore, G. B., & Kohli, D. R. (1968). Dysponesis: A neurophysiological factor in
-functional disorders. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 13(2), 102-124.
-
-3. Rajiv, D., & Harjyot, S. (2007). Good sleep, bad sleep! The role of daytime naps in healthy
-adults. Current Opinion in Internal Medicine, 6(6), 91-94.
-
-4.  Androniki, N. (2007). Siesta in healthy adults and coronary mortality in the general
-population. Archives of Internal Medicine, 167(3), 296-301.
-
-5. Alvarez, D. J., & Rockwell, P. G. (2002). Trigger points: Diagnosis and management.
-American Family Physician, 65(4), 653-60.
-
-6. Alvarez & Rockwell, 2002, Trigger points.
-7. O'Sullivan, S. (2007). Physical rehabilitation. F.A Davis Company.
-
-8. Davies, C. (2001). The trigger point therapy workbook: Your self-treatment guide for pain
-relief. New Harbinger.
-
-9. Shah, J. P., Danoff, J. V, Desai, M. J., Parikh, S., Nakamura, L. Y., Phillips, T. M., & Gerber,
-L. H. (2008). Biochemicals associated with pain and inflammation are elevated in sites near to
-and remote from active myofascial trigger points. Archives of Physical Medicine and
-Rehabilitation, 89(1), 16-23.
-
-10. Reser, J. (2009). Does rheumatoid arthritis represent an adaptive, thrifty condition?
-Medical Hypotheses, 74(1), 189-194.
-
-11. Wall, P. D., & Melzack, R. (1996). The challenge of pain. Penguin Books.
-12. Bruehl, S., Burns, J. W., Chung, O. Y., & Chont, M. (2009). Pain-related effects of trait anger
-expression: neural substrates and the role of endogenous opioid mechanisms. Neuroscience &
-
-Biobehavioral Reviews, 33(3), 475-91.
-
-13. Eisenberger, N. |., & Lieberman, M. D. (2004). Why rejection hurts: A common neural alarm
-system for physical and social pain. Trends in Cognitive Science, 8(7), 294-300.
-
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-
-14. Pluess, M., Conrad, A., & Wilhelm, F. H. (2009). Muscle tension in generalized anxiety
-disorder: A critical review of the literature. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 23(1), 1-11.
-
-15. Tolle, E. (2005). A new Earth: Awakening to your life’s purpose. Penguin Books.
-
-16. Azrin, N. H., Rubin, H. B, & Hutchinson, R. R. (1968). Biting attack by rats in response to
-aversive shack. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 11(5), 633-639.
-
-17. Aras, A., & Ro, O. (1997). Workload when using a mouse as an input device. international
-Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 9(2), 105-118; Buckles, P.W. & Devereux, J. J. (2002).
-The nature of work-related neck and upper limb musculoskeletal disorders. Applied
-Ergonomics, 33(3), 207-217; Veiersted, K. (1993). Sustained muscle tension as a risk factor for
-trapezius myalgia. In R. Nielsen & K. Jorgenson (Eds.), Advances in industrial ergonomics and
-safety. Taylor & Francis.
-
-18. Gevirtz, R. (2006). The muscle spindle trigger point model of chronic pain. Biofeedback,
-34(2), 53-56.
-
-19. Travell, J., & Simons, R. (1983). Myofascial pain syndrome: The trigger point manual.
-Williams & Wilkins.
-
-20. Mehrabian, A. (1971). Verbal and nonverbal interactions of strangers in a waiting room.
-Journal of Experimental Research in Personality, 5, 127-138; Reynolds, V., & Reynolds, F.
-(1965). Chimpanzees in the Budongo Forest. In | DeVore (Ed.) Primate behavior: Field studies of
-monkeys and apes (pp. 368-424). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
-
-21. Fioravanti, A., Cantarini, L., Guidelli, G. M., & Galeazzi, M. (2011). Mechanisms of action of
-spa therapies in rheumatic diseases: What scientific evidence is there? Rheumatology
-International, 31(1), 1-8.
-
-22. Shumay, D., & Peper, E. (1997). Healthy computing: A comprehensive group training
-approach using biofeedback. In G. Salvendy, M. J. Smith, & R. J, Koubek, (Eds.), Design of
-computing systems: Cognitive considerations (pp. 555-558). Elsevier; Stein, C., Schafer, M.,
-& Machelska, H. (2003). Attacking pain at its source: New perspectives on opioids.
-
-Nature Medicine, 9(8), 1003-1008.
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-23. Ditto, B., Eclache, M., & Goldman, N. (2006). Short-term autonomic and cardiovascular
-effects of mindfulness body scan meditation. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 32(3), 227-234.
-
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-Chapter 6: Release Tense Muscle with Massage
-
-“The mind, which before massage is in a perturbed, restless, vacillating, and even despondent state, becomes calm,
-quiet, peaceful, and subdued after massage. In fact, the wearied and worried mind has been converted into a mind
-restful, placid, and refreshed.” — Thomas Stretch Dowse (1809-1885)
-
-The Power of Massage to Alleviate Tension Insanity
-
-The benefits of massage are most apparent in cases in which muscular tension is so extreme
-that it becomes debilitating. Let us start with an especially vivid example from my own life. It
-involves a close friend who suffered psychotic episodes during which he became highly
-delusional. His breakdowns were so severe that he had to be hospitalized on three separate
-occasions. He had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia as well as bipolar disorder,
-conditions that were precipitated by harmful life circumstances. His mother had recently died
-of cancer; his father had been murdered years before; he faced frequent bullying from
-hardened, streetwise men; he had gone through a harsh breakup, been homeless for months,
-and drank large amounts of caffeine every day.
-
-In the days leading up to hospitalization, his thinking became severely deranged. He would
-become convinced that his friends were saints and that he was an angel responsible for
-preventing a coming apocalypse. Twice his state regressed to the point of catatonia, which has
-also been called “tension insanity.” Catatonia is a rare form of “psycho-motor immobility” in
-which a patient holds rigid poses, performs stereotyped, repetitive movements, and often
-cannot speak.?
-
-On the first occasion, he was found by a mutual friend who called me to ask for help. When
-| arrived, | found our buddy standing rigidly, shaking, with a pained expression plastered on his
-face. He would not sit or lie down and had been standing for two straight days. He did not
-respond to speech or any form of communication. He squinted heavily. The circles under his
-eyes had become much darker than usual. He made no eye contact and stared vacantly at the
-floor. He was normally a conscientious person, but by the time | arrived, he was urinating and
-defecating in his shorts. When | checked his breathing, | found that each breath he took lasted
-about half a second and his tidal range was minimal.
-
-Most worrying of all was his physical bearing. Although he was only 25, his posture was
-that of an old, sick man. He looked fragile, and the tension in his neck and back seemed
-excruciating. Having lost all concern for self-presentation, he looked as if he had been standing
-in a cold shower for hours. All his muscles were braced. | recognized his tortured posture as a
-direct expression of his pain-body, the suffering we all carry and attempt to conceal. At that
-point, | realized that if | were in a catatonic state, my postural deformities would similarly rise
-to the surface.
-
-His catatonia made him very difficult to help. There was nothing we could do to move his
-rigid frame down the stairs and into the car. When we tried to carry him, he shook and moaned
-violently, and it became clear that he would need to relax if he were going to get to the
-hospital. So, | began massaging him. | started with his neck, then moved on to his shoulders and
-back. His back felt crooked, the curvature unnatural and deformed. But we rapidly made
-progress: at first, his spine resisted my efforts, but every minute he loosened up a little more,
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-and within ten minutes, he was crying with relief. After 30, he was able to hobble to the car and
-sit down inside it.
-
-On our way to the hospital, he uttered his only full sentence of the day: “If | calm down,
-| will die.” Experts consider catatonia to be a vastly reduced state of consciousness. Yet, from
-this state, he was able to verbalize perhaps the most entrenched albeit delusional conviction
-that all humans have. | did my best to explain to him why this was an irrational and self-
-defeating belief. | will spend the rest of this book attempting to convince you of the same.
-
-The main takeaway of this chapter is that massage can convince your body that relaxation does
-not come at the risk of death.
-
-Getting to the hospital, though, was not the end of his struggles. For that visit alone, which
-turned out to be just the first of three, he owed more than $100,000 in medical bills. | asked
-him what the doctors did for him that cost so much, and he told me that they restrained him in
-a bed and gave him drugs for two weeks. (He wound up dependent on those drugs and had to
-be weaned off them slowly and painfully.) It is not clear what benefit the medicines and doctors
-provided, other than removing him from his stressful environment. Certainly, they conferred no
-long-term benefit.
-
-| believe that a year of weekly, hour-long, deep-tissue, full-body massages would have
-largely rehabilitated him. At $50 per massage, this would have cost less than $3,000. If this had
-been his treatment, | think he would have had a much better chance at real, lasting recovery.
-
-If he had received $100,000 worth of massage therapy, this would have bought him 2,000
-massages. That equates to an hour-long massage every week for 40 years. If | had been in
-charge of his health, | know how | would have invested the money.
-
-After reading this chapter, you will know how to massage yourself for free. This will
-complement and reinforce the other Program Peace techniques you are using to promote your
-overall health.
-
-Use Compression to Remove Trigger Points, Scar Tissue, and Muscle Shortening
-Recent estimates indicate that around 98 percent of the atoms in the body are replaced every
-year. Despite this constant remodeling, the body unfortunately preserves its muscle tension.
-
-It does this because it treats tension as an essential form of memory. Our organism trusts and
-values the specific pattern of trauma distribution across our various limbs, organs, and body
-parts because that pattern is a historical record telling us exactly how best to be defensive.
-We were pre-programmed to conserve our tension, increase it as necessary, and die with it—
-but not to reverse it.
-
-Modern medicine has no cure for muscular tension. There is no pill you can take to remove
-its physical manifestations. Compared to many other diseases and disorders, there is very little
-active biomedical research on curing muscular strain. Some researchers attempt to treat trigger
-points with injections, therapeutic ultrasound, or transcutaneous electrical stimulation, but
-none of these have yet proven very effective. | think basic and preclinical research on the issue
-should be given the highest priority in medicine, especially because persistent muscular tension
-is a contributing factor to many mental and physical diseases. Molecular pharmacologists will
-eventually develop a drug that completely eradicates muscular strain, but it will take decades
-for such a panacea to surface. Our bodies and minds don’t have decades.
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-That leaves us with non-clinical treatment options for the time being. Massage combined
-with diaphragmatic breathing is by far the best therapy available, and | recommend starting
-your practice immediately. | have been using physical compression for years to rouse dormant
-muscles all over my body. Before | began, | was covered in muscles that were painful to
-compress. Applying even light pressure almost anywhere stung. Now, all of these spots have
-become painless even when subjected to significant pressure.
-
-Massage is effective for straightforward reasons. Compression forces the muscle to relax
-and allows it to reset to a lower level of tone. It feeds slack into the injured muscle, reversing
-muscle shortening and reducing mechanical deformation at the joint. It breaks down trigger
-points as well as deposits of calcium. It accelerates venous blood drainage and lymphatic
-clearance. Compression breaks up adhesions between muscle fibers and disintegrates scar
-tissue, freeing the fibers to slide past each other again. It is unclear exactly what compression
-does at the level of actin and myosin, the microscopic proteins discussed in the last chapter
-that form the structure of individual muscle fibers. Many researchers believe that it detaches
-strands of actin from myosin after they have become stuck together, allowing them to function
-freely again.
-
-Specific conditions that are consistently and successfully treated with manual compressive
-therapy include headaches, back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin
-splints, sciatica, TMJ, fasciitis, tendonitis, and many other soft tissue inflammatory disorders of
-the joints.2 Given the prevalence of those conditions and the general level of muscular tension
-that most of us develop over lifetimes of bracing and social submissiveness, self-applied trigger
-point massage is a necessary life skill.
-
-Focus Compression on Tender, Achy Muscles
-
-One of the most studied therapies for combatting trigger points is a form of compression called
-soft tissue therapy, also referred to as “soft tissue mobilization” or “myofascial release.” The
-practice involves pinning down and squeezing an area of muscle with hard pressure for several
-seconds. The idea is to press firmly into soft tissue, including skin, fascia, periosteum, and
-superficially and deeply located muscles. The best locations for applying pressure are the
-trigger points themselves, which you can detect with your fingers. They often feel like a small
-length of partially cooked pasta or a slender worm under the skin. Most professional masseuses
-describe muscles with multiple trigger points as having a “crunchy” or “spongy” quality.
-
-Muscles with trigger points are also easy to identify because they are tender to the touch.
-In contrast, healthy muscles don’t elicit a pain response under pressure. Tenderness should be
-your operative diagnostic criterion. Concentrate your efforts on any tender mass you find.
-Apply pressure, dig, and release. Use your knuckle, fingertip, the heel of your palm, or elbow to
-get in as deep as possible to break down the scar tissue and fibrous adhesions. The tip, side, or
-first knuckle of the thumb can be particularly useful. You want to compress tender muscles all
-over your body.
-
-You can use a tool to avoid straining your hands or to apply pressure more easily to hard-
-to-reach areas. Pictured below are the implements that | use to perform compression on
-myself. You can find an eyebolt in any hardware store, and the other tools can be found easily
-online, if not at your local sporting goods store. Aside from my own hands, the Index Knobber,
-shown at the far right of the picture below, is my tool of choice.
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-Illustration 6.1: Tools for compression: A. Thera Cane™; B. Backknobber™; C. Baseballs attached with drilled holes
-and metal screws; D. Spiked massage ball; E. Foam therapy ball; F. Softballs; G. Squash ball; H. Tennis ball; |. Yoga
-Therapy Balls™ in sack; J. Three sizes of eyebolts (1” x 8”; 0.75” x 12”; 0.5” x 6”); K. Knobble™; L. Jacknobber™;
-M. Index Knobber™. You can also place tools on the floor, such as a hard water bottle, rolling pin, racquetball,
-barbell, pipe, or wooden dowel, and push your body into them.
-
-The benefits of compression have to do with muscles’ need for microbreaks, which we have
-discussed previously. The muscles that feel tender when subjected to deep compression have not
-had the breaks they need to remain healthy. Compression gives them a much-needed respite,
-reestablishing blood flow and permitting full regeneration. The muscle may feel warm afterward
-as fresh blood rushes to areas that are normally neglected. To send fresh blood into an area, you
-first need to squeeze existing blood out by performing something called ischemic compression.
-
-It is helpful to visualize the effects. As you massage, imagine that you are pressing into
-pale, pink tissue that has lost most of its blood supply. Envision the muscle turning white as you
-compress it and the remaining blood is squeezed out. Then, as you release, imagine fresh red
-blood flooding into the area. Imagine that this redness dissipates in a few seconds but that the
-muscle stays more brightly colored than it was before. Of course, all of that is quite literally
-happening. Compression creates the cellular events necessary to express the genes required to
-build new blood vessels. This renewed blood supply brings the muscle “back to life.” Below is an
-overview of the steps involved in the Program Peace compression routine.
-
-Compression Protocol
-
-1) Breathe. Use the tenets of diaphragmatic breathing throughout your massage practice.
-This will help ensure that your muscles remain relaxed even during discomfort. If
-compression becomes particularly painful, take a deep breath in, then breathe out
-slowly through pursed lips to extend your exhalation.
-
-2) Pressure. Find a muscle that is tender when compressed. Press firmly on the muscle
-with the tip of a finger, knuckle, or tool for between five and 30 seconds. On most areas
-of the body, you can apply between five and 15 pounds of pressure. To gauge this,
-imagine a dumbbell of a given weight resting on top. Use less pressure on more painful
-or delicate areas. Release, reposition centimeters or millimeters away, and repeat.
-
-3) Movement. Some practitioners recommend sliding a finger, thumb, or tool down the
-length of the muscle. They use deep, firm strokes that move in the direction of the
-muscle fibers. Others recommend stroking across the muscle repeatedly, like strumming
-a guitar string. Try to develop skill at both. Either way, you want to pin the skin down
-and slide it over the muscle rather than slide your fingers over the skin. You can also
-simply press into an area of tenderness rather than stroke it. If | can find a taught,
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-sore band of muscle, | will often nestle my knuckle in on one side of it and press
-rhythmically for minutes at a time.
-
-4) Intensity. On a scale of one to ten, aim for a tolerable pain level of six or seven.
-
-Light massage at a pain level of two or three can also be beneficial but will take much
-longer to have an effect. At a six or a seven, the pain you feel should be mixed with
-pleasure. It should “hurt good” but should not be enough to make you squirm, brace,
-or breathe shallowly.
-
-5) Attention. Once you release the muscle, pay attention to how its level of bracing has
-diminished. You may feel insecure or exposed now that you are no longer bracing.
-
-Note the automatic tendency to either resume bracing or breathe shallowly. Resist both
-urges, continuing to breathe deeply while keeping the area relaxed. This will encourage
-the muscle to reset to a lower level of tone.
-
-6) Follow up. The next day, if the muscle is bruised or hurts when contracted, it is a sign
-that you pushed too hard. However, if it is slightly sore to the touch, then you made
-substantial progress. This soreness should disappear with just a few minutes of
-additional massage. After the soreness subsides, wait a few hours for it to come back
-and compress it again with the same degree of force. Repeat this process until the
-muscle no longer hurts to compress. Depending on the muscle’s size and the severity of
-the tension, this could take days, weeks, or months.
-
-Percuss Your Tender, Tense Muscles
-
-The steady, consistent pressure of compression therapy can be complemented by percussive
-massage. “Percussive” here means “hitting” or “striking.” Many professional masseuses
-routinely use slapping, beating, and pummeling, which are all examples of percussive massage.
-This approach is similar to the “tapotement” technique in Swedish massage and certain shiatsu
-regimens. It was documented to have been used in ancient Japan when children massaged their
-elders after long days bending over in the rice fields. Because the children’s fingers were not
-strong enough to perform a kneading motion, they balled up their hands and struck the sore
-muscles with their fists. The Japanese term “mago no te” was used to describe this type of
-massage, which translates to “grandchild’s hands.” The protocol below details a related method
-that I’ll refer to as “percussion.”
-
-Percussion Protocol:
-
-1) Use a knuckle, fist, palm heel, baseball, or softball to repeatedly strike dormant,
-achy muscle. For even deeper muscle work, use a tool like the Index Knobber to strike.
-
-2) Use force and speed similar to what would be appropriate for conventional
-clapping/applause. Strike the muscle firmly and repetitively like a sewing machine or a
-woodpecker. Strike at a rate of roughly three to five times per second, rising one to
-three inches above the skin between strikes.
-
-3) Concentrate this pummeling action on a tender area of muscle just an inch or two in
-diameter for 10 to 45 seconds.
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-| percuss my neck, shoulders, back, arms, legs, knees, and ankles firmly all over with
-objects ranging from baseballs to knuckle-sized tools weekly. | recommend percussing your
-entire body with a hard implement. If you don’t have any of the tools below, don’t hesitate to
-start just using your knuckles or palm heel. Using percussion is one of the fastest and least
-painful ways to erode trigger points and reanimate dormant muscle.
-
-Ts
-
-)
-
-Sy
-e
-=
-
-SiS Oe
-
-Illustration 6.2: Tools for percussion: A. Softball; B. Tennis ball; C. Eyebolt (.5” x 6”); D. Jacknobber™;
-E. Index Knobber™; F. Bonger™; G. Brookstone vibrating massagers; H. Theragun™.
-
-Vibration
-
-| strongly recommend that you spend around $100 on a handheld vibrating massager. Using it
-on your neck and head should give you the chills and make your body tingle, a clear sign that it
-is sorely needed. Use it wherever it feels good. Vibration tends not to work as well on trigger
-points as compression or percussion. However, even just one minute per day of vibratory
-stimulation will alleviate bracing and increase circulation. When used before bed, it can
-promote better sleep. Also, use it on tender muscles after massage. Doing so can encourage
-the well-worked muscles to relax further, which helps the massage do its work.
-
-Delocalized Pressure
-
-Aside from targeting small, localized areas of tissue with compression and percussion, it can be
-therapeutic to provide firm pressure to larger areas. This is a form of delocalized pressure that
-compresses, but also stretches, many muscles at the same time. This occurs when someone
-presses firmly into a large area of the body. Thai masseuses walk on the body to provide this
-kind of relief. Delocalized pressure pushes various muscle bracing pattern configurations
-outside their normally restricted range, which can have long-lasting positive effects. It will give
-your joints, including those in the spine, more play and articulation.
-
-Massage Activity #6.1: Delocalized Pressure for the Spine
-
-Perform the following activity on a friend, then have them perform it on you. Have them
-lie down on their stomach on a bed or the floor. With your hands side by side, press into
-their spine with the heel of both palms for two seconds at a time. Start by pressing lightly
-20 times as you move from the top of their neck to the bottom of their sacrum. Do this
-again with medium firmness. The person receiving the pressure should focus on how the
-normal, braced posture of their spine is being bowed in a different direction and thereby
-freed from unnecessary rigidity. Afterward, they should perform ten sit-ups to neutralize
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-any backward tension that has been created. Ideally, everyone should have this done to
-them every night before bed.
-
-Cautions to Take with Massage
-
-Several key pieces of advice are essential for practicing compression and percussion safely.
-Neither technique should ever damage tissue, nor should they bruise, scrape, or even irritate
-the skin. Avoid using compression on a recent injury, broken skin, or broken bones.
-
-No matter the circumstances, medical professionals advise against compressing the
-following body parts: the eye, the inguinal ligament, the xiphoid process, the trachea, the
-median nerve near the carpal tunnel junction, the sciatic nerve, and the coccyx. Also, never
-massage a pulse. Many arteries accumulate plaque, and massaging them can dislodge that
-plaque and cause blood vessel occlusion. Additionally, avoid pressing or pinching lymph nodes.
-
-Certain illnesses can also make massage a risky activity. If you have the following health
-conditions, consult your doctor before receiving or self-administering massage: aneurysm,
-atherosclerosis, cancer, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, peritonitis, or
-polycystic kidney disease. Other conditions that are usually contraindicated for massage include
-fever, cirrhosis, pitting edema, blood clots, deep vein thrombosis, embolism, fainting,
-uncontrolled high blood pressure, intestinal obstruction, lymphangitis, myocarditis, rheumatoid
-arthritis, tumors, seizures, and tuberculosis, among others.
-
-Getting Results from Self-Massage
-
-Applied properly, the pressure of compression and percussion should involve only dull pain.
-On one hand, if the muscle doesn’t ache when you press into it, you are applying too little
-pressure and will not release the stored tension. On the other, the muscle should never hurt
-after you have stopped compressing. If it does, you have applied too much pressure or found
-an area that would best be avoided. Although compression feels like it causes pain, it would be
-more accurate to say that it reveals where pain already exists in your body. | believe that the
-level of discomfort you feel when compressing a tense muscle is proportionate to the
-subliminal pain signals that it sends your brain throughout the day.
-
-It almost seems unfair that to rid ourselves of pain, we must endure it even more intensely.
-But there is an optimistic perspective on soft tissue release. The muscular strain that you
-endure today is the product of years or even decades of tension. And yet, many muscles can
-be largely rehabilitated in just a handful of five-minute sessions. After that initial period of
-regular massage, less than one minute per month can be sufficient to maintain these results.
-This suggests that every minute of soft tissue release reverses weeks or even months of strain.
-Additionally, keep in mind that if you choose not to release your muscles, you are allowing
-them to become tenser, raising your levels of stress and anxiety and perpetuating chronic pain
-and autonomic imbalance.
-
-It is vital to appraise soft tissue therapy positively. It is “invasive” in some ways, but you
-want your body to embrace the sensations that you feel rather than reject them. The key is to
-self-soothe and trigger your natural relaxation response. To that end, it is imperative to use
-diaphragmatic breathing. Many specialists agree that deep breathing helps the muscle spindles
-receive the message to stop contracting.
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-There is a wealth of massage instructions and tutorials on the internet. Simply Google
-“how to massage.” Or, if video instruction appeals to you, YouTube it. | also recommend using
-other guides on muscle release such as Jill Miller’s The Role Model and Clair Davies’ The Trigger
-Point Therapy Workbook. As a baseline, the exercises that follow highlight a few of the areas
-that | think are essential to compress and percuss.
-
-Massage Exercise #6.1: Compression of the Hand Web
-Use one hand to grab and pinch the web of the other hand. Firmly squeeze the area
-between the thumb and forefinger. Spend time becoming acquainted with the tight,
-painful bundles of muscles and release them with firm compression. Repeat with the
-other hand. Continue to compress your entire hand, searching for any achiness or
-tenderness.
-
-Illustration 6.3: Hand massage.
-
-Massage Exercise #6.2: Compression of the Foot Arch
-
-Step firmly on a tennis ball, pressing the ball into every area of the underside of the foot.
-Concentrate on the arch, but press the ball into the heel and along the ball of your foot as
-well. You might also try standing on the corner of a stair. Also, use the tip of your thumb
-to press into sore areas. After about two minutes, you should notice that compressing it
-becomes much less painful and that your foot feels limber and pliant. You could buy
-million-dollar orthopedic shoes and still not get even a fraction of the relief you can attain
-from a couple of hours of soft tissue foot massage.
-
-illustration 6.4: Foot Massage.
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-Massage Exercise #6.3: Compression of the Temporalis
-The temporalis muscle assists in chewing and covers much of the temporal bone on the
-side of the head. Use your knuckles to make small circular motions all along the belly of
-this large muscle. Also, try watching TV lying down on one side with your temporal
-muscle pressed into a softball. Releasing this muscle will reduce the low-grade perpetual
-headache that so many of us carry. When you work on massaging the temporaliis, it is also
-worth compressing the cheekbones, jaw, and the three auricular muscles surrounding
-each ear.
-
-Illustration 6.5: Temporalis massage.
-
-Massage Exercise #6.4: Compression of the Sternocleidomastoid
-Use one hand to grab and pinch the sternocleidomastoid as pictured below. It helps to
-turn the head to one side. Firmly squeeze the length of the muscle from the clavicle up to
-just below the ear. This muscle is a major structural support for the neck, and when it is
-tight, it hunches the head down and forward. It also plays a role in clavicular breathing, so
-releasing it will help soothe your breath.
-
-Illustration 6.6: Sternocleidomastoid massage.
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-Massage Exercise #6.5: Compression of the Occipitalis
-Apply deep pressure to the occipitalis muscle and the neck muscles directly below it. Lie
-down and rest your head on a baseball, eyebolt, or index knobber to compress these
-
-muscles. Releasing the occipitalis will help reduce your low-grade headache and
-straighten the back of your neck.
-
-Illustration 6.7: Occipitalis massage.
-
-Massage Exercise #6.6: Compression of the Neck
-The front, sides, and back of the neck contain a dense array of muscles. Reach your hand
-into the air above your head, bend your elbow, and press the tip or knuckle of your
-thumb into each of the areas of your neck. Identify sore spots and concentrate on them.
-Alternatively, use a tool like a squash ball, Index Knobber, or eyebolt.
-
-illustration 6.8: Neck massage.
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-Massage Exercise #6.7: Compression of the Corrugator Supercilii
-Place your elbows on a tabletop or bed to steady your hands. Then use the first knuckles
-of your thumbs to press firmly into the small muscles under each eyebrow. There are
-several layers of different muscles here, but you will know when you find the corrugator
-supercilii because it will be the most painful. The feeling of pressing on it directly will
-probably take your breath away, even with just a few pounds of pressure. Consistent
-massage will release all that pain.
-
-Ae
-—)
-=
-
-Illustration 6.9: Corrugator supercilii massage.
-
-The results of even these simple exercises can be profound. Let’s look at the corrugator
-supercilii muscle in Exercise 6.7, for example. It is the muscle that creates the frown, which it
-does by lowering the eyebrows and pulling them together. Scientists regard it as the principal
-muscle in the expression of suffering.? This means that humans, primates, and other mammals
-unconsciously contract their corrugator supercilii muscles when experiencing great pain. What
-do you think it means for this muscle itself to be stuck in painful, partial contraction? | think it
-means that it has come to perpetuate the condition of suffering. Realizing this strongly
-motivated me to compress mine until they were absolutely painless. In total, the process took
-me about an hour, divided into several short sessions spread over a month. It was time well
-spent as it released my perennial frown and changed my outlook on the world.
-
-Below are several other easy-to-use massage techniques that should help kickstart your
-search for soreness and a personal routine. Other chapters in this book will specifically address
-massage of the face (9), neck (16), and lower back (17).
-
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-Illustration 6.10: Easy-to-use massage techniques.
-
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-The health benefits of self-massage are both real and noticeable: compression increases
-circulation, improves joint health, relieves muscular injuries, shortens recovery time, and
-reduces muscle fatigue. Aesthetically, self-massage can accentuate muscle mass, reduce the
-deposition of fat, improve the appearance of cellulite, and contour, tone, and firm the skin. |
-have released muscles all over, and it has helped me feel as though | have an entirely new
-body. | am stronger, more flexible, faster, and more graceful. Results are cumulative. It should
-be everyone’s objective to release every painful muscle in the body. Finding them and learning
-how to compress them skillfully is a challenge, of course, and one of the best ways to start
-learning is to receive professional massage.
-
-The Benefits of Professional Massage
-
-Getting expert help can be the perfect introduction or complement to a self-treatment routine.
-If the option is available, | strongly recommend that you invest a significant proportion of your
-disposable income for the next few years on deep tissue massage. Receiving quality deep tissue
-massages will relieve pent-up tension in large portions of your body, curbing sympathetic
-hyperactivity and activating pain-gate control. It has even been shown to reduce depression
-and trait anxiety* and reduce generalized anxiety disorder symptoms.* What is more, it
-temporarily reduces blood pressure and heart rate and stimulates the production of the brain
-chemicals involved in pleasure and satisfaction, such as endorphins, oxytocin, and serotonin.®
-Raising the levels of these substances in your brain has recursive beneficial effects on
-happiness, confidence, and outgoingness.
-
-| had my first massage at age 27. | came out of the studio angry, convinced that the
-masseuse had pressed too firmly on my shoulder. By the time | got to my car, | had a bad cramp
-in my deltoid that stayed with me for a full week. The cramp formed for three reasons:
-
-(1) | didn’t ask the masseuse to reduce the excessive pressure, (2) | was a full-on thoracic
-breather at the time, and (3) | defensively contracted the muscle into a tight ball as it was being
-massaged. Massaging a muscle too intensely, especially when it is contracted, will make the
-muscle worse rather than better. It is important to remember that unlike in self-massage,
-
-the professional masseuse cannot feel what you experience as they press. They need your
-active feedback telling them when to press harder and when to press softer.
-
-This bad first experience, which was my fault, dissuaded me from returning. Reading about
-the scientific benefits of massage five years later persuaded me to give massage another
-chance. By this time, | was practicing diaphragmatic breathing, which helped me accept, rather
-than brace against, the most intense parts of the massage. This second experience made me
-a convert.
-
-At first, the masseuses | saw marveled at how tight my muscles were. Several voiced
-concern for my well-being after feeling my neck and shoulders. They would say things like:
-“This isn’t good, are you okay?” | was even told by several masseuses that | had the worst
-muscle tension they had ever seen. But that feedback started to change within the first year
-of weekly deep tissue massages. By the end of the year, each new masseuse | worked with
-commented that they had never seen anyone able to take such deep pressure. It just didn’t
-hurt anymore, and it hasn’t since. | attribute this entirely to the consistent practice of
-diaphragmatic breathing.
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-Deep tissue massage should be uncomfortable at times but should not cause excessive pain
-or induce protective spasms. When a masseuse presses too hard on a trigger point, other
-trigger points throughout the body will briefly flare up in response. Encourage them to press
-hard but never to the point where the pain causes you to tense up in other areas, such as your
-face, neck, or back. To this end, concentrate on holding a relaxed “corpse pose,” allowing your
-body to go completely limp.
-
-Most importantly, you will know that the massage is too hard if it makes you breathe
-shallowly or brace your diaphragm. As mentioned above, you should be practicing
-diaphragmatic breathing throughout the massage. Employing paced breathing is ideal. To do
-this, locate the breath metronome MP3 audio tracks available from my website, upload them
-to your phone, and play them during the massage (you may want to put the track on repeat to
-keep your hands free and turn off the screen of your phone to conserve battery life).
-Diaphragmatic breathing will keep your muscles from fighting against the forced relaxation.
-This has the added benefit of reducing the extent of soreness afterward.’
-
-Illustration 6.11: A. Massage of the temporal muscles; B. Skeletal muscles of the back; C. Neck massage.
-
-Most masseuses, whether they realize it or not, specialize in treating the muscles of
-respiration. This is because any muscle of the torso can be seen as a muscle of respiration. After
-all, every one of them either mobilizes or stabilizes breathing motions. Remember how we said
-that breathing with the muscles surrounding the thorax and clavicles is especially unhealthy?
-Any decent massage of the neck, shoulders, or back will release those muscles, helping diminish
-the strain responsible for thoracic and clavicular breathing. Also, you will find that during a
-relaxing massage, your breathing becomes diaphragmatic on its own and that the activity of
-your sympathetic stress system plunges. Stress and anxiety cannot remain chronic if you give
-yourself intermittent, restorative breaks in the form of professional massages.
-
-Receiving regular professional massages will teach you how a good massage manipulates
-muscle, making it easier to give yourself or others effective massage later on. You will also
-quickly learn where on your body the muscles are dormant so that you can compress them
-yourself. Additionally, massage conditions dominant traits such as not flinching or pulling away
-when touched, relaxing completely around others, and being comfortable while in close
-physical contact with people you don’t know well. These traits will add to your overall sense of
-ease and confidence in the world around you.
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-Massage Activity #6.2: Visualization During Massage
-
-Every time you get a massage, spend some time noticing what the masseuse is doing to
-your body. Note the tempo, the pressure, and the locations they focus on. Notice what
-areas are sore and how they respond to pressure. Pay particular attention to the
-technique the masseuse uses, what body parts they employ and how. Visualize what the
-masseuse is doing to you and visualize yourself doing the same to your muscles (or those
-of others). Spending time picturing yourself giving the massage will make you a fantastic
-masseuse in no time.
-
-Due to reductions in chronic tension and an increased blood supply, after a high-quality deep
-tissue massage, you will find yourself able to jump higher, run faster, and bench press more.
-You will have more energy, better endurance, and exercising will be more pleasurable. To help
-capitalize on those improvements, | strongly recommend exercising before a deep tissue
-massage. Afterward, you want to stretch and exercise the muscles that have been released,
-but you don’t want to overload them. You do not want to go to a batting cage, lift heavy weights,
-spar, or load up a moving truck. Do these things before a deep tissue massage, but not after.
-
-Most importantly, massage will allow you to flex into and exercise within positions that
-were previously barricaded. You will find that you can contract portions of muscles that were
-once completely unavailable. They become available because the massage gives them a
-temporary blood supply, allowing them to flex like healthy, active muscle tissue is supposed to.
-Subsequent chapters (13-18) will detail how to combine massage with exercise to reopen
-musculoskeletal obstructions.
-
-| recommend trying as many different masseuses as possible. Almost any massage is going
-to be of value, but only a certain percentage of masseuses are worth your time and money.
-Your goal is to find the masseuses in your vicinity who are best at searching out and pressing
-into the aching, tense parts of your body. This does not necessarily mean paying top dollar. The
-most helpful massages | have received myself were not the most expensive ones. The Chinese
-acupressure studio in the mall near my home is consistently the best. In my experience,
-traditional Chinese massage has excellent biological validity. They know where trigger points
-are and how to compress them firmly while slightly varying the location of pressure every few
-seconds. | also stand by Thai massage, medical massage, sports massage, active release
-technique, osteopathic manipulation, myofascial release therapy, and trigger point therapy.
-With a skilled practitioner, each of those schools can lead to extremely positive outcomes.
-
-Tension Insanity: Excitement
-Having reviewed the most important ways in which touch can heal, let’s return to the story that
-opened the chapter. That was not the only time | found my friend in crisis. Nor was it the worst.
-The third time | had to take my friend to the hospital was the most dramatic. Homeless
-again, he had spent a few weeks with some mutual friends. One of them was another transient
-who harried and browbeat him constantly. After less than a week of this abuse, his speech was
-accelerated and the things he said came primarily from resentment and frustration. One day, |
-was looking after him along with a woman he was dating. We watched his mental state slowly
-devolve over just a few hours, and by nighttime, his behavior was delirious. He was pacing and
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-ranting in a state of purposeless volatility. In the episode | described at the beginning of this
-chapter, my friend was in a state of catatonic stupor. This time, his condition was catatonic
-excitement, commonly cited as one of the most dangerous mental states in psychiatry.
-
-Patients in a state of catatonic excitement are completely impulsive and exhibit bizarre,
-non-goal-directed hyperactivity. My friend was storming around restlessly, pointing, yelling,
-and making wild accusations, raving about a new topic every two sentences. It took me 20
-minutes of this to realize that even though he was on his feet and talking, he was barely
-conscious. His nonsensical, incoherent ranting seemed inexhaustible. He wouldn’t let anyone
-touch him and started yelling when any of us came near him or made eye contact. He
-repeatedly jabbed his finger into the chest of a common friend while screaming. As soon as he
-made a violent physical overture toward his girlfriend, | quickly but gently used a wrestling
-takedown to bring him to the floor. | knew that using physical force with a person with a mental
-health condition is unethical, but | reacted to protect the others. | spoke to him in a friendly,
-authoritative way and massaged him firmly. | kneaded the muscles along his spine for a half-
-hour until he started weeping in relief. Remarkably, our friends were able to talk him into going
-back to the place he dreaded the most. | can’t imagine that any intervention other than
-massage could have helped him relax enough to make that choice willingly.
-
-It was his third admission to a psychiatric hospital in two years. After four days there, he was
-expelled for fighting with other patients. | spent hours searching streets near the institution
-before | found him shivering in the rain. He was frenzied, rambling madly, with a swollen lip and a
-gash over his eye. All his medications had been stolen from him and he was “crashing down” as
-the prescribed drugs cleared from his cerebral circulation. Withdrawal from the sedatives and
-antipsychotics caused his sympathetic stress system to go berserk. | realized that no matter what
-we did, he would seek out and engage the most upsetting aspect of any scenario | put us in.
-
-So, we avoided stimulation. | checked us into a hotel in a quiet neighborhood and spent
-three days with him, working hard to remain as calm and as boring as possible. To avoid
-overstimulating him, | hid my phone and took the room’s television down to the front desk. At
-that time, he could only fathom what was physically in front of him, so because there was no
-television in the room, he didn’t miss it. Instead, | brought a few board games for us to play. |
-spent most of the time trying to be the perfect combination of nondominant and
-nonsubmissive. He tried to dominate me, he tried to act submissive toward me, and | ignored
-these so as not to reinforce either.
-
-During that time, | also practiced many breathing exercises with him. He said he liked them,
-but he was so restless that he could only concentrate on them for a few seconds at a time. He
-did not have the attention span necessary for paced breathing. For this reason, every half hour |
-asked him to take one long, slow inhalation and one complete exhalation while blowing on his
-finger. He said it made him sleepy. Calming our anxiety with proper breathing can make us
-drowsy, but only at first. Many people assume that becoming sleepy is an unavoidable part of
-relaxation. It is not. Performing the diaphragmatic breathing exercises in Chapter 3 over several
-weeks will prove to you that relaxation sharpens attention in the long run. The next chapter will
-discuss the biology of how becoming calmer, paradoxically, makes you more alert. After
-coaching him to take many steady, full breaths in a row, | took him to get a massage.
-
-We went to an 80-pound woman who gave hour-long, full-body massages for $20 at a
-storefront on Hollywood boulevard. She had to be more gentle than usual because he could
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-barely stand even mild pressure. | glanced at him and saw him shuddering, convulsing in what
-
-| took as the ecstasy of the woman’s touch meeting the agony of his pain-body. He started
-moaning, and when she asked whether she should continue, his reply was, “Please.” A few
-minutes later, he started sobbing and didn’t stop for the remaining 45 minutes. The other
-people at the parlor didn’t even complain about all the noise he was making because they could
-tell what he was going through.
-
-A couple of hours after his massage, he looked bright, fresh, and reinvigorated. His
-appearance contrasted starkly with his appearance described at the beginning of this chapter.
-It was abundantly clear that various chakra-like modules were finally given the break they
-needed to begin restoration and regeneration. This included muscles that were never even
-touched by the masseuse. His face, voice, heart, diaphragm, and gut had the brief respite they
-needed to recharge. All because his inner animal was given 60 minutes to forget about its
-interminable fear of death.
-
-Having never had a massage, he said it was the best experience of his life and asked when
-we could go again. Of course, his case is an extreme example. Most of us don’t carry this
-amount of trauma or have such deeply rooted pain bodies. But massage, be it professional or
-self-administered, is among our most effective and accessible means of treating both.
-
-Spend Time Rubbing and Caressing
-
-Personal grooming (or preening) is widespread in animals and is a hygienic behavior aimed at
-extracting foreign objects from the body’s surface. It is done to remove insects, ectoparasites,
-leaves, dirt, and twigs. Social grooming is common in mammals and involves stroking,
-scratching, massaging, licking, and gentle biting of another animal. Even animals such as birds,
-horses, bats, lions, and insects groom each other. Apes and monkeys groom one another daily,
-and the consequent trust and bonding are critical to group cohesion. Grooming plays a role in
-establishing alliances, is imperative for reconciliation after conflict,® and is one of the main ways
-that primates reduce stress and tension.°
-
-In humans and other mammals, gentle, well-meaning touch stimulates the release of beta-
-endorphin. This natural analgesic attaches to the same brain receptors as morphine, heroin,
-and other drugs derived from the opium poppy.*° Synthetic opioid street drugs increase the
-traumatic load on our bodies by leading to extreme withdrawal. But increasing the levels of
-natural endorphins produced by your brain does not and may be among the healthiest things
-you can do. It increases overall well-being. Grooming, massaging, rubbing, cuddling, and
-caressing all have this effect. This is partially responsible for the fact that primates with the
-most grooming relationships tend to be healthier on average.
-
-Do dominant primates groom a lot or a little? What would be your guess? In fact, they
-groom others the most. Because the dominant primates usually have the highest circulating
-endorphin levels, they typically do not need to be groomed to relax but are the most willing to
-groom others. Most humans do not regularly rub or massage others. Do you? | think that many
-people are apprehensive about being affectionate because they are concerned that their
-manual skills are not good enough, or they worry about the social aspects of the interaction.
-More than anything, they don’t want to have their efforts rejected. But much of this is a
-question of familiarity and repetition—you can’t get good if you don’t try. A little bit of time
-and practice will allow you to pass that apprehensive barrier and feel at ease touching and
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-rubbing other people. As with other skills we’ve discussed, you can develop the ability on your
-own before perfecting it with others.
-
-Massage Exercise #6.8: Rub and Caress an Inanimate Object
-
-Find a pillow or similar object to rub, caress, or massage. Know that the pillow will not
-judge your efforts, allowing you to caress it in the most loving way that you are capable.
-Imagine you are humbly trying to gain experience and work toward caressing a real
-person. You might pretend to be finger painting a beautiful, cursive, abstract composition
-using a slow, soothing cadence. Think “slow hand,” not “heated rush.” Alternate between
-touching firmly and very tenderly. Try to touch the object in the way you want to be
-touched and know that you can experiment with new flourishes and rhythms without
-someone critiquing you. If you do this while practicing paced breathing, you will find that
-your hands do not hesitate—the indecision and fumbling will be absent, quickly making
-you into a pro. With enough practice, your loved ones will never want you to stop
-touching them and you will develop a “healing hand.”
-
-When you find the opportunity, practice stroking and caressing another person ina
-smooth, rhythmic, and doting way. Alternate between using your whole hand and the tips of
-your fingers. Don’t hesitate or pause and try to keep your fingers from skipping along their skin.
-Rather, maintain fluid contact. Lightly squeeze their skin between your fingers and tug at it
-gently. You can rub their entire body, alternating between pressing and caressing. This kind of
-positive physical touch can work wonders for your spouse, children, or pets.
-
-Caress, like vibration, does not release hypertonic muscles in the same way that
-compression or percussion does. It undoes tension through relaxation by significantly reducing
-conscious bracing. However, if the person being massaged feels uncomfortable, they may
-actually brace more, like a pet that doesn’t want to be picked up. Many people cringe and
-reject touch due to past physical trauma. As the one doing the touching, it is your responsibility
-to touch them in a way that causes their bracing to subside. Affectionate, attentive, and flowing
-movements will do this.
-
-Try rubbing or caressing your significant other as you listen to music. It can help coordinate
-and sensualize your movements. Rubbing and massaging the scalp is one of the best ways to
-release endorphins. One way to approach this is to start by pressing the tip of your thumb
-firmly into their upper neck and then the occipital muscles on the back of their head. Sensually
-depress, release, and reposition once every two seconds. Use your thumb to stroke firmly over
-the hair shafts around the nape of the neck, making a crackling sound, and stimulating the
-copious nerve endings in the area. Massaging the entire scalp in this way, rubbing it
-rhythmically with all ten finger pads, can be intensely pleasurable. Try lying next to your
-partner, nestling against them, and fondling their arms, back, and shoulders. You might lie on
-your back and have a significant other lie on top of you, stomach to stomach, so that you can
-rub their neck, back, bottom, and legs with both hands.
-
-It is known that in primates, the grooming animal enjoys levels of pleasure chemicals that
-are comparable to the individual being groomed. It is the same in humans. Stroking your cat or
-dog releases endorphins, reduces heart rate, and drops blood pressure in the pet as well as in
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-the human doing the petting.* Without question, massaging and caressing someone else is the
-most pleasurable, stress-reducing, and bonding activity | know of. | believe that many people
-feel unsated because they mistakenly seek this form of satisfaction from kissing and sex, which
-simply don’t provide it. One look at the pervasiveness of grooming in primates convinces me
-that our bodies are biologically prepared for, and expectant of, being rubbed and caressed.
-
-We are doing ourselves a disservice by not doing it regularly.
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-Illustration 6.12: Massage techniques.
-
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-Conclusion
-
-Psychologists have long been puzzled by the fact that people who experience windfalls, such as
-winning the lottery, do not stay happy for long. Humans tend to return to a stable set point for
-subjective well-being and life satisfaction within a short period following major positive or
-negative life events. This phenomenon has been called the “hedonic treadmill.”** You can
-increase the speed as much as you want on a treadmill, but you won’t get anywhere. In life, you
-can accumulate as many riches and accolades as you want, but it likely won’t make you any
-happier or more peaceful. A good deal of psychological research has been devoted to grappling
-with this issue because it seems inherently unsettling. If fulfilling our lifelong dreams and
-ambitions does not reduce our pain, what will?
-
-Well, massage will. Trigger points keep us tethered to the hedonic treadmill. Winning the
-lottery does nothing to remove years of built-up tension in our bodies. However, breathing
-retraining, compression, percussion, and caressing do precisely that. They alleviate pressure
-and pain. They give us long-term, renewable increases in the levels of pleasure-causing
-chemicals in our brains. They bring us closer to other people and help us learn to be more
-comfortable with them physically.
-
-You probably know someone in their nineties who has terrible posture. They would be spry
-and dexterous if only they had enjoyed a monthly deep tissue massage throughout their life.
-Many people assume that frailty, muscle pain, and loss of muscle mass are simply inevitable
-concomitants of aging. They are not. They are merely the cumulative toll of continuous tension.
-
-To help reverse the effects of long-term muscle strain, | recommend creating a monthly
-budget for deep tissue massage. For the first several months, spend as much of your
-discretionary income on it as possible. Then, transition into doing it yourself. Recruit your
-friends, family members, and partners to practice massage with you. Whether you do it
-yourself or practice mutual massage with a loved one, it is a free way to rapidly increase
-your wellbeing.
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-Chapter 6: Bullet Points
-
-e Massage can repair tense, painful muscles all over the body. It works by forcing partially
-contracted muscles into a resting state, which allows them to regenerate, heal,
-and receive fresh blood and nutrients.
-
-e Pressing firmly into tender, achy muscle provides ischemic compression, which forces
-the blood out of the tissue and then, when released, increases blood flow.
-
-e Muscles that are sore when compressed are the most in need of massage.
-
-e All the muscle soreness in your body can and should be removed by massage.
-
-e Performed regularly, compression will restore proper length and tone to the muscle,
-increasing its range of motion, strength, and regenerative capacity as well as reducing
-tension and pain.
-
-e There are key areas of the body that, when massaged, can recover providing
-tremendous benefits.
-
-e Muscle compression is most effective when used with diaphragmatic breathing.
-
-e Percussion is another massage modality that involves gently but rapidly striking a
-muscle. Vibration is a third modality that uses a vibrating, electric massage tool.
-
-e Massage also improves posture, athleticism, muscular endurance, coordination,
-flexibility, and mobility.
-
-e Learning to massage yourself is awkward at first. Achieving the ability to do it effectively
-may take months but is a skill worth investing time in. Getting professional massages
-can help the learning process.
-
-® Grooming in primates is vital to stress reduction, social cohesion, and well-being.
-
-You can achieve the same positive outcomes by making time to affectionately massage,
-rub, and caress those closest to you.
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-Chapter 6: Endnotes
-
-1. Burrow, J. P., Spurling, B. C., & Marwaha, R. (2020). Catatonia. In StatPearls. StatPearls
-Publishing.
-
-2. Braun, M. B., & Simonson, S. J. (2008). introduction to massage therapy. Lippincott
-Williams & Wilkins.
-
-3. Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. Academic Press.
-
-4. Moyer, C. A., Rounds, J., & Hannum, J. W. (2004). A Meta-analysis of massage therapy
-research. Psychological Bulletin, 130(1), 3-18.
-
-5. Rapaport, M.H., Schettler, P., Larson, E. R., Edwards, S. A., Dunlop, B. W., Rakofsky, J. J.,
-
-& Kinkead, B. (2016). Acute Swedish massage monotherapy successfully remediates symptoms
-of generalized anxiety disorder: A proof-of-concept, randomized controlled study. The Journal
-of Clinical Psychiatry, 77(7), e883-91.
-
-6. Fritz, S. (2016). Mosby's fundamentals of therapeutic massage. Elsevier Health Sciences.
-
-7. Weerapong, P., Hume, P. A., & Kolt, G. S. (2005). The mechanisms of massage and effects
-on performance, muscle recovery and injury prevention. Sports Medicine, 35(3), 235-256.
-
-8. Smuts, B., Cheney, D., Seyfarth, R., Wrangham, R., & Struhsaker, T. (1987). Primate
-societies. University of Chicago Press.
-
-9. Schino, G., Scucchi, S., Maestripieri, D., & Turillazzi, P.G. (1988). Allogrooming as a tension-
-reduction mechanism: A behavioral approach. American Journal of Primatology, 16(1), 43-50.
-
-10. Keverne, E. B., Martensz, N. D., & Tuite, B. (1989). Beta-endorphin concentrations in
-cerebrospinal fluid of monkeys are influenced by grooming relationships,
-Psychoneuroendocrinology, 14(1—2), 155-161.
-
-11. McConnell, P. (2003). The other end of the leash: Why we do what we do around dogs.
-Ballantine Books.
-
-12. Frederick, S., & Loewenstein, G. K. (1999). Hedonic adaptation. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener,
-
-& N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 302-329). New
-Russell Sage Foundation.
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-
-“Never, in his brief cave life, had he encountered anything of which to be afraid. Yet fear was in him. It had come
-down to him from a remote ancestry through a thousand lives. It was a heritage he had received directly...through
-all the generations of wolves that had gone before. Fear!—that legacy of the Wild which no animal may escape...
-So the gray cub knew fear, though he knew not, the stuff of which fear was made.” — Jack London (1876-1916),
-White Fang
-
-In my twenties, | would phone my parents every week, and they would ask how | was doing. |
-would tell them that everything in my life was going fine but that for some reason my stress
-was insufferable, that | was in a state of endless panic, and could feel the devastating effect it
-was having on my body and mind. | was taking graduate courses in clinical psychology and was
-very familiar with the Western approach to anxiety. Reading numerous books and articles gave
-me insight into my condition but no relief from it.
-
-It wasn’t until | discovered Eastern and Stoic contemplative/medcitative perspectives on
-stress that | found a way to start to counteract the damage that my tormented mind was
-inflicting on my body. | think you will find that these perspectives are intertwined with the
-content from the preceding chapters and that, used together, they will help you tame the
-unnerving impulses emanating from your brain’s unconscious fear centers.
-
-The Brain Circuits Responsible for Fear
-
-Neuroscientists have identified seven primary emotions common to all mammals: care
-(nurturance), play (social joy), seeking (expectation), lust (sexual excitement), rage (anger), fear
-(anxiety), and grief (sadness).1 These emotions correspond to specific subcortical brain circuits.
-Each is embodied in a mechanistic device made of brain cells that sits below the level of the
-conscious cerebral cortex. Both the emotions and the brain areas responsible for them are
-highly conserved in all mammals and even extend to certain species of birds and reptiles. In
-their book, The Archaeology of Mind, pioneering researchers Jaak Panksepp and Lucy Biven
-explain how these genetically hardwired emotional systems, often referred to collectively as
-the limbic system, reflect ancestral memories with adaptive functions.
-
-Each emotion is an information processing tool built-in to animals, rather than having to be
-learned by them. They each steer the progression of thought in a different direction to ensure
-the animal is responding to its environment with the right behaviors. The fear and grief circuits
-respond to hardship and, despite being intrinsic to survival, are one of the primary drivers of
-psychological pain in mammals. At this point, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they are
-the emotions most closely tied to status conflict. As such, they elicit muscle tension and
-distressed breathing. This chapter will focus on how you can interrupt this elicitation by taking
-control of your thought process.
-
-In newborn mammals, the fear system is only activated by a few things. These are
-instinctually fear-provoking stimuli and include pain, sudden movement, falling, suffocation,
-and loud noise. Mammals are afraid of these things by nature because they are predictive of
-death. After experiencing such stimuli, fear is generalized to the things that the animal has
-found can be associated with them.” For instance, newborn rats are not afraid of their natural
-predators, such as cats, ferrets, and foxes. However, due to their strong instinctual fear of these
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-predators’ odors, they learn to become afraid after being exposed to them. In fear learning
-experiments, rats can easily be trained to become frightened of a variety of neutral contextual
-stimuli (like Kleenex or sand) that were coincidentally present during their exposure to
-instinctual fear stimuli. For example, the smell of a ferret can make a rat deathly afraid of a
-toilet paper roll.
-
-We, too, overgeneralize our fears. Horror movies are an apt example. They are horrible for
-our minds because they activate and strengthen our fear circuits. They cause us to associate
-instinctual fears with all kinds of neutral concepts far beyond the stereotypical hockey players,
-dolls, dark alleys, clowns, and old houses. Do scary movies further sensitize everyone’s fear
-circuit, or can some people watch them without repercussions? While | know it’s possible to
-have such good posture, composure, and breathing that watching a horror flick desensitizes
-you to fear, I’m certainly not there yet.
-
-When scientists surgically place electrodes directly into the brain’s fear system (lateral and
-central amygdala, anterior medial hypothalamus, and periaqueductal gray) and stimulate it
-electrically, this incites an ominous, objectless fear, making the animal afraid of everything it
-encounters. Animals freeze at low levels of current and take precipitous flight at higher levels.
-When the same areas are stimulated in humans, they make comments such as “I’m scared to
-death,” “Somebody is now chasing me. | am trying to escape from him,” and “| feel an abrupt
-feeling of uncertainty just like entering a long, dark tunnel.”?
-
-Repeated stimulation of the fear center, whether through experiences or electrodes, cause
-rats to become constitutionally inhibited, skittish, and timid. These rats engage less in play,
-feeding, sex, and grooming. Repetitive activation of the fear circuit is a surefire pathway to
-social defeat. When the fear system is activated, every nuance of your body language tells a
-potential predator that you are unstable and will make an easy lunch. The same body language
-tells potential competitors that they have the advantage over you. Clearly, the fear system can
-be insidious, and you don’t want its neural connections to strengthen or spread.
-
-The Brain Circuits Responsible for Grief
-
-The grief system is separate from the fear system. Just as the predation and aggression systems
-are dissociable (as discussed in Chapter 1), grief and fear involve distinct neural pathways. They
-even use different chemicals and respond differently to drugs. Electrical stimulation of brain
-regions containing grief circuitry shifts people into a state of desolation and despair that lifts
-rapidly when the current is turned off. The general anatomy of the human grief system
-(anterior cingulate, dorsomedial thalamus, and periaqueductal gray) overlaps extensively with
-the system responsible for separation calls in other animals.
-
-Baby mammals and birds emit distress vocalizations when separated from their mothers.
-These are reflexive cries generated by the activation of their grief system made to help their
-mother locate them in space. We usually subdue the impulse to cry out, but much of our
-psychological pain involves the arousal of these same areas. Can you find the lost baby animal
-inside of you now? Can you feel the stress of the last week and how it puts pressure on your
-voice box as if you wanted to cry out and be rescued? Baby animals stop crying out, and their
-grief system shuts down as soon as their mother finds them. Our grief system can remain
-operative for years at a time. Of course, this leads to repetitive strain of the vocal tract, which
-Chapter 12 will show you how to overcome.
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-When baby monkeys are separated from their mothers for even just a few hours, they
-experience grief that can affect them for the rest of their lives. Some primatologists force these
-separations in “adverse rearing” experiments so that they can study the factors involved in risk
-and resilience to mental illnesses such as anxiety. Monkeys that have been separated from their
-mothers repeatedly develop chronic despair. As adults, they tend to have fewer social alliances,
-less social support, fewer grooming partners, impaired social skills, and reduced social
-competence.’ They are poor at finding sexual partners, make deficient parents, and are less
-affiliative and more aggressive toward their peers.° They are also consistently more subordinate
-and inhabit rungs lower in the social hierarchy.® These things are also often true of monkeys
-that have been neglected, abused, or orphaned. Allowing ourselves to wallow in a state of grief,
-loneliness, or discontentedness results in the same outcomes.
-
-The emotions of fear and grief intend to keep us safe and from finding ourselves isolated.
-In most people, however, their signals are too intense and have stayed on for too long.
-Unchecked, fear and grief maintain a negative state of mind that cripples us socially and
-mutilates our reality. We need to convince the baby mammal in the center of our brains that
-we are not desperately trying to find our mother, that we are not lost, that we are not missing
-anything or anyone, and that we are exactly where we are supposed to be.
-
-SORE
-@)
-
-Illustration 7.1: A. Guinea pig brain cross-section; B. Human brain cross-section. Both illustrations show the fear
-system [amygdala (AM), hypothalamus (H), and periaqueductal gray (PAG)], and grief system [(anterior cingulate
-(AC), dorsomedial thalamus (DMT), and periaqueductal gray (PAG)]. Note that even though these two brains are
-not shown to scale, the relative size of the emotional areas is smaller in humans, and this reflects our capacity for
-deliberate emotional regulation.
-
-Common to both the brain’s fear and grief systems is a panic center called the amygdala.
-This structure is tied to the sympathetic nervous system and acts to elevate muscle tension,
-blood pressure, stress hormones, and heart and respiration rates. The amygdala ensures that
-threatened animals respond to negative situations with energy. Its messages about fear
-override ongoing processing elsewhere in the brain and cause us to refocus our attention on
-threat. Many of our most negative behaviors occur when this subcortical nucleus assumes
-control over the brain’s higher cognitive centers in what is commonly referred to as an
-“amygdala highjack.”
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-Like the fear and grief systems that it potentiates, the amygdala is always active. It is
-constantly running its information processing algorithms, though usually at a low level. Brain
-scans show that the amygdala’s activity level rises when we feel threatened.’ It is more active
-at rest in people with anxiety or depressive disorders and less active in those who report being
-happy and well adjusted. We can never be certain what will set it off, and we often are not
-even aware when it has been activated (for more on the amygdala, see Chapter 19).
-
-The amygdala, and by extension the fear and grief systems, work on the smoke detector
-principle. Just like smoke detectors, they are calibrated to be so sensitive that they are liable to
-go off by accident. They are set this way because a few false alarms are tolerable if it ensures
-that we can recognize real peril when it arises. In terms of reproductive success, it is better to
-overreact to a non-threat than to underreact to a true threat.’ This is a reasonable
-predisposition for wild animals but an irrational one for modern humans. Today, we tolerate
-constant false alarms of the fear and grief systems even though we are rarely confronted by
-physical threats. This vestigial hair-trigger mechanism is the reason we are predisposed to
-negative thinking.
-
-The Negativity Bias, Fear, Grief, and Default Mode
-
-“What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:
-our life is the creation of our mind.” — Buddha (c. 563 BCE-483 BCE)
-
-Humans are a special type of biological survival machine. Unlike viruses, bacteria, protists,
-fungi, plants, and most animals, we think. We are capable of simulating environmental
-situations so that we can predict the probable outcomes of our actions. We use these
-simulations to learn about and make sense of the events around us. In a perfect world, these
-models would always be cheerful and productive. Unfortunately, our brain’s threat centers
-influence us to model negative things so that we can respond appropriately when negative
-scenarios arise. This tendency to focus on the bad is often referred to as the negativity bias.?
-
-The negativity bias makes us more likely to focus on a negative piece of information such as
-a criticism than a positive one such as a compliment.’° It results in superstitious, nonreflective
-fretting that rarely leads to insight or progress. Also, negative thoughts can be triggered rapidly
-but tend to linger for long periods. This is probably related to the poor rebound effect for
-diaphragmatic breathing, in which a minor threat can force a mammal to breathe shallowly
-within a single second, after which it takes several minutes for the breathing to return
-to normal.
-
-Lamentably, rosy glasses don’t contribute to reproductive success in most ecological
-scenarios. Further, animals that don’t worry have poor survival outcomes. Studies that look at
-fish, mice, or primates that are bred or experimentally altered to become fearless show that
-these animals are great at acquiring resources but are the first to be eaten.1* On the other
-hand, the most anxious animals avoid predators and stay safe. However, they are not very
-productive (or reproductive) because they are constantly hiding and cowering. So, it was good
-for our ancestors to be somewhere between fearful and fearless. But what about today?
-What about you? Would you benefit from being fearless?
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-For thousands of millennia, our forebears were hunted, mauled, and devoured by
-monsters. These included saber-toothed cats, cave lions, cave hyenas, dire wolves, short-faced
-bears, five-meter-long snakes, giant lizards, and towering, flightless “terror birds.” However,
-anatomically modern humans employing expertly fashioned spears, clubs, axes, and knives
-were able to turn the tables. For the last 200 thousand years, we systematically drove these
-giant beasts of prey to extinction.’ We killed off many of these “Cenozoic megafauna” for food.
-In so doing, we made nearly the entire surface of Earth free from predators. In the last 10
-thousand years, humans have replaced brutal disputes with courtroom judgments and “every
-man for himself” with legal rights. Compared to our ancestors, we should feel invulnerable.
-Our world is far safer now. Our genes and brains just don’t know it yet.
-
-Humans today have virtually no natural predators. We fight among each other less than
-ever before, and cannibalism is finally out of fashion, but our brains’ fear and grief systems are
-still fully operational. The human brain is the pinnacle of evolution on Earth and the most
-complex object in the known galaxy, yet it is routinely preoccupied with unsubstantiated fear,
-vindictive anger, regret, victimization, resentment, and status anxiety. When you experience
-these emotions, thank your brain for trying to protect you but know that they are vestiges from
-a treacherous, anarchic past. Anxiety involves a tradeoff. The table below lists several similar
-tradeoffs discussed in this book.
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-Common
-
-Behaviors
-
-Implications for Hunter-
-Gatherers
-
-Implications for Modern
-People
-
-Chronic Stress
-
-Caution and apprehension of
-danger. Motivation to struggle,
-fight, and survive.
-
-Unhealthy bodily effects.
-Unnecessary psychological
-discomfort and woe.
-
-Anxiety
-
-Enhanced awareness of
-potentially fatal threats.
-
-Exaggerated fear responses to
-nonfatal threats.
-
-Depression /
-
-Accepting the dominance of other
-
-Loss of confidence, drive, and
-
-protection.
-
-Defeat group members. ambition.
-
-Submissive Pacifying those who might harm Generating superfluous tension,
-Behavior you. De-escalating conflict. trauma, and heartache.
-Dominating Elevating yourself in the social Putting others down and making
-Behavior hierarchy. them angry.
-
-Anger / Aggression | Healthy self-promotion and Negative interactions and social
-
-isolation.
-
-Competitiveness
-
-Drive to attain food and mates at
-the expense of others.
-
-Competition with friends and
-coworkers is unnecessary and
-divisive.
-
-Defensiveness
-
-Self-protection and healthy
-suspicion of others.
-
-Unnecessarily high paranoia or
-fear of others’ intentions.
-
-impulsivity
-
-Drive to quickly attain food and
-other resources.
-
-Diminished capacity for patience,
-discipline, and goal setting.
-
-Addictiveness
-
-Quick to repeat behaviors that
-have positive outcomes.
-
-Quick to become addicted to
-drugs, alcohol, etc.
-
-Table 7.1 Behavior that was adaptive in our ancestral past is now maladaptive.
-
-Our proclivity for chaotic and destructive thinking is largely involuntary. This is because,
-in most people, the brain’s fear and grief centers have been recruited to be an integral part of
-the “default mode network.” When we think about unfavorable social scenarios while under
-sympathetic upregulation day after day, we deeply etch the threat centers into our wiring.
-This makes it so that antagonistic conflict runs on autopilot. The default mode network is active
-during self-referential thought but is turned off whenever our attention turns to a task or
-distraction.* For many of us, the only time we have a reprieve from negative thoughts is when
-a diversion, such as the television or social media, drowns out our inner voice.
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-Many individuals with severe PTSD extrovert only when they talk about their trauma.
-They may be reticent and withdrawn most of the time but come alive when relating stories
-about being accosted, bombed in a rice paddy, or abused as a child. |, too used to only become
-lively when | spoke about the bad things that happened to me. | would pick the most negative
-topic possible and use it to whip myself into a frenzy. This made most of my conversations with
-friends (interactions that are supposed to be uplifting) incredibly draining. My tendency to talk
-about unsettling events was reinforcing my social anxiety. Next time you are with a friend, try
-not talking about anything irksome or disagreeable and watch how cool it helps you become.
-
-Many of us define ourselves in terms of how tough or unique our problems are. This is due
-to our inherited tendency to become addicted to trauma. During fearful episodes, the brain
-secretes opioid chemicals that temporarily alleviate the sensation of pain. This “fear-induced
-analgesia” is the reason why some of us are, paradoxically, addicted to fear. We find it thrilling.
-This is why we can become addicted to scary movies or to focusing on negative events. It is like
-an animal in a cage that engages in self-injurious behavior just to stay stimulated. Almost all
-monkeys caged alone develop self-biting, self-slapping, and head-banging tendencies. Analyze
-the perverse gratification you get from thinking and talking about negative things. Isn’t this
-something you could live without?
-
-Thinking Activity #7.1: imagine Not Talking About Stress
-Analyze your tendency to talk and think unconstructively about things that incite strong
-negative emotions. What if you cut this out completely? Imagine not telling others about
-anything negative, traumatic, or fear-inducing ever again. Imagine never griping, criticizing, or
-discussing situations in which you feel you have been wronged. Imagine never talking about
-anything related to your misfortune, mistreatment, or your ego being bruised. Imagine not
-dragging yourself and others down with stories about hostile interpersonal interactions.
-Could you do it? How might this change you?
-
-Hopefully, you can see how these types of conversations are draining you. Try going for a
-whole month without talking about anything stressful. By the end of the month, just see
-whether you have more positive energy.
-
-Confiding in others in a relaxed, supportive environment can be highly therapeutic.
-However, inundating others with negativity just winds us up further. Mulling over upsetting
-scenarios rather than desensitizing you, usually just sensitizes you to them further. Let us
-differentiate between what sensitizes us and desensitizes us.
-
-Be Nonjudgmental, Nonresistant, and Nonattached
-
-“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?” —
-Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
-
-It is possible to prune the fear and grief centers from your brain’s default network. By
-intentionally reframing our experiences, we can remodel the existing biological connections and
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-reprogram our thinking. Even the simplest popular notions about managing negative thinking
-can be applicable. Use these: “it’s not that bad,” “mistakes make me better,” “don’t fight
-reality,” “everything is temporary,” “this too will pass,” “let’s find the silver lining,” “everything
-happens for a reason,” “I learn from my mistakes,” “time heals all wounds,” or “| never mind.”
-Reframing bad experiences solders resilience into our brain’s circuitry and cuts out the
-elements that do not serve us.
-
-The following are three especially powerful perspectives that come straight from Eastern
-philosophy that have helped me reframe my circumstances and rewire my worldview:
-nonjudgment, nonresistance, and nonattachment.
-
-wa“ wa,
-
-Thinking Activity #7.2: Nonjudgment, Nonresistance, & Nonattachment
-
-Spend five minutes imagining what it would be like to completely embrace the following
-perspectives.
-
-1) Nonjudgment: You are nonjudgmental when you make a conscious choice not to
-criticize. Most people judge everything that they come across. This is immature.
-Instead of judging something, dispassionately recognize it for what it is and move on
-without stamping it with your approval or rejection. You can suspend your judgment
-on everything from nuisances to catastrophes.
-
-2) Nonresistance: Always accept what is going on at present as if you have chosen it.
-Nonresistance is choosing to accept the things you cannot change. We are constantly
-resisting. Not only is this often futile; it is also extremely disheartening. Give yourself
-a break from opposing your environment and let things take their natural course.
-
-This is not resignation or inaction. We can’t fix everything at once, so it is best to learn
-to coexist with the things that are bothering us as we consider the best ways to rectify
-them. Accept everything that happens. Stoic philosophers called this the art of
-acquiescence. Nietzsche called this amor fati: a love for all that fate unfolds.
-
-So, I’ve been asking you to become nonsubmissive, but | am also asking you to fully
-surrender to everything you cannot change.
-
-3) Nonattachment: We all have unhealthy emotional attachments to things that we can
-easily lose. These attachments set us up for disappointment and emotional pain when
-we do lose them. Even if we don’t lose them, we live in fear of losing them. Imagine
-what it would be like never to fear loss. Imagine losing everything that you love and
-yet still being at peace. Relinquish property, friends, family, past achievements,
-and every form of physical possession. Imagine giving up these things and yet still
-being happy. If you are afraid of losing something, you are insecurely attached to it
-and can never truly love it. True joy only comes from things, or aspects of things,
-that can never be taken away.
-
-These three perspectives are very powerful because they force us to reanalyze our
-predicaments from a viewpoint inconsistent with ego, status, or defeat. This is why they are
-also incompatible with distressed breathing and persistent muscle tension. Due to our
-“experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” mental states become mental traits. Thus, using these
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-concepts to reconceptualize your world will weaken the influence of fear and grief and
-hardwire your brain for peace.
-
-Meditate to Calm the Mind
-
-“Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.” — Publilius Syrus (85 BCE-43 BCE)
-
-The next few sections discuss meditation and meditative techniques you can use to ease your
-mind and body. Meditation is an internal effort to self-regulate the mind. During meditation
-sessions, participants sustain attention toward breathing, bodily sensations, emotions, and
-thoughts. When they find their attention has wandered into phobias and compulsions, they are
-supposed to acknowledge this and then let go of them to refocus on the breath or empty the
-mind.*4 Calm inaction and desireless patience result in the domestication of the brain’s
-barbarian emotional systems. Repeated failures in the first several sessions are lessons in
-humility and patience. Adopting a consistent meditative practice will lead you to develop
-self-mastery of thought—the most real and lasting power.
-
-Illustration 7.2: A. Meditator; B. Rabid dog; C. Blood sucking leech; D. Smoke detector.
-
-Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha, spent six years meditating on his suffering
-in an attempt to understand peace. He finally concluded that suffering is not caused by either
-misfortune or divine punishment but rather by thought patterns. This led him to teach others
-that suffering derives from craving and dissatisfaction and that the only way to stop suffering is
-to stop wanting more and to stop wanting to impress others. Complete control of the mind is
-known in Buddhism and Hinduism as nirvana. The literal translation of nirvana is “extinguishing
-the fire” —the fire of worry, yearning, and longing. Nirvana is also defined as serenity, salvation,
-heaven, or an indestructible sense of well-being in which ego, hatred, and greed have been
-overcome. Many spiritual masters think of nirvana, and true enlightenment, to be the end of
-emotional suffering. | believe it is attainable for everyone.
-
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-Meditate by Watching the Thinker
-
-“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — Shakespeare (1564-1616)
-
-“f you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
-
-We feel like we control our stream of thought, but we don’t. Most of our thinking is directed by
-reflex-like impulses beyond our supervision. Trying to control the parade of associations is
-much like trying to control a dream. Our desires and discouragements are endless because they
-don’t stem from our objective reality but the state of our default network. We ruminate about
-negative circumstances in a pitiful and inefficacious attempt to change individual thoughts
-about them for the better, but instead, we must change our overall thinking pattern. To start
-this process, observe your thoughts as if you were an outsider.
-
-Thinking Activity #7.3: Watching the Thinker
-Spend five minutes seeing thoughts as what they are: opinions. Identify negative
-considerations as worries and let them go without elaborating on them. Ask yourself:
-“| wonder why | had that last thought.” Then ask yourself: “Il wonder where my thought
-will turn to next.” Never be afraid of what your next thought will be and rest secure in
-the assumption that it will not have the power to cut short your next long, deep,
-smooth inhalation.
-
-Dwelling on problems without a constructive intention to amend them is self-punishment.
-Recognize that rumination about your perceived station in the status hierarchy may feel like
-an objective observation but that is usually a distortion of reality. Question the legitimacy of
-your irrational and self-critical thoughts. Don’t take them seriously. Smile at the voice in your
-head as you would at the antics of a child. Disidentify with it.
-
-In life, bad things are inevitable. Just don’t absorb them. Don’t hold them in your face,
-stomach, or heart. Let the pain pass right through you. Just because it would upset others or
-would have upset you in the past doesn’t mean you should let it upset you now. Ask yourself:
-“Do | hold my amygdala’s panic button out for the world to press?” Ask yourself honestly
-whether you want to be a victim of your life’s events or a prisoner in your mind. If you think
-that weeping or throwing a tantrum over misfortune is ineffectual, realize that internal
-suffering is, too.
-
-When someone honks at us, our heart rate rises. After an argument, we have a headache.
-When we are mistreated, we can’t sleep. When someone challenges us, our jaw contracts and
-our stomach churns. What do all these things have in common? Mental perseveration. We can’t
-stop thinking about unpleasant encounters. By continuing to mull over these incidents, you
-maintain the tension. But, if you bar yourself from searching for justifications to launch a
-counterattack, you can return to homeostasis in seconds.
-
-Our struggle with peer politics is Kafkaesque in the sense that it is at once mundane,
-senseless, inescapable, and unresolvable. We keep struggling with the ramifications of the
-pecking order even though finding some semblance of control of it is impossible. There is no
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-solace or understanding to be reached in perseverating on it. Just because they say it doesn’t
-mean it’s true. Not responding is not a loss. Getting the last word is meaningless. Thinking
-about just how wrong what that person did is will not change anything.
-
-When you find yourself engaged in negative thinking, imagine yourself: 1) dropping it like it
-is a scalding item that you don’t want to be burned by, or 2) placing it on the ground like a
-heavy box of rotten food. Either way, walk away from it like the unnecessary burden that it is.
-Pain isn’t optional, but holding on to pain is. When you simulate negative scenarios in your
-mind, your brain and body operate as if what you are imagining is really occurring. You tense up
-and carry the fight around with you. But, if you can think of taking such misfortunes
-“philosophically” without suffering, you can protect your chakra-like modules from
-unnecessary strain.
-
-Meditate Mindfully
-
-“Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings loses fear.... When a sage sees this great unity
-and his self has become all things, what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?” — Upanishads
-
-“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
-Oprah Winfrey (1954)
-
-Mindfulness is a meditative practice that has grown out of the Buddhist tradition. A person who
-is meditating mindfully attempts to become aware of their surroundings, thoughts, and actions
-without being critical.4® For beginners to achieve a state of mindfulness, they must concentrate
-on ruling out all distractions and focus on being present in their current experience. Someone
-familiar with this practice can remain in a state of mindfulness throughout most daily activities.
-| think of all the activities and exercises in this book as meditative practices that are best done
-mindfully.
-
-Medical researcher and author Jon Kabat-Zinn helped popularize the modern mindfulness
-movement.?” Kabat-Zinn has influenced many medical treatment centers around the world to
-use mindfulness meditation to help their patients counteract psychological stress, pain, and
-illness. He conceptualizes mindfulness as a state in which one is aware of and focused on the
-reality of the present moment, accepting and acknowledging it without being frustrated by
-thoughts about or emotional reactions to it. One of the key elements involved in achieving
-mindfulness is to reside in “the now,” in choiceless awareness. Nonjudgment, nonresistance,
-and nonattachment are fundamental to living mindfully.
-
-Thinking Activity #7.4: Living in the Present Moment
-
-Spend a few minutes immersed in the here and now, simply experiencing your senses.
-
-Allow yourself to live entirely in the moment as if you have chosen it and everything about it.
-Notice when you find yourself worrying about the future or regretting the past. When your
-mind wanders toward misgivings or social stressors, just redirect it back to your present
-experience: what you are seeing, hearing, and feeling right now. Don’t even anticipate future
-moments; be content in the one that you are in presently. This present instant is the only
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-time that you will ever have for peace. Keep reminding yourself to already be whole, content,
-and happy within it.
-
-As we discussed in Exercise 5.2, notice the pain you feel within your body in the present
-moment. Acknowledge its intensity and location nonjudgmentally and with nonresistance.
-Don’t let the discomfort make you irritated with the present or push you out of the present.
-Next, try to find pleasure in the present moment. It is there. Start training your mind to
-notice the faint impressions of pleasure so that you can develop the capacity to dwell
-within them.
-
-In therapeutic settings, mindfulness has been shown to alleviate stress and accentuate self-
-efficacy and confidence.® Consistent mindfulness has even been shown to increase gray matter
-in brain areas involved in subduing emotions, including those that inhibit the amygdala.*° Peer-
-reviewed articles published in a wide variety of established scientific journals have yielded data
-evincing that mindfulness techniques have demonstrated substantial clinical benefits for
-individuals suffering from a variety of mental and physical disorders. Meditation training is used
-to palliate anxiety, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, cardiovascular disease, addiction, bipolar
-disorder, insomnia, intractable depression, and many others.2° For these reasons, substantial
-US federal funding has been used to produce mindfulness programs and workshops in schools,
-prisons, hospitals, military bases, and veterans’ centers.
-
-Thinking Activity #7.5: What Would You Like to Think About?
-
-We are free to think about whatever we want to. We only have to realize this freedom. What
-would you like to do with your thoughts and inner voice? For the next two minutes, turn your
-thought to whatever you choose. Don’t concern yourself with worrisome, inane things and
-don’t allow your past thoughts and default network to determine where your mind goes
-next. When you know you have made a contentious or unproductive association, cut the
-chain. Go back to the last branch and pick up where you left off. Take responsibility to
-censure, edit, and rewrite the endless string of associations. How can you use your thought
-constructively? What are some positive questions you can address? Imagine what you are
-going to do tomorrow to make your day more productive. Continually ask yourself the
-“magic” question: “How can | make this better?”
-
-Living in the moment is what dominant mammals do. They are not bothered by past
-failures or worries about the future. They are not concerned that things will suddenly go wrong.
-They believe that they have what it takes to handle any situation or confrontation. They trust
-that their instincts and first reactions will solve any problem. The winner’s mindset is
-meditative in this sense. As a winner, approach everything in your life confidently as if you
-intend to succeed before you even start.
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-Anxiety Increases Mental Focus but Only in the Short Term
-
-When you relax, you lose a degree of mental speed and intensity. This is because, during stress,
-brain chemicals such as dopamine, noradrenaline, and cortisol accelerate the brain’s processing
-speed. On the order of seconds to minutes, they can improve performance on a variety of
-mental tasks.27 Everyone knows this implicitly, and many people are afraid to relax because
-they don’t want a lapse in their processing ability. However, on longer periods (from hours to
-months), these same chemicals wreak havoc on mental function. When stress hormone levels
-remain high for several days, the brain starts to remodel its architecture, compromising
-concentration, learning, and memory.”
-
-As we have discussed, the most potent source of stress for primates is social conflict.
-Mammals that are socially stressed release stress hormones that preside over a host of
-negative neurobiological alterations.2? The birth of new neurons (neurogenesis) is suppressed,
-connections between neurons (dendrites) atrophy, neural learning (synaptic plasticity) is
-impaired, and cell death (apoptosis) increases.”4 As illustrated in the figure below, the brain
-cells of socially defeated mammals show significant deterioration.
-
-Illustration 7.3: A. The neuron on top is a normal neuron from a tree shrew. It has expansive connections to other
-neurons; B. The neuron on the bottom comes from a tree shrew that has been exposed to 28 days of domination
-by a member of its species. The reduction in dendritic branching is quite apparent. These changes can be reversed
-if this shrew’s stress hormone levels are reduced.
-
-Two of the most pivotal brain areas for high-level thought, the prefrontal cortex and
-the hippocampus, are damaged the most in humans and other mammals by the stress hormone
-cortisol.2° Stress is physically destructive to the brain cells in these areas. The damage reduces
-learning ability, problem solving, creativity, impulse control, and long- and short-term
-memory.2° Like muscle cells, brain cells perform well under acute stress but falter under
-chronic stress.
-
-Anxiety and nervousness create a distracting form of mental noise. People with anxiety
-disorders exhibit slower reaction times in complex cognitive tasks, which is thought to derive
-from noise in the individual’s information processing stream. Stress causes attentional deficits
-and instability in basic cognitive operations. When you meditate, try to quiet this mental noise
-with proper breathing, zero reactivity, and nonjudgmental awareness of the pressure on your
-mind to keep switching between neurotic thoughts and impulses.
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-Contrasting with the cell damage done to higher-order processing areas, brain cells in the
-amygdala and the brain’s fear centers are strengthened by cortisol and chronic stress.?” This
-heightens fear learning and intensifies fearful memories. | have written articles about how
-these detrimental brain changes may be adaptive for wild mammals, allowing them to switch
-from a controlled/attentive processing strategy to an automatic/preattentive one.2® Becoming
-disinhibited, impulsive, and opportunistic in an adverse prehistoric setting may have been
-adaptive. In modern times, however, the cognitive repercussions of excessive stress not only
-decrease our quality of life but also impair our ability to function professionally.
-
-Mental Relaxation Leads to Mental Clarity in the Long Term
-After years of stress, my mind was always racing. | could tell that my thoughts were
-fragmented. | became all too aware that chronic stress was causing not only problems at work
-and in my relationships but also mental illness. My working memory declined steeply, and |
-began to experience perceptual aberrations. It got so bad that | even experienced minor
-auditory hallucinations. You can read more about these experiences on my blog.
-
-| felt that being on constant high alert was protecting me, but it was maiming me. As you
-allow yourself to relax, you may feel in your gut that you are not vigilant enough or notice that
-your response times are delayed. For years, | was afraid of becoming too calm. | was worried
-that | wouldn’t jump to the right conclusion or be able to talk fast enough to communicate
-properly. | could tell that using adrenaline spikes helped me find words, speak quickly, and put
-together complex sentences. | was afraid that being calm would make people think | was dim-
-witted or discourteous. One of the biggest steps toward becoming stress-free was realizing that
-| don’t need fevered anxiety to keep me alert or friendly.
-
-Thinking Exercise #7.1: Falling Asleep Among Friends
-
-Take an extreme example of relaxation: sleepiness. Most of us don’t allow ourselves to be
-sleepy around others. | was so socially hypervigilant that | was completely unable to fall
-asleep or even become drowsy even in the company of friends. If you work on being able to
-feel tired or even fall asleep right in front of other people, you will reduce your social
-hypervigilance. The next time you are among friends or family, try to nod off. It proves to
-others that you are not afraid of them or what they might do to you once you are
-unconscious. It demonstrates to them that you see them as allies and that you wouldn’t
-attack them if they fell asleep. Most importantly, it proves to your biological system that
-completely lowering your guard among friends is not taking a risk.
-
-When cortisol levels lower for weeks or months, the cerebral cortex exhibits a remarkable
-capacity for healing. Many of the cellular changes of stress that compromise intelligence
-reverse completely. Mammals in low-stress conditions produce large amounts of beneficial
-neurochemicals and brain growth factors.2° The absence of stressors stimulates neural stem cell
-proliferation in the learning areas of the brain.2° As you know from Chapter 2, the relaxation
-response, which can be induced by meditation and breathing practices, is characterized by a
-distinct gene transcription profile.*! This means that relaxation results in the expression of an
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-entirely different set of genes designed to build the mind and body up, as opposed to tearing
-it down.
-When you start operating without stress, you will feel dull for a few days. However,
-after a few weeks and months of living at this calmer level, you will find yourself regaining mental
-aptitude. | feel my memory and attention are better than they have been in over a decade.
-| attribute this to meditation, mindfulness, and, once again, to diaphragmatic retraining.
-
-Diaphragmatic Breathing and Unbracing the Mind
-“if a man’s mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.” — Buddha (c. 563 BCE - 483 BCE)
-
-Judging, resisting, attaching, and craving make us tense and cause us to breathe shallowly.
-Shallow breathing and muscle tension are preparatory. Because they keep us on guard for
-negative occurrences, we can’t help but think negative thoughts. When you start breathing
-diaphragmatically, you are sending your body a signal that nothing bad can happen.
-Diaphragmatic breathing allows us to coexist with our thoughts peacefully, and it is the most
-reliable way to find rest in the present moment. Many clinical researchers agree that breathing
-diaphragmatically fills the mind with unprovocative content.*? It disconnects you from the fear,
-grief, and startle systems of the brain that seek out desperate, last-ditch tactics.
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing is a core component of most meditative practices, especially
-mindfulness. Mindfulness practitioners notice the sensations arising from the stomach and
-chest and listen to the sound of the air as it passes through the nostrils. Focus is placed on
-taking longer, steadier breaths and on the abdamen’s movement to ensure that the diaphragm
-is engaged. To this end, practitioners often think about the word “rising” when breathing in and
-the word “falling” when breathing out. Some visualize inhaling positivity and exhaling
-negativity. To promote belly breathing, they also imagine that the air they breathe enters the
-navel, fills the stomach, and then exits the navel. If one becomes distracted from the breath,
-they acknowledge this nonjudgmentally and return to focused breathing. Mindfulness is also
-commonly combined with progressive relaxation and episodes of scanning the body for the
-tension we experienced in Chapter 5.
-
-“Being aware of your breath forces you into the present moment—the key to all inner transformation. Whenever
-you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present. You may also notice that you cannot think and be
-aware of your breathing. Conscious breathing stops your mind. But far from being in a trance or half asleep, you
-are fully awake and highly alert. You are not falling below thinking, but rising above it.” — Eckhart Tolle (b. 1948)
-
-The quote above reaffirms the thinking of many spiritual leaders. They know that breath
-awareness helps us refrain from gasping and shallow breathing. However, mere breath
-awareness is not enough to shift you into a parasympathetic state. Paced breathing is much
-more effective in this regard. Paced breathing allows you to permanently lengthen, deepen,
-and smoothen your breath, which does much more to rectify your thought patterns. Moreover,
-once the functioning of your diaphragm is improved, you don’t have to worry about staying
-aware of your breathing or constantly living in the now. Diaphragmatic retraining makes it so
-that you don’t have to hide from the past or future or retreat to the present moment just to
-stop negative thinking.
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-Before | started paced breathing, my internal monologue was full of argumentation. | often
-could not stop myself from playing out the most dismaying and socially awkward events in my
-head. | constantly fought people in my mind, saying spiteful things that | would never say in real
-life. | would practice ridiculing people that had wronged me in an attempt to provoke an
-altercation. | was trying to fine-tune my angry personality to be convincing, quick-witted, and
-sharp-tongued. | was practicing hate.
-
-This had been going on for years, but it ended very abruptly. Only one month after | started
-paced breathing with a breath metronome, my inner speech lost its violent negativity. | no
-longer had any “hot buttons” for people to press, and | felt nothing that anyone could say could
-make me lose my cool. Years of meditation, breath awareness, and living in the present
-moment led to modest gains. My entire ethos was transformed by only a single month of paced
-breathing 20 minutes a day.
-
-Sustained Firing and Reconsolidation
-
-When a thought shortens your breath, it is given priority. Upsetting thoughts stimulate the
-release of the brain chemical dopamine. Dopamine then amplifies the thought’s vexing aspects
-by causing the neurons involved to fire for longer periods. This extended cellular activity is a
-phenomenon in neuroscience known as sustained firing.*? Thus, dopamine makes sure that the
-subjects we deem important (either because they are rewarding or punishing) are kept active in
-mind longer. Whether you are excited about something going well or worried about it going
-wrong, dopamine causes the emotional elements of the situation to be retained in the stream
-of thought. Because the relevant brain cells keep firing, you can’t help but think about those
-elements for a while.*4
-
-The thoughts that upset us are lasting due to our neurochemistry. However, when you
-don’t allow upsetting thoughts to decrease the length of your breath (as when paced
-breathing), the startle doesn’t happen, the dopamine doesn’t surge, and the activity of the
-neurons that code for the upsetting aspects of the thought is not sustained. The thought enters
-and then quickly exits the mind without feeling compelling. Any time you recognize a disturbing
-thought forming, focus on prolonging the breath and eliminating the discontinuities. This will
-negate the thought and make it (and others like it) less likely to revisit you in the future. Lucky
-for us, this won’t diminish dopamine’s response to positive thoughts, which works via a
-different mechanism.
-
-When you practice paced breathing, pay attention to your train of thought and notice how
-your mind refuses to cling to worry. An alarming idea that would usually capture your attention
-now seems inconsequential. This will permanently alter how you feel about that topic by
-physically changing its memory trace in the brain. “Consolidation” is the name for the complex
-brain processes responsible for turning a fleeting experience into a long-term memory.
-“Reconsolidation” is the name for the re-evaluative process that occurs whenever a memory is
-recalled.3> Emotional reconsolidation happens each time something is remembered*® and it can
-be either positive or negative.
-
-Psychotherapists coax patients into remembering and talking about their past traumas,
-trying to get the patient to reprocess the memory in a better light, reconsolidating it in a way
-that is not as troublesome?” When one speaks to a friendly therapist seated in a comfortable
-
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-chair, that safe environment reframes the traumatic memory. Similarly, every memory you
-recall during a paced breathing episode will be retrieved in a more relaxed affective context.
-Memories that are normally retrieved under sympathetic dominance are now being retrieved
-and reconsolidated under parasympathetic dominance, systematically desensitizing you. This is
-how paced breathing rewires the default mode network, deflates fear and grief, and
-reconstructs personhood.
-
-Prolonged Diaphragmatic Breathing Reconsolidates Traumatic Memories
-
-| recommend that you try engaging in paced diaphragmatic breathing for two full hours. It will
-heighten parasympathetic activity, placing you into a peaceful mental and physiological state.
-Every thought you have in this state will be reframed and reconsolidated as harmless. After my
-first hour of uninterrupted paced breathing with a metronome, | could tell everything my mind
-turned to was cleansed with peace.
-
-You may find some psychological roadblocks. Many people start to panic when their senses
-tell them that they are “too calm.” However, if you keep breathing to the metronome, you will
-pass through these blockages. The first time | set out to do this, my mind unconsciously and
-vividly recalled three of the most traumatic incidents of my life within the first hour. One was a
-disagreement with a group of friends, one was a time of personal embarrassment, and one was
-a situation that led to a violent attack. These memories made me desperately want to switch
-back to distressed breathing.
-
-It was almost as if my brain was saying: “Jared, you are calmer than you have been in years
-right now. Is it safe to be this calm? Remember these terrifying circumstances that upregulated
-your cardiovascular stress system? Is there a good reason to relax in the face of these past
-challenges? How do you you know these threats will not recur?” | tried to reassure my body
-that it was okay to sink below these arousing scenarios. All | had to do was keep breathing to
-the metronome. Those three harrowing incidents never bothered me again.
-
-Thinking Exercise #7.2: Prolonged Diaphragmatic Breathing
-
-Perform two hours of paced breathing guided by your breath metronome. Set your breath
-metronome at a moderate interval that will be easy to maintain for two hours. You might
-want to start with 5:7 or 6:9. | use 8:10 or 10:12. Because you will be performing this for two
-hours, you do not need to inhale or exhale completely; just make sure that you are taking
-relatively deep breaths. Monitor your body and mind as you achieve a new level of alertness
-and relaxation.
-
-The first few times, do this while lying down, sitting, or relaxing. Later, try it while stretching,
-reading, or even while watching a movie. You might perform this prolonged paced breathing
-session in an area that would otherwise cause stress, such as an empty auditorium where you
-plan to give a speech or in your dining room where you plan to entertain guests. Pair it with
-anything you want to calm your body’s response to, including fear, foreboding, pain, nausea,
-loathing, or, as we will discuss in Chapter 20, hunger.
-
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-You might want to combine extended diaphragmatic breathing with a venting session.
-You could do this during psychotherapy, during a talk with a friend, or in writing. The subjective
-intensity of negative emotions diminishes when feelings are put into words*® and studies show
-that there is something highly therapeutic about putting these words on paper. Writing about
-past hardships has demonstrated powerful clinical benefits.*° It is called writing exposure
-therapy. The emotional sting is thought to be extracted when a person reconsolidates and
-recontextualizes negative memories in this way.*° You should find that writing or speaking
-about past adversity while paced breathing brings resolution and finality to lingering woes.
-
-Thinking Exercise #7.3: Writing Therapy
-
-Spend 10 minutes writing about past difficulties. These can be the most traumatic incidents
-in your life or just ongoing frustrations. Express your deepest feelings about your fears, griefs,
-guilts, insecurities, and any other malignancies subverting your thought. Confront the
-vexations head-on, eye to eye, by describing them in detail. You might also write about how
-these issues make you feel, how they have affected you in the past, and how you plan to
-address them in the future.
-
-Don’t worry about grammar or sentence structure. You can save your work, but you don’t
-have to if you don’t want to. Just write for the entire 10 minutes while paced breathing. If
-you don’t have time to write, have this conversation verbally with yourself. Speak to yourself
-authentically and compassionately with the focus on consoling your fear and grief systems.
-Negotiate armistice and find closure using paced breathing as your impartial arbitrator.
-
-Conclusion
-
-The mind is the master controller of an intricate multidirectional communication system linking
-the brain, immune system, heart, lungs, and all the body’s organs. The physical health of these
-parts is largely determined by your mental outlook and your outlook is determined by your
-breathing pattern. Most people operate on the unconscious assumption that we need shallow
-breathing, muscular tension, and the accompanying panicked thoughts to stay safe, come
-across as intelligent, be socially appropriate, avoid rejection, and remain occupationally
-productive. This is rarely true, even in the short run.
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-Chapter 7: Bullet Points
-
-e The fear and grief centers of our brains have been recruited as part of the default
-network. This makes negative thinking exceedingly difficult to stop.
-
-e Disengage from fear and grief by repeatedly envisioning yourself as nonjudgmental,
-nonresistant, and nonattached.
-
-e Learn to reframe stressors, live in the present moment, and recognize thoughts for what
-they are: just thoughts.
-
-e The worst-case scenarios that we worry about so much rarely come to pass.
-
-e Recognize that many of your concerns are just defensive pessimism disguised as
-practicality.
-
-e Negative thinking is a trance. Snap yourself out of it.
-
-e Acute stress may give you a slight, temporary, advantage in some immediate situations,
-but chronic stress is a disadvantage in all situations.
-
-e Keep in mind that the calmer you are, the better prepared you are to respond
-to adversity.
-
-e Recognize that you do not need anxiety to be alert, cogent, and socially functional.
-
-e Negative thoughts broadcast unhealthy biological signals to the entire body. The more
-airtime you give to negative thinking, the unhealthier you will become.
-
-e Stressed thinking causes important brain areas, like the hippocampus and PFC,
-to physically degenerate, whereas the absence of stress causes them to flourish.
-
-e Don’t let the downsides of stress as described here cause you to fear stress or anxiety.
-You might even find that your anxiety calms if you allow yourself to feel free to be as
-anxious as you want.
-
-e Prolonged paced diaphragmatic breathing strips negative thoughts and memories of
-their ability to abduct your train of thought.
-
-e There is no good reason to be reprocessing insecurities from months or years ago. If you
-have already made an effort to compensate for them, let them go.
-
-e Try being “dead calm,” first by yourself and then with others.
-
-e Minimize replaying or imagining negative social scenarios, especially confrontational or
-violent ones.
-
-e Bevery calm when you model social interactions in your head.
-
-e Bevery calm in social situations. Retain complete composure. Make being calm a
-priority in your life, eclipsing the fear of appearing rude or unsophisticated.
-
-e Expect that the most relaxed version of you has what it takes to resolve any scenario.
-
-e The dominant monkey is not stressed because it believes in its ability to deal with
-whatever new hardship comes along. It trusts that it doesn’t have to overthink things to
-react adeptly to any circumstance.
-
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-
-Classic Stoic Quotes
-
-“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t
-been.” — Marcus Aurelius
-
-“What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? | was practicing for this, | was training
-for this.” — Epictetus
-
-“The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast... and one day
-you will build something that endures: something worthy of your potential.” — Epictetus
-
-“On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire
-what power you have for turning it to use.” — Epictetus
-
-“Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, ‘This is
-misfortune,’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’” — Marcus Aurelius
-
-“You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you.” — Marcus Aurelius
-“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. You want to live but do you know how to
-live? You are scared of dying but tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different to being
-dead?” — Seneca
-
-“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” — Seneca
-“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that | can say clearly to
-myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices |
-actually control. Where then do | look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but
-within myself to the choices that are my own.” — Epictetus
-
-“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
-
-“Constant misfortune brings this one blessing: to whom it always assails, it eventually fortifies.”
-— Seneca
-
-“lf you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own
-judgment about it.” — Marcus Aurelius
-
-"Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings
-
-you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were
-not yours. — Marcus Aurelius
-
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-Classic Quotes from the Buddha
-
-“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure,
-joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
-
-“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.”
-“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.”
-“Pain is certain, suffering is optional.”
-
-“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be
-shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
-
-“It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
-
-“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure,
-joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”
-
-“There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a
-disciplined mind.”
-
-“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.
-The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the
-
-future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.“
-
-“To keep the body in good health is a duty...otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind
-strong and clear.“
-
-“\f the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you
-no good.”
-
-“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but is he peaceful, loving and
-fearless then he is in truth called wise.“
-
-“Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise or blame.“
-
-“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
-you are the one who gets burned.“
-
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-Chapter 7: Endnotes
-
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-36. Hardt, O., Einarsson, E. O., & Nader, K. (2010). A bridge over troubled water:
-Reconsolidation as a link between cognitive and neuroscientific memory research traditions.
-Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 141-167.
-
-37. Centonze, D., Siracusano, A., Calabresi, P., Bernardi, G. (2005). Removing pathogenic
-memories: a neurobiology of psychotherapy. Molecular Neurobiology, 32(2), 123-132.
-
-38. Lieberman, M. D., Inagaki, T. K., Tabibnia, G., & Crockette, M. J. (2011). Subjective
-responses to emotional stimuli during labelling, reappraisal and distraction. Emotion, 11(3),
-
-468-480.
-
-39. Baikie, K., A., & Wilhelm, K. (2005) Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive
-writing. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 11(5), 338-346.
-
-40. Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process.
-Psychological Science, 8(3), 162-166.
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-Chapter 8: Reprogram Facial Tension
-
-What is a face? To answer this question, we must also consider heads and brains. The brain,
-head, and face are located together because we evolved from worm-like creatures.+ As worms
-move through mud, it is helpful for them to analyze new soil along the way. The head and its
-various sensory organs are placed in the front of the animal to relay information about the
-immediate (and impending) environment. This is why the mouth, tongue, nose, eyes, and ears
-are grouped so close together. A face is a cluster of sensory organs, and in mammals, its
-appearance offers insight into intentions and well-being.
-
-Fish, amphibians, and reptiles cannot make facial expressions and can only open and close
-their eyes, nose, and mouth. Unlike mammals, these animals do not have muscles that attach
-to the skin of the face. Therefore, their facial skin is immobile and essentially devoid of
-expression. The facial muscles of mammals act as sphincters, constricting the area they
-circumscribe (eyes and mouth) or as tractors, pulling at their attachments (cheeks, brow, chin).
-These various muscles bring the faces of mammals to life, allow communication, and when
-contracted, alter the animal’s outlook on its environment.
-
-The facial muscles of mammals interact extensively with unconscious areas of the brain.
-Many specialized neurological modules send output to and/or receive input from the facial
-muscles. These include the fear and grief systems, and this is how stress is able to act asa
-puppeteer for our facial expressions. When the facial muscles are chronically activated by
-negative emotions, they undergo repetitive strain. As we will see in this chapter, the partial
-contraction of facial muscles has numerous harmful repercussions. Most mammals have little
-awareness of their facial tension and, like a puppet, almost no capacity to exercise deliberate
-control over their facial muscles. This chapter will focus on how to develop those capacities.
-
-Illustration 8.1: Facial muscles of A. human; B. Chimpanzee; C. Macaque monkey; D. Mouse.
-
-Refrain from Subliminal Grimacing and Frowning
-
-| woke up one morning an hour before my alarm clock sounded. | realized | was too roused to
-get back to sleep, so | practiced a few yoga poses and laid back down to meditate. | was doing
-so concertedly, concentrating on abating my chaotic thinking patterns. | turned my attention to
-the recurring waves of negativism crashing on the shoreline of my consciousness. | was trying
-to methodically break them up by examining the sensations involved. After several minutes
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-of this, the turbulent waters in my mind went still. It took me a minute to realize how | was able
-to do this. | was slowly relaxing a low-grade, persistent grimace from my face that | must have
-learned to ignore many years previously. This grimace that afflicts all of us is subtle and barely
-perceptible in a mirror. | stayed in bed for a full hour, trying to keep the contorted expression
-from repossessing me. As soon as my mind wandered, the tension around my eyes and nose
-would resurface, and my contentious thoughts would return.
-
-We are constantly bracing our facial musculature. This causes repetitive strain, trigger
-points, muscle shortening, and the development of stiff, achy dormant muscles in the face.
-Though this has not been thoroughly investigated scientifically, | imagine that the pain
-messages sent to our brain’s emotional centers from strained facial muscles are particularly
-tormenting. Spend some time contemplating this and attempt to bring awareness to the feeling
-of grimacing.
-
-Facial Exercise #8.1: Observe Your Facial Wincing and Grimacing
-
-Lie down in complete comfort and concentrate on the tone in your facial muscles. Try to relax
-your face completely and notice how the scowl returns on its own. Each time you notice it,
-allow your face to turn placid again. Notice how your expression is affected by your thoughts
-and vice versa. Focus on the areas that seem to tighten the most in response to negative
-thinking. As with the progressive relaxation exercise from Chapter 5 proceed from the top of
-your face to the bottom, taking notice of any tension in the brow and around the eyes,
-cheeks, nose, lips, and then the chin. The more time you spend doing this, the more aware
-
-of your scowl you will become and the better you will be at controlling it. After a few weeks
-of facial awareness, grimacing will feel uncomfortable and unnecessary, like reopening
-
-a wound.
-
-You might be a little skeptical. You might not believe that the source of your mental
-hardship is your frown. Nevertheless, imagine a diminutive monkey. Imagine this monkey was
-horrendously traumatized as a baby and ever since has trod around with a wry wince on his
-little face. Just imagine how this would affect his inner world, his encounters with others, and
-their impressions of him. He would inevitably perceive things as more adverse than they are
-due to the powerful interrelationships between bodily expression, emotional condition, and
-social feedback. Monitor your face carefully the next time you are speaking on the phone. Are
-you unwittingly using expressions of pain and subordination?
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-Illustration 8.2: A, B, C, & D. Monkeys wincing.
-
-The “facial feedback hypothesis” holds that facial movement and emotional experience
-constantly interact with each other below the level of conscious awareness.” Charles Darwin
-was among the first to suggest this. He wrote: “The free expression by outward signs of an
-emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as this is possible, of all outward
-signs softens our emotions. (...) Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our
-minds.”? Multiple concurring studies have supported this view.* For instance, people asked to
-hold a pencil between their teeth (forcing them to smile unconsciously) report better emotions
-during this episode than control groups that held the pencil between their lips. Botox injections
-have been shown to decrease negative affect by reducing tension in the eyes and forehead.°
-Individuals who have had Botox injections exhibit decreased activation of brain areas that
-process negative emotions such as the amygdala.® Frowns tie you to aversive mental states.
-This suggests to me that a frown burned in from years of repetitive strain anchors you to them.
-
-Breaking My Nose Damaged My Facial Composure
-
-A few days after discovering the wince on my face, | had a cup of coffee and bedded down in
-my closet for three hours in a search for the source of tension in my mind. | was in total
-darkness, wearing noise-reducing earmuffs, in corpse pose, with my breath metronome. | went
-into the experience believing that some repeating thought pattern maintained my restlessness.
-| waited for this pattern so that | could observe it and figure out how to interrupt it. However,
-the substrate of this pattern was not psychological as | expected. Instead, it was, again, facial.
-
-| must have been ignoring the sensation for 15 years, but it was clear and unmistakable
-when it finally reemerged into consciousness. Lying in the dark, | felt a tingling sensation in the
-muscles surrounding my nose. | realized that these muscles were highly contracted. The
-muscles involved included the procerus, the nasalis, and the /evator /abii. For the first time, |
-could tell that even when | thought | was relaxing my face, these muscles were still in overdrive.
-All at once, | felt practically like | was hanging from the ceiling, suspended by chains with a meat
-hook piercing the bridge of my nose.
-
-It took an hour of meditative thought and exploration even to notice. However, once |
-became aware of the sensations around my nose, they were impossible to ignore. Within a few
-more minutes, | realized that these sensations were the consequence of having my nose broken
-inside a McDonald’s at age 17. The blow had shattered my nasal bone in several places and
-fractured my septum and maxilla. It split my nasalis muscle into two parts, and it must have
-also affected the nearby musculature and nerves. | realized that this injury had entrenched
-my wincing.
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-For the first several minutes, | had no voluntary control over these nasal muscles. | eventually
-“found” the muscles by trial and error over the course of an hour. Actually, | first had to learn to
-clench the muscles before | could learn to relax them. Each time | actively tightened or relaxed
-the muscle, it would tingle and feel numb due to the nerve damage. Of course, my experience
-was extreme, but we all hold our faces in a fixed expression of emotional trauma.
-
-Having my nose broken damaged my nasal muscles and nerves and gave my face a dull,
-inattentive look that | tried to compensate for by keeping my nose and eyes tight. Especially in
-social situations, | attempted to make up for the hypotonia with hypertonia to bring some life
-and energy back to damaged facial expressions. This made my social interactions neurotic.
-
-The unremitting wincing compromised my composure and social standing, resulting in
-sympathetic upregulation.
-
-Coincidentally, this type of damage also happened to my cat, Niko. The little guy
-approached a bird’s nest, and a protective mother bird dove down and pecked him between
-the eyes, creating a deep gash down to the bone. Niko’s face looked dim for at least a month
-because his brow and nasal muscles had been injured. He looked disfigured for a few weeks,
-but eventually his eyes returned to their former state. Luckily, unlike me, Niko did not try to
-compensate for the damage by bracing. This is why he didn’t experience any lasting effects.
-
-Much of our facial tension comes from attempts to compensate for appearing haggard,
-unattractive, or inattentive. Sometimes, we use our facial tension as an outward apology for
-our appearance. It often says: “Hey, believe me, | know that | don’t look so great right now.”
-Telling myself the following helped me: “| know that I’m ‘ugly’ at times. I’m not afraid or
-ashamed of appearing grotesque, and in that | retain dignity. There is no reason to apologize for
-my unsightliness with a grimace.” How do you brace your face when you feel ugly? Identify it
-and stop it.
-
-Submissive Mammals Have More Facial Tension
-
-Of course, facial bracing also comes from our perceived place in the status hierarchy. More
-dominant people and primates don’t just brace their bodies less; they also brace their faces
-less. By contrast, the least dominant primates have permanent appeasement expressions
-plastered on their faces.
-
-Introverted and shy people tend to become tense in social situations. Their chakra-like
-modules develop tension quickly, and they exhibit various forms of the energy-wasting
-behavior discussed in Chapter 5. They quickly start to squint, sneer, and hold tension all over
-the body. Social pressures add up fast, and after just a few minutes of interacting with others,
-the introverted person starts to feel drained, exhausted, and like they want to escape. Many
-introverted people fake being extroverts until their trigger points have gone from latent to
-active, then they feel spent and try to get away from the crowd so that they can relax and
-refuel. | know this behavior pattern well. It was my social reality for years.
-
-Chapter 5 discussed systematically removing extraneous bracing efforts from daily
-activities. Activity 2 from Chapter 5 asked you to notice your bracing habits while you brush
-your teeth. Now you must do the same thing for socializing. How do you tense your face
-unnecessarily when talking to others? How does it extend down your neck and into the rest of
-your body? If you systematically eliminated the bracing from all your chakra-like modules
-during conversation and socialization, you would become the most adept extrovert ever.
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-You could work a room full of people without ever tiring. Using the exercises in this book, along
-with self-awareness and diaphragmatic breathing, you could make this your social reality.
-
-Facial Tension and Personality
-
-There is a perpetual clenching, squirming, and cringing going on behind our faces that robs us of
-our facial poise. The muscles tighten when we are at the gym, when embarrassed, or when the
-phone rings. We should see this as gratuitous affectation. Micrometabolic studies of the
-anatomy of your facial musculature would reveal that some facial muscles hold more tension
-than others. Everyone has a different pattern of tension involving different parts of the face.
-These patterns are as distinct as fingerprints. Some people may have tighter lips and others
-tighter foreheads. Even the three auricular muscles surrounding the ears hold tremendous
-tension in some people but not in others.
-
-Young infants’ faces show high base rates of random combinatorial activity, enabling
-parents to shape a repertoire of conventional displays.’ Infants more or less unconsciously
-assess the feedback that people give them and alter their facial patterns accordingly. Trial,
-error, and trauma program young children to brace their eyes, cheeks, and jaws in certain ways.
-This, in turn, distributes tension to different anatomical areas and results in a unique pattern of
-chronic muscular contractions.
-
-| believe that these distinct patterns have strong associations with different features of
-personality. For instance, | am convinced that people who hold trigger points and shortening in
-the muscle between the eyebrows (the procerus, which causes the brow to furrow into a
-frown) are more keenly possessed by anger. These people wear a low-grade menacing glower
-that can contaminate their minds. Any form of facial tension tarnishes our thinking to
-some degree.
-
-Have you ever noticed that a friend’s face can change drastically if they go through a
-prolonged period of grieving? Again, this is due to tension, and without massage, it will never
-totally reverse even after the person’s reason for mourning subsides. | believe that the blow to
-the face | experienced as a teenager made me an inveterate sneerer. Similarly, the pea-sized
-knot that | had one centimeter below each eye made me a perpetual squinter. Where do you
-hold your facial tension?
-
-Facial Activity #8.1: Warming the Face in a Hot Shower
-The next time you shower, turn the heat up (not enough to hurt) and place your face under
-the showerhead. Allow your face to heat up for a full 60 seconds. After a minute, turn the
-water off completely and focus all your attention on your face. This is the perfect time to try
-to contract and relax your facial muscles because heated muscles work differently on a
-cellular level in a way that you are not accustomed to. You will notice how the tension is
-amplified and that it contorts your face. You have about a minute to analyze the experience
-before it cools enough that the sensations end. This will pinpoint what you should be trying
-to relax.
-
-You can also use a facial mask to get instant biofeedback about the tension in your face.
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-Facial Activity #8.2: Using a Facial Mask
-Facial masks are usually made of clay, mud, creams, or paper cut-outs. They are marketed as
-products that improve the appearance of the face. People who use them claim they hydrate
-the skin and remove excess oils. They also happen to be a powerful form of biofeedback that
-should be taken advantage of by women and men alike. After the mask begins to dry, it sticks
-to your skin, making any movement that your face makes highly noticeable. You will sense
-resistance from the mask from any facial stress that you hold. Using a facial mask and trying
-to minimize any facial tension while employing a breath metronome can be an immensely
-powerful, healing experience. It will teach you to breathe easily while expressionless.
-
-Master Expressionlessness and Own Your Face
-
-The most important step in relaxing the facial muscles is to learn how to make a face with
-absolutely no expression. To do this, you must allow your face to go dead by turning your face
-off at the source. At first, this will look off-putting and very unattractive. Expressionlessness is
-the visage that many of us try to avoid making because it can convey exhaustion and disdain.
-Withholding your customary facial bracing can make you look evil, cruel, or irate. | was inspired
-to try expressionlessness after seeing my friend with schizophrenia on tranquilizers and
-sedatives. The physical ravages of stress and heavy facial bracing were more apparent than ever
-because they were contrasted with his complete facial limpness. He looked “burned out” and
-completely out of touch with reality. We all fear the social consequences of looking that way.
-But our face can never truly rest unless we do.
-
-The strange truth is that this hideous non-expressive face is actually the most beautiful
-version of you waiting to emerge. The ghastly aspect is only due to the incongruity between the
-relaxation and the trigger points. Once the trigger points are gone, the relaxation will look
-natural. Practicing expressionlessness using the exercises in this chapter will get rid of the active
-trigger points, and using the facial massage techniques in the next chapter will get rid of the
-latent ones.
-
-Working on your expressionless face will be difficult at first. You have to teach yourself to
-turn off each portion of your face individually. It will help to focus on relaxing the muscles
-around your eyes, relaxing your cheeks, and allowing your jaw to gape and go slack. Think of it
-as an extension of corpse pose—a corpse face. Focus especially hard on maintaining it when
-you are by yourself and before you go to sleep. You want to sleep every night as if every muscle
-in your face, jaw, and throat are paralyzed. How you look at yourself in the mirror is also
-decisive. When we look in the mirror, we usually don our customary “social mask.” Instead,
-ensure that your expression is not tense and that you don’t grimace, sneer, squint, or raise your
-eyebrows.
-
-When you look at the ground, your face is capable of becoming very calm. It is easy to be
-calm when looking down because you are not challenging anyone when your gaze is below
-their eye line. However, when you look up again, this calmness disappears in fear of offending
-someone. In the next activity, don’t let it disappear.
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-Facial Exercise #8.2: Conserving the Calm
-
-Look down at the ground by lowering your eyes and head toward the floor. Next, try to look
-“completely relaxed.” It may take a few seconds for you to configure this. Then, try to
-maintain this same face as you look up. It will be challenging at first, but keep working on it.
-This should be your default facial posture. You may want to try this a different way: Lie down,
-close your eyes, and make the face you usually make during sleep. Then sit up straight with
-your eyes open wide, wearing the exact same “sleeping” face. For this to work, you must
-completely let down your customary guard.
-
-We walk around with tense faces because we are concerned that if someone sees our
-expressionless face, they will assume we are angry. But when actually affronted, we feel
-entitled to be able to drop all formalities. Many people are only expressionless when angry. |
-noticed this one day when | became outraged, and suddenly, all the social facial tension | had
-been trying to let go of disappeared on its own.
-
-Facial Activity #8.3: Feigned Anger
-Pretend a friend informs you that some other people said something derogatory about you
-that you do not deserve. For the first time in a long time, you don’t care what anyone thinks
-about the way your face looks at the moment. You are mad. You are full of righteous
-indignation. Allow yourself to appear so cold, sullen, and uninviting that it makes bystanders
-shiver. You want a carnivorous look that says: “I’ll eat you.” Don’t make an angry face, just
-allow your anger to drain all pleasantries from your face. Feel this, absorb it. Now strip the
-negativity from it, and make it your own.
-
-The indignation and anger you used in the exercise above are negative emotions, so don’t
-use them too often. Boredom is less extreme and almost equally as helpful. If you ever feel the
-need to regain your repose, pretend you are bored.
-
-Facial Exercise #8.3: Feigned Boredom and Tiredness
-
-Spend a minute looking exceptionally, invariably bored. Next, try looking overtired and
-sleepy, as if you have been up for five days straight. Then spend a minute looking both bored
-and tired, but with wide eyes. This instantly transforms boredom into a type of calm interest.
-Next, while maintaining the calm elements of this expression, move toward a face that
-exhibits compassion or, perhaps, an appreciation of beauty. Finally, work in a smile and turn
-the expression into one of happiness. Return to indignance, boredom, or sleepiness as
-needed to reset your face, capture the expressionlessness from it, and channel that into your
-calm, happy face.
-
-After you spend a few months pairing expressionlessness with diaphragmatic breathing,
-you will have alleviated much of your facial tension. While working on expressionlessness, you
-may have to deaden your smile and some of the light in your eyes. However, after a short
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-hiatus, when you reemploy many of your old expressions, you will find that they are
-unadulterated by the pained tension that previously accompanied them. It is akin to breaking
-an unhealthy system into its component parts and removing the unhealthy ones to build it back
-up anew.
-
-Facial Activity #8.4: Expressionless Running
-
-The next time you run, jog, or exercise aerobically, concentrate on maintaining an
-expressionless face. It takes practice to relax the face during physical exertion, but it will
-make it much easier to stay relaxed when you are not exerting yourself. While exercising,
-focus on keeping your eyes wide and otherwise allow your entire face to go limp. Think of
-this as your “game face.”
-
-At first, it will be uncomfortable to stay calm while keeping a straight face. You may notice
-that you easily break into a nervous smile, a spontaneous laugh, or a blush. This is because
-when you start out trying to look expressionless, your body will compensate by adding tension
-in other areas. Facial expressionlessness will cause you to unconsciously tighten your neck,
-constrict your vocal folds, or speed up your heart. Notice this. It is often a balancing act so that
-when you relax one aspect, another tightens up. This happens because your body keeps
-combinatorial records of the postures that are safe to have all at once. You have to create new,
-healthier records where all the optimal postures are being used together simultaneously.
-
-We don’t feel comfortable socially when our faces are at rest, so facial rest is usually paired
-with distressed breathing. Taking on an expressionless face generally causes us to breathe
-shallowly, squint, and look at the floor. At first, it will be hard to do it while maintaining eye
-contact. But this is all reversible. Practice expressionlessness with paced breathing, wide eyes,
-and looking upward, along with the fixed gaze exercise from Chapter 4. The more you can
-breathe diaphragmatically while maintaining a non-expressive face, the more natural and
-healthy-looking it will become.
-
-Use Expressionlessness in Social Situations
-
-We use facial tension to communicate things like: “Sorry for interrupting you,” “| may be wrong
-about this,” or “| hope you like me.” Thus, the tension becomes an integral part of our social
-self-presentation. When you remove it, you must radically rethink your social deliveries. Your
-very personality will change. When allowing your face to be calm, you have to come to grips
-with the fact that some people won’t like the way you look and will question why you have
-allowed your face to be so lax. At first, | took expressionlessness too far. | stopped smiling at
-service employees, | treated other people like robots, | stopped connecting with people
-emotionally, and | had the appearance of deadness. Avoid this. Use it alone, use it in public, but
-don’t take it too far, especially in the company of friends.
-
-Although you may try to present a completely calm face, you probably still look defensive.
-This is because you assume that other people will interpret your expressionless face as
-competitive, and you make a preemptive negative face. This keeps it from being truly calm. All
-you must do to ensure a socially sensitive expressionless face is to widen the eyes and breathe
-diaphragmatically. Trust that taking long, deep, slow breaths will wipe away the negative
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-aspect. Welcome looking like a doe in the headlights, acting like you are imploring someone, or
-appearing naive. Don’t be afraid of playing the part of an inquisitive toddler with puppy-dog
-eyes. Sometimes, the most powerful countenance is that of a fun-loving child.
-
-An authentically calm face is actually endearing. Chapter 4 discussed how subordinate apes
-avoid eye contact and how direct looking can be a threat signal. Expressionlessness can change
-this. When a chimpanzee gazes at another that is not using any apprehensive signals (such as
-pursing the lips, frowning, or glaring), it does not appraise it as threatening. Expressionlessness
-free from negativity will make your eye contact more inviting, opening social doors for you.
-
-Allow me to offer some words and phrases that may help guide you in finding your new look.
-Ultimately, you want to imbue your expressionlessness with a cool, elegant, urbane sheen. lam
-not talking about being distant, detached, aloof, or unsociable. Rather, think about these words:
-dispassionate, collected, imperturbable, unflappable, unruffled, serene, free from agitation. You
-want a sedate disposition stemming from self-discipline. You want temperate self-assurance that
-suggests indifference. You want an easy casualness even under heavy provocation.
-
-You might also try to incorporate a look of stoic decorum. | find the definition of the word
-“stoic” to be inspiring: “a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their
-feelings or complaining.” When | started focusing on appearing stoic, suddenly, | lost the tough
-guy shtick because stoicism is not a competition. It is an internal discipline. Make your
-appearance resigned to drama with no trace of protest. Create your own calm facial expression
-that you truly believe is warm and positive. If you believe it, it will come across as clear as day.
-The ultimate extension of this is to make your facial expressions and eye contact emanate a
-relaxed loving kindness.
-
-Social Disapproval of Your Expressionlessness
-
-| remember when | first started forcing myself to walk on the sidewalk with an expressionless
-face. | was genuinely worried that someone driving by would become infuriated with me
-because my face was too calm. | was concerned that someone would literally see my face
-through their windshield from 20 to 30 feet away, pull their car over, and try to fight me over it.
-| had to overcome delusions like this before | could let my face tranquilize. Do you? Start
-making this expressionless face alone in your room so that social concerns don’t start to
-manipulate your facial muscles without your awareness. Next, try it walking around your home
-or neighborhood. Slowly work up to being in a store, a restaurant, or other public place while
-sporting your new calm demeanor.
-
-When used during conversation, people will question the authenticity of your
-expressionlessness, thinking that it is artificial. One thing they will do is stare at you while you
-are looking at something else. Bullies do this often. They will leave their gaze on you, thinking
-that if they look long enough, you will revert to a more submissive facial posture. They
-anticipate you will look down, lower your chin, raise your eyebrows, or squint your eyes.
-
-Don’t submit to their visual inspection of you. By under-reacting to them, you will show them
-that it is not a ruse.
-
-Bullies will also show false tension in their faces or pretend to lose their composure to bait
-you into doing the same. Once you follow their cue, they instantly revive their composure to
-make you look stupid. Many people do this. Most of them do it half-consciously. It is a
-manipulative ploy.
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-Demonstrate a psychopathic indifference toward other people’s interpretation of your
-calm facial posture. When they see your expressionlessness and respond with a deadpan look
-of their own, don’t judge their version negatively, even if it looks smug. Instead, act as if you are
-glad to see that they are trying to be as calm as you are. It is not your responsibility to sink to
-the level of the other person’s demeanor. Instead, make it your responsibility to pull them up to
-your level.
-
-We are already accustomed to receiving disapproving nonverbal feedback from others
-when we let our faces relax. Many of us had parents who would become outraged if our face
-was too calm, thinking that we were being flippant, sarcastic, or obstinate. | have seen many
-children look afraid to appear calm around their parents. Kids learn by trial and error to make
-pained expressions to defer to parents and teachers. This kind of early environmental feedback
-makes us feel defensive whenever we sport a calm look.
-
-Despite being a decent father in many respects, | have a friend who is often too dictatorial
-with his young daughter. To assuage his wrath, she squints, curls her top lip, pouts, and pleads
-with him in a high voice. Daily. Her brow wrinkles in a half-circle from furrowing and raising the
-eyebrows at the same time. There is no telling how many other internal chakras she strains to
-“buy mercy.”
-
-Other parents spoil their children, sparing their chakra-like modules but causing them to be
-undisciplined and disrespectful. A good proportion of beautiful and composed people were
-spoiled as children. Some parents can instill discipline and reverence without traumatizing,
-and this takes an incredible amount of parenting skill. This is the best kind of parent to be,
-but also the best kind of friend to be.
-
-When people see you are stolidly composed, they will assume you are likely to mistreat
-them. When you are kind to them, they will be surprised because they assume the only thing
-holding most people back from acting abusive is their lack of composure. Usually, the person
-with more composure acts more abusive. This is normative and commonly accepted. As your
-composure improves, you may have to fight the urge to take advantage of others. You may
-have the impulse to be rude, scornful, or otherwise exploit your privileged position. If you are
-not a bad person (and, dear reader, | am sure you are not), as your composure improves, you
-will become less offensive. This is because you will find you have less to act defensive and
-oppositional about.
-
-The Effect of Tension on the Body During Development
-We have discussed how taking on facial and bodily muscle tension is an evolved strategy that
-communicates submissiveness to avoid being challenged and attacked. There are numerous
-similar strategies involving body plan changes even just in primates. For example,
-male orangutans are capable of exhibiting a pronounced developmental hiatus when they
-reach the females’ size. What happens next varies. Some males go on to develop into full adult
-body size, along with other mature characteristics such as facial flaps. In contrast, other males
-will enter a prolonged period of physical juvenility (arrested growth and development) but
-otherwise full sexual maturity.
-
-Environmental feedback determines whether male orangutans enter this prolonged
-juvenile phase or not. If their environment stifles their serotonin and testosterone levels, they
-are more likely to put off full maturity for a few years to avoid competing with the fully mature
-
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-males.® Fascinatingly, suppression of maturity in orangutans is seen even in males that consider
-themselves subordinate to a human groundskeeper. If the keeper is replaced or the orangutan
-successfully challenges the keeper, the orangutan will quickly develop its cheek pads and
-
-full size.
-
-Male gorillas do not mature into a full silverback for three to eight years after reaching
-sexual maturity. Some take much longer than others. This gives them more time to develop
-skills and relationships before they attempt to become an alpha male. This phenomenon in
-orangutans, gorillas, and many other animals is called sexual bimaturism.? It is evident in
-humans as well. Males hit puberty two years later than girls. This is widely thought to delay the
-age in which men are thrust into stressful and potentially dangerous competition with older,
-more dominant, sexually active males.
-
-A similar process may be going on with our bodies and faces. The combination of distress
-and repetitive strain may program muscles all over the body to become weak (hypotrophic) to
-display our place in the pecking order. In other words, the tension keeps us from being as
-muscular and healthy as we could be. | previously thought that most of the variability in beauty
-and robust body type was explained by genes. | thought alpha animals attained their status by a
-stroke of genetic luck. Now, | am convinced that much of it comes from environmental
-feedback and developmental plasticity. Bad social environments influence children to strain
-their faces while good ones encourage children to relax them. Tension alters our physiognomy.
-Over months and years, some people look depleted and sickly while others look handsome and
-brawny. Most of us passively allow the environment to determine how this plays out. The
-Program Peace exercises can help you actively optimize it.
-
-Remember from Chapter 5 that muscles that do not rest cannot heal. Relaxed muscles are
-capable of full recovery and thus are more responsive to exercise. Now that your facial muscles
-are capable of resting fully, they are capable of becoming more muscular.
-
-Facial Exercises That Will Make a Relaxed Face Robust
-
-Use the exercises in this section to contract your facial muscles beyond their normal range and
-out of partial contraction. To do this, flex them as hard as you can while breathing
-diaphragmatically. Some of the muscles are involved in superiority displays, others in inferiority
-displays, but | recommend pairing them all with proper breathing to unlink them from the
-sympathetic stress system. This will make the superiority displays indubitable and the inferiority
-displays playful rather than subordinating.
-
-Diaphragmatic generalization will reduce the activation threshold for these muscles,
-encouraging them to contract spontaneously, effortlessly, and more frequently. This will free
-up previously frozen contractions and help you become more expressive. Exercising these
-muscles to the point of fatigue and then letting them rest completely will also help them grow
-stronger and more prominent.
-
-Facial Exercise #8.4: Freeing Up the Face
-Spend one minute contracting each of the following ten sets of muscles while performing
-paced breathing with a breath metronome. Hold a firm contraction until the muscles
-tremble, burn, or reach fatigue. After they do, focus on letting them go completely limp. As
-
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-the muscles rest, resist the tendency to resume bracing. After performing these ten exercises
-individually, feel free to start combining them.
-
-1)
-
-2)
-
-3)
-
-4)
-
-5)
-
-6)
-
-7)
-
-8)
-
-9)
-
-Flare your nostrils as wide as you can while keeping the rest of your face relaxed.
-Many of us are afraid to flare our nostrils because it is a dominance signal. It is often
-used in other primates as a threat signal. Many submissive people’s nostrils are
-completely inactive. Mine certainly were. People with very healthy nostril tone will
-unconsciously flare and constrict their nostrils unconsciously as they speak. Exercising
-them took me from having nearly zero conscious control of them to having full
-rhythmic control. Building subtle nostril dilation into your facial posture will lend your
-face more self-ownership. Because these muscles extend up into your nose, you may
-also find that it makes nasal breathing easier.
-
-Open your jaw widely and hold it there. You might slide it from left to right or move it
-in a circular motion. This activates the platysma of the neck and many muscles
-throughout the jaw. Next, bring your jaw as far forward (underbite) and as far back
-(overbite) as you can and perform a chewing motion from these positions. The best
-default setting for your jaw is about one millimeter to one centimeter open and
-wholly relaxed with the lips closed.
-
-Squint heavily. | have recommended not subjecting the orbicularis oculi to strain, but
-coactivating their firm contraction with diaphragmatic breathing will detraumatize
-them and help free them from passive partial contraction. So, exercise them by
-clamping them shut as hard as you can.
-
-Raise the eyebrows as high as they will go. Hold until the frontalis muscle starts to
-fatigue. Repeat.
-
-Furrow your eyebrows as if you were concerned or angry. Slowly alternate between
-letting them relax and forcing them to furrow as much as they can. Bring the procerus
-and corrugator supercilii to full fatigue. The ability to be calm while frowning fully will
-give your face authority.
-
-Raise the chin and bottom lip by contracting the mentalis. This is a very powerful and
-dominant expression. Use it in a friendly way. It is a genteel but reserved way to greet
-someone. Combined with a nod, it is a strong way to provide an affirmation.
-
-Pull down the sides of the mouth by contracting the depressor labii. These muscles
-are responsible for the down-turning of the corners of the mouth when humans make
-the “sad face.” It constitutes what is known as the “crying face” in apes. Use this
-expression to play concerned or apologetic.
-
-Sneer heavily. Use the levator labii superioris to raise the upper lip in an aggressive
-sneer. Do this with the mouth both closed and wide open. Imagine you are a
-ferocious monstrosity about to take a tremendous bite out of something. Making this
-expression will likely cause you to breathe very shallowly. Pairing it with diaphragmatic
-breathing will unbar this portion of the face, making you appear less fearful.
-
-Crinkle the nose heavily. Crinkling the nose can be a very playful expression that
-demonstrates how little tension you hold in your face. Most people avoid it because
-whenever the muscles contract, latent trigger points here become active. Exercising it
-will first subdue and then purge the trigger points.
-
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-10) Contract the lips heavily. People and apes purse their lips in anger. Many of us have
-atrophied lip muscles because we are afraid of using this expression. If you want to
-improve the appearance and increase the size of your lips, exercising them will
-provide much more natural-looking results than cosmetic injections (injections
-damage muscle tissue, leading to bracing patterns that will eventually cause the lips
-to develop asymmetric muscle fiber contractions and become grotesque). Attractive
-lips are toned, not inflated. To tone yours, purse/pucker your lips hard. It can help to
-do this against an object such as your knuckle, the corner of your cell phone, or your
-wallet. Press your lips firmly into the object while extending the lips as far as they can
-go until they fatigue.
-
-Aside from using these static contractions, repeated, rhythmic contraction provides other
-benefits. Perform each of the ten contractions above, but instead of holding a prolonged
-contraction for a minute, contract and release the muscle rapidly 100 times. Alternate
-between the firmest contraction you can muster and complete relaxation. Do this at a rate of
-one to three contractions per second with the goal of bringing the muscle to fatigue. This not
-only builds strength and optimal tone but also coordination, which can translate into
-interpersonal communicative skills.
-
-Illustration 8.3: A. Nostrils flared; B. Jaw wide; C. Squinting; D. Eyebrows raised; E. Brow furrowed and lowered;
-F. Chin raised; G. Corners of mouth lowered; H. Sneering; |. Nose crinkled; J. Lips puckered.
-
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-Chewing activates more muscle than any of the facial expressions. The muscles of
-mastication (including the masseter, pterygoid, and temporalis) are large and highly susceptible
-to strain. | had a medical doctor diagnose me with temporomandibular joint dysfunction. He
-said that the range of motion in my jaw was heavily encumbered and that, as a whole, my jaw
-was badly “closed down.” Exercise 8.5 below, along with the jaw massage described in the next
-chapter, healed this. It ended the pain and cracking. It melted the knots away. And it resulted in
-the same doctor rescinding the diagnosis.
-
-Facial Exercise #8.5: Unstifling the Jaw
-
-Place a folded rag or paper towel in your mouth so that it keeps your teeth from touching
-when you bite down. Clench your teeth hard during your exhalations and relax the jaw during
-inhalations. After you carefully warm your jaw up in this way, you should be able to clench
-harder and harder over several days until you feel safe clenching as hard as you can. This will
-salvage portions of the masseter that were previously stuck in painful partial contraction and
-potentially contributing to headaches. Massage the masseter afterward. Combining this
-practice with gum chewing will cause the back of the jaw to become more muscular and
-toned. If you want a more strenuous jaw workout, you can cut a one-inch by two-inch strip
-from a cotton rag and chew it like gum. This may be painful at first, but it will feel great
-within a week and will improve circulation to your gums and the roots of your teeth.
-
-Conclusion
-
-My mother, an art historian, has cataloged and captioned many photographs of early California
-pioneers. She spent considerable time analyzing portraits of these hard-working, rugged people
-who survived on a dangerous frontier. She said many of the individuals photographed reminded
-her of wolves. She explained to me that they appeared wild and undomesticated. Their faces
-seemed less encumbered by a social mask and were emblematic of a cunning, phlegmatic,
-dauntless animal intent on survival. Don’t wear the face of a tame, housebroken pup. Wear that
-of an unbroken wolf.
-
-“There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy... So long as we persist in
-this inborn error...the world will seem to us full of contradictions. For at every step, in great things and small, we
-
-are bound to experience that the world and life are certainly not arranged for the purpose of being happy. That’s
-why the faces of almost all elderly people are deeply etched with such disappointment.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
-(1788-1860)
-
-The fate described by the dismal quote above is escapable. But we have to take the reins.
-It is our responsibility, and not the world’s, to create happiness in our lives. A great first step is
-to keep the etching of disappointment from happening. It is said that by old age, you manifest
-the face you deserve. But even some toddlers have purple creases under their eyes
-(usually because they are modeling their parents’ expressions). The muscular contortions that
-lead to the disfigurement of our faces and bodies start in infancy. However, it is never too late
-to intervene.
-
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-
-Learning to embrace expressionlessness and practicing facial exercises will help keep your
-facial muscles from taking on additional strain as you age. However, they will not totally release
-your facial bracing patterns. Only soft tissue massage in the form of compression or percussion
-can do this. The next chapter will show you how to remove the tension from your facial
-muscles, making even the most expressionless face in the world look absolutely natural.
-
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-Chapter 8: Bullet Points
-
-e We brace the muscles in our face throughout the day, resulting in continual wincing,
-grimacing, and frowning.
-
-e Facial bracing causes the muscles to become stuck in partial contraction and develop
-trigger points and adaptive muscle shortening.
-
-e The repetitive strain of facial muscle is disempowering because it anchors you to
-negative thoughts and emotions.
-
-e The activation of latent trigger points in the face destroys our composure and
-contributes to social fatigue and introversion.
-
-e Practicing a resting face, corpse face, or expressionlessness will stop the accumulation
-of strain and make your face agile and “light on its feet.”
-
-e To make expressionlessness effortless and ensure that it does not offend people, it must
-be combined with diaphragmatic breathing, widening of the eyes, fixed gaze practices,
-and positive intentions.
-
-e Expressionlessness will reduce strain and keep latent trigger points from becoming
-active. However, removing the trigger points requires massage and hard contraction of
-the muscles involved.
-
-e Exercising the facial muscles by contracting them beyond their normal range until they
-reach fatigue, and combining this with diaphragmatic breathing, will strengthen and
-revive them.
-
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-
-Chapter 8: Endnotes
-
-1. Brown, F. D., Prendergast, A., & Swalla, B. J. (2008). Man is but a worm: Chordate origins.
-Genesis, 46(11), 605-613.
-
-2. Buck, R. (1980). Nonverbal behavior and the theory of emotion: The facial feedback
-hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38(5), 813.
-
-3. Darwin, C. R. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. John Murray.
-
-4. Lewis, M. B. (2012). Exploring the positive and negative implications of facial feedback.
-Emotion, 12(4), 852-859.
-
-5. Lewis, M. B., Bowler, P. J. (2009). Botulinum toxin cosmetic therapy correlates with a more
-positive mood. Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, 8(1), 24-26.
-
-6. Hennenlotter, A., Dresel, C., Castrop, F., Ceballos Baumann, A. O., Wohlschlager, A. M.,
-& Haslinger, B. (2008). The link between facial feedback and neural activity within central
-circuitries of emotion—New insights from botulinum toxin-induced denervation of frown
-muscles. Cerebral Cortex, 19(3), 537-542.
-
-7. Charlesworth, W. R., & Kreutzer, M. A. (2006). Facial expressions of infants and children.
-In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review (pp. 91-168).
-
-Malor Books.
-
-8. van Schaik, C., & MacKinnon, J. (2001). Orangutans. In D. MacDonald (Ed.),
-The encyclopedia of mammals (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
-
-9. de Waal, F. (2006). Our inner ape: A leading primatologist explains why we are who we are.
-Riverhead Books.
-
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-Chapter 9: Massage Away Facial Tension
-
-Why Use Facial Massage?
-
-The tension in our faces drives the stress response, influencing us to feel anxious and breathe
-shallowly. The damage it does to the muscles makes our faces appear languid, overwrought,
-and weak. Deep tissue massage is the only way to counteract this. Compression and percussion
-will reinvigorate the muscle, increase blood supply, reverse muscle shortening, remove trigger
-points, decrease inflammation, and permit the muscle to grow.
-
-The results can be dramatic because the long-term strain on our muscles is the leading
-cause of facial aging and loss of facial composure. These two issues are probably among the
-biggest sources of human insecurity. Both are not only preventable but reversible. If you want
-your face to look healthy and feel amazing, invest some time and effort in the facial massage
-regimen described here.
-
-If you press your knuckles into your brow, your cheeks, or your jaw with between 5 and 15
-pounds of pressure, you will likely feel an acute aching sensation. This pain may be so intense
-that it makes your breathing shallow and the pit of your stomach tight. However, if you spend
-10 minutes a day compressing your facial muscles while breathing diaphragmatically, the pain
-will be gone within three months. The sagging, puffiness, and deposits of fat will go with it. You
-will be washing your face, and it will feel completely different. It will feel lean, smooth, and
-finely contoured. You will glance at yourself in a mirror or window and won’t recognize the
-leaner, angular, chiseled face looking back at you. You will look healthier, and that will help you
-feel healthier, too. Most importantly, your baseline level of stress will be significantly reduced.
-
-Facial massage and acupressure are old arts. However, existing methods are not
-scientifically informed and intend to pacify the face temporarily rather than to relieve trigger
-points permanently. The method presented here targets the most pernicious myofascial
-restrictions in the face and guides you in systematically eliminating them. Once you work
-through these exercises, you will be able to relax facial muscles that you could not relax before,
-and you will have more precise control over your face’s movements. Eventually, you will be
-tension-free and able to comfortably and gracefully transition between expressionlessness and
-your full, healthy range of expressions.
-
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-
-Ds
-
-(
-
-K a
-«|
-EA
-
-illustration 9.1: Facial expressions.
-
-Social Fatigue and Resting Face
-
-When our face is continually tense, the people around us recognize it as a clear sign of self-
-perceived inferiority. My face was so tense that, whether someone was making a joke at my
-expense or complimenting me, | could not help but respond in a bashful, embarrassed way. A
-sheepish grimace would betray me constantly by showing others that it was easy to make me
-uncomfortable. By undermining my ability to stay composed and be assertive, it made mea
-target for mistreatment by unkind or unthinking people. Facial massage obliterates this
-submissiveness. If you rarely look uncomfortable, people learn quickly that they are the ones
-that will look bad if they try to bully you. Moreover, you will be able to keep a fantastic poker
-face. The person who can keep a straighter face usually controls the situation. These days | only
-smile when | want to, and | can even tell the punchline to a joke with a straight face. Even after
-a long day of gregariousness, | can easily assume a calm, expressionless demeanor.
-
-Social fatigue occurs when prolonged social encounters become stressful, overwhelming,
-and cause a person to seek rest from social interaction. When you are experiencing social
-fatigue, people can usually see it in your face. It derives from the fatigue of facial muscles.
-When these muscles tire, or when their latent trigger points become active, it becomes
-depleting. They are draining to use, and this diminishes our ability to express and be friendly.
-Studies show that the amount a person smiles and makes socially engaging facial expressions
-are two of the best predictors of likeability. Using your face makes people want to be around
-you. But if your facial muscles are in perpetual fatigue, you can’t emote, and you will ultimately
-feel dejected.
-
-“Bitchy resting face” (or resting bitch face) is a popular term for a facial expression (or lack
-of expression) that unintentionally appears angry or contemptuous. When we allow our face to
-relax more than usual, the tense muscles that we cannot relax become readily apparent and
-belie our attempt to appear calm. Before | started a facial massage regimen, no one ever saw
-my bitchy resting face because | never allowed my face to rest, even when alone. | was so self-
-aware of how bad my face looked at rest that | always sported a compensatory grimace. Our
-goal should be to massage the face until a complete resting face is no longer bitchy. We want to
-shoot for a wide-eyed, peaceful resting face.
-
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-Microexpressions
-
-All of us are constantly making microexpressions with our facial muscles. A microexpression is
-an involuntary expression that is evoked by emotion. They are very brief and last between
-1/25" and 1/15" of a second. It is thought to be very difficult, if not impossible, to completely
-suppress microexpression reactions.! These reflexes largely dictate our genuine emotional
-reactions to what happens around us. Sometimes they turn out to be premature or socially
-unacceptable, and in these cases, we inhibit them and replace them with something else. If you
-find yourself compulsively thinking negative thoughts during the day, it is very likely that many
-of the automatic microexpressions you make are negative.
-
-Most mammals that are not primates only wince when they experience physical pain.
-Primates take the innate facial reflex of wincing to physical pain and generalize it to social pain.
-Humans take it another step further. We wince when someone chastises us, but many of us
-learn to over-generalize our facial analogies, wincing even when someone congratulates us.
-Pained, maladaptive microexpressive habits like this are perpetuated by facial strain. Massaging
-the muscles using the activities below will remove the frown, the cry face, the squint, the blush,
-and the sneer from the involuntary microexpressions that flicker across your face.
-
-Facial Massage Techniques and Targets
-
-Releasing tension from your facial muscles requires the three techniques described in Chapter
-6: percussion, compression, and vibration. We'll start with a simple percussion exercise,
-following the protocol laid out in that chapter. Use a knuckle, knuckle tool (like the Jack
-Knobber or Index Knobber), a coat hook, baseball, softball, or Bonger to strike the dormant,
-tender muscles repeatedly.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.1: Soft Facial Percussion
-
-Use a knuckle or appropriate tool to gently strike all the major surfaces of your face. Find a
-rapid, easy-to-maintain rhythm as you go, striking your muscles 2-4 times per second.
-
-The force of each blow should be roughly what you use when clapping your hands softly.
-The blows that result in deep, muscular aches will succeed in reducing excessive tone as long
-as you are breathing deeply. Focus on your brow and cheeks, but percuss everywhere,
-including every inch of your nose, orbits, lips, chin, and jawline. Soend more time on areas
-that hurt most. The best time for this exercise is in the hours before bed so that your face
-can rest overnight.
-
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-Frontalis Temporalis
-
-Procerus
--_—. Zygomaticus
-
-Levator
-Labii
-~~
-
-Buccinator
-
-“a in
-
-Platysma
-
-Orbicularis
-Oculi
-
-Nasalis
-
-Levator
-
-Labii
-Orbicularis
-Oris
-
-Mentalis
-Depressor
-Depressor Anguli
-Labii Oris
-Inferioris
-
-Ilustration 9.2: A. Woman with major facial massage target areas marked with an “x”;
-B. Underlying facial anatomy
-
-The area you massaged may feel slightly sore to the touch the next day. Even so, it should
-never hurt when not being touched. No part of your face should ever become chafed, swollen,
-bruised, or discolored; those are all signs that you are striking too hard or for too long and need
-to scale back. Don’t skip a day just because the area is sore. Gently working through the
-soreness day after day will keep the hypertonia from resurfacing.
-
-There are also a few important notes about advisability.
-
-1) Do not massage your eyeballs, only the orbits around them.
-
-2) If you have injected filler, or any cosmetic substances into your skin, compression may
-not be safe.
-
-3) There are a wide variety of dermatological conditions that contraindicate massage,
-so if you have any reason to worry about your skin’s sensitivity, integrity, or safety,
-please consult your doctor prior to attempting self-massage.
-
-| have compressed tissues on nearly every corner of my face and have not experienced any
-injury whatsoever.
-
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-lustration 9.3: A. These are the best tools to use on the face. Do not use the smallest coat hook (third from the
-right). The tip is too small and thus works too well. It will reduce muscle tone so much that it will cause healthy
-muscle to atrophy. Pictured from left to right: three sizes of eyebolts (1” x 8”; .75” x 12”; .5” x 6”), Jacknobber
-Index Knobber, Bonger. The smooth end of a Sharpie marker, or coat hooks with a rounded tip can also be
-excellent tools.
-
-Much of the remainder of this chapter describes how to use compression on every muscle
-of the face. After just six days of performing these exercises for ten minutes per day, for a total
-of an hour, you should attain noticeable results. The extent of the results will depend on your
-breathing. If you breathe five breaths per minute while performing the exercises, the results
-will be dramatic. If you normally breathe more than 15 breaths per minute, you may find that
-compressing the facial muscles is painful and that hard compression injures rather than
-releases them. If this is the case, you should return to Chapter 3 and spend more time
-rehabilitating your breathing before continuing with this regimen.
-
-There are many layers to the tension, and it may take months or years to achieve optimal
-results. Your progress should be consistent and readily apparent, however, and you should
-expect the gains you experience to be long-lasting. Most of the exercises can be performed
-from a standing or seated position. The ones that use a tool (especially the eyebolt) are best
-performed by placing the base of the tool on the ground or a flat surface and pressing the
-area of the face to be compressed into the top of the tool using the weight of the head.
-
-The diagrams below illustrate how this can be done with an eyebolt seated, kneeling,
-or lying down.
-
-Illustration 9.4: A, B, & C. Comfortable positions for facial compression. Ensure that the tool does not slip and
-bump into your delicate eyeball.
-
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-For each of the facial massage exercises below, you will be using a knuckle, finger, or tool
-to search for and press gently against the sorest muscles. Please see the compression protocol
-from Chapter 6. Move slowly across the area, ensure that each press overlaps with the last.
-Hold each press for two to ten seconds. Once you have massaged the whole area, start over.
-As you practice, maintain paced breathing
-
-Around the Eyes: Orbicularis Oculi
-
-Most people have bags under their eyes, although the bags can vary widely in shape, size, and
-color. Some people have dark circles. Others have a crease that runs from the inside corner of
-the eye diagonally down and away from the nose. It is often darker in color and sometimes
-black and blue. These are all due to tension in the lower portion of the orbicularis oculi muscle
-caused by perpetual squinting. This tension can be the cause of frequent crying. Before
-compressing this area, | would often feel on the verge of crying. Since massaging them, | rarely
-feel tearful. You should also find that you squint much less in sunlight.
-
-—_
-Medial
-Palpebral \
-Ligament /\
-Se) =
-
-Orbicularis | _\
-
-Oculi | _ Orbital
-
-Bone
-
-Illustration 9.5: Orbicularis oculi massage.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.2: Outer Orbicularis Oculi
-Firmly massage your upper cheeks with a tool or knuckle. Provide moderate to hard pressure
-using circular strokes. Use between five and ten pounds of pressure all over the area
-surrounding the eye. It is okay if the affected muscles are slightly sore the next day. You
-might start with a squash ball until next-day soreness stops and then switch to harder
-implements like a baseball, knuckle, or other tool.
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.3: /nner Orbicularis Oculi
-
-Place the tips of your index fingers along the edge of your eyes’ orbits, just under the eye
-(the orbit is the bony ridge that encircles the eyes). You should be able to feel hard strings of
-muscle. At first, | thought that these were veins, and | assumed that | should not compress
-them. They are merely tense muscles, and they will soften with compression. Push down on
-them with your fingertips and squeeze them against the orbital bone. Then, place the second
-knuckle of each index finger just to the side of these cords. Apply firm pressure and move
-slowly over them, pinning them against the orbit as you go. Finally, use your fingers,
-knuckles, and an eyebolt to compress the entire orbit. The portion of the orbicularis oculi
-nearest the nose contains the medial palpebral ligament around which there is a lot of
-tension. Focus on this area and the areas directly below and above it.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.4: Lateral Orbicularis Oculi
-
-Compress the bony ridges of the outside (lateral) corners of your eyes. Tension here leads to
-the wrinkles known as crow’s feet, also called periorbital lines. Your crow’s feet will diminish
-in size and depth as the muscle becomes supple and circulation improves. Eventually, they
-may disappear completely. Compressing these muscles will also reduce squinting when you
-smile. Start by straddling the lateral orbital bone with two of your knuckles and press in to it
-as you stroke up and down. You may notice small painful bundles of muscle here; compress
-them a little more each day, and they will gradually fade away.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.5: Fyelids
-
-Your eyelids contain tiny muscles that, when overly tense, can cause, swelling, itching or turn
-the rims of the lids bright red. To reduce excessive tone in these tiny muscles, squeeze them
-gently to stop them from contracting. To do so, wash your hands and then use your thumb
-and forefinger to pinch the outside of your eyelids. Pinch the upper lids all over from left to
-right especially the area near the lashes. Repeat with the lower lids. You should notice that
-your lids become lighter in color, less itchy, and less puffy within a week.
-
-The Brow: Frontalis, Procerus, and Corrugator Supercilli
-Most of us have very tense muscles in our foreheads and eyebrows. They become tense
-because we raise our eyebrows (frontalis muscle) when trying to make friends and furrow our
-brows (using the procerus and corrugator supercilli muscles) when we get angry. You might
-remember from Chapter 4 that the former are used by an animal being chased, and the latter
-are used by an animal chasing. Over time, these expressions can become plastered on our
-faces, making the brow painful by our mid-twenties.
-
-Brow muscles can be difficult to work on. It took me three months of massaging for about
-5 minutes per day before the pain faded fully. But it was worth it because it also got rid of
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-sizeable knots and scar tissue. Previously, those knots had kept my brow in a permanently
-raised state, making them tremble when | was upset or nervous. Releasing your brow muscles
-reverses this. It will also reverse the muscle shortening letting your eyebrows descend to take
-on a fearless look. Your eyebrows will keep still when you talk, and only raise when you want
-them to.
-
-Procerus
-
-Corrugator
-Supercilli
-
-Illustration 9.6: Brow massage.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.6: Frontalis
-Take the first knuckle of your thumb or forefinger and press it into the skin of your forehead.
-Be sure to cover the areas above, below, and underneath each eyebrow. You will likely find
-bundles of tight muscle fibers that are excruciating to compress. Begin gently and increase
-pressure slowly until you get the intended day-after ache. You can give your knuckle a break
-by pressing the full weight of your head onto a baseball, tabletop, or tool, moving the
-pressure all around your forehead and concentrating on areas that hurt the most.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.7: Procerus and Corrugator Supercilli
-Press the knuckles of the thumb or an eyebolt directly between your eyebrows to compress
-the procerus, the corrugator supercilli, and other soft tissues in the area. | believe tension in
-the procerus forces us to contend with anger and that relieving this muscle is emotionally
-purgative. As mentioned in Chapter 6, scientists regard the corrugator supercilli as the
-principal muscle used in the expression of suffering. Why wouldn’t we all compress these
-muscles until they are painless?
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-The Cheeks: Zygomaticus Major and Minor, Levator Anguli Oris, Levator Labii
-The zygomas are the bone protrusions on either side of the human face commonly referred to
-as cheekbones. They are the meeting point for multiple muscles that overlap to create an
-intersection of tension. That tension causes inflammation and swelling. Compressing the
-muscles will reduce that swelling, uncovering your cheekbones and making them more visible
-and pronounced. It will also end chronic blushing and cheek tightness. | used to blush socially
-and every time | exercised. | never blush anymore.
-
-Most smiling is nervous smiling. In fact, when we laugh or smile socially, our hearts are
-often beating quickly, and our breath is shallow and tense. As you know, any muscles that are
-routinely coactivated with distressed breathing will hold excess tension. In the case of the
-zygomatic muscles, that strain causes them to pull on tendons where they attach to the
-cheekbones, causing deep pain. The tendons become so strained that the area accumulates
-scar tissue and undergoes a host of degenerative cellular processes. This made my smile rotten
-and mangled. This was the sorest place on my entire face. Pressing a baseball into it with five
-pounds of pressure hurt so badly that it made me want to cry. There were tiny protuberances
-and what felt like sand in the area. Now it is smooth, and all the pain is gone completely.
-
-| |
-
-NY |
-Levator \ | Zygomaticus
-\ j
-Labii e \e Minor
-\)
-wo Gi Zygomaticus
-m/ | Major
-
-Risorious
-
-Illustration 9.7: Cheek massage.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.8: Zygomatic Muscles
-Compress the area all around the cheekbones: above them, below them, and to the sides.
-You can use either a baseball, your knuckles, or the backs of your wrists. Press especially
-deeply into the lower, outside portion of your cheekbones where the zygomaticus (minor and
-major) muscles are anchored. You should be able to feel this painful point of insertion in the
-cheek about two inches outside (laterally) and below the corner of the eye. After a few
-months of compressing this, your smile will be bigger, unfaltering, and will feel full-bodied.
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.9: Zygomatic Arch
-
-To truly free up your eyes and your cheeks, you need to massage and compress the muscles
-all the way back along your cheekbones to your ears. This whole ridge (the zygomatic arch)
-may be painful and covered in palpably tense muscle fibers. Put this ridge between the
-second knuckles or your middle and ring fingers and stroke it back and forth. You should be
-able to ease the tension in just a few days. Additionally, try placing the ridge on a hard
-surface like a book and press it down at different angles. Massaging the ridge from your
-cheek to your ear will allow your smile to extend outward toward the ear instead of being
-restricted to the area around your nose.
-
-The Nose: Levator Labii Superioris
-
-In most mammals, the sneer occurs more conspicuously on one side of the mouth, usually the
-left. You may have observed this in a snarling dog. Accordingly, | had a much larger knot in my
-left levator labii superioris than in my right. It was probably the largest knot in my face. It was
-about the size of three sticks of chewed gum. Releasing this muscle was empowering for me.
-After releasing it, | realized that | used to walk around with a permanent sneer on my face.
-The sneer would grow as | became uncomfortable, making me look sour. It was stuck in partial
-contraction with very little range of motion. Now that the muscles are at rest, | feel less
-defensive and less susceptible to provocation.
-
-/_ Levator Labii
-
-LevatorLabii_ [+f
-Superioris
-
-Levator Depressor
-
-Anguli Oris
-
-Illustration 9.8: Sneer massage.
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.10: Levator Labii
-
-Using a tool or the second knuckle of your forefinger, press very firmly into the space
-between your nose and your cheek (the upper portion of the maxilla bone). This will target
-the levator labii which raises the upper lip. You may be able to feel tiny pops and cracks. Very
-light popping is normal and indicates that the cellular adhesions holding the muscle in partial
-contraction are breaking down. Work your way from the top of your nose down to the corner
-of your mouth along your marionette lines. Use eyebolts of different sizes, pressing them into
-this space between your nose and cheek bone.
-
-Releasing the muscles on the sides of your nose will make the area appear deeper and
-leaner, giving you a friendlier, calmer look and allowing you to smile without sneering. | felt like
-blood-sucking leeches had been removed from the sides of my nose. In fact, | used to wake up
-every morning with a dull ache on the sides of my nose. Never again.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.11: Nasalis
-Use your knuckles to compress the bridge and the sides of your nose including the nasalis
-muscle, and the “levator labii S.A.N.” This will provide relief to the muscles that crinkle the
-nose. The easiest way to do this is to lie face down on a bed, with your chest supported by
-pillows. Place the base of an index knobber or eyebolt on the bed and rest your head on top
-of the tool, with your sneering muscles as the point of contact. Move the end of the tool
-gently around the area, compressing deeply. The meat of the muscle lies in the bed created
-by the top of the nasolabial folds (marionette lines) near the nostrils. Search for and target a
-large knot you may find in the middle of this area.
-
-Duration: Two minutes. Proficiency: Two sessions per week for 12 weeks.
-
-Maintenance: Once per month. Five stars. kk ***&
-
-Most people sneer heavily when they smile, and over time, this causes the nostrils to
-shorten and become upturned. It looks ugly. Compressing the nostrils (the alar portion of the
-nasalis, the dilator naris and the compressor naris) will reverse this. Also, compress the muscle
-under the nose (the depressor septi) with a knuckle or tool. In addition, you might put a towel
-down on the floor and press your nose into it, resting the weight of your head on it. Point the
-tip of the nose downwards, and rock back and forth to massage and compress tissues
-throughout the nose.
-
-We all have a low-grade perpetual sneer burned into our facial musculature. All our lips are
-slightly curled due to this tension. Most people retain the coordination to relax the muscles
-involved but choose not to because it makes them feel uglier. | remember feeling like some
-kind of repulsive zombie-pig when | relaxed mine. By tensing the area, we apologize for and
-cover up the appearance of strained muscle. But over time, this only makes it worse. It is likely
-that the only time you relax these muscles is when you are exceedingly angry. Work on resting
-the sneer throughout the day and disregard any reservations you might have about how you
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-look while doing this. Compressing the levator labii will remove the knots from your sneer and
-make it look natural to stop sneering.
-
-People who raise dogs for dogfighting abuse them to get them to sneer. They punch, pinch,
-or cut the dog repeatedly until it learns to bare its teeth immediately upon provocation.
-They want the dog to live in a mental world where baring its teeth is the first reaction to any
-form of stress. This makes the dog mean. When a problem dog learns to bare its teeth at
-people, nipping and then biting soon follow. By relaxing and compressing your sneering
-muscles, you deprogram this reaction. From experience, | have come to believe that once the
-muscles that lift the upper lip are no longer tense, the brain’s circuits for frustration and
-aggression are keyed down.
-
-The Mouth and Lips: Orbicularis Oris
-
-The right and left corners of the mouth are the point of attachment for muscles throughout the
-face. Muscles extending from the nose, cheeks, jaw and chin all anchor into these two corners.
-The bracing of our mouths and lips (orbicularis oris) is almost imperceptible. It is a subtle
-pouting that, over years, makes your lips thinner and your mouth appear shriveled. As you age,
-continuous pursing of the lips causes vertical wrinkles. Massage halts this.
-
-Illustration 9.9: Mouth and lip massage.
-
-Facial Massage Compression Exercise #9.12: Orbicularis Oris
-Press your knuckles firmly into your lips. Focus on the lips themselves and the areas above
-and below them. Especially focus on the corners of your mouth. You can also squeeze these
-areas between your thumb and forefinger, placing one on the face and the other inside the
-mouth. Compression and percussion here will make your lips healthier looking. Compression
-of the skin all around the lip area will give it a rejuvenated shape.
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.13: Risorius and Buccinator
-The risorius and buccinator are two other muscles involved in smiling. They pull the corners
-of the lips outward horizontally. Note the anatomical location of these muscles and compress
-and percuss them to make your face leaner and more muscular. Freeing these muscles
-up and enabling them to contract fully could help you develop prominent dimples and
-smile lines.
-
-The Jaw: Masseter
-
-The masseter muscles that allow us to control our jaws are typically very tight. That tension can
-cause significant pain, restrict range of motion, and prevent the muscles from growing in
-response to chewing. For many people, the muscles are so tense that they are slow to release—
-expect this exercise to yield significant results only after several months. You also need to be
-careful to massage relatively gently here to avoid damaging the salivary glands that lie on top of
-the masseter muscles. The results will be worth it, though. In addition to relieving the pain,
-tension, and discomfort, you'll enjoy increased jaw definition.
-
-Deep _
-Masseter
-
-Superficial
-Masseter
-
-illustration 9.10: Jaw massage.
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.14: Deep Masseter
-Start by tucking the backs of your wrists between your ear and the corners of your jaw and
-throat (see first image above). Allow the weight of your head to settle onto your wrists. You
-will likely feel substantial discomfort. Use deep diaphragmatic breathing to make the
-discomfort bearable and rest the head’s entire weight on the back of your wrists. It took me
-four months of this to wipe this pain away completely.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.15: Superficial Masseter
-Compress the entire masseter with a knuckle or tool. Also, focus on compressing the front
-face of the masseter by pressing your knuckles into the front facing aspect of your jawbone
-(last picture below). This will awaken the dormant muscle there and cause it to metabolize
-fat from your lower cheeks, making your face leaner.
-
-Under the Jaw: Platysma
-
-Poor neck posture and failing to contract the muscles under the jaw makes these muscles weak
-and tight. Speaking in a high, tense voice may also cause them to become taught and atrophy.
-As that happens, substantial deposits of fat begin to accumulate under the jaw. If you can
-release these muscles, your “double chin” or “jowls” will shrink or disappear, and your
-
-jawline will become much more highly defined. The result will lend an athletic and
-
-aesthetically pleasing look to your whole face. These muscles release and improve in
-appearance very rapidly.
-
-Stylohyoid
-Digastric
-
-Platysma Mylohyoid
-
-Sternocleido
-mastoid
-
-Illustration 9.11: Under-the-jaw massage.
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.16: Platysma
-Use a fingertip to press into the crease between your neck and jawline. This is the platysma.
-There are many other muscles in this general area under the chin that would benefit from
-being compressed such as the mylohyoid and digastric. To find and release them, feel around
-for hard and sore areas, and press into them gently.
-
-Facial Massage Exercise #9.17: Neck/Jaw Interface
-
-Behind the corner of the jaw, just under the ear, there is a very tense area implicated in neck
-strain and temporomandibular joint disorder. This area contains parts of a number of
-muscles, including the platysma, sternocleidomastoid, digastric, stylohyoid, mylohyoid and
-others. You should be able to find this large grouping of knots an inch directly under the ear.
-Press into it with your fingertips and knuckles, but be prepared to make this a long-term
-project.
-
-The Chin: Mentalis, Depressor Anguli Oris, Depressor Labii Inferioris
-
-Compressing the muscles in your chin will help it look lean and muscular. However, be advised
-that it may also reduce the chin’s overall size as these muscles metabolize the surrounding fat.
-
-| had a painful knot of hard muscle in my depressor labii inferioris the size of a tootsie roll.
-Weekly compression made it smaller and smaller until it was unnoticeable. Again, this muscle is
-responsible for the cry-face seen in apes and humans. There is practically no scientific study on
-the muscular aspects of the cry-face, so | won’t even speculate on what removing these painful
-knots has done for my psyche. However, | imagine that it is overwhelmingly positive.
-
-entalis Depressor
-
-~ Anguli Oris
-
-Depressor
-Labii Inferio
-
-[ Jon
-Ve & =e
-\ = © \\,
-
-Illustration 9.12: Chin massage.
-
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-Facial Massage Exercise #9.18: The Chin
-
-Compress the mentalis, the depressor anguli oris, and the depressor labii inferioris with
-knuckles or tools.
-
-Keep at It
-The exercises above may seem time-consuming but focus on the ones you find most interesting
-or potentially helpful. After a bit of practice, they’ll become automatic, and you will find
-yourself doing them while watching TV or reading. The slower your diaphragmatic breathing is,
-the easier it will be to release the muscles. Given the easy, rapid results | experienced,
-| am amazed facial muscle release regimens are not widespread. | have concluded that without
-diaphragmatic breathing, tense muscles are too recalcitrant to make such a regimen feasible.
-The main thing is to keep at it. Each exercise above provides suggested durations for
-achieving and maintaining results, but those are just guidelines. The only real standard is how
-you feel: how your face looks, and how your moods and thought patterns are affected. Give
-each exercise at least a few weeks before reaching a verdict, experimenting with different tools
-and small changes in pressure, angle, and rhythm. You’ll soon find a method that works best
-for you.
-
-Benefits to Your Skin
-
-In addition to the myofascial release that you’re expecting by now, facial self-massage has an
-additional benefit as well: cosmetic improvements to your skin. Skincare is a huge industry,
-with hundreds of millions of people trying to achieve a clear, even skin tone using tanning,
-moisturizers, toners, serums, lasers, masks, and surgical treatments. These can become
-extremely technical and remarkably expensive. They also mostly fail to address the root cause
-of skin problems: our skin is designed to handle a great deal of contact and use. It becomes stiff
-and unhealthy without physical stimulation.
-
-When the face is not handled, tugged, or pulled for many years in a row, the system of
-blood vessels (or “vasculature”) slowly diminishes. The result is a pale, sallow appearance that
-accentuates the prominence of moles, freckles, and wrinkles. The exercises presented in this
-chapter lightly stretch your skin, causing the creation of small blood vessels—a process
-known as “angiogenesis.” Angiogenesis will make your skin darker, healthier, younger,
-and more evenly toned. The mechanical sheer forces also cause very slight damage to
-cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues, prompting the rebuilding and revitalization of countless
-dermal structures.
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-Benefits to the Structure of Your Face
-
-Self-massage affects your facial muscles' shape and structure, which means it shares some
-similarity with treatments like cosmetic surgery and Botox injection. Botox paralyzes the
-muscle, decreasing tone and metabolic activity, thereby temporarily decreasing the strain
-muscles are under. It is popular because it makes a face appear relaxed and reduces the
-appearance of wrinkles. As discussed in the previous chapter it also has positive emotional
-effects. For instance, it can reduce negative emotions and susceptibility to crying.* Botox has
-downsides, however. The paralysis prevents muscles from contracting, which vastly reduces the
-flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients to them. That, in turn, causes the muscles to atrophy and
-become weak. Besides these underlying problems, Botox and cosmetic surgery create an
-artificial look that many people can recognize. Also, Botox cannot be injected near the eyes
-because there is a risk it could leak into and paralyze the ocular muscles that control eye
-movements.
-
-Your most beautiful face is not the one that a cosmetic surgeon can give you. They will
-attempt to create a face that fooks muscular, lean, and without tension, without actually giving
-you any of these things. The surgeon’s needles and scalpel traumatize soft tissues, reduce blood
-flow, and damage muscles without doing anything to reduce strain. Even the most skilled
-surgeon cannot come close to creating an all-natural look. This is a limitation inherent in their
-procedures, tools and techniques.
-
-Compression comes with none of these risks and harms, and it costs nothing. It does take
-longer, and it can be uncomfortable, but it has much more dramatic, authentic, and longer-
-lasting effects. Furthermore, surgery and Botox crimp facial expressions, whereas compression
-grants you greater control over them. For example, my chin and cheeks moved sluggishly
-before with a reduced range of motion. Now they are surprisingly brisk and nimble. More than
-this, muscular release just feels good. Today, | smile wider and more frequently than | ever
-have, but my facial wrinkles are less pronounced. That and numerous other observations have
-suggested to me that wrinkles in the skin don’t necessarily come from using the muscles.
-Rather, wrinkles are more likely to form over strained, dormant muscle. Scientists have long
-questioned what it is that constitutes physical beauty. The academic consensus now points to
-smooth skin, well-proportioned features, the appearance of youth, symmetry and being close
-to the population averageness.? More than these other criteria, | think that the absence of
-facial muscle strain is the primary determinate of attractiveness. In fact, the extent of facial
-tension can probably be seen as a marker of the status hierarchy that we wear on our faces.
-
-Be Dominant but not Domineering
-
-As your face become less tense, you will become more dominant. As your composure improves,
-people in your life, as well as people on the street, will be more respectful. Because of this, you
-might notice that you start to desire respect and even submissive displays from others. You will
-inevitably find yourself asserting your will over others in an arrogant way, whether
-inadvertently or not. You might find yourself holding your head high, looking above the eye line,
-with a perfectly calm face until another person feels compelled to look down. You might stare
-at a stranger on the street until they look away. This is not good or just. Keeping a stolid
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-composure is good, but you will generate animosity if you intentionally elicit subordination
-displays from others.
-
-If you combine your reprogrammed displays with rude comments and antagonizing
-behavior, there will be a backlash. This could result in losing a best friend, or literally being
-mauled in the street by strangers. This is an immensely serious point. Be humbler than you
-were before. If you are going to walk around without sneering or raising your eyebrows,
-retaining humility is imperative. The person that carries a big stick and speaks loudly must
-choose their words carefully.
-
-Before, my face belonged to everyone else. They knew this, and they toyed with it.
-My default facial expression was what they made it. Today my face belongs to me. What will
-you do with your face now that you have a choice in the matter?
-
-Conclusion
-
-A few years ago, my cat got into an unhealthy habit of showing me with his face how hungry
-he was. His cries would be accompanied by pitiful facial wincing. His eyes would become tight,
-and his whole face would crinkle up. When | saw it, my face would empathically do the same.
-It pulled at my heartstrings. Here is a species, removed from humans by 85 million years of
-evolution, that uses remarkably similar facial signaling for distress. Of course, | started feeding
-him more regularly, but | also started massaging his face.
-
-Every few weeks, | hold him in my lap and use my knuckles to gently press into his orbits,
-cheeks, nose, and jawline. It was uncomfortable for him at first. He found it the most
-uncomfortable when | used my thumbs to raise and press into his upper lips. Clearly his sneer,
-like mine, was strained. After four or five sessions, | could tell that it had become painless for
-him. He never makes those deplorable faces anymore, and people regularly comment on his
-poise and beauty. He showed dramatic aesthetic facial improvements even though | did not
-begin this routine with him until age 10.
-
-Figure 9.1: A. My cat Niko at age 11; B. Niko again at 16. Both pictures exhibit a lack of facial tension.
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-
-| recommend that people consider releasing the facial muscles, not only of their pets, but
-also of their spouses and children. As in the pruning of a bonsai, the sooner you can begin your
-manipulations, the more dramatic the effects will be. The exercises above act as a guide, but
-you really want to compress every square inch of your face. When you have found an area of
-your face or spine that is tender and sore to gentle pressure, you have uncovered a gold mine.
-You have discovered a location that, when rehabilitated, will allow personal and spiritual
-growth. You will experience decreased chronic stress, improved sleep, the release of emotional
-tension, and better autonomic balance. Whether you are a child, an elderly person, or anything
-in between, | implore you to compress all the pain out of your face.
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-Chapter 9: Bullet Points
-
-e Deep tissue compression and percussion will reduce bracing, dormancy, and hypertonia
-in your facial muscles.
-
-e Pressing firmly into any muscles that ache while breathing diaphragmatically will pull
-them out of partial contraction, making you more attractive and better composed.
-
-e Massaging your face will make it so that you rarely experience social fatigue and so that
-your resting face is inviting and receptive.
-
-e Your facial muscles will become more prominent and will have increased range
-of motion.
-
-e Your skin and facial definition will improve. Your face will appear leaner and will have
-reduced pain and inflammation.
-
-e Your neutral “resting” face will become authentic and it will be easier to be
-expressionless.
-
-e Being expressionless and keeping a stolid composure is empowering. However, keep in
-mind that you will generate animosity if you use your composure to elicit subordination
-displays from others.
-
-e Aside from the physical benefits there are emotional benefits as well because you are
-wiping out the low-grade wincing and frowning and the related microexpressions.
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-
-Chapter 9: Endnotes
-
-1. Eckman P. (2003). Emotions revealed. Henry Holt and Co.
-
-2. Havas, D. A., Glenberg, A. M., Gutowski, K. A., Lucarelli, M. J., & Davidson, R. J. (2010).
-Cosmetic use of botulinum toxin-A affects processing of emotional language. Psychological
-Science, 21(7), 895-900.
-
-3. Valentine, T., Darling, S., & Donnelly, M. (2004). Why are average faces attractive?
-
-The effect of view and averageness on the attractiveness of female faces. Psychonomic Bulletin
-& Review, 11(3), 482-487.
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-“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” — Shakespeare (1564-1616)
-
-The quote above from Macbeth hints at some of the complexity and ambiguity of the smile.
-You might be used to thinking of the smile as something fairly simple: an expression of
-happiness or affection. And you’re right, but it is much more than that. Smiles play a nuanced
-and highly variable role in social interaction. They are central to how we present ourselves, are
-loaded with context-dependent meaning, and are used to display our intentions and feelings—
-whether honestly or otherwise.
-
-Smiles are also controlled by some of the same facial muscles that you’ve been working
-hard to free from bracing for the last two chapters. Leaving those muscles braced will make
-your smile frail and submissive and make it harder to connect positively with others. Relieving
-them from tension and then strengthening them under diaphragmatic conditions will make
-your smile beam. Before we dive into the exercises you can use to do that, it will help to have a
-look at how and why animals smile.
-
-The Origins of the Smile
-
-The smile has a convoluted but fascinating origin. In most mammals, drawing back the lips to
-reveal the teeth is done in preparation for biting. Baring the teeth keeps the animal from biting
-into its lips. It is also used as a flash of the fangs, warning other animals that it is angry.
-When accompanied by a growl, it is called a snarl. Thus, revealing the teeth is an expression of
-blatant aggression or the intention to take a bite.? In primates, the signal is more complicated.
-
-In monkeys, lifting the top lip communicates that the displaying animal feels threatened.
-This often occurs when the animal is cornered, trapped, or cannot take flight. In nearly all
-primates, the startle reflex is accompanied by a grin (mouth corner retraction) and a shrill
-vocalization. This reflexive “grin-and-shriek” pattern communicates that the animal is
-jeopardized or intimidated.* As you can see, baring the teeth is tied to the neural circuits
-responsible for fight or flight. The flash of the teeth, especially teeth held together, is used to
-appease dominant group members, exclaiming, “| am stressed, but my mouth is closed and |
-am willing to submit.” It is a self-handicapping signal and an admission of fear. As submission
-increases, the gaze is averted, the ears are drawn back, and the lips are retracted further, both
-horizontally and vertically, revealing more of the teeth and even parts of the gums. This can be
-contrasted with the facial response associated with anger. As anger increases, the stare widens,
-the ears are brought forward, and the lips are contracted, obscuring the teeth.
-
-In short, fear is associated with displaying the teeth and dominance with concealing them.
-In many monkey species, if a dominant male chases a subordinate and the subordinate grins,
-expressing fear, the dominant animal will relent, stop chasing, and leave them alone.
-If the dominant male were to grin, by contrast, the subordinate would approach and embrace
-him. Thus, the precise function of the signal is context-bound.
-
-Things get even more complicated when we narrow the field to our closest relatives,
-the great apes. Among apes, baring the teeth can serve a range of purposes depending on the
-situation and what other expressions are involved. Like the human smile, an ape’s grin can
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-function to show submission, attempt appeasement, or solicit affection.? A quick grin is often
-flashed between social equals. Chimpanzees, for instance, can often be seen grinning at each
-other before they embrace. A silent bared-teeth expression is usually associated with assurance
-and affiliation. A relaxed face with an open mouth, baring the bottom teeth, is associated
-
-with play.
-
-So, where a monkey’s grin communicates either surprise or insecurity, humans and other
-apes have generalized and expanded the expression to convey compliance, affiliation, and play.
-However, because it has its origins in fear and appeasement, even the human smile is
-neurologically linked to distressed breathing and the sympathetic system. In other words,
-our smiles carry within them both the positive and negative signals that were inherited from
-our ape ancestors. Consequently, they do not automatically communicate goodwill. This is
-unfortunate because it means that fun and affection can be intrinsically tied to stress.
-
-The exercises in this chapter will teach you how to dissociate this negativity from your smile.
-
-aA
-
-Illustration 10.1: A. Baboon baring the teeth; B. Chimpanzee making a threat display; Chimpanzee with a
-friendly grin.
-
-—_
-
-Why Our Smiles Are Tainted
-
-We can start by reviewing how our smiles come to be linked to negative emotions in the first
-place. Consider the people who have the best, most reliable smiles: models, cheerleaders,
-professional greeters, or front-desk staff. These are people who have been expected to keep
-unflinching smiles on their faces for hours at a time. At first, the experience must have been
-uncomfortable for many of them, causing defensive, nervous breathing. Over time, though,
-these professional smilers would have had no choice but to learn to breathe sustainably while
-smiling, leading to the gradual pairing of relaxed breathing with their grins. This is what | want
-for you.
-
-Most of us don’t possess that healthy link because we have never had to smile consistently
-for long periods. Without that kind of training, a smile typically speeds up our heart rates,
-makes our breathing shallow, places stress on our vocal cords, and activates trigger points in
-our faces. The social smiling behavior of humans is often nervous and compulsory. For instance,
-we smile when something awkward happens because we feel like we have to. Because most of
-us routinely pair smiling with distressed breathing, we have badly strained smiling muscles and
-offer insincere, uncomfortable smiles.
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-Dominant people are less likely to smile and more likely to frown. On average, bosses and
-managers smile less often than their employees, for instance. High-status individuals are
-permitted to display their negative emotions more freely and are not expected to provide
-appeasement displays to the people around them. On the other hand, low-status people are
-expected to stifle negative and competitive feelings and actively display signs of affiliation.*
-Studies have found that low-ranking children smile more when approaching high-ranking
-children than high rankers do when approaching low rankers. Studies also show that smiling is
-commonly associated with approval seeking and low social status in adults. In children, it is
-associated with low peer “toughness” ratings. In light of such relationships, smiling is often
-taken for weakness.
-
-Several studies have found that women prefer men who don’t smile. Other researchers
-discovered that in mixed martial arts, the fighter who smiles less during the weigh-in is more
-likely to win the match. However, the researchers in both cases were indiscriminate about the
-type of smile they looked for—they didn’t distinguish between healthy, assertive smiles and
-sheepish, startled, submissive ones. An assertive, optimal smile is highly attractive and would
-likely predict victory in a fight. Smiling indicates social weakness only if the smiling muscles are
-strained and if smiling automatically recruits distressed breathing. Retraining your smile by
-pairing it with diaphragmatic breathing will make it so that your smile does not drain you but is,
-instead, effortless and empowering.
-
-Smile Exercises
-
-When | was a very young child, my grandmother told my mother that she was concerned about
-me because she could not perceive any joy in my smile. Some early experiences had caused me
-to pair smiling with shallow breathing, and my smile always appeared puny, melancholy, and
-forced. Chimps from the same group will show great variation in their capacity for smiling.
-Some smile feebly and yet other demonstrate “gingival” smiles, showing their gums. In my
-twenties, | started working toward that healthy smile. | decided to spend time smiling intensely
-to build up my smiling muscles. | would go on long walks or watch entire movies, smiling widely
-the whole time. Most of the time, | was also squinting and breathing shallowly, but even so, |
-achieved noticeable results within a few weeks. After ten cumulative hours of smiling widely,
-my face looked bigger and stronger, my cheeks were more muscular, and my smile was more
-believable.
-
-Two close friends, on separate occasions, commented on the increased size of my smile.
-Then they told me to smile more widely still. When | tried, they each said: “No, smile up
-higher.” | couldn’t. They made a disappointed face and dropped the subject. They were
-disappointed because even though | was able to build lower sections of my smiling muscles, the
-section closest to the tendon that anchors into the cheekbone (the section with the biggest
-potential for growth) had not grown. This higher section, where the zygomatic muscle attaches
-to the cheek, didn’t respond to the exercise because it was dormant. After diligently practicing
-the facial massage Exercise 9.8 from the last chapter, | was able to smile up into my
-cheekbones. The before and after pictures below illustrate the difference.
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-Figure 10.1: A. My smile at age 28 looks sour and unsustainable. | have rings under my eyes, thick lower eyelids,
-upturned nostrils, deep marionette lines, heavy sneering, and the bulk of the smile is located around my nose
-rather than on my cheekbones; B. By 34, each of those patterns has been reversed. The change resulted from
-gradually massaging away the tension and pain and strengthening the smiling muscles using firm contractions and
-deep breathing.
-
-The massage of your zygomatic muscles described in Chapter 9 is complemented by the
-following muscle-building exercise.
-
-Smiling Exercise #10.1: Smiling Big with Calm Breathing
-
-Smile as widely as you can. Keep your face expressionless beyond the contractions involved in smiling
-and carefully check that you aren’t squinting or raising your eyebrows. There should be no hint of
-apology or embarrassment in your smile. Practice paced breathing throughout the exercise, noting
-when the smile makes you want to breathe shallowly. You should notice that, at first, smiling big
-practically takes your breath away. Also, notice how, as you impose diaphragmatic breathing over the
-smile for several minutes, you can relax into a larger and larger smile.
-
-You should feel your smiling muscles quiver and falter, but if you can smile through this, it will
-become more enduring and invariable. This will tone, enlarge, and strengthen the muscles and help
-them contract effortlessly without provoking your sympathetic nervous system. When your muscles
-reach exhaustion and start to burn, allow them to rest for at least a minute. In addition, massaging
-them after they reach exhaustion is a great way to stimulate regeneration, recovery, and growth.
-
-Smiling as wide as | could stretched my lips so much that they would become chapped or
-even crack after doing the exercise above. Don’t get discouraged by this. Gentle smiling for
-a few minutes a day will stretch your lips back to their optimal length over a few weeks.
-
-Smiling Activity #10.1: Waxing and Waning a Smile
-A genuine smile grows gradually and evenly. Sit in front of a mirror and practice growing a smile. Start
-with a very small smile and expand it over for five to 10 seconds until you have the biggest smile you
-can muster. Then, over the same period, practice letting the smile fade until your expression is
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-neutral again. You will notice discontinuities where the expansion and relaxation jump in a jerky
-fashion. Focus on ironing out those irregularities in the movement, making the progression as smooth
-as possible. Most people find a steady, slow-growing smile captivating.
-
-Smiling Activity #10.2: Variants of Diaphragmatic Smiling
-Normally, every time we smile, it follows the same inflexible pattern. To vary the dynamics of your
-smile, practice the following:
-
-1) Smile as widely as you can, with and without showing your teeth.
-
-2) Smile with your teeth lightly clenched.
-
-3) Smile with your top teeth visible and your bottom lip placed against them.
-
-4) Smile with both sets of teeth fully revealed and your mouth slightly open.
-
-5) Smile with both sets of teeth fully revealed and with your mouth wide open.
-
-6) Smile while gradually squinting the eyes into a full squint, then gradually release them to wide
-
-eyes. Repeat.
-
-7) Smile while slowly raising the eyebrows all the way, then slowly lower them until they are
-fully relaxed. Repeat.
-
-8) Smile while chewing.
-
-Smiling Exercise #10.2: Smiling While Reading Out Loud
-
-Some people can smile comfortably while they talk, but most cannot. The ability to do it convincingly
-is so rare and so striking that it’s practically a superpower. If you have not been acclimated, it is very
-awkward. Read a few pages of a book out loud while smiling. Practice diaphragmatic breathing,
-inhaling completely, and reading aloud until you are out of breath. The ability to smile while speaking
-is easily attained (and improved) in this way. After a total of five hours of practice, all your friends will
-notice the difference.
-
-Smiling Activity #10.3: Eye Contact with a Smile
-Sit in front of a mirror and use your reflection to model prolonged eye contact with another person.
-Smile. Keep your smile wide and your expression open. It will feel incredibly goofy, but only for the
-first few minutes.
-
-You can also model the initiation of smiling eye contact. To do this, start by looking away, at, or above
-your eye line. Make the calmest face you can, and then look yourself in the eyes for a second while
-keeping your expression neutral. Over the next few seconds, gradually grow a heartfelt smile while
-continuing to make eye contact. Hold both your gaze and your smile for several seconds. Repeat.
-After you have practiced this exercise in a mirror, try it with a friend.
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-Isolate Your Smile
-
-One of the rewards of maintaining a smile for several minutes while breathing
-diaphragmatically is the involuntary relaxation of muscles you don’t need but that you normally
-tense up while smiling. Within a minute or two, you’ll feel the tension in muscles all around
-your face, head, and neck start to ease. The process will gradually isolate your actual smile from
-the facial contortions that typically accompany it. That isolation has significant benefits. Usually,
-some 15 different muscles are involved in smiling; when you stop smiling, many of those
-muscles remain tense because the smile forced latent trigger points within them to become
-active. This is part of why smiling causes many people to lose their composure quickly, which
-can make them reluctant to smile at all.
-
-9
-6
-:
-0
-
-Oy _ \<cd
-
-IMlustration 10.2: The first column shows a zygomatic smile and the zygomaticus muscles that underlie it.
-The second shows the risorius and buccinator muscles and their contribution to the smile. The third shows the
-sneer and the muscles that contribute to it. Try to use more of the first two and less of the third in your smile.
-
-Completely relax the sneer, the squint, and the eyebrow raise when you practice
-diaphragmatic smiling. You want to contract only the muscles needed (zygomatic, risorius,
-and buccinator). At first, your isolated smile will look and feel uncomfortable and you might
-feel like a kooky weirdo. It might also feel sarcastic or counterfeit. With time, though, this will
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-become your preferred way of smiling. In essence, the expression you’re practicing takes the
-expressionless face we developed in Chapter 8 and places a smile on top of it. The longer you
-breathe calmly while holding that isolated smile, the more natural and affable it will become.
-
-Reduce the Extent of Squinting When You Smile
-
-There are many kinds of smiles. Most famously, mid-19th-century French neurologist Guillaume
-Duchenne identified two types of smiles. The first is a fake smile, also called a “Pan Am” smile,
-named for the polite expressions worn by the (now defunct) airline’s flight staff. Second, he
-described an authentic or “Duchenne” smile that employs the orbicularis oculi muscles and
-forms crow’s feet around the eyes. Subsequent research has found that the Duchenne smile
-(with its associated crinkle of the eyes) is more closely associated with positive emotions.° That
-has led some scientists to assume that, to elicit happiness, smiles must include heavy squinting.
-| disagree.
-
-In my experience, emotionally damaged people often squint the hardest when they smile,
-and emotionally healthy people squint the least. Methodically reducing the extent of your
-squinting will reduce eye strain without making your smile any less authentic. Work on smiling
-without much squinting, without raising your eyebrows, and more generally without
-contracting anywhere but in the smiling muscles themselves. Using the exercises from the last
-chapter to massage your forehead and the orbits of your eyes will help with this. It will also
-help you develop the ability to smile big, all the way up the sides of your cheeks, without
-squinting much at all. If you had been raised in an ideal, utopian environment with no threats,
-that’s how you would smile. It might look like the smile of a deranged clown right now. But
-that’s okay because it will become splendid once you become accustomed to doing it while
-breathing with your diaphragm.
-
-Smiling Exercise #10.3: Smile without Squinting
-
-Practice making the biggest smile you can muster. You might allow it to pour into your cheeks and
-eyes, but do so without squinting. To minimize squinting, you can monitor your eyelids in the mirror
-or place a finger under each eye. To do this, make a peace sign with your hand, extending the middle
-and forefinger. Place them just under each eye on the orbital bone. Squint a few times and become
-accustomed to how the muscles move under your fingertips when you squint. You will feel a mass of
-tissue bunch up. Continue smiling using your fingers to ensure you aren’t squinting. You might want
-to combine this form of smiling with the upside-down TV watching exercise from Chapter 4.
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-Illustration 10.3: A. Smile with heavy squinting; B. Using the fingertips to sense squinting contractions; C. Smile
-without squinting.
-
-In Chapter 5, | described my efforts to remain calm while babysitting a two-year-old. That
-day | sat next to some blocks and pretended to play with them, lifting them, stacking them,
-and passing them to the little girl. | used a completely isolated, wide-eyed smile that would
-have looked wacky to anyone over the age of three. She saw it, she sensed that my breathing
-was calm, she liked the way | was sharing the blocks in a respectful way, and so she
-reciprocated the same smile. Within a few minutes, | lost all concern that she was judgmentally
-inspecting my smile. We played for hours with these silly, calm little smiles. By the time her
-parents came home, our smiles had gone from kooky to credible, and | have been able to utilize
-that same relaxed smile in the company of adults ever since.
-
-It might help you to find a safe situation in which to practice your new smile. You might
-work on your “calm smile” with a stuffed animal, a pet, or even a friend you have recruited to
-help you. After practicing in these situations, you can start to generalize this ability to situations
-that feel less safe, like running errands or sitting in traffic. This is another case in which we can
-benefit from a “fake it until you make it” approach. If you don’t create concocted social
-environments where you feel perfectly comfortable smiling carefree, you will never do it. Like
-Schopenhauer, | was cynical in my belief that life (or other people) was not creating these
-optimal scenarios for me. It is our responsibility to create them for ourselves and to share them
-with others.
-
-Creating Dimples and Smile Lines: Contracting the Risorius and Buccinator
-
-It is important to incorporate a full contraction of the risorius and buccinator muscles into your
-smile. Both pull your lips horizontally. The risorius muscles lie about an inch below your
-cheekbone, anchoring to the corner of your mouth on one side and the soft tissue of your
-cheek on the other. The nearby buccinator muscles aid in the risorius smile as well as in
-whistling, puckering, and chewing. | previously used my risorius and buccinator muscles very
-little in my smile. When | fully contracted them, they made my smile look pretentious and
-fraudulent. | took this as an indication that | needed to use them more. The muscles were very
-tense, and if | pressed my knuckle into them, it was painful. | have since rehabilitated them with
-compression and contraction, making them much stronger, leaner, and painless.
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-| never had dimples or smile lines in the past as the first photo at the beginning of this
-chapter evinces. Genetic testing revealed that | do not have the genetic markers associated
-with dimples. But exercising the risorius and buccinator muscles has given me somewhat
-pronounced smile lines/dimples. This surprised me. It even surprised my mom. | was 35, and |
-was spending time with her for the first time in months when she said, “Oh my, you have
-dimples now. Is that from a specific Program Peace exercise?” My experience suggests to me
-that everyone can develop them. At first, your dimple beds (the pockets between the
-contracted risorius muscles and the jaw muscles) may be completely covered by the fatty tissue
-in your cheeks. Contract the risorius and then use your fingers to search for this pocket. It may
-be filled in with fat now, but as your smiling muscles grow, it will slowly come to form a
-depression—a dimple.
-
-Smiling Exercise #10.4: Risorius Smiling
-
-Smile in the following ways:
-
-1) Smile with only the risorius muscle. To do this, your smile should not be drawn upward
-toward the cheekbone at all. Only draw it horizontally. Try to contract the muscle fully and to
-exhaustion. That contraction will turn into a friendly, polite smile that you can use all the
-time. You can offer a solemn but polite greeting by accompanying this smile with a slightly
-lifted chin (created by contracting the mentalis).
-
-(2) Incorporate the buccinators into your risorius smile. To do this, squeeze the risorius smile
-as hard as you can, forcing the buccinators to contract. You'll know you’re succeeding when
-you feel the inside of your cheeks pressing against your teeth. The more you exercise these
-muscles, the leaner your cheeks will become and the more pronounced your smile lines or
-dimples will be.
-
-Creating a Muscular Smile: Contracting the Zygomatic Muscle
-
-The most important smiling muscle is the zygomaticus major. It connects the corners of your
-mouth to your cheekbones. The muscle is likely to be feeble and feel uncomfortable when
-isolated at first. However, contracting it firmly will gradually create noticeable lumps of muscle
-under your cheekbones that appear when you smile. Many famous actors have well-developed
-zygomatic muscles, and in women, they tend to be much larger. Conditioning the zygomatic
-muscles will make your smile unambiguous and make your face leaner and friendlier.
-
-Smiling Exercise #10.5: Zygomatic Smiling
-Smile with only the zygomatic muscle (leaving the risorius and buccinators relaxed). To do
-this, pull the corners of your mouth diagonally upward toward your cheekbones (a sneer
-pulls the lips up vertically, the risorius pulls them out horizontally). | believe the zygomatic
-smile is more draining than the risorius smile because it is more closely tied to the stress
-system. The more you pair it with diaphragmatic breathing, the less effortful it will be to use.
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-Repeated rhythmic contractions as in Exercise 8.4 can also help build muscle, tone, and
-coordination. Instead of holding a prolonged contraction, you may consider performing 100
-rapid zygomatic and risorius contractions.
-
-Illustration 10.4: A. Each of the muscles involved in smiling is anchored at the corners of the mouth. The two
-zygomatic muscles stretch up to the cheekbone, the risorius extends laterally toward the side of the face, and the
-buccinator is the large muscle underneath the others; B. Zygomatic exercises will help strengthen the muscles
-centered around the cheekbone. C. & D. Risorius and buccinator exercises will increase the prominence and size of
-smile lines and/or dimples.
-
-As you practice the exercises in this chapter, your entire cheek will become much leaner
-and more muscular, giving the impression of a long history of relaxed, confident smiling. People
-will see this and implicitly assume that you are a happy person who has been smiling healthfully
-all their life. When you exercise the smiling muscles, you may notice other facial muscles
-reaching fatigue before your smiling muscles due to their relative lack of exercise. This is most
-likely to be a problem with the heavily strained sneering muscles. Luckily, the issue is fairly
-simple to address.
-
-Refrain from Sneering
-
-In my twenties, a friend told me that | smile like the Grinch. It hurt to hear, but he was right.
-My sickening smile was perverted from the repetitive strain of muscles around my nose.
-
-These included the three pairs of levator labii muscles which run along the sides of the nose
-from the height of the eyes down to the lip. They work in tandem to lift the upper lip and reveal
-the canines.
-
-As you know, revealing the upper teeth is a threat display in most primates. Chimps bare
-their top teeth in a grin when they are frightened, uncertain, or uncomfortable. It often means
-they are ready to fight. Interestingly, baring the teeth during a fight is a sign of uncertainly and
-fear. High-ranking chimps seldom show their top teeth® while low-ranking animals frequently
-do it. All of this indicates to me that the muscles that lift the top lip are the smiling muscles
-most closely associated with stress and submission. Check the action of these muscles in the
-mirror. What do you think?
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-Illustration 10.5: A. Muscles involved in sneering; B. Chimpanzee sneering; C. Girl sneering.
-
-Sneering is common in human infants. For example, all infants sneer in fear when they are
-momentarily left alone by their mothers (using the logic presented in Chapter 7, this suggests a
-link with grief). Scientists believe older humans learn to inhibit the sneering reflex because
-sneering is not accepted in polite society. Most adults only knowingly sneer to communicate
-disgust or disdain. Much more accepted is an unconscious partial sneer, bracing the sneering
-muscles just slightly. We see this in people who curl their lip for minutes at a time. By doing
-that, they subject their muscles to repetitive strain. Over time, that leaves the muscles ina
-state of partial contraction.
-
-The use of the sneering muscles amounts to a fascinating psychological complex. When
-trigger points within the sneer change from latent to active, you become committed to a
-negative emotion because it is now advertised on your face. Once you know someone else has
-seen your sneering muscles become tense, it forces your hand. You implicitly decide you must
-either act scared or aggressive. The activation of latent trigger points within the sneering
-muscles is the incendiary event in many negative confrontations. Since using massage to
-obliterate the trigger points in my sneering and frowning muscles, | have been virtually free of
-heated reactions. | previously thought my anger was unjustly provoked by others, but now |
-realize | was allowing others to activate latent trigger points in my sneering muscles, and it was
-this that compelled me to react prematurely and discourteously.
-
-If you can release the tension in your levator labii, it will make your resting face appear less
-guarded. Some people will not be able to tell whether you look unguarded because you are
-friendly or because you are angry. This is because dominant people often completely release
-the levator labii when provoked. Thus, when you let this muscle relax, you will either appear
-calm and angelic or calm and dangerous. Your other postures and actions will determine which.
-The first step in making your sneerless expression noncombative is becoming more aware of
-the tension in your sneering muscles, which you can do using the activity below.
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-Smiling Activity #10.4: Sneer Awareness
-
-Sit, stand, or kneel in front of a mirror. It is best to have a light overhead that casts a shadow over
-your marionette lines (nasolabial folds) so that you can see them move. Play around with the sneering
-muscles that lift and curl your upper lip. Practice making the smallest sneer and the largest sneer that
-you can. Transition gradually between them. Become aware of the sensation of sneering slightly and
-how that differs from not sneering at all. Pretend to say something rude to an acquaintance and
-notice how you maintain a light sneer afterward. Just as you want to stop squinting and raising the
-eyebrows chronically, you want to end your chronic sneer.
-
-When people see that your sneering muscle is relaxed, they will try to imitate this. Unless
-they have practiced it and massaged the muscles, they will likely not be able to do it
-comfortably for long. This is because once the sneer is relaxed, even a slight emotional
-aggravation can make this tense muscle snap back to full contraction reflexively. Thus, you may
-find that people flash sneers at you inadvertently. Just ignore this, keep your sneering muscles
-calm, and continue being kind.
-
-Be particularly aware of the presence of the sneer in your smile. Strained sneering muscles
-cause us to smile when we are nervous—we use the smile to cover up the sneer. In fact, a
-strained sneer tarnishes our every smile. Our smile has become conflated with our sneer,
-and often, even we don’t know whether we are sneering or smiling (see the first picture of me
-above). The exercise below will help guide you to use the risorius and zygomatic muscles
-without using the levator labii to create a sneerless smile.
-
-Smiling Activity #10.5: A Sneerless Smile
-
-Sit, stand, or kneel in front of a mirror. Look carefully at your lips. Raise the corners of your mouth
-while the center of your top lip stays still. This involves using your risorius muscle to draw the corners
-of your lips outward horizontally and using the zygomatic muscle to raise them diagonally. Do this
-without squinting or sneering. Ensure that you are not sneering by keeping the center of your top lip
-(cupid’s bow) neutral.
-
-You can also monitor your sneer with your fingers. To do this, make a peace sign with your hand,
-extending the middle and forefingers. Place them just to the side of each nostril. Sneer a few times
-and become accustomed to how the muscles move under your fingertips. You will feel the skin rise.
-Return to smiling without sneering, using your fingers to track your success.
-
-The sneer-free smile will look ridiculous at first, but the more you pair it with diaphragmatic
-breathing, the more sincere it will feel to you and the more genuine it will appear to others.
-
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-
-Rea) \e
-MHL Le
-: {-
-
-Ilustration 10.6: A. Smile with heavy sneering; B. Using the fingertips to sense sneering contractions;
-C. Smile without sneering.
-
-Smiling Exercise #10.6: A Sneering Smile
-
-You don’t want to stop using your sneering muscles entirely. In this exercise, practice making the
-most intense sneer you can. This time, do not smile. Ensure that your top lip is maximally curled and
-that you are showing as much of your top and bottom teeth as possible. It will continue to feel like
-you are performing a barbaric threat display until you can breathe diaphragmatically while doing it.
-This exercise will allow you to pull your upper lip higher and do so with more force. It will also help
-strengthen your sneering muscle and clear out the trigger points, giving you greater control and
-separating your sneer from the activation of your stress system.
-
-Smiling Activity #10.6: Crinkling the Nose
-
-Crinkling the nose adds a momentary sneer into your smile, but that can be a good thing. Crinkling for
-about half of a second adds affection and dynamism to the expression. Spend a few minutes smiling
-in front of the mirror while intermittently crinkling your nose. Try looking yourself in the eyes in the
-mirror and say, “It’s gonna be fun.” When you do this, briefly crinkle your nose while you say the “f”
-sound in the word “fun.” Let it be playful and relaxed.
-
-Smile Dominantly
-
-According to body language experts, smiling with the brow lowered is extremely dominant.
-There is solid research indicating that leaders and people judged by others to have high
-leadership aptitude are capable of smiling with a lowered brow.’ This combination of a frown
-and a smile has been called “the Bill Clinton effect.” Experiments find that people rate those
-who use it as particularly dominant and are more likely to vote for them for leadership
-positions.? Most people have never actually tried it. It takes a lot of time and confidence to
-develop this socially. Or, you can just practice it by yourself for several minutes until it
-
-is intrepid.
-
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-Smiling Exercise #10.7: A Frowning Smile
-Smile big without sneering or squinting. Next, frown by pulling the eyebrows together and down
-toward the eyes. Try to keep your eyes wide and hold this expression. You might start in front of a
-mirror and then practice in front of a TV. You can use this expression to exclaim things like “isn’t that
-
-mh,
-
-ironic,” “what a coincidence,” or “that’s really amusing.”
-
-We are all hesitant to smile optimally because we don’t want to come across as inauthentic
-or psychopathic. We remember being afraid to smile around our parents, grade school
-teachers, or bullies, thinking they might misinterpret our expression as flippant or impudent.
-The good news is that this feeling will fade. Smiling large, carefree smiles made me feel like a
-sinister demon or a sarcastic jester when | first started. Now, it just makes me feel happy.
-
-Smiling Activity #10.7: Smile with impunity
-Spend a few minutes smiling just for yourself. Notice your inclination to inhibit your smile
-and recognize that the instinct comes from a petrifying fear that other people will
-misperceive or misunderstand you. Notice how you perceive your smile to be facetious or
-vindictive. Now, let those misgivings go. Perform the smiling exercises in this chapter
-staunchly with full confidence that your smile is positive, coming from a good place, and will
-be perceived as such by others.
-
-Conclusion
-
-“Buddha’s contemporaries described him as ‘ever-smiling’ and portrayals of Buddha almost always depict him with
-a smile on his face. But rather than the smile of a self-satisfied, materially-rich or celebrated man, Buddha's smile
-comes from a deep equanimity from within.” — Mark K. Setton (1952)
-
-Genuine smiling induces the release of feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine, endorphins,
-and serotonin. That’s part of why the intensity of our smiles in childhood photographs predicts
-life satisfaction, marriage stability, and a longer lifespan.? Studies have found that even faked or
-forced smiling can increase happiness and decrease depressive states.?° Those studies don’t
-distinguish between genuine, healthy smiles and forced, strained ones. Imagine how much
-more dramatic the results would be if they had! The lesson here is straightforward: smiling
-more and properly increases your standard of living.
-
-| believe the best default facial posture is to have the entire face at rest except for a small
-smile involving only the zygomatic, risorius, and buccinator muscles. If you can direct this
-toward others, it will cause them to unconsciously imitate your smile.*! This will lift their mood
-and make them want to be around you. Since performing these exercises, | regularly notice
-strangers smiling at me—something that was unusual before. Every time this happens, |
-wonder why they smiled at me, and then | realize it was because | was smiling. It can become so
-effortless that you don’t realize you are doing it.
-
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-
-Smiling Exercise #10.8: The Miniscule Smile
-
-Practice holding the smallest smile you can. With time, this will create a new mode of operation for
-you where you find yourself smiling for prolonged periods with very little effort. It will look and feel
-preposterous at first but coupling it with paced breathing will make it both renewable and
-pleasurable. After a few hours of training, you will find that this smile arises on its own and slowly
-turns you into a more optimistic and idealistic person.
-
-Fully contracting the muscles helps them grow but contracting them lightly and
-continuously builds tone and comfort. Do you sit in front of a computer during the day? Turn on
-your paced breathing app and smile. Just make sure that you do not subject the muscles to
-repetitive strain and don’t forget to massage your face after long sessions of smiling. Allow the
-muscles intermittent rests, especially once they reach fatigue. Spend time smiling as you lie
-down or fall asleep. A “resting smile” may sound like an oxymoron, but it shouldn’t.
-
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-Chapter 10: Bullet Points
-
-e Inmonkeys, baring the teeth is a threat and subordination display, so the smile is
-intrinsically tied to the stress system.
-
-e Oursmiles have become tainted by repetitive strain, and the smiling muscles are stuck
-in partial contraction, full of trigger points, and painful. Our tight, braced smiles aren’t
-happy—they’re just submissive and tense.
-
-e Contracting the smiling muscles completely while breathing diaphragmatically (and then
-compressing the muscles afterward) will reverse the bracing.
-
-e |solating and fully contracting the zygomatic, risorius, and buccinator muscles will
-improve your smile.
-
-e Careful practice will enable you to remove the squint, eyebrow raise, and sneer from
-your smile, freeing it to be a purely positive expression.
-
-e Practicing a smile while making eye contact with yourself in front of a mirror will help
-you smile while making eye contact with others.
-
-e Practicing smiling while reading out loud will help you smile while speaking to others.
-
-e As often as possible, practice wearing either the biggest or the tiniest smile that
-you can.
-
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-
-Chapter 10: Endnotes
-
-1. Pennisi, E. (2000). The snarls and sneers that keep violence at bay. Science, 289(5479),
-576-577.
-
-2. Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. Academic Press.
-
-3. Chevalier-Skolnikoff, S. (2006). Facial expression of emotion in nonhuman primates.
-In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review (pp. 11-90).
-Malor Books.
-
-4. LaFrance, M., & Hect, M. A. (1999). Option or obligation to smile: The effects of power and
-gender on facial expression. In P. Phillipot, R. S. Feldman, & E. J. Coars (Eds.), The social context
-of nonverbal behavior (pp. 45-70). Cambridge University Press.
-
-5. Messinger, D. S., Fogel, A., & Dickson, K. (2001). All smiles are positive, but some smiles are
-more positive than others. Developmental Psychology, 37(5), 642-653.
-
-6. Petersen, R. M., Dubuc, C., & Higham, J. P. (2018). Facial displays of dominance in
-non-human primates. In Senior C. (Ed.) The facial displays of leaders (pp. 123-143).
-Palgrave Macmillan.
-
-7. Senior, C. (2018). The facial displays of leadership: A systematic review of the literature.
-In C. Senior (Ed.), The facial displays of leaders (pp. 1-25). Palgrave MacMillan.
-
-8. Campbell, R., Benson, P. J., Wallace, S. B., Doesbergh, S., & Coleman, M. (1999). More
-about brows: How poses that change brow position affect perceptions of gender. Perception,
-28(4), 489-504.
-
-9. Abel, E. & Kruger, M. (2010). Smile intensity in photographs predicts longevity.
-Psychological Science, 21, 542-544.
-
-10. Freitas-Magalhdes, A., & Castro, E. (2009). Facial expression: The effect of the smile in the
-treatment of depression. Empirical study with Portuguese subjects. In A. Freitas-Magalhades
-(Ed.), Emotional expression: The brain and the face (pp. 127-140). University Fernando
-
-Pessoa Press.
-
-11. Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. C. (1992). Primitive emotional contagion.
-In M. S. Clark (Ed.), Emotional and social behavior (pp. 151-177). Sage Publications.
-
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-Chapter 11: Breathe Less, Nasally, and without
-Pharyngeal Tension
-
-“The yogi’s life is not measured by the number of his days, but by the number of his breaths.”
-— B.K.S. lyengar (1918-2014)
-
-In Chapter 3, we established the first four tenets of diaphragmatic breathing: 1) extend the
-breath over longer intervals, 2) breathe deeper to increase the tidal range, 3) breathe at a
-steady, smooth rate, and 4) breathe assertively regardless of social pressure. We also talked
-about how, if you are doing these things properly, your inhalations should be recruiting your
-diaphragm, thereby pushing your belly out. In Chapter 5, we added the passive exhalation,
-pointing out that you can let your breathing muscles go limp on the outbreath to provide them
-with a microbreak.
-
-Hopefully, by now, you have practiced these using a breath metronome and have learned
-what paced diaphragmatic breathing feels like and how to sustain it. You should feel
-comfortable breathing for several minutes at a rate of around five-second inhalations and
-seven-second exhalations. Perhaps you have advanced closer to eight and 12. This chapter will
-return to the topic of breathing, offering further background and more breathing techniques to
-complement what you have already learned.
-
-Stop Hyperventilating
-
-| remember being pulled around by the pressures and concerns of life. Everything felt rapid,
-loud, and urgent, and | would breathe fast and hard in an attempt to keep up with it all. Then,
-when things slowed down, and | found myself in a quiet room with others, my over-breathing
-stuck out like a sore thumb. They could hear me heaving, taking two or three breaths for every
-breath they took. | found it embarrassing, but because my body had adapted to
-hyperventilating, there was little | could do about it in the moment.
-
-Today, many self-help breathing gurus tell their followers they are not inhaling enough air
-and, consequently, are not getting enough oxygen. The people giving this advice are mostly
-confused. It is over-breathing that is unhealthy, and it is the rapid cycles of heavy inhaling and
-exhaling that we want to stop. This excessive breathing is called hyperventilation and results
-in abnormally high oxygen levels and low levels of carbon dioxide. This is why medical
-personnel give people who are hyperventilating a paper bag to breathe into; it depletes them
-of oxygen. Rebreathing exhaled carbon dioxide trapped in the paper bag helps them reduce
-over-oxygenation and quell their panic. Inordinate oxygen intake can be just as bad as
-insufficient oxygen intake. Like overeating, over-breathing amounts to too much of a
-good thing.
-
-During stress, thoracic breathing is accentuated to meet the anticipated increases in
-oxygen demands. If the anticipated event never arrives, there is no increase in physical activity
-and the extra oxygen is never used. This is why hyperventilation leads to problems.
-
-During hyperventilation, oxygen levels become so high that, paradoxically, many body tissues
-are deprived of oxygen. This is especially true in the brain, leading to reduced neural and
-mental function.
-
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-
-A common criterion for hyperventilation is 30 liters of air per minute, and many people
-breathe normally in this range. Conventional medicine deems five to six liters of air per minute
-(at around 500 milliliters of air per breath) normal.? This would be about as much air in three
-empty two-liter soft drink bottles. It is likely that you, like most people, inhale significantly more
-than this.
-
-| was a chronic hyperventilator, and | was well acquainted with the symptoms: dizziness,
-poor concentration, muscle tension, cramps, irregular and rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), heart
-pounding (palpitations), and gastrointestinal upset. It is also strongly associated with nasal
-congestion, tightening of the airways, fatigue, tremor, shakiness, tight muscles, stiffness,
-muscle pain, weakness, constriction of blood vessels, asthma, rhinitis, and snoring.* Because
-over-breathing is hard work, it leads to exhaustion, chest tightness, and pain around the ribs.
-Hyperventilation also leads to feelings of breathlessness, choking, and smothering.
-
-Hyperventilation is thought to be a significant factor in medical conditions caused or
-aggravated by mental stress (psychosomatic diseases). These include headaches, backaches,
-nausea, dry mouth, sweaty palms, insomnia, ulcers, and many others. This may be partly
-accounted for by the fact that hyperventilation increases the concentration of stress hormones
-in the blood. In one study, a few minutes of hyperventilation increased adrenaline levels in
-subjects by 360 percent.° The diaphragmatic breathing retraining regimen outlined in this
-chapter will reduce the amount you hyperventilate and potentially provide you with relief from
-symptoms you didn’t even realize you had.
-
-L\SASALSASASASAS ASAI AS
-
-IWAWAN
-
-Figure 11.1: A. The first sine wave depicts shallow rapid breathing characteristic of anxiety; B. The second wave
-depicts calmer, deeper breathing at longer intervals; C. The third depicts a form of breathing that involves the
-movement of a much smaller total volume of air. Breathing less than usual in this way as an exercise can reduce
-the tendency to hyperventilate. Again, the x-axis represents time and the y-axis represents the volume of air in
-the lungs.
-
-The benefits of breathing less have been appreciated for a long time. In the 1950s, Russian
-physiologist Konstantin Buteyko developed a now popular breathing program to counteract
-hyperventilation. He observed that the closer his patients were to death, the faster and
-shallower was their breathing. Today, his program is called the Buteyko method and is used for
-asthma, anxiety, and to increase pulmonary function in athletes. Reviews of the medical
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-
-literature have come to different conclusions about the strength of the evidence supporting the
-Buteyko method,® but it has a large number of steadfast adherents, and | think in principle it is
-credible and compelling.
-
-The Buteyko method uses breath holding, resistance breathing, and breath restriction
-exercises to counteract over-breathing. The practice focuses on reducing breathing movements
-until you feel a tolerable air shortage and hunger for air. | do not recommend reducing
-breathing to the point of air hunger per se, but | do recommend the bread and butter of the
-Buteyko system: 1) resistance breathing, 2) breathing through the nose, and 3) breathing
-“slower and less.” These are legitimate methods to counteract hyperventilation. Allow me to
-explain why.
-
-Resistance Breathing
-
-Resistance breathing is any kind of breathing that creates resistance to the flow of air. You can
-create resistance by breathing through clenched teeth, pursed lips, or a straw. Resistance
-breathing forces the breathing musculature to work harder, thus strengthening it substantially
-over time. Because it proceeds slower and disallows air gulping, it forces the diaphragm to do
-the work.
-
-Many people use “elevation training masks” during exercise to create intense pulmonary
-resistance to strengthen the muscles of respiration. These masks are meant to simulate the
-benefits of training at high altitudes. Studies show that the masks are useful, and | imagine the
-masks might be very helpful when used with diaphragmatic breathing. However, simply
-breathing through the nose is a free and easy alternative to train resistance breathing.
-
-Why Nasal Breathing is Healthier Than Mouth Breathing
-
-Because the nasal passages are narrower than the oral one, taking a full breath through the
-nose takes significantly more time and effort. It takes 50% more work to breathe exclusively
-through the nose compared to breathing through the mouth. It is hard work for the diaphragm
-and will make it stronger fast. Also, it forces you to breathe more slowly, at an even pace. You'll
-notice that you cannot gasp through the nose, and several researchers agree that “one cannot
-easily hyperventilate when breathing through the nose.”’ | consider nasal breathing the sixth
-tenet of optimal breathing.
-
-Most mammals breathe exclusively through their noses with their mouths closed, but there
-are a few exceptions. Some mammals will breathe through the mouth when engaging in
-intense cardiovascular activity. Others use mouth breathing for evaporative cooling, like a dog
-panting on a hot day. Some mammals will breathe through their mouth during an aggressive
-confrontation. Usually, the dominant animal will breathe exclusively through the nose and the
-subordinate one will open the mouth and pant non-diaphragmatically. Many dog trainers
-interpret nose breathing as defiant and mouth breathing as acquiescent. The dog that pants
-rapidly with an open mouth is usually seen as the most obedient. Chronic mouth breathing, like
-hyperventilation, is a submissive, handicapping signal. Otherwise, mammals breathe almost
-exclusively through their noses. Whenever a veterinarian sees a mammal at rest breathing
-through its mouth, it is taken as a sign of sickness or serious injury.
-
-In humans, mouth breathing is thought by many experts to increase the stress response.®
-It has been shown to lead to high blood pressure, poor posture, cognitive disturbances,
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-
-and heart problems.? In newborns, it is a sign of failure to thrive. However, there is no medical
-consensus merely because not enough studies have been performed. Neither is there any
-rubric in medical science helping people to stop breathing through their mouths. This is a
-serious oversight.
-
-Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life
-
-In 1862, George Catlin wrote the book Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life, in which he extolled
-the virtues of nose breathing. He was an American adventurer who specialized in painting
-portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. He observed a large proportion of Native
-Americans breathing exclusively through the nose, even during sleep. He attributed their good
-health and serene countenance to this habit. He even saw mothers encouraging their infants
-and children to breathe through their noses. If a baby opened its mouth to breathe, the mother
-would gently push the baby’s lips together to ensure nasal breathing. He compared this to
-Europe, where it seemed to him everyone breathed with their mouths.
-
-He claimed the American Indians referred to the white men not only as “pale-faces” but as
-“black-mouths” due to their penchant for breathing through their mouths. He said that
-breathing through the mouth leads to a derangement of the “whole face, which is not natural;
-carrying the proof of a long practice of the baneful habit, with its lasting consequences; and
-producing that unfortunate and pitiable, and oftentimes disgusting expression which none but
-‘civilized’ communities can present.” He called mouth breathing “the most abominable and
-destructive habit that ever attached itself to the human race.”
-
-The following are two drawings by Catlin from the book. They illustrate what he saw as the
-difference between English mouth breathers and Native American nasal breathers.
-
-are yy
-oy Let,
-aS: s LN As: 5
-tf Ni 4 FS AUS 7,
-/ =f é 4 A
-
-VES 2 ao
-ve Nezy | .
-is “ee Wi) h g
-{, Ni \ }
-Al
-Ys
-
-Illustration 11.1: George Catlin’s 1862 sketch comparing mouth-breathing Londoners to nose-breathing
-American Indians.
-
-Catlin wrote that no “excitements” could cause the Indians to part their lips. He said their
-mouths remained closed unless they were eating or speaking and that they even smiled with
-their mouths closed. He recounted a story in which a quarrel arose between a white fur trader
-and a Sioux brave. The men decided to settle the dispute naked, in a prairie, with knives.
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-
-Minutes before the fight, Catlin intervened and convinced the men to reconcile and shake
-hands. Afterward, he asked the brave whether he was afraid of the other man, who was both
-bigger and stronger. The Indian replied: “No, not in the least; | never fear harm from a man who
-can’t shut his mouth.” He wrote that both Indian mothers and medicine men told him that
-Native Americans breathe through their noses to ensure strength, confidence, athleticism, and
-long, peaceful lives.
-
-If | were asked to name a single habit that could be corrected to increase longevity and
-quality of life, it would be mouth breathing. So, the question arises: “What is the best way to
-ensure nasal breathing?” Well, at first take, it’s not easy. There are two main hindrances to
-nasal breathing: 1) it is easy to forget to breathe nasally, and 2) we transition from nasal to
-mouth breathing unconsciously when we become stressed. However, spending time with the
-mouth taped can help you to overcome each of these issues.
-
-Taping the Mouth to Ensure Nasal Breathing
-
-You may think you breathe through your nose but you likely often switch to mouth breathing.
-Many people switch from nose to mouth breathing when they feel nervous or when they are
-socializing. You may have never noticed it, but you probably make this switch repeatedly as
-your stress levels fluctuate throughout the day. In many cases, the diaphragm is not strong
-enough to support nasal breathing under stressful conditions. Breathing through the nose is
-unnerving for many people in social situations.
-
-| was very uncomfortable nose breathing in my twenties, partly because it made me look
-expressionless. | was afraid people would think | looked “bold-faced” or insolent. But my face
-looked “disrespectful” while nose breathing only because | was uncomfortable doing it. Once
-you become complacent breathing through the nose, with mouth closed, you can get away with
-sporting a highly expressionless face. In other words, nasal breathing builds composure. Spend
-time breathing with your mouth shut more often. Practice it in public and with social contacts.
-Notice how difficult it can be in certain situations and how you have the repeated impulse to
-switch to mouth breathing. If you allow yourself to transition to mouth breathing when you feel
-stressed or excitable, you will resort to hyperventilation.
-
-To address this, | strongly recommend taping the mouth shut as often as possible. It stops
-you from taking intermittent gasps and sighs through your mouth. The gasping and sighing
-compensate for the air hunger created when stress rises and nasal breathing becomes
-nonassertive and weak. Even when you are making a concerted effort to breathe through the
-nose, you will probably only do it halfheartedly because you know in the back of your mind that
-you can always switch to mouth breathing if you need to.
-
-Taping your mouth will teach you to breathe through your nose without recourse to the
-mouth. Nasal breathing will be your only option, so you will unconsciously lean into it more.
-This will train your diaphragm to be self-sufficient and uncompromising. | recommend using a
-bandage or surgical tape, which can be found in drug stores as it is made for contact with skin
-and won't chafe your lips or strip them of their natural oils. When | started taping my mouth,
-my nasal passages stung from the heavy increase in airflow. Each breath felt cold and dry, but
-this only lasted a few days. | urge you to tape your mouth as often as you can for a few months
-until you are nasal breathing by force of habit.
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-Breathing Exercise #11.1: Taping Your Mouth Shut
-
-Put a piece of tape over your mouth for an hour. Place it horizontally across the mouth so
-that it makes contact with both the upper and lower lips. Concentrate on the work involved
-in breathing through the nose. Notice that you will breathe too shallowly, get too little
-oxygen, and will panic, wanting to switch back to mouth breathing. You can overcome this by
-making your breaths longer, deeper, and steadier. Next, try it while walking, reading,
-watching television, working, and exercising. Tape your mouth often to train exclusive nasal
-breathing in all situations. You should find that flaring the nostrils (a dominance signal) may
-help to gradually open your nasal passages.
-
-While your mouth is taped, you will inevitably find some mundane stressor to get worked
-up about. Let’s say, for instance, that your doorbell rings and you aren’t expecting anyone. Your
-respiratory rate will increase ahead of the anticipated social demands, and you will feel air
-hunger. However, you won’t be able to sustain an increased breathing rate because you cannot
-gasp through your mouth. As you are forced to continue to breathe through your nose, the
-worries about the doorbell fade. This will ensure that the person who answers the door is
-courageous rather than fretful. Every minute your mouth is taped, you have small victories like
-this one that will take the reins over your diaphragm from the environment and place them in
-your own hands.
-
-After 20 cumulative hours of taping my mouth in the first month, | could feel | was
-breathing far less and had conquered the restlessness in my chest. After three months, |
-realized that, for the first time in my adult life, | was holding eye contact with others while
-breathing calmly through the nose. | also found that when | was having a conversation with
-someone, | would close my mouth as soon as | stopped talking. This shifted my entire style of
-communication from overexcited and frivolous to levelheaded and measured.
-
-Everyone should be breathing exclusively through their nose even while sleeping. Many
-nose-breathing adherents recommend taping the mouth shut before going to sleep to
-strengthen nocturnal nasal breathing.?° They claim, and | agree, that it helps you fall asleep
-more quickly, stay asleep longer, and wake feeling energized. It also limits snoring, stops
-drooling, keeps the mouth and throat from getting dry, reduces bad breath, and keeps you in
-the diaphragmatic sweet spot throughout the night. For all these reasons, | strongly
-recommend you tape your mouth before bed. However, it is a sharp right turn into hard
-diaphragmatic demand. You might need to work your way up to it using other Program Peace
-breathing exercises (including taping your mouth during the day) before you can start to tape
-your mouth at bedtime.
-
-Breathing Exercise #11.2: Taping Your Mouth During Sleep
-Put a piece of tape over your lips before your head hits the pillow. When most people start,
-they wake up with discomfort in their chest. This happens because their chest was kept from
-heaving throughout the night. If you feel this way, it means that you must do more remedial
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-diaphragmatic breathing first. The soreness in your chest upon waking is a measure of how
-non-diaphragmatic your breathing is and how much your habitual breathing pattern fights
-against calm, restorative breathing.
-
-Some people claim that they cannot breathe through their nose due to nasal obstruction or
-congestion. If this is true for you, know that your nasal passages will clear from nasal breathing
-practice. Mine certainly did. Before taping my mouth, | was lucky to have one nostril clear of
-congestion. However, you should find that after you start taping your mouth, the congestion
-clears on its own. Just like you don’t let dry eyes keep you from widening your eyes or dry lips
-keep you from smiling, don’t let a stuffy nasal cavity keep you from breathing through your
-nose. You might want to try nasal irrigation (i.e., a neti pot, Nasaline, or nasal relief spray),
-
-a personal hygiene practice used for flushing excess mucus and debris from the nasal cavity
-and sinuses.
-
-Also, make an effort to breathe through the nose while chewing. Because | breathe
-through my nose now, | can close my mouth while | chew. Thus, much to the pleasant surprise
-of my friends and family, | no longer smack my lips.
-
-The “alternate nostril breathing” technique is common in yoga and stress reduction circles.
-In this exercise, the index finger is used to close one nostril at a time. Many hypotheses have
-been advanced regarding why breathing through only one nostril seems to have a calming
-effect on people. Some scientists think you can activate different hemispheres of the brain this
-way. | think blocking one nostril works because it narrows the breathing bottleneck even
-further, increasing the resistance and necessitating that each breath is even slower and
-smoother. Try it. There are many guided alternate nostril breathing exercises online.
-
-Modern-day hunter-gatherers are known to be nose breathers, and even the persistence
-running they do during prolonged hunts is accomplished with the mouth closed. As you get
-better at nose breathing, force yourself to breathe exclusively through the nose during exercise.
-Keep tissues with you if you need to. Blow your nose frequently, and train as often as you can
-with your mouth closed.
-
-/ 5
-
-|
-
-a oo ES
-Bx S ES &P
-_ Ze Sh Y/
-q, ta \ is
-
-Illustration 11.2: Hyperventilating man breathing into a paper bag; B. Man running with an elevation training
-mask; C. Man with tape over the mouth to ensure nose breathing.
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-Months of paced breathing helped, but breathing exclusively through the nose was still a
-challenge for me when | started. Inspired by the writings of Konstantin Buteyko and George
-Catlin, | forced myself to do it. You haven’t accomplished it until every time you think to notice,
-you find yourself breathing through the nose. Don’t try to accomplish exclusive nasal breathing
-in a matter of weeks. Give yourself at least a few months to make a comfortable transition to
-exclusive nose breathing. Teaching myself to breathe through my nose made diaphragmatic
-breathing much more accessible and gave me a whole new level of composure and poise.
-Breathe through the nose as much as possible. It calms your mind and turns your breathing
-musculature into a powerful, relentless, irrepressible bellows.
-
-The Slowest, Smallest Breath
-
-When you breathe with a smooth flow rate, you should feel that your breath proceeds at an
-even tack. You should hear and feel a constant stream of breath that doesn’t vary in speed. |
-think the best way to perfect a smooth flow rate is to inhale as little and as slowly as possible.
-When you do this, the tumultuous discontinuities (apneic disturbances) discussed in Chapter 3
-become magnified. This enables you to perceive them and work to “iron them out.”
-
-Breathing Exercise #11.3: The Slowest, Smallest Breath
-
-After a couple of deep breaths, take a single inhalation that is a tiny continuous sip of air. It
-should be long in duration (from 10 seconds to a minute) and deep (from the bottom of your
-expiratory reserve to the top of your inspiratory reserve). Take in as little air as possible, as
-slowly as possible, without pausing. After you finish inhaling, breathe normally for a few
-breaths, then repeat. Steady your breath so that you override the shudders and shivers in the
-flow of air. It should feel like a long, drawn-out note on a saxophone, a rocket ship sailing
-smoothly out of the atmosphere, or a slow ride down a gently sloped slide made from warm
-butter. Sometimes it helps me to visualize the slow but steady propulsion made possible by
-hundreds of millipede legs working in unison. Continue to practice this, making your goal to
-breathe slowly and evenly all the time.
-
-Breathing slowly like this feels dangerous—either like you are not getting enough air or like
-it is too much work. Some of the most archaic brain areas ring their alarm bells when they can
-tell that the conscious system is imposing a slow diaphragmatic breath. Deep down, our
-unconscious mind is afraid that the diaphragm will be overexerted and that this will lead to
-death by some form of cardiorespiratory fatigue. It is afraid that we will ignore the pain signals
-from our weary breathing musculature and succumb to diaphragmatic failure. And it is true that
-if a person who is a heavy hyperventilator that takes in 20 breaths per minute was forced to
-switch to four breaths per minute without any deviation, the abrupt change in demand could
-lead to respiratory shutdown after many hours. However, a few minutes of diaphragmatic
-fatigue is not going to kill you. You don’t want to push it too hard for hours at a time, but you
-must get past this instinctual dread of exerting the diaphragm.
-
-To do this, embrace the feeling of “suffocating” yourself with the slowest, smallest breath
-exercise. These breaths should feel like prolonged, streamlined sighs that “ooze” in and out of
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-your body. Taking extremely slow inhalations will strengthen your diaphragm and teach your
-mind to control it on a very precise and fine-grained scale, putting an end to hyperventilation.
-
-When you perform exercise 11.3 above, imagine that you are training to be the best in the
-world. Pretend that the national pastime consists of stepping up to home plate, pressing your
-nostril against a microphone, and taking the smoothest inhalation and the smoothest
-exhalation you possibly can. You want to inspire the entire stadium, as well as the folks
-watching at home, with how constant and unperturbed your breath is. Of course, we will never
-get the opportunity to show off in this way. However, if you breathe as if you are training for it,
-the results will significantly affect your every word, thought, and action. It will also make your
-breath extremely quiet.
-
-Several Eastern arts, such as tai chi, yoga, and qi gong, recognize the importance of quiet,
-gentle breathing. Japanese legend holds that samurai would be tested by placing a feather
-under their nose. If the feather wavered, then they were not ready to progress. Qi gong master
-Chris Pei explains, “Generally speaking, there are three levels of breathing. The first one is to
-breathe softly so that a person standing next to you does not hear you breathing. The second
-level is to breathe softly so that you do not hear yourself breathing. And the third level is to
-breathe softly so that you do not feel yourself breathing.” The Chinese practice of Taoism
-defines ideal breathing as “so smooth that the fine hairs within the nostrils remain motionless.”
-In the 6th-century B.C. Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “The perfect man breathes as if he is
-not breathing.”
-
-| find these quotes inspiring, and | do believe that quiet breathing is an indicator of
-diaphragmatic health and precludes hyperventilation. However, the breath cannot always be
-inaudible. When you first transition to nasal breathing, it is often loud. Don’t necessarily
-suppress your breath to make it quiet and don’t be embarrassed by the sound of your
-breathing. Instead, be proud that others will hear how smooth and deep it is.
-
-Calming Your Gasping Reflex
-
-As discussed in Chapter 3, your default tidal range can be expanded by taking longer, deeper
-breaths. But your tidal range can also be reduced by teaching your body that it is safe to take
-more shallow breaths. When you first try to take several shallow breaths in a row, your
-diaphragm and other breathing muscles will stubbornly resist the process. Again, your nervous
-system will be afraid to let them relax. This is why breathing less feels uncomfortable and can
-be downright scary. It brings you face to face with your gasping mechanism.
-
-It is difficult to breathe in a tidal range that is shallower than usual (as in diagram C in
-Figure 11.1 above) because it exposes a reflexive gasp that powers your every inhalation. Once
-you are breathing more shallowly than usual, you can feel the jerk from this gasp in your chest.
-It initiates each inhalation and is essentially a violent convulsion and another manifestation of
-trauma keeping you in fight or flight. The more time you spend breathing less, the more you
-experience it and the more you calm it. Calming it will tremendously reduce your tendency to
-hyperventilate. You can use the following exercise to do this.
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-Breathing Exercise #11.4: Depowering the Heaving Gasp
-
-For one or two minutes, take breaths that are vastly shallower than you are accustomed to.
-Imagine merely taking in a few teaspoons of air. Spend about between one and three
-seconds on each inhalation and exhalation (.5x.5 to 1.5x1.5). When executing this pattern,
-the breathing muscles should be about as close to resting as they can be, moving very little.
-You are hypoventilating.
-
-By the fifth to tenth breath, you should feel a sense of air hunger. This sensation of
-suffocation or smothering is too soon to be a legitimate need for oxygen. Instead, it is the
-feeling of your hyperactive breathing musculature fighting against your decision to breathe
-less. The discomfort should be centered around the beginning of the inhalation. Your chest is
-trying to involuntarily kickstart a gasp, but you are not letting it. It should feel a bit like a
-hiccup coming on. This should create the feeling that you need a deep inhalation and are
-having trouble catching your breath.
-
-Become immersed in the sensations surrounding your gasp reflex and try to calm it for the
-remaining breaths. Once you have been breathing like this for twenty seconds to a minute
-and the feeling of air hunger starts to kick in, allow yourself to take a few normal, deeper
-breaths to reoxygenate and then try again. Use this exercise to learn to feel comfortable
-breathing much less and transform the violent, spastic contraction that initiates your
-inhalation into a gentle, gradual one.
-
-| think the exercise above brings you into contact with the cramp in your diaphragm. It is
-the portion of the diaphragm that is always heaving in an effort carry on with hyperventilation.
-It is trying to overpower your current rate. It is doing this because your body is afraid that you
-are not going to get enough oxygen to deal with the environment that it assumes is adverse. By
-ignoring the gasp and feeling the air hunger you get a panicky sensation. By attenuating your
-breath, you ignore the panic. You should get this feeling sometimes as you come down from
-exercising. Treat it as if that is all it is. Even though you are not exercising, feel comfortable
-coming down a whole level. It is the ultimate form of underreacting and it sends a message to
-the body that says, “There is no way we need that much oxygen right now.”
-
-You may have to be experiencing anxiety for this to happen, but when performing the
-exercise above, people often breathe like an actor in a scary movie and it may feel “horrific.”
-That gasp reflex is trying to break through. We normally try to avoid this sensation at all costs.
-It is like a big wave hitting the body. The idea is to let the waves hit and prove to your body that
-it doesn’t hurt and breathing less is not the end of the world. Not startling in response to it
-is detraumatizing. | think this is what Buteyko was trying to lead people to do, but he didn’t
-articulate it this way.
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-Figure 11.2: The first sine wave depicts a gasping form of inhalation. The slope starts steeply, indicating an abrupt
-force at the beginning. This is a violent and exhausting way to breathe that perpetuates hyperventilation and
-stress. The second wave depicts a relaxed form of inhalation that is not powered by an initial jerk of the breathing
-musculature. In both waves, the exhalation is shown as a straight line to simplify.
-
-Breath Holding
-
-Many breathing exercises utilize breath holding. They come with names like breath restriction,
-hypoventilation training, and hypoxic therapy. There are even paced breathing routines that ask
-you to hold your breath between each inhalation and exhalation. The popular 4-4-6-2 exercise
-asks you to inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for four, exhale for six, hold the breath for
-two, and then repeat. Try it. The 4-7-8-0 technique is also very popular. The 5-5-5-5 version is a
-drill. Sometimes called “box breathing,” it is utilized by the military to calm and rehabilitate
-warfighters with PTSD. | think breath-holding exercises like these can be helpful, but | do not
-recommend holding the breath during paced breathing because practicing so many pauses may
-influence you to hold your breath habitually without realizing it. Due to the strong association
-between breath holding and anxiety, | think this is counterproductive. Still, doing it for as long
-as you can a few times per week might be beneficial. Holding the breath causes panic.
-
-By desensitizing yourself to this panic, you may harden yourself against trauma.
-
-Breathing Exercise #11.5: Breath Hold
-
-Start by taking a deep inhalation while lying down and then exhale most of it. Next, close
-your mouth and time yourself (using the stopwatch on your smartphone) to see how long it
-takes you to experience air hunger. Hold your breath as long as you can. Try to work up to
-holding your breath in this way for 20 seconds, then 30. After a few weeks, you should be
-able to get near a full minute.
-
-You should feel strong discomfort in your chest and an unrestrainable desire to resume
-breathing. Calmly expose yourself to this unpleasant feeling for a least a few seconds. Your
-body will feel restless, and you should feel a pulsating sensation in your chest. Focus on
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-bringing absolute peace to this reaction, as if you were ignoring the siren of a passing
-ambulance. As soon as you stop and take that first gasp, go right back to diaphragmatic
-breathing. This will teach your body not to fear the pain of suffocation and not to perceive it
-as a lethal state.
-
-The first sincere desire for air will occur with an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm.
-The diaphragm starts to push and pull involuntarily to get breathing going again. The amount of
-time it takes for you to feel this sensation is a good measure of general breathing health. Many
-people will experience diaphragmatic contractions between 10 and 20 seconds. Breath holding
-practitioners maintain that a person who breathes optimally will not experience this until
-30-40 seconds.
-
-The more you practice the exercise above, the longer you will be able to hold your breath
-before you feel your diaphragm attempt to kickstart the breath. Buteyko adherents call the
-practice of breath holding the “control pause.” It is also known as the “blood oxygen level test”
-(BOLT), and using the four rules will help improve this score. Breath holding is thought to
-improve your blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity and increase the maximum volume of oxygen
-that you can use in exhaustive exercise. This metric is known by athletes as VO2 max and is
-highly coveted.?+
-
-Stressful situations (such as a tense conversation that involves gasping and breath-holding)
-often lead to feelings of air hunger. Intermittent air hunger contributes to anxiety. So, once you
-have spent a few days desensitizing yourself to the sensations involved in breath-holding, you
-will notice that you feel calmer in general. You will realize that a fear of suffocation regularly
-intruded into your everyday life but that it does this no more.
-
-Rapid, Shallow Breathing
-Earlier in this chapter, we discussed how constant hyperventilation is extremely unhealthy.
-Deliberate hyperventilation on the order of a few seconds, however, may be health-promoting.
-Many forms of breathwork induce hyperventilation. Tummo breathing is an ancient Tibetan
-example. Similar forms such as holotropic breathing and the Wim Hof method have recently
-become popular. Each of these involves taking very rapid, full breaths for minutes at a time,
-often followed by breath holds. This voluntary hyperventilation leads to high levels of oxygen,
-low levels of carbon dioxide, the feeling of pins and needles, and even panic. But if you can
-expose yourself to these sensations without panicking, you can further desensitize yourself to
-stress. | recommend voluntary acute hyperventilation (try the Wim Hof guided breathing
-session on YouTube) because | think numbing yourself to it is another experience that will
-strengthen you as a person.
-
-Insufficient skill in coordinating the transition between rapid inhalations and exhalations is
-a manifestation of trauma. For example, it keeps you from being able to project your voice
-strongly and decisively during times of tension. Building better coordination over the switch
-between breaths may make you a less hesitant, more confident breather. One reason | believe
-this is that chimpanzees perform rapid, loud panting displays daily. These are called ventilating
-displays or pant-hoots and are used to indicate dominance. They are more intense and more
-frequent in highly ranked individuals. The higher a chimp’s dominance rank within its party,
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-the more intensely it pant-hoots.1* Pant-hoots are most common in the presence of high-
-quality food or females in estrus, indicating that it is used during social competition to
-designate status and priority. These vocalizations are set to almost violently fast breathing and
-are used to prove to others that the vocal and respiratory systems are robust.
-
-The pant-hoot is a series of deep yells that take place while rapidly switching between
-inhalations and exhalations. Each cycle lasts between a half and a quarter of a second. Perform
-a video search on the internet for the term “pant-hoot,” listen to the sound, and try to recreate
-it yourself. You might also search for an episode of the Arsenio Hall talk show from the 1990s.
-The pant-hoot was used by the audience in a collegial, energetic way to show support for the
-host or his guests. The crowd would often swing their arms above their head and hoot
-uncompromisingly. You will find that hooting is very strenuous at first yet becomes facile over
-just a few days. This may seem like another bizarre exercise, but remember, Program Peace is
-all about finding weaknesses in the body and rehabilitating them to find new strength,
-especially when this strength is associated with dominance in closely related animals.
-
-Breathing Exercise #11.6: Pant-Hooting
-
-Practice breathing in and out at very short intervals while vocalizing loudly. You should be
-imitating a chimpanzee pant-hoot that you listened to online. Alternate between inhalation
-and exhalation around two to five times per second. Do it rhythmically and with control.
-During each exhalation, yell “hoo” loudly and deeply. It should be like a bark. Time yourself
-using your phone’s stopwatch. At first, try to reach 30 seconds of intense hooting. Over
-several weeks, you should be able to do it for more than a minute. Once you reach
-proficiency, you can try doing what the chimps do, and vocalize not just on the exhalations
-but the inhalations as well.
-
-As you do this, you will notice that every few times you switch, your breathing will falter.
-Your timing will be off because you don’t have fine enough control over the transitions
-between inhalations and exhalations. This kind of poor respiratory coordination may be a
-contributor to autonomic dysregulation. Use this exercise to iron through these irregularities
-and unbrace and strengthen the muscles involved. After a minute of pant-hooting intensely,
-your chest and voice will feel agitated. However, if you concentrate on letting the muscles go
-limp afterward, they will relax deeply. You will feel calmer and notice that your voice is
-stronger and deeper for up to a day.
-
-| believe that humans and chimps add tension to the aspect of the diaphragm responsible
-for the pant-hoot as a function of their social standing. They do this as part of a submissive
-display that self-handicaps the bark and roar, both of which are powered by the diaphragm.
-This is why only the most dominant chimps are capable of performing an optimal pant-hoot.
-Pant-hooting loudly and forcefully will drive this underused aspect of your diaphragm into full
-fatigue, allowing it to recover from the tension you have imposed on it for years. | strongly
-believe that after just a handful of sessions, you will realize that the pant-hoot achieves a
-diaphragmatic detox, reaching into and purging the nucleus of your anxiety.
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-Completely avoiding breathing at short intervals is like being an endurance runner who
-never sprints. | think it is important to spend time every day not trying to lengthen or even
-control the breath. Let it get as shallow as it wants and breathe through your mouth if it feels
-right. Forget about the rules of diaphragmatic breathing sometimes and let the unconscious
-breath regulation modules do what they will. Stated simply, allow yourself to breathe shallowly
-once in a while as a form of cross-training.
-
-Stretch and Flex the Diaphragm
-
-The next exercise provides a great maneuver to stretch and contract your stale, stiff diaphragm.
-This stretch will bring it blood and help make it stronger and better at its job. Think back to the
-hiccup activity from Chapter 3. When simulating a hiccup, you sealed off your glottis (the vocal
-opening in the throat) and contracted your diaphragm. Using the following maneuver, you will
-similarly close the glottis so no air can enter the lungs and contract the diaphragm as if you
-were inhaling, creating a brief vacuum.
-
-By restricting the flow of air, closure of the glottis isolates the diaphragm in a fixed
-position, allowing it to contract isometrically. To contract it, you only have to try to breathe in.
-With the glottis closed, you won’t be able to, but trying will pull the central tendon of the
-diaphragm down toward the abdominal cavity, stretching the entire diaphragm as well as the
-organs near it. Again, | thought | originated this exercise, but after entering a description into a
-search engine, | found that it is a variant of an age-old yoga pose called uddiyana bandha, or
-“flying abdominal lock.”
-
-Breathing Exercise #11.7: /sometric Contraction of the Diaphragm
-
-Lie down and breathe out completely, blowing on your fingertip until you cannot blow out
-anymore. Then, close and seal your glottis. This makes it impossible to breathe. From here,
-you can fully engage the diaphragm by trying to either breathe in or out.
-
-1) Attempt to breathe in. You will not be able to, and the harder you try, the better stretch
-you will get. Try to extend this contraction up into your rib cage and hold it for at least five
-seconds. This may make you cough, which is fine. While contracting the diaphragm, alter the
-position of your trunk and thoracic spine. This will allow you to flex hard into your diaphragm
-at different angles. This may lead to a satisfying crack.
-
-2) Attempt to breathe out forcefully, pressing the stomach outward at the same time. Again,
-the harder you press, the better the stretch. Try to hold this for at least five seconds.
-
-From either of these two positions, you should be able to find a very achy contraction. This is
-the cramp in the diaphragm that has formed as a consequence of bracing and chronic
-hyperventilation. Now that you have isolated it, you can gradually work through it.
-
-There are other ways to isolate and contract the diaphragm isometrically. Breathing deeply
-from some yoga positions offers challenging opportunities for diaphragmatic stimulation. | want
-to strongly encourage you to try a full inhalation from either a forward fold or plow pose
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-because these yoga positions decrease the volume of the abdominal cavity, forcing the
-diaphragm to work harder than it normally does. Full breaths from these positions are hard
-work with a big payoff.
-
-Intraoral Myofascial Release for the Nasopharynx
-
-You have an extensive muscular knot behind your face that comes from constricting the
-nasopharynx. The nasopharynx is an opening in the back of the throat, just behind the uvula.
-My nasopharyngeal sphincter was highly tense and painful. Contraction of the nasopharynx is a
-natural reflex that occurs during swallowing to prevent food or liquid from going up into the
-nose, but bracing it is another manifestation of trauma. People brace it out of fear of appearing
-“too calm.” This knot becomes tighter every time you feel stressed. It contributes to wincing
-and grimacing and it gets worse every day because it is never massaged or even touched. |
-advocate that you perform compression and self-massage specifically for your nasopharynx.
-
-It is very uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier every time, and it only takes a few weeks to
-get rid of the pain completely.
-
-Nasopharynx
-
-Uvula
-The Pharyngeal Airway
-
-Trachea Esophagus
-
-Illustration 11.3: The nasopharynx is a small opening just behind the uvula that connects the oral cavity with the
-nasal cavity.
-
-You can provide compression to your nasopharynx by donning a plastic glove, putting your
-thumb into your mouth and up into your nasopharyngeal opening. This opening is where your
-nasal passage connects with your throat. To do this, insert your thumb into your mouth as if
-you were sucking on your thumb. To find the opening, you must feel around the roof of your
-mouth, traveling away from the teeth and toward the area where the hard roof of the mouth
-(hard palate) turns soft (soft palate). An inch behind (posterior to) this border is the uvula,
-
-a fleshy hanging structure. Just behind the uvula is the opening of the nasopharynx.
-
-The nasopharynx is an invagination that you want to explore and massage using one of your
-thumbs. The opening will feel tight and painful, and pressing against it will initiate a gag reflex.
-The best way to bypass the gagging is to breathe diaphragmatically, preferably to a breath
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-metronome. Within the first week, you will notice that it is less painful to probe, that your face
-feels and looks calmer, and that mucus clearance is easier.
-
-Breathing Exercise #11.8: Massaging the Nasopharynx
-
-Put ona plastic glove. With your thumb inside your nasopharynx, you can place strong pressure on
-many muscles and soft tissues in the nasopharynx and nasal cavity. When you start, simply insert the
-thumb past the first knuckle and keep it still. It will feel sore, itchy, and scratchy, like a sore throat.
-Next, try to swallow a few times and feel the nasopharyngeal sphincter tighten and loosen around
-your thumb. The first few times, this may be very uncomfortable, but it should be painless within a
-few weeks.
-
-Next, you want to gently press your thumb into different areas, massaging the soft tissues,
-stimulating the nerves, reducing tension in the accompanying muscles, and bringing needed blood to
-the area. You want to press against each of the walls and folds of the nasopharynx and even up into
-the nasopharyngeal ceiling. The padded side of your thumb (opposite the side with the fingernail) will
-come into contact with the anterior portion of this muscle (closest to the face). You want to press into
-it firmly while contracting it intermittently to exercise it and gain a conscious ability to coordinate its
-movement. As usual, learning how to control it will teach you how to relax it.
-
-It is essential to employ paced breathing and focus concertedly on remaining calm before,
-during, and after this exercise. Influencing how your brain interprets intense forms of
-stimulation is incredibly decisive in how your body copes with them. | also recommend doing
-this while relaxing at home before sleep. While you have the rubber glove on, | recommend
-that you use the thumb to press into muscular areas all over the soft palate.
-
-You can massage the tongue as well. This can be done in two ways: (1) squeeze your
-tongue between your thumb and forefinger, or (2) use your middle finger to gently compress
-the length of your tongue down toward the floor of your mouth. Allow your tongue to go limp
-and drop down to a lower point in your throat. Unbracing your tongue and allowing it to
-become flat and broad at its base will help relax your voice, the topic of the next chapter.
-
-/
-(Ss \
-) © A
-je )—\ }}
-\ 2 Y |
-a
-
-Illustration 11.4: A. Nasal cavity and nasopharynx; B. Man inserting thumb into nasopharynx;
-C. Man squeezing tongue.
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-Have you ever heard of mewing? It is a popular do-it-yourself facial restructuring technique
-developed by Dr. Mike Mew, a British orthodontist. Mewing involves flattening out the tongue
-against the roof of the mouth (the hard palate). The tip of the tongue is placed on or near the
-top front teeth and the body of the tongue is placed on the roof of the mouth. Proponents
-claim that learning to rest the tongue here habitually will define the jawline and change the
-shape of the face for the better. Like many similar techniques (including most of the exercises in
-this book), there is not enough scientific evidence yet to support the practice. However, it is
-interesting to point out that resting the tongue against the roof of the mouth seems prevalent
-in most mammals and human infants. This indicates to me that resting the tongue on the floor
-of the mouth (not mewing) may be a traumatized posture associated with mouth breathing and
-a widened airway diameter facilitating hyperventilation (discussed in the next chapter). | think
-it is possible that mewing could aid in nose breathing, expressionlessness, reducing oral and
-pharyngeal bracing, decreasing vocal tension, and reinforcing ujjayi breath (also discussed in
-the next chapter).
-
-Pair Diaphragmatic Breathing with Anything and Everything
-
-| hope you feel you now have more tools to ensure that your diaphragm is working properly.
-When it is working, it pacifies your interpretation of and responses to any experiences you
-have. It helped turn my nasopharynx from a “pit of pain” to a painless, normally functioning
-part of my body. | believe that this diaphragmatic generalization can similarly enhance the
-positive externalities from many forms of traditional and alternative therapy. Existing forms of
-therapy that may be vastly augmented by proper breathing may include:
-
-Mainstream Therapies: yoga, psychotherapy, relaxation techniques, muscle and joint
-rehabilitation, mindfulness-based stress reduction, chiropractic, acupuncture, osteopathy,
-cognitive behavioral therapy, medical massage, neurotherapy, biofeedback, positive
-affirmation, somatic therapy, etc.
-
-Exercise and Movement Based Therapies: personal training, physical therapy, Pilates, tai chi,
-qigong, martial arts, acroyoga, dance, the Gyrotonic Method, Gyrokinesis, the Franklin Method,
-the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, Nia, ChiWalking, ballistic stretching, proprioceptive
-neuromuscular facilitation, gymnastics, Laban Movement Analysis, somatics, etc.
-
-Complementary, Holistic, and Alternative Therapies: meditation, prayer, cold showering,
-electronic pulse massage, abdominal or visceral massage, kneading, petrissage, craniofacial
-manipulation, gua sha and Mei Zen acupuncture, muscle stripping, guided therapeutic imagery,
-active release technique, Rolfing, craniosacral therapy, tantric sex, eye movement
-desensitization and reprocessing, visceral massage, colonic irrigation, reiki, autogenic training,
-hypnosis, mewing, ASMR, forest bathing, art therapy, animal therapy, etc.
-
-Conclusion
-
-After you perform the breathing exercises from this chapter and Chapter 3 for 12 weeks,
-you will notice that many of the people you know breathe two to three breaths for every
-breath you take. Relative to the new you, everyone else will be hyperventilating.
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-Chapter 11: Bullet Points
-
-e Distress causes over-breathing, also known as hyperventilation, which is strongly
-associated with anxiety and has many negative symptoms and repercussions.
-
-e Taking exaggeratedly slow breaths will put you on an “air diet,” reducing distressed
-breathing and hyperventilation.
-
-e You want your diaphragm to approximate a large piston moving in slow motion.
-
-e Because nasal breathing forces you to breathe more slowly, it will strengthen the
-diaphragm and greatly reduce distressed breathing. Taping the mouth helps with this.
-
-e Breathing in for as long as you can will force the diaphragm to contract completely,
-expanding its range, pushing it to fatigue, and allowing it to rest afterward.
-
-e Stretching the diaphragm and contracting it isometrically will make it stronger and
-increase its range of motion.
-
-e Breath holding, mewing, and pant-hooting may help rehabilitate your breathing habits.
-
-e Providing compression to the nasopharynx, soft palate, and tongue will remove trauma
-in these areas.
-
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-
-Program Peace: Breathing Exercise Progress Tracker
-
-Use the boxes below to tally your number of hours of nasal breathing as in Exercise 11.1.
-
-Hours Nasal
-Breathing
-
-Use a stopwatch to see how long you can prolong an inhalation and an exhalation as in Exercise 11.3.
-Use the table below to keep track of your best times.
-
-Longest
-Inhalation
-
-Longest
-Exhalation
-
-Use a stopwatch to see how long you can hypoventilate as in Exercise 11.4. Use the table below to keep
-track of your best times.
-
-Longest
-Hypovent.
-
-Use a stopwatch to see how long you can hold your breath as in Exercise 11.5. Use the table below to
-keep track of your best times.
-
-Longest
-Breath Hold
-
-Use a stopwatch to see how long you can pant-hoot as in Exercise 11.6. Use the table below to keep
-track of your best times.
-
-Longest
-Pant-hoot
-
-Use a stopwatch to see how long you can hold an isometric contraction of the diaphragm as in Exercise
-11.7. Use the table below to keep track of your best times.
-
-Longest Dia.
-Contraction
-
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-Chapter 11: Endnotes
-
-1. Sauty, A., & Prosper, M. (2008). The hyperventilation syndrome. Revue medicale suisse,
-4(180), 2502-2505.
-
-2. Sauty & Prosper, 2008, The hyperventilation syndrome.
-
-3. Naifeh, K. H. (1994). Basic anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system and the
-autonomic nervous system. In B. H. Timmons R. Ley (Eds.), Behavioral and psychological
-approaches to breathing disorders, (pp. 17-47). Springer.
-
-4. McKeown, P. (2015). The Oxygen advantage: The simple, scientifically proven breathing
-technique that will revolutionize your health and fitness. Harper Collins.
-
-5. Staubli, M., Vogel, F., Bartsch, P., Fliickiger, G., & Ziegler, W. H. (1994). Hyperventilation-
-induced changes of blood cell counts depend on hypocapnia. European Journal of Applied
-Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 69(5), 402-407.
-
-6. Rosalba, C. (2008). Strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of the Buteyko Breathing
-Method. Biofeedback, 36(2), 59-63.
-
-7. Fried, R. (2013). The psychology and physiology of breathing: In behavioral medicine,
-clinical psychology, and psychiatry. Springer Science.
-
-8. Park, Y. S. (2012). Sleep, interrupted: A physician reveals the # 1 reason why so many of us
-are sick and tired. Jodev Press.
-
-9. Park et al., 2012, Sleep, interrupted; Morais-Almeida, M., Wandalsen, G. F., & Sole, D.
-(2019). Growth and mouth breathers. Jornal de Pediatria, 95(1), 66—71; Masahiro, S., Sano, S.,
-& Kato, T. (2013). Increased oxygen load in the prefrontal cortex: A vector-based near-infrared
-spectroscopy study. Neuroreport, 24(17), 935-940.
-
-10. Nestor, J. (2020). Breath: The new science of a lost art. Penguin.
-
-11. McKeown, P. (2015). The Oxygen advantage: The simple, scientifically proven breathing
-technique that will revolutionize your health and fitness. Harper Collins.
-
-12. Fedurek, P., Donnellan, E., & Slocombe, K. E. (2014). Social and ecological correlates of
-
-long-distance pant hoot calls in male chimpanzees. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 68(8),
-1345-1355.
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-Chapter 12: Release Vocal Tension
-
-“A determined man, by his very attitude and the tone of his voice, puts a stop to defeat, and begins to conquer.” —
-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
-
-There is an intimate connection between the voice and well-being. Our voices are right at the
-center of how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with the people around us. For
-most of us, however, interpersonal pressures and internal discomforts gradually put stress on
-our vocal cords. This chapter deals with the causes of this critical source of bodily dysfunction,
-then gives you a detailed and accessible guide to undoing it, building on the work you’ve done
-in previous chapters. It will cover healthier vocalization, clear articulation, coughing, yawning,
-muscle strengthening, and how to find relief from your internal monologue. First, let’s touch on
-the basic facts.
-
-The vocal cords are two membranes in the throat that are spread apart when breathing
-and pulled together for speech. When they are touching, and air from an exhalation is forced
-through them, they vibrate against each other, giving rise to the voice. Sound is generated as a
-steady flow of air is chopped up by the cords into little puffs of sound waves. More than a
-dozen different muscles manipulate the vocal cords within the voice box (larynx). We modulate
-our speech sounds by contracting these muscles along with muscles of the tongue, mouth, lips,
-and an entire wall of muscles extending from the voice box to the last molar. All of these
-muscles take on trigger points and partial contraction from intermittent bracing.
-
-That brings us to the link between voice and emotion. Behavioral ecologists have long
-noted that dominance displays in mammals feature low-pitched vocalizations while
-subordination displays feature high-pitched squeals and whimpers. In primates, high-pitched
-noises are common during juvenile play, submissive threats, appeasement, and begging for
-food. Human voices similarly rise in pitch as a result of insecurity, stress, and social submission.
-Higher pitch is caused by vocal cord tension: the tauter the cords are, the faster they vibrate
-back and forth, and the higher the frequency of the sound they produce.
-
-Voice pitch rises when we ask for a favor, apologize, whine, or attempt to show affection or
-goodwill. Negative emotion, in general, increases the pitch of the voice. When you are nervous
-or scared, for instance, the muscles around the larynx automatically tighten up, involuntarily
-creating a higher-pitched sound. In Chapter 7, we saw how the brain’s grief system elicits
-reflexive distress vocalizations in mammals and birds. It ensures that lost babies call out for
-their mothers. Our grievances activate this ancient neural pathway, intensifying vocal bracing.
-When we are anxious, we are, in essence (even in silence), calling out for our mothers.
-
-Dominant voices maintain or lower in pitch when finishing a sentence. Lowering intonation
-midsentence conveys unshaken confidence. Submissive voices do the opposite, rising in pitch as
-if asking a question. This is commonly known as upward inflection. When you speak at an
-artificially high pitch, you can strain your larynx in as little as a few minutes. Accumulated over
-months and years, that strain changes the resonance of your voice, making it softer and higher.
-This effect—when tension in the vocal muscles affects the voice—is called muscle tension
-dysphonia. When this condition leads to pain and inflammation in the larynx, it is called globus
-pharyngis, or laryngitis when truly acute.* Few of us are formally diagnosed with these
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-ailments, but we all have hoarseness and diminished voices from the self-imposed repetitive
-strain on our vocal muscles.
-
-Have you ever found that when you are in a calm state (i.e., after a massage or upon
-waking), your voice is very deep, loud, and full? Your voice sounded like that because you gave
-it a rest from bracing. That is your true voice and should be your voice all the time. To reclaim
-it, all you need to do is learn to stop tensing it.
-
-| used to talk in an artificially high voice all the time, and there were many friends with
-whom | would never speak in my normal voice for fear of offending them. By age 25, this led to
-my normal voice being completely unavailable, and it continued to get weaker every year. The
-sustained high-pitch mangled my voice. It wrenched my larynx, took all the bass out of my
-speech, and ruined my singing ability. By the time | turned 30, even my ability to modulate and
-inflect was greatly reduced. The weakness in my voice led me to talk and socialize less. My
-laryngeal posture became so compromised that | developed a persistent lump in my throat.
-
-The constriction in my gullet affected my swallowing, too, and | developed dysphagia. The
-airway around my voice box was so tight that | would choke at almost every meal. The following
-exercises and techniques completely resolved this problem. The lump in my throat is gone, and
-the improvement in my voice has been profound. Use the exercises in this chapter to get the
-frog out of your throat and turn your croaking into crooning. We will start, once again, by
-applying deep breathing to the situation.
-
-Diaphragmatic Vocalization
-
-Enter the terms “vocal cord endoscopy” into a video search engine to see the vocal cords in
-action. When you watch this medical exam, you can hear the doctor giving the patient
-instructions about when to vocalize and when to be silent. You will see multiple muscles in the
-throat contracting to modulate the patient’s voice. If you watch carefully, you should notice the
-patient contract the muscles that pull the vocal cords together in preparation for speech before
-any vocalization begins. You are most likely to spot it if the doctor interrupts the patient before
-they start speaking, at which point you can see the musculature either stay tense or return to
-rest. Seeing this will make you question how often you unknowingly tense the muscles of your
-vocal apparatus in anticipation of speech, even when you are not speaking. In reality, we are
-constantly bracing our vocal musculature in neurotic preparation for high-pitched speech.
-
-Ilustration 12.1: A. Side view of vocal cords; B. Vocal cords open from above; C. Vocal cords closed; D. Exterior
-throat anatomy with the voice box in the center
-
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-
-When you go to a loud party or concert and your voice is frazzled the following day, it is not
-because you were yelling too loudly. Rather, it is because you yelled with strained vocal cords
-and then braced them for the remainder of the evening while breathing thoracically. Our vocal
-apparatus was designed for shouting, but not for shouting combined with shallow breathing.
-That is a very different type of muscular stress and one we are not well equipped to endure.
-
-Most people hyperventilate when they speak, often needlessly doubling their intake of air.
-The discomfort of hyperventilation is a major contributor to the widespread fear of public
-speaking. This tendency causes us to speak in an even shallower tidal range than the one we
-breathe in. The breathing exercises from Chapters 3 and 11 will expand this range, allowing you
-to continue speaking when your lungs are nearly empty. That greater range adds depth to your
-voice. Any speech expert (or “vocologist”) will tell you that practicing diaphragmatic breathing
-is one of the best ways to achieve a better-sounding voice. As you will see in the next exercise,
-breathing diaphragmatically while vocalizing is even better.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.1: Sing Loudly without Gasping
-
-Sing from memory or along to a song. Don’t let yourself gasp. When it comes time to inhale,
-do so completely without singing, even if the vocalist in the song you are listening to is
-singing. Once you have taken in a full breath, resume singing until you have no more air left
-to exhale. You might do this in the car or with headphones on.
-
-Select songs that make you feel powerful. Pull up the lyrics online and read along if it helps.
-Sing your heart out. Singing loudly will make your voice stronger very quickly, and doing it
-with passion will produce endorphins and confidence. Bring your voice to a healthy state of
-fatigue over and over, taking breaks between songs to let it go completely limp. The more
-you do this exercise, the closer your standard social voice will come to that audacious singing
-voice.
-
-The next exercise will ask you to make several types of vocalizations, including yelling,
-while breathing diaphragmatically. Coupled with distressed breathing, these exercises would
-wear out your voice or even damage it. But diaphragmatic breathing protects it by disallowing
-vocal bracing and the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. After several minutes of
-practice, this will allow you to start vocalizing with, and rehabbing, muscles that were
-previously stuck in partial contraction. These exercises will also train your vocal muscles to
-coordinate more efficiently, resulting in more sound production with less energy expenditure.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.2: Diaphragmatic Vocalization
-Perform the following vocalizations after taking a deep, smooth inhalation. Once your lungs
-are full, vocalize until you are almost out of breath. Repeat. Choose a location like a closet or
-a car—somewhere you won’t be apprehensive about being overheard. Let loose. The real
-work of these exercises involves paying attention to the wavering and instability in your voice
-and using repetition to smooth out such weaknesses. Full-range vocalization repeated over
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-and over will tune up the voice by teaching your diaphragm to provide your vocal cords with
-constant, unfaltering air pressure.
-
-1) Take a deep breath and sing a single note (or a scale) until you are out of air. Do this
-loudly. Bellow. Keep singing/exhaling until you have absolutely no air left. The last few
-seconds will be uncomfortable, but it will start to feel good after completing the
-exercise a few times over the course of a week. Focus on making your voice ring like a
-bell, pure and unflinching, and it will become one. If you prefer, you can also perform
-this exercise with humming or vocal sighs.
-
-2) Yell loudly without straining, projecting as much as you can comfortably. Alternate
-between a roar, a howl, and a bark. Try yelling at different registers and frequencies.
-You can yell the vowels A, E, |, O, and U one at a time. Keep it up until you have
-emptied your lungs of air. Repeat this over and over in an effort to increase your
-volume at the end of your expiratory reserve.
-
-3) Sing using vibrato. Vibrato is a vocal technique that involves shifting the voice quickly
-between two pitches. An example of vibrato would be wavering back and forth
-between C and C# with regular pulses around six times per second. To hear a good
-example, listen to Johnny Mathis sing “Chances Are.” It is commonly used by
-professional singers but is very difficult to achieve unless the vocal cords are relaxed.
-Start by switching between two notes that are very close together. Go back and forth
-slowly and easily and then gradually speed this up to achieve vibrato. Practicing
-vibrato will improve your voice’s melody and prosody while building vocal relaxation
-and agility.
-
-4) Practice vocal fry. The vocal fry register is the lowest range of tones available to the
-human voice. It involves a rough, creaky sound and is produced by loose glottal
-closure which permits air to bubble through slowly, creating a rattling effect at a very
-low frequency. If you are not familiar with creating vocal fry, use an internet search to
-listen to some examples. Once you get the hang of it, practice producing vocal fry that
-is as loud and smooth as possible. Find the tone that feels the itchiest and scratchiest
-and concentrate your efforts there. Rehabbing it will renovate the substructure of
-your voice.
-
-After completing the exercises, lie down and focus on the sensations in your vocal tract. You
-will be bracing it. Find the throat posture that allows the tension you created to subside. This
-is your most relaxed vocal posture, and the one you want to hold all the time.
-
-If you are nervous before an important meeting, a big presentation, or a hot date, chances
-are much of the nervous energy will be concentrated in your vocal muscles. Much of your
-anxiety stems from knowing that the tension leakage will be audible the moment you open
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-your mouth. However, if you sing along loudly and deeply to a few songs you know by heart
-during the drive there, you will push your vocal muscles through a full contraction. This will
-wring out the stiffness from those muscles and prime them for use. Also, singing loudly with
-energy is one of the best ways to improve your mood because it causes the release of
-endorphins.
-
-If, after singing, you then spend the second half of the drive breathing to a breath
-metronome, those same muscles will get a full chance to relax and regenerate, ensuring that
-the exercise they got didn’t push them into spasm and activate latent trigger points. You will
-arrive at the event with the most powerful version of your voice.
-
-To acquire a more fully faceted voice and “deep resonance,” you must reestablish the
-muscles responsible for growling. The need for this kind of rehabilitation comes from a lifetime
-of disuse. We suppress any hint of a growl, concerned that others will interpret it as adversarial.
-But by avoiding even minor tonal suggestions of anger, we repress the vocal muscles needed
-for dominant vocalizations. Whole sections of our vocal tracts are cramped and dormant as a
-result. The next exercise addresses this.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.3: Activate Your Aryepiglottic Folds
-
-Vocalize using the breathing method in Vocal Exercise 12.2 above, but this time growl loudly.
-Create the guttural vocalization of a husky character with a gruff voice. This will force unused
-portions of the vocal cords, including the aryepiglottic folds, to get involved in producing
-sound. Almost everyone stifles the aryepiglottic folds, leaving them underdeveloped in all but
-a meager portion of the population. You may have never used yours, but they have always
-been available to you. By practicing the growl, you will un-stifle your aryepiglottic folds.
-
-If you don’t know what the use of aryepiglottic folds sounds like, listen to Louis Armstrong
-sing “What a Wonderful World.” Also, channel Cookie Monster, Barry White, Marge Simpson,
-and Batman. Hold a deep note in a low, loud growl throughout your exhalation. After you’ve
-practiced the growl alone, try singing with a growl. After two to five hours of cumulative
-practice, you should be able to unleash your inner monster, permitting you to overlap a
-growl with your normal speech any time you choose.
-
-Using portions of your throat to which you are unaccustomed in the exercises above will
-make you choke and cough. Especially using the aryepiglottic folds will feel sensitive, scratchy,
-and achy (as in a sore throat). Utilizing these achy sections of the vocal tract will rehab them.
-The soreness will dissipate, and accumulated phlegm will clear. Whole sections of your vocal
-apparatus only vibrate when you cough or scream, but you can use diaphragmatic rehabbing to
-coax them to flutter with every word you speak. Try using noise-reducing earmuffs with these
-exercises so that you are not focused on the timbre of your voice but rather the rattling
-sensations in your throat.
-
-Feel good about vocalizing forcefully. Don’t equate vocal power with discourtesy, and don’t
-inhibit it to be polite. Model your favorite radio personality or disc jockey, emulating how they
-can speak richly and deeply yet also congenially on the air.
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-Chin Lock
-
-Tucking your chin back into your throat firmly allows you to contract many muscles in the
-throat and vocal tract. It is a great way to find and activate lengths of muscle that have gone
-dormant. In yoga, this position is known as a chin lock (jalandhara bandha). The muscles it
-strengthens include the underused longus colli and longus capitus, both in the front of the neck,
-alongside many others. As you explore the chin lock over several weeks, you will discover there
-are many layers to the dormancy in your laryngeal muscles. As you gain the ability to contract
-and relax new portions of these muscles, in addition to recovering your voice, your neck will
-become straighter and your throat and jawline will become leaner.
-
-When trigger points in dormant laryngeal muscles become active, we feel “choked up.”
-Most of us are familiar with the acute version of this sensation that accompanies crying, but it
-can easily become a chronic problem. The feeling of being strangled by the tension in my own
-throat was a daily occurrence. After only a slight provocation, my voice would waver as if | had
-just been ina fight. People around me could hear the strain in my voice and recognized it as an
-impairment and a clear indicator of uncertainty. | recovered, slowly and with work, through a
-gradual process of strengthening these strained, weakened muscles.
-
-You will find sections of muscles that ache intensely when contracted in a chin lock.
-Stimulating them daily with contraction will reanimate the dormant muscle fibers, clear up the
-trigger points, increase circulation, remove the achy feeling, and—eventually—make this
-chakra-like module steadfast and unfaltering. Once this has been done, it will be impossible for
-you to feel choked up.
-
-Another technique to “reach” inaccessible dormant muscles is to swallow while holding a
-chin lock. This will ensure that you are not unnecessarily engaging the swallowing muscles in a
-state of fear, as many people do. You have probably seen cartoons where the protagonist gulps
-after they are threatened by a bully. Remove this tendency by using the exercise below.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.4: Speaking and Swallowing Through a Chin Lock
-
-Bring your chin back to your Adam’s apple, then toward your chest. Visualize the tip of your
-chin reaching for your collar bones. From that position, flex the muscles in your throat as
-
-deeply as possible. Search for sore muscles and contract them firmly for up to 15 seconds to
-bring them to fatigue. While you are holding this chin lock, perform the following exercises:
-
-1) To intensify the chin lock, open your mouth wide. Place your fingertips on your
-bottom teeth and pull your lower jaw down to flex your throat muscles more deeply.
-
-2) Swallow while holding a chin lock. This may be difficult or painful at first, so do it
-gently and carefully.
-
-3) Freeze your swallowing musculature halfway through the swallow action. (You may
-need to hold your breath.) This position will allow you to gently contract an array of
-laryngeal muscles.
-
-4) Chew and swallow food, maintaining a chin lock throughout an entire meal.
-
-5) Speak or sing through the chin lock. Does your voice sound foreign or strange? At
-first, it should sound deep and bold but muffled. What you are hearing is your optimal
-vocal tone. Your end goal should be to speak in this register all the time.
-
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-Chapter 12: Release Vocal Tension
-
-a
-
-Illustration 12.2: A. Man performing chin lock; B. Man using fingers to accentuate chin lock; C. View of the muscles
-of the larynx from the back.
-
-| cannot emphasize enough that many of these exercises, such as the chin lock and the
-isometric contraction of the diaphragm (Exercise 11.7), require months of explorative work but
-result in gradual progress that makes real and lasting changes to your quality of life. It took me
-two years of practicing a couple of minutes a month, but | eventually used the chin lock to push
-into and break up the partially contracted lump in my throat. Using the chin lock to reanimate
-dormant muscles in the larynx will instate your fullest, most optimal voice and enable you to
-speak in deep, rich tones.
-
-Ujjayi Breath: Fogging Up a Glass
-
-| have spent numerous hours searching for an optimally relaxed throat/vocal posture.
-
-After trying countless configurations, | concluded that the age-old “ujjayi breath” pose is the
-best among them. Ujjayi (Sanskrit for “one who is victorious”) breath is a common Taoist and
-yoga breathing technique, which instructors usually describe as “breathing while constricting
-the back of the throat.” This “constriction” is accomplished by complete relaxation, and you can
-find the ujjayi posture by allowing your vocal cords to go completely limp. Ujjayi breathing
-makes a hoarse, throaty sound because when completely relaxed, the vocal cords sit very close
-together and vibrate softly as air moves in and out.
-
-When at rest, the vocal cords should be separated by about eight millimeters of space.
-During cardiovascular exercise, that distance doubles to allow unimpeded breathing. The space
-between your vocal cords also expands when you are under intense stress. This response
-happens because your body assumes you are going to be breathing heavily. For that reason,
-
-a permanently widened vocal opening is a sign of chronic stress. If you stop bracing those
-muscles, though, the opening will go back to its normal eight millimeters. But how are we
-supposed to learn to relax a structure we can’t see or feel? Luckily, the answer is easy.
-Everyone knows how to do it. To perform ujjayi breath, simply breathe as if you were trying to
-fog up a glass.
-
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-Vocal Exercise #12.5: Fogging Up a Glass
-Breathe as if you are trying to fog up a window or mirror. Concentrate on relaxing your throat
-and the entire vocal apparatus. Imagine all the tension in your voice box evaporating.
-Even though you cannot fog up a glass by inhaling, maintain this vocal posture even during
-the inhalation.
-
-As long as your breath can fog up glass, the deep sound-producing muscles should be
-completely relaxed. You should find that after performing vocal exercise 12.2, your fatigued
-vocal cords can be coaxed into this resting posture more readily. This is because it is easier to
-make muscles go limp after exercise, as long as you focus on the process.
-
-When a trauma-naive kitten or puppy jumps down to the ground, they belt out a soft
-“hmm” sound as their paws make contact. This is because ujjayi breath is their default, and
-their vocal cords always sit right next to one another. Every breath for them is the softest
-cooing hum. As you practice, try to emulate that pure and innocent vocal relaxation.
-
-You are performing ujjayi breathing properly if you are mere millimeters from a hum. You
-should hear a breathy, wheezing sound as you take each breath, a sort of white noise. White
-noise contains many frequencies with equal intensities. Examples include radio static, applause,
-or the sound of surf. It is not a coincidence that ujjayi breath is also known as “ocean’s breath.”
-The sound is created by air resistance when the vocal opening is the bottleneck of the
-breathing tract.
-
-Base of Tongue
-Epiglottis
-Aryepiglottic Fold
-Vocal Fold / Cord
-Trachea / Glottis
-
-Esophageous SN
-
-Illustration 12.3: A. Vocal cord closure; B. Vocal cords at rest; C. Vocal cords braced open.
-
-Once you develop proficiency breathing with your throat in this configuration, try speaking
-while retaining it. Speak like you are trying to fog up a glass. | think of this as “ujjayi voice.”
-
-It may sound weak now, but it is the optimal way to speak. In fact, | want to encourage you to
-perform the vocalization exercises above using ujjayi voice. You might also consider the “ujjayi
-smile,” pairing your smiling with relaxed breathing. Most humans separate the vocal cords
-widely when they smile, the same way that an eager dog pants as it wags its tail. Your every
-smile should be accompanied by ujjayi breath.
-
-When you relax the throat and breathe as if you were fogging up a glass, it becomes a little
-harder to breathe. Your airway diameter narrows even further. Remember from the last
-chapter that this is a good thing. Ujjayi is an advanced form of resistance breathing. Once you
-have mastered nose breathing, add ujjayi on top of it to increase the resistance even further.
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-Breathe this way all the time to develop a more powerful voice and a stronger diaphragm.
-| consider ujjayi breath as the seventh tenet of optimal breathing.
-
-Hot chicken soup can help you stop bracing vocal muscles. The delicious taste combined
-with the warming liquid reduces bracing, allowing you to hold the muscles in your throat under
-the trigger point activation threshold. | believe this is why warm broth or hot tea with honey is
-commonly thought to help in healing respiratory infections. They encourage the restive ujjayi
-posture. Take advantage of this effect and have a hot soup or drink after practicing the
-exercises above.
-
-Rehabilitate and Detraumatize Your Cough
-
-A cough is a protective reflex that clears the large breathing passages of foreign particles,
-microbes, phlegm, saliva, and other fluids. It involves a forced exhalation of air against a closed
-glottis. The diaphragm creates pressure, and when this pressure reaches a certain level,
-
-the glottis and vocal cords open suddenly, resulting in a violent release of air. It is essentially
-
-a hiccup in reverse. | believe that it may also be a mechanism for delivering blood to sensitive
-respiratory tissues and, thus, could play a vital function in overall health.
-
-A healthy and effective cough depends on hardy and active respiratory muscles, so it is
-negatively affected by a lifetime of tension. By the time they are old, most people have weak,
-strained coughs that probably no longer perform their health-promoting functions. For many
-people on their deathbed, debilitated coughing appears to be their weakest link and a factor
-that contributes to disease progression. For these reasons, this short section will guide you in
-rehabilitating your cough.
-
-Most people cough too hard and strain the muscles involved by doing it haphazardly.
-
-This leads to coughing that pits different muscles against each other, damaging some and
-wearing others down. Most people cough violently or not at all. This may be because we are
-accustomed to thinking of coughing as a negative reaction associated with disease and death.
-Of course, that is far from true—instead, think of coughing as health promoting and learn to do
-it gently but vigorously. Since performing the exercise below twenty times (equating to around
-1,000 coughs) my coughs have been crisp, lively, and completely pain-free.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.6: Detraumatize Your Cough
-Cough 60 times in three minutes. Start softly and find a safe, sustainable cough. Build up to a
-more forceful cough while ensuring that there is zero associated pain or strain. As you go,
-breathe in cycles, inhaling slowly and deeply, then coughing until you have no air left, and
-repeating. You should be coughing five to ten times in a row in between inhalations. You may
-find that your body instinctively takes over this process, so allow these involuntary action
-patterns to do their work. It should feel good. Focus on coughing in different ways, at
-different depths, and with different intensities and pitches. Stick out your tongue.
-Experiment with a barking cough, a whooping cough, and a staccato cough. Try to extend a
-cough by creating a prolonged raspy sound over several seconds. Think of this as a search for
-frailty and seek out dormant muscles that you can activate. Afterward, pay attention to any
-tension or bracing that may have been caused by the exercise and gently quell it.
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-Strengthen Your Yawn
-Your yawn may be another subroutine that you can benefit from rehabilitating. Yawning is a
-mammalian reflex consisting of inhaling while stretching the face, throat, jaw, tongue, pharynx,
-and eardrums. Yawns are largely diaphragmatic and are the longest, smoothest breaths that
-many mammals take all day. Dozens of explanations for yawning’s adaptive value have been
-proposed by scholars, but there is still little agreement about its purpose.? It has even been
-called “the least understood human behavior.”
-
-When mammals yawn, they often stretch their spines in some way, and the pairing of
-these two actions is called pandiculation.? When your cat or dog yawns while standing,
-they usually perform a deep backbend or some other stretch at the same time. One likely
-possibility is that pandiculation is nature’s way of pairing a diaphragmatic breath with
-stretching and isometric contraction (the topic of the next few chapters). If this is the case,
-the sheer normalcy of pandiculation in the animal kingdom suggests that this pairing is
-something we should emulate.
-
-From the perspective of muscular rehabilitation, yawning is not so different from coughing.
-It is a valuable opportunity to stretch and contract a large number of muscles throughout the
-head and neck. And like coughing, in most people, yawning becomes weak and regressive over
-the course of their lives. This is probably because to yawn substantially and resolutely,
-you must put your social guard down. An unrestrained yawn is a great way to prove to your
-body and others that you are relaxed. | recommend yawning as heartily as you can to explore
-and strengthen it. Practice it before bed because its link with drowsiness may help you fall asleep.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.7: Strengthen Your Yawn
-
-Yawn twenty times during the next three minutes. Practice extending a yawn for at least five
-full seconds or as long as you can. Take a broad diaphragmatic inhalation while stretching
-your throat, jaw, and tongue. Open your mouth wide and clear your Eustachian tube by
-firmly popping your ears. There is also an underused suite of muscles involved in swallowing
-and voice production that your yawn should hit. This suite may ache but you can rehab it in
-only a few sessions. If you watch your yawn in the mirror with your mouth open, you can
-contract this group by maximizing the distance between your uvula and your tongue. Hold
-the entire set of various contractions in an unfathomably deep, silent roar. Yawn like a lion
-without worrying who sees it.
-
-Compression for the Throat and Larynx
-
-The vocal folds are shielded by cartilage, so, unfortunately, we cannot press our fingers against
-the neck to massage or compress them. However, you can give them some relief by
-compressing the tissues around them.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.8: Compression of the Front of the Neck
-
-Use your thumbs and fingertips to press firmly but gently into your throat. Press all over and
-from all angles. Apply pressure from the jawline all the way to the collar bones and sternum.
-Another way to find relief is to lean onto the side of a bed while pressing your upper chest
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-
-and throat into a basketball. Use the basketball to compress the sternum and clavicle.
-This also results in reducing clavicular and thoracic breathing. The sensation may make
-you cough or gag, but it is highly beneficial because it moves and stimulates muscles and
-tissues that are usually completely still. Be very gentle with this exercise, taking it easy
-and focusing on dissipating the tension in your throat over a span of several weeks.
-
-(
-hes
-/
-Y
-
-Hf.
-
-\\ { \
-Nee NX \
->
-
-Illustration 12.4: A. Larynx; B. Compression of tissues surrounding the larynx; C. Compression of the throat and
-chest with the use of a basketball.
-
-Rushed Speech, Enunciation, and Clarity
-
-There are many verbal indicators of dominance that are recognized in psychology. More
-dominant people have more vocal control, are louder, speak at a lower average pitch, talk
-more, and are more comfortable speaking at a variety of speeds. They exhibit more prosodic
-variety with increased use of rhythm, intonation, and melody. They also speak with fewer
-disfluencies (false starts, stammering, repeated words, mispronunciations, fillers, repaired
-utterances, etc.). They are less hesitant to interrupt others, are less tolerant of being
-interrupted, and overlap their speech with that of others more often.4
-
-People who have been heavily subordinated, on the other hand, hardly move or open their
-mouths when they speak. They usually sound uncertain and defensive. They also ramble,
-murmur, and stammer to create space for a more charismatic person to interrupt them. | speak
-from experience here. In my twenties, | acted like | was about to be interrupted every time |
-spoke. | tried so hard to downplay my strengths in front of my friends that | enunciated and
-articulated poorly, choosing not to use descriptive terminology when speaking. Over several
-years, this rendered my speech indistinct and reduced my once-hefty working vocabulary into a
-limited one.
-
-Instead, when you are speaking, act as if you have the floor. That will build credibility,
-suspense, and engagement with your listeners. Perhaps most importantly, take your time.
-Hurried speech and quick responses to other people’s questions are submissive and will quickly
-cause you to become tongue-tied. Do not rush to respond.
-
-Employ dramatic pauses. For instance, pause for two seconds before you speak. Pause for a
-second or so between some sentences. Doing so conveys that you are so assured of your own
-power that you trust others won’t interrupt. The more slowly you speak when talking about
-something important, the more thoughtful and deliberate you will appear.
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-Act like whatever you said is helpful, interesting, and stands alone without feeling forced to
-elaborate on it. People will commonly under-react to your points and good ideas. This will
-influence you to flounder in an attempt to better explain yourself breathlessly and
-unnecessarily. Instead, say what you want to say in definitive terms and conclude with
-confidence and finality. Don’t feel like you have to repeat, reiterate, or reexplain yourself.
-Chances are your listeners got it the first time, even if they act like they didn’t.
-
-Don’t let silence during a conversation worry you. In professional negotiations, often the
-person who is less comfortable with silence loses. This is partly because silence makes most
-people breathe shallowly. Breathe comfortably with all nonverbal aspects of your
-conversations, and you will become the proverbial 500-pound gorilla in the room.
-
-Monitor your breathing carefully during conversations; don’t let it become shallow. Take
-deep breaths when the other person talks. Pause and breathe in slowly and completely after
-every few sentences. Don’t feel apologetic for making people wait for you to finish your
-inhalation. Do not jump back into the conversation quickly using a gasp. Finish the breath you
-were on. Your breath comes first.
-
-Speaking clearly, articulately, and with charisma is not showing off. Start now. Enunciate as
-properly as you can, and within a few months, your utterances will be crystal clear and will
-sound more intelligent and persuasive. Don’t forget to practice these new habits as you speak
-to yourself.
-
-Relieve Subvocal Tension in the Vocal Cords by Muting the Internal Monologue
-An especially useful form of meditation focuses on subduing the restless subvocalizations
-within both your head and your larynx. The part of your brain responsible for generating
-speech, called Broca’s area, is always active, producing speech patterns. Because of its
-incessant activity, language often proceeds through our minds, whether it is involved
-
-in planning the day, singing the words to a song, or defending ourselves in a
-
-hypothetical argument.
-
-Sometimes, of course, the activity in Broca’s area and other language regions is not
-broadcast to the brain's conscious areas, and so we are not aware of it. When this happens, we
-gain a brief respite from our internal monologues. Usually, however, not only is it broadcasting
-its speech to much of the cortex, but it is broadcasting instructions for speech to the cortical
-motor areas responsible for moving the vocal cords. That input causes us to constantly tense
-our throats, silently going through the motions of speech even as our mouths stay shut.
-Sometimes, the lips and tongue move along with these silent words, sometimes they do not,
-but the voice box almost always follows along. Giving ourselves a reprieve from this
-interminable activity gives those muscles a rare chance to relax, removing some of the strain
-they usually feel. Try to become aware of your own pressured, subvocal speech. Using ujjayi
-breath can help because vocal bracing is vastly reduced if you breathe as if fogging up a glass.
-
-Also, notice how your vocal posture becomes more relaxed in the following situations:
-when you are around other people with low, relaxed voices; when you wake up in the morning;
-when you drink a hot beverage; after drinking alcohol; after taking a cough suppressant; and
-when reclining in complete safety. You might also experiment with the corpse activity from
-earlier chapters, taking on the limp vocal configuration of a deceased person. Spend some time
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-
-trying to find your most relaxed vocal posture with the intention of being able to reproduce
-it on command.
-
-Conclusion
-
-Predatory mammals are less likely to attack those who have a deeper voice. After reading that
-last sentence, notice how your vocal posture altered. You probably felt tissue in the back of
-your throat drop to a more secure configuration. However, keeping this posture for more than
-a few seconds is uncomfortable because it feels so “unguarded.” But this is what you want to
-pursue. Doing it habitually will make your voice unshakable.
-
-Speak to your pets in a deep voice rather than a high squeaky one. Do the same with your
-children. Addressing them in a full voice is not only beneficial for you but will also encourage
-them to develop strong voices of their own. A higher-than-natural voice results in braced and
-dormant laryngeal musculature. The most powerful version of your voice results from the least
-expenditure of energy. Sonic dominance is one thing: vocal efficiency and efficiency derives
-from calm practice.
-
-The people with the most beautiful, stentorian voices are those who were able to pair
-tranquil diaphragmatic breathing with forceful vocal projection while growing up. Even if you
-didn’t have this luxury in childhood, you can create it by employing the exercises in this
-chapter. Hence the final exercise, which incorporates several of this chapter’s key principles.
-
-Vocal Exercise #12.9: Reading Out Loud
-
-Read several pages from a book out loud, as in exercise 3.7. Speak in a calm, kind, full voice.
-Take slow, full inhalations and read aloud until you have no air left to exhale. Focus on
-articulating loudly and deeply and allow the vocal tract to fully relax during each inhalation.
-Read slowly and fluently, enunciating as clearly as you can. Maintain a subtle ujjayi throat
-posture and chin lock. Throughout, preserve a healthy posture in the rest of your body with
-wide eyes and a calm face. You might gesticulate with your free hand as you talk or make eye
-contact with yourself in a mirror between sentences. You might perform a zygomatic smile
-while you speak. Read to your pets, a friend, or the following imaginary audiences:
-
-1) A battalion of soldiers hanging on your every word
-
-2) A huge auditorium or amphitheater filled to capacity
-
-3) Agroup of third-graders in a library captivated by your story
-4) Acongregation listening to your sermon
-
-5) The listeners of a major broadcasting station
-
-6) A being with a weak heart who could use a loving voice
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-Chapter 12: Bullet Points
-
-e Stressed and submissive mammals vocalize in an artificially high range. This is also true
-of humans.
-
-e Over time, persistent high pitch strains the voice box, leads to the degradation of the
-voice, and creates a stubborn lump in the throat.
-
-e Speak deeper, louder, and more assertively. Start using your outside voice indoors and
-your distance voice in close quarters.
-
-e Never whine. Stop yourself whenever you notice that you are speaking in a voice that it
-higher than natural.
-
-e Tense throat muscles can be rehabilitated in several ways, including exercising the
-muscles involved by holding a chin lock, therapeutic coughing, massaging the throat
-muscles externally, muting your internal monologue, developing a relaxed default vocal
-posture, and engaging in diaphragmatic vocalization.
-
-e Diaphragmatic vocalization will pull your vocal muscles out of dormancy. To do this, you
-take a deep inhalation and then vocalize until you have no air left. You can hum, sing,
-speak, growl, cough, or yell. Repeating this over and over with the voice deep and
-relaxed will rehabilitate your vocal tract. Afterward, it is essential to let these exercised
-areas rest completely.
-
-e The optimal resting vocal posture includes limp vocal cords, a relaxed glottis, and
-breathing as if you are fogging up a glass.
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-Chapter 12: Endnotes
-
-1. Morrison, M. D., & Ramage, L. A. (1993). Muscle misuse disorders: Description and
-classification. Acta oto-laryngologia, 113(3), 428-434.
-
-2. Morrison, M. D., & Ramage, L. A. (1993). Muscle misuse disorders: Description and
-classification. Acta oto-laryngologia, 113(3), 428-434.
-
-3. Anderson, J. R., & Meno, P. (2003). Psychological influences on yawning in children. Current
-Psychology Letters, 2(11).
-
-4. Gupta, S., & Mittal, S. (2013). Yawning and its physiological significance. international
-Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research, 3(1), 11-15.
-
-5. Dunbar, N. E., & Burgoon, J. K., (2005). Perceptions of power and interactional dominance
-in interpersonal relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 22(2), 207-233.
-
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-
-“By adopting a certain physical posture, a resonant chord is struck in spirit.” — Bruce Lee (1940-1973)
-
-Ideal Posture, Spinal Health, and Psychological Well-Being
-
-Poor posture uses tension to hold you upright. Because poor posture is less biomechanically
-efficient than proper posture, it takes much more effort to maintain. This inefficiency makes it
-so that muscles are used even when not needed and so do not get a chance to rest. This places
-muscles throughout the spine in a state of perpetual fatigue. Over time, the lack of rest pushes
-these muscles into dormancy, which in turn bends the spine out of shape.
-
-As age advances, the extent of degeneration increases and posture generally worsens. The
-spine curves into a C-shaped orientation, and spinal mobility declines. Between young
-adulthood and older age, there is a 20-45% reduction in all planes of neck movement. There is
-about a 30% reduction in all planes of lower back movement.° But this is not an inevitable
-consequence of aging. Implementing some additional key postural correctives will ensure that
-you retain excellent posture. It will also enhance your ability to perform activities of daily living
-for the rest of your life.
-
-The present chapter provides you with the central principles of proper posture,
-communicating exactly how to hold your body in space. As with the diaphragm, however,
-knowing the tenets of proper placement is only half the battle. Like the diaphragm, your
-postural muscles are stuck in partial contraction, and the only way to release them is to push
-them through their full range of motion, over and over again. Releasing the muscles from
-dormancy in this way is the other half of the battle and the focus of the next four chapters.
-
-Proper Posture:
-
-e Ensures bones and joints are in alignment and working efficiently
-
-e Prevents the spine from being set in destructive abnormal positions
-
-e Prevents fatigue, strain, and overuse
-
-e Decreases wearing of joint surfaces that can result in arthritis
-
-e Increases the ability to generate appropriate levels of force at desired joints
-e Stabilizes the body against reactive forces and gravity
-
-e Makes you come across as a predator rather than as prey
-
-Poor Posture is Caused by Chronic Subordination
-
-We are all born with perfect posture, and many of us maintain it as far as early childhood. It
-breaks down due to inattention. Postural neglect, or a lack of body awareness, blinds us to our
-protruding head, rounded back, and uneven hips. Most people are similarly unaware of the soft
-tissue adaptations that reinforce these bad habits. When poor posture begins to feel normal,
-the muscle memory for good posture becomes inaccessible. We permit countless blind spots of
-overuse and underuse that crumple our bodies. These cause incoordination, hinder
-proprioceptive messages sent to the brain, and speed up the formation of trigger points.
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-Where does poor posture start? We ignore our stooping and make little attempt to correct it
-because we tacitly assume that any effort to enhance our posture will offend people.
-
-Bad posture is a social signal that communicates defeat. Slouching with head bowed and
-shoulders forward signifies inferiority in many mammals (especially monkeys and apes). This
-posture constitutes a mode of operation for looking downward under the eye line of more
-eminent individuals. It also declares a defective spine and a reluctance to challenge. Primates
-commonly use poor posture to avoid being attacked.® They are sending a signal that they are
-already defeated, despondent, and willing to submit to the wills of others. But by impoverishing
-their posture, nondominant mammals promote the formation of dormant muscles in the spine.
-This makes them likely to become hunched, distorted, and weak as they grow older.
-
-It is much the same with humans. Most people hold themselves as if a lion is about to
-attack them. Our slouching is heavily braced. We do this either to appease others or to put
-them at ease.’ We try not to appear like our motions are effortless by attenuating them. We try
-not to stand to tall by making ourselves look stymied and compacted. This is so commonplace
-that submissive posturing has become a conventional standard of modern behavior.
-
-Poor Posture Creates Pain, Stress, and Depressive Thinking
-
-Social conflict pressures us to adopt bad posture, which unfortunately leads back to more
-stress. Trigger points and muscle shortening cause pain, so the more deviated you are from
-your most biomechanically efficient posture, the more pain messages besiege your brain.
-Also, because we know that dormant muscles are weak points that will buckle and collapse if
-loaded improperly, they cause us to move with unease and apprehension. This restricted
-dynamism makes us feel defenseless and semi-disabled, turning our personality into that of
-a cornered animal.
-
-There are many methods for increasing stress in lab rats. One of the most effective is to
-restrain them by shackling their feet. This is known as “restraint stress.” Their stress hormones
-go through the roof, even when detained for only a few seconds. Looking back, | know that the
-curved postural restrictions in my spine were equivalent to shackles and were a source of
-restraint stress for me. As when our face holds a grimace, a stiff, stooped spine affects our
-unconscious appraisals of the environment.®
-
-Slumping impedes the lungs’ ability to fully inflate. Adopting a stooping stance causes
-experimental subjects to breathe more shallowly because the diaphragm has less room to
-descend. This accounts for why those same subjects find it much more challenging to learn how
-to breathe with the diaphragm when their posture is collapsed instead of erect.? By suppressing
-the diaphragm, poor posture also mobilizes the sympathetic nervous system.
-
-As you might have perceived, slumping is common in depression.*° Studies show that
-slouching tends to increase access to helpless, hopeless, and depressive thoughts.*?
-Contrastingly, assuming an upright posture results in faster recall of positive memories,’*
-increased energy levels,*? better body image,* and improved affect.+ This is what we want.
-So, next, let’s look at the specifics of how to position your body dominantly and optimally.
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-Self-Assess and Recalibrate Your Posture
-
-Before we discuss the characteristics of optimal posture, take a baseline look at your
-current posture.
-
-Postural Activity #13.1: Assume What You Think Is Good Posture
-
-Take photographs of yourself without a shirt, standing as you usually do. Take at least one
-from the front and one from the side. Next, take two more pictures standing in the way you
-believe constitutes good posture. Pay careful attention to your positional choices so you can
-compare them to the postural principles later in this section. Six months from now, repeat
-this exercise to see how your posture has changed.
-
-Ideal posture occurs when you use the least amount of energy to balance your body
-weight. You have three major weights in your body: your head, chest, and pelvis. Whether you
-are sitting or standing, you want to use the curves in your spine to ensure these three weights
-are neatly stacked atop one another. You can do this by ensuring that your earlobes are in line
-with your shoulders, which, in turn, are aligned with your hips.*¢ If they are not aligned, you will
-be out of balance and on a path toward pain. You can tell whether they are aligned by
-examining the pictures you took above, or by placing your back against a wall.
-
-Postural Activity #13.2: Use a Wall to improve Your Posture
-
-Stand in a neutral position against a wall. Your buttocks should be touching the wall and your
-heels should be about two to three inches away from it. How much space is there between
-your lower back and the wall? Make it so that there is only enough to insert your hand. Now
-pull your head and shoulder blades back to touch the wall. Unless your posture is excellent,
-you will find that you must use tension to keep them back. Try walking away from the wall
-while maintaining this alignment. This is your optimal posture.
-
-Cervical
-Lordosis
-
-____ Thoracic
-Kyphosis
-
-Lumbar
-Lordosis
-
-Cer
-
-Ilustration 13.1: A. Spine from the front; B. Spine and ribs from the back; C. Upper skeleton from the front;
-D. Spine from the side (facing left) exhibiting the three spinal curves: cervical (neck), thoracic (middle back),
-and lumbar (lower back).
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-
-|’
-
-A “neutral” or properly aligned spine exhibits three curves from the profile (pictured
-above). These natural curves can be excessively pronounced or not pronounced enough. For
-most people, they are overly pronounced.”” The curves are: 1) a backward curve in the neck
-region known as “cervical lordosis,” 2) a forward curve in the upper back called “thoracic
-kyphosis,” and 3) a backward curve in the lower back called “lumbar lordosis.” You had to alter
-these curves for your head, butt, and shoulder blades to meet the wall in the activity above.
-
-To repair these natural curves and ensure that they are not under- or over-pronounced, use the
-following optimal posture protocol.
-
-Optimal Posture Protocol:
-These are the five principles of proper standing posture:
-
-1) Keep your feet shoulder-width apart, pointing straight forward. Don’t lock your knees;
-keep them bent slightly.
-
-2) Tilt your hips backward by contracting your gluteus muscles. You don’t want your hips
-tilted forward, your lower back arched, or your butt sticking out.
-3) Tighten the abdominals and pull your abdomen in slightly.
-
-4) Let your arms hang down by your sides. Pull your shoulders back and down, spreading
-your chest. Lean your midback backward. The goal is to avoid slumping forward in the
-C-shape while rounding and shrugging your shoulders.
-
-5) Pull your head backward. Pull your chin toward your throat. You do not want your head
-hanging forward or your jaw jutting out.
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-IMlustration 13.2: Four of the five postural fixes: A. Contract the gluteus muscles and allow this action to roll the
-hips backward and reduce the arch in the lower back; B. Flex the abs and pull the belly button toward the spine;
-C. Lean the torso back, pulling the shoulders back and down; D. Lean the head backward with the chin tucked in
-toward the throat. A counteracts excessive lumbar lordosis, B and C counteract excessive thoracic kyphosis,
-and D counteracts excessive cervical lordosis.
-
-Try to use these postural tenets at least half the time you are standing up. They will feel
-oppressive and phony at first, but pairing them with full breaths using the upcoming exercises
-will make them your new set point.
-
-Anti-laxity: Temporarily Bracing Optimal Posture Will Strengthen It
-
-The exercises in this section involve lightly bracing postures that are integral to postural
-strength. Up to this point, | have vilified bracing. However, the form of bracing used in this
-section is deliberate, temporary, and not destructive because you will be taking breaks and
-pairing it with proper breathing.
-
-Unfamiliar muscular contractions increase the stress response. Previously, we discussed
-that widening the eyes, smiling, and looking up cause sympathetic activity to spike. Standing up
-straight does this too. It is the same with flexing the buttocks, the abdominals, and even the
-biceps. This link between firm contraction and stress keeps our muscles from having ideal tone
-at the joint. This reduction in tone is known as muscle laxity. Forceful contractions make us feel
-like we are showing off or like we are doing something unnatural. This, in turn, makes us
-breathe shallowly. This results in countless muscles going lax, and a reluctance to engage
-physically with the environment. We can reverse it with diaphragmatic breathing.
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-In general, people who breathe shallowly in response to unfamiliar contractions have the
-lowest tone and the smallest muscles. On the other hand, people who breathe comfortably,
-even under heavy loads, tend to be muscular. These tendencies form in childhood, but you can
-still influence them now. The following exercises will ask you to pair paced breathing with
-different forms of muscular bracing and loading. When you breathe calmly through the
-discomfort this causes, you are utilizing the Program Peace “anti-laxity” method.
-
-When performing anti-laxity, you are looking for any unfamiliar loading patterns that
-cause you to tremble, require great concentration to maintain, or take your breath away.
-During episodes of anxiety or submission some muscles go lax more than others and feel
-uncomfortable to contract. These are the muscles you are targeting. An example of this is
-performing a plank. Most people quiver and experience discomfort when planking. You want to
-spend time in these kinds of configurations, teaching your body that they are safe, and learning
-to breathe easily within them, even for several seconds at a time. After 10 cumulative minutes
-of exerting yourself at a moderate intensity in these loading configurations, they will become
-familiar, stable, and sound. The chin lock, facial exercises, and eye-widening from previous
-chapters are all examples of anti-laxity exercises.
-
-Anti-laxity Protocol
-
-1) Find a group of muscles you have neglected because you feel uncomfortable or self-
-conscious contracting them.
-
-2) Hold a firm contraction in these muscles for five to 30 seconds until they start to fatigue.
-Let them rest for twenty seconds and repeat. These contractions are generally meant to
-be isometric, meaning that they do not involve motion. Without risking strain or injury,
-alternate between clenching them softly and then very tightly (between 10 and 90% of
-their maximum).
-
-3) These contractions may make you startle or tremble, may require concentration, or may
-make you breathe shallowly. If it feels shaky, feeble, or wobbly, you know it needs
-anti-laxity.
-
-In Chapter 5, | said that we lightly brace our hands all day in the form of a claw. However,
-we are afraid to ball our hands into tight fists because other people may notice and think we
-are preparing to fight. This is why simply clenching our hands into fists raises our heart and
-breathing rates. The exercise below will use anti-laxity to heal this, priming your fingers and
-forearms for building strength. The exercises that follow do the same for other postural
-systems. Perform each with your breath metronome.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.2: Making a Fist
-Clench your fists into tight balls. Feel the contractions in each knuckle. Alternate between
-clenching softly and then as tightly as you can. Start with your wrists straight. Spend time
-rolling your wrists in wide circles while the fists are clenched. Become comfortable with the
-sensations you feel throughout your hands and forearms.
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-Postural Exercise #13.3: Clench the Elbow
-Clench your elbows by contracting your biceps, triceps, and forearm muscles. Do this with
-the arms bent at different angles from 10 to 170 degrees. Do it with the wrists rotated to
-different extents. Pose like an action movie star, your arms crossed in front of you with all
-the muscles flexing. Try it with the arms behind the back. Over a matter of days, this will go
-from feeling enfeebled to electrifying.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.4: Clenching the Buttocks
-While standing, clench your gluteus muscles into tight balls. Do this while placing your legs
-and lower back in different positions. If you do this while lying on your back, each gluteal
-contraction should lift you slightly off the ground.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.5: Clenching the Abdominals
-Flex your abdominal muscles. While you do this, suck your gut all the way in. You should be
-able to absorb a light punch to the stomach without the punch hitting your internal organs.
-Take a knuckle or a tool and lightly strike the abs in different regions from the ribs to the
-pubic bone to ensure that the abs are taut in all areas.
-
-Within a minute of performing the abdominal exercise above, you should notice your back
-round forward and your chest cave in toward your stomach. You don’t want to reinforce this.
-Continue to perform the exercise but with your back extended and your chest puffed out
-(optimal posture tenet four). This will overhaul your tendency to collapse the middle of your
-back when your abdominal muscles contract. Combining this with a contraction in your glutes
-will align your ribcage with your pelvis. Combining it with the next two exercise will align these
-with your neck.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.6: Shoulders Down While Supine
-
-Lie down on the floor on your back and slightly tuck your shoulder blades underneath you.
-Put your arms at your sides and raise your hands off the floor to the level of your hips. Next,
-push your arms down as if you were reaching for your knees. This will prime your shoulders
-to remain down and back.
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-Postural Exercise #13.7: Bringing the Chin Toward the Chest
-
-While standing, gently lean your head back until it aligns with the rest of your spine rather
-than in front of it. Next, bring your chin in toward your neck. This firm contraction in the
-front of your neck is a chin lock, previously described in Chapter 12. Feel how this resituates
-the neck.
-
-You may want to start out performing exercises 13.4-7 on your back on the floor.
-This remedial position will help you isolate, relax, and focus. When that feels comfortable,
-try using all of them simultaneously while standing up as in the next exercise.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.8: Optimal Posture While Standing
-
-Stand up straight and perform exercises 13.2-7 simultaneously. Contract your glutes and
-abdominal muscles as you tuck your shoulder blades behind you. Puff out your chest and
-press your arms toward the floor as you straighten the back of your neck. Using anti-laxity,
-stand tall, strong, and resolute.
-
-While you may feel apprehensive about how others will perceive you in this stance initially,
-don’t let this undermine your posture. Stand as if 100 people staring at you wouldn’t reduce
-your resolve. Stand as if a 45-caliber handgun discharge wouldn’t make you flinch. Stand as if
-you wouldn’t surrender even one iota of your optimal form even if you were being tased.
-Steel yourself against any startling or trembling.
-
-Shift your weight and the distribution of contractions to explore this configuration. Even just
-20 cumulative minutes over several days will appreciably desensitize you to the discomfort
-involved in sustaining this position. After a total of an hour, it should become credible to
-others and dependable for you.
-
-Most programs aimed at improving posture tell us not to stand unnaturally erect like a
-soldier. While they are correct in claiming that this can create more tension, they are wrong to
-think that it should never be done. Tensing and bracing hard within the four postural tenets
-(Exercises 13.4-7) is the best way to augment posture as long as you limit it to under a minute
-at a time, allow for ample regenerative breaks, and breathe properly. If you use anti-laxity to
-repeatedly fatigue your deep postural muscles, and then give them the rest they need, they will
-gain the strength and endurance to buttress your optimal posture. The following illustrations
-provide some examples of positions and poses you can perform anti-laxity within.
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-SPAY AR
-
-poe RU
-ee hy ay
-
-ENDS Hr
-
-Thitict
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-Illustration 13.3: Examples of positions and poses you can achieve anti-laxity from.
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-Good Posture Requires Healthy, Active Spinal Muscles
-
-The spine, also known as the backbone or vertebral column, is a stacked set of bone disks. It
-gives the trunk stability and protects the spinal cord. The human spine comprises a complex
-chain of ligaments, fascia, bone, and intervertebral discs, and their health is dependent on the
-tone of the surrounding spinal muscles. When the tone is either too high or too low, dormancy
-and damage ensues.
-
-When | think of the spine, | envision an inner worm that wants to stretch out and squirm in
-all directions. Dormant spinal muscle is like an oppressively tightened straitjacket that warps
-and restricts the worm’s movement. Large sections of the back, neck, and hips are not just
-braced in most people; they are splinted, as in a body cast. Due to the discomfort involved, we
-try to keep these joint configurations as still as possible. We move the rest of the body around
-these rigid, wounded areas. When we accidentally use them, they force us to startle and take
-our breath away. Thus, | see the entire spine as a kind of chakra of its own; one capable of
-holding massive amounts of trauma in the form of painful muscle shortening.
-
-The muscles that encase your spinal column constitute your true “core” and, as a unit, are
-the ultimate module to rehabilitate. These muscles run up and down your spine, interdigitating
-between your vertebrae and connecting them to various other body parts. By pushing and
-pulling against the vertebral bones, spinal muscles help your core bend, twist, and turn. It is
-difficult to move athletically without a mobile spine because the neck, shoulders, and hips are
-anchored in the spine, where they provide a base for the head, arms, and legs. Joseph Pilates
-referred to the neck, shoulders, and hips as the “powerhouse” of the body and insisted that
-they provide the foundation for all movement. For this reason, spinal dormancy is a primary
-limiting factor for people trying to build strength in their arms and legs. Are you having trouble
-putting on muscle or losing fat? You need to rehab your spine first if you want to reap the
-benefits of exercise.
-
-You want all the minor muscle groups in and around your spine to be capable of
-contracting entirely, have full range of motion, and articulate effortlessly during everything you
-do. When the muscles lining your vertebrae are active from top to bottom (atlas to coccyx), you
-can’t help but move nimbly, hold yourself gracefully, and think confidently. In the previous
-section we started to train them to hold a specific configuration. In the next section, we will
-wake them up.
-
-Backward Spinal Stretches Will Straighten You Out
-
-Social apprehension causes us to bend our spine forward (flexion) but rarely backward
-(extension). This results in difficulty and pain in any motions that require backward bending.
-Habitual stooping shortens the joint structures in the front of the spine and lengthens those in
-the back. This creates the characteristic “C” shape.
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-7 Cervical
-Vertebrae
-
-12 Thoracic
-Vertebrae
-
-5 Lumbar
-Vertebrae
-
-Sacrum
-Coccyx
-
-Illustration 13.4: A. Healthy spine with natural curvature; B. Collapsed unhealthy spine with excessive curvature
-and exaggerated C-shape.
-
-The best way to override the C-shaped spine is to regularly bend in the opposite direction,
-creating a backward “C.” There are many poses introduced in upcoming chapters to help with
-this, but the best way to start is to lie back onto a ball. Start with a large, inflatable stability ball.
-Spending time lying on your back on top of a stability ball will stretch the compressed muscles
-in the front of the spine and contract the atrophied muscles in the back. After a few weeks or
-months, try this with a foam roller. Lie on your back on the carpet and place the foam roller in
-different places under your spine. Very carefully move the foam roller to different areas,
-relaxing and breathing into the stretches. You are spot-treating your backward arch. Once you
-are accustomed to this, try rolling down the length of your back on the foam roller. Please be
-careful. The probability of a person with a bad back hurting themselves in this way is so high
-that foam rollers are rarely advertised for this purpose. You can gravely injure yourself by doing
-this too aggressively without listening to your body. It should never hurt. Rolling down the
-length of your spine on top of a basketball is even more ambitious. However, after working up
-to it, anyone would benefit from performing this daily as in the exercise below.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.9: Backward Extension ona Ball
-
-Lie on your back and place a basketball underneath your neck, between your shoulder
-blades. Beginners should use a deflated basketball and work up to using a fully inflated ball.
-Carefully roll from the top of your spine to the bottom three times. Stop at the kinked
-portions and stretch into the position from all angles. This will help you achieve spinal
-contractions in the weakest of muscles that you could never ordinarily reach while standing
-or sitting. If you use the anti-laxity protocol while doing this, the contractions will make your
-back strong and straight. Make sure you are relaxed and breathing deeply. Without paced
-breathing, you will resist the ball’s curvature. With paced breathing, you will melt into it. This
-will literally straighten you out.
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-Illustration 13.5: A. Backward bend on a stability ball; B. Achieving a full backward bend at different spinal
-segments using a foam roller; C. Rolling down the length of the spine on a basketball.
-
-Maintain Good Posture in Bed and When Waking
-
-We have talked about optimal posture while standing. In this section we will discuss it during
-sleep, and in the next section during sitting. The best sleeping posture is limp and linear.
-
-You want to sleep with a straight back and neck. Avoid curling up into the fetal position,
-which usually involves bracing and reinforces the C-shaped spinal configuration. Attaining
-proper support can help. When sleeping on your back, try placing a pillow under the knees.
-When sleeping on the side, place a pillow between the knees. If you sleep predominantly on
-your side, buy a body pillow and hug it, straddling it with your arms and legs. You also want a
-firm mattress that does not sag or contour your existing posture. An extra-firm mattress may
-take weeks to get used to, but it will straighten your spine as you slowly learn not to brace
-against a flat surface.
-
-Illustration 13.6: A. Woman curled into a C-shape while sleeping; B. Slightly improved sleeping position;
-C. Much-improved straight sleeping position.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.10: Stretches to Do in Bed
-When your alarm clock goes off in the morning, hit the snooze button once and buy yourself
-five minutes to perform three fundamental stretches. Employ anti-laxity while doing the
-following:
-
-1) Lay on your stomach. Lie there with your head turned to each side for a few minutes
-to get a good stretch in your neck. If laying on your stomach puts a strain on your
-lower back, bend one knee and bring it toward your chest.
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-2) Lay in the yoga “L” shape pictured below and slowly rock your feet in different
-directions to get a good stretch through your hips.
-
-3) Lay on your back and place a pillow or two under your thoracic spine. Spend time
-lying motionless, then try stretching your chest, neck, and back from this position.
-
-Illustration 13.7: A. Laying stomach, head to the side; B. L-shaped stretch for the hips; C. Pillow under the
-thoracic spine.
-
-Postural Exercise #13.11: Stretches to Do Out of Bed
-
-After you get out of bed, set your breath metronome for five minutes and perform the
-following anti-laxity exercises to wake up your spine. You can combine these stretches with
-Exercise 4.10 by performing them while looking into your own wide eyes in a mirror.
-
-1) Start with knees, shins, backs of the feet, and hands on the floor. For the first minute,
-press away from the ground while shrugging the shoulders. Do this while warming
-into the forward curves (kyphosis) in your neck, middle back, and lower back.
-
-2) For the next two minutes, warm up the backward curves (lordosis) in your neck,
-middle back, and lower back.
-
-3) For the final two minutes, sit on the floor with the back of your legs flat against the
-ground. Let your head hang and sink your head and neck toward your knees.
-
-Illustration 13.8: A. Kneeling shoulder shrug with full kyphosis in the neck and lower back; B. Kneeling backward
-stretch with full lordosis in the neck and lower back; C. Sitting forward stretch with full kyphosis in the middle back.
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-Sitting with Poor Posture Is Extremely Unhealthy
-
-Most of us sit far too much. Many of us are forced to sit just to earn a living. It is estimated that
-90 percent of office workers use computers, with 40 percent reporting usage of at least four
-hours per day. Unfortunately, using a computer for four or more hours per day greatly
-increases the risk of musculoskeletal disorders.*® This is one of the reasons office workers who
-sit in chairs garner more musculoskeletal injuries than any other industry and have the highest
-risk of heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cancer, and back and neck pain.?? Even
-people who do not work in an office setting develop misalignments from sitting. This happens
-at school, in the car, and in front of the television.
-
-Sitting intensifies the rounding of our spines into the C-shape. When the spine is rounded,
-the weight distribution changes, creating perpendicular shear forces. This “resting tension”
-compresses the spine and weakens crucial muscles, robbing you of the mobility and strength
-you need to sit, stand, and walk properly. Worse yet, because your body adapts to the position
-you assume throughout the day, the more you sit, the more you want to sit.
-
-In his book, Deskbound, physical therapist Kelly Starrett2° calls sitting a “toxic position that
-feasts on athletic potential.” It truly is. The best recourse is to vary your posture often to get
-blood to stagnant, poorly perfused muscles. You should shift positions every two minutes from
-one neutral position to another. Every 20 minutes, straighten your legs, squeeze your thighs
-together, and flex your glutes. Grab the back of the chair behind you and use it to twist. It is
-also important to take five-minute breaks during which you walk away from your chair every
-hour. Don’t be afraid to lie down, take a walk, or stretch during your breaks.
-
-The postural misalignments due to sitting are made worse by shallow breathing. Studies
-show that people automatically engage in shallow breathing when working at a desk, especially
-if they are behind a keyboard.” In some studies, every participant who placed their hands ona
-keyboard demonstrated an increased respiration rate2* and reduced motion of the diaphragm.
-This happens because sitting positionally inhibits the diaphragm. As mentioned earlier,
-slumping encroaches on the diaphragm’s natural range of motion, forcing shallow breathing,
-which in turn causes the release of stress hormones.
-
-Sitting up straight in your chair deepens your breath, as does breathing through your nose.
-So, you might want to think about taping your mouth at your desk to ensure nasal breathing.
-| also strongly suggest using a breath metronome at your desk. Remember how hard it was
-back in Chapter 3 to eat a meal while following a breath metronome for the first time? Trying to
-do office work while engaged in paced breathing is even more difficult to coordinate at first.
-
-It will initially interfere with your concentration.
-
-Most people hold their breath intermittently when trying to focus their attention in what
-has been called “concentration apnea.”*? As you read in Chapter 7, shallow, distressed
-breathing helps us focus in the short term due to its association with adrenaline and alertness.
-However, after using a breath metronome at your desk for a week or two, you can override
-your tendency toward concentration apnea and develop the ability to focus concertedly while
-breathing diaphragmatically. Place your phone with the breathing app software running next to
-your computer monitor and follow it out of the corner of your eye. Don’t be surprised if pairing
-paced breathing with desk work helps you change your whole attitude about your job while
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-increasing your productivity and work ethic in general. It is much like “whistling while
-you work.”
-
-The Ideal Sitting Posture
-
-To sit optimally, you must maintain the natural lordosis in your neck and lower back that is
-present while standing. To do this, sit up in your chair with your back straight. Shoulders should
-hang straight down. Elbows should not be in front of the torso, and hands should be below the
-level of the elbows. Place your keyboard accordingly.
-
-When it comes to your lower back and hips, it is essential to distribute your weight equally.
-Remove anything from your back pockets such as a wallet or phone to assist with this. When
-sitting, keep your knees a few inches wider than your hips, as this will stabilize your pelvis.
-Your knees should also be level with or slightly below the hips but not above them. Keep the
-toes pointed forward, with the feet flat on the floor. If your back is leaning against the chair,
-press your buttocks against the chair back, too. If not, sit at the edge of the seat placing about
-40 percent of your weight is on your feet.
-
-It is obligatory to sit with most of your weight transferred to the chair through your sitz
-bones (ischial tuberosities). The sitz bones are two protuberances at the lowest point of the hip
-bone (pictured below). The cushion on many chairs makes it challenging to find your sitz bones.
-However, when sitting on a hard surface, you should be able to find them easily. If you cannot
-feel two hard contact points, one under each gluteus, then you are not sitting on your sitz
-bones and your spine is likely curved. Curved pillars have little structural integrity. Rock back
-and forth on your sitz bones to find a sturdy upright posture. This is active sitting. You are more
-likely to stay seated on your sitz bones when you sit on the edge of the chair, sit on a hard
-wooden or metal chair, or place a hard object like a book underneath you.
-
-Most people actively avoid sitting on the sitz bones, sitting instead on their tail bone,
-and tucking the pelvis like a shrimp. This is a form of lumbar kyphosis, also known as “posterior
-pelvic tilt.” A tucked pelvis inactivates our hip flexors, putting all the strain of sitting on the
-lower back. Avoid this by pretending you have a vestigial tail extending from the base of your
-spine. Don’t sit on the base of your tail. Instead, sit below it (on the sitz bones), allowing your
-imaginary tail to emerge just above the place of contact with your chair.
-
-Illustration 13.9: A. Pelvis with sitz bones at the bottom; B. Pelvis seen from the side, resting on tail bone;
-C. Pelvis resting on sitz bones; D. Skeleton sitting on sitz bones.
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-It can be tiring to sit on your sitz bones all day. Therefore, do what postural experts advise
-against and sink down in your chair, sitting on your tailbone for at least two to five minutes
-every hour. You can use this position as a brief counterpose. When you do so, stretch
-lordotically and kyphotically and swivel the hips. Standing is good, too. Many people use
-standing desks. You might consider placing your laptop on a bookshelf around waist height for
-a few hours at a time to create your own standing desk.
-
-The design of most chairs conforms to the average person’s poor posture. However, you
-can avoid this trap by buying an ergonomic, posture-conscious desk chair. You might consider
-buying a lumbar pillow specially designed to support your lower back. You can also place a roll
-vertically down your spine, helping you to push your shoulders back. Change the settings on
-both your chair and car seat frequently to expose your sitting posture to different loading
-profiles. If your seat reclines, spend a portion of your sitting time leaning back at an angle.
-
-The more positions you can use, the better.
-
-Cross and spread your legs more often. Being comfortable sitting with the legs spread is
-one of the most telling signs of dominance. We must remove the stigma against men crossing
-their legs and women spreading their legs. Similarly, many people inhibit pronounced flexion
-and extension of the lower back because they fear others will see it as sexual. We need to feel
-comfortable assuming these postures in public because they allow us to refresh our hips, groin,
-and lumbar spine, leading to more postural variation and stronger, more mobile backs.
-
-Daily sitting time is a major risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.7* This is the
-case even in people who exercise regularly. Studies have shown that even daily exercise cannot
-counteract the effects of sitting and sedentariness. However, | think that diaphragmatic
-breathing, postural variation, anti-laxity and anti-rigidity (discussed in the next chapter) may.
-Remaining in a static sitting position for years on end dramatically reduces circulation and
-mobility. We can avoid this by using other postures that serve as alternatives to traditional
-ways of sitting. The figures below offer some for your consideration.
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-Illustration 13.10: Several different positions for working or reading that are good alternatives to conventional
-sitting. The oblong ball pictured in the last two illustrations is an “inflatable peanut.”
-
-Our ancestors rarely sat on a raised surface like a chair. Rather, they sat on the ground,
-knelt, or squatted. In other words, chair sitting is unnatural for humans. Yet Americans sit in
-chairs or sofas for an average of 13 hours a day.?> Many experts believe that musculoskeletal
-integrity is much better in countries where people sleep on the floor, use squat toilets, and do
-not use chairs. This is because they must crouch, kneel, and bend over several times per day.?°
-Many Americans co not crouch, kneel, or bend over at all.
-
-The main reason older people are placed into nursing homes is that they cannot get off the
-ground on their own. Indeed, the ability to get up from and down to the floor is a good
-predictor of overall mortality.2” This should motivate you, whether reading, watching TV,
-or relaxing, to spend as much time on the ground in as many different positions as possible.
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-Don’t watch TV from the couch. Watch it from a million different positions on the floor.
-You might start with some of the following:
-
-pro tia PBK
-
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-
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-‘BA cca
-Dd Be AH A
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-Conclusion
-
-| believe that in the workplace, in classrooms, and even within families, we are constantly
-sending each other nonverbal feedback, practically bullying each other into slouching. When
-someone else stands straight, we have a natural inclination to be offended. Our instinct is to try
-to pull them back down. What we should do is applaud them while being reminded to better
-monitor our own posture. If you notice people trying to coerce you back into slouching, just
-ignore it, and reassure yourself that they are in the wrong.
-
-This chapter guided you to brace within the five tenets of optimal posture and pair this
-bracing with diaphragmatic breathing. While doing so, you should have noticed that some
-points within each posture were marked by weakness and pain. Holding your back, neck, and
-shoulders in firmly upright positions probably feels tight and somewhat intense. It is a brittle,
-aching pain, almost as if the muscles are asking you to leave them alone—warning you that
-excessive use will lead to injury. This aching is the signature of dormant muscle and to treat it
-we need an entirely different technique. The next chapter will show you how to rehab it by
-contracting into it and breathing through the discomfort using a method | call “anti-rigidity.”
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-Chapter 13: Bullet Points
-
-e Mammals signal submission with their body posture. They collapse the spine, which,
-over time, strains it and causes pain.
-
-e Postural concessions lead the muscles that support confident posture and dominance
-poses to become frail, shortened, and stuck in partial contraction.
-
-e Stooping to look non-threatening will bend your spine into a forward C-shape over time.
-
-e Backbends repair this forward C-shape by strengthening your backward C.
-
-e Laying backward over an inflatable stability ball, foam roller, or basketball will straighten
-your spine.
-
-e The five tenets of optimal posture are:
-
-1) Space your feet shoulder-width apart with toes pointing forward.
-
-2) Roll your hips forward and contract your gluteus muscles.
-
-3) Tense your abdomen taut and gently pull your belly button toward the spine.
-4) Pull your shoulders back and down.
-
-5) Tilt your head back and pull your chin toward your throat.
-
-e Building postural muscles can be accomplished by pairing paced breathing with firm
-contractions in the muscles that support the five tenets above.
-
-e Combining very firm contractions of muscles that are not used to contracting firmly (and
-may tremble under load), and combining this with paced breathing is a therapeutic
-method called anti-laxity.
-
-e Vary your position often, whether sitting, standing, or lying down.
-
-e Postural inattention is a major contributor to poor posture, so be mindful of your
-posture during everyday activities.
-
-e Sitting tense, motionlessly, while shallow breathing is highly detrimental to posture and
-health in general.
-
-e Sitting directly on the sitz bones rather than the tailbone will support your lower back
-and keep it strong.
-
-e It is much healthier to sit on the floor in various positions than to sit in a chair or
-a couch.
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-Chapter 13: Endnotes
-
-1. Satariano, W., Guralnik, J. M., Jackson, R. J., Marottoli, R. A., Phelan, E. A., & Prohaska,
-T. R. (2012). Mobility and aging: New directions for public health action. American Journal of
-Public Health, 102(8), 1508-1515.
-
-2. de Waal, F. (2013). The bonobo and the atheist: In search of humanism among the
-primates. WW Norton & Company.
-
-3. Collins, A. (2003). Gestures, body language and behavior. DKC.
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-4. Dael, N., Mortillaro, M., & Scherer, K. R. (2011). Emotion expression in body action
-and posture. Emotion, 12(5), 1085-1101.
-
-5. Mason, L., Joy, M., Peper, E., & Harvey, R. A. (2017, March). Posture matters [Poster
-presentation]. 48th Annual Meeting of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and
-Biofeedback, Chicago, IL.
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-6. Michalak, J., Troje, N. F., Fischer, J., Vollmar, P., Heidenreich, T., & Schulte, D. (2009).
-Embodiment of sadness and depression: Gait patterns associated with dysphoric mood.
-Psychosomatic Medicine, 71(5), 580-587.
-
-7. Peper, E., Booiman, A., Lin, |. M., & Harvey, R. (2016). Increase strength and mood with
-posture. Biofeedback, 44(2), 66-72.
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-8. Peper, E., Lin, I-M., Harvey, R., & Perez, J. (2017). How posture affects memory recall
-and mood. Biofeedback, 45(2), 36-41.
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-9. Peper, E., & Lin, I-M. (2012). Increase or decrease depression: How body postures influence
-your energy level. Biofeedback, 40(3), 126-130.
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-10. Canales, J. Z., Cordas, T. A., Fiquer, J. T., Cavalcante, A. F., & Moreno, R. A. (2010).
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-Posture and body image in individuals with major depressive disorder: A controlled study.
-Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, 32(4), 375-380.
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-11. Wilkes, C., Kydd, R., Sagar, M., & Broadbent, E. (2017). Upright posture improves affect and
-fatigue in people with depressive symptoms. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental
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-Psychiatry, 54, 143-149.
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-12. Pavilack, L., & Alstedter, N. (2016). Pain-free posture handbook. Althea Press.
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-13. Bond, M. (2007). The new rules of posture: How to sit, stand and move in the modern
-world. Healing Arts Press.
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-14. Sjogaard, G., Lundberg, U., & Kadefors, R. (2000) The role of muscle activity and mental
-load in the development of pain and degenerative processes at the muscle cell level during
-computer work. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 83(2-3), 99-105.
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-15. Starrett, K., & Cordoza, G. (2013). Becoming a supple leopard: The ultimate guide to
-resolving pain, preventing injury, and optimizing athletic performance. Victory Belt Publishing.
-
-16. Starrett, K., Starrett, J., & Cordoza, G. (2016). Deskbound: Standing up to a sitting world.
-Victory Belt Publishing.
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-17. Peper, E., Harvey, R., & Tylova, H. (2006). Stress protocol for assessing computer related
-disorders. Biofeedback, 34(2), 57-62.
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-18. Peper, E., Burke, A. & Peper, E. J. (2001). Captured by the computer: A psychophysiological
-profile of boys playing computer games. Proceedings of the Thirty Second Annual Meeting of
-the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. Wheat Ridge, CO: AAPB.
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-19. Olsson, A. (2014). The power of your breath. The secret key to reshaping your looks, your
-body, your health, and your weight. Anders Olsson.
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-20. Bailey, D. P., Hewson, D. J., Champion, R. B., & Sayegh, S. M. (2019). Sitting time and risk of
-cardiovascular disease and diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. American Journal
-of Preventative Medicine. 57(3), 408-416.
-
-21. Levine, J. (2014). Get up! Why your chair is killing you and what you can do about it. St
-Martins Press.
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-22. Starrett, K., Starrett, J., & Cordoza, G. (2016). Deskbound: Standing up to a sitting world.
-Victory Belt Publishing.
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-23. Brito, L. B., Ricardo, D. R., Araujo, D. S., Ramos, P. S., Myers, J., & Araujo, C. G. (2014).
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-Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality. European Journal of
-Preventive Cardiology, 21(7), 892-898.
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-Chapter 14: Anti-rigidity Therapy: Bring Dormant
-Muscle to Fatigue
-
-The last chapter explained that to have optimal posture, you must free your postural muscles
-from partial contraction. This chapter emphasizes that to do this, you must search your body
-for these segments of dormant muscle and push them through their full range of motion.
-These full, firm contractions should be held long enough to push the muscle to fatigue. As soon
-as fatigue is reached, it should be followed by full relaxation. This chapter will describe how to
-use this new technique that | call “anti-rigidity” therapy to reinstate motion diversity in your
-life. | created this technique by experimenting on myself and developed it further while using it
-with my clients. It will work for you, but only if you are breathing diaphragmatically.
-
-Using Dormant Muscles Wakens Them from Dormancy
-
-The lives of our nomadic hunter-gatherer ancestors featured endless variation in movement.
-They spent their time foraging, hunting, scouting, ranging, and setting up and breaking down
-camps. They dug for vegetables, picked fruit, made weapons, cleaned animal hides, prepared
-food, and carried wood, water, and children. On the other hand, the modern human habitat is
-one of urban dwelling, sedentary technology use, and cultures of convenience. Most people go
-months without extending their muscles beyond the requirements for mere walking. Compared
-to our ancestors, the geometric diversity of our daily motions is impoverished.
-
-We are essentially animals in captivity, imprisoned by the incredibly low variation of our
-movement patterns. By moving in the same limited ways, we deny our bodies the nutritious
-movement they are starving for. We self-limit our ranges of motion because of bracing,
-postural inattention, intimidation, sitting, restraining working positions, laziness, surgery, injury,
-and load-bearing (including things like pregnancy, heavy backpacks, breast augmentation, and
-obesity). The tension from these activities results in shortened, hypertonic, dormant muscle.
-
-Medical experts have documented that dormant segments of the spine exhibit many of the
-same physiological properties as cadaver spine. They get so little blood that they might as well
-be zombie flesh. Because their oxygen and nutrient supply has been strangled off, these beef
-jerky-like muscles in your back hurt. Pushing them into contraction outside of their customarily
-restricted range causes pain. Accidentally forcing them into rapid full contraction (e.g., during a
-fall) can be excruciating. This pain, and fear of it, can influence us to avoid using dormant
-muscle entirely.
-
-We engineer the use of dormant muscles out of our lives and find ways to get around
-having to use them, which leads to a poorly balanced and ungainly physique. This
-compensation leads us to use other muscles that are biomechanically less efficient at
-completing the task. Then these muscles also take on strain. To correct this problem, we must
-reteach ourselves to use the dormant, partially contracted muscle by flexing through the
-untapped phases of its contractile range.
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-Anti-rigidity Training: The “Aching/Cracking Method”
-
-The anti-rigidity technique involves finding the most dormant parts of the body and subjecting
-them to a full-range stretch and full-range contraction. The first step is to find a dormant joint.
-To do this, you must search for two sensations that are usually found together: 1) cracking or
-popping of the joint, and 2) sore, achy muscle. You should notice that as you bring a joint into
-the range where it cracks, it will feel sore if held in that position. These areas feel brittle
-because they are frail from disuse. Once you have found a position like this, you want to gently
-contract the muscles involved while engaging in paced breathing.
-
-At first, it feels unnatural to hold a posture that cracks for a prolonged period. Your impulse
-will be to achieve the crack and allow the muscles to relax immediately thereafter. Avoid this
-inclination. Whether the joint cracks is not important. What is important is that you take your
-time stretching and flexing into the joint configurations susceptible to cracking. Cracking
-provides temporary relief from joint pain through the release of endorphins but does not heal
-tension. You want permanent relief that is provided only by strengthening the joint and the
-muscles surrounding it.
-
-Anti-rigidity Protocol
-
-1) Find a contraction or active stretch that feels stiff and achy when held. This often
-involves an unfamiliar position or posture and leads to cracking at the joint. The point
-where this configuration cracks is the most in need of rehab. Engage, stabilize, and hold
-the position until it fatigues. This usually takes between five and 30 seconds.
-
-2) Hold the general parameters of the posture while varying others. Move the joint
-dynamically, utilizing its range of motion in every possible vector, flexing into the ones
-that seem the stiffest or sorest. If you can continually reposition, you can approach the
-problem from different angles. Anti-rigidity can be done with concentric contractions
-(in which the muscle shortens), eccentric contractions (in which the muscle lengthens),
-or isometric contractions (in which the muscle does not change length).
-
-3) Allow the area at least 15 seconds of complete rest before you try again. Use this respite
-to recognize what the muscle feels like when it is completely resting.
-
-4) Stimulate dormant muscles throughout the body in this way while breathing correctly.
-As long as you are breathing diaphragmatically, you should feel the ache diminish in a
-matter of seconds. At first, the ache may be so intense that it makes paced breathing
-difficult. In that case, just ensure that you are taking long, passive exhalations. You can
-facilitate this by taking deep inhalations through the mouth and then puckering your lips
-and blowing out for as long as possible to reinforce the relaxation response.
-
-5) After your anti-rigidity training session, it is essential to allow these muscles to relax
-completely, so lie down (employing the corpse pose, body scan, or progressive muscle
-relaxation from Chapter 5) and let the contractions subside.
-
-Start by targeting raw and achy areas in your shoulders, neck, back, and hips. This achiness is
-the deep somatic pain and myalgia that we discussed in Chapter 5. Search for this discomfort
-within your unexplored end ranges of motion. It helps to position yourself in ways that are out
-of the ordinary. Wiggle and writhe in these positions as you hunt for tissue to restore.
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-Gently jostle the muscles to get them moving. Start with what you can find and then spend the
-most time in the configurations you would like to heal. You are hunting for that crick in the
-neck, tweak in the shoulder, and twinge in the lower back. By the time you have used anti-
-rigidity to dispel all the achiness from your body, your posture will be statuesque.
-
-Anti-rigidity Activity #14.1: Sense the Tightness in Your Shoulders
-
-Stand or sit with your hands on your hips. Keep your hands there and press your elbows out
-in front of you. You should feel a tight, stiff sensation in your upper back, shoulders, and
-arms. This is the aching sensation that | am asking you to locate throughout your body. Play
-with the posture, gently shrugging, bending your elbows, and flapping the arms. Use the anti-
-rigidity protocol above to find sore muscles while stretching and contracting within this pose.
-
-~
-
-Ilustration 14.1: Anti-rigidity for the shoulders.
-
-Anti-rigidity Activity #14.2: Contract Dormant Muscle in the Neck
-
-Locate the achy muscles in your neck. There should be many uncomfortable positions that
-feel sore and crack. Try looking up as far as you can while rotating your head to both sides.
-Try looking down as far as you can and then to both sides. Try touching your chin to your
-chest and then tilting your head to each side. Try touching your chin to each shoulder
-repeatedly. When you find an uncomfortable position, hold it for several seconds while
-maintaining paced breathing.
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-Illustration 14.2: Anti-rigidity for the neck.
-
-As you work through these tender areas, integral sections of your body will start to
-open up. You might ask yourself: “Is this whole region going to become unlocked and available
-to me?” Yes, it will. If you keep practicing, eventually it will all come unglued. Below are
-illustrations of some anti-rigidity poses that will help you to expose and recondition frailty.
-As you practice these, you will inevitably come up with poses of your own that are better suited
-for your particular strain pattern.
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-At first, anti-rigidity work feels unnatural, but after a while, your muscles will thirst for it,
-and you will find yourself doing it without realizing it. Relish the alleviation of the ache. Bask in
-the sensation of sending fresh blood through dormant tissue. Memorize the sensorial signature
-of tensity. It feels a little like the gnawing burn that accompanies lactic acid buildup. It is also
-similar to the soreness you feel when massaged. Anti-rigidity will help you locate the best
-candidates for compression and percussion. If, for example, you used anti-rigidity to identify
-the precise location of tightness to the right of your lower cervical spine, you should then try to
-compress it. Using massage to release muscles after anti-rigidity training will allow them to fully
-relax so they can heal.
-
-After anti-rigidity, the muscle you treated will have increased blood flow for several hours.
-This means that any other activity or exercise you perform during this time will recruit that
-muscle and condition it to be more easily recruited in the future. However, within just a few
-hours of disuse, the muscles will stagnate again. The more frequently you refresh dormant
-muscles with anti-rigidity, the faster they will come out of dormancy. | recommend using it
-before and after long periods of sitting, upon waking, before bed, and after your usual
-exercise routine.
-
-Using anti-rigidity, you teach your brain to control muscle that it has come to ignore
-through learned disuse. You are actively relearning how to incorporate these neglected muscles
-into your daily routines and overall posture. This will develop your proprioceptive awareness
-(knowledge about where your muscles are in space) and kinesthetic awareness (ability to
-coordinate muscles cohesively) while enhancing neuromuscular coordination and agility.
-Anti-rigidity will also reduce the fidgeting and restlessness that painful dormant muscle causes.
-It might look strange to others, but don’t worry about that. Feel comfortable performing
-anti-rigidity training wherever you go, whether in front of friends or in public. | believe that
-anti-rigidity therapy is one of the most beneficial “somatic self-healing” techniques available.
-
-How Anti-rigidity Works
-
-Anti-rigidity causes mechanical deformations in muscle that result in cascades of beneficial
-biochemical processes. For instance, it is known that contracting dormant muscle compresses
-embedded arterioles and other blood vessels, causing their walls to relax and spread open
-(vasodilation). The walls open wide, drawing blood into the surrounding capillaries. This pulls
-oxygen into the area and allows the clearance of waste products built up from sustained
-contraction. Over time, it enhances the resilience and pliability of not just muscles but also
-tendons, ligaments, and fascia.
-
-Some of your muscles get this perfusion and clearance every day, but the dormant ones
-are deprived of it. Even during a full-body workout, dormant muscles often receive only
-minimal contraction. Exercise only improves the distribution of oxygen and nutrients to the
-muscles used in that particular exercise. In other words, the benefits of exercise are not
-systemic. This is why pursuing varied movement is so important. Missing out on essential loads
-is like missing out on essential vitamins.
-
-In physical rehabilitation and sports training, there is a popular principle called SAID
-(specific adaptation to imposed demand). This states that your muscles will gradually get better
-at the demands you place on it. If you contract seldom-used muscles, they will adapt, and with
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-time be able to contract fully. The best way to take advantage of the SAID principle is to make
-small demands on the body and to gradually increase the intensity as the body adapts.
-
-Anti-rigidity gently forces trigger points to contract causes them to unravel and burn out.
-This lengthens the muscle, quells muscle spasms, extinguishes ongoing inflammation, and
-unfurls myofascial restrictions. As you do this, you are weeding the trauma out of your spine,
-scaling down your chronic pain, and diminishing its emotional burden. By providing the muscle
-the exercise it has been deprived of, full contraction affords it the ability to rest and recover. In
-essence, by pushing muscles with minimal capability for endurance to full fatigue, anti-rigidity
-builds their endurance. Because much of your dormant muscle is postural, converting it into
-muscle capable of enduring body weight will resurrect your body’s foundation.
-
-For clarity, the following table summarizes some of the important distinctions between
-anti-laxity and anti-rigidity. It is important to note that the two do overlap to an extent and that
-they also complement each other in practice.
-
-Sensations
-Involved
-
-Action
-
-Consequence
-
-Anti- Firm Hypotonic, Reinforcing Weakness Increasing
-
-laxity isometric atrophied postures of and strength and
-contraction muscle strength trembling tone
-
-Anti- Stretch Hypertonic, Rehabilitating Aching, Decreasing
-
-rigidity combined dormant muscles stuck in | soreness, weakness and
-with firm muscle partial and excessive tone
-contraction contraction cracking
-
-Table 14.1: Comparing Anti-laxity with Anti-rigidity
-
-Anti-rigidity Fills in Missing Corners
-
-Dormant muscles are responsible for the “missing corners” in your range of motion. Because
-the muscle is stuck in partial contraction, it is incapable of moving pliantly. People of Eastern
-philosophical persuasions call these “energy blocks.” While prior chapters have examined the
-effect this has on the diaphragm, eyes, face, and vocal apparatus, this chapter focuses
-specifically on the spine, core, and postural muscles. There are numerous muscles throughout
-your spine that you only contract within 25 percent of their full range of motion. Find them and
-rescue them by pushing them toward 100.
-
-As you rehab missing corners, you will expose other missing corners beneath them. There
-are hierarchies of missing corners to reestablish. When one spinal segment is curled up and
-inoperative, it undermines those nearby it, rendering them inaccessible. Correcting one
-provides leverage for correcting others. Using the anti-rigidity method regularly, you will
-continue to discover repositories of strength you never knew you had.
-
-You may come to recognize that many of your most dormant muscles derive from previous
-injuries. Using anti-rigidity, | encountered many previous strains and sprains from adolescence
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-and young adulthood that | had forgotten about. The process is like unearthing fossils. If you
-drive, then you probably have dormant muscle in your right ankle, knee, and hip from working
-the gas and the brake. Likewise, if you work on a computer, you probably have strain in your
-right shoulder that runs up your neck from bracing while holding the mouse. | had pronounced
-lumbar knots from decades of bending over the sink to wash my face and brush my teeth.
-
-The problem was, | did those things from a single fixed position without contracting my glutes.
-Anti-rigidity treated all of these.
-
-Do you ever bend over and reach a point where you know that you will hurt yourself if you
-continue? This is a corner that is completely missing. Most people have countless postural
-configurations like this that cannot be loaded at all. Many muscles in the hips and lower back
-can barely withstand a small fraction of body weight. You want to load these frail muscles very
-lightly at first, increasing the load over time. To load the muscles with less than body weight,
-you must lessen the effects of gravity by placing your body into unfamiliar yet supported
-positions like those illustrated above. The techniques used in Pilates and the poses used in yoga
-can also be used to this end.
-
-Using Anti-rigidity with Distressed Breathing Is Counterproductive
-
-Performing anti-rigidity will make you want to breathe shallowly. One of the main reasons that
-dormant muscle stays dormant is because every time you try to use it, it takes your breath
-away. Pairing distressed breathing with anti-rigidity defeats the purpose. In fact, shallow
-breathing is enough to turn anti-rigidity work into injurious tension building. When | first
-started developing the anti-rigidity technique, many friends saw me stretching restlessly and
-told me, “You know, you look to me like you are just making the tension worse.” They felt this
-way because doing the same exercises would irritate their muscles. Contracting dormant
-muscle is something that our bodies naturally tend to avoid because, under distressed
-breathing, the muscle will only become further agitated. Diaphragmatic breathing makes all
-the difference.
-
-Be mindful that you are breathing diaphragmatically, at no more than six breaths per
-minute, or else anti-rigidity will lead to more tension. It is imperative that you breathe long, full,
-smooth breaths, preferably through the nose. Employ a breath metronome when possible.
-Consider performing anti-rigidity after a diaphragmatic breathing session. You will find that five
-minutes of breathing along with a breath metronome will make you more limber and make it
-easier to identify achy muscles. After 20 minutes of paced breathing, anti-rigidity will feel like
-picking low-hanging fruit.
-
-Anti-rigidity is also accentuated after exercise, massage, or the application of heat. It is far
-easier to sense and contract dormant muscle after a workout or rubdown. The same goes for a
-hot shower or bath. This is the rationale behind the practice of “hot” yoga. To experience this,
-take a shower that is as hot as possible without being uncomfortable. You might want to rub
-moistened Epsom salt into your neck and shoulders beforehand. Let the heated water hit the
-back of your neck and stream down your spine. You will notice that your neck cracks more
-easily, is more flexible, and you can more fully contract the muscles for upwards of 10 minutes.
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-Rushing Anti-rigidity is Counterproductive
-
-As you get better at performing anti-rigidity, you will become more ambitious and attempt to
-rejuvenate the stiffest areas in your neck and lower back. By moving slowly and carefully,
-
-you can work through these boundaries. However, if you try to force through them, the tissues
-will become more defensive, not less. Dormant tissues require a gentle approach. Pretend that
-you are trying to slowly lengthen a piece of a plastic bag without tearing it. At a certain point,
-you should feel a slight resistance to your movement. Some physical therapists refer to this as
-a “stretch point.” As you hold the position, wait patiently. When the aching sensation fades,
-your stretch point is releasing.
-
-Bouncing through a stretch can be counterproductive unless it is a very subtle bounce.
-This is because hard bounces pull quickly on muscle fibers, alerting specialized sensors within
-the muscle that it has been suddenly overstretched. Nerve signals from these receptors will
-cause the muscle to shorten further, which is exactly what you don’t want. Make your
-contractions gradual and slow, using only 10-40 percent of your maximum effort. Think of
-melting into each stretch. If you contract too rapidly or forcefully, you will engage fast-twitch
-muscle fibers. Contracting slowly will enlist the slow twitch endurance fibers that establish
-enduring postural tone.
-
-| sought out the most painful and weak cruxes in my body and totally reclaimed them.
-However, | knew there was a chance that | could herniate a disc or sprain a vital ligament.
-
-This is why you must perform anti-rigidity very carefully, especially when starting out.
-Working through your most frail areas can lead to great injury. However, once restored,
-they will become highly resistant to injury. Choose consistency over intensity. Avoid
-movements that prove to aggravate and pursue those that heal. Chip away at your frailty a
-little each day to make every bit of your body’s muscle accessible.
-
-It is necessary to mention that anti-rigidity is not contortionism. You are not attempting to
-force your body into strange and awkward positions. Also, do not mistake the ache of dormant
-muscle with the pain of pushing a joint outside its intended range. With time, you will learn to
-recognize the exact difference between engaging frailty and intruding into the body’s natural
-joint barriers.
-
-You should never hurt, or even be sore, the next day after using anti-rigidity. If you are,
-you either went too hard or have a serious underlying injury. If you experience a tight pinching
-or burning sensation, there could be nerve damage. In that case, discontinue immediately.
-
-If you have a related disease or disorder, discuss anti-rigidity with a physician before using it.
-Carefully monitor your pain pattern. If existing pain becomes worse from these activities,
-discontinue immediately and seek advice from a qualified physician.
-
-Normal cracking is fine, but grating, popping, and crackling sounds indicate a
-musculoskeletal injury. Do not attempt anti-rigidity if you experience sensations of pins and
-needles or numbness. Do not attempt if you have been in a recent accident or experience
-severe headaches. If the pain spreads or radiates to other locations, stop the exercises
-immediately and consult your doctor. Know your limits and do not overdo it.
-
-Anti-rigidity’s Relation to Chiropractic
-| have visited five different chiropractors in my life for a total of around 10 appointments. These
-visits in my late twenties helped inspire me to develop the anti-rigidity method. | recommend
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-visiting a chiropractor yourself so that you can become acquainted with what it feels like to
-have the body in a configuration where highly dormant muscle is directly engaged and released.
-
-The first time | went to a chiropractor, he commented on how tight my neck was. He was
-able to crack my spine in several locations. This influenced me to go home and flex into the
-same spinal configurations he created when performing the adjustments. For instance, | would
-try to fully extend my neck, looking toward the ceiling, while rotating my head from left to right.
-It ached deeply, and | wondered if working through this aching could improve my neck. It did.
-
-Only two years later, the same chiropractor told me that he was unable to adjust my spine
-at all. When he tried to perform spinal manipulations, my joints moved with the manipulation
-fluidly without cracking. In fact, | can no longer find a chiropractor who can successfully crack
-my neck or lower back. After feeling the muscles on the back of my neck with their fingers,
-some told me that my neck is healthy and does not need to be adjusted. This is entirely due to
-the anti-rigidity method.
-
-Joint cracking is a sign of degenerative activity stemming from passive tension. When the
-muscles surrounding the spine are held in passive tension, this causes dislocation (subluxation)
-of vertebrae. These weak, distorted muscle segments are incapable of keeping the vertebrae in
-ideal alignment. The advantage of the chiropractic adjustment is that it gets straight to the core
-of dormant muscle, stretching it rapidly and delivering blood. It is common for a patient to
-report that they can “breathe again” after manipulation. To me this suggests that vertebral
-misalignment somehow affects the diaphragm’s mobility. The cracking also produces
-endogenous morphine, temporarily relieving pain and bringing patients back for future
-adjustments. However, chiropractic treatment is only a temporary solution. When a
-chiropractor performs an alignment, the spine briefly becomes neutral. However, because this
-does not strengthen the muscles or improve their endurance, the vertebrae fall quickly back
-out of alignment, sometimes within hours.
-
-Most chiropractors do not insist that their patients exercise the “opened” areas after
-adjustments. This is why there is limited evidence for the clinical efficacy of chiropractic over
-physical therapy. However, | have found that anti-rigidity exercises complement both
-chiropractic and physical therapy. It may take months or years of anti-rigidity training to fully
-contract a previously dormant muscle, but once you can, it will be fully reintegrated and will no
-longer require chiropractic or rehabilitative work.
-
-After six months of using anti-rigidity, | could crack dozens of joints throughout my body
-at will. Because | knew my posture and physique had improved tremendously, | began to
-tentatively conclude that increasing the ability to crack joints might be the overall goal.
-However, after another six months of this routine, | found that much of the cracking subsided.
-As my joints became healthier, they cracked less and less. This made me realize that cracking
-is a means to an end. In other words, as you employ anti-rigidity, you can expect to go
-through three phases: 1) an inability to crack, 2) plentiful cracking, and then 3) an abatement
-of cracking.
-
-| could not crack my joints at first because | did not have the strength in the surrounding
-muscles to leverage my way into the unhealthy muscle. After six months, my joints were
-cracking profusely because | finally had some strength in the muscles that would support my
-efforts to flex into the weakest areas. After another six months of employing the technique, the
-cracking subsided because even my weakest muscles and joints were no longer degenerative.
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-The point is that you want to stretch and flex into sore joints throughout your body, using the
-cracking and aching sensations as diagnostic tools.
-
-Anti-rigidity ls Not the Same as Stretching
-
-Stretching has gotten a bad rap in recent decades because static stretching has been shown to
-be less effective for athletes than once thought. This is because static stretching on its own is
-too passive and does not involve muscular contractions. It involves immobilizing a joint and
-stretching the muscles and connective tissues to their greatest possible length. This increases
-the resting length of muscles by lessening the sensitivity of tension receptors in the muscle.
-Studies have shown that excessive static stretching can lead to joint laxity and hypermobility.
-Stretching muscles too far reduces strength and explosive force. Many stretching programs
-encourage hyper-flexibility of muscles, which can even result in mechanical instability of the
-joints. Anti-rigidity doesn’t use static stretching, it uses active stretching.
-
-Static stretching increases “passive range of motion.” With anti-rigidity, however, we are
-interested in increasing “active range of motion.” Unlike passive, static stretching, you want to
-perform stretches that accept load throughout the entire range. The stretching aspect of
-anti-rigidity will increase the joint’s mobility and restore proper length to the muscles involved.
-The contraction aspect will increase the stability of the joint and increase the strength of the
-muscles. Overall, anti-rigidity should be thought of as a combination of stretching and
-contracting in which you explore the boundaries of tension while applying low-grade but
-continuous tensile loads. Yoga, done with active loading, can accomplish anti-rigidity as well.
-
-Employing Anti-rigidity During Yoga
-Anti-rigidity methods are implicit in yoga, but there are ways to make them more explicit.
-When | take a yoga class, | assume the poses as directed and then perform anti-rigidity while
-inside the pose. For instance, most yoga instructors tell you to keep your neck straight and still
-while in downward dog because they don’t want distressed breathers to hurt their necks.
-But you and | can safely assume downward dog and use the unique loading properties of the
-pose to find and strengthen frail joints. From downward dog, it is possible to leverage your way
-into countless stiff neck positions that are treatable through anti-rigidity. Yoga teachers refer to
-achy, dormant muscle as “sticky” while practitioners often describe stretches that rouse
-dormant muscle as “delicious.” Use yoga to help you probe for and discover delectable
-contractions.
-
-In many types of hatha yoga, there is a risk of overstretching certain muscle groups during
-a pose. Many yoga instructors and practitioners abuse their bodies by pushing too hard in an
-attempt to achieve an “ideal” form. The best way to improve form is not to force the body into
-a static stretch but rather to use the pose to gradually rehab the dormant muscle that is
-keeping you from executing the pose ideally. Ease yourself into the postures and vary your
-weight while in them so they are not static and isolated. To do this, you want to lean in
-different directions, play with the articulations, shift your weight, and alter the pose’s geometry
-to achieve various well-rounded contractions. Remembering to use the five tenets of optimal
-posture from the last chapter during yoga will enhance postural strengthening.
-
-| recommend that anyone interested in yoga start with basic, lyengar, or restorative yoga
-to develop proper form and an appropriate emotional relationship with their body. After a few
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-of these lessons, | encourage trying as many types of yoga as possible until you find one that
-you truly enjoy. You can take classes in a studio or at home using a free internet video. Yoga has
-shown numerous clinical benefits such as improving emotional regulation and reducing
-physiological arousal. It has even been shown to assist significantly in the treatment of post-
-traumatic stress disorder. | believe every person should perform yoga with anti-rigidity on a
-weekly, if not daily, basis.
-
-The following sketches should help you if you want to practice at home. | strongly
-recommend moving through the classic yoga poses here as often as possible. Choose at least
-10 each night and spend one to two minutes in each while engaging in paced breathing.
-Another great option is to put something educational on television, then sit a phone or a tablet
-down next to the TV, using it (on silent) to stream an online yoga class. | do this for twenty
-minutes every night and learn something while | stretch. An added benefit of performing
-anti-rigidity and yoga before bed is that it will help you sleep like a baby due to the copious
-endorphins released.
-
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-
-Illustration 14.4: 81 yoga poses and positions.
-
-Health Benefits of Yoga
-
-e Makes muscles, ligaments, and tendons more elastic and resilient
-
-e Stimulates stem cells creating collagen
-
-e Improves fitness, flexibility, and strength
-
-e Reduces pain and improves mobility better than other forms of low impact exercise
-e Can reduce blood pressure and risk factors for cardiovascular disease
-
-e Seems to improve symptoms related to depression, PTSD, and anxiety
-
-Conclusion
-When | was 25, | went to a nearby court to play basketball. The moves and skills that
-| developed in my late teens had disintegrated. | felt incredibly clumsy and feeble on the court.
-| wanted to know why. Because | had not played basketball in years, | assumed that | had lost
-the memories and neural connections responsible for my skills. | was researching the
-neuroscience of Alzheimer’s at the time, and that influenced me to assume that because
-| hadn’t used those brain pathways, | may have lost them.
-
-However, at age 35, | went out to play basketball again, only to discover that the skills and
-coordination of my teenage years were back. My poor performance 10 years prior had nothing
-to do with losing brain circuits and everything to do with frailty. Now, instead of feeling like a
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-dry twig running down the court, | feel like a velociraptor. My body supports me fully in any
-position | put it in. It is the same with dancing. People don’t stop dancing in old age because
-they forget how. They stop because their joints are immobile and their unnecessarily feeble
-bodies hurt. Anti-rigidity is like an analgesic but a permanent one. As many yogis insist: “You
-are only as old as your spine.” Another way to put this is: “You are only as old as your spine is
-frail and painful.”
-
-Anti-rigidity Exercise #14.1: Search Your Body for Rigidity
-Use the illustrations of poses above, along with the Anti-rigidity Protocol, to guide you ina
-five-minute search for frailty in your body. Once you find the muscular patterns that cause
-joint cracking and create a feeling of achiness, spend time within them using firm, sustained
-contractions. Practice paced breathing during this session.
-
-In my 20s, if | got less than four hours of sleep, my back would hurt all day. However, a
-couple of years of anti-rigidity has made it so that even if | miss an entire night of sleep, | feel
-no joint discomfort because my spine still supports me. | can stand up straight for long periods
-while everyone else succumbs to slouching. | can sit cross-legged on the floor for hours while
-others languish on the couch. The postural reinforcements that anti-rigidity created sometimes
-make me feel like | am in some kind of supportive harness or mechanical exosuit. Anti-rigidity
-makes it effortless to hold your body assertively, proudly, and energetically.
-
-The strength gains from anti-rigidity come with muscle mass gains. They don’t make you
-look like a weightlifter, but because they involve postural musculature, they help you look more
-like an athlete. As the next chapter will detail, anti-rigidity works complementarily with cardio
-and weight training. You will find that anti-rigidity will not only counteract the tension created
-by your exercise routine but also that you can employ anti-rigidity during exercise as well.
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-Chapter 14: Bullet Points
-
-e The anti-rigidity technique is performed by searching for dormant muscles whose joints
-crack or ache, then rehabbing them. To reach these dormant muscles, the body must be
-placed into unfamiliar positions.
-
-e Rehab is achieved by finding a postural configuration that cracks and then holding it for
-five to 30 seconds at a time. It feels like a stretch but is a contraction that you want to
-hold until the muscles involved reach fatigue.
-
-e = It is well known in exercise science that firmly contracting a muscle before relaxing it
-brings it to a deeper level of relaxation.
-
-e Usually, contracting dormant tender muscles makes us breathe shallowly as if we were
-being submerged in cold water. The key to anti-rigidity is to pair the contraction of
-dormant muscle with diaphragmatic breathing.
-
-e § Anti-rigidity reduces the internal impedance within the contractile tissue, resetting the
-muscle to its biomechanically optimal orientation. If you want peak performance, you
-need anti-rigidity.
-
-e Anti-rigidity releases foundational postural muscles from strain. Some of these
-muscles may have been lying dormant for decades. This results in the reintegration of
-dormant muscle with active muscle restoring strength, endurance, flexibility, stability,
-and ideal posture.
-
-e § Anti-rigidity will get your muscles firing again, tone and balance your body, reduce
-fatigue and soreness, and counteract the poor loading profiles of the modern lifestyle.
-
-e Fora muscle to be healthy, it needs times during the day when it is pulled to full resting
-length and other times when it is contracted to its smallest dimension. Use anti-rigidity
-daily to achieve this.
-
-e Experiment and play with the muscles you have neglected for so long, and with time,
-you will experience an “incredible lightness of being.”
-
-e Muscles are like springs that are bent out of shape. A muscle that has low tone and is
-not firing properly is like a spring whose coil has become stretched out. Such muscles
-require anti-laxity.
-
-e A muscle stuck in partial contraction is like a spring that is not at its resting length
-(relaxed) or its shortest length (contracted) but stuck somewhere in the middle. Such
-muscles require anti-rigidity.
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-Chapter 14: Endnote
-
-1. Gallegos, A. M., Crean, H. F., Pigeon, W. R., & Heffner, K. L. (2017). Meditation and yoga for
-posttraumatic stress disorder: A meta-analytic review of randomized controlled trials. Clinical
-Psychology Review, 58, 115-124; van der Kalk, B. A., Stone, L., West, J., Rhodes, A., Emerson, D.,
-Suvak, M., & Spinazzola, J. (2014). Yoga as an adjunctive treatment for posttraumatic stress
-disorder: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 75(6), e599-565.
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-Excessive Exercise Without Anti-rigidity is Detrimental
-
-Unsustainable workout habits played a large role in my stress. Overly ambitious running and
-heavy lifting were tightening my straitjacket. | was reaping ephemeral, short-term benefits such
-as muscle gain and fat loss. But the long-term costs of accumulating soft tissue injury were
-significant. For instance, even though | had developed some strength in my bench press, if |
-altered the position of my shoulders slightly or turned my elbows or wrists a little, the same
-bench-pressing motion was painful and incredibly frail. When you put a great deal of tension
-into an invariant configuration, the other potential arrangements become extraordinarily
-limited. It is the same with running. Aside from my habitual running pattern, my body was
-highly immobile.
-
-If you signed a contract to play a superhero in an upcoming blockbuster movie, you would
-engage in arduous weightlifting and strenuous cardiovascular exercise. A few months of this
-would tighten existing knots in your muscles but make you look incredibly fit. A few years of
-activity like this would produce copious dormant muscle, shackling the spine. In kinesiology,
-this is referred to as “muscular pattern overload.” It would make you stronger in the short-term
-but much weaker in the long-term. This is how | exercised in my twenties: sprinting and grueling
-weights with no stretching, massage, or recognition of bracing. Combined with chronic
-panicked breathing, zero postural awareness, and lots of sitting, it wrecked my foundation.
-
-The sad truth is that this should sound familiar to many people.
-
-The Cost of Lifting Heavy Weights
-
-Lifting heavy weights was my defense mechanism for dealing with the male status hierarchy.
-
-| thought that more muscle would free me from hierarchical worries, but it became my prison,
-both figuratively and literally. It wrecked my posture by pulling my shoulders forward and my
-chin away from my chest. | am not alone in this. Postural neglect, excessive bracing, and
-inattention to hyperfatigued muscle accelerate age-related postural decline in the majority of
-people who lift weights. Frankly, weightlifters experience significant reductions in all planes of
-spinal movement.
-
-As a teenager, | read books on lifting weights that proclaimed that 8 to 12 repetitions done
-to complete muscle failure is the scientifically established way to achieve muscle growth. This is
-true on the order of months, but without regular anti-rigidity, 8 to 12 repetitions with the
-heaviest weight you can bear is a recipe for dormant muscle. It took me years to realize that
-overzealous lifting came with hidden costs. They creep up on you. Lifting heavy weights at low
-reps causes you to fall into faulty muscle recruitment patterns, leading to strain and cramping
-all over the body. In my late twenties, | would wake up every morning in agonizing tension.
-After rising, it would take at least 10 minutes for the circulation in my chest and neck to
-reestablish and abate the crushing pain.
-
-Most people wouldn’t even have described me as muscular, and yet my chest, shoulders,
-neck, and back were completely locked up from weightlifting. | had trigger points, scar tissue,
-and chronic inflammation all along my shoulder girdle. The tension of unchecked weightlifting
-crept up my spine, through my cervical vertebrae, and into the attachments between my neck
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-and skull. At this point, it impinges on one’s soul. Like most people that lift weights, | avoided
-frail muscles altogether. In doing so, we magnify the frailty.
-
-Underused Muscles Need Anti-laxity, and Overused Muscles Need Anti-rigidity
-
-When loading to certain muscles is completely missing, and these muscles sit adjacent to
-muscles that are unnaturally overloaded you have injury and pain waiting to happen.
-Underused muscles are usually long and weak. Overused muscles are short and tight.
-Underused muscles need to be exercised and toned. Overused muscles need to be stretched,
-massaged, and, most importantly, contracted through the dormant sections of their range
-
-of motion.
-
-Bend down and feel your calf. You likely have a lot of soft muscle surrounding a lump of
-painful, hard muscle. The soft muscle is underused, while the hard muscle is overused. You
-want the softest lumps to become harder and the hardest lumps to become softer. To do so,
-increase the tone in the soft portions through exercise and anti-laxity and decrease the tone of
-the hard lumps using massage and anti-rigidity (It is the same with your spine, face, voice and,
-as we will see in Chapter 19, the muscles surrounding your genitals). This will develop the calf’s
-ability to contract as one integrated unit through its full range.
-
-It helps to pull the toes up toward the knee (dorsiflexion), which will contract the muscles
-in the front of the calf. Hold this contraction and breathe deeply. Next, point your toes away
-from your body (plantar flexion) using the muscles in the back of the calf. Every day, spend one
-minute flexing the toes back toward the shin and then pointing the toes in the opposite
-direction. While in both positions, offset the feet to the left and then to the right. Roll your
-ankles clockwise and counterclockwise. Search for the areas that feel stiff and achy. If you can
-find this aching, know that contracting into it calmly is accomplishing bona fide anti-rigidity.
-
-Ilustration 15.1: A. The typical range of motion in the ankle is thirty degrees. However, limiting yourself to this
-range contributes to the development of dormant ankle musculature; B. Exercising the ankle in an extended range
-will expand the mobility and contribute to healthy ankle joint mechanics.
-
-At first, start these ankle exercises without any weight, even body weight. Just hold the
-
-contractions off the ground. Then experiment with partial body weight. Then use full
-bodyweight calf raises where you try to reach full height during the rise and complete
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-dorsiflexion during the lowering phase. Hold these and breathe. Doing this with the ankles and
-knees in a variety of positions will allow you to target and tone the underused aspects of your
-calves. Try new positions like turning the feet out (lateral rotation) or in (medial rotation),
-
-and placing weight on the inside of the foot (pronation), or the outside of the foot (supination).
-
-Ilustration 15.2: A. Holding the lowered phase of a bodyweight squat to strengthen complete ankle dorsiflexion
-(ankle bent); B. Holding the full height of a calf raise to strengthen complete plantar flexion (ankle straightened).
-
-Have you heard of “cankles?” It is a pejorative term referring to the combination of “calf”
-and “ankle” describing an ankle that appears continuous with the calf. They are the unattractive
-consequence of chronically overused ankle muscles. In other words, a cankle is just an ankle
-whose muscles are stuck in partial contraction. Cankles are ugly because bulky, hypertrophic
-muscle in isolated areas leads to swelling, edema, and inflammation. The cankles phenomenon
-isn’t limited to the ankles. Persistent contractions make the whole body look worse for the
-same reasons. Most people who don’t like their physiques are simply unhappy with the
-appearance of their body’s dormant muscles. You want to tone and firm your soft muscles
-without any underlying musculature being hard and hypertonic. It’s a balancing act.
-
-Performing calf raises in the gym with heavy weights turned sections of my calves into very
-hard muscle segments. This extra muscle was useful for calf raises but otherwise made walking
-painful. In my late twenties, my ankles, calves, and knees would hurt after just 20 minutes of
-walking. Percussive massage and anti-rigidity have made it so that | can walk for more than
-three hours without any discomfort. They also turned my cankles into lean, trim ankles and put
-a new spring in my step. There are very tangible benefits to replacing our high-intensity,
-low-variety, repetitious exercises with exercises that use the body more diversely.
-
-Dormant Muscles Expose You to Injury
-
-Tight and shortened muscles dominate movement at the joint disrupting healthy joint
-mechanics. Some researchers call this “joint compression” (not to be confused with the
-massage technique). It causes major physical limitations for both athletes and the general
-population: force leaks, torque loss, and gaps in strength. Shortened and dormant muscle is
-responsible for why advanced weightlifters fail at entry-level plyometric workout exercises like
-box jumping.* The muscles of many bodybuilders have limited range and tend to fatigue
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-quickly. This is why you don’t see them competing in high-level athletics events which demand
-agility, flexibility, or endurance. Activities that require both speed and strength are often
-painful for weightlifters. The abrupt forces can even cause cramped, hypertonic muscles to tear
-or rip.
-
-Dormant muscle and their attachments are highly susceptible to tearing. Sprains (tearing
-of a ligament) and strains (tearing of a muscle or tendon) are the most common types of soft
-tissue sports injuries. They are often caused by activities that require muscles to stretch and
-contract suddenly at the same time. A lack of conditioning, flexibility, and warm-up can
-contribute, but usually, a strain is a previously existing site of dormancy just waiting to
-be injured.
-
-When you develop a kink in your neck, lower back, or anywhere else, it is seldom a new
-development. It is practically always preexisting dormant muscle that has recently been
-agitated. Usually, kinks are previously locked up muscles that have started to unlock.
-Unfortunately, immobilizing them until they stop hurting, which most people do, will cause
-them to relock. Worse yet, trying to move them while breathing shallowly will cause them to
-close up tighter. But diaphragmatic anti-rigidity will allow you to open and repair these kinks.
-The next time you pull or strain a muscle, be grateful that a site of frailty has been revealed and
-is now open to rehab.
-
-| sprained my shoulder wrestling a friend. This was ironic because | lifted heavy weights in
-hopes of appearing physically powerful. But when it came down to grappling with someone,
-my uneven tone led to disparities between muscles that could be loaded and those that
-couldn’t. There were muscles along my scapula that couldn’t bear even a moderate load and
-trying to squeeze out of a stranglehold headlock sprained them badly. | learned that it is far
-preferable to have regular strength throughout the body and little frailty than to have excessive
-strength in certain areas and extreme frailty in others.
-
-Treating an Injury
-
-Never stretch or use anti-rigidity for the first 72 hours after an injury. You want to give the
-muscle tears a chance to heal first. This means that any time you strain or even tweak
-something, just go home and rest. Don’t risk aggravating it by continuing to exercise or
-compete. Soft massage after icing can be beneficial directly following a minor injury. Three days
-later, it is important to begin proactively compressing and stretching the muscles to stop scar
-tissue formation. In fact, many medical professionals take untreated scar tissue to be the
-primary cause of re-injury. | believe that after a week it is safe to start rehabilitating light to
-moderate strains using anti-rigidity.
-
-Physical therapists often recommend that patients “breathe into” their injuries. If you
-sprain your wrist, they might advise that you concentrate on deep breathing and the sensations
-coming from the wrist simultaneously. In yoga and Pilates, instructors recommend breathing
-deeply when stretching sore, injured, or tight muscles. “Breathing into” tension teaches the
-brain that it can interact with these muscles without recruiting the fight or flight response.
-
-This is why | recommend taking out your breathing metronome whenever you rehab an injury.
-
-| even recommend paced breathing as soon as you sustain an injury to reduce the
-unnecessary bracing that comes with something like a sprain. Immediately after an injury,
-people naturally breathe very shallowly, and this causes the surrounding muscles to tense up,
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-potentially exacerbating the extent of the tissue damage. Breathing with the diaphragm and
-concentrating on progressive relaxation at the injury site can improve the prognosis and
-decrease recovery time. Just be aware that paced breathing will diminish the body’s protective
-“casting” and immobilizing of the injured area. Accordingly, you must be very careful not to
-subject this area to any undue loads for the first few days.
-
-| sprained my shoulder in a fall from a skateboard. Of course, it was the locked-up, bench
-press stabilizing muscles that were injured. Because of the shoulder injury, | had to stop lifting
-weights completely. My upper body muscle mass atrophied very quickly. | lost almost all my
-bulk within two months. However, and here is the kicker: the pain, knots, and scar tissue
-remained as if | had never stopped working out. This proved to me that lifting heavy weights
-has benefits that are easily lost, while the costs persist. Without incessant weightlifting, you
-lose the mass but still retain all the cellular scarring. | felt compelled to get this tension from
-weightlifting out of my body, so | developed an alternate way to lift weights.
-
-Lift Weights with Optimal Posture
-
-Most people lift heavy weights from a compact position. The more you do this, the more
-ungainly your posture becomes and the more difficult it is to lift from an expansive posture.
-
-By exercising with bad postural alignment, you will degrade the structures you are trying to
-improve. When your vertebrae are out of alignment and you strain under heavy weights, you
-further reinforce the misalignments. Like trying to erect a massive building on a poor
-foundation, it will be lopsided and unstable. Thus, when your form breaks down, make that
-your last rep. With open, expansive, properly aligned posture, any type of exercise you practice
-will be more effective.
-
-When most people lift weights that are too heavy, they brace and lock up their entire
-skeleton holding their spine, shoulder girdle, and hips in the same invariant position each time.
-Merely reducing the weight allows you to lift without bracing. With less weight, you can also
-alter and vary your posture with each rep and change the distribution of weight loading,
-stimulating growth in areas that are usually stiff.
-
-Most exercisers perform narrow range repetitions where the muscle lengthens and
-contracts only a small amount each repetition. This is a surefire way to force muscles into
-partial contraction. For example, my friend does limited range of motion squats with extremely
-heavy weight. This means that instead of going from standing to touching his butt to his ankles,
-he instead only moves a few inches during each squat. Doing this with stacks of weight plates
-has given him huge knots above his knees. These knots form a buffer for his end range squat,
-helping him stop the squat halfway down and reverse the motion. But the same knots that help
-him come back up in that single exercise, limit the general action of his quadriceps in almost all
-other activities.
-
-| have since helped him get rid of these knots by using full range motion, massage, and
-anti-rigidity. You can see that this is much like the above example involving my calves. Do you
-do anything similar to this? If you don’t want the knots, lower the weight and increase the
-range of motion. You may have guessed by now that | can’t avoid making a related comparison
-with animals.
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-Strength Differences Between Humans and Other Apes
-
-Although chimpanzees are generally lighter than humans (they range between 70 and 140
-pounds), they are much stronger on average. The shaved arms of a female chimp look like a
-professional football player’s arms. In captivity, chimps are aware of their strength advantage
-and are very dangerous because of it. They often physically bulldoze humans. In the wild, they
-don’t know that they are stronger and can be studied safely at closer quarters. Indeed, many
-scientists think chimps can overpower even the strongest humans. | long wondered how at only
-140 pounds, they could be stronger than bodybuilders? | believe their disproportionate
-strength comes from the way they build their muscles incrementally from all angles.
-
-Apes amass upper body strength gradually from a young age tree climbing and knuckle-
-walking, which they do with their arms and legs. Using each limb vigorously is an intrinsic part
-of getting around. They incorporate their entire physique into each smooth, integrated
-movement rather than wrenching isolated muscles with dumbbells or barbells. Since apes build
-their muscles naturally rather than lifting heavy weights, trigger points and dormant muscles
-rarely encumber their movement. If we want to become truly strong, we have to build strength
-incrementally like a chimpanzee. Now you and | cannot start our childhood over in the trees.
-But we can start by infusing lightweight exercises with anti-rigidity.
-
-Practice Anti-rigidity During Exercise
-Just as you can combine anti-rigidity techniques and yoga, you can also combine anti-rigidity
-with other workouts, including weight training. By and large, people avoid their trigger points
-and areas of frailty when exercising. Resist this temptation. You want to work out your short,
-painful muscles, tailoring exercises to target these sites specifically. To do this, exercise slowly
-using only light resistance to search for and contract into dormant muscle. Alter your joint
-configurations until you find a combination that aches or cracks, then hold this pattern and
-continue to perform repetitions. If you don’t let the discomfort disturb your breathing pattern,
-the muscle will surrender and cooperate.
-
-| want to encourage you to go to your local gym, sit on practically every machine on the
-floor, use a very low weight setting, and do between 20 and 100 repetitions trying to work
-through the subtle aching and cracking. Think of each station in the weight room as a tool you
-can use to employ anti-rigidity from a different angle.
-
-Weightlifting Exercise #15.1: Anti-laxity and Anti-rigidity with Weights
-Perform standard weightlifting routines with machines or free weights but do so using very
-light weight. Employ anti-laxity to accustom your body to healthy forces, and employ anti-
-rigidity to bring blood to and mend dormant muscle. Maintain proper posture and use
-multidirectional movements with complete range of motion. Add novel curvature to the
-spine every few repetitions. Vary between kyphosis and lordosis in your neck and upper
-spine for upper body exercises. Then vary between these in the lower back for lower body
-exercises. Use spinal flexion, then spinal extension for maximal effect. Bend to each side,
-twist to each side. Search actively for aching positions to engage.
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-IMlustration 15.3: Suggestions for different joint configurations for anti-rigidity during light weight bench press.
-
-Do a few reps with your neck flexed to each side, then with your chin to your chest,
-with your neck retracted, and then with your neck extended backwards. It should feel like yoga
-with gym equipment. Any exercise expert would try to persuade you from turning your neck to
-the extreme left when performing a lateral pull down or from adducting your hip and tilting
-your pelvis when performing a leg press. They would be right if you were lifting between 50
-and 100% of your one-repetition maximum. But if you are lifting less than 30% of your max,
-you should have plenty of room to play with the joint configurations safely.
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-Illustration 15.4: Examples of different joint configurations for spinal anti-rigidity during light weight
-lateral pulldowns.
-
-One important caveat: | am asking you to vary your spine's position as you work out,
-but only at low intensity and low resistance. At high intensity, you want to keep your spine
-straight. This is common knowledge in exercise science. Many athletes refer to any bend in any
-portion of the spine as a fault or error.? Indeed, you commit a fault any time your spine changes
-shape during any weight-bearing movement. When you lift something heavy off the ground,
-perform a squat, or a push-up, your spine should stay neutral the entire time. In other words,
-we should regularly be flexing and extending as many portions of the back as possible,
-but never when combined with a heavy load or rapid movements.
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-Ilustration 15.5: Examples of different joint configurations for anti-rigidity during light weight tricep push downs.
-
-| find using anti-laxity and anti-frailty with weights to be tremendously relaxing. Much like yoga,
-the blood flow and endorphins make my muscles feel heavy and tranquil. This is a 180 from my
-previous approach to working out.
-
-Exercise More Often, Not Harder
-
-When mixing anti-rigidity with weightlifting the objective is to gradually increase the load, over
-the course of months, as your posture improves and your frailty diminishes. Slowly building up
-to heavier weights and intensities will help you build a broad, stable base to place even more
-muscle on top of. This is in line with the often-forgotten personal trainer’s maxim, “straighten
-the body before strengthening it.”
-
-The common wisdom in personal training, which empirical studies have reinforced, is that
-muscle typically atrophies at half the rate it took to develop. This means that your gains from six
-months of squats will completely disappear a year after you stop squatting. To me, the takeaway
-message is clear. If you gain a lot of muscle from intense training over three months, you cannot
-expect to keep it for long. So don’t plan to work out this way. But if you gain muscle steadily over
-three years, it will resist atrophy for six years. Instead of stressing the body, plateauing early,
-and struggling to maintain, envision your workout goal as a slow and steady climb.
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-This is consistent with a popular weight training routine known as “pyramid training,”
-where you start with very light weights and progress steadily toward heavier weights. You will
-find that starting lower than bodyweight, then using bodyweight, and then progressing through
-very light weights will condition your postural muscles with exercise volume as opposed to
-intensity. For many exercises, even bodyweight is too much. In my opinion, less than 5% of the
-population is ready for pushups. Ninety-five percent of people will accrue unnecessary damage
-from pushups, myself included. Instead, they need to spend a few months doing pushups on
-their knees or simply lowering themselves to the ground from push-up position (working the
-negative).
-
-CPOE
-
-Illustration 15.6: Pushup progression: A. Pushups on the shins and knees; B. Pushups on the knees;
-C. Lowered pushups, and finally traditional pushups.
-
-Global bodily adaptations to low weights will scaffold a highly balanced system that you
-can later apply toward heavier weights to achieve surprising results. This takes advantage of the
-aforementioned SAID principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands). Again, this is how
-apes, farmers, mechanics, and lumberjacks develop strength. But this doesn’t just apply to
-lifting weights. The same goes for jogging, swimming, aerobics, Program Peace exercises, and
-anything else. Don’t base your exercise duration or intensity on arbitrary factors. Instead, work
-out from within your frailty until none of your postural muscles are hypertonic, and they all
-cooperate seamlessly. Then resume traditional full-body workouts.
-
-Starting with low-intensity and focusing on anti-rigidity has another benefit. Recall from
-Chapter 5 that dormant muscles cannot recover adequately after a workout. They are resistant
-to growth and strengthening because muscles afflicted with trigger points never rest and can
-never fully heal.? Thus, dormant muscles are equivalent to untapped reservoirs that are full of
-growth potential. Anti-rigidity allows you to tap into them. Once you convert dormant muscle
-to supple and tension-free muscle, they will be very responsive to exercise. From there, you will
-be ripe for a total body transformation.
-
-In my twenties | would visit a nutritional supplement store. The clerks would always tell
-me, “look man, if you want to gain muscle, you have to take weight gainer.” For a long time,
-| believed they were right and that | needed protein supplementation and hundreds of
-additional calories every day to put on muscle mass. This isn’t true. The real constraint that
-keeps you from putting on additional muscle is the muscle tension. It is dormant muscle that is
-responsible for the performance plateaus and diminishing returns. Once you use anti-laxity and
-anti-rigidity to rebuild this muscle back into your posture, you will find that it will not fluctuate
-with exercise or diet. Because it moves when you do, and its tone is reinforced by simply
-standing around, it resists atrophy and does not require overeating.
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-
-Practice Anti-rigidity Following Exercise
-
-After almost all forms of conventional exercise, dormant muscle becomes further strained.
-After a jog, you go home, and your knees hurt a little, or your lower back feels stiff, and this
-accrues with interest over time. It doesn’t have to be this way. Engaging these areas with anti-
-rigidity exercises directly after a workout is the best way for you to release them. It provides
-fresh blood to the collateral and stabilizing muscles stiffened by the activity. For every minute
-of training, you should perform a minute of anti-rigidity.
-
-After you do three sets of bench press, do 3 minutes of anti-rigidity for the neck, shoulders,
-and upper back. A yoga pose like downward dog is excellent. Whatever you choose, shift your
-shoulders as you alternate between twisting, flexing, and extending the neck. You'll discover
-that the increased circulation from a weight lifting or a cardio workout will allow you to
-contract more deeply into dormant muscle.
-
-You can also use the anti-rigidity and yoga positions pictured in the previous chapter as
-“counter poses.” Counter poses are used in yoga to activate complementary and antagonistic
-muscles after a pose. For instance, a twist to the left follows a twist to the right and forward
-bends usually follow backbends. According to yoga practitioners, this “neutralizes” the spine,
-lengthening it and “calming the nervous system.” With practice, you can identify the best
-counterposes to neutralize the tension created by your exercise routine.
-
-How to Breathe When Lifting Light Weights
-
-Why are some people strong while others are weak? Why are some people muscular while
-others are not? Most scientists would say that testosterone exposure and genetics determine
-these characteristics, but | believe these explanations are secondary to a more primary process.
-This process involves the ability to contract muscles without recruiting the distressed breathing
-response. Naturally athletic and muscular people had childhoods conducive to combining
-exercise with unimpeded breathing. In other words, adults with big biceps were kids that
-learned to sustain hardy bicep contractions without impeding their breathing. But you don’t
-have to be a kid to internalize this. The truth is, we worked on this in Exercises 13.2-13.8 when
-we combined paced breathing with anti-laxity.
-
-In the same vein, you want to breathe very deeply while pumping iron. Most physical
-therapists and personal trainers recommend breathing out when major muscles are shortening
-(the lifting action in a curl) and breathing in during the lengthening (the lowering action of the
-curl). For a bench press, this would involve breathing out while lifting the bar away from your
-chest and breathing in while dropping the weight to your chest. This is not bad advice, as it
-keeps you from holding your breath or breathing at even shorter intervals. However,
-when using low weight, it is beneficial to breathe at even longer intervals.
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-Breathing Activity #15.1: Diaphragmatic Breathing at the Gym
-The next time you lift light weights, start off breathing out for an entire repetition (flexion
-and extension) and then in for the next repetition. Perform a few sets in this way. Next,
-inhale for two reps, and then exhale for two reps. This is an advanced technique but will
-become much easier as you complete the breathing retraining outlined in Chapters 3 and 11.
-As long as you are breathing deep, complete breaths, you should get plenty of air. Breathing
-at longer intervals convinces your nervous system that weightlifting is not traumatic, allowing
-your body to adapt to the challenge rather than resisting it. Deep breathing convinces the
-body that holding those 15-pound dumbbells in the air is safe, easy, and the new normal.
-
-Lifting heavy weights is stressful on the body and mind, and anything stressful will provoke
-shallow breathing. The physical exertion involved in lifting heavy weights makes it very difficult
-to concentrate on breathing diaphragmatically. Lifting definitely contributed to my breathing
-dysfunction. A high proportion of weightlifters breathe shallowly, and like racehorses, are often
-high-strung. They are doing the opposite of the Program Peace method, pairing intense
-muscular contractions with distressed breathing, and further traumatizing them. Also, keep in
-mind that the anxiety involved in this puts you into a state of catabolism where proteins are
-broken down rather than built up, ultimately making it harder to put on and keep on muscle.
-
-As you found with your eating routine in Chapter 3, your exercise routines may be tightly
-intertwined with distressed breathing. You may even find it difficult to exert yourself while
-breathing diaphragmatically. However, it will be much easier at the lowest levels of exertion,
-so start there. You can use a breath metronome when exercising or you may just want to tape
-your mouth.
-
-As you work on your breathing, be aware of your other nonverbals. The stereotypical
-weightlifter’s body language is highly detrimental to their health. Gasping, hyperventilating,
-jerking, straining, breath-holding, trembling, and bracing the entire body are the exact things
-you want to avoid. Most people also tighten their vocal tract, raise their eyebrows, make a
-pained face, sneer, and squint during heavy exercise. For all the reasons described in previous
-chapters, try to avoid doing these things. The only muscles that should be working are the ones
-responsible for the load. Rather than being a spaz at the gym, try being poised and laid-back.
-
-Weight Lifting Exercise #15.2: Breath Metronome at the Gym
-
-Use headphones and a breathing metronome to perform paced breathing at your gym while
-lifting light weights and employing anti-rigidity. Set the breathing duration to a low level
-(e.g. 3-5 second inhalations and 5-7 second exhalations). Don’t use a breath metronome
-while performing heavy resistance or aerobic exercise though. In these cases, let your
-instincts guide your breath rate, and just try to breathe deeply and nasally (see breathing
-Exercise 3.8 from Chapter 3).
-
-Using the breath metronome at the gym has another empowering benefit. By the second
-week of paced breathing, you will be at peace with rather than apprehensive of the muscular
-and athletic people lifting weights next to you. You will realize that you were previously stifling
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-your breath to appease the other gym members in psychoneurotic ways. In my twenties, | felt
-like every person in the gym thought they were cooler than me. Paced breathing at the athletic
-facility changed this completely. By using a breath metronome to calm your thoughts, you will
-completely escape “gymtimidation.” While you’re at it, try incorporating other subroutines
-discussed in this book such as resting face, looking above the eyeline, and the tenets of optimal
-posture. Paced breathing will help you become the most composed gym-goer at your facility
-within a matter of weeks.
-
-People also often hold their breath during short but intense athletic performances, like a
-golf swing, free throw, or cartwheel. Instead, take a deep, slow breath before the feat and
-breathe out calmly during the feat. As you perform that high jump, penalty kick, sommersault,
-or basketball dunk, you want to be breathing, and to nurture the execution, it helps to be
-breathing out. Breathing shallowly or holding the breath tells the body: “hopefully this is the
-last time we will ever have to do this.” Breathing deeply tells the body: “this is something that
-we are going to be doing regularly now, so you better get good at it.”
-
-Anything practiced repeatedly is debraced overtime, especially if you do it while breathing
-diaphragmatically. A gymnast will have a gorgeous standing backflip if they have done it
-hundreds of times while breathing calmly. The best backflips come from people that don’t have
-to activate their sympathetic system to pull it off. My cartwheel is still tense, but the more |
-practice it while exhaling smoothly through the nose, the more | learn which aspects of the
-motion are overbraced. In movement patterns from layups, to backhands, to football lobs, to
-jumping jacks, to burpees, don't aim for breathless intensity. Aim for braceless efficiency.
-
-A person new to jumping rope will grab the handles too tightly, brace their spine
-inordinately, look awkward, and develop an injury if they jump too long. A person who has
-spent over 10 cumulative hours jumping rope looks and feels like they are skipping on air. Give
-your exercise activities plenty of time to stabilize under diaphragmatic conditions, and they will
-become graceful child’s play.
-
-Focus on Dissipating the Tension
-
-During an exercise session, tension steadily accumulates in muscles. Some become reset to a
-harmfully high level, resulting in an elevation in passive contraction. This is why you want to use
-diaphragmatic breathing to dissipate tension right after you exercise. If you are going to
-exercise until you feel the burn, then focus on the burn fully subsiding after the set. Lie down
-
-if it helps.
-
-Weightlifting Activity #15.2: Noticing Muscle Tension after a Set
-Simply by paying attention to the mounting tension after you complete a set, you can
-consciously negate it, thereby enhancing recovery, healing, and muscle gain. When you
-ignore it, it usually remains contracted. You may feel the muscles twitch or spasm; notice
-these small intrusions. Because these twitches are uncomfortable, they halt breathing -
-maintaining the tension in the area. Instead, you want to concentrate on relaxing the tension,
-and breathing through it until it subsides. Your focus should be on being completely limp
-between sets.
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-| used to have disturbing elbow pain from lifting heavy weights. It was tennis elbow,
-a degenerative condition also known as epicondylitis. Conditions like it have a poor prognosis
-and no modern medical treatments besides rest, pain relievers, and surgery. Many of these
-types of surgeries have been shown to be no better than a placebo mock surgery. | used to
-finish resistance exercises in an extremely agitated state. Then | would spend the rest of the
-day, and go to bed, in that state. | wondered why my elbows hurt so much in the morning, and |
-naively attributed it to aging. Most medical doctors refer to such examples of acute tension as
-disease because they become chronic in so many people. This “disease” is easily remedied.
-
-Now, whether resistance training, swimming, running, or anything else, | stop completely
-every few minutes. | take a full 30 seconds to bestow the tightness the mental attention it
-needs to subside. When | get home, | squeeze, compress, and percuss any muscles that hurt.
-| thought | was going to have tennis elbow for the rest of my life. After less than 10 total
-minutes of elbow tension awareness and 10 additional minutes of compression and percussion
-as outlined in Chapter 6, the elbow “disease” has disappeared and never resurfaced. This
-method has worked for me for dozens of similar issues in the last few years. That is how
-powerful these simple solutions are.
-
-Rest Once the First Muscle Group Reaches Fatigue
-
-When people lift heavy weights, some of their large muscle groups are prepared to deal with
-the weight, but other muscles are far too weak. The muscles that are not up to the task are
-usually those used to stabilize the weight. The stabilizing muscles (such as the scapular muscles
-during bench press) don’t move or rest between repetitions. Some muscles don’t even rest in
-between sets. Between each repetition, you want there to be moments where every muscle is
-given a microbreak. As we learned in Chapter 5, this break permits the muscles to escape
-partial contraction, rest, and regenerate so that they can resume proper function.
-
-Because stabilizing muscles stay still at full exertion during the exercise, they learn to do
-so all the time. This drives the muscle into deep fatigue, freezing it in place. This is highly
-damaging. It stops the muscle from growing, and it is why some weightlifters appear so
-encumbered when they move. Stabilizing muscles keep parts of the body steady so that the
-primary muscles can do their job. But in a different exercise, a stabilizing muscle may need to
-be used as a primary muscle. If it is rigid, then performing that exercise correctly is impossible.
-When stabilizers are dormant, your motion comes across as robotic, stilted, and effortful.
-
-Bench pressing 100 pounds may be great for your pectorals and triceps but may be brutal
-to your rotator cuff. In this case, you should lower the weight until the exercise is optimal for
-strengthening the rotator cuff. Many exercises are just right for some muscles but way too hard
-on others, and you owe it to yourself to fall back to the level of the weakest link. Once the first
-muscle group has fatigued, it is important to stop what you are doing and wait for it to return
-to its baseline.
-
-Avoid Overexertion
-
-Large increases or changes in exercise activity can cause tendonitis, tendonosis, and delayed
-onset muscle soreness. You can easily avoid this through more gradual transitions in an exercise
-regimen. But few people actually do this. Instead, most change their routine abruptly. Or they
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-
-exercise infrequently but overexert themselves when they do. Soreness and tendonitis are
-conducive to the creation of dormant muscle so avoid them by increasing your training more
-gradually. Four days of recovery is recommended for individual muscle groups after heavy
-training. However, that doesn’t mean you should leave the muscles alone entirely.
-
-| recommend you replicate the activity that made it sore to get the blood circulating and to
-facilitate remodeling. Just do so with less intensity and for only a fraction of the time, so as not
-to impede the healing process.
-
-The muscles that feel sore the day after a workout are usually the dormant ones and thus
-the ones most in need of massage and anti-rigidity. Use any hints of soreness after a workout to
-help you locate your dormant muscle so you can treat it. If you wake up sore, | recommend
-taking a baseball, knuckle, or knuckle tool and percussing the entire body focusing on the
-tender areas. If you are going to work so hard that you are sore the next day, you must rehab
-the sore spots. Working out until you're sore and then letting the muscles stagnate for days
-until the soreness disappears is irresponsible. This tells us that our modus operandi should be:
-“exercise, massage, anti-rigidity, repeat.”
-
-Don’t kill yourself when working out, and don’t be a weekend warrior. Training to complete
-exhaustion is training under duress. If you are forcing yourself, you cannot go into flow and
-cannot enjoy the process. Training should be addictive, but it can’t be if you push yourself into
-anxiety just to get it done. In the long run, extreme exertion only wears you down, lowers your
-mood, and leads to injury. It is exacting to generate the mental energy to train strenuously, but
-you should find it easy to generate the mental energy to train moderately.
-
-Take a rest after laborious exercise. When you come home from the gym, don’t go right to
-cooking dinner and cleaning up. You want to reset the tension you created, so lie down in
-corpse pose for five to 10 minutes while paced breathing, and practice progressive muscle
-relaxation (see Unbracing Exercises 1 and 2). Notice pockets of tension while you are lying
-down and attempt to let them go.
-
-Often the exercise activity is blamed as the cause of the pain, but in many cases the pain is
-produced by neglecting to stretch, massage, and relax after exercise. The same goes for those
-days when you didn’t exercise but engaged in prolonged sitting, standing, or walking. When you
-finally get home and collapse feeling stiff and achy, you've pushed your tissues too far without
-microbreaks or counterposes. Proper use of the techniques in the last two chapters can make
-the difference between a day that will make you stronger and a day that will make you weaker.
-
-Conclusion
-
-“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” — Ernest Hemingway
-
-When my posture was at its worst, lifting weights was so uncomfortable that | reached a point
-where | just couldn’t do it anymore. | badly wanted to build muscle, but the pain and frailty
-made it so that | would just hold the weight in my hand and look at it. Like a broken-down plow
-horse, | just stood there and couldn’t muster the will to take on the burden. | had few acute
-injuries, but | was covered in chronic injury. | took two years off from intense exercise and
-instead focused on anti-rigidity, range of motion, flexibility, low resistance, and low impact.
-The same weightlifting exercises that were drudgery for me, | now find exhilarating.
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-
-Here is a list summarizing the primary elements of the Program Peace muscle
-rehabilitation method:
-
-The Elements of the Muscle Rehabilitation Method
-
-1) Search for and contract into achiness
-
-2) Find configurations that crack and bring them to a gentle fatigue
-
-3) Combine anti-rigidity and anti-laxity with yoga and light weightlifting
-
-4) Rest limply once fatigue is reached
-
-5) Be aware of bracing
-
-6) Use optimal posture
-
-7) Regularly refresh stagnant muscles using full range of motion
-
-8) Reposition intermittently to avoid staleness
-
-9) Use effective counterposes
-
-10) Massage regularly with compression and percussion
-
-11) Breathe properly all the while
-
-| like the saying, “pain is weakness leaving the body.” But it is a half-truth. If the pain is
-derived from straining, it is weakness entering the body. If the pain is derived from the ache of
-gently transforming dormant muscle into optimal muscle, it truly is weakness leaving the body.
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-Chapter 15: Bullet Points
-
-e Underused muscles need anti-laxity, and overused muscles need anti-rigidity.
-
-e Dormant muscle tears easily leading to injury.
-
-e Perform anti-rigidity while you perform yoga or while you lift light weights so that you
-can get leverage into dormant muscle.
-
-e Cardio and weightlifting increase circulation, and thereby make subsequent anti-rigidity
-more productive.
-
-e Employing anti-rigidity with exercise releases muscles from deep strain, reduces fatigue,
-and restores strength and endurance.
-
-@ When exercising, don’t put all your intensity into an invariant form. Alter your form,
-using as many configurations as possible. This creates multidimensional strength.
-
-e Progress from body weight and very low weight toward heavier weights.
-
-e Rest once the first muscle group reaches fatigue.
-
-e Focus on debracing and dissipating tension after a set or workout.
-
-e It is highly beneficial to perform anti-rigidity and massage on any muscles that are sore
-the day after a workout.
-
-e Always exercise using the tenets of optimal posture.
-
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-Chapter 15: Endnotes
-
-1. Starrett, K., & Cordoza, G. (2013). Becoming a supple leopard: The ultimate guide to
-resolving pain, preventing injury, and optimizing athletic performance. Victory Belt Publishing.
-
-2. Starret & Cordoza, (2013), Becoming a supple leopard.
-
-3. Simons, D. G., Travell, J. G., & Simons, L. S. (1999). Travel! & Simons’ myofacial pain
-and dysfunction: Upper half of body. Williams and Wilkins.
-
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-Chapter 16: Anti-rigidity for the Neck
-and Shoulders
-
-We are all hunchbacks to different degrees. Our upper spines are contorted from the strain
-involved in carrying the head in front of the body. This “protruding head posture” bends the
-lower neck forward and the upper neck backward, creating an “S” shape. Over time, this results
-in “anterior head syndrome,” marked by a bulge in the lower neck that is sometimes called a
-dowager’s hump or a buffalo hump. This is also commonly called “nerd neck.” Before | knew
-anything about this, | found my hump very concerning.
-
-During my 20s, | became preoccupied with the deformed structure of my neck. | could tell
-that my neck was hunched down in pictures, and when | reached back and felt my cervical
-spine, | could feel the distorted curvature. The muscles in my neck were hard to the touch due
-to advanced stage trigger points throughout. Moving my neck hurt, its movement was very
-limited, and it would tire quickly. | had the necessary symptoms for a diagnosis of “cervical
-neuromuscular syndrome,” which includes chronic neck pain, headaches, sympathetic
-upregulation, depression, and anxiety. That’s right: a tense neck contributes to anxiety.
-Studies show that it may also contribute to general fatigue, muscle strain, arthritis, herniated
-discs, pinched nerves, and higher overall mortality.
-
-| would ask my girlfriend to stand on my upper back, hoping that the pressure would crack
-my vertebrae into proper alignment. Of course, this didn’t work. At one point, it crossed my
-mind that the extreme curvature in my neck was due to the cumulative effects of repetitive
-strain. | quickly dismissed this notion because | realized how difficult it would be to fix if this
-was the problem. Sadly, it was. | wanted a quick fix, but there wasn’t (and isn’t) one.
-Straightening my neck required years of proper breathing, unbracing, massage, postural
-awareness, exercise, and anti-rigidity.
-
-The lower cervical vertebrae C6 and C7 bulged out prominently while the vertebrae above
-them were shrunken in. It took a year of anti-rigidity training for C4 and C5 to come into
-alignment with C6 and C7. Another year passed before C2 and C3 joined them. Gradually,
-these vertebrae migrated back into place until the bulges and hump went away. Now, my neck
-has a healthy curvature and all my previous symptoms are gone. This transformation begins
-with something called neck retraction.
-
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-
-i =
-( G °*
-
-Upper Neck
-
-Bent Backward
-
-Lower Neck
-
-Bent Forward
-
-Illustration 16.1: A. Neck protracted with the chin poking forward; B. Skeleton with cervical vertebrae visible;
-C. Neck retracted with the chin tucked.
-
-Neck Retraction Is Tucking the Jaw into the Neck
-
-Crookedness in the neck derives from bringing our head forward, tilting the chin up, and
-compressing or scrunching the top of the back of the neck. This is called neck protraction. Let’s
-program ourselves to do the opposite: neck retraction. We saw neck retraction in Chapter 13 as
-the fifth principle of optimal posture. Let’s dive deeper.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.1: Neck Retraction
-
-The first step is to pull your chin and jaw backward as if you were trying to pull them into
-your throat. As you keep your chin tucked, lean your head backward relative to your chest
-until your ears are pulled back behind the chest, in line with the center of your shoulder. Roll
-your shoulders back and down while looking straight ahead. Adopting this position while
-doing different activities from different loading positions will help you internalize it. For
-instance, try nodding yes, shaking no, or bobbing your head to music with the neck retracted.
-
-Another method to achieve this posture is to grab a clump of your hair at the base of the
-back of your skull and gently pull it up and back. Alternatively, Pilates practitioners imagine a
-string from the heavens attached to the back of their skull, constantly pulling their heads
-upward. Think about holding a calm, prolonged contraction in the muscles involved. Spend
-five minutes holding this posture and performing anti-rigidity within it while breathing
-diaphragmatically.
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-
-Ilustration 16.2: Various neck positions for anti-rigidity.
-
-Most people exercise, socialize, and sit with their necks exclusively protracted.
-Combined with the stress and strain of daily life, this firmly fixes the neck in a forward slumped
-posture. Untucking the chin while lifting weights or working at a desk further solidifies this
-degenerative cervical position. When most people then try to retract their necks, it feels sticky,
-achy, and scary. Almost everyone butts up against a firm wall of dormant muscle in the back of
-their neck when they retract it. This wall of dormancy is the hump itself. You will need to use
-anti-rigidity to chip away at the muscular adhesions responsible for this cramped obstruction.
-
-Stop Untucking Your Chin
-The dowager’s hump arises from the self-handicapping act of untucking the chin and
-protracting the neck. This act of jutting the chin out in front of the body declares “| give up” to
-anyone watching. In my twenties, | would always untuck my chin whenever | passed by anyone.
-It appears polite and disarming to others but is poisonous to you. This social signal, innate to
-our biology, is throwing in the towel. Most people untuck their necks whenever they are
-nervous, and especially during startle. They might as well be placing their head on a chopping
-block. If anything, you want to retract your neck when startled, as this protects your neck with
-your jaw.
-
-| held my head as if | were scared that | would bump it against something if | stood up
-straight. | held it as if | were using my neck to appease angry giants. | held it as if | were trying to
-tell the world that the pith of my body (the musculature that supports the head) exists in a
-deeply defective position. The extent of your hunchback is a function of how often you untuck
-your chin. Everyone is aware of this implicitly, but almost no one speaks of it or does anything
-about it. Now that you are explicitly aware, use chin retraction to increase your nonverbal
-dominance. Again, the more often you “fake” it, the more natural you make it.
-
-Making Neck Retraction Habitual
-
-Some people refrain from retracting their neck because it results in a double chin.
-Paradoxically, not using the muscles responsible for retraction increases the flabbiness in this
-area. So, retracting your neck often will eventually make that double chin disappear. The chin
-lock from Exercise 12.4, as well as compression exercises 9.16 and 9.17 for the jawline and
-jowls, will help greatly in training neck retraction. Combining these exercises will excise the
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-pudginess behind your chin, straighten the back of your neck, increase the extent of ujjayi
-breathing, and enrich your voice. One of the main causes of weakened voice is postural.
-When the neck is not retracted, the laryngeal musculature loses proper tone.
-
-Neck retraction will also make your head lighter. The more the head protrudes in front of
-the body, the more stress is placed on the cervical spine. Straight up and down, the head
-produces about 10 pounds of pressure on the neck. When the head is tilted toward the floor at
-15 degrees, this becomes 30 pounds, and at 45 degrees it is 50 pounds.? Thus, neck retraction
-can lighten the weight of the head by as much as five times. This is enough to turn an
-overbearing continuous strain into a healthy continuous load.
-
-Neck extension can be a great counterpose to neck retraction. To do this, you bend the
-head backward.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.2: Neck Extension to Retraction
-
-Extend your neck. This means bending it backward, lifting your chin, and tilting your head
-back as if looking up at the sky. Breathe out for several seconds in this position. For the
-inhale, flex your neck back into retraction and breathe in for several seconds. Repeat this
-fifteen times. It can help to use the arms like the model in the pictures below. Repeat the
-cycle 10 to 15 times.
-
-When your head is extended backward, practice turning/rotating your upper and lower neck
-to the right and left. Also, practice both neck retraction and protraction from the extended
-position. Neck retraction from an extended position will reach deeply into the hump in your
-neck and provide an opportunity for anti-rigidity.
-
-Illustration 16.3: Alternating between neck extension and neck retraction.
-
-An exercise that alternates between neck retraction and extension is often first in a series
-of hot yoga poses. It is sometimes called “standing deep breathing” because it is traditionally
-done simultaneously with a form of paced breathing. My initial experiences with this yoga
-routine strongly influenced the Program Peace method because they made it incredibly clear
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-how effective paced breathing is in the healing process. | firmly recommend these poses as a
-daily practice. You can easily find videos online. Now for some other exercises that, used daily,
-will remodel your neck.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.3: Neck Extension and Rotation
-
-Lie on your back on the floor. Lift the head an inch off the ground and turn the head from
-side to side. As you do this, either touch your chin to each shoulder or touch each ear to the
-ground. Repeat 20-30 times or until you reach fatigue. You can do this with the neck
-retracted or protracted, flexed, or extended.
-
-Mgr
-[fo Da [Se
-
-When | socialized in my twenties | must have been bracing and immobilizing practically
-every muscle in my neck. Looking back on it now, my neck was like an ankle that had been
-sprained over and over but never iced, massaged, stretched, or exercised. More than anything
-else, exercises 16.2 and 16.3 have brought it close to optimality. The following lists other
-helpful routines you can use to limber your neck right up.
-
-Neck Exercises #16.4-13: Various Neck Anti-rigidity Postures
-Like all the exercises in this chapter, these are intended to be combined with diaphragmatic
-breathing and the anti-rigidity technique. Use the different positions described here to find
-and rehab dormant, achy muscle.
-
-4) Lie on your back on the floor with your head on the ground. Lift the chin to the center
-of your chest (sternum) and then lower it back to the floor. Repeat 20-30 times or
-until fatigued. To make this harder, each time you lower your head, look to either the
-right or the left.
-
-5) Lie on your stomach on the floor. Lift the head off the ground and rotate it from right
-to left, touching your right ear to the ground, then your left. Repeat 20-30 times.
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-6) Hang your head and neck off the edge of the bed while lying on your back. Tilt your
-head as far back as it will go and look at the floor. Then, turn your head from side to
-side 20 to 30 times. Enjoy the stretch as you hang and sway.
-
-Swiss
-
-7) While standing, look straight ahead. Retract your neck, then bend you neck to the
-side so that your right ear approaches your right shoulder. Hold for 1-3 seconds, then
-bend the left ear toward the left shoulder. Repeat 10-20 times.
-
-fe 5, a
-a! ~ )
-‘< Le
-
-8) While standing, retract your neck and rotate your head to the right as far as it will go.
-Hold for 1-3 seconds, then rotate to the left. Repeat 10 times. Do this again with the
-neck protracted.
-
-rift
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-9) Bend your head forward as far as it will go to look at the ground. With the neck in
-total flexion, gently retract the neck from this position for five seconds, then protract
-it for five. Rest, focusing on the ache. For additional pressure, interlock your fingers
-behind your head, allowing the weight to gently pull your neck further downward.
-
-anahal
-
-10) Place a towel around your neck like a scarf to provide support. Roll your head in a
-large circle. Do this 25-50 times. Be sure to alternate directions. Perform this slowly,
-allowing the neck to hang as much as possible while rotating. This will mobilize the
-muscles at the bottom of the neck to execute the rotations.
-
-11) Draw a circle in front of your face with your nose. Doing so will utilize the muscles at
-the top of the neck to execute the rotation. Do this 50-100 times. As you alternate
-directions of the circle, try varying its size. You might try drawing triangles or squares.
-
-AAA
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-12) Lie on your back on a group of pillows or a large stability ball. The goal is to create a
-global backward curve in your spine. Let your entire neck relax, extending your head
-completely back. While remaining on the ball, cradle your head in your hands and pull
-your chin up to your chest and hold it there. Now retract it actively. Stretch into the
-aching sensation there between your neck and your shoulder blades.
-
-SERIES
-
-13) Lie on your back and cradle your neck with your hands. Perform tiny sit-ups or
-crunches that only lift your neck and shoulders off the ground. Focus on kyphosis in
-your neck—a full forward arch. Use the muscles in your throat to perform these
-modified sit-ups. The muscles in the back of your neck will stabilize the action,
-getting a great stretch in the process. Try looking to either side while performing this
-“neck sit-up.”
-
-Have you ever wondered why a collared shirt is an essential aspect of proper business
-attire? | believe it is to obscure the extent of neck protraction so that neck posture does not
-play a role in corporate politics. The boss or manager may be the best person for a leadership
-role, but their lack of neck retraction might communicate to their underlings that they do not
-have a lifetime history of leadership experience. This could undermine their authority. Also, the
-person with the straightest neck is not necessarily the most knowledgeable and thus should not
-have undue influence on business matters. You want your company’s hierarchy based on
-diligence and competence. | believe that like suit jackets with padded shoulders, collars level
-the playing field of physicality.
-
-| believe that people who emerged from childhood with their neck mobility intact have a
-more dominant physical presence. The way their head is situated absolutely shines and its
-natural motion is intimidatingly smooth and beautiful. It is also usually easy for these people to
-build upper body muscle. Your neck may have become stiff and hunched before you reached
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-puberty, but it still has the potential to be remobilized to its optimal extent. These exercises will
-rehabilitate aspects of your neck that you haven’t used in years. After reclaiming your muscles
-and the coordination to use them, you will find that they contribute subtly to everything you
-do. A retracted neck with no dormancy or frailty appears striking and even ostentatious, but
-you won’t feel guilty about it because the people struck by it will know you can’t help it.
-Optimal neck carriage is something that cannot be faked.
-
-Illustration 16.4: Additional anti-rigidity poses for the neck.
-
-Simulate Vomiting to Stimulate Missing Corners in the Neck
-
-Sometimes when | throw up, | feel a gratifying crack in my neck. An ancient, reflexive motor arc
-is actuated during vomiting that contracts all the attachments in the neck in series, allowing you
-to access muscles you normally have no conscious control of. Take advantage of this by
-performing neck anti-rigidity while you pretend to vomit.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.14: Simulate Vomiting
-Find your way to your hands and knees and rest comfortably. Simulate the action of throwing
-up. Dry heaving will induce contractions in muscles from the stomach to the back of the head
-as part of an innate action pattern. As you use the vomiting pattern to reach into muscles
-throughout the neck, twist and turn the neck in every direction. You should notice small
-cracking sensations as well as the achy sensation of activating muscles that rarely get used.
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-Before Program Peace vomiting was painful for me. This was the case because muscles in my
-abdomen were braced to the point of stagnancy. At times when retching, my internal organs
-would feel like they were on fire. As you might have guessed, the diaphragm and stomach
-produce much of the force used to expel food. This exercise along with those from Chapter
-11 and 22 have made it so that vomiting is painless.
-
-Keep Your Shoulders Down and Back
-
-In cartoons, when a character becomes defensive or deferential, they raise their shoulders.
-Body language experts and animal behaviorists point out that this behavior may represent an
-effort to protect the neck, specifically the carotid artery and jugular vein. However, prolonged
-use of this insecure posture causes the muscles along the back of the neck and shoulders
-(trapezius) to become stuck in partial contraction. This means we walk, sit, and sleep in our
-beds with raised shoulders.
-
-The simple act of actively pushing the shoulders toward the floor can remodel the upper
-body. The latissimus dorsi (“lats”) that start under the armpits and run along the sides of the
-torso provide this tug. The more often you use them to pull the shoulders down, the more tone
-they develop. Pilates practitioners concentrate on keeping the head up and the shoulders down
-by imagining they are trying to maximize the distance between their ears and the tops of their
-shoulders. In personal training, this is referred to as “shoulder packing.” It involves depressing
-the shoulders and squeezing the shoulder blades together. Regularly engaging in a practice like
-this will improve your kinesthetic awareness of what it feels like to appropriately position your
-neck and shoulder blades.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.15: Keeping the Shoulders Down and Back
-
-Bring your neck into a gentle retraction. Next, press your shoulders down toward the floor.
-The shoulder blades should be lightly squeezed together (adducted), with neck elongated,
-chin angled down, and chest open. From here, engage your entire shoulder girdle by pressing
-your shoulders and arms down. You can pretend that you are a gymnast performing a
-“support hold” on two parallel bars. You could also imagine that you are pressing yourself up
-out of a sewer hole. Once you have gotten the hang of it, try it pressing down against a hard
-surface such as a chair, tabletop, or the floor. Again, you want to reinforce this position from
-as many angles as possible.
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-Pressing the shoulders down is made easier by carrying (or pretending to carry) a load in
-the hands. This is the posture of a highly commanding and athletic person. It is also the posture
-that our body was designed for given that we have been fine-tuned for carrying items while
-walking. Imagine yourself carrying large hunks of meat or a long spear and a heavy wooden
-club. The most efficient way to carry these things is with the shoulders fully pressed toward the
-ground, as our ancestors would have. Whether walking, socializing, carrying things, exercising,
-or in bed, you want your shoulders back and down.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.16: Keeping the Shoulders Down with Weights
-
-Hold a two to 15-pound dumbbell in each hand and allow the weight to pull your shoulders
-toward the floor. Dynamically shift the position of your shoulder blades and focus on the
-sensations involved. While letting the weight tug at your shoulders, gently rotate the
-shoulders outward and inward. Next, try rolling them either forward or backward in circles.
-As you do so, try to contract all the muscles in your upper torso. You should feel this stretch
-reaching into previously hidden rigidity all over your upper body.
-
-Puff Up and Open the Chest
-
-Many women hold the breastbone down and inward to withdraw their breasts. Men do it to
-make their chest less conspicuous. This unnecessary modesty leads to unhealthy posture by
-depressing the collarbones and lowering the head. Ladies and gentlemen, it is healthiest for you
-to project your breast forward, so disregard any perceived social consequences.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.17: Heart Opener
-With your neck retracted, clasp your hands behind your back and pull down. This should
-draw your shoulders back and down and spread your collarbones wide. Arch the chest
-upward and forward. Project it out into space. Walk and move in this way with your chest
-“cracked wide open.”
-
-For optimal shoulder stability, you want to strengthen the muscles that externally rotate
-your shoulders. Do this by turning your wrists outward so that your palms face forward.
-Allow this to rotate your shoulders toward your back so that they are no longer slumped
-forward. With this simple change, you should feel your chest and collarbones spread open deep
-within their joints. Alternately, try lifting your arms to waist height with the palms facing the
-sky. At the same time, retract your neck, flex your glutes, and puff out your chest. Keep
-practicing this external rotation of the shoulders until it is habitual. It is especially important
-during cardio and weight-bearing exercises.
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-—T—
-
-Illustration 16.5: A woman: A. pressing herself out of a sewer hole, B. allowing weights to tug her shoulders down,
-C. with her shoulders back and down and the hands clasped behind the back, D & E. with her palms facing the sky
-and her shoulders externally rotated.
-
-Use Shrugging for Anti-rigidity
-
-Apes generally walk on all fours. Their upper body, which we have inherited, was designed for
-it. To support this form of locomotion, apes assume a multitude of neck and shoulder postural
-configurations as they press their hands against the ground with each stride. There are many
-such postures between shoulders completely shrugged and shoulders completely down.
-
-You will find that shoulder shrugging is a great counterpose to shoulders down and that a shrug
-enhances your ability to find achiness in the neck retracted position.
-
-Postural Exercise #16.18: Shrugging
-Place your hands on the ground, a table, or a countertop and push away while
-simultaneously shrugging your shoulders to rehabilitate frailty. Vary this posture in as many
-ways as possible. Try it with your neck extended and retracted. Try it with the shoulders
-bowed toward the front of the body and then rotated toward the back.
-
-Illustration 16.6: Shrugging positions for anti-rigidity.
-
-Other Methods of Anti-rigidity
-Aside from knuckle-walking, apes are also built for climbing trees and swinging between
-branches. You may know where | am going with this: | recommend using either gymnastics rings
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-or TRX Bands to recreate similar isometric poses to repair your neck and shoulders. You can
-hang rings or bands from many places, including a tree branch or even a pull-up bar ina
-doorway. Use these supports to place your body into unfamiliar positions from which to search
-for areas in need of anti-rigidity.
-
-Neck Exercise #16.19: Using Gymnastics Rings for Optimal Neck Retraction
-
-Place each of your hands in a ring with your arms spread out at 90 degrees. Press down
-lightly on the rings as if you were attempting to perform an “iron cross.” Retract the neck,
-pulling the chin toward the neck. This position should be very frail and unstable and should
-provide months of productive anti-rigidity training.
-
-You can assume many other gymnastic positions from the rings and receive an excellent
-isometric workout. The positions include the support hold, Maltese, and various other static
-strength holds. You can also perform ring push-ups, dips, pull-ups, rows, front levers,
-muscle-ups, hanging leg raises, and much more. Because you can do these with your feet on
-the ground, you have complete control of the intensity. As these exercises get easier, put
-more of your weight into your arms rather than your legs.
-
-Many other tools can be used in anti-rigidity as props to place the body into unfamiliar
-joint configurations. You can use a trapeze, a pull-up bar, gymnastics supports, a yoga swing,
-inflatable stability balls, and many others. A long dowel or pole can also be used to help you
-leverage neglected positions in what are commonly called “stick mobility exercises.”
-
-If you have access to a pool or body of water, you should also consider treading water.
-Treading water is near the top of the list of exercises when it comes to calories burned per
-minute. Despite this, it is not likely to lead to repetitive strain injuries because it happens ina
-“weightless” environment where there is very little stress on your joints. Every inch of your
-body is working while you tread, and unlike other cardio routines, the arms, shoulders, neck,
-and torso are completely engaged. Also, it presents various opportunities for anti-rigidity,
-because there are dozens of kick and arm variations you can use. Treading water with your
-arms while holding your neck in a retracted position may be the fastest way to ingrain
-retraction. Treading water in a pool never gets boring because you can bring a phone or tablet
-outside, prop it up on the ground using a towel, and use it to watch videos while you tread.
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-“Ate ACP
-LI
-
-niveat
-
-Pe
-ore
-
-Illustration 16.7: Poses for anti-rigidity and anti-laxity using gymnastics rings or TRX bands.
-
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-a Watacrease
-EONS
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-| also recommend contracting into poses of postural strength on a trampoline.
-For instance, bounce up and down while flexing the glutes, flexing the chin to the chest,
-and pulling the shoulders back and down. The accelerations and de-accelerations from jumping
-will expose frailty and allow you to flex deeper into some of your biggest problem areas. Even a
-mini trampoline can be used to this end.
-
-Compression for the Neck
-
-| strongly advise massaging the neck. You want to use compression, percussion, and vibration
-on every nook and cranny. Exercises 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6 and Exercise 9.17 provide examples.
-Consider regularly using percussion with a knuckle tool, baseball, or vibrating massager on the
-entire neck to reduce excessive tone.
-
-The End Goal for the Upper Body
-
-As you get better at pushing your shoulders toward the ground with a retracted neck, you will
-find that this integrates your entire upper body into a more cohesive unit. It will allow you to
-create simultaneous and complementary tone in the muscles that pull the shoulder forward
-(pectorals), the muscles that pull the shoulders backward (rhomboids), and the muscles that
-pull the shoulders down (latissimus dorsi). This allows these three sets of muscles to pull
-against each other synergistically.
-
-Most people tend to contract only one of these at a time, but not all three simultaneously.
-Generally, only very physically dominant people, with limber necks, feel comfortable having this
-triumvirate active all at once. You want to walk around with a light contraction in all three of
-these muscle groups on a daily basis. As you do it, picture yourself as Conan the Barbarian with
-a giant sword in his hands, as She-Hulk carrying groups of people out of a burning building, or as
-something in that vicinity.
-
-|
-
-Illustration 16.9: A. Pectorals; B. Rhomboids; C. Latissimus Dorsi; D. All three muscle groups holding a light
-contraction will result in the conveyance of power.
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-Conclusion
-
-For two decades, | had a pronounced knot to the right of the C4 vertebra in my neck. It was
-large enough for people to notice regularly and inquire about. The knot was larger than the size
-of my entire thumb, and several professionals voiced their concerns. No fewer than four
-doctors told me it was not muscular and that it was a lipoma or a cyst. However, | knew it was
-just a knotted muscle. Over the next two years, | used anti-rigidity to leverage my way into this
-achy, closed-down gnarl. As | gained access to it, by searching for positions capable of making it
-ache, it shrunk gradually until it disappeared. This general process applied to several other
-knots in my neck that were less conspicuous. Apply it to yours.
-
-Indian people use a head shake or wobble as a nonverbal signal to indicate goodwill and
-use it to mean anything from “good” to “I understand.” | believe this wobble signifies neck
-vitality, relaxation, and an easygoing approach. It is a beautiful way to put people at ease, and |
-think it is no coincidence that this marvelous expression arises from the same culture that
-brought us yoga and Buddhist philosophy. Incorporate the use of your neck into your nonverbal
-behavior. Use smooth, playful neck motions to help you build rapport with people and allay
-their tendency toward neck stiffness.
-
-The simple exercises in this chapter will revise the neural circuitry involved in holding your
-head up. They will provide abounding coordination, mobility, and strength that will make your
-neck posture monumental. Raise your head imperiously with poise and majesty and be the
-master of all that you survey.
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-Chapter 16: Bullet Points
-
-e In most people, the neck is severely underused and holds massive amounts of strain.
-
-e Anterior head syndrome, also called the “dowager’s hump” and “nerd neck,” is caused
-by jutting the chin out, bending the top of the neck backward, and pushing the bottom
-of the neck forward. This is called neck protraction and is a highly submissive posture.
-
-e Counteract this by performing neck retraction, which involves pulling the bottom of the
-neck backward and pushing the top forward while tucking the chin inward toward the
-chest and throat. This should include a chin lock.
-
-e You can assume many postures that will help you locate dormant muscle in the neck
-and shoulders so that it can be rehabilitated with anti-rigidity training. These include
-neck retraction, protraction, and extension, pressing the shoulders down, shrugging,
-hugging yourself, shoulder external rotation, opening the chest, clasping the hands
-behind the back, holding them out to the side, and many others.
-
-e The more you practice bringing dormant neck and shoulder muscles to fatigue, the
-sooner they will be strong enough to hold an athletic and stable position naturally.
-
-e If you use anti-rigidity to rehab the stiff, rigid muscles in your neck, you will become less
-tightly wound and you will find the act of exercise to be easier and more rewarding.
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-Chapter 16: Endnotes
-
-1. Matsui, T., & Fujimoto, T. (2011). Treatment for depression with chronic neck pain
-completely cured in 94.2% of patients following neck muscle treatment. Neuroscience &
-Medicine, 2(2), 7177.
-
-2. Kado, D. M., Huang, M. H., Karlamangla, A. S., Barrett-Connor, E., & Greendale, G. A.
-(2004). Hyperkyphotic posture predicts mortality in older community-dwelling men and
-
-women: A prospective study. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 52(10), 1662-1667.
-
-3. Hansraj, K. K. (2014). Assessment of stresses in the cervical spine caused by posture and
-position of the head. Surgical Technology International, 25, 277-279.
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-Chapter 17: Anti-rigidity for the Lower Back
-
-Lower back pain is more common than neck pain: it is the second leading cause for physician
-visits in the US. It is so crippling that Americans spend an estimated $50 billion annually on
-lower back pain alone. This preventable ailment is taxing our wallets and healthcare system.
-Because our lower backs are foundational to our morale, fortitude, and faith in ourselves,
-weakness and pain in that area tax our very sense of personal agency.
-
-In most cases, the predominant reason for back pain is muscular imbalance. Vital muscles
-are left underused and undeveloped while others are overused and strained. We use them
-at only a fraction of their full range, and usually only while breathing shallowly. This corrupts
-the muscles with the same ailment we have been discussing all along: dormancy due to
-partial contraction.
-
-Illustration 17.1: A. Interior anatomy of the lower back with some underlying musculature revealed; B. Exterior
-musculature of the lower back; C. Excessive backward curve (lordosis) in the lower back.
-
-My lower back was treacherous. The muscles surrounding my lumbar vertebrae were in
-such bad shape that they hurt every time | coughed or sneezed. | would severely strain my
-lower back every year due to stress, lack of sleep, or improper exercise, leaving me unable to
-walk for days at a time. A few times, | was bedridden for a week, forced to crawl back and forth
-to the bathroom on my hands and knees. Since | began anti-rigidity training, this has never
-happened. The dormant muscle that used to lock up when | threw my back out was
-transformed into springy, mobile, load-accepting muscle. | unraveled my entire lumbar region
-by combining anti-rigidity, spinal decompression, stretching, and therapeutic massage. This
-chapter will touch on each of these, giving you the information you need to transform your
-body’s most powerful physical asset.
-
-How tense is your lower back? The activity below will guide you through using your fingers
-to feel the tense, dormant muscles along the back of your hips (iliac crest).
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-Lower Back Activity #17.1: Diagnose the Extent of Lower Back Dormancy
-Press your index and middle fingers into your lower back 2-6 inches above each butt cheek.
-Feel the muscles covering the sacrum (the central bone pictured below) and your pelvis’s iliac
-crests (the bony prominences to each side of the sacrum). As you move your fingers out
-toward your hips, you will likely feel large, tense cords of muscle fibers right over the
-sacroiliac joints (labeled below). This is dormancy. This chapter will detail how to bring them
-to their ideal state, smooth and flat with no perceptible knotting.
-
-Spine
-Sacroiliac
-Joint
-lliac Crest 6
-\ Sacrum
-Pelvis ——+
-
-Coccyx
-
-Sitz Bones
-
-Illustration 17.2: A. Man feeling tense knots at a sacroiliac joint; B. Woman with apparent dimples at the sacroiliac
-joints; C. Spine and pelvis seen from behind. The sacroiliac joints are marked with an “x.”
-
-As you know from Chapter 13, the lower part of our spine, called the lumbar region,
-naturally curves backward. This backward bend is known as lumbar lordosis. The lower back is
-bent lordotically to support the legs and absorb impact. In lordosis, the top of the pelvis is tilted
-forward as if you were pouring a bowl of soup from your waist out in front of you. In most
-people, this lordotic curve is excessive, making it structurally unsound. When the lordosis is
-excessive, it is called “anterior pelvic tilt” or “pelvic anteversion.” Generally, the more pelvic tilt
-one has, the less pelvic mobility is available to them.
-
-When my back had excessive lordosis, my belly button was very far from my nipples.
-Observe your belly button in your default posture. How far is it from your nipples? To correct
-this, flex your glutes, push your hips forward, and watch your belly button rise. Squeezing your
-glutes resets your pelvis-lumbar relationship back to where nature intended it to be. That is
-why it is essential to do this throughout the day.
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-—
-
-(
-Vey WAT “¢
-
-Illustration 17.3: A. Excessive lumbar lordosis is apparent as a considerable distance between the navel and
-nipples; B. Flexing the glutes and pushing the hips forward results in a neutral lower spine with less distance
-between the belly button and nipples; C. Excessive lumbar lordosis from the side; D. Neutral spine with
-glutes flexed.
-
-You can also neutralize excessive lordosis by teaching the lower spine to curve in the
-extreme opposite direction. To do this, flex the hips inward and up toward the face (lumbar
-kyphosis). This rotates the imaginary soup bowl backward so that the soup is no longer pouring
-out in front of you. | like to think of this posture as “shrimping up” because it involves curling
-the spine’s bottom half toward the stomach. Flex your glutes as you do this, and it becomes the
-equivalent of neck retraction.
-
-Recruiting Your Gluteus Muscles
-
-When the glutes are offline, other muscles, poorly suited for the job, are forced to support the
-core and stabilize the trunk. It is generally the muscles in the lower back and hips that end up
-compensating for underuse of the gluteus muscles, taking on heaps of tension in the process.
-To counteract this and set your pelvis in a neutral position, simply contract your buttocks.
-Squeezing your butt ensures your pelvic posture and tilt are optimized.
-
-Pilates advocates maintaining a neutral spine by sucking your stomach in, flexing your
-abdominals, relaxing the lumbar spine, and holding the glutes in a light contraction.
-
-During Pilates workouts, practitioners try to maintain this core engagement throughout every
-exercise. Neutral spine and glute engagement should be generalized to everything you do,
-not just exercise. Ideally, the glutes should have some form of contractile tone with every
-movement you make. This will trim your abdomen and increase the strength and size of
-
-your butt. Another reason some people don’t flex the glutes is they want to increase the
-conspicuousness of their butt as excessive lumbar lordosis pushes the butt out further.
-However, lumbar lordosis deactivates the glutes and, with time, their tone will decrease,
-resulting in a smaller, weaker butt.
-
-Flexing the glutes is a dominant expression that we shouldn’t hesitate to make. Most
-people avoid it, however, because the way their life has programed them, contracting their
-glutes takes their breath away. Imagine being a naked caveman or woman. The commanding
-ones had gluteal tone and the unassuming ones had hindquarters that were soft and limp.
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-So, use anti-laxity to make glute firmness your default by paring firm glute contractions with
-deep breathing many times per day. While this can make the lower back feel stiff, you can also
-employ anti-rigidity with the glutes contracted, moving in ways that target unfamiliar,
-
-achy configurations.
-
-Perform Anti-rigidity During Cat and Cow Poses
-Performing anti-rigidity maneuvers within yoga poses is an excellent way to find dormant lower
-
-back muscles that will benefit from being contracted. In particular, cow, cat, and bird-dog poses
-are the bread and butter of lower back health.
-
-LRP Ag
-
-Illustration 17.4: A. Cat or camel pose; B. Cow pose; C. Bird-dog pose.
-
-Backward Bends Straighten Your Spine
-
-A powerful way to counteract lumbar lordosis is to gradually introduce your body to global back
-extension. You can start by watching TV lying on your stomach. To make this more comfortable,
-you can prop yourself up on your elbows or place a pillow under your chest. To make it harder,
-try pressing the pubic bone into the floor until you are balancing on your pelvis and balling your
-buttocks into firm mounds. When you need something harder still, gently lift your feet and
-knees off the ground.
-
-Use the back extension exercises in which you rolled over a basketball from Chapter 13 to
-complement these positions. The simple act of lying on your stomach on the floor will make you
-feel stiff at first, so remember to perform a forward bend or a few sit-ups afterward as a
-counterpose. With time, work toward a full upward dog pose. If you can breathe slowly and
-fully in these positions, you can dismantle your vertebral tension.
-
-2 A\
-
-Illustration 17.5: A. Reading on the stomach; B. Pressing the pelvis into the ground; C. Upward dog pose.
-
-Downward Dog Pose
-
-Downward dog is another key yoga pose. After you internalize the mechanics of downward
-dog, try “walking the dog” by bending one knee at a time. Next, try shifting the butt left and
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-right while holding downward dog. Pivot as much as you can with your hips while doing this.
-You can access many normally inaccessible muscles all over the spine from this position. This
-includes muscles in your neck. For example, from downward dog, look to the right, raising and
-lowering the head 20 times. Repeat this while looking to the left. Soend time walking around in
-downward dog, doing the “bear crawl.”
-
-Illustration 17.6: A, B, C, & D. Downward dog pose; E & F. Plow pose.
-
-Strengthen the Hip Flexors: Child’s, Happy Baby, and Pigeon Poses
-
-Strengthening the hip flexor muscles on the front side of your waist is imperative for lower back
-health. To do this, practice the poses below while focusing on bringing the knee closer to the
-chest in a way that creates a firm contraction in the frontal portion of the hip. If you breathe
-through the subtle pinch in the hip flexor, you can coax it to contract fully. Doing this regularly
-will cause your hip flexors to become much stronger and provide integral support for your
-lower back.
-
-Illustration 17.7: A. Child’s pose; B. Happy baby pose; C & D. Pigeon pose.
-
-Trunk Twist
-
-There are many joints in the lower back and hips that articulate very subtly. They amount to a
-small degree of movement, but their presence or absence affects every lower body motion.
-
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-For instance, people with a mobile sacroiliac joint can twist their trunk below the waist. If you
-sit in a chair and turn to look over your shoulder, you want the turning motion to extend from
-the neck all the way down to the sitz bones. If the rotation stops at your waist level, you know
-that your sacroiliac joint is locked up. Regular trunk twists will unlock a multitude of muscles
-along your spine, allowing your hips to move with your legs during walking and making every
-lower body movement more graceful, sensual, and stable.
-
-LATALe
-
-Illustration 17.8: Trunk twist while: A. seated in a chair; B. standing; C. touching the floor; D. seated on the ground.
-
-ZI SO An
-i A
-
-Illustration 17.9: Hip twist progression. The first row shows a version of this exercise where the feet are not
-touching. The second row shows a much more challenging version where the feet are touching. Performing this
-20 times daily will help you progress from the first version to the second over just a few months while building
-lower back and core strength.
-
-Wagging Your Tail
-
-Next, | will describe a tactic to engage your hips that can lead to better hip mobility. | think of it
-as wagging the tail. To do this, tilt your pelvis from side to side. This is called pelvic incline or
-list. One hip goes up while the other goes down, and then, you reverse it. One way to master
-this movement is to relax on your back, keeping both legs straight. Then, pull one leg in toward
-you and push the other away. Practice varying the extent, intensity, and speed until you
-develop coordination. Once you have mastered this hip swivel, you can even do it while seated.
-The contractions involved will lead you to plenty of achy muscles. Combining tail wagging with
-anti-rigidity will help restore motor control and fluid motion to the hips and pelvis.
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-
-i
-
-Illustration 17.10: A & B. Sitting pelvic tilt; C & D. Lying pelvic tilt.
-
-Standing, One Leg Up
-
-While standing, place one foot flat on a surface that is between knee and waist height. This will allow
-you to leverage your way into hip frailty to which you may have previously been oblivious. From here,
-you can also perform isometric contractions of your side (obliques), abdominals, and one of your glutes.
-Regularly put one foot up on tables and countertops to achieve these.
-
-ay
-
-Illustration 17.11: With one leg up perform a: A. side bend; B. twist; or C. forward bend.
-
-Rock and Roll on the Floor
-
-An excellent way to resituate your lumbar vertebrae is to rock up and down your spine from
-your tailbone to your neck. To avoid injury, do this on a carpet or yoga mat. Lie down on your
-back and pull your knees into your chest. Roll forward and backward. Attempt to roll smoothly
-from the first position depicted in the drawings below to the third and back again repeatedly.
-To do this properly, you want your entire spine curved into a forward C-shape (kyphosis). You
-should find that as you rock into the third position pictured below, where the man has his
-weight on his neck, your lumbar region is subject to a pleasurable pulling sensation. Use this for
-anti-rigidity.
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-Ilustration 17.12: Rolling in a ball to achieve anti-rigidity.
-
-Squats
-
-Squats create formidable strength but also expose us to a high risk of injury. | recommend
-performing them with absolutely no weight as a way to develop foundational strength.
-Performing between five and 30 squat repetitions every other day is a great way to improve
-force and power production in the body. If you aren’t using weights, you can play with and vary
-the forces acting on the disks and vertebrae, distributing them in different ways to intentionally
-load the weakest segments.
-
-Illustration 17.13: A. Performing squats or deadlifts with heavy weight and invariant posture inevitably leads to
-injury and pain. As should be clear by now, our bodies were not designed for this kind of strain; B & C. Instead,
-opt for bodyweight squats with optimal, neutral posture or minor postural variations.
-
-Especially if you perform squats with additional weight, it is imperative to squat using
-proper form. You want your back flat, feet straight, and your knees slightly outside your feet yet
-behind your toes. Take a wide stance with your feet just outside the shoulders. As you squat,
-keep your shins as vertical as possible, not tilted forward. Put your hands at chin height out in
-front of you. At the bottom of the squat, you want to maintain a neutral curve in your lower
-back without excessive lordosis or kyphosis. As you stand, flex your butt.
-
-| strongly recommend starting with supported squats. You can achieve this by holding
-a rail, tabletop, chair leg, pair of doorknobs, TRX bands, or gymnastics rings, and using them to
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-pull yourself up. You can also place your hands on your knees and push against them for
-support. This will reduce the forces on your hips, knees, and ankles, allowing you to progress
-into unsupported squats in time. Breathing deeply from a low squat with your knees
-moderately loaded will recondition them, healing that “crunchy” quality and reducing their
-tendency to pop and lock up. It will do the same for your ankles and lower back.
-
-Most people cannot perform a full-range, butt-to-ankle squat. While many exercise
-professionals advise against lowering your butt below the knees when squatting, | recommend
-lowering your butt to rest on your heels but only if you do so with body weight in a slow,
-controlled manner. When paired with diaphragmatic breathing, a complete squat will give you
-a full lower back stretch extending to where your lumbar spine meets your sacrum, excising the
-tension from this area.
-
-Everyone should do bodyweight squats. Even doing only five a day will inevitably teach
-your body to do it properly. | recommend trying other advanced weightlifting techniques such
-as lunges, power cleans, snatches, and deadlifts with either body weight or very light
-dumbbells. | recommend only adding weight once you have mastered the form and can do 30
-repetitions without any discomfort.
-
-Studies have shown that lower back exercises are the most beneficial when practiced daily.
-More importantly, endurance exercise is recommended over exertive exercise for its protective
-value. In other words, use low intensity (body weight) and high repetition (10 to 100) to slowly
-and gently bring these muscles to fatigue. These will establish your unrealized core strength.
-
-Static Squatting
-
-Holding a static squat with your butt at the level of your knees is an age-old yoga technique. In
-martial arts, this is done with the legs somewhat spread in a pose called “horse stance,” which
-is used to strengthen the lower back and create a feeling of “groundedness.” A system called
-Foundation Training, developed by Eric Goodman, popularized another version of the static
-squat called the “founder” pose. Check out his version online. A static squat helps isolate and
-strengthen the epicenter of lower back frailty.
-
-Lower Back Exercise #17.1: Hold a Static Squat
-With legs shoulder length apart, bend your knees until your butt is just above the level of
-your knees. Hold a static squat while placing the lower back into different configurations.
-From squatting position, introduce complete lordosis in your lower back and then total
-kyphosis. Hold the squat while moving carefully back and forth between the two.
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-oe
-
-Ilustration 17.14: A. Static squat with lumbar lordosis; B. Static squat with lumbar neutrality; C. Static squat with
-lumbar kyphosis.
-
-Release the Hamstrings
-
-Most of us have hamstring tension that has caused them to adapt to shorter-than-normal
-resting length. Shortened hamstrings tug insidiously on the sitz bones, placing significant
-pressure on the lower back. This constant pull forces the pelvis into excessive lordosis. This is
-why stretching the hamstrings is very important for lower back health. One of the best ways to
-stretch your hamstrings is to lie on your back with one leg in the air, wrapping a towel or belt
-around your foot. From here, pull your foot toward your head as pictured below. A ubiquitous
-lower back disorder called “lower cross” syndrome is marked by short and tight hamstrings and
-groin muscles, along with weak and underdeveloped buttocks and abdominals. Hamstring and
-hip flexor stretches will relieve the former while squats and sit-ups will strengthen the latter.
-
-Weak Tight
-
-Abdominals Thoracolumbar
-/ Extensors
-
-Tight Hip Weak Glutes
-
-Flexors
-
-Illustration 17.15: A. Man sitting with legs straight releasing the hamstrings; B. Stretching the hamstring using
-a towel; C. The features of the lower cross syndrome.
-
-Spinal Decompression and Traction
-
-Age and pressure pull our vertebrae closer together, compressing the spine. This makes the
-spine like an inchworm that has retracted its telescoping body segments. Decompression (also
-known as spinal traction) stretches the muscles surrounding the spinal vertebrae, increasing
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-circulation and resting length. Once these muscles are stretched, they can contract more fully
-and undergo anti-rigidity exercises. Spinal decompression can feel precarious, like you are being
-pulled apart. Combining it with diaphragmatic breathing, however, will assure your spine that it
-is safe to expand to full length.
-
-A great way to decompress is to use an inversion table and lie upside down, suspended by
-your feet, for a few minutes each day. Commonly recommended by physicians, inversion tables
-have demonstrated significant clinical benefits. A second method to achieve this is to practice
-“stretchlying,”? which | encourage you to read about online. Third, passive motion from shaking
-can also aid in decompression. Passive motion can come from having someone jostle your spine
-rhythmically or using a reciprocating “chi machine” that continuously shakes the body. All three
-of these techniques often cause people’s spines to tense up defensively. But, if you give in to it,
-you can teach your spinal muscles not to resist the passive forces. As you might imagine, paced
-breathing is immensely helpful to that end.
-
-Massage also has decompressive effects (e.g., Activity 6.1). Consider having a masseuse
-perform an easy deep tissue massage on your lower back. After a few visits, it should feel
-comfortable for them to use their elbows to press deeply into every area surrounding your
-lumbar spine. Having a masseuse stand on your lower back can also be helpful and is common
-in Thai massage. If your back is very strong, you can ask your masseuse to stand on your pelvis
-and take gentle steps all the way up your spine. This is a fantastic way to decompress these
-areas, but it can be dangerous.
-
-Decompressing the spine will help your muscles extend to their intended length. However,
-because they have yet to be used at this length and have poor tone as a result, they will initially
-be vulnerable to injury if accidentally contracted too forcefully. This is why, after any form of
-decompression, you should avoid intense workouts and instead use anti-rigidity carefully
-and remedially.
-
-Compression and Massage
-
-Compressing the muscles in your lower back by lying on top of baseballs is highly effective.
-
-To do this, lie with your back on the ground and bend your knees. Place a baseball on each side
-of your spine, just above your pelvis, or along the iliac crest. Alternatively, you can use softballs
-or tennis balls if baseballs are too painful. Once the balls are in place, lift your feet into the air.
-Use your legs to regulate the pressure placed on the balls, directing that pressure into the
-sorest spots. You can also use them to compress the muscles around your love handles, as well
-as the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus, gluteus medius, piriformis, and others.
-
-You want to rest each portion of your pelvis on the balls for several seconds at a time,
-ensuring you are breathing deeply and slowly. The tremendous aching sensation results in fresh
-blood pouring into stale, lifeless muscles. The aching will be vastly reduced after only a dozen
-five-minute sessions. However, as with the decompression exercises in the last section,
-it potentially leaves your lower back open to serious injury if you load these newly relaxed
-muscles too intensely or too soon. Therefore, | recommend performing this after your regular
-exercises or before bed. Using baseballs in this way will uproot the iliac knots and expel the
-tension from your lower back.
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-Illustration 17.16: A. Man pressing two baseballs into the sacroiliac joints; B. Man rolling lower back over a foam
-“cumble” roller; C. Man using an inversion table.
-
-When baseballs are pressing into your back, the pressure will change your back’s normal
-configuration, permitting stretches in planes of motion previously blocked. Take advantage of
-this and perform anti-rigidity in these planes. You can attain the same effect by placing a
-football, basketball, or yoga block under your sacrum while lying supine.
-
-Like cankles, love handles form due to dormant muscle. Press a baseball, thumb, knuckle,
-or tool into the spongey, dormant muscles responsible for your love handles. Focus on pressing
-firmly into the top ridge of your posterior pelvis. Compressing and percussing these muscles
-will revive them, introduce new mobility in your hips, and accordingly reduce fat deposition at
-the site.
-
-To reduce confusion, it is important for me to address the idea of localized fat loss.
-
-The majority of scientific studies have debunked the idea of targeted fat loss sometimes called
-“spot reduction.” In other words, working out a particular area of the body may reduce overall
-body fat, but generally does not reduce fat deposition at that particular site. For instance, doing
-a lot of bicep curls makes them bigger but does not reduce the fat content of the upper arm.
-However, it is my conviction that rehabilitating dormant muscle using the anti-rigidity and
-massage techniques outlined in this book can result in spot reduction. | have seen dramatic
-instances of it on my own body and on those of my clients. As the crunchy, achy muscle around
-your midsection is rehabbed, it will become lean and trim.
-
-How to Bend Over
-
-Most people bend over from the waist. This means they hunch their spine forward from the
-height of their belly button to bend down. This leads to injury. When bending, you want to keep
-your spine straight by bending a few inches lower, at the hips. This results in a hinge from the
-hip with a straight back. Hip hinging strengthens the erector spinae muscles and stretches the
-hamstrings. Fully engage the stomach muscles to help buffer the load on the lumbar spine. Of
-course, if you are picking up something heavy, you should squat down and lift with the knees.
-Otherwise, lift small loads by hip hinging.
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-Illustration 17.17: A. Improper bending from the waist; B. Proper hinging from the hips; C. Proper squatting to lift
-a load.
-
-The more often you can bend over by hip hinging, the better. | shoot for 10 times per day.
-Put commonly used objects such as your phone charger on the floor so that you must bend to
-the ground every time you use them.
-
-Perfecting Your Sit-Ups
-
-Sit-ups are the best counterpose for any work with your spine. They will reset your vertebrae
-from your neck to your tailbone. They place the lower back into neutrality, helping protect
-individual muscles from the repetitive strain that comes from being out of alignment. For this
-reason, it is constructive to perform 10-20 sit-ups after performing the other back exercises in
-this chapter.
-
-A few advanced variations to try when doing sit-ups: 1) Place a small firm pillow (or “sit-up
-pad”) under your lower back so that near the top of the sit-up you have something for your
-kyphotic lumbar spine to arch against, and press away from. This will help ensure that you are
-not stuck in lordosis during the sit-up; 2) Straighten your legs and rest the backs of your knees
-on the ground throughout the motion; 3) Flex your buttocks as you come down from each sit-
-up; 4) Turn your neck and look to each side.
-
-Doing sit-ups on the floor can irritate muscles that aren’t used to the intense forces. This is
-why | recommend doing sit-ups in bed. It provides outstanding remedial rehab for the entire
-spine and will accentuate all your other efforts to improve your neck and lower back. Every
-human should take three minutes to do at least 25 sit-ups in bed every other day.
-
-Illustration 17.18: A. Sit-ups; B. Massaging the iliac crests with the knuckles; C. Elevating the sacrum with a
-basketball into an unfamiliar position for anti-rigidity.
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-Conclusion
-
-Remember the tense cords of muscle you found with your fingers between your lower spine
-and hips at the beginning of this chapter? When you compress, stretch, and tone these
-muscles, you will develop a different diagnostic marker: dimples. Spinal experts claim that
-people with a dimple just above each buttock on either side of the spine have very healthy
-lower backs.” The dimples demarcate mobility and strength in the sacroiliac joints. | used the
-methods in this chapter for a whole year, experienced dramatic results, and still lacked these
-two dimples. | figured the experts were wrong. No, | was wrong. After two additional years of
-using these methods, | finally developed the dimples.
-
-Over the last five years, | have spent at least five minutes every day reconditioning my
-lower back. It was chronically painful before, and now there is zero pain. The alignment of my
-vertebrae has changed significantly. Some vertebrae were far more prominent than others;
-they even felt crooked to the touch. Yet now they all lie in a straight line. | used to live in fear of
-the next back injury, but now a back injury seems almost inconceivable. After you use the
-exercises in this chapter, your body will unconsciously recognize that your lower back will not
-fail you. If you are like me, once you can trust your spine to support everything you do,
-immense amounts of unconscious trepidation will be relieved.
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-Chapter 17: Bullet Points
-
-e Portions of the lower back are rarely used, so they remain in a tense state of partial
-contraction. This leaves them susceptible to injury and causes lower back pain.
-
-e To optimize lumbar mobility, use anti-rigidity exercises in the lumbar region by bending,
-extending, and flexing it in every direction.
-
-e Doing sit-ups, yoga poses, Pilates, toe touches, trunk twists, hip-hinging, hip-swiveling,
-deadlifts, squats, and lunges will all help.
-
-e These exercises should be performed with only your bodyweight, at very low intensity,
-with many repetitions.
-
-e Bend over and touch your toes several times per day. When doing so, bend from the
-hip, not the waist.
-
-e You can employ traction to decompress the spine by using an inversion table,
-“stretchlying,” or decompressive massage.
-
-e You can unlock the lumbar spinal muscles, glutes, hips, and the entire sacroiliac joint by
-massaging the area with baseballs, compressing it with your knuckles, or percussing it
-with tools.
-
-e Put your lower back and hips into as many unfamiliar configurations as possible. Rehab
-these configurations from all angles using deep breathing, anti-laxity and anti-rigidity.
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-Chapter 17: Endnote
-
-1. Gokhale, E. (2008). 8 steps to a pain-free back. Pendo Press.
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-Anti-rigidity While Walking
-
-“Walking is man’s best medicine.” — Hippocrates (460 BCE — 370 BCE)
-
-“lf there is a panacea in medicine, it is walking.” — Norman Doidge (b. 1950)
-
-If you place an exercise wheel in a rat’s cage, it will use it. They naturally want to move. A rat
-that uses a wheel is much more mentally and physically healthy than a rat caged without one.
-It is also more resilient to stress and will live longer. | regularly have to remind myself that | too
-have a wheel in my cage, and it is the block | live on. Merely walking around your block a few
-times each day can vastly improve your mental and physical health.
-
-Walking keeps your respiratory and cardiovascular systems strong by providing them with
-a light challenge. However, for a rat to attain health benefits, its use of a wheel must be
-voluntary. If the rat feels forced, the exercise becomes stressful, and many of the benefits
-disappear. So, when | walk | don’t hurry, | have no time limit, and no particular destination to
-reach. For me, the endorphins from a voluntary 15-minute walk make me feel like | am no
-longer in a cage. Those from a 30-minute walk turn a so-so day into a splendid one.
-
-Modern-day hunter-gatherers average around 19 miles of walking and trotting every day.
-Like all mammals, we are designed to move. Some doctors urge patients to take 10,000 steps
-daily, which equates to about five miles and takes about an hour and a half. In my opinion, this
-is excessive for many people, especially those who co not walk regularly. They quickly develop
-back, knee, and ankle pain at this rate. Instead, shoot for a healthy fraction of this that is
-comfortable for you. You might start somewhere between 3,000 and 7,000 steps.
-
-While mortality rates improve progressively with the number of steps taken daily,” this
-positive effect levels off after approximately 6,000 steps (three miles) per day. This
-demonstrates that you certainly don’t need to walk a full 10,000 steps each day to reap the
-benefits. You might want to use your car or a GPS to measure the distance around your block.
-Once you have that distance in miles, multiply it by 2,000 (there are around 2,000 steps ina
-mile) to find out how many steps it takes to circle your block and then how many laps you
-should shoot for to reach your desired total distance. Wherever you choose to walk, you should
-find that after a few thousand steps you feel your bracing patterns and emotional tensions
-begin to wash away.
-
-At the end of Chapter 21, we will discuss the panoply of health benefits from regular
-exercise in more detail. The remainder of this chapter will discuss how to get the most out of
-your walks. It will coach you to walk assertively, with impeccable posture, while employing anti-
-rigidity, and taking appropriate breaks and counterposes. Basically, it details how you can turn
-your walks into time spent putting Program Peace into practice.
-
-Use Good Posture While Walking in Public
-
-Whenever we encounter someone, the first impulse is to query: “friend or foe?” Unconscious
-circuits in the brain work to decide: “Are they going to attack me?” “Are they easily provoked?”
-“Are they analyzing me, waiting for me to submit before they decide whether to be hostile?”
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-Then we try to determine if they did have ill intentions, would they have the power to enact
-them? In other words, we size them up to see which one of us would prevail in a physical
-altercation. Often regardless of whether we think we could win, we let our posture cave in.
-Don’t do any of these things. The inclination to size up others turns our world into a hostile
-place from the inside out. However, we do want to be aware of how others size us up.
-
-Psychologists, criminologists, and law enforcement personnel agree that walking like a
-victim increases the likelihood of being mugged or assaulted. They recommend that we “walk
-with a purpose.” Studies have shown that criminals can identify people with histories of
-victimization by their gait.? They walk like an easy target: asynchronously, timidly, with short
-strides. Depressed people also have a characteristic way of walking. They exhibit reductions in
-walking speed, stride length, vertical head movement, and arm movement at the shoulder and
-elbow.? When you walk, do the exact opposite.
-
-People who walk like despondent prey are advertising their victimization so others can see
-that they don’t want to compete. They are communicating that they will give in to a bully.
-
-But the same self-handicapping that will repel a competitor will attract a predator. There is a
-fundamental tradeoff to submissive posture, and that is being ripe for predation. This is why
-the best way to carry yourself is to use the optimal postures described in the preceding
-chapters, without a hint of either competitiveness or vulnerability.
-
-Your neck should be straight, with your chin tucked in toward your throat. Your shoulders
-should be pressed down and back. Your eyes should be wide and looking upward. Your face,
-and your entire body should be relaxed. You should be breathing smooth, slow, long, deep
-breaths through your nose. This combination of comfort and confidence should help you see
-the strangers you encounter on your walks as compatriots and allies. A zygomatic smile and a
-cordial salute can help them see you in the same way.
-
-Walk spryly with nonchalant control and balance. Expand yourself. In becoming more
-expansive channel a peacock fanning its tail feathers, a cat galloping sideways, or a baboon
-romping through foliage. Feel the animal strength in your body. Extend your neck and roll your
-shoulders back so that you can openly display your chest. This gives a signal to others that you
-are not afraid of being attacked. Hands placed near the hips show readiness for action, hands
-behind the back signify confidence.* Head erect and neck retracted, demonstrate the posture of
-a military general, an elite athlete, or royalty. Think imperial, dignified...regal. Visualize yourself
-emanating gravitas and a commanding presence. Good posture leads others to assume that you
-must have much to be confident about, and they will accept what you project.
-
-Hunter-gatherers have been documented to steal meat from lions by merely walking up to
-them and taking it. How, you ask? They walk with purpose. They wait until a lion kills a
-wildebeest. Then as few as three humans will approach a pride of as many as one dozen hungry
-beasts. They walk directly toward the lions from a distance without a hint of hesitation. One by
-one, the lions buy into the illusion, grow wary, and flee the site. Walking while projecting
-assertion, intention, and mettle is incredibly powerful and acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
-
-As You Walk, Own the Space Around You
-
-It is common to see a monkey feeding peacefully in one spot but then depart suddenly when
-approached by another monkey who promptly claims the spot. Behavioral biologists have a
-word for when one animal makes another animal move. It is called “displacement.” It happens
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-when a subordinate animal uses its knowledge of the hierarchy to determine that a
-confrontation should be avoided. It allows the other animal to evict it from the physical space it
-was occupying. Preferred spaces can involve food, like a prime spot of grass. They can involve
-mates, like a spot closer to a fertile female. Sometimes animals are forced to move from
-unremarkable spaces, where they happen to be. Don’t allow anyone to evict you from where
-you happen to be.
-
-This is not a call to be impolite. Be thoughtful when passing people, share space,
-open doors, move over to accommodate couples or to make room for children, families, or the
-elderly. However, don't displace yourself to appease an imposing person any more than you
-would for someone who wasn't. Hold your ground and expect them to move out of the way as
-much as you do. When walking, own your immediate space as well as your entire forward
-trajectory through space. It may feel like you are flouting social customs, but remember that
-you are not doing anything illegal. You are doing invaluable internal work increasing the
-boundaries of your comfort zone. When you inevitably bump into someone, be firm but
-amiable about it.
-
-Many people have told me that my cat is the calmest they have ever seen. This may be
-because | am calm around him, | treat him like a friend, and | pet him firmly, fluidly, and slowly.
-But | think the main reason for his composure is that | respect his space. | make an effort not to
-step over him or walk so close to him that he fears being trampled. | give him authority over his
-immediate area, which provides him a shield of certainty and control. Take this shield for
-yourself, wherever you go. Feel complete ownership of the space around you. Wherever you
-are is your territory because you are in it.
-
-Walk with Exaggerated Posture
-
-When | first went out on long walks exaggerating my posture and standing tall, | could tell that
-other pedestrians questioned my motives, looking suspicious or even offended. Some people
-seemed incensed at seeing me standing vertically and looking upwards. My posture looked fake
-because | was forcing myself to stand straight without the healthy postural tone that should
-accompany it. Ironically, the best way to develop this musculature is to fake it, standing
-straighter and taller than our body is accustomed. Once the postural muscles strengthen,
-standing erect will look genuine, and people will not question it.
-
-Walking Exercise #18.1: Take A Walk with Exaggerated Posture
-
-Take a walk in an area where you can avoid worrying about other people judging you. Walk
-for two minutes with greatly exaggerated posture. Stand tall and straight. Use the five tenets
-of optimal posture, as well as the anti-laxity method from Chapter 13. The contractions
-involved should start to fatigue after a few minutes. Once they do, continue to walk but rest
-your postural muscles completely for at least a minute. Repeat. By letting the muscles go
-limp, you are giving them the break they need to regenerate.
-
-Pease don’t take it overboard. Other pedestrians may be provoked if they can tell that
-some of your nonverbals are consistent with overcompensation. They may assume that you are
-putting on a ruse and feel compelled to put you back in your place. You want to avoid this,
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-so be measured and conservative around others as you gradually transform your victim walk
-into a victor walk. This is also why, at first, | chose to walk and stretch in uncrowded, outdoor
-places either at dusk or after dark. Find a safe, well-lit park or boulevard where you still have
-the bit of privacy you need to really swagger. Strut creatively, channeling the gamut of your
-favorite personality types.
-
-You can work on the timing of your steps by stepping to music. It is as easy as ensuring that
-your foot strikes the ground on every beat. Try stomping around your block with headphones
-on. If you let nothing but the drums determine the cadence of your footfall you will learn to
-walk unhesitatingly. Within two hour of cumulative practice your rhythmic flow will be
-masterful. You can incorporate a two-step, a spin or turn, and a cross-step (where you are
-walking sideways and one foot crosses over the other).
-
-Optimal posture only looks natural if it is clear that a person has spent a lot of time there
-and has interacted with ordinary loads and forces from that position. To get your optimal
-posture looking authentic, spend time creating these loads and forces using anti-rigidity.
-
-Perform Anti-rigidity Exercises While Walking
-The majority of this book’s exercises can be performed while walking, but the following
-exercises are specifically for your walks.
-
-Many people rarely lift their arms above their head because they are afraid it will make
-others uncomfortable. This complete disuse results in muscle dormancy and neglect of entire
-sections of the cervical and thoracic spine. The first part of Exercise 18.2 below involves
-extending the arms directly above the head with the neck retracted. If you do this while
-employing the anti-rigidity method from Chapter 14 for three cumulative hours, you will find
-that your cervical spine is completely resituated. You will also invalidate any fears or
-reservations about lifting your arms in public. The following exercises offer similar postures that
-you can employ anti-rigidity within. You might take light weights (e.g., one to five pounds) with
-you to accentuate the forces at play.
-
-Walking Exercise #18.2: Neck Anti-rigidity While Walking
-
-Walk for one minute in each of the following configurations while using the anti-rigidity
-protocol.
-
-1) Raise the hands and arms directly above the head for a few minutes at a time with the
-neck retracted. You can hold your hands straight up or slightly outward, making a “V”
-for victory. Search for the achiest configurations and contract your way into them.
-
-2) Hug yourself. Try to grab your shoulder blades with your fingertips as you inch you
-fingers toward your spine. Do so while varying the retraction of your neck, and the
-position of your shoulders rooting around for anything that will lead to a crack.
-
-3) Arch the chest inward as far as it will go. Again, this is called thoracic kyphosis in the
-medical world, and a “hollow” in the gymnastics world. Hugging yourself should give
-you an idea of how to do this. Next, do the opposite, and arch the chest outward.
-Then do it laterally to each side.
-
-4) Clasp the hands together in front of you and form the same inward chest arch or
-kyphotic hollow from #3. Extend the arms as far forward as they will go and press
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-them together so that you can contract into dormant muscles along the collar bone
-and shoulder girdle.
-
-5) Place one hand in the air and the other at your waist. Reach as high as you can with
-the hand in the air, and as low as you can with your hand at your waist. Pivot around
-in this position hunting for frailty to flex within. Switch arms and repeat.
-
-6) Stand straight with the elbows bent. As you press them toward the ground, make
-small circles with the elbows as if you were flapping chicken wings. Scour for frailty in
-the area between your neck and shoulder blades.
-
-7) Walk with your hands out to the side at 90 degrees, making a “t” with your body. Try
-to bring different aspects of your shoulder blade muscles to fatigue.
-
-8) Walk with your hands clasped behind your back and play with how this changes the
-forces between your shoulder blades.
-
-IMlustration 18.1: Positions for upper-body anti-rigidity while walking.
-
-Refresh Your Muscles While Walking
-
-Walking requires only a very narrow range of spinal motion. The tension created by walking
-within this limited range can pull a misaligned spine even further out of alignment. This is why
-the longer you walk, the more you tend to ache. Simply squatting momentarily, holding a static
-lunge, or reaching over to touch your toes can completely relieve this by pushing major muscles
-through their full range. This is why | highly recommend that you do each of these things after
-every half-mile that you cover.
-
-When you need a break from walking: 1. Stop and crouch down into a low squat. 2.
-Straighten your back, and flex your ankles, knees, hips, and spine. 3. Then stand and place your
-fists on your lower back with your elbows at 90 degrees, pointed behind you. You can then
-bend backwards in this position pressing your fists into your mid and lower back for five to 15
-seconds to achieve a full back extension.
-
-Next, use a full back flexion as a counterpose. Slowly bend forward to touch your toes. To
-make this easier you can support your descent by placing your hands on your upper thighs, and
-sliding your hands over your knees, down the shins, and toward the feet. Stop for a moment in
-“forward fold,” and then raise up the way that you went in.
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-RATT
-
-Illustration 18.2: Anti-rigidity poses to use while taking a break from walking.
-
-To make these forward bends harder, you can cradle your head in your hands (as pictured
-below) and press it toward the ground to engage your neck extensors. This will intensify the
-active forces in your neck and lower back. For another variation, try this with your legs spread
-two to three feet apart, or try it with one leg two to three feet in front of the other. | think
-everyone should be doing 10 of these every day.
-
-i PEPE!
-
-Illustration 18.3: Anti-rigidity routine for the neck and shoulders.
-
-Bent Over Walking Will Tap Into Your Lower Back Pain
-
-There is one particular lumbar position that will reach into the core of your lower back frailty.
-Maintaining this position while walking will allow you to tap into it so that you can work out the
-kinks. To assume the position, bend over from the waist (not the hips), and enter lumbar
-kyphosis (shrimp back), where you curl your hips upwards and inwards toward your face.
-
-While you do this, try to keep your glutes contracted. Clasping your hands behind your back can
-help provide support and balance. Then keep this configuration and start walking, taking small,
-tempered steps. As long as you ensure that you remain in lumbar kyphosis, you will engage
-many dormant muscles anchored in the sacrum and ilium.
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-This will make you feel like a very old person because of the way you are hunched over and
-because of the intensely brittle feeling in your lower back as you plant each foot. For safety’s
-sake, this bent-over walking should be done very carefully and just a little at a time at first.
-
-As you rehab this configuration, you can become more ambitious by bending over further and
-funneling more power into each stride. It is risky because you can easily pull a muscle.
-However, if you are careful, it is a vigorous form of rehab that can help you reclaim the lumbar
-mobility of your early childhood and reinstitute an entire mode of locomotion.
-
-Illustration 18.4: Anti-rigidity routine to engage dormant lower back muscles.
-
-Experiment with walking using both extreme lumbar kyphosis and lordosis. This can also be
-done on a stair climber, treadmill, or elliptical machine at a low-speed setting. Carefully curl
-your lumbar spine either backward or forward while on the machine as if you were performing
-a “cow” or “cat” pose. As your legs move and your weight is redistributed, you will be tugging at
-various partially contracted muscles. Proceed slowly and carefully, breathing through the pinch
-you find during each cycle.
-
-Keep Your Feet Straight and Vary the Way You Use Them to Walk
-
-We take every step in almost the same repetitive manner with minimal movement variation
-at the foot, ankle, or knee. We do this despite the incredible potential for mobility contained
-within the thirty-two joints, fifty-six ligaments, and thirty-eight muscles of our feet.
-Unfortunately, many of these are largely immobile in most people. The best way to reengage
-the dormant muscles in your feet and legs is to spend a few minutes a day walking within
-various positions, as in the exercise below.
-
-Walking Exercise #18.3: Vary the Placement of Your Feet
-Strengthening each of the following stepping patterns will help your body find a happy
-balance and the most efficient walking configuration. Training them will build uncommon
-mobility, strength, and coordination. To do this, walk for one minute in each of the
-following ways:
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-1) Walk with more weight on the outer edge of your feet (supination).
-
-2) Walk with your weight on the inside edge of your feet (pronation).
-
-3) Walk with your feet more than shoulder length apart. Each step should land out to
-the side. You can even try walking with your feet as many as three feet apart.
-
-4) Walk with your feet less than shoulder length apart. Each step should land close to
-the center of your body, like walking a tightrope. Consider crossing your feet,
-such that your left foot lands to the right of center, and vice versa.
-
-5) Walk with your weight on your heels.
-
-6) Walk with your weight on the ball of the foot, digging them into the ground.
-
-7) Walk with your feet turned out toward 45 degrees (lateral rotation).
-
-8) Walk with your feet turned in toward 45 degrees (medial rotation).
-
-9) March like a soldier by raising your knee higher than usual above the ground during
-each step.
-
-10) Walk backwards.
-
-While walking your feet should face directly forward. My feet used to be dramatically
-turned out. | was able to fix this completely after only two weeks of walking a couple of minutes
-a day while concentrating mindfully to ensure that my feet remained straight. | think you may
-also be surprised by how just paying attention to it fixes this problem. To strengthen both
-tendencies, you can use 7 and 8 above, walking briefly with the toes turned out and then
-turning in. As when backbends are followed by forward bends, gently training the extremes will
-help the body find the ideal midline.
-
-You might also consider getting orthotic insoles prescribed for your shoes. You can get a
-prescription from a podiatrist or get fitted at your local drug store. Insoles are commonly
-used to support feet that have been worn out of shape by a walking style that favors one of
-the above patterns to the exclusion of the others. Wear these arch-supporting inserts less
-than half the time. Again, you will strengthen and cross-train your feet by exposing them to
-both conditions.
-
-Practice Glidewalking
-Every step we take is supposed to be powered by a forceful gluteal contraction, but most of us
-have learned to walk without activating the glutes at all. Adding a gluteal contraction at the end
-of each step is known as glidewalking.° To practice this, you want to take long strides with a
-straight back leg that thrusts you forward due to the extension occurring at the buttock.
-To ensure that this happens, place your hands inside your pants, just above your back pockets.
-Cover the top half of each of your glutes with your fingers. Walk so that you feel the top of each
-glute contract firmly with every step. After a few months of sporadically reminding yourself to
-train this, you will put your hand on your glute while walking and feel it ball up vigorously. Over
-time your glutes will become toned and brawny and will add stability and power to your stride.
-The same goes for the calves: most people have engineered a firm calf contraction out of
-their step. Pushing off the ground with the calf muscles of the back leg will challenge and
-develop them. The heel should make contact with the ground first. Then you should roll
-forward across the length of the foot to the toes. As this happens, the ankle should pass
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-through much of its full range of motion. The calf should be fully extended as you push the
-ground away with the ball of your foot. Even the toes should contribute to this push,
-contracting slightly at the end of each step to help propel you forward. When the toes and calf
-contract, the glute should contract at the same time.
-
-FF
-
-YA
-
-Illustration 18.5: Depiction of glidewalking.
-
-Arm swing is another essential biomechanical component of efficient walking. People
-reduce arm swing to display subordination, but you should swing your arms blithely whenever
-you are walking. As you do it, ensure that your shoulders are pressed toward the floor. These
-elements of proper walking take time to develop, but once they are automatic, they will help
-you burn calories and build muscle.
-
-Pay special attention to the way you kick your foot forward with each step. Rather than
-being smooth and graceful, it is likely a violent jerk. This is a major cause of knee pain. You can
-address it by consciously attending to the jarring motion and making an effort to transform it
-into a gentle, velvety one. Strolling very slowly helps build the coordination needed. As in tai
-chi, slow everything down and pay attention to the fluidity of each movement. You are going to
-look weird walking around your block in slow motion, instituting these exercises. Getting
-yourself to stop worrying about how others will perceive you will be an accomplishment
-in itself.
-
-Your routines (e.g., walking) cannot be efficient unless their component subroutines
-(e.g., extending the ankle, knee, and hip) are optimal themselves. You might feel uncoordinated
-when you start to slow things down and focus on the individual parts of each action. That’s
-totally normal. You have thousands of steps to take every day, likely for the rest of your life,
-so you want to re-engineer them to be as efficient as possible. Relearn how to complete the
-smallest motor movements in ways that don’t use anxiety for propulsion. Instead...glide.
-
-This goes for writing, speaking, typing, opening a door, handing an object to someone,
-and everything else imaginable.
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-Conserve Your Momentum While Walking
-
-Whenever you are walking, you should be taking full advantage of your body’s forward energy.
-Most people walk without conserving their momentum. They break the inertia they have going
-with each indecisive stride. Poorly timed foot falls eat up their speed, slow them down,
-
-and create a bumpy ride. Take some time to analyze how you lose momentum in your default
-walking pattern.
-
-Each foot plant should not be a collision but rather a brief foothold to push off against.
-Rolling down your foot from heel to toes will help with this. Also, use the proprioceptive
-sensors throughout your knees and ankles to help you determine how much momentum from
-the last step can be reused in the next surefooted step. Placing your foot too far in front of the
-body, known as over-striding, is one of the most common mistakes people make when walking.
-It breaks up your glide. Under-striding is also common. So, pay careful attention to the fluidity
-created by stride length and try to optimize it. “
-
-Don’t second guess a single step. Conserving your momentum will turn your stride into a
-buoyant saunter and override any hesitancies deriving from submissive signaling. Done right,
-you should feel like a freight train. Allay any worries that people will think that you are walking
-in an aggressive, angry way. It is not angry at all. It is merely efficient.
-
-Don’t hobble. Coast. Set sail on your own momentum, and ride like the wind.
-
-Conclusion
-
-“Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.” — Thich Nhat Hanh (1926)
-
-It is worth mentioning that there are many ways to multitask while walking. Walking with other
-people is a great way to bond. You can help each other to develop mutually assertive, out-of-
-doors, power-walking body language. Instead of taking your phone calls in bed or on the couch,
-take them as you parade around your neighborhood. A headset with a microphone or a
-Bluetooth earphone can make this easier. You can also turn your time walking into an
-opportunity for learning if you decide to listen to audiobooks using headphones. Additionally,
-you can use the act of walking to create a breathing metronome. For instance, | often inhale
-for five steps and then exhale for eight. Otherwise, walking can be an opportune time to take
-in nature, meditate, live in the moment, practice mindfulness, and create a new,
-
-improved persona.
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-Chapter 18: Bullet Points
-
-e Walking is highly health promoting.
-
-e Maintain the five tenets of optimal posture while walking.
-
-e Strut and swagger while you walk to build confidence.
-
-e Walk with exaggerated, solider-like posture for two minutes until the muscles involved
-reach a healthy fatigue. Then allow the muscles at least a minute to rest completely
-before repeating.
-
-e Perform upper-body anti-rigidity while you walk, by moving your arms, shoulders, and
-back through different, unfamiliar configurations.
-
-e Walking regularly with your hands in the air and the neck retracted will help put your
-cervical and thoracic spine into optimal configuration.
-
-@ When you walk for prolonged periods take breaks to allow your muscles to regenerate.
-
-@ When you break from walking, refresh your muscles by squatting, lunging, and touching
-your toes. This will bring fresh blood to spinal sections that have become stale.
-
-e Practice glidewalking where the glute, calf, and toes of the back leg are fully deployed
-with every step.
-
-e Walk with both feet pointing straight ahead.
-
-e Capture the remaining momentum from each stride so that it can be applied to
-the next.
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-Chapter 18: Endnotes
-
-1. Lee, |. M., Shiroma, E. J., & Kamada, M. (2019). Association of step volume and intensity
-with all-cause mortality in older women. JAMA Internal Medicine, 179(8), 1105-1112.
-
-2. Ritchiea, M. B., Blais, J., Forth, A. (2019). “Evil” intentions: Examining the relationship
-between the Dark Tetrad and victim selection based on nonverbal gait cues. Personality and
-Individual Differences, 138(1), 126-132.
-
-3. Michalak, J., Troje, N. F., Fischer, J., Vollmar, P., Heidenreich, T., & Schulte, D. (2009).
-Embodiment of sadness and depression: Gait patterns associated with dysphoric mood.
-
-Psychosomatic Medicine, 71(5), 580-587.
-
-4. Van Edwards, V. (2017). Captivate: The science of succeeding with people.
-Penguin Random House.
-
-5. Gokhale, E. (2008). 8 Steps to a pain-free back. Pendo Press.
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-Chapter 19: Stop Sexually Submissive Behavior
-
-“The desire for sexual expression is inborn and natural. The desire cannot, and should not be submerged
-or eliminated. But it should be given an outlet through forms of expression which enrich the body, mind,
-and spirit.” — Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
-
-Sexual Competition and Submission
-
-Aside from humans, chimpanzees are often considered the most violent and abusive species
-on the planet, despite competing for just one resource. Ordinarily, they do not compete for
-food because the fruit and leaves they forage are evenly scattered. They compete for sex,
-and the competition is often violent. In most primates, dominant males restrict sexual access
-to females. Nondominant males are thus forced to inhibit their sexuality. They are usually
-attacked if seen approaching a female for sex and are often forced to either be sneaky or
-abstain from sex completely. Many primate females are similarly traumatized by sexual
-competition.
-
-Access to sex is determined by rank in many animals that live in groups. This inevitably
-leads to stress. Status probably also dictated sexual privileges, to varying degrees, throughout
-human history. Because our instincts were wired in the past, even in modern humans, this age-
-old competition leads to unconscious sexual self-handicapping. By employing the same
-rationale and some of the same tools we have discussed thus far, this chapter will explain how
-to detraumatize your sexuality and pull your genitals out of this melee.
-
-Sexual Subordination in Animals
-
-The sexual subordination response isn’t just found in primates or mammals. There are many
-examples in the animal kingdom (from vertebrates to invertebrates) of dominant individuals
-causing the atrophy of reproductive organs in subordinates. For example, the resident queens
-in honeybees, termites, cockroaches, and many other species suppress the ovaries of their
-workers. In animals from insects to fish, the less dominant males create fewer sperm that move
-slower. If given the opportunity to become dominant, many fish can reverse this by increasing
-the size of their testes and the count and motility of their sperm in as little as a few days.
-
-In mammals, especially primates, alpha individuals from both genders attempt to
-monopolize breeding through intimidation. This causes a dramatic decrease in sex hormones in
-their targets. Chronic intimidation can be so stressful that it impairs subordinates’ fertility,
-suppressing the testicular axis in males and halting ovulation in females. This is often called
-“social suppression of reproduction” or “social contraception.”* There is an entire body of
-literature on how conflict in primates creates reproductive disadvantages for the losers.
-
-In many monkey species, the biggest losers are completely celibate. It is common for
-dominant males to attack or physically displace a subordinate male in the middle of copulation,
-preventing them from ejaculating. The resulting brain and hormone changes decrease the
-quantity and quality of the displaced male’s sperm. Likewise, repeated conflict with a dominant
-female can cause subordinate females to lose the ability to conceive. There is every reason to
-believe that similar coercion and physical repercussions are commonplace in human society.
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-Indeed, human infertility and sexual dysfunction are both known by medical researchers to be
-highly exacerbated by the stress hormone cortisol.
-
-Chronically elevated cortisol levels can cause loss of libido and impotence in men mostly by
-inhibiting the production of testosterone. In women, it can cause severe fertility problems and
-result in an abnormal menstrual cycle. This antagonism between the cortisol and testosterone
-hormonal axes is thought to be adaptive because in emergency situations engaging in behaviors
-that are encouraged by testosterone, such as mating, competition, and dominance is
-unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.
-
-If you put a mouse in a cage with a more dominant mouse, its testosterone and fertility will
-decline significantly. Similarly, if you spend time believing that you are inferior or inadequate,
-your virility will drop. We must avoid sexual bullying and stop ourselves from thinking sexually
-self-subordinating thoughts. Fortunately, the effects of cortisol on testosterone in both men
-and women are reversed when the stress goes back down.
-
-You don’t want your body to assume you are a pathetic monkey trying to sneak copulations
-in hiding. So, you need to send it the right messages. You want to develop a mindset of sexual
-dominance and disinhibition affirming that you can achieve arousal at any time, have sex
-anywhere, and be in your sexual comfort zone under any social conditions...as long as it is
-ethical and legal, of course. This starts with slowing everything else down and making your
-sexual response a priority. Just as subordination causes us to ignore our shallow breathing and
-protracted neck, it also causes us to ignore both the tension and the pleasure in our genitals.
-The best way to counteract this is to learn to “listen” to your genitals.
-
-Sexual Exercise #19.1: Listen to the Sensations Coming from Your Genitals
-
-Your genitals are continuously sending you sensory signals about their current state of
-arousal. Most of us ignore this steady influx of cues, leaving us out of tune with our sexuality.
-Sexual suppression and submission have turned our erogenous zones into blind spots. Feeling
-good down there is not a sin, not a luxury, and not something you have to earn. It is your
-basic right as a mammal and an integral part of dealing with stress. If you want to cultivate
-your sexual response, you must pay attention to any and all pleasurable sensations coming
-from in between your legs.
-
-Close your eyes, and spend five minutes meditating on this area. Focus on it completely like
-you are watching a movie. At first, you may not sense much, but with time and patience,
-you will begin to notice faint instances of erogenous squirming and pulsating. Indulge them.
-Learn to revel in them. Doing this will help prove to your body that you are a lusty beast
-unencumbered by sexual trauma. With time, practice, and the use of the other exercises in
-this chapter, infrequent tingles and quivers will turn into a steady stream of not-so-subtle
-heaving and throbbing. Monitor your breath while you do this and imagine breathing
-“straight into your genitals.” This will help you develop the laser focus necessary to become
-reacquainted with the full extent of your aphrodisia.
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-One of the best ways to improve your awareness of sexual sensations is to stop bracing the
-muscles involved. This is simply because, if they are constantly strained, they cannot respond
-actively to sexual stimuli. There is no throbbing in dormant muscle.
-
-Stop Bracing the Muscles Surrounding Your Genitals
-
-Hip or pelvic tension can be a conscious or unconscious attempt to downplay the potency of
-the genital region and is yet another form of submissive body language. Over time the
-formation of dormant muscle leads to withered libido, lessened enjoyment of sex, and sexual
-dysfunction. There are other sources of pelvic bracing. Falling on the bottom, bruising the
-tailbone, long hours sitting at a desk or a bicycle seat, and all types of physical trauma can lead
-to tension the area.
-
-Pelvic bracing is linked to medical disorders. Vaginismus is the involuntary contraction of
-muscles that surround the vagina. The tight muscles make penetration and intercourse painful
-for women with this disorder. Bracing may also make it harder for some women to orgasm.
-
-For a woman to climax, the muscles of her pelvic floor cannot be taut. They must relax during
-sexual stimulation so that they can contract rhythmically during orgasm. Many researchers
-believe that various sexual disorders such as male impotence, latency to female orgasm, and
-vulvodynia (chronic vulvar pain) can be due to excessive bracing of muscles adjacent to the
-sexual organs.? This seems even more likely when you consider that common preceding events
-for these disorders include sexual assault, rape, domestic abuse, sexual humiliation, chronic
-pain, and generalized anxiety.
-
-It is well known that the blood vessels surrounding the external genitalia constrict during
-sympathetic stimulation and dilate upon parasympathetic stimulation. This means that blood
-flow to the penis, clitoris, and vulva is impeded by stress and accentuated by relaxation. In fact,
-the pelvic floor is one of the most reactive groups of muscles during startle. When it contracts it
-results in a retraction of the clitoris for women and the penis for men. Relaxation of the
-anococcygeal area is thought to be key in improving the sexual arousal response. As a matter of
-fact, engorgement of the penis, clitoris, and labia results from the relaxation of smooth muscle.
-In other words, blood doesn’t flow until these unconsciously regulated muscles loosen up.
-
-Sexual Activity #19.1: Brace and Debrace Your Pelvic Muscles
-
-How do stress and intimidation affect the bracing of the muscles around your genitals? Most
-people could not answer this because they have little to no awareness of this common
-reaction. Let’s try bracing them to see how it feels. Tighten the muscles in your lower back.
-Tilt your hips to one side and brace them. Squeeze your legs together. Tighten your urinary
-sphincter as if you were trying to stop yourself from peeing. Now contract all these muscles,
-and anything else local you can find, at 90% of their maximum strength. After 10 seconds,
-let go entirely and register what it feels like to let the bracing here subside. Repeat this
-contraction and relaxation four more times.
-
-We signal sexual submission by straining sex-related muscles in the abdomen and pelvis.
-These muscles lose their healthy tone after sexual trauma or feelings of sexual inferiority.
-Thankfully, like all muscles, you can rehabilitate them. Most people have an untapped reservoir
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-of muscle in the groin that has atrophied. The next two sections will show you how to exercise
-and strengthen it. | believe proper tone in these muscles allows the genitals increased vascular
-blood flow (vasocongestion), increases the prominence of arousal, and heightens the
-accompanying sensations.
-
-Exercise Your Urine Retentive Muscles
-
-You have numerous muscles situated between your sitz bones, pubic bone, and coccyx. These
-muscles support the pelvic organs, contract during orgasm, aid in childbirth and ejaculation,
-and provide core stability.
-
-Abdominal
-Muscle
-Rectum
-
-Coccyx Pubic Bone
-
-Bladder
-Urethra
-Anus
-
-Pelvic Floor Vagina
-
-Muscles
-
-Illustration 19.1: A. Side view of female reproductive anatomy. Note the location of the pelvic floor muscles
-stretching from the pubic bone to the tail bone (coccyx); B. Frontal view of the pelvic floor musculature which is
-similar in women and men. Several pelvic muscles are depicted including the ischiocavernosus, bulbospongiosus,
-coccygeus, pubococcygeus, the urogenital diaphragm and others.
-
-In the 1960s, Dr. Arnold Kegel taught people how to strengthen the perineum (the area
-between the anus and the genitals). He knew that these muscles are often injured in women
-during childbirth, and he instructed women how to contract them, reinstating their strength,
-in an exercise that came to be known as “Kegels.” Doctors have prescribed Kegels for many
-reasons, including treating urinary incontinence,’ ameliorating erectile dysfunction,> and
-controlling premature ejaculation.® Kegels are taught by having the patient repeatedly interrupt
-their urinary flow. Dr. Kegel recommended urinating a spoonful at a time. Try this in the
-activity below.
-
-Sexual Activity #19.2: Contracting the Urinary Sphincter
-
-The next time you find yourself peeing, stop urinating midstream. Once you can stop the flow
-completely, you have found the right muscles. Try urinating for only a second at a time until
-you have voided your bladder. Focus on tightening only the pelvic floor muscles, keeping the
-abdomen, thighs, anus, and buttocks relaxed. This will allow you to isolate the contraction.
-Doing this several times will help you identify the muscles and gain conscious control of
-them. At that point, you should do this exercise without urinating and from any position
-
-you want.
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-Most of us learned to brace the Kegel muscles intensely as young children when
-“holding it” for long periods to avoid the embarrassing experience of urinating in public.
-Can you remember an incident in which this muscle was likely traumatized by being braced
-heavily during the traumatic scenario of trying desperately to find a bathroom as a child?
-Not only do the muscles surrounding the genitals seize up in these scenarios, but distressed
-breathing predominates, making the strain worse. Most people have a strong tendency to hold
-their breath when performing Kegels,’ and of course, this defeats the purpose. Therefore
-| recommend pairing Kegels with paced breathing.
-
-Sexual Exercise #19.2: Diaphragmatic Kegels
-
-Perform hard Kegel contractions as if you were interrupting the stream of urine. Do this while
-paced breathing. This will build your capacity to activate the pelvic floor muscles without
-holding your breath. Hold a forceful contraction during a 10-second passive exhalation and
-then relax for a few breaths. Do this 10 times in a row. You might also try performing rapid
-Kegels (i.e., one to three per second) for a minute.
-
-These muscles contract involuntarily during arousal and orgasm. So, loosening them up and
-developing their responsivity may enliven your sex life. Also, after developing the muscular
-strength that comes from pelvic floor exercises, men can perform a Kegel at orgasm to
-withhold ejaculation effectively allowing them to experience multiple orgasms. | also believe
-that strengthening and unbracing these muscles can facilitate female ejaculation and
-squirting.
-
-The next section will provide you with an exercise that will dilate these areas rather than
-constrict them. In a previous chapter, we learned how important it is to perform forward bends
-after backward bends to neutralize the spine. | believe that performing Kegels without
-exercising the antagonist muscles leads to similar imbalances. For example, there is evidence
-that performing Kegels can lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder, and this is a risk factor
-for urinary tract infection and other maladies. As you might have guessed, the counterpose for
-a Kegel is complete bladder emptying.
-
-Exercise the Muscles that Expel Urine
-Interestingly, the Kegel contraction is braced involuntarily during social competition.
-Kegels result in a retraction of the clitoris, penis, and testicles, potentially making them less
-conspicuous to a competitor. | believe that, in this, they are submissive and intended to hide
-the genitalia. It is like the sea slug withdrawing its gill or the snail withdrawing its eyestalk.
-Male monkeys and apes are frequently observed hiding their erections from other males,
-especially from males above them in the hierarchy. They don’t want to be attacked for being
-aroused. This is why | think genital retraction due to chronic Kegel contraction is an innate
-defense mechanism protecting subordinates from sexually dominant individuals. It is yet
-another display equivalent to a collapsed posture. | believe that losing tone and developing
-partial contraction in the pelvic region is a self-handicapping mechanism that assumes
-advertising one’s level of sexual arousal is dangerous.
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-If you have balanced tone in your pelvic muscles, your flaccid penis or clitoris will increase
-and decrease in size with your arousal level. If you have strain or poor tone, the flaccid organ
-may remain at its smallest possible size until full arousal is reached. Most people are aware that
-the penis and clitoris shrink in size when exposed to cold. In fact, penile length decreases by up
-to 50% in the defensive response to low temperature. | believe men with a history of chronic
-intimidation and sexual subordination are more likely to exhibit this kind of shrinkage when
-flaccid. This likely corresponds to the “grower” vs. “shower” dichotomy referenced in popular
-culture. The growers may be men with a more extensive history of being sexually intimidated.
-This may be reversible by performing the opposite of the Kegel.
-
-It is easy for both women and men to pinpoint the muscles that expel urine. They speed up
-the stream. These muscles include the lower abdominal muscles and the bladder detrusor
-muscle. They aid in the expulsion of urine by increasing the pressure applied to the bladder
-wall. The stream of urine will cease when the bladder has been voided, but the muscles
-themselves can still be contracted. If you continue to squeeze the expulsive muscles very firmly
-after you finish urinating, you will realize you can flex these muscles through their full range.
-
-Most people never use this full range, creating a missing corner of dormant muscle.
-
-Thus, it is also a reservoir that you can tap into and rehab. Think of the exercise as an
-“antikegel.” As we have seen in previous chapters, sometimes the only way to free muscles
-from partial contraction is through hard, full contractions.
-
-Sexual Exercise #19.3: Contract the Expulsive Muscles
-
-The next time you urinate, try to expel the urine more forcefully than usual. Steadily increase
-the force as you empty your bladder. As it nears empty, do not let up. Instead, squeeze the
-related muscles hard even after the stream stops. Notice the posture that your lower back
-and lower abdomen have taken on, and remember the feeling of contracting this muscle so
-that you can do it later. After you have emptied your bladder, continue to squeeze the
-muscle at 70 to 90% maximum force for an additional 10 seconds. It may ache tenderly,
-
-but performing this exercise each time you urinate will make this aching disappear within a
-matter of days.
-
-Start practicing it away from the toilet as well. You should feel comfortable performing the
-Kegel and “antiKegel” contractions in the presence of others. There is no reason to brace or
-self-limit your pelvic range just because other people are around. To really stimulate these
-erogenous areas and all the tissues and blood vessels involved, you can also try gently
-performing Kegels and antiKegels while you have an erection, whether clitoral or penile.
-Together, these exercises will help put an end to neurotic pelvic flinching and straining.
-
-Urine Expulsion as a Posture and Mindset
-
-You want to incorporate proper tone in these urine-expelling muscles into your daily standing,
-walking, and sitting postures. The muscles involved include the lower abdominals, so imagine
-being able to take a small punch to the lowest segment of your abs at any time. This means you
-need to practice walking around with your lower abs engaged as if you were peeing. | want to
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-encourage you to walk, jog, exercise, and socialize as if you are dribbling urine everywhere
-you go.
-
-“Listen” intently to the sensations involved. It should feel pleasurable. Imagine spurting
-rainbows and gushing warm velvet from your urethra onto everything in front of you.
-Experience everything orgasmically. This should be happening as you look at yourself in the
-mirror, as you walk around the block, and as you squeeze in that last repetition while
-exercising. Imagine that your genitals are permanently everted rather than inverted. As you
-strengthen the retentive and expulsive muscles, muscle memory will develop, and they
-will come to hold balanced tone automatically. | believe this is highly beneficial for
-psychosexual health.
-
-| suppressed these muscles during my lifetime through acquiescent, self-handicapping
-behavior. | have always been averse to dirty jokes and overt sex play, which may have led to
-less sexualized perineal posture growing up. | believe that | unconsciously allowed my Kegel
-muscles to strain and my expulsive muscles to atrophy because | was sexually repressive, and
-anal-retentive. Again, the expulsive urinary and anal sphincter muscles work antagonistically
-with the retentive muscles, meaning that expulsive qualities may be especially weak in
-“retentive” people. If you think that you may be anal-retentive, you are probably also urinary
-retentive. While we are talking about poop, please ask yourself whether combining distressed
-breathing while straining on the toilet seat during defecation may have traumatized your anal
-muscles. If so, you might consider using paced breathing while defecating, when constipated,
-and while contracting the anal retentive and expulsive muscles.
-
-Strengthening the muscles involved in expelling urine will make your behavior more
-assertive. Activity and tone in this area are associated with approach and the seizing of
-opportunities that are both sexual and non-sexual in nature. It is difficult to maintain a
-dominant, self-assured demeanor if the tone in the expulsive muscles is low. You have probably
-noticed that worry or sudden fear makes your retentive muscles tense and the expulsive ones
-limp. Similarly, encountering something sharp or experiencing fear of heights does this as well.
-For example, peering over the ledge from the Sth floor of a parking structure can make your
-whole pelvis seize up. This happens immediately and involuntarily during startle and fright.
-Your pelvic floor recoils from threat.
-
-When you take an ego blow or get upset or flustered, the muscles that expel urine similarly
-drop out of flexion. If your machismo is questioned, but you have the gumption to reassert
-yourself, you might notice the activity waiver and come back. Activity here “shrivels up” when
-people get their “balls busted.” For many depressed and anxious people, these muscles drop
-out of tonicity during social encounters. For sexually assertive people, the expulsive
-musculature develops a stronger tone when around others they find attractive. For sexually
-withdrawn people, the tone may actually decrease in these situations. Losing tone and
-accumulating strain in these muscles leads to emasculation and/or defeminization.
-
-When | first started to engage the muscles that expel urine, | would become afraid of
-upsetting the bully introduced in Chapter 2. | realized that | was afraid to engage the muscles
-even when he was not around. When | tried, thoughts, visuals, and a feeling of being in the
-bully’s presence would intrude into my mind unconsciously. It took me some time to realize
-that | was bracing these muscles in a restricted range out of fear of “offending” the bully.
-
-This bully was muscular, highly charismatic, a felon, and a murderer. On one occasion, | had
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-seen him continue to make fun of and laugh at someone even after that person pulled a gun on
-him. As many bullies do, he would frequently tell sexually explicit stories describing his sexual
-prowess in attempts to intimidate other men. This is one of the fundamental forms that sexual
-toxicity takes.
-
-The man had acquired “pseudopsychopathy,” meaning he had developed criminal,
-antisocial, and hypersexual personality traits after severe brain trauma. He was catastrophically
-disinhibited after being fully ejected headfirst through the windshields of two cars he stole on
-separate occasions. | was subverting my sexuality in an attempt to appease this man. Simply
-becoming explicitly aware of this subversion was enough to end it. After bringing peace to this
-context, | realized that there were additional contexts that caused me to brace my genital
-musculature. What contexts of intimidation sting you in the genitals and keep you stuck ina
-partially contracted Kegel? Don’t let anyone keep you in a retentive state in which the genitals
-are retracted or keep you from contracting your expulsive muscles. Rather than being held taut
-in a restricted range, these muscles should fluctuate naturally between the two extremes of
-retention and expulsion as you go about your day.
-
-Once you become comfortable fully contracting the muscles that withhold and expel urine,
-you should notice them quiver involuntarily more frequently. Toning the muscles and stretching
-them out of partial contraction will increase the range of motion of your orgasms. You may also
-notice that you experience increased blood flow and heightened turgidity in your genitals. This
-suggests to me that formal physical therapy centered around exercising these muscles could
-treat both diminished sex drive and erectile dysfunction. However, most medical experts on the
-topic assume that these muscles operate autonomously and needn’t be exercised.
-
-This medical opinion is at odds with Ayurvedic medicine and tantric Hinduism, which
-recognize the base of the spine as a chakra. It is called muladhara, the root chakra, and
-kundalini yoga emphasizes that it must be used and meditated upon. Additionally, some
-Japanese Zen meditation practices emphasize the lower abdominal area (dantian or tanden) as
-a focal point for meditation. | believe the exercises in this chapter can guide you to exert
-control over and rehabilitate these foci.
-
-At one point, | realized | lacked the coordination to contract my urinary expulsive muscles
-and gluteus muscles simultaneously. When | tried, | held my breath. Many people have this
-functional dissociation. When these are dissociated, you are limited to either doing one or the
-other. However, it is easy to fix. Proper core stability demands that you be able to contract
-these muscles together actively. Everyone should teach their body to activate both the urinary
-and fecal expulsive muscles while simultaneously contracting their buttocks.
-
-Sexual Activity #19.4: Pairing Expulsive Tone with Gluteal Tone
-Stand with optimal posture, as described in Chapter 13. With your feet parallel and the top
-of your hips rolled backward, contract the gluteus muscles. Now contract either your urinary
-or fecal expulsive muscles as if you were trying to pee or defecate. Now try all three together.
-Spend time in this zone varying these contractions to different degrees while engaging in
-calm, paced breathing.
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-As with many other examples in the Program Peace system, if holding two dominant
-displays simultaneously is uncomfortable or difficult, they likely inhibit each other. However,
-if you can calmly practice them together, you disinhibit them and increase the probability they
-will arise together on their own.
-
-Walk Confidently as if Your Genitals Were on Display
-
-In Chapter 2, we discussed how submissive animals minimize the appearance of physical assets
-like horns, claws, and muscles. This includes the genitals. Your everyday posture and
-mannerisms reveal cues to others as to how comfortable you are naked. Body language evolved
-during our history as unclothed apes, so even clothed, we often act as if we were naked. Most
-people conceal their genitals during times of insecurity with their hands, legs, chairs, or tables.
-When a dominant person makes a power play, it is quite common for other people of the same
-sex to place their hands in front of their sex organs. The only time you should conceal or protect
-the genitals is to block a physical blow to the groin.
-
-Most people walk in a way that hides or apologizes for their genitalia. Walking like this
-involves hunching or crouching of the lower back. Remember the lumbar lordosis and anterior
-pelvic tilt discussed in previous chapters? We actually use these to withdraw our private parts
-from view. They obscure the genitals like a dog hiding its tail between its legs. You should do
-the exact opposite. This means walking around with the back and hips open as if presenting the
-genitalia. To do this, flex your buttocks. That’s right, gluteal contraction puts your genitals on
-display by pressing your hips forward, and rolling the top of your pelvis back, as discussed in
-Chapter 17. It is an entirely different style of standing and walking that comes across as much
-more sexually self-assured.
-
-If you can imagine being comfortably naked in social situations, you will project higher
-confidence. The more time you spend naked, the more comfortable it will become, which is
-why | strongly recommend sleeping naked when possible. If you have never slept naked, you
-may lose some sleep the first night because of how uncomfortable you feel. But you will relax
-into it within a week. | also recommend spending time alone in your room in the buff as
-described next.
-
-Sexual Activity #19.5: Spend an Hour in Your Room Naked
-Make sure no one can see into your room, and you won’t be disturbed. Lock the door.
-Completely disrobe. Place towels underneath you if uncomfortable sitting on the floor naked.
-Spend a full hour reading, watching TV, meditating, whatever you want, completely naked. It
-can help to have a mirror in front of you. Use optimal posture. Once you become
-comfortable, try talking on the phone. How do you hold your body when completely nude?
-Do you tend to cover up or hide your genitalia? Is your posture retentive or expulsive? Notice
-these tendencies change as you become comfortable. Experiment with pushing your pelvis
-out, contracting your glutes, and spreading your legs in different ways. If performed with
-paced breathing, this activity will transform your relationship with your birthday suit.
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-Masturbation Trauma
-
-Most of us were petitioned by our parents at a very young age to stop touching our genitals in
-the company of others. We learned to feel bad for stimulating the area, resulting in a subtle
-form of trauma. | recommend briefly touching yourself in a sexual/affectionate way at least five
-times a day. This can be a graze, stroke, or reassuring grope. Some people already do this
-regularly. To others, it is very foreign. You can do it alone or discretely in public. Even a second
-of self-comforting can help decrease bracing of the pelvic floor.
-
-| used to worry that frequent masturbation could cause specific forms of cancer until | used
-pubmed.com to look at the actual medical studies. It does not. There are no diseases linked to
-masturbation. So, give yourself carte blanche to be completely self-indulgent. However, there
-are a few important caveats to keep in mind. Masturbating to pornography may desensitize you
-to real people, potentially leading to sexual dysfunction. Also, masturbating with a lubricant can
-make it difficult for men to sustain an erection with a condom. Also, consider masturbating
-while standing up to avoid losing the ability to remain aroused while standing. Definitely
-consider masturbating while paced breathing. For some people, it takes time and work merely
-to reach arousal while paced breathing. But the process will steel and gird your sexuality.
-
-Studies have shown that placing tiny vibrators near or on the genitals of mice can increase
-sexual response, interest, and the production of sex hormones. Studies like these suggest that
-the external use of vibrators may convince the mammalian body that it resides in some kind of
-maximally optimal sexual environment and may in turn elicit an optimal sexual response from it
-(involving changes in gene expression). Keep in mind though that masturbating to orgasm with
-some sex toys may make it difficult to sustain arousal during regular intercourse.
-
-The fascia and muscles nestled in the pelvis control the responsivity of sexual arousal.
-Massage and myofascial release are probably beneficial for these muscles; however, there is no
-existing rubric to help people do this safely and effectively. Moreover, excessive pressure could
-damage your sexual organs or drastically change the tone of the muscles that regulate blood
-flow to them. For these reasons, | will not describe a protocol for genital massage here. If you
-decide to use compressive massage on the areas between your legs, | recommend using only
-very light pressure. That being said, you should also find that groin stretching and anti-rigidity
-can be helpful in conditioning these muscles.
-
-Sexual Expressivity
-
-The anti-rigidity exercises for the lumbar spine from Chapter 17 will help free up your hips and
-lower back, making your sexual expressivity more sensual and enjoyable. Try to incorporate
-previously dormant muscles into intercourse and use them to explore new movement patterns.
-Use the next two activities to enhance the coordination of the muscles and joints involved.
-
-Sexual Activity #19.6: Bump Your Pubis Against the Wall
-
-Find some privacy and turn on some sexy music. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart
-and your toes touching a wall. Press your pubic bone into the wall to the beat of the music.
-You can bump against it like a bouncing basketball or smear yourself into it with each thrust.
-Contract your buttocks firmly as you advance. Vary the curvature of your lower back, the
-distance between your feet, and the placement of each blow against the wall.
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-After a few sessions, you will develop the coordination to turn it into a dance. You can move
-each advance from left to right or from top to bottom. Doing this against a door jamb can
-give you the leg room you need to bend your knees and drop lower. You can also try this
-exercise by bumping your butt against the wall instead of your pubis. Bang everything from
-your pubic bone to your hips, your sacrum to your sitz bones into the brick, wood, or plaster.
-Focus on rhythm, timing, and bravado.
-
-Good sex should provide a massage to the pubic bone, and the muscles that surround it,
-for both partners. The friction between your pubic hair and your partner’s should make
-rhythmic crackling sounds. Pubic-bone-on-pubic-bone massage increases arousal and is one of
-the best ways to stimulate the clitoris. Just like the muscles in our lower backs, muscles that
-surround the pubic bone can take the form of tense cords that form tense cords. Teaching
-yourself to massage them during the act of sex, along with those of the other person, can be
-very sexually empowering.
-
-Sexual Activity #19.7: Hump Your Pillows to Music
-Put on some music or a music video. Stack pillows on your bed to support your pelvis in
-different sexual positions. You can straddle these pillows, kneel, squat, or lie on top of them.
-You can also fold a pillow over a couple of times to make a hard, raised surface to nestle your
-pubic bone up against. As you explore different arrangements, lean your pubic bone into the
-pillows from different angles.
-
-While propped on the pillows, simulate sexual thrusting, grinding, and gyrating movements
-to the beat of the music for an entire song. Experiment with reciprocal and circular thrusting
-in different planes. Think: heaving, stirring, twerking, screwing, wiggling, drilling, pounding,
-and tapping. Experiment with flair and ostentatious movements that you are normally too
-inhibited to try. This is your chance to have fun and attempt the different positions and
-moves you’ve always wanted to. Practice full lumbar lordosis on the upswing, from there
-transition gradually into full lumbar kyphosis by the end of the downswing, and back again
-over and over. You might also look into incorporating a dance move called the “body roll.”
-
-See yourself as a sex machine or a sensuous, captivating performance artist. Create a safe
-environment for you to practice and master dominant, free-flowing, rhythmic, and
-unhesitating sexual maneuvers. Feel unhurried, with no external pressures and no time
-constraints. Absorb yourself in the carnality of the experience without any fear of failure. You
-will quickly become more confident in your ability to deliver your pelvis fluidly.
-
-You may want to consider extending the amount of time you spend near orgasm by
-deliberately delaying it. This is known as “edging,” or orgasm control. Whether practiced alone
-or with a partner, the idea is to maintain a high degree of sexual arousal for a prolonged period
-before climaxing. The critical technique consists in building toward orgasm, and then, before it
-is reached, reducing the level of stimulation to retain arousal, but delay the orgasm. Modulating
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-the pace and pressure in this way can result in remaining near orgasm in a highly aroused state
-for several minutes at a time. When the decision is made to permit the orgasm to occur, the
-sensations involved may be amplified.® There is good reason to believe that extended periods
-of heightened sexual arousal could lead to several benefits, such as profound partner bonding
-and higher concentrations of stress-relieving neurochemicals and sex hormones. Obviously,
-this technique is the polar opposite of what a submissive monkey sneaking copulation does.
-Take your sweet time during sex. Survey, probe, and investigate your sensual side because the
-more you use it, the less you will lose it.
-
-Conclusions
-
-After being stuck in a low-level anxiety attack for years, at age 25, | decided to see an
-endocrinologist and have a blood panel taken. The doctor said that the most apparent result
-from the panel was very low testosterone. Usually, this problem worsens with time. But, over a
-decade later, my blood panels show that my testosterone is back in the normal range.
-
-| attribute this recovery to the far-reaching benefits of diaphragmatic breathing and the
-Program Peace exercises, especially those in this chapter.
-
-Many scientists concur that a satisfying sex life may be as important as diet and exercise in
-promoting health. However, our culture steals our sexuality from us by making us feel sexually
-incomplete. Due to our infatuation with status, people willingly expose themselves to things
-that make them question their social standing. Similarly, our instincts for sexual competition
-cause us to choose to expose ourselves to experiences and thoughts that question our sexual
-standing. For this reason, marketers and modern media inundate us with content that makes us
-feel sexually inferior, and that anything less than human perfection is shameful. This not only
-makes us feel inadequate, but also makes us feel like our partners are inadequate.
-
-Television advertising, raunchy comedians, photo doctoring on social media, the ubiquity
-of unrealistic pornography, a lover’s thoughtless criticism, and the occasional sexual failure
-have given all of us sexual inferiority complexes. Most people feel that their sexual endowment
-or bedroom proficiency doesn’t measure up or that their body is not conventionally attractive
-enough. It is not your responsibility to brood on these things. Get over any inclination you may
-have to ruminate about how you compare to your partner’s previous lovers, the times you have
-been sexually embarrassed, or what it was like to be cheated on. These thoughts trigger our
-hardwired sexual self-handicapping response. When we dwell on our shortcomings, we
-reinforce this response. This eventually robs us of our ability to feel horny and relish erotic
-experiences. Sexual jealousy and worrying cause us to suppress our sex drive, brace our
-perineal muscles, and start down an early road to sexual decline. This can be enough to push
-minor penile or clitoral erectile issues into full-blown sexual dysfunction. Do not let this
-happen to you.
-
-You have nothing (NOTHING) to feel bad about sexually as long as you treat your partner
-with affection, have good intentions, and are driven to become a better lover. Sex should be
-hedonistic, fun, playful, and flirtatious without hang-ups, insecurities, or self-doubts. See
-yourself exuding sensuality and sex appeal. View you and your partner as sexual Olympians.
-Follow behind them in the market or the mall, staring at their butt, thinking about how you love
-them, and lusting after their private parts as you contract those urinary expulsion muscles.
-
-Don’t let anything undermine your sexuality. Listen to it. Own it. Magnify it. Celebrate it.
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-Chapter 19: Bullet Points
-
-e Primates are violently sexually competitive, causing all but the most dominant
-individuals to become sexually submissive.
-
-e Most people have a submissive urogenital posture secondary to suboptimal responses
-to sexual bullying.
-
-e Sexual submission involves pelvic floor bracing, which is related to sexual dysfunction,
-and the regression of psychosexual development.
-
-e Pairing diaphragmatic breathing with exercising both the urinary retention and
-expulsion muscles can rehabilitate your pelvic floor.
-
-e Spend time focusing on the physical sensations emanating from your genitals, and touch
-them in affectionate and reassuring ways to reduce bracing.
-
-e When alone, spend time naked. When in public, pretend that you are both naked and
-comfortable.
-
-e Whether you are nude or clothed, flex your buttocks, push your hips forward, roll the
-top of your pelvis backward, and otherwise use your body language to show that you
-are proud to have your genitals on display.
-
-e Don’t obsess over perceived physical or performance inadequacies.
-
-e Get people and media that are toxic to your sexuality out of your life.
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-Chapter 19: Endnotes
-
-1. Hermann, H. R. (2017). Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals: The great
-game of life. Academic Press.
-
-2. Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science,
-308(5722), 648-652.
-
-3. Whatmore, G. B., & Kohli, D. R. (1968). Dysponesis: A neurophysiological factor in
-functional disorders. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 13(2), 102-124.
-
-4. Dumoulin, C., & Hay-Smith, J. (2010). Pelvic floor muscle training versus no treatment,
-or inactive control treatments, for urinary incontinence in women. The Cochrane Database of
-
-Systematic Reviews, 10(10), CD005654.
-
-5. Dorey, G., Speakman, M. J., Feneley, R. C. L., Swinkels, A., Dunn, C. D. R. (2005). Pelvic floor
-exercises for erectile dysfunction. BJU International, 96(4), 595-597.
-
-6. La Pera, G., & Nicastro, A. (1996). A new treatment for premature ejaculation: The
-rehabilitation of the pelvic floor. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 22(1), 22-26.
-
-7. Vopni, K. (2017). Your pelvic floor - the inside story: Education & wisdom from pelvic health
-professionals across the globe. Pelvienne Wellness.
-
-8. Bodansky, S., & Bodansky, V. (2000). Extended massive orgasm: How you can give and
-receive intense sexual pleasure. Vermilion.
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-
-“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” — Michael Pollan (1955)
-
-If a pack of wolves kills a deer, the leader gets the choice cuts before the pack shares the rest in
-an egalitarian way. They eat until the entire deer is gone because they don’t know when there
-will be another. Likewise, for much of our hunter-gatherer past, food was not guaranteed.
-Thus, when we encountered a glut, we would gorge ourselves. There was no benefit to limiting
-food intake because an excess of stored calories was necessary to survive periods of famine.?
-The constant hunger drive was a survival mechanism. The same goes for our drive to minimize
-energy expenditure. The less movement you made, the more calories you conserved. This is
-why today, some of us have the inclination to be insatiable couch potatoes. In our modern
-world, these adaptive traits are no longer beneficial. Instead, they have made us susceptible to
-obesity and related ailments including diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.”
-
-Rats with a perpetually full food dish that are allowed to self-regulate their own food
-intake become rotund. They eat as much as they want, engaging in “hedonic hyperphagia.”
-This is food intake motivated by pleasure and independent of hunger. Overfeeding in this way
-causes them to suffer from metabolic diseases and cancers.? These rats die much younger than
-rats fed appropriate portions. You and | are domestic mammals that are allowed to feed
-ourselves ad libitum. World obesity statistics demonstrate that humans are not doing so well
-given these liberties.* Unlike rats, we can self-impose limitations on our eating. This can be
-difficult, but we need to do so if we want to stay healthy. Of course, it is not only how much
-we eat but also what we eat that makes a difference.
-
-Sometimes an evolved mechanism becomes a liability once certain features of the
-environment change.° For instance, many animals eat brightly colored trash because their
-visual perception of it excites appetitive circuits in their brains. Animals regularly die from such
-misplaced instincts, and, due to the modern food industry, so do we. Favoring sweet, salty,
-fatty foods was necessary for the survival of prehistoric humans. Hence, our taste receptors
-make us crave sugar, sodium, and fat. Given the glut of hyperpalatable food options today,
-this adaptation has backfired.®
-
-Our bodies produce feel-good chemicals when we consume tasty food and when our
-stomachs are full. These chemicals reduce bodily pain, stress hormones, and the activation of
-the fight or flight system. The transient alleviation of stress influences us to adopt unhealthy
-eating habits. On the other hand, trying to force ourselves to eat less and eat healthy can
-promote stress. In this chapter, we will discuss some effective solutions for how you can keep
-weight off without contributing to stress.
-
-Calorie and Nutrient Density
-Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live. Socrates (470 BCE -399 BCE)
-
-Scientists estimate that 50% of the pets in the U.S. are overweight. Even a little extra weight in
-our pets reduces their health, lifespan, mobility, and playtime. My cat Niko used to be
-overweight. Feeding him less wasn’t working. He would just cry in desperation until | gave him
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-more food. The solution was feeding him the least caloric cat food on the market. Now, he still
-eats the same volume of food, so he is just as satisfied. However, because his food has less fat
-and fewer calories, he is now slim. This solution works just as well for you and me.
-
-Energy density is the number of calories (energy) in a given amount (volume) of food. It is
-often measured in calories per cup. Most of us eat lots of heavily processed and refined food,
-which are very energy dense. The problem is, if you fill your stomach with it, you will have far
-exceeded your healthy calorie limit. Now, if you eat proportionately less of it, you will still be
-hungry. The solution is to eat decent-sized portions of less calorie-dense food.’ Foods that are
-low in calorie density but high in nutrient density include fruit and vegetables, lean meat, fat-
-free dairy, and whole grains. Consider, for instance, that a large 18-gram strawberry has six
-calories, but a small 18-gram chocolate chip cookie has 90 calories.
-
-Studies show that people tend to eat about the same overall weight of food everyday
-regardless of the number of calories it contains. This means that adding low calorie density
-foods to your meals will allow you to feel perfectly full on fewer calories. Additionally, because
-they are less addictive than food containing additives like soda, chips, fast food, and candy, you
-are less likely to overeat.
-
-Most mammals will eat more when palatable food is readily available. Hyperpalatable food
-is rare in the wild but is commonly eaten by domestic animals. For instance, mice and rats have
-a strong preference for potato chips over their standard foods. Like us, their pleasure system
-drives them to make unhealthy choices. And, if they are allowed to live on potato chips, they
-will consume a larger volume of food. The “tastier” the food you keep in your fridge and pantry,
-the more you will be tempted to gorge yourself on it.
-
-If you can convince yourself to buy less palatable and more nutrient dense food, you will
-naturally be less likely to overeat. You may even find that you have no interest in continuing to
-eat bland food on a full stomach. This will ensure that you eat to reduce hunger rather than
-maximize pleasure. Start with your morning routine. If you can eat a low-fat, low-sugar, high-
-fiber cereal, you will be off to a great start. Consider adding some fruit to reward yourself and
-increase the volume of what you’re eating. Fruits and vegetables are the ultimate choices for
-low-calorie density but high nutrient density.
-
-Keep telling yourself, “If I’m not hungry enough to eat healthily, | must not really be that
-hungry.” Eating bland, healthy food sounds like a chore, but the good news is that you get used
-to it. My cat didn’t like the diet cat food at first, but within a month, he preferred it. You should
-similarly find yourself developing a preference for healthy food after intentionally exposing
-yourself to it. The more fruit and vegetables you eat, the more you'll know which ones you like,
-and in which combinations. After a while the prospect of your favorites will make you salivate.
-When | eat fruit or vegetables, | often pretend that | just found, dug up, or picked them myself.
-This makes me savor the taste even more. After eating healthy for a while, many people find
-going back to junk food to be revolting. | did.
-
-Getting Full on Fruit and Vegetables Will Trick Your Body into Liking Them
-
-In all our heads, there is a spoiled little prince or princess who wants each bite to be as delicious
-as possible. Their sense of entitlement is the reason we eat so terribly. Banish them. Eating is
-not about delighting our taste buds. It is about getting essential nutrients while barring
-unhealthy foods access to the interior of our bodies. However, many people find that they have
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-no appetite for healthy food. This makes it difficult to get started. If this sounds like you, ask
-yourself whether you have ever gotten full on unprocessed food alone. Having only fruit for
-dinner sounds like a nightmare to many people. But this is only because they have never
-tried it.
-
-| was pressed for time one day, searching for a lunch | could take on a long drive. The most
-accessible items in the market were two bananas and a carton of strawberries. | realized that it
-would take up about as much room in my stomach as a burger and fries, so that was all | ate.
-| tried to enjoy it, didn’t eat anything else after that meal, and didn’t give it much thought.
-That simple experience transformed my perspective on strawberries and bananas because
-| used them by themselves to get full for the first time.
-
-Your gut’s nervous system works in sync with several unconscious areas in your brain,
-constantly learning about factors related to appetite and feeling satiated. Once you get full on
-something without getting sick, your body unconsciously learns to trust it. Even your conscious
-feelings about that food can change. Why do you think chimps salivate at the prospect of a
-mouthful of insects, leaves, or bark? It is because they have gotten full on them before.
-
-Healthy Weight Exercise #20.1: Get Full on Fruit or Vegetables
-Plan a meal entirely composed of raw fruit. Eat until you are full and don’t eat again until the
-next meal. Afterward, focus on the feeling of satisfaction. Over the next few days, notice how
-this experience has changed your orientation toward fruit. Next time, try this with
-vegetables, then a combination of both.
-
-The exercise above will help you learn to crave nutritious fruit and vegetables. The first few
-times, you might feel queasy or nauseous, but this will pass. You may notice changes after a
-single meal, or it may take several sessions, but you will find that simply getting full on healthy
-food is a fail-safe way to trick your body into trusting and enjoying it. This will set you on a path
-toward following the USDA’s evidence-based recommendation to make half of each meal fruits
-and vegetables.® This is, in my opinion, by far the best recommendation offered by nutritional
-science today.
-
-Do you know that piercing hunger that drives you to eat things that are unhealthy? Instead
-of addressing it with fast food, eradicate it with fruit and vegetables. Snack on grapes, nuts,
-pears, peaches, seeds, dried fruit, and sugar-free trail mix. Dip broccoli, celery, cucumber slices,
-snow peas, green beans, and carrots in hummus. Cut raw tomatoes, avocacos, tangerines or
-mangos into your meals. Cook legumes, corn, onion, garlic, cherries, mushrooms, or chilies in
-with your rice or pasta. Place dried cranberries, olives, spinach, sundried tomatoes, figs, and
-apple slices in your sandwiches. Add blueberries, melons, plums, mangos, guavas, and papayas
-to your breakfast. Use asparagus, sweet potatoes, beets, cauliflower, and eggplant as sides to
-your entrees. When you feel like grazing, graze on nature’s superfoods, and after a while, you
-may be surprised to find how they can better gratify your hunger.
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-Illustration 20.1: Make half of each meal fruits and vegetables.
-
-Eating plants is more convenient than you might think. If the grocery store near you has
-a salad bar, skip the lettuce, and fill your bowl with precut fruit, vegetables, lean meats,
-and low-calorie dressing. Most grocery stores, convenience stores, and big-box retailers carry
-fresh-cut fruit and vegetables to go. Consider taking advantage of this. If you want to save
-money and eat inexpensively, you can cut them yourself. Eating several servings of fruit and
-vegetables daily will help you to get lean fast and get all the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants,
-and fiber you need.
-
-Make a Smoothie Every Day
-
-Preparing fruit and vegetables yourself can be time-consuming. Cutting them into bite-sized
-portions, and then chewing them takes time. However, because fruit and vegetables turn to
-liquid in a blender, you can drink large quantities in seconds. Smoothies, shakes, and liquid
-meals are much easier for your gut to process and decrease the physical effort of digestion,
-which some scientists believe may prolong lifespan. Also, the bioavailability of liquid meals is
-higher, meaning your body absorbs more nutrients. Furthermore, blending fruit and vegetables
-does not reduce their fiber or vitamin content.
-
-With your fruit smoothies, try adding dates, yogurt, almond milk, cashews, walnuts, vanilla
-extract, honey, and ripe frozen bananas. With your vegetable smoothies, try tomato juice,
-cayenne pepper, chili flakes, lemon, lime, onion, or garlic. A daily fruit or vegetable smoothie is
-an easy, cheap, filling, and extremely healthy meal.
-
-Get Your Essential Vitamins and Nutrients
-
-A diet lacking in certain vitamins can contribute to depression and anxiety. Folic acid, iron,
-omega-3, vitamin B12, magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin D, selenium, and zinc are all essential.°
-Deficiencies in these can result in fatigue, irritability, apathy, poor concentration,
-aggressiveness, mood swings, and increased depressive symptoms.?° This is another reason
-why it’s imperative to eat more of those fruits and vegetables.
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-Cut out Saturated Fats
-
-Try not to eat any fats that are solid at room temperature. These are saturated fats, and
-consuming them leads to high cholesterol, clogged arteries, atherosclerosis, and heart disease.
-Much of the saturated fats we ingest come from just a few culprits. You should seriously
-consider minimizing pure animal fat, processed meat, poultry skin, whole milk, heavy cream,
-high-fat cheese, sour cream, lard, butter, margarine, ghee, tropical oils, and mayonnaise in your
-diet. Avoid full-fat dairy and go for the fat-free variety. Cut the white or clear fat off your meat
-and stay away from fried food. Altogether avoid hydrogenated or trans fats. Unlike saturated
-fats, unsaturated fats are essential, so make an effort to eat fish, nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils
-(e.g., canola, olive, flaxseed, soybean, etc.).
-
-The Paleo Diet Works
-
-The Paleolithic diet promotes the consumption of food that our hunting and gathering
-ancestors would have eaten. It is rational to eat what our bodies naturally expect and have
-eaten for millions of years. The paleo diet advises that we eat whole foods, like fruits,
-vegetables, fish, and grass-fed meats. It also discourages processed foods and added sugar and
-salt. These recommendations are entirely in line with modern nutritional science, and the paleo
-diet has been shown to have significant health benefits in controlled trials. However, there
-are two valid criticisms of the paleo diet. First, the diet restricts some nutrient-dense food such
-as fat-free dairy and whole grains, which need not be restricted. Second, the high meat intake
-may lead to health problems if the meat is not lean. Besides these two issues, asking yourself,
-“Would my ancestors have eaten this?” can be a practical question to help you avoid
-detrimental foods.
-
-Drink More Water
-
-Many beverages are extraordinarily caloric. Simply cutting soft drinks from your diet can be
-highly beneficial. Even juice has a lot of calories but no fiber, so despite being calorie dense, it
-doesn’t do much to make you feel full. This is why if you are not drinking smoothies, you should
-be drinking plain, purified water. Dieticians commonly point out that water is absolutely free of
-calories and can contribute to feeling full, so let’s drink up.
-
-Many people don’t get enough water, leaving them with mild symptoms of chronic
-dehydration. Dehydration is physiologically detrimental and contributes to a lack of energy,
-discomfort, and the muscular dysfunctions discussed in previous chapters. Try to drink between
-five and eight 8-ounce glasses (up to 2 liters) of water per day.?? Never drink less than your
-thirst dictates.
-
-Detraumatize Your Ability to Chug Water
-
-| used to frequently choke when drinking. This was because my swallowing reflex had become
-uncoordinated due to hyperventilation. Drinking fast felt perilous, and chugging felt like being
-waterboarded. Swallowing involves the temporary closure of the epiglottis to keep food and
-drink out of the lungs. If not synchronized correctly, then the liquid is inhaled into the lungs
-(pulmonary aspiration). This was happening to me daily. Difficulty swallowing is known as
-dysphagia; everybody has a little bit of it, and you want to minimize your bit. Use the exercise
-below so that you drink mightily with no unnecessary encumbrances.
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-Healthy Weight Exercise #20.2: Chug Water Mightily
-
-Pour yourself a large glass of room temperature or warm water. Tell yourself there is no rush.
-There is nothing better for you to do at this moment than observing your swallowing
-apparatus at work. Take a deep breath and drink the water slowly and mindfully. Start with
-small gulps, making each one voluntary. Pay very close attention to the cadence of your
-gulping. It should be steady. Focus on the following:
-
-1) During each gulp, your muscles should move through their full range of motion
-decisively and uninterrupted.
-
-2) Much of the swallowing process is an automatic reflex controlled by unconscious
-neurological mechanisms in the brainstem. Give each swallow sufficient time to
-progress entirely through its reflex arc before attempting to swallow again. You don’t
-want to interrupt a swallow by swallowing again too soon.
-
-3) It takes practice to know when it is safe to initiate another swallow. It is like two
-people passing sandbags down a line. The first person must wait until the second
-person’s hands are free before giving them another bag. Passing each gulp of water
-from the cup to your mouth and then the back of your throat should be efficient and
-quick but not at all rushed.
-
-4) You can either hold your breath while you chug or try to coordinate nasal breathing
-with drinking. Either way, don’t let involuntary gasps interrupt the chugging process.
-You can’t breathe and swallow at the same time, and you must teach the involuntary
-aspects of breathing and swallowing to cooperate and wait their turn.
-
-Practicing this exercise twice per day for two weeks should be enough to ensure you have
-no problem chugging four large glasses of water in 20 seconds. You will be able to put away a
-bottle of water or a smoothie in a very short time. More importantly, you will never again be
-afraid of choking on water.
-
-We Overeat to Combat Stress
-"It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.” — Epictetus (c. 50-135)
-
-We eat unhealthy food for pleasure but also to quell our pain. As discussed earlier, the taste of
-fat, salt, and sugar and even the activation of our stomach’s stretch receptors stimulate the
-release of endorphins, dopamine, and other feel-good neurotransmitters. Conversely, dieting
-can increase stress hormones, startling, breathing rate and heart rate. Discomfort from skipping
-a meal can deplete serotonin, reducing the frontal lobes' ability to regulate the amygdala,
-resulting in increased anxiety and frustration. In turn, heightened stress makes us hungrier and
-drives us to keep eating even after we are full.
-
-As you know, eating a meal makes the parasympathetic nervous system kick in. And eating
-a larger meal emphasizes rest and digest even more. Unconsciously, we know this, and we
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-overeat to subdue the fight or flight mode. Thus, we overeat to turn the volume down on our
-bodily pain. Many of us eat to the point where we feel tired and slightly nauseous just to reduce
-our daily stress.
-
-We also eat compulsively because we perceive food binges as mitigating distressed
-breathing. Hunger indeed makes our breath shallow. Trying to abstain from a piece of cake
-does the same. That is why it is often preferable to just give in and eat the cake. However, as
-you will see if you try it, taking deep, slow breaths every time you feel tempted can make you
-impervious to the siren song.
-
-Combining Fasting with Diaphragmatic Breathing Reduces Your Hunger Drive
-Our prehistoric ancestors would not have experienced undue stress the way we do from
-missing just one meal. Our bodies were designed to go for days without eating. Most people
-can live longer than a month without food as long as they have access to water. However, we
-have spoiled our appetitive systems. Every time we are a little late for a meal, our breath
-becomes shallow and disturbed. Simply, we haven’t learned to retain coolheadedness while
-hungry. | believe that many fasting practices recognize this. However, | think fasting can be
-much more beneficial if intentionally combined with diaphragmatic breathing.
-
-Try skipping a meal and breathing through the discomfort using paced breathing. Focus on
-how hunger affects your breathing and internal bracing. However, be prudent about this. Don’t
-skip a meal in the middle of a hectic workday, as this will further traumatize your relationship
-with hunger. Make it a lunch on a weekend so you can pay attention to how it makes you feel
-without worrying about distractions. When | fast, | just relax, especially for the three or four
-hours when | am at my hungriest. When you fast, you will notice recurring pangs of hunger
-starting a few hours after your regular mealtime. Thoracic breathing fuels these hunger pangs.
-All your life until now, you have paired hunger with distressed breathing. Dissociate these by
-using paced breathing to override hunger’s ability to highjack your stress system.
-
-Healthy Weight Exercise #20.3: Diaphragmatic Fasting
-Skip a lunch or dinner and spend time quelling your hunger pangs using paced breathing.
-Concentrate on the sensations of hunger and how they make your breathing shallow.
-Breathe along with a breath metronome for several minutes each hour during this fast.
-Imagine that you are a relaxed caveman or woman who hasn’t eaten for two days yet who is
-confident about finding plenty of food by tomorrow night.
-
-Pairing diaphragmatic breathing with hunger will dramatically soothe your hunger drive.
-The experience afforded by the exercise above will help you differentiate between a neurotic
-impulse to eat and the body’s valid hunger signal. Resolve to eat only when you feel this honest
-signal emanating from your gut.
-
-By eating less, you may be prolonging your life. Studies show that modest calorie
-restriction increases health and longevity in all mammals that have been tested. Temporary
-calorie deficits cause your cells to break down some of their internal building blocks for energy
-in a process known as autophagy. Many of these molecular structures were damaged and
-dysfunctional before they were broken down. The next time you eat, the cells then turn around
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-and rebuild these structures back up correctly, resulting in healthier cells.1° The fact that our
-cells regenerate in response to calorie restriction is another justification for why we should
-learn to tolerate hunger. However, keep in mind that these health benefits do not outweigh the
-costs associated with anorexia or bulimia.
-
-Shrink Your Appetite by Eating Less
-
-Neuroscientists know that exercising restraint is much like exercising a muscle. Every time you
-abstain or show moderation when eating, it gets easier to do so in the future.’4 Conversely,
-every time you binge, you will want to eat more the next few meals. Thus, the next time you
-flex your willpower by eating smaller portions or healthier food, take some consolation in
-knowing that your willpower is growing.
-
-It can take up to 20 minutes for the satisfaction signal to reach the brain. This is
-unfortunate because it means that we are liable to eat 20 minutes’ worth of food that we don’t
-need and within just a few short minutes, will not want. Learn to stop eating early and
-anticipate satisfaction before it arrives. One way to accomplish this is to stop eating once you
-reach 80% of being full. It can also help to make a concerted effort to eat less while enjoying
-your food more.
-
-| used to get stressed if a meal was not large enough to make me very full. Now, | find the
-sensation of being stuffed repulsive because | get tired after eating a heavy meal. Overeating
-promotes lethargy, making both exercise and concentration more difficult. This phenomenon is
-called “postprandial somnolence.” It can lead to sleepiness and a significant drop in mental
-acuity around lunchtime.* Avoid this in the middle of the day by splitting your lunch in half.
-
-Eat one half at noon and the second 30 minutes to an hour later. Eating frequent, smaller meals
-may help you stay alert and keep your metabolism high.
-
-Dormant Muscle Increases Body Fat
-
-Modern medical experts know that the current worldwide epidemic of obesity and diabetes is
-attributable to unhealthy eating and insufficient exercise, but they don’t appreciate the role of
-dormant muscle. | believe that the extent of dormant muscle is a major determinant of
-metabolic rate. It is pretty clear how dormant muscles cause an involuntary loss of lean mass
-and a progressive increase in fat mass. When parts of your neck, shoulders, spine, and hips are
-frozen in place, your movement is impeded. When your lower back hurts, your stomach is
-flaccid, and your range of lumbar motion is compromised, every action is attenuated. For these
-reasons, | firmly believe that performing the dormancy-reducing anti-rigidity exercises from
-previous chapters will increase your will-to-move and your metabolism along with it.
-Increasing age is associated with decreasing metabolic rate. | believe this relationship is
-mediated by frailty and that anti-rigidity may allow one to maintain a more active life well into
-old age. Frailty is the main reason that you have lower energy now as opposed to when you
-were younger. Thus, anti-rigidity may be the best weight loss tool available. When | was 28,
-| moved like a grandfather. | also had a “skinny-fat” physique and had to eat small portions to
-avoid being overweight. Dormant muscle strongly influenced me to be sedentary. Not anymore.
-There are two primary reasons for the variability in metabolic rate between individuals.
-One is the difference in lean body mass. A person with more muscle will have a higher
-metabolism. The second is voluntary movement not accounted for by exercise, called non-
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-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT is spontaneous physical activity and is highly
-variable across individuals, including how you move and hold your body during work, leisure,
-household tasks, and ambulation. NEAT can vary by as much as 2,000 calories per day between
-two people. The notion that obesity and overweight may be more related to NEAT than diet
-and exercise is supported by studies.’® | strongly believe that reclaiming atrophic and
-hypertonic musculature using anti-laxity and anti-rigidity is a surefire way to increase lean body
-mass and NEAT. Getting the dormant kinks out of the back and filling in the missing corners in
-the abdomen by using the exercises in the next section will shred away one’s fatty belly.
-
-Reviving Your Abdominals Through Exercise
-
-Our bellies are fat because our abdominal muscles are flaccid and underactive. In the following
-exercise, you will learn how to pair isometric abdominal contraction with paced, diaphragmatic
-breathing using the anti-laxity method from Chapter 13.
-
-Healthy Weight Exercise #20.4: Standing and Walking with Flexed Abs
-
-In this exercise, you will breathe to a breath metronome while standing with proper posture
-and tightening your abdominals. Pull the belly button toward the spine and contract your
-abs. Notice how tensing your abs makes you want to breathe at very short intervals. Simply
-contracting the abs stifles the diaphragm automatically, but you can override this. Hold the
-abdominal contraction and breathe deeply to the pace of the metronome. The longer you
-pair these two things, the more robust you make your abdominal tone.
-
-Very lightly strike your abs all over with your hand or a rounded object. This will help you
-keep a solid contraction. When doing this exercise, your chest will tend to cave in, so expand
-the chest and lengthen the distance between your breastbone and pubic bone. Don’t forget
-to retain proper tone in the muscles that expel urine we discussed in the last chapter.
-
-Allowing the diaphragm to push the stomach out is key to diaphragmatic breathing.
-The sight of a protruding abdomen, however, is not fashionable in our society. This is why many
-people habitually suck in their gut, which can keep the diaphragm tense and limit its motion.
-You should feel comfortable anywhere poking your stomach out as far as it can go. At first,
-you will look like you have a potbelly, just as retracting your neck gives you a double chin.
-However, as these muscles gain natural tone, your stomach will slim. Pushing the stomach
-out is also vital to lower back health, as it cushions the lumbar spine during forward bends.
-Let’s use anti-rigidity (contracting directly into achiness) to fix this.
-
-Healthy Weight Exercise #20.5: Doubled Over with Protruding Stomach
-
-Pair paced breathing with the activation of deeply dormant abdominal musculature. To reach
-the deepest portion of your abs, sit down with your legs in front of you. Bend forward from
-your hips and rest your hands on your shins. From this position, press your stomach outward
-as far as it will go. Experiment with pressing your stomach out and tensing the abs to
-different extents to find the weak areas of your abdomen. You should be able to find several
-areas that ache very deeply. Be very careful because contracting your abdominal muscles too
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-
-hard or too much at a time could strain the back or even cause an abdominal hernia. If it
-hurts, work up to it slowly. Follow the breath metronome while safely contracting into the
-achy dormant muscle to rehab it.
-
-For maximum results, perform the last two abdominal exercises from several different
-positions: standing, kneeling, crouching, taking one knee, squatting, lying on the back, etc.
-
-Reviving Your Abdomen Through Massage
-
-Performing myofascial release on the lower back and love handles dramatically diminished my
-stores of local fat. This got me wondering whether the same technique could decrease
-abdominal fat deposits. It sounds too good to be true, right? It’s not. Much of the rectus
-abdominis has been traumatized because of the way it instinctually contracts without rest
-during fear. All this strain leads to a “dead gut” that fails to burn fat. Getting the trauma out will
-make your abdominals much stronger, make ab exercises easier, and help your core to be more
-engaged during everything you do. To do this, in the next exercise we will percuss the abdomen
-while lying on the back.
-
-Healthy Weight Exercise #20.6: Myofascial Release for Abdominal Muscles
-Use your fingers, knuckles, or a tool to percuss the entire abdomen. Lift your hand three to
-eight inches above the abdomen before each strike. Strike the abdomen two to three times
-per second. You want to hit hard enough to break the bracing pattern without creating any
-real pain or damaging tissue. Each soft strike should elicit an ache. This aching feeling will
-make you want to brace to protect yourself, initiating the “stretch reflex” and a defensive
-contraction. You want to inhibit this defensive contraction, instead allowing your abs to
-remain as limp as possible. Search for areas that feel tight, inflexible, or crunchy. Spend time
-pressing firmly into the tense cords of muscle overlying the bones of the lower rib cage, hips,
-and pelvis, all areas that your abdominal muscles anchor into. Each day, the aching will
-further subside and you will have to strike slightly deeper to access achy tissue. After a
-session, there should be no bruising or pain whatsoever, so if these occur, you are hitting
-yourself too hard.
-
-This activity will wake up your core, but as with all forms of massage, overdoing it can
-diminish muscle mass. For this reason, just do it until you get the intense achiness out.
-
-Conclusion
-
-Restaurant owners know that people don’t want to pay for raw, unprocessed food. This is
-because unprocessed food is cheap and involves very little preparation. Consequently, it is
-perceived to have very little added value. Restaurants provide a service by processing the food
-such as frying or baking/cooking in oil. We are all addicted to these unhealthy preparations.
-Eating bland, chewy, raw, unprocessed food is work, but it is how wild animals and people stay
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-lean and healthy. Employing nonresistance, nonjudgment, healthy breathing, and a bit of old-
-fashioned stoicism will help.
-
-People who overeat to reduce their stress will find that what their bodies are really
-hungering for is exercise. The use of cardiovascular exercise in the reduction of stress will be
-discussed in the next chapter.
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-Chapter 20: Bullet Points
-
-e We don’t crave healthy foods because we have not had the experience of getting full on
-them by themselves. Give yourself that experience by eating full meals that consist of
-only fruits and vegetables.
-
-e Use a blender to turn fruit and vegetables into smoothies. It is a speedy, healthy,
-inexpensive, and low-calorie way to get full.
-
-e We overeat unhealthy food to transiently increase our dopamine and endorphins as an
-attempt to self-medicate against panic and stress.
-
-e We have spent our lives pairing hunger with thoracic breathing. This is why hunger
-causes distress, which, in turn, causes us to overeat. By fasting for a meal and pairing
-the fasting experience with paced breathing, you can detraumatize your nervous
-system’s relationship with hunger.
-
-e Stop eating when you feel 80% satiated.
-
-e Only start eating when you feel at least 80% hungry.
-
-e People with copious dormant muscle must diet to a stress-inducing extent to maintain a
-healthy weight. Reviving dormant muscle using anti-rigidity will increase your
-metabolism.
-
-e Most people have an extensive reservoir of dormant abdominal muscle. Your stomach
-will become much leaner if you rehabilitate this muscle with massage and anti-laxity and
-anti-rigidity exercises.
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-Chapter 20: Endnotes
-
-1. Reser, J. (2011). Nutrition, behavior, and the developmental origins of the metabolic
-syndrome. In V. Preedy, R. Watson, & C. Martin (Eds.), Handbook of behavior, food and
-nutrition (pp. 2627-2638). Springer.
-
-2. Reser, 2011, Nutrition, behavior, and the developmental origins of the metabolic
-syndrome.
-
-3. de Gortari, P., Alcantara-Alonso, V., Matamoros-Trejo, G., Amaya, M. I|., & Alvarez-Salas, E.
-(2020). Differential effects of leptin administration on feeding and HPT axis function in early-life
-overfed adult rats. Peptides, 127, 170285.
-
-4. Haslam, D. W., & James, W. P. (2005). Obesity. The Lancet, 366(9492), 1197-1209.
-
-5. Robertson, B. A., Rehage, J. S., & Sih, A. (2013). Ecological novelty and the emergence of
-evolutionary traps. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 28(9), 552-560.
-
-6. Bleich, S., Cutler, D., Murray, C., & Adams, A. (2008). Why is the developed world obese?
-Annual Review of Public Health, 29, 273-95.
-
-7. Drewnowski, A. (2018). Nutrient density: Addressing the challenge of obesity. British
-Journal of Nutrition, 120(S1), S8-S14.
-
-8. Haytowitz, D. B., & Pehrsson, P. R. (2018). USDA’s national food and nutrient analysis
-program (NFNAP) produces high-quality data for USDA food composition databases: Two
-decades of collaboration. Food Chemistry, 238, 134-138.
-
-9. Greenfield, B. (2020). Boundless: Upgrade your brain, optimize your body & defy aging.
-Victory Belt Publishing.
-
-10. Rao, T. S, Asha, M. R., Ramesh, B. N., Rao, K. S. (2008). Understanding nutrition,
-depression, and mental illness. indian Journal of Psychiatry, 50(2), 77-82.
-
-11. Ghaedi, E., Mohammadi, M., & Salehi-Abargouei, A. (2019). Effects of a Paleolithic diet on
-cardiovascular disease risk factors: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized
-
-controlled trials. Advances in Nutrition, 10(4), 634-646.
-
-12. Kenefick, R. W. (2018). Drinking strategies: Planned drinking versus drinking to thirst.
-Sports Medicine, 48(Suppl. 1), 31-37.
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-13. Kobayashi, S. (2015). Choose delicately and reuse adequately: The newly revealed process
-of autophagy. Biological & Pharmaceutical Bulletin, 38(8), 1098-1103.
-
-14. Hofmann, W., Deutsch, R., Lancaster, K., & Banaji, M. R. (2010). Cooling the heat of
-temptation: Mental self-control and the automatic evaluation of tempting stimuli. European
-Journal of Social Psychology, 40(1), 17-25.
-
-15. Reyner, L. A., Wells, S. J., Mortlock, V., & Horne, J. A. (2012). ‘Post-lunch’ sleepiness during
-prolonged, monotonous driving - effects of meal size. Physiology & Behavior, 105(4), 1088—
-1091.
-
-16. Chung, N., Park, M. Y., Kim, J., Park, H. Y., Hwang, H., Lee, C. H., Han, J. S., So, J., Park, J., &
-
-Lim, K. (2018). Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): A component of total daily living
-expenditure. Journal of Exercise Nutrition & Biochemistry, 22(2), 23-30.
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-Chapter 21: The Amygdala, Cortisol,
-and Chronic Stress
-
-Trigger warning: this chapter discusses some disturbing, emotionally difficult material.
-
-Traumatic Incidents Affect Your Inner Mammal
-
-| woke up in my bed at 5:15 a.m. to a bright flash of light and an explosion. It was the loudest
-sound | have ever heard. | could feel the force of the blast resound in my chest. At first,
-
-| assumed there was someone in my bedroom with a shotgun. | leaped out of bed for cover and
-then heard footsteps and yelling just outside my bedroom window. | didn’t know what to do.
-My home had been burglarized before, and | even experienced a robbery a few months prior,
-so | assumed | was experiencing a home invasion. After a half-hour of walking around
-maniacally with a baseball bat, | finally got the local watch commander on the phone. He told
-me police had served a warrant next door and used stun grenades to gain entry.
-
-It had never crossed my mind that law enforcement caused the situation. As soon as | knew
-the explosions were not criminal, | started to calm down. At least the conscious part of me
-knew | was no longer in danger. On the other hand, my cat, Niko, couldn’t understand this.
-
-He engaged in all kinds of nervous behavior that | had never seen from him: looking over his
-shoulder, pawing at the ground, and shaking. | tried my best to calm him, but | didn’t know how
-to communicate to him that we were safe now. | got dressed and took the bus to work. There
-were no empty seats that morning, so | stood up, feeling the ice in my blood and the tremors
-shoot down my spine. Holding the rail, | asked myself: “How am | going to face my colleagues
-and give my talk this afternoon?” At the time, | knew next to nothing about diaphragmatic
-breathing, and hadn’t developed any Program Peace exercises, so | struggled through it.
-
-The audience could tell | was overwhelmed.
-
-That night | couldn’t sleep. My conscious self knew | was completely safe. But, my
-unconscious brain areas—that, like my cat, don’t speak English—didn’t know this. Like small,
-scared animals, these brain modules continued to be emotional because they do not have
-access to the conscious, declarative knowledge that there never was any real threat. Evolution
-kept these brain modules in the dark because the organism cannot afford to trust the semantic
-belief that “I’m pretty sure I’m safe now.” You may not be able to talk to or reason with these
-modules, but you can communicate with them using your breath. Deep breathing persuades
-them to cool off. | didn’t have paced breathing back then to help me keep the trauma from
-sinking in, but | was able to use it years later to dig it out.
-
-My overreaction to that situation was shaped by prior experiences. | have been violently
-assaulted several times in my life. | have been held up at knifepoint and seen people stabbed,
-shot at, and beaten. | have never received an official diagnosis, but | believe these experiences
-caused me to develop a form of PTSD, even if a subclinical one. Panicking didn’t help me in any
-of these situations. The heightened anxiety from one did not serve me in the next. The morning
-after, | would wake up with my teeth heavily clenched, eyes squinted into slits, lumbar spine
-contorted, and shoulders up around my ears. Many people suffer heinous traumatic incidents,
-much worse than these, that go on to desecrate modules throughout their body. | have a few
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-friends that were “jumped” and beaten by groups of individuals. The neurological toll this takes
-can be ruinous, especially if it happens multiple times.
-
-Car accidents, mugging, battery, rape, gruesome injury, childhood abuse, and anything that
-involves an incapacity to stop a terrible thing from happening can plant the seeds of trauma.
-Feelings of entrapment, immobilization, and helplessness make it worse. But it is when we
-allow these feelings to persist through time that the real damage occurs. Obsessive rumination,
-bracing, and distressed breathing occurring well after the actual event itself are what prime the
-body for suboptimality. These three things turn stress into trauma by “proving” to your
-unconscious that things have not gotten better. Alleviating them starts with the breath because
-if full, long, smooth, diaphragmatic, belly breathing does not resume, then your muscles won’t
-let it go, and your mind will continue to relive the tribulation. What traumatic episodes are
-you prolonging?
-
-A Heightened Stress System
-
-As discussed in Chapters 2 and 5, sustained stress changes the body’s life strategy. It convinces
-the body that the environment it was born into is particularly life-threatening. Scientists refer
-to such environments as high in “extrinsic mortality.” This kind of environment communicates
-to the organism on a cellular level that the probability of it being able to live a long and happy
-life is low. The genes then reprogram the body to deal with a short and grisly one. This changes
-your mortal shell from a slow-burning candle into a firecracker. Your body expends all its energy
-upfront because it doesn’t expect to live for long. This happens at the expense of long-term
-energetic investments such as healing, the immune system, learning, reproductive functioning,
-affiliation, and investing time and energy in offspring.t For example, chronic anxiety inhibits
-your body’s ability to protect itself from oxidation, which is a process that acts on your cells in
-the same way that rust acts on metal. It also contributes to aging by keeping the body from
-repairing its telomeres, the protective caps at the end of your chromosomes, reducing the
-number of times your cells can divide.
-
-As you know, when stress goes on for too long, it results in a chronically heightened fear
-and startle response. The brain is retuned to enhance performance during life-threatening
-situations? and facilitate cautiousness and hypervigilance, traits that would have been highly
-adaptive during extended periods of dire stress in prehistoric environments.? These changes
-cause the stress response to become more pronounced and more easily triggered.4 The brain
-center that triggers stress, the amygdala, has its own innate response pattern to chronic stress.
-Let’s learn more about this almond-sized nucleus that acts as yet another biological repository
-of trauma.
-
-The Amygdala Recognizes Threats
-
-As we learned in Chapter 7, threats are recognized by the amygdala. This unconscious,
-subcortical area becomes active once it perceives a stimulus, or a group of stimuli together, as
-dangerous. The amygdala responds quickly and automatically to the inputs it receives from the
-eyes, ears, and other sense organs.° If the threat is sufficient, it broadcasts the fear signal to the
-rest of the brain. It can do this unconsciously (a glimpse of a looming object), or visually (the
-view of a bus barreling toward you). The recognition of an abstract stressor (knowledge that
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-
-you missed your bus) involves the prefrontal cortex, which indirectly alerts the amygdala.®
-Either way, once the amygdala is activated, it will signal the hypothalamus which initiates fight
-or flight.
-
-Thalamus
-
-Prefrontal
-
-Cortex Visual Cortex
-
-Eye
-
-Hypothalamus
-
-Amygdala To Heart, Lungs
-
-~~ & Adrenals
-
-Illustration 21.1: A. Cross section of the brain with amygdala revealed. You actually have two amygdalae, one in
-each cerebral hemisphere; B. Three fear pathways to the amygdala: 1. The unconscious pathway travels from the
-eye to the thalamus, to the amygdala. 2. The visual pathway travels from the eye to the thalamus, to the visual
-cortex, to the amygdala. 3. The thinking pathway travels from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala.
-
-Amygdala
-
-If the amygdala is strongly and repeatedly activated over the course of several weeks, its
-default level of activity will increase. Over months of repeated activation, the amygdala
-develops stronger connections with other brain areas intensifying its influence. It also increases
-in overall size.’ This enhanced priority given to the amygdala causes the animal to react to
-every seemingly threatening stimulus as if it were a full threat.
-
-The amygdala’s job is to decide whether a pattern of inputs looks like something that
-turned out badly in the past. However, it does not use reason or conscious deliberation to do
-this. Rather, it engages in simple pattern matching in which it adds up seemingly bad inputs to
-see if they sum to a threshold. If the inputs surpass this threshold, the amygdala triggers the
-sympathetic nervous system. Thus, our feelings of dread are not prompted by logical thinking.
-Instead, they are initiated by the amygdala’s eccentric way of determining statistics and
-probability. For example, an offender’s voice, clothes, name, or cologne could subliminally
-reinstate an amygdala highjack.
-
-Allow me to provide an example of how the amygdala’s form of logic is susceptible to
-mistakes. One day when | was in a lousy mood, | picked up the phone and the caller asked to
-speak to my roommate. The next day when | heard their voice again, it made me angry and |
-realized my prior bad mood had biased me against the caller for no good reason. Because my
-brain made this unconscious negative association, hearing the voice later triggered the same
-negative emotions. It was illogical and unfair to the caller. But my first impulse was to trust it
-unquestioningly. We accept the amygdala’s alarm bells as a type of foreboding intuition.
-Negative emotions usually feel valid and impelling, but they are often invalid and illusory.
-This is why we should question them rather than act on them impulsively. Especially after
-you experience a series of stressors, the amygdala will influence your thinking to be
-delusionally negative.
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-When activity in the amygdala surges, the brain is temporarily retuned to perceive
-everything as troublesome. For instance, it increases the tendency to perceive ambiguous
-events as bad, such as criticism when none is intended or hostility from a neutral face. This is
-the opposite of a manic episode, which causes people to perceive everything as a gleeful, lucky
-coincidence. People with mania often feel like cars on the freeway move to let them through,
-everyone is their best friend, and everything goes their way. On the other hand, chronic stress
-makes us more likely to succumb to road rage and the feeling that everyone and everything is
-against us. Whenever | start to feel disheartened, | try to remember that neurochemicals can
-paint over reality.
-
-You may have noticed that after one negative interaction, you are much more likely to get
-stressed out about other, completely unrelated things. With the exception of living in a
-warzone this displaced negative thinking is irrational in the modern world. Interestingly though,
-it may not be irrational from an ecological standpoint. It was beneficial for mammals to be
-prepared for the worst during bad times. Just imagine what life would have been like for early
-mammals in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
-
-When there are predators on the loose or natural catastrophes strike, they are rarely
-quickly resolved. For furry varmints from possums to porcupines to panthers, it makes sense to
-become scared and remain paranoid. From a modern perspective, however, it is preposterous
-to generalize anxiety to whatever your mind turns to. Don’t let one unfortunate scenario lead
-to a domino effect of suspicion and dismay. Notice when you carry negative emotions from one
-thought over to another. When you realize it, try to tell yourself that the negativity may feel
-compelling but that it is probably just residual and misattributed emotion.
-
-Stress and Cortisol: The Mind-Body Connection
-
-"Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will
-control yourself harmoniously.” — Mary Baker Eddy
-
-When the amygdala decides it has perceived a stressful stimulus, it triggers the hypothalamus.
-The hypothalamus mobilizes the sympathetic nervous system, leading to rapid breathing,
-tense muscles, reduced sensitivity to pain, suspension of digestion, and a rise in heart rate and
-blood pressure. It also activates the adrenal glands, prompting the release of adrenaline.
-
-The release of adrenaline is a fast-acting hormonal response to an acute stressor. Adrenaline
-frees up blood sugars to give muscles and other tissues the energy they need to deal with an
-immediate threat.
-
-After adrenaline, the second principal stress hormone is cortisol. Cortisol a is slow-acting
-response to a persistent stressor also released by the adrenals. It gives animals extra strength
-by liberating the energy from fat molecules into the bloodstream. This sounds like it could lead
-to weight loss, but it doesn’t. In the long run, cortisol promotes fat storage and muscle protein
-breakdown. It also changes the expression of several genes in fat tissue, increasing the
-likelihood of obesity and type 2 diabetes.®
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-
-Adrenal
-Gland
-
-e)
-
-Kidney
-
-Illustration 21.2: A. The kidneys with the adrenal glands sitting on top; B. The molecular structure of the hormone
-cortisol; C. The heart and lungs.
-
-Chronic stress upregulates this entire stress hormone system, also known as the HPA
-(hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis. The result is that the body is continuously flooded with
-adrenaline and cortisol. Sustained elevation of cortisol is highly pathogenic and leads to
-hypertension, elevated heart rate, increased circulating levels of lipids and cholesterol,
-atherosclerotic plaque formation, decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and increased low-
-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.? Cortisol makes stress corrosive and is related to disorders
-like arthritis, asthma, acid reflux, cardiovascular disease, chronic fatigue, decreased
-metabolism, depression, various cancers, migraines, sleep deprivation, immune system
-impairment, and ulcers.2°
-
-Elevated cortisol also causes the immune system to produce inflammatory chemicals
-(cytokines). This results in inflammation (redness, warmth, and swelling), which increases the
-immune system’s ability to heal wounds from physical attacks. Again, this would have been
-advantageous in prehistoric times when stress indicated that cuts and lacerations were likely. In
-modern times however, chronically elevated inflammation can lead to pain, poor digestion,
-cancer, autoimmune disorders, and other dire disease states." In fact, it has been found to be a
-player in almost every chronic disease. To escape chronic inflammation, we must stop thinking
-inflammatory thoughts. But unfortunately, cortisol also acts on the brain.
-
-Cortisol causes mammals to search desperately for a way out. Today, this urge to escape
-drives us to drink alcohol, smoke, overeat, and displace work-related frustrations on family
-members. If you are curious to see what highly elevated cortisol feels like, try submerging your
-entire forearm in an ice bath for two minutes. The pain from the ice causes a rapid spike in
-cortisol release, and this method is often used in experimental studies. When cortisol is raised
-like this, it causes subjects to perform mental tasks less flexibly and intelligently. It also
-increases pessimism, aggression, and the negativity bias.
-
-As you might have guessed, elevated cortisol is common in humans and animals on the
-bottom of the pecking order. Cortisol is the hormone of status defeat, and it surges in monkeys
-and apes that are being dominated. Decades of studies on early life exposure to cortisol in
-monkeys reinforces much of what we have been discussing in this book. Exposure to trauma
-and cortisol makes a young monkey more psychologically vulnerable to stress and leads to
-decreased dominance, increased aggression, decreased social competence, reduced ability to
-find social interactions rewarding, and reduced affiliative drive.1* When we feel defeated, our
-serotonin and testosterone drop and our cortisol rises. Intermittent stressors like workplace
-abuse or even replaying uncivil incidents in one’s mind elevate cortisol levels.
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-Stress expert Robert Sapolsky wrote an excellent book on the neurobiology of stress called
-Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In the book, Sapolsky explains that most animals, other than
-social primates, do not give themselves ulcers because they don’t waste time worrying. Zebras,
-and most other animals, only get upset when they find themselves in immediate danger,
-usually involving a predator. If we only got upset when wild carnivores were stalking us, we
-would all be a whole lot happier! Moreover, zebras probably don’t rehearse negative social
-situations or mull over their place on the social ladder. It is mostly monkeys, apes, and humans
-that repeatedly model these scenarios in their heads. As a primate, your amygdala is inclined to
-latch on to social confrontation and cause it to be played out continuously in the imagination.
-This results in an existential nightmare that Chapter 7 offered you tools (e.g., nonjudgment,
-nonresistance, and nonattachment) to wake yourself up from. Most of these tools influence the
-way you assess problems.
-
-The way you appraise a stress-provoking stimulus will program your automatic response
-the next time you encounter a similar stimulus. In other words, your brain will do its best to
-remember how you responded so it can expedite that response next time. So, when something
-alarms, shocks, or unpleasantly surprises you, don’t get caught up in it. Instead, try to
-immediately minimize the negativity.
-
-Whether it is a mosquito whining in your ear, a car honking at you, or a person yelling at
-you, stop, take a deep breath, and choose to be calmer. Underreacting inoculates the amygdala
-against stress. Face difficulty with a levelheaded mindset that is as centered, grounded,
-and poised as possible.
-
-De-Stress Activity #21.1: Maintain Composure Amid Tragedy
-Imagine that a terrible crisis is unfolding all around you. You are attempting to stop assailants
-from battering your friend. You are being lambasted, absolutely torn to shreds by your
-colleagues. You are experiencing a natural disaster. A large animal is attacking your group.
-Imagine maintaining complete composure amid this chaos. You are going through hell, but
-you keep going. You stand straight, put on your game face, breathe deeply, and master the
-fear in your gut. Other people see your outward appearance and are puzzled by it. You focus
-on fixing the situation the best way you can, knowing that maintaining your presence of mind
-will only aid your efforts to help others and right wrongs. If you make these scenarios vivid
-and extreme, then after you have done this for a while, there should be nothing and no one
-in real life that can throw you off.
-
-Don’t Develop an Unhealthy Fear of Stress
-
-“He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears.” — Michel De Montaigne (1533-1592)
-
-After recounting so many of the physical costs of stress in this book, | would be doing you a
-disservice if | didn’t encourage you not to stress out over stress itself. Here is why: Studies have
-shown that the pathogenesis of physical disease in response to stress is made much worse
-when someone believes that stress affects their health. Basically, thinking that stress is
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-unhealthy makes it more unhealthy.?* Also, people who report they actively avoid stress are
-more likely to suffer from depression. So, what can we do?
-
-When you feel stressed, don’t hate it, fear it, or fight it. Appraise it as enthusiasm and allow
-diaphragmatic breathing and belief in yourself to take away the unhealthy elements. Whenever
-you believe that you will end up stronger from a stressful incident, you almost always will. This
-is known as post-traumatic growth. People who see stress as normal and an opportunity for
-progress fare better. For instance, nervous public speakers who said, “| am excited” were rated
-as having better speeches than people who said “I am calm.”*4 So, decide to see yourself as
-scrappy, full of grit, and able to bounce back. Believe that stress and arousal will create an
-advantage for you.
-
-A stressor itself is inherently neutral. It is the way it is appraised that induces either distress
-or eustress. Eustress is positive stress and comes about when we decide we can cope
-successfully. Eustress, mounted in response to exciting challenges, drops off quickly rather than
-lingering like the cortisol response does.
-
-Besides this distinction between distress and eustress, scientists also differentiate between
-the threat and challenge responses. The threat response is the fight-or-flight response that
-makes you angry or fearful, priming you for self-defense. The challenge response gives you
-initiative, helps you focus, and motivates you to confront obstacles. Both responses share
-several physiological factors, such as an increase in heart rate. However, when you feel
-challenged, your heart beats stronger, not just faster, giving you more energy.
-
-During the threat response, the body is anticipating physical harm and makes relevant
-alterations. For example, blood vessels constrict to minimize blood loss due to injury sustained
-during combat. The body also increases inflammation and mobilizes immune cells to prepare
-for bruises and cuts. The threat response leads to cortisol and feelings of self-doubt. Studies
-have shown that, over time, the threat response leads to obesity, brain volume loss, and an
-increased risk of cardiovascular disease.*>
-
-The challenge response doesn’t do these things. The challenge response leads to tenacity
-and enthusiasm. Experts say that if you feel you don’t have what it takes to meet a situation
-head on, you experience a threat response. | agree. | also think that the threat response is
-selected when distressed breathing predominates and that the challenge response is selected
-when diaphragmatic breathing is retained. Use your deep breathing skills to turn threat
-responses into challenge responses.
-
-| would also be remiss not to mention that low to moderate stress levels are natural and
-beneficial. In fact, most excitement is accompanied by a little adrenaline and cortisol, along
-with an increase in heart and breathing rates. We need some stress, just like we need to
-contract our muscles regularly. The problem with the stress response is when it is elevated
-chronically like a braced muscle.
-
-| am asking you to avoid mulling over threats, fights, and abuse. | am not, however, asking
-you to deny reality or stop thinking about rising to meet challenges. Avoiding what makes you
-anxious can suspend growth. This is why it is important to expose yourself incrementally to
-gradations of challenging social situations. Voice that extra comment, joke, or observation to
-your peers to challenge yourself without pushing yourself into panic. Spark a conversation with
-a stranger. Chat up the clerk at the cash register. Find progressively larger audiences to share
-your ideas with and make eye contact for those few extra seconds. Every time you meet a
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-moderate challenge and succeed, you become able to face bigger challenges. Assert yourself
-in ways you were hesitant to previously and push yourself to gently expand your comfort
-zone boundaries.
-
-Remember those monkey studies we discussed a few sections back? It turns out that if the
-young monkey was exposed to elevated levels of cortisol a few times, but only briefly,
-then they developed increased resilience to stress and lowered cortisol levels. It toughened
-them up. Your stress system is just like a muscle, you want to push it through its full range
-regularly, but not for extended periods. Undergoing stress that challenges your cardiovascular
-and sympathetic system ends up being excellent exercise if you are not defeated by it and if you
-can relax afterward. Envision your stress system as agile and able to go from 0 to 100 and back
-to 0 uncomplicatedly. Endure, prevail, and recoup. Be made better and stronger by everything
-that happens by remaining fundamentally unharmed.
-
-Feelings of Control and Safety
-
-An animal’s stress is exacerbated when it cannot figure out how to make things better,
-
-feels helpless or powerless.*® A rat subjected to small electrical shocks will liberate significantly
-less cortisol if it thinks it has some control over the frequency of the shocks. Tricking the rat into
-thinking that pushing a lever reduces these shocks helps it remain calm, even if the lever
-actually does nothing.’” In a similar experiment, when a beeping noise preceded a shock toa
-rat’s foot, those rats had less severe ulcers than those with no warning. Because the stress had
-some predictability, the rats could retain a sense of control.
-
-The moral of this story? Don’t focus on the elements of disturbing events that are
-unpredictable or uncontrollable. More importantly, know that your reactions, attitude, and
-reasoned choice are always under your control. Your breathing is always under your control as
-well. We all have times we are confused and uncertain. Do not let the nonlinear, chaotic, or
-unforeseeable distress you. Instead, take the time to identify which aspects of an unpleasant
-situation are malleable. This can help take the sting away from the unruly and erratic and help
-you turn threats into challenges.
-
-Challenging yourself and embracing disorder is great, but there are times when you must
-feel able to completely put down your guard so that you can rest deeply. After the police loudly
-arrested my neighbor, | felt helpless in my own bed. This is not ok. Do what you must to make
-sure that you feel in control underneath your sheets, even if it means installing an alarm system
-or a thicker bedroom door with a deadbolt. The place where you sleep should provide
-sanctuary and refuge so you can debrace, recharge, and think safe, happy thoughts.
-
-The Buddha sat and slept at the base of the Bodhi Tree because it provided protection and
-security. He trusted it to have his back. Make sure your resting place makes you feel
-unconditionally secure.
-
-Preventing Scalp Soreness and Other Forms of Hypoperfusion
-
-Hair loss can be caused by stress. | have a friend who left his ferret alone for two days and came
-home to find it covered in bald patches. It is common for mammals to lose fur after trauma.
-The details are unclear, but it may be some kind of social signal. When chronic stress causes
-hair loss in humans, it is known as telogen effluvium. | started rapidly losing hair at the end of
-11th grade. At the time, | had no idea what caused the sudden hair loss. Looking back two
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-decades later, it is clear that it started immediately after having my nose broken. | believe the
-hair loss was a direct response to some form of high-intensity bracing that | took on after the
-injury that caused an outpouring of cortisol.
-
-It is cortisol that makes hair follicles thin and fall out (it is also stress hormones that make
-them turn gray). This is why hair loss is associated with other stress-related illnesses like
-coronary artery disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and increased mortality.*® Although
-genetics plays a role in hair loss, abrupt hair loss from an early age is usually caused by extreme
-stress. By age 30, my hairline had receded to the midline of my scalp, farther than my father or
-grandfathers’ hairlines. Fascinatingly, my hair loss stopped (for eight years at least) immediately
-after | started paced breathing. Of course, only a little of my hair grew back because the
-miniaturization of the follicle responsible for balding is irreversible.
-
-Another contributor to hair loss is reduced blood supply to the scalp. Stress and aging can
-reduce circulation and vasculature in subcutaneous tissues all over the head. This can cause
-scalp soreness. In the medical literature, sore scalp has been closely associated with hair loss
-(alopecia and male pattern baldness). | believe that you can reduce your risk of hair loss by
-increasing circulation in your scalp. Does your scalp feel sore when you firmly press a knuckle
-into it with five pounds of pressure? It shouldn’t. If it does, it may have reduced blood flow and
-the accompanying reductions in oxygen and nutrients. If the exercise below feels sore or
-painful, you should do it often to improve circulation. The intervention is simple, quick, and can
-vastly reduce scalp soreness in less than two weeks. Do the following:
-
-De-Stress Exercise #21.1: Increase Scalp Blood Flow
-
-1) Take the heel of your palm and press firmly down on the top of your head, around
-your hairline, or on any patch of scalp that feels sore.
-
-2) Move your hand in a circular motion while pressing very firmly. You should feel
-like you are stretching the skin away from its attachments to the underlying bone.
-
-3) Try to move your hand in wide circles, attempting to stretch the scalp as far as it
-will go in each direction.
-
-4) Take about one second’s time to complete a full circle.
-
-5) Repeat this all over the scalp, focusing on the sorest areas for a total of five
-minutes. Also use other forms of massage including compression and percussion.
-
-When | started, five pounds of pressure from a single knuckle at the top of my head
-provoked unbearable discomfort. The sheer amount of pain suggested to me that the scalp is
-another anchor for trauma. So, | felt compelled to try to get the pain out. Within 10 five-minute
-sessions of the exercise above it went from puffy and dimpled with inflammation to smooth
-and sleek. Aside from the scalp there are other areas without underlying muscle that can be
-affected by poor circulation.
-
-| often use headphones to listen to audiobooks when | take walks. After a few years of this,
-my ears hurt every time | took off my headphones. They were so painful one day that | figured
-| would have to stop wearing them. Frustrated with this, | cupped my palms over my ears and
-bent them forward firmly. This stung, so | spent 60 seconds bending them in different
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-directions. It ached, but it also felt good. When | wore headphones the next day, it was much
-less painful. Three more sessions like this, and the pain was gone completely.
-
-With age and uneven use, our tissues develop a condition called hypoperfusion. This is also
-known as diminished blood flow and is the reason my ears hurt. Reduced perfusion of blood
-can cause pain all around the body. As you know, pain exacerbates stress and drives the
-production of cortisol so we should be finding these areas and massaging them.
-
-Hypoperfusion develops when tissues and organs receive reduced circulation due to
-diminishment in the number of small blood vessels. Pinching and bending my ears for less than
-five minutes overall provided the mechanical deformation of the tissues necessary to stimulate
-the creation of new small blood vessels (angiogenesis). All our hypoperfused tissues, including
-dormant muscles, need this kind of tender loving care. If it aches and itches, target it further.
-| want to encourage you to use compression, percussion, and vibration to address
-hypoperfusion anywhere you can find it because it will scale down your stress.
-
-Drug Use Leads to Frailty and Chronic Distress
-
-In my early twenties, | had between one and five alcoholic drinks on weekends, a cigarette every
-Saturday night, and a cup of coffee most weekdays. | wanted to stop, but | couldn’t help myself.
-When | was taking them, the drugs created the illusion of helping manage my stress. Taking
-them leads to relief because they mitigate distressed breathing for a few minutes, but in the
-long term, they actually contribute to it. It took me years to realize that even these uncontrolled
-substances lead to compulsive use, relapse after abstinence, and physical dependence.
-
-Both nicotine and alcohol create a sense of euphoria that lasts a few minutes. However,
-the accompanying withdrawal from even a single use can lead to minor dysphoria that lasts
-days. Whether you are aware of it or not, this discomfort affects you emotionally and increases
-your bracing, shallow breathing, and emotional distress. | never noticed the withdrawal
-symptoms in my twenties, but after developing sensitivity to my inner states (discussed in
-depth in the next chapter), they became very apparent. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms include
-irritability, fatigue, shaking, sweating, nausea, headache, and difficulty concentrating.?°
-But these symptoms don’t just affect alcoholics who go cold turkey. They affect everyone who
-uses alcohol in a dose-dependent manner. The symptoms of smoking cessation can be worse.
-Withdrawal from any drug robs a user of diaphragmatic mobility, and | believe the resulting
-shallow breathing is a primary mechanism in addiction.
-
-When you use psychoactive drugs every week, you experience fiendish cravings. | realized
-that two shots of liquor made me feel fearless for thirty minutes, and a cigarette extinguished
-my anxiety for an hour, but for the next few days, the subtle pain from withdrawal made me
-slightly more introverted and submissive. Situations that | would consider to be minor hassles
-before became calamities that would make me think, “My God, I’ve got to have a drink.” When
-you feel you “need” a cigarette is precisely when you shouldn’t smoke. Instead of masking the
-pain, work through it by spending some time with your breath metronome.
-
-Intense social interactions that go on too long create loads of tension. Drugs amplify this.
-This is why after mixing the two, otherwise known as partying, you wake up feeling achy and
-nauseous, with a headache and stiff breathing. It is also why rock stars and child actors often
-burn out so fast. You cannot consume caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana and hope to
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-keep your latent trigger points from flaring up in social situations. Instead, intoxication makes
-you intensify your social displays without awareness of the increase in bracing.
-
-When people use drugs recreationally, it makes them feel immune to social stress for a
-short time. This inevitably leads them to go too hard on their bodies. It proceeds like this:
-as you work the room, you strain your trigger points and chakras to the limit until you reach
-the point of needing another drink or cigarette. Using dulls the discomfort and allows you to
-continue to push your chakras, further deranging and abusing them. Soon, you are in so much
-discomfort that you’re turning to a third drink, a fourth drink, or possibly even harder drugs.
-
-Imagine that you badly strained your neck Friday afternoon. Would you go to a party that
-night, drink, and do drugs? If you did, do you think it would make your neck better or worse?
-Would you go to the party if you had a fever? What if you were 95 years old, would you do it
-then? | offer these hypotheticals to help the reader see that social drug use is characterized by
-postural neglect, zero muscle refreshing, shallow breathing, and mounting tension. | recently
-heard a 20-year-old friend who stayed up all night drinking and partying say something the next
-morning that stuck with me. As she practically limped to her car, she said, “My entire body feels
-bruised.” Episodes like this contribute immensely to frailty and muscle dormancy.
-
-Most recreational drugs, legal and illegal, increase dopamine, making you feel eager and
-rewarded. Thus, drug use pits two different sections of the brain against each other. One finds
-the drug stimulating and exhilarating, while the other finds it depleting and impoverishing. As
-mammals, we are designed to choose whatever increases our dopamine. This is why, for most
-people, the fleeting reward of drug use outweighs the long-term costs. Drug use tricks the
-brain’s pleasure centers into being delighted at the cost of tightening the vices around our
-chakras. In the long run, it also saps our dopamine. Within a couple of hours, the dopamine dips
-below default, and the person feels understimulated and restless, compelling them to want to
-use the drug again. Moreover, studies show that long-term drug use can permanently lower
-dopamine and serotonin levels.
-
-| thought | would always crave cigarettes and alcohol, but diaphragmatic retraining
-abolished my urges. In fact, studies have shown that paced breathing can help addicts maintain
-sobriety.2° Cigarettes and alcohol brought so much relief to me before but no longer did once |
-started breathing diaphragmatically. | believe that this is simply because there is little to relieve
-now. Instead, cigarettes generally just make my body feel weak, while alcohol makes me feel
-slow and tired.
-
-There is a growing community of people who believe they can use drugs to achieve
-spiritual (entheogenic) growth. Sadly, almost all these people are oblivious to their shallow
-breathing while doing drugs. For this reason, most heavy trips are bad trips, even if the person
-does not realize it. | believe that if you want to do drugs, you should only do them while paced
-breathing. Otherwise, they will inevitably increase the extent of bracing going on under your
-level of awareness. Drugs should be used exclusively under the condition of complete
-composure. Under any other circumstances, they will unhinge your emotional well-being.
-However, hypocritically, | do recommend you take a drug for the following exercise.
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-De-Stress Activity #21.2: Desensitize to the Sensations of Caffeine
-
-Commit a whole day to observing your body’s reaction to caffeine. Make or buy a caffeinated
-beverage of your choice, then drink some of it. Caffeine, taurine, and other alkaloids increase
-adrenaline and cortisol. The caffeine will lead to the amplification of your discomfort, the
-activation of latent trigger points, and the straining of various chakra-like modules. Lie down
-and focus on these intense sensations. They may involve buzzing, crackling, heat, or cold and
-they may come in waves. Do not fight the waves. If you breathe mindfully through the
-twinges of pain convulsing your innards, you will learn to control and dispel them. Try going
-to sleep in this state.
-
-If you are a regular caffeine consumer, try to abstain from caffeine and perform this exercise
-while being exposed to caffeine withdrawal symptoms instead. Having encouraged you to
-drink caffeine, | want to be clear. Clinical studies show that long-term use of highly
-caffeinated beverages can result in significant adverse health outcomes, including cardiac
-and psychiatric conditions.*? For this reason, | strongly discourage the consumption of energy
-drinks. My subjective opinion is that caffeine should be kept under 50 mg per day, which is
-the equivalent of one or two eight-ounce cups of tea.
-
-Several drugs, including hallucinogens, dissociatives, and psychedelics, can induce
-temporary psychosis. Profoundly disturbing states of nightmarish terror, fear of overdose, or
-“ultimate entrapment” are commonly reported. A bad trip is not physical and emotional pain
-caused by a drug. It is preexisting pain from bodily tension and latent trigger points unmasked
-by the drug. Being exposed to this and being badly and unmindfully distressed by it increases
-trauma in the body. However, | think that any bad trip can be reversed by 30 minutes of paced
-breathing. Mental health specialists are searching for a treatment that can be administered to
-patients shortly after an overdose, panic attack, or horrific trauma. | believe that deep, paced
-breathing should be used in emergency response and clinical settings because it has the power
-to terminate these states and, in so doing, help block the formation of traumatic memories.
-
-| have a friend who smokes concentrated THC every day, smokes cigarettes hourly, and
-drinks between 10 and 15 drinks a night, every night. This sounds like a living hell to most
-people. But few realize that doing less than this is just a proportionately smaller version of that
-hell. | have watched this woman’s good looks erode over just a few years. Every time | see her,
-the squinting and sneering are further entrenched. She doesn’t even do any hard drugs, but the
-poor gal is in constant displeasure and dissatisfaction driven by her withdrawal symptoms. She
-once described her pain to me as claws and teeth, tugging at her internal organs and devouring
-her from the inside out. | believe this is an insightful description of what it feels like to have
-your chakra-like modules saturated in inflammation and trapped in partial contraction.
-
-Video Games, Violent Movies, and Loud Music Contribute to Stress
-
-Humans have a tendency to create unhealthy attachments to forms of overstimulation. | was
-addicted to video games, violent movies, and loud music. Just as with drugs, we become
-hooked on the dopamine and adrenaline they produce, and the fleeting thrill causes us to
-ignore the persistent, low-level panic.
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-Traditional hunter-gatherers had exceptionally low stimulation levels 95% of the time.
-They were out in nature. Today, we plug into many streams of overstimulation that promote
-thrill-seeking and hyperarousal. Videos of street fights, “epic fails,” people getting injured,
-combat sports, horror movies and other forms of sensory assault are some of the most popular
-videos online. As with pornography, these intense but damaging experiences make us
-dissatisfied with our real lives. | believe that some people’s limbic systems respond to intense
-media stimulation with the challenge response, but | think most respond to them with the
-threat response.
-
-Social media use, video games, and the violent nature of modern movies and television
-fragment our attention and foster a gambling mindset that causes us to become addicted to
-short-lived thrills. News outlets design the daily coverage of current events and politics to incite
-negative emotions because it grabs attention. Everything from unsolicited emails to our social
-media feed, to the nightly news report inundates us with shock, confusion, and consternation.
-Modern media has been documented to decrease the capacity for concentration, discipline,
-and the kind of work ethic necessary to thrive in the modern professional sector. 22
-
-Almost any wild mammal placed in a nightclub or movie theater would frantically try to
-escape. Ironically, these are the places we go to relax even though our innate senses want to
-retreat from loud sounds, bright lights, and quick movement. They keep our amygdala ringing
-with fear. Even children’s movies today are hysterically paced and feature constant calamity
-and pandemonium. A large proportion of children are incapable of breathing through their
-noses under these conditions. As we sit consuming popular media, we hyperventilate, sneer,
-startle, raise our eyebrows, brace our vocal cords, and protract our necks. As long as you allow
-media content to impede your breathing pattern, this is inescapable.
-
-De-Stress Activity #21.3: Disengage from an Action Flick
-
-The next time you watch a suspenseful movie, television show, or video game, carefully
-monitor your internal reactions. When the main character is risking their life, and there are
-big stakes, notice how somewhere deep down inside of you, you hold a conviction that says,
-“Don’t take a full, long breath, or else you will put the protagonist of the movie in jeopardy.”
-Do you see how absurd this situation is? What is happening to a fictional character in a film
-should not adversely affect your breathing.
-
-The fear of breathing properly is our most limiting belief. At the theater or on your couch,
-pull out your paced breathing app, dim the screen, and override this tendency as you
-continue to watch. While you witness the character experience peril, breathe long, slow
-breaths. You will be amazed by how this allows you to detach from and become desensitized
-to the nail-biting worriment.
-
-When the diaphragm tenses, it is like a turtle retreating into its shell. It “wants to hide”
-from loud sounds and fast movement. When it is afraid, it lies still in partial contraction. When
-it feels safe it ventures out. While we consume entertainment media our tendency is to breathe
-with the chest and freeze the diaphragm in place. The diaphragm remains buried inside the rib
-cage like the turtle’s head inside its shell. This keeps the belly still. During each inhalation,
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-pay attention to the downstroke of your diaphragm. Imagine it emerging from the bottom of
-your ribs and pushing on the contents of your belly. As you perform Activity 21.3 above,
-
-you should have dozens of breakthrough moments where, little by little, you are able to
-encourage your diaphragm to come out and play.
-
-As with drug use, intense stimulation from modern media causes us to completely
-disregard the panic signals our body is sending us. Performing paced breathing while engaging
-in these activities is an excellent way to learn to retain your composure as you are inundated. If
-you practice, you will get to the point where you can breathe through your nose at five breaths
-per minute in a loud theater, digital firefight, or clamoring nightclub for hours at a time. Allow
-me to point out that it doesn’t matter which arena, arcade, or bar you are in; if you breathe at
-five breaths per minute or less, you are automatically the coolest cat there.
-
-Most video games create suspenseful situations in which players must react quickly to keep
-their character from being hurt or killed. The simulated danger and time pressure recruits fast-
-acting areas of the brain, such as the amygdala and basal ganglia, to help perform the
-hazardous button pressing. These unconscious brain areas don’t know they are just being
-recruited to play a game. They assume the actions are dire, and so involuntarily activate the
-sympathetic system. This is why playing real-time video games can be affectively detrimental.
-Each decrement in the character’s life bar causes startle and cortisol release.2? Each startle
-contributes ever so slightly to one’s background hum of anxiety. Moreover, as you hold the
-controller (as with your phone or keyboard), most of your major postural muscles are
-completely braced and immobilized. In a very real sense, we are monkeys being terrorized
-while handcuffed to the keyboard, mouse, or controller.
-
-Videogames have been shown to increase cortisol levels, bolster aggressive affect, and
-reduce prosocial behavior.?4 Most of my friends who play video games act breathless and
-panicked afterward, driving them to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol during gaming breaks.
-Playing an hour of competitive, online “deathmatches” would strip almost anyone of their
-composure. Over time, this undermines autonomic balance. In my twenties | didn’t realize that
-loud, violent entertainment was turning me into the stereotype of the high-strung geek.
-
-Many studies have shown that merely reducing television volume can vastly reduce the
-sympathetic stress response to violent videos and games. In general, the louder the TV, the
-more frequently and intensely the amygdala is triggered, and the more cortisol is released.
-Turn your speakers down a few decibels, and you should notice that you feel far less uneasy
-after a play session or an action movie. We should also seek out activities that put us into a
-state of flow and stimulate dopamine without stimulating cortisol. What you are doing right
-now, reading, may be one of the best. Socialization, meditation, massage, sex, singing, and
-exercise are others.
-
-Some breathtaking things are good for us. But we need to differentiate between the scenic
-overlook and addictive trauma. Overstimulating media tricks our bodies into thinking we are
-preparing for tremendous amounts of exercise, even though we usually consume it while sitting
-on our backsides. Rather than stewing in them, use up your stress hormones by engaging in
-physical activity.
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-Conclusion: Exercise Is the Best Antistress Tool
-
-Perhaps the best antidote for stress is regular exercise. There is an extensive body of research
-documenting the many benefits. Exercise bolsters self-esteem, enhances body image, increases
-stress resilience, and is an effective treatment for depression and anxiety.2° Some studies
-indicate that exercise may even increase life expectancy and the overall quality of life.2®
-
-There are many reasons to exercise.
-
-Health Benefits of Exercise
-
-e Improves circulation efficiency and reduces blood pressure
-
-e Increases pain tolerance
-
-e Increases the number of red blood cells, facilitating oxygen transport
-
-e Lowers total cholesterol while raising good cholesterol
-
-e Prevents bone loss and stimulates bone growth reducing the risk of osteoporosis
-
-e Promotes weight loss
-
-e Reduces risk for heart disease, blood clots, and stroke
-
-e Reduces the risk for diabetes and cardiovascular issues
-
-e Strengthens the heart muscle, improves its efficiency, and reduces resting heart rate
-e Strengthens the muscles of respiration
-
-Most people don’t engage in daily physical activity because it feels uncomfortable.
-
-They assume exercise will add to their distress. It’s true: exercise does lead to a slight increase
-in adrenaline and cortisol. This is why we must appraise the sensation of exercise as positive
-stress, a challenge, and as under our control. Moreover, mounting a small stress response to
-exercise repeatedly will diminish your stress response to subsequent exercise. In other words,
-the more you train, the less uncomfortable it becomes.
-
-Exercise involves the good type of stress that fortifies us against bad types. It does this by
-teaching the respiratory and cardiovascular systems how to handle heavy loads and recover
-rapidly. Also, after exercise, stress plummets. For instance, it is known that blood concentration
-levels of cortisol rebound (fall off) abruptly. On the other hand, cortisol rebound after social
-stress is sluggish and it won’t rebound at all if it leads to rumination. The next time you
-find yourself overthinking an argument, take a run. You may find it wipes most of your
-concerns away.
-
-Exercise is a potent antidepressant and anxiolytic that makes us feel significantly less
-affected by unfavorable events. The reason is that physical exertion, whether aerobic or
-anaerobic, results in endorphin release. Beta-endorphin is a neurohormone released into the
-bloodstream from the pituitary gland during exercise.*” Endorphins attach themselves to
-specific receptor sites in the brain that affect our perception of well-being and, in large
-amounts, can even create the feeling of euphoria. Endorphins are the body’s way of rewarding
-us for exerting ourselves. Endorphins not only give you a sense of pleasure; they also suppress
-appetite, elevate mood, increase memory retention, and improve immune activity.”°
-
-Aerobic exercise results in the increased creation of new brain cells (neurogenesis) in the
-same areas that lose cells in people with depression (such as the hippocampus). The
-concentration of nerve growth factors, like GDNF and BDNF, increases with exercise.
-
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-These proteins cause neuron branches to grow and make new connections. They also reduce
-susceptibility to degeneration. It is no wonder that a sedentary lifestyle is a risk factor for
-neurodegenerative illnesses in humans. If you don’t exercise to improve health, fitness,
-
-or appearance, then do it to increase the quality of your level of consciousness. In fact,
-exercise has many positive biological effects on the brain.
-
-Neurobiological Effects of Exercise
-
-e Boosts energy and reduces stress
-
-e Improves brain structural connections
-
-e Improves cognitive function, cognitive control, and various forms of memory
-e Improves mental health, increasing cognitive capacity
-
-e Improves mental wellness by relieving stress, tension, anxiety, and depression
-e Improves self-image and confidence
-
-e Improves sleep quality
-
-e Increases gray matter density
-
-e Results in new neuron growth
-
-Exercise enhances the feel-good neuromodulators while having none of the downsides of
-overeating, drugs, alcohol, or chaotic entertainment. The endorphin release that occurs during
-exercise is one reason why running around the block once or twice can make you come across
-as highly relaxed before a meeting, date, or party. The other reason is that it resets the level of
-tension in your chest.
-
-Unspent, negative energy will inevitably be funneled toward the bracing of your
-diaphragm. This makes it so that a tense “claw” powers each inhalation and exhalation.
-Intense cardiovascular exercise that requires heavy breathing forces you to loosen that claw
-and expand the diaphragm’s range simply so that you can get enough air. Additionally,
-when an exercise thoroughly works out your breathing musculature, it will need rest,
-preventing it from reverting to its usual pattern of heavy tension. In other words, aerobic
-exercise stimulates and strengthens the breathing musculature, making it largely incompatible
-with bracing the diaphragm.
-
-De-Stress Exercise #21.2: Unbracing Heavy Breathing
-
-During intense aerobic exercise, you should feel some degree of discomfort in your chest.
-Some of that discomfort is a normal part of heavy breathing, but a large part comes from
-breathing muscles that have been chronically braced. The next time you perform aerobic
-exercise, like running, jumping rope, cycling, or climbing stairs, zero in on this pain. You can
-retire it if you just stop bracing the muscles responsible. It is an anguished, panicked reaction
-to exertion that is unnecessary. Part of this is an innate fear of pushing the heart and lungs
-too far.
-
-While exercising, imagine that you will have to keep up this high level of respiratory output
-for the rest of the day. To do this, you would need to make your breathing as efficient as
-
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-
-possible. Imagine resting in action: accepting heavy cardiovascular demand and relaxing in
-the face of it. That burning sensation in the center of your chest and around your ribs will
-fade away as you teach yourself to turn it off.
-
-Wolves and wild dogs often travel tens of miles daily while foraging. They are designed for
-sustained, daily activity. Dog trainers know that daily exercise is the most important aspect of
-rehabilitating problem dogs. This is because being deprived of activity without an outlet for
-their natural energy increases neurotic, defiant, and aggressive behaviors. Dismally, many
-people don’t bother to walk their dogs. Professionals dog behaviorists like Cesar Millan argue
-that walking a dog for less than sixty minutes every day is abusive.2? Millan walks his dogs ina
-large pack for at least four hours a day. He doesn’t do this for their physical health as much as
-their mental health. How much exercise is enough for humans? It isn’t clear, but many experts
-and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend at least 20 minutes of
-moderate aerobic activity every day. | would say that we should shoot for more like 40.
-
-You need a daily outlet for your natural energy just as much as any other mammal. Every
-day you skip cardiovascular exercise, you are mismanaging your body and compounding your
-stress, social defeat, and pain. To stay motivated, make your workouts fun, varied and (as
-discussed in Chapter 15) not too strenuous. Listen to an audiobook, a podcast, or your favorite
-music. Become interested in and build skill at as many different forms of exercise as you can.
-Try out different sports, gymnasiums, and classes in your neighborhood (see table below). Ask
-your friends if you can join them in their routines. Dance and practice yoga every day. Lift
-weights using the anti-laxity and anti-rigidity techniques. Get out for a walk using the exercises
-in Chapter 17. Free yourself from that self-imposed kennel.
-
-elieleleaccleakt-cmmm Cycling, Cross Country, Dancing, Elliptical, Hiking, Jogging,
-Mountain Climbing, Jumping Rope, Rowing, Running,
-Skateboarding, Swimming, Stair Climbing, Trampoline, Walking
-
-Group Sports Badminton, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Cheerleading, Cricket,
-Dodgeball, Football, Handball, Hockey, Lacrosse, Martial Arts,
-Racquetball, Rugby, Soccer, Softball, Skating, Skiing, Tennis,
-Volleyball, Wrestling
-
-Group Classes Aquarobics, Body Works, Bootcamp, Calisthenics, Cardio
-Kickboxing, Cross Fit, Dance, Jazzercise, Jiu-Jitsu, Karate, Krav
-Maga, Muay Thai, Pilates, Salsa Dancing, Spinning, Step Aerobics,
-Tae Kwon Do, TRX, Turbo Kick, Water Aerobics, Yoga, Zumba
-
-Table 21.1: Forms of cardiovascular and aerobic exercises to try.
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-Chapter 21: Bullet Points
-
-e Don’t fear stress. Apprehension of stress makes it more physiologically detrimental.
-
-e Wecan respond to stressors in a healthy way by considering them challenges (challenge
-response) or in an unhealthy way by considering them threats (threat response).
-
-e Whether your unconscious mind responds to stressors with the threat response or the
-challenge response may be determined by the quality of your breathing.
-
-e Virtually all drug use leads to withdrawal symptoms that weaken you as a person.
-
-e People who mix socializing with drugs unknowingly brace various muscles and organs
-for sustained periods.
-e Video games, loud music, and violent, suspenseful entertainment lead to low-level panic
-
-that can become chronic.
-
-e You are on “no chill” mode. And you need to come off it.
-
-e Consider taking one day a week, perhaps Sundays, to unwind and remove yourself from
-all worries, work, rushes, and social conflicts. A whole day of rest serves as a
-“macrobreak.” Committing 1/7 of your life to restorative relaxation can make a huge
-difference over time.
-
-e Regular exercise releases endorphins and enhances our mood, keeping our minds from
-running our bodies into the ground.
-
-e Anxiety is your body’s way of begging you for exercise.
-
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-Chapter 21: Endnotes
-
-1. Ellis, B. J., Jackson, J. J., & Boyce, W. T. (2006). The stress response systems:
-Universality and adaptive individial differences. Developmental Review, 26, 175-212.
-
-2. Wingfield, J. C., Donna L. Maney, Creagh W. Breuner, Jacobs, J. D., Sharon Lynn,
-Ramenofsky, M., & Ralph D. Richardson. (1998). Ecological bases of hormone-behavior
-interactions: The “Emergency Life History Stage.” American Zoologist, 38(1), 191-206.
-
-3. Marks, |., & Nesse, R. (1994). Fear and fitness: An evolutionary analysis of anxiety
-disorders. Ethology and Sociobiology, 15(5), 247-261.
-
-4. Miller, D. B., & O'Callaghan, J. P. (2002). Neuroendocrine aspects of the response to stress.
-Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental, 51(6 Suppl 1), 5-10; Sapolsky, R. M., Krey, L. C., &
-McEwen, B. S. (1986). The neuroendocrinology of stress and aging: The glucocorticoid cascade
-hypothesis. Endocrine Reviews, 7(3), 284-301; Lovallo, W. R., & Gerin, W. (2003).
-Psychophysiological reactivity: Mechanisms and pathways to cardiovascular disease.
-Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(1), 36-45.
-
-5. LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life.
-Simon and Schuster.
-
-6. Bremner J. D. (1999). Does stress damage the brain? Biological Psychiatry, 45(7), 797-805;
-LeDoux, J. (1998). Fear and the brain: Where have we been, and where are we going? Biological
-Psychiatry, 44(12), 1229-1238.
-
-7 ~~ LeDoux, J. (2015). Anxious: Using the brain to understand and treat fear and anxiety.
-Penguin Books.
-
-8. Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst.
-Penguin Press.
-
-9. Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science,
-308(5722), 648-652.
-
-10. Sapolsky, 2017, Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst.
-11. Sapolsky, R. M., Romero, L. M., & Munck, A. U. (2000). How do glucocorticoids influence
-
-stress responses? Integrating permissive, suppressive, stimulatory, and preparative actions.
-Endocrine Reviews, 21(1), 55-89.
-
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-12. Nelson, E. E., & Winslow, J. T. Non-human primates: Model animals for developmental
-psychopathology. Neuropsychopharmacology, 34(1), 90-105.
-
-13. McGonigal, K. (2015). The upside of stress: Why stress is good for you and how to get good
-at it. Penguin Random House.
-
-14. Brooks, A. (2013). Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement.
-Journal of Experimental Psychology, 143(3), 1144 -1158.
-
-15. McGonigal, 2015, The upside of stress:Why stress is good for you and how to get good at it.
-
-16. Glass, D. C., Reim, B., & Singer, J. E. (1971). Behavioral consequences of adaptation to
-controllable and uncontrollable noise. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7(2), 244-257;
-Minor, T. R., Jackson, R. L., & Maier, S. F. (1984). Effects of task-irrelevant cues and
-reinforcement delay on choice-escape learning following inescapable shock: evidence for a
-deficit in selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes,
-10(4), 543-556.
-
-17. Sapolsky, R. M. (1994). Why zebras don’t get ulcers. Henry Holt and Company.
-
-18. Gude, D. (2012). Hair loss: A harbinger of morbidities to come! International Journal of
-Trichology, 4(4), 287-288.
-
-19. Testino, G., Leone, S., & Borro, P. (2014). Treatment of alcohol dependence: Recent
-progress and reduction of consumption. Minerva Medica, 105(5), 447-466.
-
-20. Elliott, S., & Edmonson, E. (2006). The new science of breath: Coherent breathing for
-autonomic nervous system balance, health, and well-being. Coherence Press.
-
-21. Sanchis-Gomar, F., Pareja-Galeano, H., Cervellin, G., Lippi, G., & Earnest, C. P. (2015).
-Energy drink overconsumption in adolescents: implications for arrhythmias and other
-cardiovascular events. Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 31(5), 672-575.
-
-22. Christakis, D. A., Ramirez, J. S. B., Ferguson, S. M., Ravinder, S., & Ramirez, J. (2018). How
-early media exposure may affect cognitive function: A review of results from observations in
-humans and experiments in mice. PNAS, 115(40), 9851-9858.
-
-23. Gentile, D. A., Bender, P. K., & Anderson, C. A. (2017). Violent video game effects on
-
-salivary cortisol, arousal and aggressive thougthts in children. Computers in Human Behavior,
-70, 39-43.
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-24. Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive
-behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior:
-A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12(5), 353-359.
-
-25. Babyak, M., Blumenthal, J. A., Herman, S., Khatri, P., Doraiswamy, M., Moore, K., &
-Krishnan, K. R. (2000). Exercise treatment for major depression: Maintenance of therapeutic
-benefit at 10 months. Psychosomatic Medicine, 62(5), 633-638.
-
-26. Gremeaux, V., Gayda, M., Lepers, R., Sosner, P., Juneau, M., & Nigam, A. (2012). Exercise
-and longevity. Maturitas, 73(4), 312-7.
-
-27. Boecker, H., Sprenger, T., Spilker, M. E., Henriksen, G., Koppenhoefer, M., Wagner, K. J.,
-Valet, M., Berthele, A., & Tolle, T. R. (2008). The runner’s high: opioidergic mechanisms in the
-human brain. Cerebral Cortex, 18(11), 2523-2531.
-
-28. Anderson, E., & Shivakumar, G. (2013). Effects of exercise and physical activity on anxiety.
-Frontiers in Psychiatry, 4, 27.
-
-29. Millan, C., & Peltier, M. J. (2006). Cesar’s way: The natural, everyday guide to understanding &
-correcting common dog problems. Random House.
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-Chapter 22: Listen to Your Heart and Gut
-
-"Go to your bosom; knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.” — William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
-
-"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." — Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)
-
-Most of us are unable to localize the sensations of turmoil within our bodies. They compel us to
-harbor destructive thoughts and take self-destructive actions, though we usually have little
-awareness of the feelings themselves. This is especially true for the sensations from the thorax
-and abdomen. | was mostly blind to the constriction in the various organs within my chest and
-gut, which was unfortunate because recognizing individual sensations and tracing them back to
-their physical origin is key to disrupting them. And so, whenever you feel particularly stressed,
-take it as an opportunity to lie down and become immersed in the physical manifestations of
-your worry. Paying attention to the internal state of your body is called interoception. This
-chapter will teach you how to create an interoceptive watchtower from which to monitor your
-autonomic space.
-
-Illustration 22.1: A. Digestive tract; B. Cross-section of the heart; C. Surface of the heart; D. Stethoscope.
-
-How to Find and Quell the Pain in Your Heart and Gut
-
-Your brain receives a continuous feed of sensory information from each muscle and most
-tissues in the body. In the cortex, this incoming information participates in and contributes to
-your conscious workspace and train of thought. Sensations of pain coactivate with whatever
-else is on your mind and influences it to be more negative. In other words, pain twists and
-distorts your thinking. Most of us don’t pay attention to these data streams and, as a result,
-develop a conscious blind spot (scotoma) for them. When you are blind to them, they control
-you without your awareness. But if you work on cultivating interoception, and combine this
-with relaxed diaphragmatic breathing, you gain the ability to send data back to these tissues.
-This feedback calms them while denying them a hold over you.
-
-The insula and anterior cingulate cortex receive many of the interoceptive signals your
-body sends to your brain. Neuroscientists think of these areas as pain areas because they light
-up in a brain scanner when participants experience discomfort. These two areas respond to
-nausea, stomach pain, fullness, air hunger, food hunger, sexual longing, vibrations, menstrual
-cramps, butterflies in the stomach, shortness of breath, and much more. They also react to
-social pain triggered by separation, exclusion, persecution, or disapproval. You should be able
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-to imagine these feelings. You are imagining them within your insula and anterior cingulate.
-Inhabit these brain areas and “watch” the imagery that unfolds there nonjudgmentally.
-
-Focusing on the minutiae of your physical discomfort is the only way to rein it in. As we
-have seen, bodily pain involves partially contracted muscles that have reached a state of
-hyperfatigue. By paying attention to them, you can teach them to relax. Search for constriction,
-pressure, aching, and tingling. When you find them, remind yourself that they are just physical
-sensations. They are nothing to fear; they are “fear itself.” Remember the corpse pose and
-“body scan” activities that we performed in Chapter 5 to search for skeletal muscle bracing?
-Well, the next exercise will feel similar but focuses on bracing awareness for your smooth and
-cardiac muscle: your internal organs.
-
-Interoception Exercise #22.1: Listen to Your Heart and Gut
-
-Find a dark room where you can lay down on the floor and feel totally secure. Bring a breath
-metronome with you. Bed down and try to relax completely. Notice that partially contracted
-and quivering muscles in your chest and abdomen keep you from being able to relax.
-
-Build as much mental imagery around these sensations as you can. Imagine their location in
-space. Label where you feel them anatomically in your body. Track their fluctuations in
-intensity through time. Notice how the separate modules interact and affect each other.
-Pay close attention to how paced breathing calms them. Work on gaining bidirectional
-control over these modules in the same way that you can alternate between tensing and
-relaxing your hand.
-
-Learn to focus completely on the discomfort, feeling it in its totality without panicking,
-bracing, hyperventilating, repositioning, or giving in to the temptation to stop the exercise.
-This builds confidence in the face of internal tumult. When you tolerate the discomfort and
-are even able to feel comfortable, relaxed, and safe within it, you are taking the major step
-toward vanquishing it. You are invalidating it by proving to your body that it is unnecessary.
-You want your body to believe that these pains have no informational value because they
-contribute nothing to the way you should perceive your environment or the way you should
-act within it.
-
-After several minutes lying in the dark focusing on your heart and gut, you should
-experience your body as a pulsating sea slug, like the one we discussed in Chapter 2. Ride with
-the painful retractions, don’t fight them. Depersonalize and detach from them. Don’t accept
-them as part of yourself.
-
-The autonomic nervous system is composed of motor neurons that send messages to
-“involuntary” muscles and glands. It was long described as functioning below the level of
-consciousness. This is why medical researchers believed there was no way to deliberately calm
-these organs. Thankfully, recent biofeedback research has shown that we can gain some
-voluntary control over autonomic governance. It has also shown that merely sensing these
-pains is key to relaxing them. At first, you will find that many of the sensations | am describing
-are impenetrable to introspection. This is because they are preverbal and nondeclarative.
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-You don’t yet have words for them and how they affect you. But, just because you cannot
-articulate how they make you feel, doesn’t mean you can’t feel them if you concentrate.
-
-Think about the aspect of you that is shocked when you are immersed in frigid water or
-woken up by an alarm clock set too loud. It should run down the midline of your body from
-your neck to your lower spine by way of your chest and gut. When you locate the physical
-borders of this sensation, you will have found your trauma core, the cause of internal agitation
-that makes you feel panicky, unbalanced, and demoralized. Once you have found it, console it.
-Usually, you try to rise above the pain, pretending that it is not there. Dive down into it.
-Incorporate the meditative and mindfulness practices from Chapter 7 into this search.
-
-While alone with your pain, you will experience boredom and impatience. It will make this
-exercise frustrating until you realize that the boredom is restlessness stemming from the same
-visceral unease you are trying to dispel. Meditating on your bodily pain can be mundane, or it
-can be an exciting adventure if you approach it with “shoshin.” Shoshin is a concept in Zen
-Buddhism meaning “beginner’s mind.” It denotes an openness, curiosity, eagerness, and a lack
-of preconceptions when exposed to something familiar. Imagine yourself as a psychonaut, a
-“sailor of the soul,” exploring your mind and body. The more you map the territory and
-understand the “lay of the land,” the better you will control your emotions.
-
-Scientists know babies to be experts at self-soothing. They “listen” attentively to their
-sympathetic nervous system. We forgot how because as we grew up, we realized that paying
-attention to our internal milieu demands attentive resources. And attention is limited. Babies
-cannot change their environment, so they are forced to change their response to it. They have
-no recourse but to calm themselves. Children and adults, on the other hand, learn to change
-their environment and manipulate people to fix a situation. Unfortunately, by age five, we think
-that the best way to self-soothe is to bring about an increase in our social standing. You can,
-however, revert to infancy, bypass the ego and the social machinations, and take a shortcut
-straight to the center of the problem by confronting the tumultuous activity within your body at
-its source.
-
-Cats often sit close to a wall and stare at it for minutes at a time. | used to think this was
-absurd. However, since | expanded my interoceptive senses, | find myself doing this sort of
-thing frequently—staring blankly at nothing. It is not boring to stare at a wall if you are also
-gazing into your visceral milieu. The more time you spend surveying and relaxing the activity in
-your spine, stomach, heart, face, vocal tract, intestines, and genitals, the more you can cleanse
-them with peace.
-
-Myofascial Release for the Gut
-
-| used to get regular pangs in my stomach during social confrontations. These felt like electrical
-shocks a few inches behind the belly button. Such pangs are caused by the clenching of the
-abdominals along with smooth muscle of the gastrointestinal tract. They are responsible for the
-sinking sensation in the pit of the stomach, resulting in a strong predilection to submit. You lose
-all will to fight when intense gut pain kicks in.
-
-This visceral pain is due to the activation of latent trigger points, resulting in the
-stimulation of pain receptors in and around the digestive pathway. These receptors span the
-thorax, abdomen, and pelvis. They respond to stretching, swelling, and oxygen deprivation.
-
-The areas are in chronic pain because they have been braced for so long. Some experts believe
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-that irritable bowel syndrome and a host of other gastrointestinal problems are exacerbated by
-bracing.” In the next exercise, we will use compression to massage these bracing patterns away.
-
-Interoception Exercise #22.2: Compressing the Internal Organs
-
-Lay over a large, firm ball and press it gently into your stomach. A soccer ball, volleyball or
-basketball work well. You can do this lying on the floor or in bed. The easiest way is to stand
-or kneel by the corner of a bed. Place the basketball on that corner of the mattress and drape
-the upper half of your body over it. Either way, you want to have good control of how deeply
-you press the ball into your abdominal cavity. It is important to be stable and comfortable.
-
-The discomfort that this causes in your stomach may be very intense at first. Proceed gently
-and focus on applying firm pressure to the abdomen from the bottom of the ribs to the
-pelvis. Pressure applied to the lower ribs will also help stretch and manipulate the
-diaphragm. You should notice that the tension in your stomach will not give in to the ball
-unless you are breathing slow, smooth breaths. Relax, pace your breaths, and use abdominal
-compression to unwind the vice clenching your innards.
-
-This practice pulls stress out of your body by its roots. Once you use a basketball to rid your
-midsection of the aching, you will vastly reduce your potential for experiencing gut-wrenching
-pain. The first time | deeply compressed my abdomen, | was immediately reminded of the long-
-forgotten feeling of being kicked in the stomach in second grade. This indicated that | was
-finding and releasing points of tension that | had been harboring since early childhood. As |
-continued, the searing discomfort in my stomach caused me to have flashbacks to other long-
-forgotten traumatic episodes. My brain was asking, “Hey, are you sure it’s okay to relax the
-abdomen to this extent given these memories?” When your brain asks you this question,
-reassure it that it is a-okay. This gut compression technique is powerful because, if you can get
-rid of the pain in your gut, you will become far less susceptible to intimidation.
-
-The gastrointestinal tract, from mouth to anus, is 15 feet long. It is lined by a vast network
-of neurons, which form a regional administrative center. This amounts to a miniature brain with
-over 100 million neurons. This is more than the brain of a mouse, which has around 70 million
-neurons. This miniature brain is needed to perform various digestive behaviors with which your
-mind cannot be bothered. Chances are your gut’s brain has an anxiety disorder, and it braces
-the muscles it controls endlessly. Compressing away its bracing patterns may be the best way to
-communicate to this entity that there is no reason for it to be anxious.
-
-Heart Rate
-
-The heart is another entity within your body that you need to convince to loosen up and
-simmer down. Like the gut, the heart has its own neural network containing over 40,000
-neurons. This is less than a fruit fly (100,000) but more than a snail (20,000). This mini-brain
-allows the heart to perceive and process information, make decisions, and even demonstrate a
-form of learning and memory. More than likely, your heart’s brain (like your gut’s brain) has
-become convinced that your environment is life-threatening. We need to trick our hearts into
-believing the opposite.
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-The heart is a hollow muscular organ that uses repetitive rhythmic contractions to keep
-blood pumping through the body’s blood vessels. Even some of the simplest invertebrate
-animals have hearts. Mollusks like clams, arthropods like insects, and even many types of
-worms have them. Some animals even have multiple hearts. The human heart beats slightly
-more than once every second, about 1,000 times per day, as many as 3.5 billion times over
-one’s lifetime. Each beat is powerful enough to send blood spurting up to three meters if
-the aorta is severed. Every hour, it dispenses around 70 gallons of blood. That’s 1,680 gallons
-per day. It works relentlessly. It works so much and so hard that it is imperative that it
-works efficiently.
-
-The heart is composed of a special type of muscle called cardiac muscle, which operates
-involuntarily. Unlike skeletal muscle and the smooth muscle of the gut, the heart muscle is
-myogenic, which means that it can contract and relax without any input from the brain. It
-accomplishes this coordination of contraction and relaxation through the sinoatrial and
-atrioventricular nodes. These pacemakers are controlled by the sympathetic and
-parasympathetic systems which act as accelerator and decelerator, respectively. A heart that is
-biased toward acceleration is inefficient. In a sense, your life’s trauma is manifested to the
-extent that your heart beats faster than it should. This is expressed in the following formula:
-
-Your current heart rate - Your optimal heart rate = Accumulated life trauma
-
-The average resting heart rate is 60 to 80 beats per minute. Stress and anxiety cause the
-heart to receive too much adrenaline, which increases heart rate. Chronically high levels of
-circulating adrenaline cause “tachycardia,” meaning that the heart beats at an unsustainably
-fast rate. There is a single maximally efficient heart rate for your body size and body
-composition. Unfortunately, because nearly all humans are inveterate worriers, our hearts beat
-well above this optimal rate. Clinically, tachycardia is defined as a resting heart rate above 100
-beats per minute,* but most of us are on a “tachycardia continuum.” Even though your heart
-rate may be well under 100 beats per minute, it is likely above its optimal rate.
-
-Elevated heart rate is perhaps the most detrimental form of sympathetic upregulation.
-Technically it is a type of stress cardiomyopathy. Aggression, anger, hate, fear, guilt, violence,
-and drugs all push your heart further from its ideal pace. The faster it beats, the more fatigue it
-experiences. Fascinatingly, the short rests between beats give your heart the microbreaks it
-needs to regenerate its strength. But, if your heart is always beating quickly, it misses out on
-these breaks. When stress is chronic, the microbreaks are vanishingly short, and the heart can
-never rest. The absence of downtime places excessive pressure on the muscles of the heart and
-the surrounding blood vessels. This becomes a never-ending marathon, during which the
-heart’s tissues accumulate physical damage. Unremitting elevated rate forces the heart to
-destroy itself. It slowly tears its own tissues apart. Chances are, right now, you are overworking
-your heart.
-
-The strain of chronic accelerated heart rate causes morbidity. Morbidity is the condition of
-being diseased by ailments that reduce longevity. It is the extent to which we have one foot in
-the grave. Morbidity from elevated heart rate, excessive cortisol, and stress-related bracing is
-eating your body (and soul) alive. Watching that scary movie, doing that line of cocaine, and
-throwing a tantrum against your coworker all contribute to terminal decline. When the heart is
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-made to work harder than it should for extended periods, it does not receive adequate oxygen
-or nutrients, and this can result in pain known as angina. Heart pain® and the accompanying
-heart problems® have been strongly associated with hyperventilation. This provides you with
-yet another good reason to breathe slowly and smoothly through your nose.
-
-Diaphragmatic breathing may be the best way to get your heart to assume that your
-present reality is safe. When you take deep breaths and override the body’s preferred
-breathing style, you may feel small bursts of panic and a strong impulse to switch back to
-shallow breathing. An acceleration in heart rate is partially responsible for this panic. Resist the
-temptation to revert to shallow breathing. As you notice your heart speed up, mentally
-reassure it, “Hey, there’s nothing wrong. I’m just taking deeper breaths.”
-
-As you breathe at longer and longer intervals, your heart will try to warn you that what
-you're doing is dangerous. It assumes that you are ignoring the hostilities of your environment
-and overriding its defense mechanisms. This is why many patients relive past trauma while
-performing diaphragmatic breathing in clinical settings. In fact, therapists ask their patients to
-discuss the psychological associations that come to mind during abdomen expansion, including
-self-image, emotional release, and vulnerability. As you calmly and assuredly breathe through
-these, you heal yourself. By teaching your heart that long, deep breaths are safe, you also teach
-it that a slower heart rate is safe.
-
-Using a Stethoscope to Find Inner Peace
-
-Because your ticker is overworked, it hurts. Nature programmed our hearts to transmit a pain
-signal when beating at a higher-than-optimal rate. It communicates to the animal that it is
-functioning at a level of output that cannot be sustained indefinitely without serious functional
-compromises. The painful sensations emanating from your heart make it a fly drowning in
-ointment. This is the discomfort that we try to use liquor, smoking, shopping, unhealthy food,
-risky sex, and overstimulating media to cover up. But because the brain interprets your heart’s
-pain as delocalized and diffuse, you don’t even recognize it as coming from the heart.
-
-As with the diaphragm, normally, you cannot hear or feel your heart consciously, so you
-are blind to your own nervous system's two most fundamental signals. Heart rate controls and
-modulates behavior in countless ways, but for some reason, nature decided to mask its rate
-from our awareness. We can only feel it if it is beating in response to intense fear or
-excitement. Even then, we usually do not pay attention. How can we follow our heart if we are
-completely habituated to it?
-
-Spend $10 and buy yourself a stethoscope online. Use it as a direct line to your heart. As
-you listen to your stethoscope, you will come to realize that your heart is like a fearful little
-animal inside your chest. Cravings for dopamine cause us to excite it, abuse it, poke at it, and
-sensitize it further to fearful stimuli. However, merely listening to it beat will desensitize you to
-the negative sensations emanating from it.
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-Interoception Exercise #22.3: Listen to a Stethoscope to Desensitize
-
-Yourself to Your Heartbeat
-Find a safe place to listen to your heart with a stethoscope. Place the bell in the middle of
-your chest directly on the skin. What is your first impression of your heartbeat? Does it feel
-uncomfortable? Does it feel like it is beating too fast? Many people feel that each beat is
-accompanied by discomfort. You can overcome this by practicing paced breathing while
-being exposed to your heartbeat.
-
-Imagine that you are breathing in and out through the area surrounding your heart. This will
-focus awareness on the heartbeat. Notice your tendency to switch to shallow breathing
-whenever your heart speeds up. Next, notice how a particularly heavy or painful heartbeat
-makes you switch from exhalation to inhalation. Do not let these small intrusions control
-your breathing. Your inhalations and exhalations should be influenced by air hunger, not by
-heart rate.
-
-At first, the pain of listening to my heart made me project my discomfort onto the
-stethoscope itself. | felt like | hated it. Many people that | have worked with experience this,
-too. This happens because whatever you think about when you feel pain in your heart can
-easily become an object of animosity. Your mind will appraise this external object as the
-problem, transferring the pain onto it. Stop the overreacting. Face the pain. Coexist with it non-
-resistantly. Eat it with a knife and fork. When | started, each heartbeat felt like a mousetrap
-snapping shut inside my chest. After several weeks of Exercise 22.3, my heartbeat became the
-pleasurable and uplifting thump of a drumbeat.
-
-As you listen to your heart, try focusing on your “interbeat interval.” This is the length of
-time between successive heartbeats. With time, you will start to notice when two heartbeats
-have a longer interval between them than the beats that came prior. This is when you have
-relaxed. Other times, this interval collapses and becomes shorter. The interval will decrease
-after a stressful thought. Concentrate on making the interval as long as possible. In doing this,
-you will be programming yourself for a slower resting heart rate and providing your heart with
-a longer rest period.
-
-As you listen through the stethoscope, notice that the sound of each heartbeat coincides
-with a faint feeling in your chest. The stethoscope makes this invisible sensation apparent. This
-pairing constitutes a form of biofeedback that allows you to understand what your heartbeat
-feels like so that you can recognize it in the future, even without the auditory cues of the
-stethoscope. This will help you develop a sense of how fast it is beating. You’ll be able to
-compare the magnitude of the stressors in your environment to the rate of your heart to
-determine whether the two are commensurate. You should find that your heart is beating in a
-way that is out of proportion with most experiences. Unless you are having lots of fun or getting
-lots of exercise, you can allow your heart to beat as slowly as possible.
-
-You can use breath-holds, like those in Exercise 11.5, to accentuate the sensations coming
-from your heart. Studies show that meditative breath holding makes participants more aware
-of their heartbeat and helps them calm the sympathetic nervous system’s reaction to it by
-activating the vagus nerve.’
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-The more time you spend listening, the more you will ask yourself, “There is nothing here
-for me to be afraid of, so why does it hurt and why is it beating so fast?” This is the magic
-question, and if interrogated enough, you will have an emotional epiphany that only this
-experience can provide. Repeatedly inhaling smoothly through several heartbeats in a row,
-then exhaling through several in a row teaches the heart, and your psyche, to let go of trauma. |
-recommend performing diaphragmatic breathing for at least five minutes every night before
-bed with your stethoscope on. | find this helps me fall into a deep, restful sleep.
-
-To Overcome Rapid Heartbeat, You Must Overcome Fear of Death
-
-“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it
-according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?” —
-Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
-
-Interoceptive exposure to your own heart can be dreadful. In attending it, you will come face to
-face with your instinctual fear of death. Fear of dying perpetuates much of your heart’s
-unnecessary exertion. The way to escape this situation is to reach full peace with the idea of
-dying. Do it now. “Die before you die.” Then, you will have already done it and won’t have to
-spend a lifetime in fear of it. The pain in your heart, warning you of impending death, will no
-longer be informative.
-
-Meditate on your mortality. Take the time now and convince yourself that you have had a
-good life, that you have done many worthwhile things, and if you were to have a fatal heart
-attack this instant, you would still feel whole, complete, and satisfied with your time on the
-planet. In Hinduism, it is common to look forward to death, and the liberation it brings is known
-as moksha. Death is thought to release us from our mundane, mortal minds and introduce us to
-our permanent essence. Moksha and the concepts in the next activity helped me come to grips
-with my own eventual demise.
-
-Interoception Activity #22.1: Embrace Your Eternal Nature
-
-| have recently found some consolation in the idea of the eternal moment, and | hope you
-can too. Modern theoretical physicists as well as philosophers differentiate between
-presentism and eternalism. The adherents of presentism see the present moment as the only
-time that is real. They figure that if something happened in the past, it is over, now
-nonexistent, and generally unrecoverable. Eternalists, on the other hand, believe that all
-moments in time are equally real. Eternalists believe that there is no objective present, and
-that our subjective sense that the past is gone and irretrievable is illusory. | prefer eternalism.
-
-Eternalism is sometimes referred to as the “block universe” theory because of its description
-of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional block. If you apply this to the human
-condition, it tells us that all existence in time is equally valid. Therefore, if you existed at all,
-you will always exist. In other words, time is a dimension that our experience is embedded
-within, but if you could move outside of time and look down on it, you could see the entire
-timeline and all of your human existence, any second of which is just as legitimate as any
-other. So, every one of the moments you ever experienced, every decision, and every
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-thought may be eternal, happening right “now,” and recorded somewhere in an immutable
-temporal continuum. This may all sound pretty abstract, but why not let it give you some
-comfort, if not let it make you feel immortal.
-
-Allow me some poetic license for the next two paragraphs.
-
-We don’t fear or mourn the 13 billion years of nonexistence before our birth. Why should we
-fear the trillions of years that will come after our death? We shouldn’t, especially because
-“we” will continue on in a different form. As denizens of planet Earth, we are part of the
-universe. In a very real sense, our conscious minds are manifestations of the universe
-experiencing itself. After we die, the universe doesn’t die. And so, we should recognize our
-larger identity: that we are not only intertwined with all of reality, but we are all of reality.
-There will be an end to our human story and our mortal melodrama. However, death is not
-final. We are recycled back into the biosphere, resubsumed by the cosmos. The matter and
-energy that was us will be (and already has been) transformed into other things. Things that
-will inevitably interact with the repercussions of the good deeds we performed while alive.
-
-Every atom that has ever been a part of you, every molecule you have eaten, drank, or
-inhaled belongs to a larger, more beautiful system. Even the nonmaterial information in your
-brain, body, and DNA belongs to this system. Your cerebral cortex will decompose. But we
-don’t need the autobiographical memories inscribed in our brain’s neural networks to persist
-meaningfully. You are not merely the character that you have played in your short lifetime.
-Like a person reading an engrossing novel, don’t get so wrapped up in your life’s narrative
-that you forget your larger role, your more permanent selfhood. We are much more than a
-bag of bones, flesh, and ego. Think of death as an expansion of your sense of being. In playing
-a part in the macrocosm, we are it. We are other people, we are the birds, bees, and black
-holes. You won’t fear death if you’re aware of your larger, eternal identity.
-
-| was dragged around by a large Rottweiler as a four-year-old. The dog grabbed me by the
-hood of my jacket and pulled me around a backyard forcefully for a few minutes. | believe the
-dog assaulted me because | didn’t act afraid of it. While the dog was dragging me, | realized
-that | might die or be badly hurt. | felt that if | surrendered, it might let up. Because | was
-cringing and my heart was racing, my body language caused the dog to sense that | submitted
-and that it won. It stopped shortly thereafter. It is common for dogs to stop attacking people
-that fully capitulate. Frightful situations like this one impel an archetype deep in our nervous
-system: “Full submission can save me from death.”
-
-The ultimate source of submissiveness is that we feel the need to display fear of physical
-attack so that our attacker will decide to be merciful. We are afraid that if our heart stays slow
-and calm, our persecutor will kill us for our insolence. This is because when our heart speeds
-up, we involuntarily choke up, tremble, and give numerous other nonverbal signals of submission.
-
-We must renounce the belief that submissive fear will buy us leniency. To do so, imagine
-being viciously attacked by a stranger or a predator. Neither panic nor submit. Simply imagine
-yourself swiftly but calmly, taking the steps needed to extract yourself from the danger.
-Imagine someone or something trying to kill you while you retain total peace. Your tormentor is
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-stabbing you, and you speak to them plainly and honestly while forcefully grabbing the wrist
-that holds the knife. The beasts are taking bites from your body, and you deftly deliver carefully
-placed blows to their noses. Your attitude need not be defiant or combative. It must simply be
-valorous and lionhearted. Right now, commit to dying fearlessly.
-
-Chronic accelerated heart rate is a state of vigilance guarding against impending death.
-But we generalize this to everyday life by resorting to high resting heart rates with our bosses,
-friends, and family. We are living as if we are about to die. Using the stethoscope, you are
-feeling the very essence of your apologetic submissiveness. Know that your racing heart is not
-helping to keep you alive. Rather, it is keeping you in the land of no tomorrow. Surrendering
-your cardiac unrest will extract you from a world of death, struggle for survival, and animals
-ravaging and annihilating each other.
-
-The next time you feel your heart beating out of your chest, focus on it. Accept it,
-befriend it, love it. It is not there to hurt you. It is literally giving you energy and power. Within a
-few moments, you can transform that throbbing feeling of impending doom into motivation.
-People with anxiety tend to be afraid of the sensations involved in stress. Don’t let adrenaline
-scare you. Desensitize yourself to the discomfort by not overreacting to it, as you did in
-Exercise 5.2. Learn to delight in it and feel comfortable in uncomfortable physiological states.
-Rather than being afraid of the energy, think about how you are going to channel it.
-
-Vigorous exercise can raise your heart rate to around its maximum. But when you exercise
-vigorously, you don’t feel crushed by panic. Instead, you feel vitalized. It feels normal for your
-heart to speed up during exercise. But when your heart speeds up in the absence of exercise,
-you become afraid. When this happens, tell yourself that your body preparing for exercise is
-nothing to fear. The more you exercise, the more comfortable you become with the sensations
-involved in rapid heart rate. Keep in mind that athletes have lower resting heart rates, often as
-low as 30 to 40 beats per minute. Consistently training the heart muscle causes it to push more
-blood out with each beat meaning that it does not need to beat as often. The more exercise
-you get, the slower your heart will beat.
-
-Take the warrior approach to panic. Luxuriate in the thumping. Instead of causing you to
-withdraw in resignation, the beating should make you approach in ascendency. As discussed in
-the last chapter, appraise it as rising to a challenge rather than descending to a threat.
-Afterward, if you need to, take a run around the neighborhood to burn up any remaining
-negative energy.
-
-Vagal Tone is a Measure of Calm
-
-This section and the next will introduce two more medical concepts, vagal tone and HRV. They
-add detail to the present discussion and highlight the physiological benefits of paced breathing.
-Vagal tone is a measure of the activity of your vagus nerve, the nerve responsible for
-calming you. The vagus nerve transmits a relaxing signal from the brainstem's medulla
-oblongata to much of your body. This large, diffuse cluster of nerves branches out from the
-brainstem down to the bladder, affecting several organ systems along the way.® It affects
-the heart, spleen, bronchioles, lungs, stomach, pancreas, liver, gall bladder, intestines,
-ureters, and more.
-The vagus nerve also connects the heaa’s brain with the gut’s brain and the heart’s brain.
-It calms them. Its name comes from the Latin word “vagus,” meaning “vagrant” or “wanderer,”
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-because it is so long and has so many branches. The activity of this nerve, calming multiple
-organ systems, is called vagal tone. High vagal tone is associated with autonomic balance,
-emotional stability, lowered inflammation, and better cardiovascular health. Low vagal tone
-causes the opposite.
-
-Illustration 22.2: Path of the vagus nerve from brain to intestines.
-
-Interoception Exercise #22.2: Compressing the Internal Organs
-
-Lay over a large, firm ball and press it gently into your stomach. A soccer ball, volleyball or
-basketball work well. You can do this lying on the floor or in bed. The easiest way is to stand
-or kneel by the corner of a bed. Place the basketball on that corner of the mattress and drape
-the upper half of your body over it. Either way, you want to have good control of how deeply
-you press the ball into your abdominal cavity. It is important to be stable and comfortable.
-
-You should also try using your fingers to press into your abdomen. Situate your hands as in
-the illustration below. Press your fingertips into your belly, especially the area around the
-belly button. Anywhere that burns lightly should be massaged. Compress, release, repeat.
-You do not want to do any damage to your internal organs. You can use static compression or
-active percussion, but either way, press carefully. This is much slower, firmer, and deeper
-than the abdominal percussion from Exercise 20.6.
-
-Many athletic coaches and trainers recommend a similar “gut smash” technique to mobilize
-the abdominal muscles. Some massage therapists call it visceral manipulation. People are
-using it safely. However, this technique, like many of those in this book, has not been tested
-on large populations in medical studies. A certain proportion of people may seriously injure
-themselves using it. Again, as with all Program Peace exercises, you should discontinue and
-seek medical counsel if you have any discomfort after performing the exercise.
-
-The discomfort that this causes in your stomach may be intense at first. Proceed gently and
-focus on applying firm pressure to the abdomen from the bottom of the ribs to the pelvis.
-Pressure applied around the lower ribs will also help you manipulate the diaphragm. You
-should notice that the tension in your stomach will not give in to the massage unless you are
-breathing slow, smooth breaths. When it does, it should feel warm, pleasurable, and relieving
-(almost like voiding a full bladder). Relax, pace your breaths, and use abdominal
-
-compression to unwind the vice clenching your innards.
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-Illustration 22.2: Visceral massage gently reaches into and compresses internal organs.
-
-Mammals have a unique branch of the vagus nerve that supports social engagement.
-
-It connects with the larynx to modulate your tone of voice and with the head to make facial
-expressions emotionally appropriate. When active, your vagus nerve makes your voice and face
-friendly and approachable.’ When it is at its most active your voice relaxes and you may notice
-an improved ability to use melody and prosody. When the vagus nerve is active, we enjoy a
-physiological state that supports spontaneous social engagement and intimacy. We feel
-outgoing rather than introverted and vibrant without being overly aroused. As you might have
-guessed, the vagus nerve is a pivotal component of the parasympathetic system and is largely
-responsible for lowering heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure. Vagal tone decreases
-heart rate by inhibiting the firing rate of the sinoatrial node (the heart’s pacemaker). Vagal tone
-also acts through the phrenic nerve to slow and smoothen the strokes of the diaphragm.
-
-When it is active you stop bracing, stop feeling the need to send submissive displays, and regain
-your composure.
-
-Low vagal tone makes you feel irritated and restless. Vagal tone is reduced when the
-amygdala sounds its alarms. Many people who live lonely lives also have shorter lives. This may
-be because loneliness is associated with chronic low vagal tone. High vagal tone is the calm,
-pleasurable feeling you get when petting an animal, taking care of small children, or looking
-after a loved one. High vagal tone is correlated with purpose, love, friendliness, compassion,
-affection, and tenderness. If you have felt these things before, then you know exactly what
-vagal tone feels like. Imagine that you can feel this branching structure inside you, descending
-from your emotional brain down to your heart, gut, and diaphragm. You want it to feel warm
-and fuzzy as often as possible. Allow this feeling to help you debrace.
-
-Vagal tone decreases with distressed breathing and increases with diaphragmatic
-breathing. Slow, deep breathing is one of the best ways to stimulate the vagus.?° A range of
-biometric responses indicates this. For instance, diaphragmatic breathing elevates hand
-temperature, reduces electro-dermal response, reduces high-frequency beta brainwaves,
-and increases calming alpha brainwaves.” It also increases heart rate variability, which is our
-next topic.
-
-Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
-
-Want to know your level of vagal tone? Unfortunately, directly measuring vagal tone requires
-inserting electrodes into the nerve to test its level of activity. Since that requires invasive
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-surgery, scientists indirectly, but accurately, measure vagal tone using the body’s ability to
-synchronize heart rate and breathing. This is known as heart rate variability, or HRV.
-
-The concept of HRV, along with its relationship to health and relaxation, is strongly
-scientifically supported? and it has become prevalent in stress reduction and self-improvement
-circles. The idea is that during negative emotions, the heart’s rhythm is erratic and disordered,
-resulting in low HRV. During positive emotion, the heart’s rate increases slightly during
-inhalation and decreases during exhalation. This equates to high HRV. Many
-psychophysiologists call this ordered pattern “coherence.”
-
-Heart rate variability is used as an index to measure autonomic imbalance due to trauma.
-When high, it is considered a marker of stress resilience.*4 Vagal and HRV dysregulation are
-among the main clinical features of complex traumatic syndromes following early-life
-relationship trauma.*> Calm infants have high vagal tone and high HRV. They tend to be less
-irritable than other infants and have a secure attachment to their mothers. Children with high
-vagal tone and high HRV have less social inhibition, improved mental health, and better
-emotional regulation.
-
-Having a higher HRV is associated with a healthier cardiovascular system, improved
-executive brain function, decreased stress, increased immune function, improved mood,
-and overall greater health and longevity. HRV declines with age and predicts future health
-problems.’” People with relatively low HRV are less likely to recover after a heart attack.1®
-Low HRV amplitude correlates with a highly elevated risk of sudden cardiac death, coronary
-heart disease, and mortality from a range of causes.
-
-There are accepted ways to raise your vagal tone and HRV. First, stop obsessing and
-ruminating about negative things. Studies have found that daily worry is strongly associated
-with low HRV.19 Science also recognizes that you can increase HRV by focusing on happy
-thoughts, deliberately curtailing anger, and exercising regularly. But there is another way.
-
-You can increase your HRV through biofeedback. To do this, you can purchase a pulse
-sensor and the accompanying software for your computer or mobile device. The application
-shows your heart rate variability and positively reinforces you for bringing it into coherence.
-This HRV biofeedback has been shown to decrease depression, anxiety, and stress.7° Take a
-guess at how these electronic devices coach you to raise your HRV. They do it by providing you
-with a breath metronome. Breathing deeply at long intervals is effective at increasing HRV.
-| want to encourage you to look into them, but you probably don’t need to buy an HRV
-biofeedback device. | believe that the paced breathing regimen set out in this book can
-dramatically improve your HRV.
-
-Many scientists believe that heart rate variability is maximized at around five breaths per
-minute (i.e., five-second inhalations and seven-second exhalations).2+ Breathing deeply at this
-rate allows your heart rate to drop 10 to 20 beats per minute at the end of every exhalation.
-This drop in heart rate during exhalation gives your heart the microbreak it needs to regenerate
-properly and beat sustainably. Breathing shallowly at something like 15 breaths per minute
-decreases HRV by keeping your heart rate from dropping with every exhalation, sacrificing the
-critical rest period.
-
-Bracing the diaphragm during the exhalation may also cause us to miss that rest period.
-Breathing Exercise 5.1 asks you to allow your diaphragm to go limp throughout each exhalation.
-After you do the work of inflating your lungs, the air pressure itself should do the work of
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-
-deflating them. | believe that allowing your lungs to deflate passively during exhalation may not
-only give your breathing muscles a short respite, but may also allow your heart to slow down
-during the exhale, increasing HRV.
-
-The relaxing effects of paced breathing on the heart are also seen in blood pressure.
-Several experimental studies have published results showing blood pressure to be reduced
-when participants breathe at a rate of six breaths per minute, with the exhalations longer than
-the inhalations. In one study, paced breathing for merely 15 minutes resulted in elevated
-mood, higher HRV, and lower blood pressure.’? Another study had patients perform paced
-breathing twice a day for three months. They experienced significant drops in blood pressure
-that would be expected in an individual taking one or two blood pressure medications.”?
-
-Don’t drive your heart like it’s a car that you stole. Stop redlining, downshift, and put less
-wear and tear on the vehicle.
-
-Conclusion
-
-The commotion of distressed breathing causes so many sensations within your chest that it
-completely obscures your heartbeat. If you can’t feel the pain in your heart, you can’t correct
-its overreactions, and they will continue to mount. When you are ignoring the pounding in your
-chest, your body is going to assume that this is because your current situation is so desperate.
-Like running on a broken leg, this should only happen during life-or-death situations, never ona
-daily basis.
-
-Paced diaphragmatic breathing is so smooth and quiet that it allows you to feel your heart
-beating in your chest. In other words, long, deep breaths make your heart rate apparent to you
-so that you can tell whether it is beating too fast and make the necessary corrections. Of
-course, paced breathing with a stethoscope magnifies this even more. Find the pleasure in slow
-breathing, find the bliss in a slow heartbeat, and find the combination of the two as
-nourishment.
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-Chapter 22: Bullet Points
-
-e Interoception is the ability to perceive the sensations going on within your body.
-Developing interoception will allow you to learn how to unbrace your internal organs.
-
-e Preexisting tension in your abdomen combined with stress causes that sinking feeling in
-the pit of your stomach.
-
-e Compressing your abdomen with a basketball will relieve this tension and make you
-immune to gut-wrenching episodes.
-
-e Your heart chronically beats too fast, causing cumulative damage to it.
-
-e If you listen to your heart with a stethoscope, you should be able to sense that it is
-beating too fast and out of proportion with environmental demands.
-
-e Listening to your heart with a stethoscope while paced breathing provides a form of
-relief that you cannot get anywhere else.
-
-e As you do this, imagine breathing into and out of your heart.
-
-e Paced diaphragmatic breathing causes your heart to slow, your vagal tone and HRV to
-increase, and your blood pressure to decrease.
-
-e Tell yourself that you are the kind of person whose heart beats slowly.
-
-e Your thought process is playing a game of table tennis with your diaphragm. Your heart
-is the ping pong ball. Each time the ball strikes a paddle, you have a heartbeat. Right
-now, they are playing at a furious pace and none of the players are enjoying themselves.
-You want to slow them down. You want them to be lobbing the ball to each other,
-keeping an easy volley going, and having a fun, non-competitive game.
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-Chapter 22: Endnotes
-
-1. Schwartz, M. S., & Andrasik, F. (Eds.). (2003). Biofeedback: A practitioner's guide (3rd ed.).
-Guilford Press.
-
-2. Whatmore, G. B., & Kohli, D. R. (1968). Dysponesis: A neurophysiological factor in
-functional disorders. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 13(2), 102-124.
-
-3. Longo, D., Fauci, A., Kasper, D., Hauser, S., Jameson, J., & Loscalzo, J. (2011). Harrison's
-principles of internal medicine (18th ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional.
-
-4. Ostchega, Y., Porter, K. S., Hughes, J., Dillon, C. F., & Nwankwo, T. (2011). Resting pulse rate
-reference data for children, adolescents and adults, United States 1999-2008. National Health
-Statistics Reports, 41, 1-16.
-
-5. Miller, M. A. (2011). Association of inflammatory markers with cardiovascular risk and
-sleepiness. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 7(5 Suppl.), $31-33.
-
-6. Clark, A. L. (1997). The increased ventilator response to exercise in chronic heart failure:
-Relation to pulmonary pathology. Heart, 77(2), 138-146; Fanfulla, F., Mortara, A., Maestri, R.,
-Pinna, G. D., Bruschi, C., Cobelli, F., & Rampulla, C. (1998). The development of hyperventilation
-in patients with chronic heart failure and Cheyne-Strokes respiration: A possible role of chronic
-hypoxia. Chest, 114(4), 1083-1090.
-
-7. McKeown, P. (2015). The oxygen advantage: The simple, scientifically proven breathing
-technique that will revolutionize your health and fitness. Harper Collins.
-
-8. Porges, S. W., Doussard-Roosevelt, J. A., & Maiti, A. K. (2008). Vagal tone and the
-physiological regulation of emotion. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
-
-Development, 59(2-3), 167-186.
-
-9. Porges, S. W. (2001). The polyvagal theory: Phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous
-system. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42(2), 123-146.
-
-10. Lichstein, K. L. (1988). Clinical relaxation strategies. Wiley-|Interscience.
-
-11. Elliott, S., & Edmonson, E. (2006). The new science of breath: Coherent breathing for
-autonomic nervous system balance, health, and well-being. Coherence Press.
-
-12. Jonsson, P. (2007). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a function of state anxiety in healthy
-individuals. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 63(1), 48-54.
-
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-13. Thayer, J. F., & Brosschot, J. F. (2005). Psychosomatics and psychopathology: Looking up
-and down from the brain. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 30(10), 1050-1058.
-
-14. Appelhans, B. M., & Luecken, L. J. (2006). Heart rate variability as an index of regulated
-emotional responding. Review of General Psychology, 10, 229-240.
-
-15. van der Kolk, B. A., Pelcovitz, D., Roth, S., Mandel, R. S., McFarlane, A., & Herman, J. L.
-(1996). Dissociation, somatization and affect dysregulation: The complexity of adaptation of
-trauma. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153(7 Suppl.), 83-93.
-
-16. Luskin, F., Reitz, M., Newell, K., Quinn, T. G., & Haskell, W. (2002). A controlled piolet study
-of stress management training of elderly patients with congestive heart failure. Preventive
-Cardiology, 5(4), 168-174; McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., & Thomasino, D. (2003). Impact of a
-workplace stress reduction program on blood pressure and emotional health in hypertensive
-employees. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 9(3), 355-369.
-
-17. Zulfigar, U. |., Jurivich, D. A., Gao, W., & Singer, D. H. (2010). Relation of high heart rate
-variability to health and longevity. American Journal of Cardiology, 105(8), 1181-1185.
-
-18. Kristal-Boneh, E., Raifel, M., Froom, P., & Ribak, J. (1995). Heart rate variability in health
-and disease. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment, and Health, 21(2), 85-95.
-
-19. Brosschot, J. F., Van Dijk, E., & Thayer, J. F. (2007). Daily worry is related to low heart rate
-variability during waking and the subsequent nocturnal sleep period. International Journal of
-Psychophysiology, 63(1), 39-47.
-
-20. Sutarto, A. P., Wahab, M. N. & Zin, N. M. (2012). Resonant breathing biofeedback training
-for stress reduction among manufacturing operators. International Journal of Occupational
-Safety and Ergononics, 18(4), 549-61.
-
-21. Elliott, S., & Edmonson, E. (2006). The new science of breath: Coherent breathing for
-autonomic nervous system balance, health, and well-being. Coherence Press.
-
-22. Steffen, P. R., Austin, T., DeBarros, A., & Brown, T. (2017). The impact of resonance
-frequency breathing on measures of heart rate variability, blood pressure, and mood.
-Frontiers in Public Health, 5, 222.
-
-23. Adhana, R., Gupta, R., Dvivedii, J., & Ahmad, S. (2013). The influence of 2:1 yogic breathing
-
-technique on essential hypertension. indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, 57(1),
-38-44,
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-Chapter 23: Serotonin, Optimism, and Cooperation
-
-“There is something at once sobering and absurd in the extent to which we are lifted by the attentions of others
-and sunk by their disregard.” — Alain de Botton (1969)
-
-Competition, Defeat, and Brain Chemicals
-
-For the last 60 million years, the dominance hierarchy has been the primary regulator of
-primate life. This requires monkeys and apes to spend a great deal of their mental energy
-making estimates about how they stack up relative to each member of their group. But how do
-animals reliably make these sorting predictions? As this chapter will explain, it has much to do
-with fluctuations in brain chemicals, especially serotonin. Animals that win fights or spats
-increase their serotonin levels while losing animals lower those levels.
-
-In all of us, serotonin contributes to feelings of wellbeing, happiness, relaxation, and self-
-confidence. It increases the expectation of social dominance and causes animals to stand up for
-themselves. When humans or primates take supplements that increase serotonin, they have
-reduced stress responses to external threats such as pictures of fearful and angry faces. There is
-reduced serotonin production in panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and depression.
-In simple terms, low serotonin causes the trivialities of life to terrorize us.
-
-In adult primates, serotonin levels are more causally related to dominance than body size
-or testosterone levels.? In fact, dominant male monkeys have up to twice as much serotonin in
-their blood as non-dominant ones. Similarly, humans in leadership positions have higher
-serotonin levels than their subordinates.? One study found that fraternity officers average 25%
-higher serotonin levels than other frat members. The same pattern is seen in the military,
-where higher-ranking officers have more serotonin, and in corporate America, where higher-
-ranking employees have more and executives and CEOs have the most.
-
-When a dominant primate is overthrown, usually after a fight, its serotonin levels plunge
-while the replacement’s surges. During most exchanges between people, there are few overt
-hostilities. Covert factors such as level of relaxation and verbal fluency determine each person’s
-relative status. If you come across as tenser than the other person, chances are you both
-perceive this. After the encounter, your serotonin may lower while theirs rises. Being snubbed
-or getting negative feedback causes serotonin to drop as does becoming aggressive or angry.
-On the other hand, successful social assertion results in the release of serotonin.
-
-Every primate in a troop knows its status relative to every other animal, just as high school
-students give remarkably consistent rankings for the popularity of their classmates.? In other
-words, our brain’s limbic system paints the world as one big popularity contest. Whether you
-think others perceive you as having high status is the decisive factor influencing your serotonin
-level. In other words, if you believe others hold you in low regard, your serotonin may stay low.
-Because our brains are wired to derive self-worth from others’ evaluations, we need to push
-back against our biology.
-
-Many social insect species are born into a caste, either the aristocracy or the working class.
-However, a mammal is constantly negotiating its status. Do you want to be renegotiating your
-rank every day for the rest of your life? If not, you will have to change your mindset. You need
-to develop a healthy sense of self-esteem that others cannot push around, but also that doesn’t
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-involve putting others down or even putting yourself above them. What would it take for you to
-have optimal self-esteem? Let’s explore that in the next activity.
-
-Serotonin Activity #23.1: imagine Extreme Superiority
-What would be needed for you to feel triumphant? How would you feel if you heroically
-saved the lives of every person on the planet and are now taking interviews on international
-television? Imagine that you have been the most charismatic person on earth your entire life
-and everyone already expects effortless magnetism from you. Imagine being the world’s
-most famous superstar or the emperor of the galaxy. Imagine being the undisputed boss
-gorilla in a jungle full of tiny monkey friends. Imagine being thousands of years old, the oldest
-soul, and the wisest, most centered person on the planet.
-
-Now, imagine not being corrupted by this absolute power and being a calm, measured,
-beneficent leader and protector. How would all this influence you to hold your body and
-face? How would your bracing and posture be affected? How would you breathe? How
-would it make you feel deep down in your gut and heart? Inner peace at last? Can you live
-your life feeling this way without needing these outlandish scenarios? You can.
-
-Serotonin and the Ego
-
-“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, all those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
-— Jesus (c. 6 BCE - 30)
-
-The human ego is a specialized neurological system found in all primate brains that causes us to
-analyze whether we should be more or less insecure and, consequently, whether our serotonin
-should be lower or higher. The monkey that thinks more about their place in the hierarchy has
-more objective notions about their station and the social appropriateness of their actions.
-Consequently, a monkey that is highly concerned with its ego may do well relative to the other
-members of its troop. Hence, the ego is sometimes referred to as the “monkey mind.”
-
-In primates, serotonin level is also a fertility indicator. The most dominant males have the
-most offspring. Individuals that excel in status-seeking contribute more to the gene pool.
-
-Thus, we are self-conscious and ego-obsessed today because it was good for our ancestors’
-reproductive success. But as modern-day human beings, we are not looking to maximize our
-number of offspring or even our sexual partners. What we really want is to be happy without
-being controlled by our egos. So again, we are at odds with our biology.
-
-The egotistical thoughts that you experience are not you, and you have little control over
-them. Realize that the negative, conceited thinking going on in your head likely has nothing to
-do with your aspirational self, your true self. These thoughts that you think are “yours” are
-generated by your brain’s instincts to be endlessly competitive. The social concerns you find
-yourself ruminating about come from this monkey mind and the way it has been programmed
-by the other monkey minds you have interacted with up until today. The real you is not
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-concerned with reputation and comparison. The real you, who is now gradually taking over
-your thinking process, is not even interested.
-
-Because this instinct is so strong, status is most people’s ultimate goal. This means that
-they have no overarching ambition in life other than to increase their sense of status relative to
-the people around them. Once you see this clearly, you can become motivated to choose goals
-other than the one that natural history selected for us. To disconnect from your ego, you must
-stop feeding it. Make your goal to starve it in the following exercise.
-
-Serotonin Activity #23.2: Imagine Extreme Inferiority
-Imagine being the weakest, most poorly composed person on the planet. Imagine that you
-have been utterly rejected by your parents, every friend, and each romantic partner. Imagine
-that people have been turning away from you in disgust as soon as they see you for years.
-Imagine that you have been jumped and beaten by a gang of people more than a dozen
-times. Imagine that you were completely embarrassed in the most humiliating way possible
-on a popular reality show and that it is now all over the Internet. Imagine having a job in
-which the patrons or clients treat you in a haughty and cavalier way. Imagine constantly
-being treated like you are less than a person.
-
-At the same time, imagine being at complete peace with all of this. Picture being a servant
-without a chip on your shoulder, a whipping boy with optimal posture, or a mistreated but
-ever-cheerful golden retriever. Put yourself through the fire by imagining the most
-denigrating scenarios you can and, in so doing, inure your psyche against even the harshest
-flames. Retain complete cool in these situations without letting them ignite your pain.
-
-In Activity 23.1, | asked you to pretend to be superior to everyone, and then in activity 23.2
-| asked you to be inferior. Surely, we are neither. But we can intentionally take the best aspects
-but none of the negative aspects out of these two extreme scenarios (see Table 23.1 below).
-Unfortunately, many people take the worst from both scenarios and develop a personality as
-pernicious to themselves as others. They can neither take criticism nor compliments well.
-
-They are boastful but also engage in abusive self-talk. They love to argue with and gossip about
-others but can’t stand up for themselves when it counts. They apologize when they shouldn’t
-and often don’t apologize when they should. Rising above this kind of behavior is as easy as
-accepting your shortcomings and being comfortable and calm when confronted with them.
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-Best Attributes
-
-Self-satisfied, confident, assured,
-assertive, effective, powerful,
-honored, content, spirited,
-stately, self-respecting, valiant,
-
-Dominant
-
-calm, courageous
-
-Worst Attributes
-
-Self-absorbed, pompous, vain,
-egotistical, bossy, domineering,
-despotic, privileged, scornful,
-imperious, contemptuous, arrogant,
-snooty, pretentious
-
-Humble, easy-going, respectful,
-nonresistant, meek,
-accommodating, amenable,
-ingratiating, patient, modest,
-
-Inferior
-
-uncomplaining, unselfish
-
-Wimpy, resigned, acquiescent,
-deferential, obedient, passive,
-compliant, pliable, servile, cowardly,
-doubtful, unsure, shy, timid,
-pessimistic, rootless, fearful
-
-Table 23.1: Take only the best attributes of dominance and submission.
-
-Our Brains Ration Serotonin
-
-If animals are self-interested survival machines, then why don’t their brains maximize serotonin
-production? It would undoubtedly be a simple adaptation. Animals have not evolved to do this
-because it would be dangerous to be a non-dominant animal with a dominant mindset. If you
-are an animal losing a fight, it is actually beneficial to lower your serotonin because it makes
-you act submissive, shielding you from further harm and retaliation. When researchers
-artificially raise serotonin in a non-dominant ape, it will act dominant. Merely acting dominant
-convinces the other monkeys that it is dominant, but only for a few days. Before long, it will be
-tested, exposed as a pretender, and likely injured in the process.
-
-Your mammalian brain does not release serotonin and other mood-boosting chemicals
-(dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins) whenever you want. It uses them to reward you for
-accomplishing specific survival criteria. It releases them in spurts when unconscious brain
-circuits perceive an improvement in survival and reproductive prospects. Most people are
-frustrated by their inability to fulfill the stringent requirements used by their neurochemical
-guidance system. Frustratingly, the criteria for attaining happiness chemicals are usually held
-just beyond our reach, making it nearly impossible to win and thus impossible to be happy.
-This is why using our cortex to try to pry serotonin from our subcortex (limbic system) often
-leads to self-destructive status-seeking.
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-Illustration 23.1: A. One wolf (left) asserting dominance over another (right) with a threat display. Note that
-the teeth are bared, the ears are flattened forward, and the hackles are raised. The submissive wolf lowers
-its head, presses its ears backward, splays its legs, and turns away to appease the dominant individual;
-B. Similar body language is seen in cats; C. Amother chimp protects her baby.
-
-A signal that is constantly on has no informational value. Consequently, our serotonin
-levels have evolved to fluctuate dramatically and subside quickly. Humans spend their entire
-day trying to boost their mood from a brain trying to ration the relevant chemicals for the
-proper circumstances. To transcend this, we need to choose to feel satisfied with precisely the
-amount of social power we already have. By being fully content with whatever level of
-dominance you currently have, you give your unconscious the same level of security that comes
-with being an alpha. When other people see this healthy, non-dominating self-satisfaction,
-they will instantly respect you.
-
-Changing your outlook on your wins and losses is essential. Otherwise, no number of
-victories will satisfy your serotonin system for long. Take pleasure in past accomplishments,
-no matter how old. Think about all the hard work you have put in over your life and feel good
-about it. Focus your attention on the small triumphs you have every day. Once you learn to
-celebrate each win for a bit longer, you will not find yourself hurried into the next risky scheme
-for serotonin. Rather than focusing on the most shameful or embarrassing moments,
-concentrate on the laurels that stick out in your mind. We need to take responsibility for
-coaxing our brain’s happiness chemicals to change rather than waiting on the world to change.
-
-Serotonin, Abundance, and Gratitude
-“all things work together for good...” — Romans 8:28
-
-Low serotonin promotes fear, fleeing, and submission in many animals, from reptiles to insects.
-Even crustaceans such as lobsters utilize serotonin to establish hierarchy. We share a common
-
-ancestor with lobsters over 500 million years ago. This shows how ancient our status system is.
-In fact, it goes back to worms.
-
-In the microscopic roundworm, C. elegans, serotonin acts as a signal that follows the
-discovery of a new grazing area. When the worm finds food, serotonin acts to slow down its
-incessant burrowing and activates the muscles used for feeding. Depletion of serotonin in these
-little guys makes them act as if they were in a low-food environment and causes them to travel
-faster in their search for food. It also suppresses mating and egg-laying. Across species,
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-depletion of serotonin convinces animals that they are experiencing food scarcity. This action of
-serotonin caused scientists to reframe its purpose more broadly. It is now conceptualized as an
-indicator of the availability of natural resources.
-
-We have discussed how serotonin indicates social rank in primates, but rank is just a special
-case of serotonin’s broader significance: resources. High-ranking primates have high serotonin
-levels because they have priority over mating and food. Just as with the worm, serotonin
-convinces them that it is okay to relax and take advantage of the opportunities available to
-them. In a sense, primates are just hairy, four-legged worms whose social lives have grown
-more complex. Self-subordination is just the strategy of a worm that has become convinced
-that resource availability is low in the current environment.
-
-This knowledge enables us to easily sidestep status as a means for attaining serotonin.
-Instead, we can go to the primordial root of serotonin release: feeling like the resources in our
-life are abundant. The magic button for increasing your serotonin and happiness does not lie in
-putting other people down. It is found in cultivating gratitude by focusing on the resources
-available to you.
-
-Scientists have found that gratitude stimulates the brain’s pathways involved in reward,
-social bonding, and positive appraisal.‘ It facilitates the recording and retrieval of positive
-memories.° Gratitude stimulates serotonin release, the parasympathetic response, and the
-actions of the vagus nerve. Feeling thankful counteracts tendencies toward social comparison,
-narcissism, cynicism, and materialism. Let’s accomplish all of this by expressing
-gratefulness daily.
-
-Serotonin Activity #23.3: Practice Feeling Grateful
-What can you feel glad about right now? What about the last year, yesterday, or the present
-moment can you savor? Fill any sense of scarcity or deficit by changing your mindset from
-one of deprivation and neediness to one of abundance, fulfillment, and plenty. Reminisce
-about past achievements and cherish moments of joy and connectedness. Treasure your
-friends and family. Feel appreciative of everyone in your life. Imagine that you are a content
-microscopic worm with all its needs met and not a worry in the world.
-
-Common gratitude-building exercises include thinking of one thing to be grateful for every
-day, writing a letter every week thanking someone who helped you, or simply using the word
-“grateful” during conversation once a day. Exercises like these are some of the most effective
-happiness enhancers known to psychology.® When you do this, permit yourself to feel
-enthusiastic, starry-eyed, and naively idealistic.
-
-Keeping a gratitude journal has shown significant clinical benefits.” Simply writing down a
-few things that you are grateful for one to three times per week can raise serotonin, increase
-life satisfaction, and reduce depressive symptoms. Gratitude journaling has been well
-researched and validated far beyond anecdotal self-help.2 Numerous studies have shown that
-journaling for just a few weeks can create dramatic positive changes in brain activity that
-remain for months. The clinical results have been shown to rival those of antidepressants.
-The scientific justification for focusing on gratitude is so strong that it encouraged the
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-Program Peace Gratitude Journal, which is available on the website. But you certainly don’t
-need that to get started.
-
-Serotonin Exercise #23.1: Make Entries in a Gratitude Journal
-
-Locate a journal, find a pad of paper, or create a new file on your computer. Start making
-entries where you write about what you have to be grateful for. Here are some questions to
-get you started:
-
-1) What can you feel thankful for right now? This could be an experience, a conversation,
-a meal, or the weather.
-
-2) Has someone done something nice for you recently? List people you are grateful for
-and explain why.
-
-3) What places are special to you?
-
-4) What have you learned recently that you value?
-
-5) What activities make your life better?
-
-6) What fills you with wonder?
-
-7) What do you have to be optimistic about?
-
-8) What have you accomplished recently that makes you proud?
-
-9) Has someone done something nice for you recently? Have you had the opportunity to
-help someone else?
-
-10) What are commonplace things you can appreciate right now?
-
-As you write, allow the gratitude to permeate your body. Make an effort to remember what
-that feels like and how it affects the bodily systems we have been discussing in this book
-thus far. Remember this feeling, take a mental snapshot of it, so you can recall it whenever
-you want.
-
-As a few examples, you may find yourself grateful for the earth, the moon, the stars, the
-sun, the ocean, rain, animals, pets, friends, your talents, skills, and unique qualities, setbacks
-that have made you stronger, your senses, fond memories, your favorite songs, movies or
-shows, foods, the marvel of electricity, the world’s food supply, and all the kind souls out there.
-| feel especially grateful for the generations of people who made sacrifices for the rights and
-freedoms we enjoy today, as well as those who made the innovations that resulted in our
-modern technology and our extensive knowledge base.
-
-Raise Your Serotonin through Cooperation and Creating Value
-
-In primates, domination of others is not the only way up. Brute physical strength and fighting
-prowess are only partial factors in determining status relationships. Social bonds, friendships,
-past feats, and examples of helping others count as well. Most primates will support or even
-fight for those that helped them in the past. This is why an open conflict between two primates
-is usually decided by who has the most allies.
-
-It is also important to note that dominance does not equal influence. The dominant ape is
-often not the most liked or even the most influential politically. Dominant primates have
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-|“ |.”
-
-fighting prowess, boldness, and a characteristic that ecologists call “resource holding potentia
-But this does not necessarily make them trusted or revered. In fact, the oldest group members,
-not the alpha, are usually the most influential. Apes will approach influential members to
-moderate spats, make decisions, or seek comfort.
-
-Dominant individuals are fit to be revered to the extent that they serve the interests of
-those that revere them. If you want to be justified in being calm and nonsubmissive, you must
-promote positivity in the lives of those that allow you to remain so. Thus, the next time you
-notice an urge to belittle someone, remember that bonding with them instead will provide a
-larger, more sustainable neurochemical boost to happiness and esteem.
-
-Because our biological past also rewards camaraderie, teamwork, and solidarity with a
-boost of serotonin, there are many healthy ways to get an ego boost from others without
-bringing them down. It’s our job to think creatively about positive ways to interact with others
-rather than being destructive.
-
-It is usually the youngest and most immature of adult primates that are preoccupied with
-establishing dominance. Senior group members are less nervous greeting each other and are
-more concerned with confirming partnership and cooperation than securing dominance. We
-love people who cooperate, reinforce our confidence, and raise our status. Consequently, if you
-want to be loved and held in high regard, then work on raising other people’s status in their
-own eyes as well as in the eyes of others. Offer valid and specific compliments, help them argue
-their point, align your goals with theirs, stand up for them, laugh at their jokes, and beam
-zygomatic smiles at them.
-
-The higher a chimp’s rank, the more likely it is to support inferior parties during disputes.
-High levels of serotonin cause us to have compassion for and side with the underdog.
-Dominant apes routinely break up fights, usually intervening on the side of the weaker party.
-They especially defend the young, the wounded, and the old. In many primates, the alpha male
-and female play a control role, where they mediate equitably, restoring peace and security.
-Interestingly, it has been found that the most dominant schoolchildren tend to intervene in
-playground fights, protect losers, and share more with classmates. It appears to be some form
-of natural noblesse oblige that we lose sight of as adults.
-
-Monkeys choose to share with one another frequently, both in the wild and in captivity.
-However, they do not share out of fear of reprisal. We know this because the most dominant
-monkeys are the most generous, which is part of what earns them their increased status. The
-best way for low-status individuals to improve their status is to prove their value to the group.
-Similarly, humans gain status by developing a skill that benefits the community. This is why we
-should be useful rather than pretentious and entitled. Don’t be the person working on their
-wardrobe, biceps, or tan. Instead, be the person people go to for help with their problems.
-Don’t focus on status threats. Focus instead on expanding your influence and significance to
-your community. Gain status not from physicality, offensives, and violations, but collaboration,
-contribution, and earned esteem.
-
-Serotonin Inhibits Fear and Aggression
-
-Serotonin makes many animals from a range of different taxonomic groups less fearful in
-response to perceived threats. Much of this is due to its actions at the amygdala (the brain’s
-fear center discussed in previous chapters). By default, the cells of the amygdala are quieted by
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-the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. This makes it so that the brain’s panic button must be
-pressed firmly for it to actuate. This inhibition has been called the “GABA guard.” It is why
-something surprising must happen for you to become scared.
-
-Serotonin further excites GABA-producing cells in the amygdala, increasing this tonic
-inhibition and increasing your threshold for getting scared. This is why antidepressants like
-Prozac, a drug that increases serotonin levels at the synapse, decreases amygdala activity. This
-is also one of the reasons dominant animals are not unnecessarily aggressive. Their amygdala
-and sympathetic system are difficult to highjack. The stress hormone, cortisol, acts in a way that
-is opposite serotonin. It inhibits GABA cells in the amygdala, disabling serotonin’s ability to calm
-the amygdala.?
-
-Keep in mind that not only is the amygdala the brain’s fear center, but it is also the area
-most implicated in the initiation of aggressive acts. Thus, high-stress animals are more
-aggressive while animals with high serotonin levels are less aggressive. This is why, as discussed
-in Chapter 2, alpha individuals are not combative but friendly. The alpha chimp grooms others
-more, shares more of its food, and patrols the perimeter to keep its friends safe. As you might
-expect, artificially elevating the serotonin in a monkey’s brain makes it groom and share more.
-It is more capable of prosocial behavior because its amygdala has been bound and gagged.
-
-To me, this strongly suggests that being stuck in fight or flight keeps us from acting altruistically
-and civil-mindedly.
-
-When serotonin levels are low, animals show signs of being irritated.?° The threshold for
-taking offense drops, and fatigue and crankiness rise. Low serotonin chimps pick fights and take
-unnecessary risks. For instance, monkeys with low serotonin are more likely to jump between
-distant tree branches and lash out in anger. Similarly, studies have shown that low-status men
-are much more likely to aggress by yelling, insulting, or using violence. While these behaviors
-are meant to increase dominance, they often lower status because they result in estrangement.
-When you find yourself being aggressive, acknowledge that you probably wouldn’t be as
-threatened if your serotonin levels were higher.
-
-Now you understand the neurological mechanism for why serotonin-depleted animals are
-more belligerent: their amygdala overreacts to anxiety-provoking stimuli, increasing their heart
-rate and breathing, making them feel cornered. Low serotonin is one of the best predictors of
-impulsive hostility in mammals.1* Antisocial behavior in humans also increases with decreasing
-serotonin. This is why feeling rejected leads to aggression. | think the take-home message is
-clear. We should avoid destructive rank games. We should comport ourselves with the
-composure of an alpha monkey with nothing to prove, in the company of equals. Adopting this
-as a lifestyle may be the most successful strategy to achieve sustainable happiness.
-
-The Healthy Dominance Mindset
-
-"Never depend on the admiration of others. There is no strength in it. Personal merit cannot be derived from an
-external source.” — Epictetus (50-135)
-
-When a baboon ignores the status hierarchy, the members of its troop will kill it. Similarly,
-if you flout the status hierarchy, you could alienate yourself from others. Therefore, | don’t
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-recommend that you completely ignore or go against it. | do, however, recommend reinventing
-yourself as a cool-headed alpha. It all starts with a little imagination.
-
-It can be helpful to internalize the mindset of being everyone’s parent. Parents usually feel
-like they don’t owe their kids submissive displays. Given that a healthy parents' dominance of
-their offspring is not based on competition, but on a desire to teach and guide, imagine
-yourself to be the Mom or Dad to every person in the world. I’m not asking you to patronize
-people. Just be as relaxed as you would be if everyone was your child and you were the only
-adult present.
-
-You want to be a good parent, even to a bad child. In Japan, mothering has been described
-as “patiently molding the intractable.” Children and infants can be inherently stubborn, but this
-is best countered by persistence and patience. Even mother chimps reprimand misbehavior
-without bearing any grudge. They offer reassurance and comfort after disciplining their young.
-They do this naturally. Use this philosophy with adults. Adults can be as tricky and immature as
-children, but rather than aggress against them, patiently mold them. Be a father or mother
-figure. Like a good parent, act permissive yet authoritative.
-
-Just as a good parent doesn’t owe their children submissive displays, neither does a warrior
-owe their fellows submissive displays. They are too busy either risking their life or resting.
-
-Take on the rugged exterior of a special forces commando, a mythical god, or a legendary hero.
-You have corrupt governments to topple and dragons to slay. You have no interest in minor
-squabbles and infractions. When you are with friends, envision yourself as a champion who has
-just bested a mythical monster, like the Minotaur, Jabberwock, Medusa, or Cerberus. Now that
-you, the gladiator, are resting between feats, you do not have the time or energy to raise your
-eyebrows, hyperventilate, or smile nervously. Feel free to rest between your heroic efforts.
-Given the chance, you would do the selfless, intrepid thing, so take the hero’s poise and grace
-for yourself right now.
-
-My Experience with Serotonin Supplements
-
-“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of
-him.” — Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)
-
-| used to be clinically depressed. As a preteen, | cut myself with knives. As a young adult, | put a
-gun in my mouth on a few occasions. | sat on a 20-story rooftop ledge intending to jump a few
-times. | never followed through with suicide though. | would tell myself that | wanted to tie up a
-few more loose ends in my life before | fully committed. | know what serotonin depletion feels
-like and that a person is willing to do almost anything to escape it.
-
-| have never been to a psychiatrist and thus have never been prescribed an antidepressant,
-but | have taken an over-the-counter nutritional supplement called SAM-e. It is similar to other
-mood enhancing supplements like 5-HTP, L-theanine, and Saint John’s wort and is available at
-most drug stores. | took SAM-e for two months in my late 20s because | wanted to find out
-what high serotonin levels felt like. | wanted to experience happiness for a few weeks to
-understand it and attempt to recreate it later after going off the drug. Without question,
-it made me a joyous, more composed person...while it lasted.
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-Like an antidepressant (e.g., Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, etc.), SAM-e increases serotonin
-availability at the synapse. In doing so, it also fortifies the GABA guard mentioned earlier,
-inhibiting the amygdala. It takes two weeks for SAM-e to elevate mood appreciably, but | felt
-that | noticed changes with the first few doses. | felt lighter on my feet, happy-go-lucky, and less
-stymied by social concerns. | completely stopped worrying that other people might think that
-| looked too calm.
-
-After 14 days of taking it, | woke up in the middle of the night feeling euphoric. | had been
-slightly scared of the dark since childhood, but suddenly | felt completely safe in the dark.
-| walked through my home without turning on any lights. | found myself sitting on the carpet in
-the darkest places and reveling in my fearlessness. | stayed awake for three hours, just walking
-around outside in the shadows, feeling intensely happy. Interestingly, even a single course of
-antidepressants can end phobias, lifelong bad habits, negative quirks, and antisocial behaviors.
-Since that night, | have not been afraid of the dark.
-
-That Wednesday night from 2 to 5 am was a vertiginous and ecstatic experience. Nothing
-remarkable happened, and | was all by myself, but it was the happiest night of my life. All my
-social status concerns disappeared, replaced by pure excitement for the things going on in my
-life at the time. | didn’t realize it that night, but | was filled with pure gratitude.
-
-| continued to take the drug for six weeks. On it, | was less abusive but more insistent and
-decisive. | was demanding of people but direct rather than passive-aggressive, so people
-complied. | would say exactly what was on my mind without sugarcoating it. People liked me
-more, respected me more, and treated me like | was charismatic. | was more personable,
-more outspoken, and | craved interaction instead of shrinking away from it.
-
-While on SAM-e, | started making natural eye contact with people for the first time in my
-life. | even sought out eye contact. It came easily, and my eyes didn’t dart away. | was more
-extroverted and started assuming leadership positions in group projects. People also started
-laughing at my attempts at humor, despite my jokes not changing. Confident delivery made all
-the difference.
-
-When | was on SAM-e, | didn’t talk or think negatively. Bad experiences were very short
-lived, and | didn’t keep them active in my mind. | didn’t trash talk others, even in my head.
-Most of my previous insecurities felt like faint memories. | felt like such a different person
-on SAM-e that at one point, | asked myself, “Why were you so afraid of your friends and
-coworkers before?”
-
-| would take one pill in the morning and then come home in the evening needing another.
-Sometimes | would take one and then lie down on the couch and wait for it to kick in. As the
-stiffness in my brow, jaw, and sneer melted away | could feel the tension in my mind slowly
-evaporate. This was my first clear indication that facial tension, negative emotion, and
-serotonin all hold hands. But the relief was not just in my face. My whole body felt light and
-easy, as if all my trigger points had been excised. | wondered whether having increased
-serotonin levels had healed them.
-
-Interestingly, serotonin increases the threshold of activation for latent trigger points. In so
-doing, it eases the chakra-like modules in the body, soothing you. Its role in muscular relaxation
-is why low serotonin is thought to be a major player in fatigue, headaches, gut tension, heart
-problems, muscle pain, joint pain, and diffuse discomfort. Now that | couldn’t feel the tension,
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-| was less neurotic. For example, increased serotonin levels are also known to curb nightmares,
-panic attacks, and unhealthy eating, and | noticed these as additional side effects.
-
-A couple of months passed by, and a fledgling business venture initiated with some
-acquaintances turned sour. So sour that | felt gutted. Within a month, my hairline receded by at
-least an inch. | realized that my underlying biological trauma had resurfaced from beneath the
-artificially elevated serotonin. | felt manic anxiety for hours on end and had significant trouble
-sleeping. | knew that mania was one of the listed side effects of SAM-e, and combined with my
-preexisting anxiety, it was unbearable. | went off the drug. As the mania went away, the
-depression crept back in, along with all the previous muscular tension. The experience showed
-me that serotonin does not fix or heal the brain. It just alters it temporarily. Similarly, it does
-not fix trigger points or heal chakras. It merely subdues them, allowing our behavior to be less
-affected. When | went off SAM-e, | noticed my body trembled. It was substantial, and | realized
-| had to do something about it.
-
-Don’t Let Yourself Tremble
-
-In the last chapter, | mentioned a friend of mine who was a drug addict. She had a small kitten
-that she played roughly with. She would squeeze it, and tease it, and swing it around. Some
-aspects of this play were pleasant to watch at times, but other elements bordered on abuse.
-
-At one point, she asked whether | thought she played too roughly with it. The kitten’s
-interminable trembling answered her question for me. With beautiful, pained eyes, this little
-furball was constantly glancing around skittishly. It shuddered even when standing still, startled
-at every sound, and grew into the most nervous cat | have ever seen. The truth is, the owner
-herself trembled and probably wanted her small friend to share her weakness.
-
-Muscle trembling is a sign that an animal is under duress. It is related to the startle
-response discussed in Chapter 2 and similarly signals submission. It results in a shaking,
-quaking, and shuddering that makes us feel weak in the knees. Chronic distress and social
-defeat cause trembling to become more pronounced. It is quite common for the runt of the
-litter to tremble because it rarely wins in competitive play and often has the lowest serotonin
-of the group. Trembling destroys fluid, measured movement as well as timing and rhythm.
-
-It occurs all over the body, not just in the voice and hands. Dormant or partially contracted
-muscles frequently tremble because those muscles can neither relax nor fully contract,
-making them susceptible to shaking involuntarily between these extremes.
-
-When a poorly-socialized Chihuahua is placed among bigger dogs, it tends to tremble more
-than usual. We are all shaky Chihuahuas, whether it is perceptible or not. Also, we tremble for
-the same reason: to keep others from being threatened by us. Trembling goes on in the
-background and usually becomes apparent under duress, by old age, or after a heavy workout.
-You may think you don’t tremble but may notice it when performing small, fluid movements
-like knitting. This is why | urge you to spend time focusing your awareness on trembling in an
-attempt to “get ahold of yourself.” Working out with light weights (Chapter 15) and performing
-anti-laxity while slow breathing will firm your grip.
-
-The slower you move, the easier it is to iron out trembling, flinching, and startling.
-
-Moshé Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais exercise method, propounded the idea that
-practicing slow movement is essential to grace and psychological wellbeing. This general
-philosophy dates back hundreds of years to Taoist and Buddhist monasteries and the art of tai
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-chi. Tai chi is a superb practice that will smooth your movements and help you tremble less.
-Some forms encourage you to move mindfully, as a “needle in cotton,” and develop the ability
-to leverage joints using coordination and relaxation rather than tension. | strongly encourage
-you to take a tai chi class, even if you do it from home using free internet tutorials.
-
-Serotonin Exercise #23.2: Take a Class in Tai Chi
-
-Sign up for a tai chi class, or simply follow a beginner’s instructional tutorial video on the
-internet. Practice the movements and motions while trying to move as smoothly and
-gracefully as possible. Your motions should feel relaxed, fluid, frictionless, and occur at a
-constant rate. It can help to act as if there is a slight resistance to every movement as if you
-were in a pool of water. When you stop bracing, notice how you can move more steadily.
-Sense your body and be present within it.
-
-You should be able to concentrate so deeply on even, tension-free movement that your
-stream of thought evaporates. To do this, you must activate very primitive brain structures.
-Every second of mindful “nontrembling” movement teaches them that slow, steady
-movement is safe and won’t be misconstrued by others as an attempt at intimidation.
-
-Remember that prey rush. Predators do not rush because they do not feel threatened or
-pressured. Move at an unrushed pace that is self-determined and centered on unshakable
-inner confidence. While you practice, use the tenets of diaphragmatic breathing, optimal
-posture, and anti-rigidity.
-
-As you become better at diaphragmatic breathing, you will become more aware of your
-pre-existing tendency to tremble. Focus selectively on each tremor you notice and try to soothe
-it. Certainly, don’t incorporate trembling into purposive movement. Don’t allow your fingers to
-fumble as you use your phone, button down your shirt, or zip your purse. Slow down every
-movement and engineer it for precision. Hurried, hasty movements require bracing, ruining
-composure and finesse. It takes patience to eliminate trembling and establish flowing dexterity.
-Imagine moving like a sloth: slowly, deliberately, and mistake-free. Just like paced breathing
-irons the apneic disturbances out of your diaphragm’s tidal range, slow, purposive movement
-will iron the discontinuities out of your actions.
-
-Use Dominant Gestures
-
-Dominant people with high serotonin naturally use commanding gestures. Dominance is
-conveyed preemptively by actions indicating strength, comfort, and fearlessness. Simply
-practicing and automating these gestures will increase your nonverbal dominance, thereby
-increasing your serotonin. Let’s get into the specifics. Dominant people have towering posture,
-whereas submissive ones try to hide their height. Dominant people lean toward others and
-approach others directly rather than haltingly and uncertainly. Dominant people initiate
-increased proximity, more handshaking, and a higher frequency of touching.’* So, put your arm
-around people, touch their hands, slap their knees, rest your arm on their shoulders, and strike
-their backs when you embrace them.
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-As far as general posture, we have already discussed retracting the neck, flexing the glutes,
-pressing the hips forward, and looking upward, among many others. When standing, place your
-feet at least shoulder length apart and don’t fidget. Refrain from folding your hands in front of
-you, placing them in pockets, or using them to cover your genitals. Because submission is
-conveyed by the lack of hand movements and hidden hands, gradually work more hand
-gesticulation into your speech.
-
-Bring your hands into full view, don’t brace them in contorted ways, and never worry that
-the position of your elbows, wrists, or fingers will be taken as offensive. Finding a comfortable
-place for your hands can be difficult. The key is not thinking about it, or whether people will
-perceive it as uppity or proud. They are your hands. If other people don’t like how you are
-
-holding them, that’s their problem.
-9 98 8 a7 de §
-TS) is Ys > Nt / I | 1
-
-Ilustration 23.2: Positions for the hands while standing. A. Holding the fist; B. Holding the hand; C. Hands on
-the hips; D. Hands supporting neck retraction; E. Hands behind the back; F. Hands simply dangling at the sides;
-G. Kelly Starrett’s position to train pulling the shoulder blades together (scapular retraction/shoulder packing).
-
-Another technique to increase your nonverbal dominance is reducing reassurances such as
-excessive nodding. Don’t stop nodding altogether but reduce how quickly and how often you
-do it. Definitely smile at people and laugh at their jokes, just don’t do it too much. Excessive
-smiling and laughter directed at another’s efforts at humor are submissive. And use the optimal
-smile and laugh discussed in previous chapters. Nonverbal tics, rapid blinking, prolonged tilting
-of the head, touching the back of your neck, wringing the hands, coughing artificially, and
-scratching imaginary itches are all nervous behaviors meant to fill space when you don’t know
-what to do with your body.*? Omit all of that.
-
-Televised athletes that suffer anything from a crushing defeat to a narrow loss immediately
-take on stereotypically submissive body language.‘ Their eyes are downcast, their head lowers,
-they untuck their chin, and their entire back curves forward into the characteristic “C” shape.
-Most of us take on these postures after somebody else makes a good point in a conversation.
-No one and nothing should be able to crush your posture. Instead, think of your favorite
-Olympic sport and imagine what stance you would take on if you just won a gold medal in that
-event in front of a cheering crowd. Use that hourly.
-
-As we have seen, many submissive displays keep our muscles tense and prevent them from
-refreshing, hurting us in the long run. However, some displays communicate modesty without
-doing this. These include feeling comfortable turning your back to another individual, sitting
-lower than another, or placing yourself in any such position where someone else would have an
-advantage if they decided to attack you. If you walk into a room and sit in the lowest chair, you
-make a strong statement, showing that being physically lower doesn’t make you feel lower.
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-| frequently sit, kneel, or lie down next to people that are standing. It gets people to lower their
-guard. When | do it, it is usually to stretch or allow my muscles to refresh. If you do this, other
-people will get the point and see that you have no fear that others will attack you.
-
-In chimpanzees, submissive individuals greet dominant ones. This involves a sequence of
-short, shallow pant grunts that probably represent a form of handicapped breathing. The
-subordinate will assume a position whereby he looks up at the individual he is greeting. He
-makes a series of deep bows known as bobbing. In the words of primatologist Frans de Waal,
-he practically “grovels in the dust.” The dominant individual will stand up higher and may step
-over the individual greeting him. When this happens, the submissive chimp ducks and puts his
-arms up to protect his head. Thus, even greetings can confirm the dominance relationship,
-explaining why the alpha is greeted by everyone in the group but greets no one. Adults never
-greet youngsters, and dominants never greet subordinates. Ceasing to greet is a direct
-challenge. What should we take from this? | think it is gracious to be the one who initiates a
-greeting, but be aware of your posture and composure when you do so, and keep in mind that
-you never have to be the one who initiates a hello.
-
-Conclusion
-
-| used to often feel like prey. Walks in metropolitan areas would trigger concerns of being
-followed by assailants. Being in nature would trigger fears of being stalked by wild animals.
-Swimming in an ocean, lake, or even a pool would trigger visions of sharks and prehistoric
-marine predators. | would have frequent nightmares, causing me to wake up yelling. Every
-other night in bed, | would give myself chills by imagining a home invasion scenario. This is all a
-distant memory to me now. | believe that | am utterly free of these fears today because my
-confidence and serotonin levels are constitutionally higher, thanks to Program Peace.
-
-Besides massage, exercise, gratefulness, cooperation, and assertiveness, how else can we
-raise our serotonin? Every exercise in this book aims to increase serotonin levels. After you
-have thoroughly practiced walking while breathing deeply, with wide eyes above the eye line,
-shoulders down, and a retracted neck, it will be legitimate. And here is the key: Other people’s
-inevitable recognition of this legitimacy will cause them to respect you. Strangers will see your
-posture and address you as “boss,” “chief,” “sir,” or “ma’am.” Even a subtle increase in the
-tokens of respect you receive from your social environment, relative to what your serotonergic
-system was previously accustomed to, will be enough to boost your serotonin.
-
-Researcher Michael McGuire and colleagues performed an illuminating experiment. They
-took a monkey troop’s alpha member and placed him in a separate room where he could watch
-the other monkeys. They placed a one-way mirror between the alpha and his subordinate
-troopmates so that he could see them, but they could not see him. Because the alpha could see
-his mates, he made his ordinary dominance gestures. However, because they were oblivious to
-him, they did not make their submissive gestures in response. Even though the alpha had far
-higher serotonin levels than the other monkeys, his serotonin levels fell each day of the
-experiment. He needed visual signals of their submission to stroke his ego. When the
-experimenters replaced this one-way mirror with a piece of glass, his friends submitted and his
-serotonin levels rose again.
-
-The trouble with our brain circuitry is that we necessitate submissive displays from others
-just to feel normal. Many find it impossible to retain a sense of self-worth if others withhold
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-signs of deference. But you shouldn’t. Accept a confidence boost when others exalt you but
-retain your confidence when others ignore you. There is a deeper lesson to take from this: Your
-social interactions are not fights but sparring sessions. They are not wrestling matches but
-wrestling practice. Don’t see interactions as a competition; see them as cooperation. You are
-working together to help each other become more and more ascendant. When people fail to
-show you the esteem you feel you deserve, think of it as part of the game, and let it make you
-tougher, not weaker.
-
-Before | started this reprogramming journey, my eye-related body language (see Chapter 4)
-was worse than most of the human population. If | had to ascribe numerical values, | would say
-that | was in the bottom 10% for having open eyes, the bottom 5% for looking upward, and the
-bottom 2% for capability for eye contact. | would guess that just around 10 hours in total of
-using the exercises from Chapter 4 placed me at least 60% higher in each of these categories.
-Can you imagine how much less frequently social interactions leave me feeling like a weirdo
-and a loser? Now, | come out of them with more serotonin rather than less.
-
-Take a moment to consider how other exercises in this book will make additional
-contributions to your confidence. Once you get the excessive tension out of your face, neck,
-and diaphragm this will be apparent. But remember this is not a zero-sum game. As long as you
-are not combining your confidence with aggression, your improved body language should not
-detract from the body language of others. In fact, if you use your optimal demeanor equitably,
-and show others the respect they deserve (and perhaps more than they deserve), you will
-become a role model helping and training others to be more like you.
-
-We have seen that there are many ways to increase your serotonin without drugs.
-However, | think the most powerful way to increase your confidence is to have faith in your
-skills to mitigate conflict. The next chapter will tackle this topic.
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-Chapter 23: Bullet Points
-
-e Dominant or alpha primates have higher serotonin levels in the blood and brain than the
-other members of their group. If they are deposed, their serotonin plunges, and the new
-alpha’s serotonin will soar.
-
-e Being an alpha with high serotonin that can never be deposed is a state of mind you can
-create with time.
-
-e Increased serotonin makes you feel less stressed in response to threats and less
-concerned with other people’s expectations regarding your subordination displays.
-
-e We act in ways to increase our serotonin, but this often brings us into conflict with
-others and can lead to self-destructive behavior.
-
-e Any wins garnered through aggression or hostility are temporary and unsustainable.
-
-e Increase your confidence not through pitting yourself against or comparing yourself to
-others but through appreciating the abundance you already have.
-
-e You don’t have to be a high-energy extrovert to be assertive and high in status.
-
-e You have reached ego dissolution once your breathing is no longer controlled by pride
-or prestige.
-
-e The same boost you used to get from pulling others down, you can double it by being
-successful at building rapport or making a new friend.
-
-e Your nervous system supports a mode of operation in which all movements are fluid
-and unwavering, as in tai chi.
-
-e Social submission interferes with fluid movement. Your gesticulations at a party should
-be as smooth and effortless as your motions in tai chi.
-
-e Camaraderie, gratefulness, and a mindset that is not attached to status and not
-dependent on the regard of others will help us transcend serotonin blows.
-
-e It shouldn’t feel socially awkward to have dominant body language.
-
-e Get your confidence boosts by competing with yourself and aiming to beat your
-personal bests.
-
-e Master the belief that no matter what, you will be just fine.
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-Chapter 23: Endnotes
-
-1. Raleigh, M. J., Brammer, G. L., Yuwiler, A., Flannery, J. W., McGuire, M. T. & Geller, E.
-(1980). Serotonergic influences on the social behavior of vervet monkeys. Experimental
-Neurology, 68(2), 322-334.
-
-2. van Vugt, M. & Tybur, J. M. (2015). The evolutionary foundations of status hierarchy. In D.
-M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.
-
-3. Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., & Henrich, J. (2010). Pride, personality, and the evolutionary
-foundations of human social status. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 334-347.
-
-4. Hill, P., Allemand, M., & Roberts, B. (2013). Examining the pathways between gratitude and
-self-rated physical health across adulthood. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(1), 92-96.
-
-5. Lambert, N., Fincham, F., & Stillman, T. (2012). Gratitude and depressive symptoms: The
-role of positive reframing and positive emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 26(4), 615-633.
-
-6. Emmons, R. A. (2009). Gratitude. In S. J. Lopez & A. Beauchamp (Eds.), Encyclopedia of
-positive psychology (pp. 442-447). Oxford University Press.
-
-7. Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An
-experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of
-
-Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377-389.
-
-8. Hanson, R. (2013). Hardwiring happiness: The new brain science of contentment, calm,
-and confidence. Random House.
-
-9. LeDoux J. (2003). The emotional brain, fear, and the amygdala. Cellular and Molecular
-Neurobiology, 23(4-5), 727-738.
-
-10. Gothard, K. M., & Hoffman, K. L. (2010). Circuits of emotion in the primate brain. In M. L.
-Platt & A. A. Ghazanfar (Eds.), Primate neuroethology (pp. 292-315). Oxford University Press.
-
-11. Hermann, H. R. (2017). Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals: The great
-game of life. Academic Press.
-
-12. Carney, D. R., Hall, J. A. A., & LeBeau, L. S. (2005). Beliefs about the nonverbal expression of
-social power. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 29, 105-123.
-
-13. Shariff, A. F., & Tracy, J. L. (2009). Knowing who’s boss: Implicit perceptions of status from
-the nonverbal expression of pride. Emotion, 9(5), 631-639.
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-14. Tracy, J. L., & Matsumoto, D. (2008). The spontaneous expression of pride and shame:
-Evidence for biologically innate nonverbal displays. Proceedings of the National Academy of
-Sciences, 105(33) 11655-11660.
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-“You do not need to defend against the intrusions of others, there is no pressure on you to defend yourself.
-Recognize that they intrude upon themselves.” — Eckhart Tolle (1948)
-
-We Act in Uncivil Ways to Increase Our Serotonin
-
-Humans, like other primates, are constantly testing one another in an often-unconscious
-attempt to either raise their serotonin levels or reduce someone else’s. We are driven to do it
-because putting others down can give us a little neurochemical boost. The tendency is
-instinctual but it can become addictive and sadistic. It is not psychologically healthy to belittle
-our friends, family members, and coworkers for little hits of pleasure. Neither is it healthy to fail
-to recognize when others do this to us. | think of this as the “struggle for serotonin” and it is
-going on in schools, homes, and workplaces everywhere.
-
-Workplace disharmony has been documented by recent research to be a substantial
-economic cost for American business that is largely preventable but rarely addressed.* One in
-five people claim to be the targets of occupational abuse at least once a week, and ten percent
-said they witness it every day. Mistreatment does not rouse workers into better focus; it
-actually impedes their performance. People that have been treated cruelly or thoughtlessly
-show decreased ability to perform simple tasks, distracted attention, impaired working
-memory, diminished creativity, and reduced helping behaviors.” Inhumane behavior is virulent
-and negatively affects all involved: the targets, the offenders, the firm, and its customers. After
-reading about what incivility does in a workplace, imagine what it does to a circle of friends or
-a family. Let’s talk about how to stop it.
-
-We Provoke Each Other Constantly
-
-“As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, even so the wise are not ruffled by praise or blame.”
-— Buddha (563 BCE - 483 BCE
-
-When | was young, my mother taught me the expression “out to get your goat.” This helped me
-understand from a young age that it is common for people to say or do things just to “get a
-rise” out of you or try to make you lose your cool. It is ubiquitous. People try to activate the
-other person’s amygdala, sympathetic system, and inferiority instincts to control them,
-however temporarily. A large proportion of our social interactions revolve around testing each
-other’s composure with jokes, slights, and provocations. When my mom told me, “Don’t let him
-get your goat,” she was underscoring my responsibility to safeguard my temper and ignore
-people’s attempts to fluster me.
-
-Etymologists believe that the expression comes from the once-common practice of keeping
-goats with racehorses. Racehorses are high-strung animals due, in part, to the unnatural levels
-of strain placed on their muscles. Goats were often used as companion animals to help keep
-racehorses calm. They were also commonly placed with dairy cows for the same reason. Goats
-naturally have an exceptionally low outward expression of stress. They are not the most
-beautiful animals, neither are they the smartest, nor largest, but they are great at keeping their
-cool. | think this should be a lesson for us; we don’t have to be the biggest or best to be the
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-calmest. We may be far from being the dominant individual in a group, but we can still be so
-well composed that it inspires everyone else.
-
-There are many physical traits in animals that exist to convey social dominance. These
-include plumage coloration in Harris sparrows, horn size in mountain sheep, graying in the
-mountain gorilla, and square jaws in humans. It is common to assume that flashy traits,
-imposition, musculature, and physical strength make a person dominant. But it is really
-emotional strength that makes people dominant. Emotional stability keeps people from
-“getting your goat.” It is the only status symbol that is universally, albeit unconsciously,
-recognized as more important than physical size, looks, reputation, or money. Often, people
-with great physical strength are accorded respect. This, in turn, helps them build confidence
-and emotional strength. However, the physically weakest person can certainly have the most
-control over their emotions. | think of emotional strength as the ability to exhibit sturdiness in
-the face of negativity.
-
-Emotional weakness starts when someone feels violated by someone else and then tries to
-fight that feeling like any subjugated monkey. The problem is, if others can tell that you have
-been stung, they are going to want to sting you again. Children high in rejection sensitivity are
-more likely to be bullied. Those kids who do not readily feel rejected are much less likely to be
-victimized. Envisioning yourself as the underdog or the victim is counterproductive because it
-sensitizes you, lowers your serotonin, and invites further abuse. Dominant animals have thick
-skin, are the last to feel rejected, and so are the last to be rejected. What would it feel like to
-have zero rejection sensitivity? Can you imagine yourself as inviolable?
-
-Treat everyone like you have known them forever and like they can’t easily hurt you.
-
-See them as playful monkeys that are bluff-charging, sham-sneering, pretend-scratching,
-
-and feign-biting. Only the primates with low serotonin are hurt emotionally by fraternization.
-All the things that people used to do that made you feel enraged, reframe them as rough-and-
-tumble monkey play.
-
-We Contradict Each Other Compulsively
-
-If you carefully analyze the way people speak, it is almost shocking how much we contradict
-one another. Most people are obnoxiously argumentative, disputatious contrarians. For many
-listeners, the first thing that pops into their mind is a way to poke holes in your line of
-reasoning. They look for any suitable exception to what you are saying. They often are not even
-emotionally invested in the contradictions that they place against you. They are merely playing
-devil’s advocate, and throwing out red herrings, to stifle and trip you up. When people do this
-to you, they are testing your limits and trying to push you down into the lower echelons. They
-are expecting to feel good and get away with it after they discredit you. But if we recognize the
-ploy and respond skillfully to it, we can help them reduce this dysfunctional behavior that is
-certainly hurting them more than it is helping. We can do this by responding without any hint
-of pain.
-
-When others attempt to shoot you down, try to see what is right about what they are
-saying while pointing out how it doesn’t invalidate what you were saying. Do this with peace in
-your heart. Remember that you need not get defensive when someone hastily comes up with
-an irrelevant exception to a statement you made. Take their objections as requests for
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-elaboration, and be happy to give them more details. Reframing people’s intrusions and giving
-them the benefit of the doubt is what the emotionally healthy person does.
-
-We should be looking for what is right in what others are saying to provide support. This is
-much more constructive for them and us. In the words of Nick Bostrom, this involves resisting
-“the temptation to instantaneously misunderstand each new idea by assimilating it with the
-most similar-sounding cliché available in (your) cultural larder.” Give people’s ideas a chance to
-marinate in your mind, then help make those ideas better. If you strongly disagree or have
-something to teach them, prove that you are comfortable in disagreeing by being polite yet
-assertive. Explain where you agree prior to disagreeing, but don’t disagree just to disagree.
-
-Never Fail a Confidence Test
-
-People’s jokes, contradictions, and snide comments are “confidence tests” to assess how cool
-you are under pressure. This is like a dog’s first bark. It is a probe used to assess your level of
-composure. These tests exclaim, “I’m pretty sure that | can break you down, so I’m going to say
-something rude and see how you respond.” If you don’t do anything about it, you will fail the
-test, your rank will drop, and others in the group will try to test you in the same way. If you
-laugh nervously or go along with it, others will also see this as failing the test. Crying,
-complaining, or trying to gain sympathy are other ways to fail. Flinging out an insult or
-becoming furious will create more hostility or get yourself excluded from the group. This is
-because responding with anger just shows that you are volatile, threatened, and emotionally
-immature. But if you can respond using the challenge response rather than the threat response,
-you pass the confidence test with flying colors.
-
-To quote Schopenhauer: “Every reproach can hurt only to the extent that it hits the mark.”
-Thus, when you lose your cool, and distressed breathing kicks in, it becomes clear that the
-person’s comment resonated with you. The only surefire way to win is to react assertively and
-refrain from showing any hint of discomfort in response to your confidence being tested.
-
-Don’t search other people’s words for things to be offended by. Don’t scrutinize voicemails,
-text messages, or tone of voice for threats or put-downs. There is no reason to investigate.
-
-Confidence testing is primal behavior. Friends, lovers, coworkers, strangers, men, and
-women alike do it. Sometimes it takes the form of creating drama out of a tiny issue just so that
-they can scope your ability to withstand stress. They are trying to see what they can get away
-with. This may take the form of impatience, discourtesy, or asking for endless small favors.
-Most people fail these tests because they cannot recognize them for what they are. Once you
-realize that you’re dealing with a confidence test, however, it is very easy to pass.
-
-The best way to handle confidence tests is to see them for what they are: monkey business
-that is not worthy of your stress response. Treat them as jokes and make humorous comments
-in return. You can turn a confidence test back around playfully or you can even make a self-
-deprecating joke to show how unflustered you are. The absolute best way to deal with
-confidence tests is to accept them as invitations to play, as discussed in the next chapter.
-
-The second-best way is simply to retain your composure.
-
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-Recompose Yourself When You Feel Disrespected
-
-“The mental arrow shot from another’s bow is practically harmless unless our own thought barbs it.”
-— Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910)
-
-People provoke each other because they want to compare bodily pain. When you feel
-disrespected by someone, your heart rate, blood pressure, and general level of discomfort all
-go up. Your vagal tone and HRV come down. When someone contradicts you with a trifling
-point, they are looking to see how your face, voice, and breathing will change in response to
-this new stressor. They are expecting to take your breath away from you. When they make a
-haughty innuendo or an untoward comment, they want to see how you will tolerate it
-physiologically. Recomposing yourself is the best way to stop reinforcing their transgressive
-behavior. When someone says something that crosses your boundaries, ensure that you:
-
-1) Are breathing slowly and deeply through your nose
-2) Are not squinting and your eyebrows are not raised
-3) Are not sneering at all and your face is limp
-
-4) Relax your spine, gut, and vocal tract
-
-5) Retract your neck and lower your shoulders
-
-Responding in this way removes all positive reinforcers, dissuading the offending party
-from provoking you again. If they disrespect you and your eyes remain wide while you respond
-calmly in a deep and steady voice, they are going to feel stupid. When you react to someone in
-a way that is otherwise non-optimal, you relinquish your power. When our chi-like or prana-like
-bioenergy is wasted on negative emotions, we have none left to improve our lives or give to
-others. Conserve yours, especially in the face of provocation.
-
-We get mad at other people for “making” us lose our composure. However, we should be
-angry over our own unconscious rules for what makes us tighten certain body parts. Once we
-change those rules, other people can’t upset us. When | get mad at something that someone
-did, | remind myself that | am only mad because my own rules caused my breath to shorten, my
-nasopharynx to tighten, and my face to wince. No one else “made” me do these things. / did.
-Breathing with the diaphragm will automatically create the right mindset for dealing with
-power politics. It will allow the conflict to pass right through you without impacting you. Even
-taking a single 10 second inhalation will give you more control over your behavior, quell your
-anger, and allow you to de-escalate potentially explosive situations. Misunderstandings that
-would have been large-scale crises will now be subtle victories.
-
-| used to look nice and act tough. Like most people, | was doing it backward. Instead, we
-want to look tough and act nice. Playing submissive nonverbally and dominant verbally makes
-you a servant to the hierarchical game and turns you into a jerk. Instead, you want to be
-tightfisted with your nonverbals but easygoing with your words. This gives the impression that
-you are a well-composed team player rather than an anxious and alienated loner.
-
-If you tense anything, let it be the procerus, pulling your eyebrows down. In other words,
-when someone is mean or rude to you, try frowning. You practiced this highly dominant
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-expression in Chapters 4 and 8. You can also flare your nostrils. Then, without saying anything
-angry, ask them to clarify their statement: “Okay, explain that one to me.”
-
-The primary way | show others they did something that | didn’t like is by making my face
-calmer. They always get the point. When a problem dog is ignored, it usually calms down in
-seconds. When abusive people see that you are unagitated and uninterested, it will take them
-down a peg. Shrug it off—literally. When they see you shrug, they will realize that they are
-powerless to upset you.
-
-Many of the men | was friends with in my twenties wanted to hurt me and see me in pain.
-At least a part of them did. They were just doing what their instincts and environment
-programmed them to do. People often encourage those who subordinate themselves to do so
-even further. This is not necessarily spiteful because they usually don’t even realize what they
-are doing. Regrettably, | have noticed myself unconsciously helping people play a subordinate
-role. | try to catch myself. We should treat and speak to everyone, including people such as the
-homeless and developmentally disabled, as equals, friends, and trusted confidantes.
-
-The best way to cultivate inner freedom is to learn to relax around petty and aggressive
-people. You will find that the need to defend yourself will diminish until there is nothing they
-can do to aggravate you. Make them realize that they don’t have the power to bite, scratch,
-or sully you with their words. Chimpanzees fling feces to denigrate one another. Every time
-someone says something degrading, they are just flinging feces. Lucky for us, words can’t stain
-our clothes.
-
-No matter what, if you have more composure, you will win the argument because you look
-like you don’t care too much. Once they realize they have no access to your physical pain,
-they will let up. You want people to be able to sense that you are not interested in their antics.
-They will recognize that they cannot blame you for not being pulled in by shenanigans.
-
-You want to communicate: “We’re not playing that game of scrutinizing the things we say
-to each other for slights. Trust me, I’m simply not going to intentionally offend you.”
-
-Underreact to Their Offenses
-
-“God gives nothing to those who keep their arms crossed.” — West African Proverb
-
-Aside from the struggle for serotonin, your average person acts like a jackass because they are
-in pain. They offend in a poor functioning attempt to hide the outward manifestation of their
-trauma. It is like they are trying to show us: “I wouldn’t be acting like this if | were scared,
-would |?” In trying to look strong, they become offensive. Because they see being nice as a form
-of self-handicapping, they think that they must be mean so as not to handicap. This is a
-fundamental socio-cognitive error. You can be the strongest, most ambitious version of yourself
-with zero negativity. However, remember that it is an entirely normal response for other
-people to resist your efforts to become more assertive. So, roll with any resistance.
-
-When someone is rude to you and you are not rude back, you pull the rug out from under
-them. By not allowing them to incite your pain, you expose theirs. They may then use a strategy
-to pretend as if your response to them was rude or sarcastic. They do this in another attempt to
-make it seem that you are the one who is quick to anger. The best response is to continue to
-keep your cool. Don’t get bullied into becoming angry. Take their harassment in stride.
-
-Or simply sidestep it; you don’t even need to acknowledge their misdeed. Feel free to ignore it.
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-It is our right as humans to completely ignore other people’s abusive behaviors if we don’t do it
-in anger and if we are willing to engage the person in an alternate topic or activity.
-
-Ignore rudeness without brooding or becoming sullen. The moment you do this, the other
-person will realize that you are choosing not to respond because they put you in a position
-where you didn’t have the option to respond in a nice way. After ignoring them, give them
-another chance to engage whenever they want. You can alternatively ignore the rude part of
-what they said and continue addressing only the positive or intellectual side of their position.
-Do this magnanimously and they will realize that you gave them a pass. They will also respect
-you for it. Even if they don’t mention it, they can’t help but realize, “Wow, he could’ve taken
-that opportunity to strike back or discredit me but chose not to.” Don’t let them pull you down
-to their level. That’s the first step in winning them over.
-
-Let the other person bluster and be brash and make no attempt to do the same. Because
-you don’t counter their display, they will think that they have beaten you. Then, when you act
-cheerful, not attempting to win or lose but being oblivious to the dominance game in general,
-they will go through a series of emotions. First, they will feel like they have lost, then they will
-try to win again to make up for it. They may get stuck in that cycle for a while, and that’s fine.
-Eventually, they will recognize that you intend to act as equals. When this happens organically,
-it is usually the starting point for an alliance or a friendship. Why not accelerate the process?
-
-Can you imagine negotiating with an angry person without using either appeasement or
-aggression? What would that look like? Many spiritual teachers say that a sign of someone
-enlightened is that they cannot be provoked or argued with. They are open to discussion and
-debate, of course, but not argument. The next activity asks you to explore how you can stand
-up for what you believe without losing your composure.
-
-Conflict Activity #24.1: A Relaxed Argument
-
-The next time someone is critical or accusatory, prepare yourself for a fully relaxed
-argument. This involves asserting yourself using calm, cool logic without getting offended and
-without escalating the conversation in any way. Try to achieve the following:
-
-1) Do not raise your voice.
-
-2) Do not whine or speak in a high voice.
-
-3) Do not fake smile, smirk, or laugh.
-
-4) Do not say anything sarcastic.
-
-5) Monitor your breathing rate, heart rate, and level of gastric distress.
-
-6) Breathe calmly through your nose for the duration. Let your exhalations be passive.
-
-7) Present your side of the argument in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way.
-
-8) Show empathy for their feelings and try to coax them to do the same for you.
-
-9) If the other person escalates the conflict, act in ways that deescalate it.
-
-10) Create awareness of your (and the other person’s) impulses to become angry or make
-it personal. Notice how these originate from sensations of pain within the body.
-
-11) Make your intended outcome not to win but to convince the other person that any
-transgression you may have committed was unintentional.
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-12) Do not attack them or try to shift blame toward them. Just focus on getting them to
-see your perspective and why you did what you did.
-
-13) Explain how you will continue to act in the same way in the future, or how you are
-willing to try to change for them.
-
-14) Feel free to offer an apology for whatever part you played in the disagreement.
-
-Meditate on the term “unassailable,” which means unable to be attacked or defeated. You
-are unassailable because you are a good person and do wrong only by accident. You are also
-unassailable because you respond to criticism dispassionately but with accountability. You
-underreact, but you take responsibility for what you may have done wrong. By being happy to
-completely own up to any mistakes or any trouble you may have inadvertently caused others,
-you are made invincible. If someone refuses to say, “I’m sorry,” “Thank you,” and “You were
-right” to you, it doesn’t mean that you should stop saying such things to them. Make yourself
-honor-bound to say these things whenever they are applicable.
-
-Be at ease with everyone, from the discourteous to the genteel, and treat everyone as if
-you have known them your whole life. This means when they say something with a pinprick
-embedded in it to get a rise out of you, act like you have heard the same line a thousand times.
-You are unfazed and remain sociable with full parasympathetic and vagal tone. At the outset,
-you will need to override any impulses to respond in kind. Soon, it will become automatic, and
-you will experience how and why being unfazed is much more powerful than lashing out.
-
-Set Your Expectations of Others to Zero
-
-Competition and aggression are relatively inescapable. It is essential to come to terms with the
-fact that, at any moment, anyone could say something that will rile you up or make you feel
-demeaned, disregarded, or disrespected. Everyone, even (if not especially) your closest friends
-harbor instincts and impulses to dominate you. Ask yourself: “Am | open to being exasperated
-by anyone at any time?” The answer (without being jaded or cynical) should be: “No, | govern
-my own emotional reactions. I’m prepared for the worst, even though | treat others as though |
-only expect the best from them.”
-
-Conflict Activity #24.2: Imagine Your Friends Abusing You
-
-Imagine that everyone in your social world is trying to abuse you verbally. They are resorting
-to personal character attacks in foul and underhanded ways. People are screaming and
-yelling expletives at you, denouncing everything you have ever done. Imagine yourself
-staying calm and untroubled amid this derision. Imagine yourself not taking it personally, not
-taking it to heart, and continuing to be productive and accomplish your personal goals.
-Imagine yourself unperturbed by the abuse. Allow this imaginary activity to take the
-emotional shock away from personal attacks when they happen and help you appreciate how
-good your social life really is.
-
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-We’ve got to remember not to take offenses personally. When someone says something
-snide, you might find yourself immediately starting to wonder if the offender doesn’t like your
-face, your personality, or the way you talk. If a person is rude to you, they are probably rude to
-everyone. It reflects on them, not you. You need to resist the tendency to ask, “Why me?” One
-of the best approaches to regaining peace in your life is to avoid taking any personal offense.
-
-Conflict Activity #24.3: See People As Animate Matter
-
-Spend a few minutes thinking of everyone on Earth as being made of atoms and molecules
-that are completely controlled by physical laws. Imagine them with no free will of their own.
-Everything they do comes from their current physical structure: the existing circuits in their
-brain and the prior experiences that made them that way. Allow this to help you feel
-unoffended by their actions. See everyone as automatons, aggregations of cells that move
-and act in predetermined ways. Like a tumbleweed that has run into you, you cannot
-rationally be offended by anything they do. Sometimes it can help to see people as
-deterministic robots in this way. What you put in is what you get out. This holds you
-responsible for any errors. You should find that when you stop blaming others and hold
-yourself responsible, you have well-functioning encounters more frequently.
-
-Aggression is Inherently Weak
-
-Aggressive acts are almost always mutually destructive in the sense that they hurt all parties
-involved. Any positive outcomes won by aggression are usually “pyrrhic,” meaning they are
-achieved at a high cost, often to the point of negating or outweighing any benefits. Tell yourself
-that there are no “acceptable losses” with aggression and that because it damages everyone,
-aggression is self-defeating.
-
-Aggression is violent in tone and contains elements of despair, defensiveness, self-pity,
-fear, and desperation. It invokes and is invoked by the threat response. It is ironic that people
-often act aggressively to gain respect but only rarely do others respect aggressive people.
-
-This is because aggression is inherently weak. Aggression turns the world into a zoo and a
-“struggle for serotonin.”
-
-As discussed in Chapter 1, there is a big difference between acting dominant and trying to
-dominate others. Cultivating dominant nonverbal behavior is good for your health—it helps you
-avoid stress. But trying to dominate others is just another source of conflict and, as such, a
-source of stress. Studies with monkeys and apes have shown that stress, as measured by
-elevations in the stress hormone cortisol, is often more pronounced in individuals attempting
-to dominate than in their targets.? In trying to subject others, these primates damage their
-health. People that are constantly trying to assert their rank by being aggressive are similarly
-exposing themselves to cortisol, inflammation, tachycardia, hyperventilation, bracing, and so
-much more. The clear implication is that the best way to free ourselves from our egos is to
-cultivate a non-submissive personality while abstaining from attempts to dominate.
-
-Heal Your Composure with the Most Dominant People in Your Life
-
-Your relationship with your parents is primordial. Everyone picks up aggressive, nonoptimal,
-nonpeaceful tendencies from their folks. These are usually the hardest to break. Also, the body
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-language and mannerisms you feel comfortable using around Mom and Dad set a foundation
-for how you act with everyone else. Because so much of our formative time was spent with
-them, we hold our posture and countenance as if in their presence. It is important that you feel
-comfortable using dominant, non-submissive body language around your mother, father,
-
-and siblings. As soon as you stop bracing your body in a way that is subservient to your family
-members, you will gain new freedom. The next time you find yourself on a car ride with your
-parents, family members, or anyone you are uncomfortable around, discretely pull out your
-breath metronome and teach your body to inhale and exhale freely in their presence.
-
-Primates respect gradation in rank, meaning that a baboon will act much more subservient
-around a group member five stations above him than it will around a member one station
-above him. The way you hold yourself around the most dominant people in your life similarly
-affects you. Think of the largest, strongest, most charismatic, and most successful people in
-your life. You should act like there is no pressure on you to send them tribute. Take special note
-of which aspects of your body language are non-optimal when you are with them and work on
-these. Even when they are not around you may find yourself trying to convince them of things,
-monitoring their moodiness, and rehashing old disagreements. If this is the case, your thoughts
-about them are likely influencing you to hold submissive postures. Let all of this go.
-
-Don’t Feel Compelled to Sacrifice to Dominant Individuals
-
-“Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.” — Lao Tzu (571 BCE - Unknown)
-
-Subordinate apes often seek reassurance by putting a finger in the dominant animal’s mouth.
-They are risking their intact finger to pay their respects. This is like a sacrificial offering.
-Monkeys do this, too. Among stump-tailed macaques, formal rank is reinforced by a mock bite
-on the subordinate’s wrist. The subordinate approaches and places their arm under the
-dominant individual’s nose to invite this ritualized bite. It communicates: “If you don’t trust me,
-you can chew my hand off.” Similarly, it is very common for humans to sacrifice
-disproportionate amounts of time and energy to curry a dominant person’s favor. Don’t do this.
-They will not respect you for it.
-
-Nondominant primates are obsessed with the dominant ones. Apes and monkeys spend a
-lot of time watching or making frequent, furtive glances at dominant members of their troop.*
-In experimental settings, male monkeys are willing to give up precious juice to view pictures of
-two things: 1) female hindquarters (not surprisingly), and 2) dominant males. In the wild,
-monkeys constantly inspect the dominants, watching their every move and often giving them
-their full attention. Scientists suppose that this behavior plays a role in the “acquisition of
-important social cues.”
-
-People do this as well. Have you noticed your tendency to search out high-status members
-of the same sex and observe them jealously? Do you seek out pictures of female hindquarters
-and buff dudes on social media? Don’t secretly worship the bodybuilders, the CEOs, the fitness
-models, or the celebrities. Giving them undue attention keeps you locked in a hierarchical
-mindset, so don’t pay them any more attention than you would anyone else.
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-Have Compassion for Your Transgressors
-
-“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each (person’s) life sorrow and suffering
-enough to disarm any hostility.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
-
-In your mind, think of discourteous people as unsophisticated people. Remember that the most
-offensive ones are likely to have had extreme life challenges such as early trauma or abuse.
-Further, inappropriate aggression can be a symptom of brain damage, PTSD, or a range of
-neurological or psychological disorders. When someone is inconsiderate, remind yourself that
-they may have serious maladjustments and that, more often than not, they could use your
-help. Everyone is a jerk in their own eccentric way due to their unique pattern of deficits in
-social intelligence. Don’t be surprised or upset by their idiosyncratic manner of being
-discourteous just because you haven’t gotten used to it yet. Most people realize that they are
-rough around the edges. Many even want to change but find it difficult or do not understand
-how. Unfortunately, their uncouth behavior causes people to be rude back to them,
-perpetuating their problem. We don’t want to perpetuate people’s issues. We want to help
-resolve them.
-
-Aggression derives from weakness, pain, unfortunate experiences, and mental
-shortcomings, so we should respond to it with empathy. Those who want to humiliate others
-have low self-esteem themselves. It is sad that their priorities, judgments, and word choices are
-impoverished. Had you experienced everything they did, perhaps you would have turned out
-just like them. Think of quarrelsome people as flamboyant actors who are suffering offstage.
-Most everyone is a sob story, and we are all walking wounded. Don’t let wounds beget more
-wounds. Everyone you dislike just needs a little recognition, validation, and friendliness. When
-you give them a chance, odds are they will end up making you revise your opinion of them.
-
-Another thing we should keep in mind is that what we take to be premeditated, personal
-affronts tend to be defense mechanisms or, even more innocuously, coping mechanisms.
-Most difficult people do things out of desperation because their sympathetic nervous system
-is set too high. People who are short of breath, shaken, and choked up lash out. That is what
-they do. Almost everything that you don’t like about people is just them trying ineffectively
-to maintain their dignity. Work around them if you have to but help them if you can. Let your
-natural assertiveness and your compassion for them work together.
-
-Anger and Rage
-
-“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty.” — Proverbs 16:32
-
-The brain’s rage system starts at the medial areas of the amygdala that perceive anger-inducing
-stimuli. From there they proceed to the areas that act on anger (including the stria terminalis,
-the medial hypothalamus, and the periaqueductal gray). Certain stimuli from the environment
-naturally increase electrical activity in these areas: physical restriction, pain, hunger,
-
-and thwarted desires. You can see how these incendiary stimuli are similar to those that evoke
-fear in the amygdala (e.g., loud sounds and fast movement). As with fear, adrenaline, cortisol,
-and pain heighten anger, whereas endorphins, oxytocin, and serotonin halt it.°
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-In all mammals that have been tested, rage can be evoked by electrically stimulating these
-brain areas. We know they find it aversive because lab animals will go to lengths to avoid
-electrical stimulation of the rage system. When the electrodes in their rage circuit are fed a
-current, the animal will spring toward whatever object is in front of it and bite. The attack
-becomes more intense as the current is increased. Humans report that the stimulation of rage
-via electrodes placed in the brain is a terrible experience. They tend to clench their jaw and
-sneering muscles and report feelings of intense hatred.
-
-Electrical stimulation of rage causes small-brained mammals like mice to attack inanimate
-objects. More intelligent mammals like cats and dogs won’t attack an object because they
-understand that this is meaningless, but they will attack the nearest living animal. Primates
-show a further level of abstraction. Stimulating the rage system in apes and monkeys will cause
-them to vent their rage toward animals below them in the hierarchy but not above.
-
-A monkey whose rage system is persistently stimulated will ascend in rank. An animal
-whose rage system is physically damaged in the lab (septal lesioning) will become tame and
-descend in rank. This suggests that we don’t want to completely suppress anger. However,
-many of us were expected to suppress all outward manifestations of anger by our parents and
-teachers. | believe that many people fall down the well of anxiety simply because they are
-reluctant to demonstrate anger. Convince yourself that it is fine to use anger in the form of
-righteous indignation to stand up for yourself or what you believe in. In Exercise 8.2 we
-discovered how briefly feigning anger can clear fear from your face. Used in the next exercise it
-will clear it from your chest.
-
-Conflict Activity #24.4: Briefly Feign Anger to Overcome Fear
-
-The next time you anticipate anxiety or experience intimidation from social conflict use anger
-to overcome it. Imagine, even if just for 10 seconds, that you are very angry at the other
-person. You might be enraged at everyone in the boardroom. Without letting your blood
-pressure rise or wanting to attack them, flip the tables by allowing the anger to drain every
-ounce of fear from you. Then reengage without either anger or fear.
-
-Anger erases social anxiety because when you are angry, you stop caring about what other
-people think and about the intricate hierarchical games of judgment, evaluation, and
-apprehension. For those few seconds you are ready to throw it all out of the window. Even a
-brief flash of anger lasting seconds will harden you, making you callous, unsympathetic and
-allowing you to start over with renewed composure. Sometimes just reminding yourself that
-you are capable of feeling angry and expressing anger in front of others can give you the
-confidence you need to be assertive.
-
-Don’t expect people to read your mind or recognize when things are not in your favor.
-If something bothers you, speak up. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. Say what you
-want to say. You should be at a point in your life where you don’t feel like you have to act like
-anybody but yourself. Make sure that you establish non-negotiable boundaries. Don’t tolerate
-intrusions upon your health, family, morals, or psychological well-being. Keep in mind
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-though that you must take responsibility if your assertive words or actions ruffle other
-people’s feathers.
-
-Extreme anger in animals is often called a “red-zone” case. You cannot reason with an
-animal whose rage circuit is fully active. It is so focused that injuring it will only intensify its
-ferocity. Its objective to kill overpowers any pain you might inflict. It would rather die than
-cease its attack. When the rage circuit is activated in a human, you cannot argue or reason with
-them. Their bodily pain launches a sustained, uninhibited verbal offensive. Don’t ever feel like
-you have to pit yours against theirs. Rather, when someone gets angry at you, think of it as an
-opportunity to explain your true intentions and give them the information they need to feel less
-threatened. There is a good chance that their accusation is totally valid given that they don’t
-have the information they need to see it from your point of view. Also, a person cannot stay
-mad at you if you don’t get defensive. Like a truly dominant mammal, tackle the situation with
-assertion, not infuriation.
-
-In Chapter 1, we learned that the neurological systems for predation and aggression are
-distinct. When a predatory mammal attacks prey, its rage circuit is entirely inactive. However,
-when a mammal attacks a member of its species out of anger, the rage circuit lights up. Be a
-person that doesn’t attack members of its species. Rather, attack the misunderstanding at
-hand. Imagine being a cat stalking in the grass without an ounce of anger or aggression
-aroused, calmly approaching your prey completely naive of negative intent. Wouldn’t it be
-more effective to use this manner in a hostile social situation than outrage or defensiveness?
-
-You might ask whether avoiding anger will cause suppressed emotion. It is commonly
-supposed that if people suppress anger toward others, they will end up “bottling it all inside.”
-But this act of bottling is equivalent to nothing more than muscle tension, something you have
-now been trained to recognize and release. As long as you do not start bracing and continue to
-breathe diaphragmatically, you are not suppressing anger. You are deflecting it. And this is
-healthy. As any endocrinologist will tell you, getting angry is like taking a small dose of slow
-acting poison. It raises blood pressure, strains the heart, damages arteries, and causes
-cholesterol-filled fat cells to empty into the bloodstream.
-
-As with fear, every time you become adversarial, the emotion fortifies related brain
-pathways, making you a more petulant person. Every time you “indulge” in negativity, you
-encourage tiny incremental alterations in your neural architecture that make it harder to be
-positive.® Conversely, every time you transcend anger, your capability to rise above it is
-increased. So, the next time you find yourself using your imagination to plan a tirade or spew
-venom, just stop and move on to something else.
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-Ilustration 24.1: A. Gorillas fighting; B. Dogs fighting; C. Dog with tail between the legs.
-
-Use Proximity, Touch, and Eye Contact for Reconciliation
-
-Physical conflicts are frequent in both monkeys and apes. Heart rates skyrocket, suppressed
-anger is unleashed, and the fur can fly. What happens afterward is what is important. Most
-conflicts, even violent ones, don’t create distance because the animals tend to be intimate soon
-after the aggressive incident. They want to make up. As with our hunter-gatherer ancestors,
-chimps in a troop are usually stuck with each other, so reconciliation is necessary.
-
-After a fight, chimps first seek out eye contact. The former opponents may sit opposite
-each other for 15 minutes or more, trying to catch the other’s eye. One makes the first
-conciliatory move, holds out a hand, pants in a friendly way, then approaches for mutual
-grooming. Sometimes within a minute of a fight, apes will rush toward each other, kiss,
-embrace fervently, and then proceed to groom each other and even lick each other’s wounds.
-This close physical contact is what makes reconciliation possible.
-
-As they groom and make up, their heart rates and breathing rates return to ordinary levels.
-If the two primates don’t spend time in close proximity, giving their hearts a chance to calm
-down in each other’s presence, they may never salvage their relationship. Think of some people
-that you have trouble getting along with. How do you make up with them after a spat? Failure
-to reconcile may stem from the fact that you have not made time to decrease your
-cardiorespiratory output in their immediate presence. If you have relationships that you want
-to heal, all it may take is a one-on-one “chill-out” session involving togetherness, eye contact,
-physical touch, and mutual diaphragmatic breathing.
-
-Making Your Calm-Assertive Energy Composed and Nonconfrontational
-
-Animal trainer Cesar Millan uses the term “calm-assertive energy” to describe the aura of a
-pack leader. In his book, Cesar’s Way, he underscores that when an owner leverages this aura
-with their pets, it convinces them to trust and value the owner’s authority.’ He explains how
-even a small child can gain command over a 150-pound Pitbull if they exude calm-assertive
-energy. To wield it, you must appear austere, like you have strong expectations that others will
-respect your boundaries.
-
-Millan explains that your pet dog does not want to be your equal. It either wants to be
-dominant or inferior. He describes how most problem dogs that he treats try to assert their
-dominance over their doting owners. Dominance displays used by pet dogs include jumping at
-people, insisting on being fed, being the first out the door, pulling the owner by the leash
-during walks, excessive barking, being unresponsive to commands, and many others. They tend
-to develop these behaviors when their owner is neither calm nor assertive.
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-Most dogs will gladly accept their owner’s dominance unless they believe that the owner’s
-energy is too weak. Dogs know that when a leader has wimpy energy, the “pack” is
-compromised. For its safety and your protection, it will try to pick up the slack by asserting its
-dominance. The same goes for children. Many well-intentioned parents are unwittingly
-submissive to their offspring and end up with aggressive, frustrated kids. The same goes for
-everyone in your life. If you are not using calm-assertive energy, they will want to keep you
-down so that you don’t compromise the chain of command that is so important to survival.
-Thus, your coworkers, friends, and family have instincts that tell them they don’t want to be
-your equal. Because they want the tribe to have the most strong-minded leader, they prefer to
-either lead or follow someone stronger.
-
-Near the end of his book, The Ape in the Corner Office, Richard Conniff concludes: “Status
-competition and hierarchy are inescapable facts of primate life. Though we disparage them,
-they are also essential tools for encouraging high performance and domestic tranquility.” He is
-right. When the pecking order is stable in groups of chickens, the hens fight less and lay more
-eggs. Fighting is vastly reduced in chimps where the dominance hierarchy is established. This is
-also true in humans. For example, when dominance roles are well defined in a business merger,
-it usually goes smoothly, but if roles are left undefined, there is much more friction.® Conniff
-believes that prosocial dominance is what we should strive for. To him, it is about making
-friends, employing compromise and persuasion, and getting people to work with you toward
-common goals and the better good.
-
-| mostly agree with Conniff. But | have this to add: Let us make our posture and body
-language as stable and secure as possible, our speech as rational and friendly as possible.
-Beyond this, let us not try to force our eminence on anyone. Instead, we should let others make
-inferences about relative dominance without attempting to persuade them or twist their arm.
-
-Thus, | recommend using calm-assertive energy combined with a non-dominating/non-
-submissive demeanor to convince others (against their instincts) that the best strategy is to be
-equals. | think that these comparisons with animal behavior suggest a golden rule of social
-hierarchy: Treat others as if they are neither above you nor below you in the status hierarchy
-and as if they have never done anything wrong. We will build on this in the next section.
-
-Forgiving Transgression
-“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.” — Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
-
-Although | think we should be quick to forgive, we must let wrongdoers know what they did
-was unacceptable. If someone wrongs you, address it assertively and immediately. Tell them
-which of your boundaries they crossed and by how much. Even tell them exactly how you
-expect them to proceed. However, if they are not doing anything wrong in the next moment,
-treat them as if they have never done anything wrong in their life. This proves to them that you
-trust them to improve. This involves not saying things like: “You never listen to me,” “You’re
-always doing that,” “You don’t care about anyone else,” and “You'll never change.” Keeping
-score or holding grudges only leads to bitterness on both sides.
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-Conflict Activity #24.5: Treat Others as if They Have Never Done Wrong
-
-Imagine what it would be like to treat everyone in your life as if they had never done
-anything bad, hurtful, or thoughtless. Imagine relating to each person as an equal and a
-trusted soulmate that has never harmed or insulted you in any way. Imagine your parents
-this way, followed by your siblings, extended family, friends, children, coworkers—everyone.
-Start over with a clean slate. Even better, throw the slate away and stop keeping tallies. This
-will free you from the encumbrance of having to keep score, withhold affection, and mete
-out extended punishments. Doing so can play a massive role in making relationships more
-peaceable and equitable.
-
-Don’t Punish Because People Don’t Sympathize with Your Aggression
-
-No one is going to perceive your anger as valid if it is directed toward them. Even if you feel like
-you are justified in getting angry, as long as it is directed toward them, they will perform
-whatever mental gymnastics necessary to frame you as the victimizer. You may see your
-actions as retaliation, but they see it as arbitrary abuse. That is why | don’t chastise even when
-| have a clear opportunity. Resorting to belligerent tactics is the best way to provide an
-antagonist with more ammunition. Also, keep in mind that every time you get upset, a negative
-part of the other person wins. Every time you keep your cool, that same part is diminished.
-Punishment is not a sustainable way to get what we want out of people. Rewarding them with
-stern attention, compassion, and love is.
-
-When someone acts rude, treat them as an animal that you are training that has not
-performed a trick properly. Anyone that has trained a pet knows that you withhold the food,
-you wait, you keep talking to it, and you just give it another chance. You don’t take punitive
-action against the animal unless it has physically harmed you or someone else. It is not our
-place to punish anyone unless they have physically harmed us. Cultivate the same kind of
-patience with people that you might use with an abused pet. Be a lenient but firm master.
-
-Recognize Psychopathy in Yourself and Others
-
-In computer science, there is a concept known as “device hardening” by which a computer's
-vulnerabilities are reduced by various means. These constrain the available methods of attack
-by hackers and viruses. Such methods include changing default passwords, disabling
-unnecessary services, applying patches, closing network ports, and setting up firewalls and
-intrusion prevention systems. Reading this book has put you through a process of hardening.
-The exercises provide stress tests and stress proofing. You have been fortified, and the
-vulnerabilities in your head, thorax, and abdomen will continue to be reduced as long as you
-take part in the exercises. This hardening process has strengthened you but also made you
-susceptible to psychopathic behavior. This is why | want to address the nature of psychopathy
-so that some readers do not let their newfound composure corrupt them.
-
-In this section, | will try to convince you that we have something to learn from the
-psychopath. They have a form of strength that we want for ourselves but also a tendency to
-hurt others, which we don’t. Let’s start by describing what we don’t want. Psychopathy is a
-personality disorder characterized by bold, disinhibited behavior, as well as impaired empathy
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-and remorse. Many psychopaths are serial bullies. They often parasitize the people around
-them, constantly committing offenses, many of which are non-arrestable. They exhibit
-Machiavellian self-interest and are often not concerned with the psychological damage they
-inflict on their targets. They are frequently negativistic, impatient, intemperate, embittered,
-oppositional, over-competitive, petulant, and mean-spirited. They can be easily slighted, quickly
-disillusioned, and have a penchant for wanting to punish others. They use pain as an instrument
-of power and leave people worse off than they found them. We don’t want to follow suit.
-
-The people that | know personally on the psychopathy spectrum set people up to cross
-their lines of decency so that they can retaliate. They love their “mean” personality. They think
-that it is smart, witty, and cool. But no one that | know who is proud of being mean is
-respectable. And | know several. They are all socially disabled hypocrites. They all cross their
-close friends and family more than anyone else, and their behavior inevitably results in tragedy.
-
-Psychopaths make up only around 1% of the population. However, each of us can become
-psychopathic in certain contexts. People are more likely to callously abuse others in situations
-when they become angry or when they believe they are dominant. When someone is calmly
-rude to you, they are attempting to be a cat toying with a mouse. In other words, they are
-trying to build the experience of being a predator with a total disregard for how it might be
-affecting you. Never let yourself be that mouse. If someone is psychopathic with you, | think it
-is fair to be psychopathic back. In the next few paragraphs, | will explain what | mean: that it is
-fair to be without empathy, although not sadistic.
-
-The research literature on the psychology and neuroscience of psychopathy is extensive.
-To boil it down, psychopaths exhibit alterations in emotional brain areas that cause them to be
-callous and fearless. Interestingly, their amygdala can be utterly unresponsive to many types of
-social stressors. Psychopaths have reduced sympathetic responsiveness while looking at
-distressing pictures. The same is true when they look at pictures of other people in distress.
-This has caused researchers to conclude that they have a lack of empathy. They are poor at
-naming fearful emotional expressions.’ They also exhibit a diminished response to conditioned
-punishment, less fear, and reduced startle reflex to myriad startling stimuli.2° Social conflict
-doesn’t increase their heart rate or breathing rate, and does not cause them to brace. They are
-often reported to be charismatic and exhibit superficial charm. They are capable of these things
-because they do not feel pressured to self-handicap.
-
-But none of these neurological predispositions toward insensitivity necessarily make them
-bad. A biological predisposition to being unafraid, in and of itself, doesn’t make the psychopath
-evil. Unfortunately, it often causes them to make social mistakes and flout norms. The people
-that they unintentionally hurt punish them for these mistakes. | believe the resulting constant
-conflict turns them into bad people over time. But the “bad” doesn’t derive from their innate
-fearlessness; the bad comes in if the repercussions of that fearlessness cause them to start
-taking delight in others’ pain.
-
-Some people find pleasure in hurting others. These people show activity in the brain’s
-reward circuit (the ventral striatum) when shown videos depicting deliberate infliction of pain.+
-When they watch someone maliciously prick another with a needle, they feel amusement and
-gratification. Some psychopaths exhibit this, but many do not. Psychopaths don’t necessarily
-want to hurt people, but they are willing to hurt them if they can get what they want.
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-Psychopaths don’t feel another’s pain, sadists enjoy it. Reveling in another’s pain is known as
-sadism and schadenfreude.
-
-Schadenfreude is defined as the feeling of enjoyment that comes from seeing or hearing
-about other people’s troubles. In German, it means “harm-joy.” Sadism is enjoyment in being
-cruel. Sadists don’t choose to feel satisfaction from someone else’s misfortune. It is
-neurological and usually derives from a combination of early experiences and genetics.
-However, you can confront any tendencies you may have toward sadism, and you and | are
-obligated to do so. Harm-joy is evil. Draw a hard line in the sand.
-
-Activity #24.6: Analyze Your Tendencies Toward Sadism
-
-How do you imagine your brain’s reward centers respond to other people’s pain or
-misfortune? Can you think of a time when something grim happened to someone, and you
-became excited or experienced pleasure? How could you become more aware of this
-tendency as it happens? How could you interrupt or undermine it if you recognized it?
-
-Ask yourself, “How can | take the strength and fearlessness from psychopathy without any
-hint of sadism?”
-
-You want to be psychopathic when it comes to the dominance hierarchy. You want to be
-stone-cold when people attack you. To be assertive, sometimes you need to throw excessive
-empathy out of the window. | am advocating a type of ruthlessness that is not destructive,
-where you don’t worry about what other people think of you, and your heart bleeds for no one.
-You are not doing anything wrong though because, outside of self-defense, you are too
-confident and compassionate to feel the desire to hurt others in revenge.
-
-Lessons from Breaking My Nose
-In Chapter 8, | recounted how my nose was broken at a McDonald’s at age 17. | didn’t tell the
-whole embarrassing story. | walked up to the McDonalds restaurant with an exaggerated
-posture. | was trying to be a little cooler than | really was. Another 17-year-old in the parking
-lot didn’t like it. He said several unkind things to me, and | asked him to leave me alone.
-He followed me inside and continued to menace me. While | was standing in line to order food,
-he made a final, unprovoked, disparaging comment. | didn’t consider him a threat, so | reached
-out and gently pulled the brim of his baseball cap down below his eyes. | expected that it would
-take a couple of seconds for him to fix his hat. Without even pushing the brim back up, he
-immediately tilted his head upward so that he could see me and threw a swift right cross to
-my nose.
-
-There are four things we can learn from this. First, | shouldn’t have pushed his hat down.
-It was the wrong thing to do. It leaped over the line from assertion to aggression. When we
-touch someone else without being welcomed to do so, it is a violation of something sacred.
-We shouldn’t ever touch people in anger unless it is in self-defense.
-
-The second lesson | found in this is that any fight can do a lot of damage. The blow broke
-my skull in multiple places. Parts of the nasal bone, maxilla, and septum were fragmented.
-The surgeon said he had to pick out many bits of shattered bone from my face. The emergency
-room doctors told me the injury was consistent with being hit with a bat or a club. But | wasn’t
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-hit with a club. | remember distinctly being hit with a fist. | was only hit once by a 17-year-old
-boy that must have weighed less than 150 pounds. | think this should be a lesson for all of us.
-Any act of physical violence can have severe costs, and just one strike from anyone has the
-potential to do grave damage. We don’t want our faces broken, and we don’t want to break
-anyone else’s face, either. Tell yourself that fighting is not worth the costs. Prepare yourself to
-skillfully and gracefully decline physical violence when it confronts you. This will give you the
-peace of mind to rise above it.
-
-Third, if you are going to walk around with optimal posture, you must be well-prepared to
-deal with people trying to call your bluff. | was assaulted because | had my chest puffed up.
-
-But | have since proved to myself that it is all in the way you do it. | walk around expressionless
-with my chest inflated and neck completely retracted all the time now. But | am not putting on
-airs, it is not a form of submissive threat, and | do it with no remorse but also with no
-animosity. No one seems to question it or get angry about it. To be honest, I’m not sure that
-
-| could pull it off in a penitentiary. But | can pull it off safely in any neighborhood in the world.
-
-| promise you that. And | promise that you can do it too. The key is just to do it without an
-ounce of anger in your heart.
-
-Number four. As recounted in Chapter 8, having my nose broken changed my facial posture
-and increased the amount of repetitive strain in my facial muscles, but it did something else
-much more insidious. It stopped me from breathing nasally. A few months after the incident,
-| started having difficulty breathing through my nose. | resigned to being an obligate mouth
-breather. Contrary to what | assumed, however, my nasal passage hadn’t been narrowed by the
-damage. Rather, the disuse narrowed it.
-
-After the nose break, it was packed with gauze for two weeks, so | learned not to breathe
-nasally. Because | learned by habit to breathe through my mouth, my diaphragm atrophied,
-and my tidal range shrunk. Nasal breathing became difficult—not because my nasal passage
-was any smaller but because my diaphragm had grown weak. | was no longer able to breathe
-slowly, smoothly, and at long enough intervals to make nose breathing tenable.
-
-After the cascade of physical and social repercussions of being a mouth breather, | went
-from being moderately popular in high school to very unpopular in college. As recounted in
-Chapter 11, | recently forced myself to start breathing through my nose again, and it was
-difficult at first. Taping my mouth helped. Now it is second nature, and it helped me reclaim the
-calmness and composure of my youth.
-
-Four interesting lessons from one traumatic incident. Funnily enough, it took me more than
-20 years to learn them. How many of our instances of trauma hold important lessons for us?
-
-Prepare Yourself to Avoid Physical Confrontation
-In this book, | ask you to walk around like you are a superhero. This can be dangerous as it can
-arouse insecurity in others and could cause them to assault you. You need a few good
-conciliatory displays in your arsenal. There are many things you can do at the last second to
-forestall an attack. Just knowing that you have these is empowering and will help you keep
-unphased when provoked.
-
-Practicing a head nod greeting can prepare you to extract yourself from tense situations.
-The head nod consists of two movements: a quick motion either up or down and then a slightly
-slower motion resetting the head to its original setting. Nodding up is more assertive and can
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-be perceived as a challenge if it is not accompanied by a smile or an eyebrow raise.
-Nodding down is more modest.
-
-Nodding down can be a helpful way to acknowledge someone and diffuse tension created
-by eye contact between strangers. The fact that you stayed composed while you acknowledged
-the other person civilly with a nod before they acknowledged you shows that you do not feel
-threatened and are not trying to threaten. Practicing a several head nods in front of a mirror
-will train you to nod reassuringly after a tense or unexpected encounter with a stranger.
-
-Conflict Activity #24.7: Head Nod Greeting
-
-Practice a friendly head nod. It may help at first to do this in front of a mirror, making eye
-contact with yourself. Start by nodding down quickly and then back up. Practice both upward
-and downward nods. Repeat a few dozen times until you get the hang of it. Nodding once is a
-positive display that will usually invite the other person to nod back and relax.
-
-Use the mentalis muscle at the bottom of the chin to raise the chin toward the mouth.
-
-You might combine this with a risorious smile by drawing the corners of the lips outwards
-without smiling up into the cheeks. Then combine this with the nod. Using the mentalis
-muscles to raise the chin while flashing a risorious smile sends a stern but friendly signal that
-diffuses suspicion.
-
-Prepare yourself with dispassionate lines that will alleviate anger. These include:
-“Excuse me, friend,” “I’m not looking for any trouble,” or, simply, “Hello, may | help you?”
-Say something peaceful while breathing deeply. This will advertise that you are neither afraid
-nor angry. If the person looks upset and confronts you physically, you might want to diffuse
-tension by calmly introducing yourself. You could advance a single fist for them to “bump” their
-fist against or advance an open hand to initiate a handshake.
-
-What is the best way to shake hands? It is pretty easy. Open the web between your thumb
-and index finger wide and make an effort to stick it firmly into their web. Keep your palm flat
-rather than cupped so that you can increase the surface area of contact between your palms.
-Wrap your hand around theirs and squeeze firmly. Don’t allow anyone to twist your wrist
-during the shake. Shake athletically from the elbow and linger for a moment. A firm handshake
-that moves fluidly up and down shows that you are not trembling. Much of the same goes for
-hugs. Hugs should be nourishing; long, firm, and without startling or any sudden involuntary
-movements.
-
-Negative Physical Encounters
-
-“if someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”
-— Epictetus (c. 50-135)
-
-Come to grips with the fact that you may have to fight to protect yourself or others.
-
-Animal behaviorists almost always recommend that you fight back fiercely if attacked by an
-animal. Criminologists recommend that you do the same if assaulted by a human. Don’t attack
-until after they have launched the first offensive, but once they do, you have carte blanche.
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-Fight fair, but fight with zest, gumption, and a determination to end the altercation quickly and
-with as little destructiveness as necessary. Keep in mind that you can be legally and financially
-liable for any injuries you cause and that if you gravely hurt the person or kill them, you could
-end up in jail for decades or even for the rest of your life.
-
-In most escalating situations, if the person can tell that you are not afraid of fighting them
-but are also not intentionally provoking them, they will leave you alone. The best way to avoid
-a fight is to show with your face that you are not scared at all and that you are not interested.
-No one is going to want to fight you if you look like you are disinterested in fighting. You want
-your attitude to say, “Oh, we can certainly fight, but only as a last resort.” | have found that it
-can help to tell yourself that you do not fight civilians, just monsters, supervillains, evil robots,
-invading aliens, and extreme threats to good.
-
-It can also help to stop thinking of physical combat as traumatic. Don’t fear it or give it
-more power than it deserves. People that fight frequently think little of it. Think of it as a right
-of passage or as a game that you are willing to play if necessary. It is an undertaking that serves
-as a final deciding factor in a dispute. Even if you lose, remain relaxed: “Hey, | lost, you got me.”
-or “Well, the fella whupped me pretty good, so | suppose he can have his way this time.”
-
-There should be no shame in declining to fight or in losing a fight.
-
-Many people find themselves pulled into fights due to an immature sign of petulance on
-their faces. They are displaying an air of submissive threat. Primates generally make two kinds
-of threats: confident and subordinate. Subordinate threats are reckless. They come from a
-place of fear and pain and have startle embedded within them. Most threats in humans and
-primates are subordinate.
-
-Monkeys will stare, jerk their head, lunge forward, or fake-charge to try to get another
-group member to submit. These are usually bluffs. Many wild animals will stop altogether if the
-other merely holds its ground. Even 14,000 pound charging elephants are known to turn away
-at the last second from a human standing calmly with planted feet. People relying on physical
-intimidation are looking for easy targets. It is the same when people try to criticize you.
-
-Those who crumble get picked on forever. Don’t be intimidated. Plant your feet. If you act
-afraid of a carnivorous mammal, this “forces” it to become more aggressive. If you act afraid
-of other people, it similarly “forces” them, instinctively, to persecute you further.
-
-How would you act if you encountered a wolf or mountain lion on a hike? Ideally, you
-would want to act dominant and indifferent (but always letting the animal know you’re aware
-of its every movement). If you do this properly, it will keep a safe distance most of the time,
-as you’re telling it you feel secure enough to claim and remain in your territory. You are
-communicating that you pose a greater threat to it than it does to you. This is the mindset to
-use in public places. You want to implicitly communicate that you pose a bigger threat to others
-than they pose to you but that you have no desire or intent to harm.
-
-If we can resolve to refrain from physical violence until it is the very last option, we can
-greatly reduce our level of stress because the expectation of physical conflict is one of the main
-things that causes us to brace our chakra-like modules. Actively refraining from violence is an
-age-old practice. The Hindu and Buddhist practice of “ahimsa” (from the Sanskrit word for
-“noninjury”) is a doctrine of renouncing any form of violence toward any living being. It is a
-beautiful way to live life.
-
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-Conclusion
-
-“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” — Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
-
-Because our brains expect that we will be actively competing for food and sex, they expect us
-to have enemies. Genetically prepared instincts influence us to take the closest thing they can
-find to an enemy and villainize them. This is also why, if you put two unfamiliar adult cats into
-a room, they will probably not get along. You might desperately want them to get along—
-they might be happier if they did—but, often, they cannot get past their reflexive defense
-mechanisms. This confused, displaced hostility is also present in the modern workplace, and
-home where conflict seems to be the norm. It is all too easy for values and prehistoric
-programming to clash. Anger often erupts out of an interaction between two people who both
-feel they are completely reasonable. As with the cats, this is largely neurological.
-
-A large proportion of animals will attack their reflection when they see a mirror for the first
-time. Apes will commonly take offense from their own body posturing. They send and receive
-threatening displays to their reflection until they provoke themselves into assaulting the mirror.
-If you saw a mirror image of yourself and didn’t recognize it, would you be offended by your
-own social displays? Could you get along with yourself?
-
-Some animals see their reflections in the mirror and want to play. Isn’t that beautiful?
-
-Let us be that way. Why not carry ourselves in a way that influences others to be playful?
-We will delve into this in the next chapter.
-
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-Chapter 24: Bullet Points
-
-e Hostility is associated with heart disease, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and
-inflammation.
-
-e There is no need to be right or make anyone else wrong.
-
-e Don’t embed barbs in your comments.
-
-e Never let anything anyone says cause you to beat yourself up from the inside.
-
-e Use skillful assertion to bring out the best in people.
-
-e Doas muchas you can to see others as tribe members, collaborators, and players on the
-same team rather than rivals.
-
-e You should never feel forced to choose between being a nice guy no one respects and
-being a jerk who gets everything he wants.
-
-@ When dealing with a difficult person, you want to sidestep their negativity and take the
-shortcut to the outcome that you want while remaining fair and equitable.
-
-e Resist the emotional urge to take offense and pursue vengeance.
-
-e Respond to provocation with calm non-contention.
-
-e Handle conflict charismatically.
-
-e Never respond as if you are reacting to bullying. Never be a victim.
-
-e Trying to be better than other people and outdo them is exhausting and ends up taxing
-your health.
-
-e Cultivate self-awareness for your tendency to take out frustrations and transfer blame.
-
-e Don’t let anyone grab you by the breath.
-
-e Acknowledge that your actions and opinions are fallible.
-
-e Feel comfortable apologizing and offering clarification for your behaviors.
-
-e Avoid implicitly condoning acts of incivility that you witness.
-
-e Lower your constant guard against perceived diminishment and loss of ego.
-
-e Reframe the offenses of others as shortcomings in priorities, judgment, social maturity,
-and word choice.
-
-e Demonstrate more interest in finding a solution than in defending a position.
-
-e Retain your peace regardless of the other person’s disposition.
-
-e Listen to and make an effort to understand others’ perspectives without interrupting.
-
-e Instead of contradicting the contribution of another, think about how you can build on
-top of it.
-
-e Beapsychopath with a heart of gold.
-
-e Be absolutely unflappable. Pretend you are a god if need be. That calm exterior starts as
-a bluff but becomes a way of life.
-
-e Assume the best or neutral motives in others. Maintain an objective stance when
-conflict arises.
-
-e Instead of taking in the worst from everyone and reacting against it, selectively take the
-best and channel it into everything you do.
-
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-Chapter 24: Endnotes
-
-1. Andersson, L., & Pearson, C. (1999). Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the
-workplace. The Academy of Management Review, 24, 452-471.
-
-2. Porath, C. L., & Erez, A. (2007). Does rudeness really matter? The effects of rudeness on
-task performance and helpfulness. Academy of Management Journal, 50(5), 1181-1197.
-
-3. Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science,
-308(5722), 648-652.
-
-4. Shepherd, S. V., & Platt, M. L. (2010). Neuroethology of attention in primates. In M. L. Platt
-& A. A. Ghazanfar (Eds.), Primate neuroethology (pp. 525-549). Oxford University Press.
-
-5. Panksepp J. (2010). Affective neuroscience of the emotional BrainMind: evolutionary
-perspectives and implications for understanding depression. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience,
-12(4), 533-545.
-
-6. Maletic, V. M., Robinson, M., Oakes, T., lyengar, S., Ball, S. G., & Russell, J. (2007).
-Neurobiology of depression: An integrated view of key findings. International Journal of Clinical
-Practice, 61(12), 2030-2040.
-
-7. Millan, C., & Peltier, M. J. (2006). Cesar’s way: The natural, everyday guide to
-understanding & correcting common dog problems. Random House.
-
-8.  Conniff, R. (2015). The ape in the corner office. Random House.
-
-9. Blair, R., & Coles, M. (2000). Expression recognition and behavioral problems in early
-adolescence. Cognitive Development, 15(4). pp.421—434; Stevens, D., Charman, T., & Blair,
-R. J. R. (2001). Recognition of emotion in facial expressions and vocal tones in children with
-psychopathic tendencies. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 162(2), 201-211.
-
-10. Blair, R. J. R. (1999). Responsiveness to distress cues in the child with psycholopathic
-tendencies. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 135-145; Levenston, G., Patrick, C.,
-Bradley, M., & Lang, P. (2000). The psychopath as observer: Emotion and attention in picture
-processing. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 373-385.
-
-11. Buckholtz, J. W., Treadway, M. T., Cowan, R. L., Woodward, N. D., Benning, S. D., Li, R.,
-Ansari, M. S., Baldwin, R. M., Schwartzman, A. N., Shelby, E. S., Smith, C. E., Cole, D., Kessler,
-
-R. M., & Zald, D. H. (2010). Mesolimbic dopamine reward system hypersensitivity in individuals
-with psychopathic traits. Nature neuroscience, 13(4), 419-421.
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-512
-Chapter 25: Finding Happiness Through Playfulness
-& Composed Kindness
-
-“No one can live happily who has regard to himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own
-utility; you must live for your neighbor, if you would live for yourself.” — Seneca (c. 4 BCE - 65)
-
-“Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” — Ralph Waldo
-Emerson (1803-1882)
-
-People are often hesitant to be “nice.” It is stigmatized. When we see polite people, they often
-cause us to wonder: “Are they so friendly because they are weak?” This is a common
-contention because being kind often involves slowing down, letting others have their way, and
-handicapping oneself. But equating niceness with weakness is fallacious because being nice
-doesn’t necessarily mean that you allow others to take advantage. This is because it is entirely
-possible to be self-composed when kind. Composed kindness has very few costs. Employing it
-will improve your interpersonal functioning and restore your good faith in others. In Chapter 1,
-| said that people were taking my anxious kindness for weakness, making me into a bitter
-person. You will find that people take your composed kindness for strength, making you into a
-people person.
-
-Every encounter you have with another person is an opportunity for you to practice
-composed kindness. Keep spreading goodwill whether others reciprocate or not. Starting with
-unilateral kindness can help you surmount the other person’s defense mechanisms. Be
-prepared to be the cheerful, helpful chap in a world full of miserable Scrooges. Presume good
-faith and positive intentions. This eventually brings the best out in everyone. You cannot lose so
-long as you maintain your sense of enlightened benevolence, guided by your personal code,
-and centered by unbothered breathing.
-
-Being Cool Is Disarming
-One of the best ways to bring composure to your kindness is by being cool. Done right, it can
-disarm pettiness. What does “acting cool” mean to you? To answer this, think of the top five
-coolest people you know. Who would be on your list of the coolest celebrities? Who were the
-people you looked up to in your youth? When have you been cool in the past? Channel this
-energy. Think urbane, suave, garrulous, jocular, and levelheaded. You want sangfroid, verve,
-cachet, and moxie. Think firmness of character, force of determination, steadiness of nerves,
-unruffled tact, and being powerfully good-natured. Keep the word “savoir-faire” and its
-definition in mind: the ability to speak or behave appropriately and at ease in social situations.
-Being cool means not being afraid of being too calm. This can make you come off as numb
-or detached, and that is okay. Don’t be afraid to zone out on your friends. They may take it as
-aloofness and try to push you away. But if you don’t push back and you leave the door open,
-allowing them to linger, many people will choose to hang out and hang loose with you. Try to
-get them to detach as much as you have, proving that forced extraversion isn’t necessary.
-Take breaks from talking and just take in your surroundings. Never feel pressured to keep
-interacting. Lounge in comfortable silences. Don’t use adrenaline to help you complete your
-sentence or help you find that term on the tip of your tongue. Don’t allow cortisol to dictate
-
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-your personality at the event. Instead, use serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin to help you
-build rapport.
-
-Being cool is about having sustainable body language in social situations. You want to
-operate in a way that would not fatigue even if you had to socialize for 48 hours straight.
-
-How would you behave if you knew that you would be awake, surrounded by people and face-
-to-face interactions for two full days? You would have to pace yourself. This would require you
-to allow plenty of micro-breaks to each of various modules. Your face, voice, breath,
-
-and posture would have to be indefatigable (invulnerable to fatigue). And if you were to
-maintain your assertiveness for the duration, you would have to be very “cool.” Almost every
-one of the exercises in this book will enhance your cool. Facial massage, gut compression,
-vocal rehab, and increasing diaphragm range will all contribute significantly.
-
-For your coolness to be tenable in the long term, you must act like everyone else is cool.
-When you treat someone else as though they were cool, you validate them. Thus, the best way
-to make yourself seem normal and well-functioning is to treat everyone else as normal and
-well-functioning. So, act as if you expect the other person to be confident and at ease in
-everything they say and do.
-
-Act as if Nothing ls Awkward
-
-Most people’s attempts at social dominance center around making others feel as if they are less
-socially skilled. The people around you try to gaslight you into thinking that you are socially
-incompetent. Over time, this caused me to act as if everything | did, and most things that others
-did, was awkward. | felt that | had social shortcomings and owed it to others to use my body
-language to recognize this, or else | was shameless. | would also subtly patronize others for
-their uncouth blunders, thinking it would be dishonest to ignore these. This led me into a
-downward spiral of awkwardness.
-
-One day | tried the opposite; | acted like nothing anyone did was amateur. | pretended to
-be comfortable with every aspect of the interactions | had. | quickly found that this tactic works
-wonders and that it is at the heart of being cool, as well as being simultaneously nondominating
-and nonsubmissive. The more we treat others as if they are adroit socially, the better they feel
-about themselves and the more they like us. Do this and be shameless about it. Act as if you
-and whoever you’re with are the coolest people on the planet. Once you put this into effect,
-you will find that your gallant speech and actions send chills up your spine. Your own behavior
-will become your primary source of endorphins, and you will get hooked on being assertive in a
-debonair way.
-
-Treating people who are awkward or socially defeated as if they are normal will liberate
-them. We should strive to make everyone feel socially facile even if talking to them is
-uncomfortable at first. Ignore the unrefined aspects of their presentation and express
-enthusiasm for what they are trying to communicate. Move on quickly from their
-embarrassments and bloopers. Ignore any tension leakage they may exhibit. Most people focus
-on all that is ugly and inept in others. When you don’t even perceive these things, you give
-them a chance to blossom.
-
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-
-Being Humble Rescues You from Status Competition
-
-Because our genes have been subjected to the primate status hierarchy for tens of millions of
-years, our brains have a propensity to interpret every occurrence as either a promotion or a
-demotion. It is instinctual. Boasting, for example, becomes common in children as young as
-three. The ego wants to turn relationships into self-aggrandizement. Left unchecked, it will turn
-everyone, even friends and family, into a means to an end. This instinct to constantly defend
-ourselves drains us of the same composure that it intends to conserve.
-
-Indeed, confidence is necessary, but egotism is incredibly tiresome. Paradoxically, taking
-yourself too seriously is a submissive trait. Developing a side of yourself that is humble and
-modest is necessary for being happy. Counterintuitively, it is also empowering because it allows
-you not to be affected by constant demotions. We need humility and unobtrusiveness. They
-afford us a type of confidence that is unconditional and not based on external circumstances.
-
-Happiness Activity #25.1: Renouncing the Ego
-
-Consider the Buddhist concept of “non-self.” The Buddha recommended that we imagine
-having no social identity to protect and obsess over. He asked us to recognize the unreality of
-the self-concept and the need to be better than others. Buddhists use the word “sunyata” to
-describe both the emptiness and the spaciousness that is achieved when the ego disappears.
-Can you get yourself to feel it?
-
-Imagine voluntarily relinquishing your identity, pride, and ego. Imagine having no name, no
-body, and no physical attributes. Imagine having no possessions, education, resume,
-accomplishments, and no reputation in the world. There would be nothing to gloat about,
-but also nothing for others to criticize. There would be no striving for prestige and no social
-comparison. It would mean being formless and self-transcendent. What would it be like to
-have no ego for the rest of your life?
-
-Another aspect of being cool is not being focused on yourself. Don’t think about how
-you are perceived when you are actively socializing. Pretend to have as little self-awareness of
-your appearance as possible. Over time, this will manifest. Impression management and self-
-monitoring can be critical, but at times try to stop thinking about others’ social evaluations of
-you. Tell yourself that you have already had enough approval, compliments, and praise from
-others to last a lifetime and that you don’t need any more. This will help you stop identifying
-with the evaluations of others. An old cliché tells us that confidence isn’t thinking you’re better
-than others; it’s not even bothering to make the comparison. This logic holds. As the charitable,
-big-hearted, alpha-minded individual you are, work toward being oblivious to your conceits.
-
-Healthy humility will make it so that you don’t have to look for evidence of your worth
-anymore. Bring an end to the need to measure yourself against other people. You want to be a
-strong presence that doesn’t glorify or advertise itself. Being humble also precludes you from
-having to continually prove yourself so that you are not embarrassed when you inevitably make
-mistakes. We should be willing and happy to play a game with a friend, even when we know
-she is much better than us. The only person you should be working toward being better than is
-the human being you were yesterday.
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-This next activity is sometimes regarded in Buddhism and Hinduism as the single most
-potent metaphysical practice. It will tear your false pride to shreds and reveal emotional
-maturity underneath it. It involves resisting the temptation to defend yourself in front of
-others. Spiritual author Eckhart Tolle has an insight about this practice: “When you are
-seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute non-reaction, not just externally but
-also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming ‘less,’
-you become more.”
-
-Happiness Activity #25.2: Allowing Diminishment of the Ego
-
-Allow another person to say something to diminish your standing without making any
-attempt to restore it. Allow other people to strike blows to your pride, whether by being
-brusque, criticizing you, blaming you, or saying something explicitly wrong about you. Notice
-how it makes you feel inside. Become comfortable with the discomfort that it creates. Notice
-what your normal response would be and inhibit it. Remember that you are never required
-to retaliate or defend yourself. If the other person is waiting for your response, perhaps
-agree with the part of what they said that is reasonable.
-
-The best way to cultivate inner freedom is to learn to relax around petty, rude, and
-aggressive people. The need to defend yourself will diminish until it becomes clear to everyone
-that there is nothing they can do to aggravate you. Every time you stop yourself from
-overreacting, it gets easier. Likewise, every time you stop yourself from status maneuvering,
-social chess, jockeying for power, and pretending to be someone you are not, it gets easier.
-
-Endearing But Still Composed
-
-This book has argued that we should not act submissive because of the way it increases tension
-in the body over time. However, body and voice movements that take effort or briefly
-compromise composure endear people. There are many ways to do this that come across as
-warm but that are not inferiority displays and won’t lead to repetitive strain. For example,
-some endearing forms of body language include keeping your palms up, moving closer to
-people, pointing your feet toward them, and rubbing your hands together.
-
-We should even use self-handicapping displays at times. Do this judiciously, a little bit at a
-time, without letting it cripple you. If you don’t brace them and give them the micro-breaks
-they need, the modules involved will recharge and can be used again right away with no cost.
-It is endearing to squint, raise the eyebrows, raise the shoulders, crinkle the nose, speak in a
-high voice, and stoop over for brief periods. As long as it only persists for a few seconds and
-trigger points are not made active, it won’t drain you.
-
-Embracing Composed Submissiveness
-
-Up until now, this book has denigrated submissiveness. We have discussed various ways that it
-damages both composure and health. But it is entirely possible to be composed and
-submissive. There are times when composed submissiveness is not just appropriate but also
-beneficial. These are the times when we let or encourage others to lead.
-
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-It can be freeing to be mellow and passive and to support the leadership of others.
-
-Allow other people to take over and yourself to relax when they do. Relish the relief from being
-in charge. Do so while exuding balanced, non-confrontational energy. Perpetual assertion takes
-its toll. It involves intense face time, eye contact, talking, decision making, and an overtaxing of
-existing bracing patterns. It leads to social fatigue and is why high-pressure executives and CEOs
-can age so rapidly. We should be handing over the pack leader role constantly, passing it
-around from person to person, sharing the stage, the crown, and the accompanying burdens.
-
-Often, in real life, we are forced to play an inferior role. At our workplace, we must submit
-to higher-ups to keep our jobs and advance our careers. There are many reasons you should
-treat your boss as the dominant individual. What’s more, it may be best for you, your boss, and
-the business to allow them to act superior in some ways. That said, don’t hurt yourself just to
-let the boss be the boss. Acquiesce appropriately to your employer, law enforcement, judges,
-and other authority figures without diminishing your posture, shortening your breath, or
-surrendering your pride. This will allow you to maintain a healthy serotonin level regardless of
-your place on the corporate ladder.
-
-Just because you don’t try to stop someone from acting dominant doesn’t mean they are
-dominating you. They are only dominating you if you are inhibiting yourself or avoiding
-confrontation with them out of fear. They can never dominate you as long as you stay
-composed. Take sovereignty from needless one-upmanship.
-
-Keep in mind that everyone has essential observations and keen insights to impart.
-
-All humans are our fellows and our equals. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Every man | meet is
-in some way my superior.” So, let every man and woman be your superior at times, especially
-when they have something to teach you. When you see someone do better than you at
-something you value, don’t feel envious or threatened. Instead, feel eager to learn. This is ego
-stability and emotional strength.
-
-When threatened by an intruder, a dominant gorilla will let out a tremendous roar, charge,
-and knock down the newcomer with an immense hand swipe. However, outside of defending
-themselves and their group members, dominant gorillas do not generally overtly assert their
-rank.* Even though gorillas are immense powerhouses, animal behaviorists often describe them
-as shy because, most of the time, they don’t feel like they have anything to prove. It is not that
-they are shy; it is that we are arrogant, pompous, and flagrantly adversarial.
-
-The only way to transcend the dominance hierarchy is to be content when you temporarily
-find yourself in a subordinate position; to be comfortable when others perceive you as
-subordinate without trying to change their mind. You don’t want to be a doormat, but neither
-do you want to be consumed by resisting looking like a doormat. Only doormats worry about
-being doormats.
-
-Our unconscious mind values prestige over happiness. The two are often at odds. You can
-change this by intentionally pursuing happiness over prestige.
-
-Optimism, Excitement, and Feeling Good
-
-It pays to be happy. Optimists live longer, have stronger immune systems, recover from injury
-more quickly, and have increased mental and physical health. Happiness and positive emotions
-are linked to higher earnings, better appraisal at work, relationships of higher quality, and
-increased likability.2 Happy people are perceived as more intelligent, competent, and physically
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-attractive. Optimists cope more effectively with stress, are generally healthier, and are less
-likely to become depressed.? When optimists have coronary bypass surgery, they heal more
-quickly than pessimists.4 Positive thinking results in a cardiovascular system that is less reactive
-to stress.° But how do we become happy in the first place?
-
-Optimists attribute the cause of adverse events to external, specific, and transient factors.
-In other words, they see a tragedy as a one-off fluke. Pessimists, on the other hand, attribute
-failures to their own internal, global, and permanent shortcomings. They see themselves as
-useless and assume the world is out to get them. If this is you, stop it. Regain your optimism by
-recognizing that you have the potential to fix anything and everything that has ever been wrong
-with your life. Recognize that the “future you” will be skilled and competent enough to solve
-any problems that arise.
-
-We are constantly making expressions to ourselves as we go about our days alone.
-Whatever these expressions are, they constitute our true selves. For most people, it’s wincing.
-If that’s you, make the gestures and facial expressions of happiness when you are by yourself.
-The smiling and the postural alterations from previous chapters will help with this. If solitary
-happiness is not practiced regularly, attempts at appearing happy among others will be fake.
-Remember how excited you could become as a child? You had no reservations about expressing
-exuberance and enthusiasm. Nothing is stopping you from feeling zestfully happy right now
-aside from the force of habit.
-
-| have spent much of this book describing how we use our bodily energy to traumatize our
-tissues. This might make you assume that our life force is destructive. It is not. You must
-redirect that same life force away from anxiety and tension toward happiness and joy. The
-more you do this, the less energy there is to sustain stress. Doing so actively reprograms how
-your body routes energy, setting you up for hardwired happiness. Accordingly, all the exercises
-in this book should be done with joy and optimistic expectations. This will make them much
-more powerful.
-
-Be a lifeless corpse when it comes to tension, ego, and pessimism. When it comes to
-playfulness, however, that’s when you want to be alive and spend your chi-like energy on
-positive social displays. Let’s start with laughter.
-
-Laughter in Other Animals
-
-Many mammals laugh. For example, most rodents emit long ultrasonic vocalizations during
-rough and tumble play. The sounds rats and mice make have been described as chirping and
-occur in the 50-kHz range (inaudible to humans). When chirping, they actively seek being
-tickled and played with. They chirp when wrestling, chasing, or searching for one another.
-They chirp during courting and before copulation. Researchers have interpreted rat chirping as
-an expectation of something rewarding and it appears to elicit friendly social approach in other
-members of their species.® It also nullifies anxiety. If you tickle a rat after a fearful situation,
-
-it will neutralize the negative emotions and vastly decrease any fear-related learning going on
-in its brain.
-
-Dogs can pant using heavy, forced exhalations in a way that suggests a form of modified
-laughter. They use it during play. Dogs exposed to a recorded “dog-laugh” exhibit significantly
-reduced stress behaviors, increased tail wagging, the display of the canine “play-face,” as well
-as prosocial behavior such as approaching and licking another dog’s lips.’
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-Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all exhibit laughter-like vocalizations in response to
-physical play, including friendly contact like chasing, wrestling, and tickling.® It is a shallow pant,
-conveying nonaggression that is highly reminiscent of suppressed laughter in humans. Their
-laughter shows the same sonographic pattern as that of human babies. They also use similar
-facial expressions while laughing and are ticklish in the same areas that humans are. Ape
-laughter consists of a series of exhalations and inhalations (like panting). On the other hand,
-human laughter consists of a series of exhalations with no intervening inhalations.?
-
-Mice, dogs, apes, and humans make their breath shallow to create rapport. Insistence on
-breathing at long intervals caused me to stop doing this. | was so focused on diaphragmatic
-breathing that | refused to breathe shallowly even when joking with friends. This is like refusing
-to make anything other than an expressionless face. Think of shallow breathing during fun,
-jovial play as a form of healthy panting that serves as a temporary micro-break or counterpose
-to diaphragmatic breathing. Refusing to pant is refusing to play.
-
-Rehabilitating Your Laughter Will Make It Much More Pleasurable
-
-Gelotology is the study of laughter and the positive effects it can have on the body. Proponents
-advocate the induction of laughter on therapeutic grounds.’° Laughter yoga (hasya yoga) and
-laughter meditation also use voluntary laughter for therapeutic purposes. Studies have shown
-that it alleviates both stress and pain.‘ These practices assume that voluntary or forced
-laughter provides some of the same benefits as spontaneous laughter. Voluntary laughter is
-often done in groups and may turn into real laughter. Participants are instructed to facilitate
-laughing by using “childlike playfulness” and eye contact. These practices are great, but | think
-they do not get down to the issue’s crux. From what | have seen, people who engage in this
-practice are mostly laughing superficially. To reap the benefits, we must isolate and strengthen
-the core laughing reflex.
-
-The muscles involved in laughing have been traumatized by life stress. As an infant, your
-laugh was primordial and bona fide. Years of anxious laughter and worrying that your laugh is
-too aggressive have damaged your instinctual laughing pattern. As you might expect, people
-who are depressed or anxious have the least convincing laughs. Extremely dominant people
-laugh loudly, without hesitating, at whatever they like. Most people, however, stifle their
-laughter in the same way they stifle their posture and breathing. This explains why most adults’
-laughter is eccentric and deviated from the innate laughter pattern.
-
-A baby’s laughter is vivacious and natural. To relearn to laugh genuinely, it is helpful to
-watch infants and toddlers laughing. Take the time to search for videos of “babies laughing”
-on the internet and mimic them. You will see that infants don’t stifle their laughter. They don’t
-worry about their laugh being too forceful or about offending someone. Neither should we.
-Your laugh should shake you to your core and be intensely pleasurable.
-
-A hearty and progressive emptying of the lungs applies a significant load to the diaphragm
-and the muscles of the chest wall, triggering the endorphin system.” This is why social laughter
-is correlated with an elevated pain threshold.*? However, most adult laughs hardly activate
-the pleasure system at all. After years of stifling laughter, we have forgotten how to laugh in
-a way that produces this response. For many people, the diaphragm’s role in laughter has
-been weakened so much that laughter no longer recruits endorphins and is draining rather
-than energizing.
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-Fake or nervous laughter comes from the throat and often results in increased tension
-there. During natural laughter, the diaphragm does most of the work. By training yourself
-to laugh through deep contractions of the diaphragm and abdominals, you can rebuild an
-authentic laugh. These muscles should reach exhaustion and start to fail during a good laugh.
-If your diaphragm and abdominals begin to burn like they did when you were a child, you know
-that you are doing it right. The next exercise will show you exactly how to retrain your
-diaphragm to fully participate in the act of laughing.
-
-Happiness Exercise #25.1: Diaphragmatic Laughing
-
-Practice laughing while exhaling completely. This involves an uninterrupted emptying of the
-lungs. Inhale completely only after you laugh/exhale completely. Your exhale should consist
-of a long series of laughing sounds punctuated by vocal (glottal) closure (“haha” equals two
-glottal closures). The brief closing of the vocal tract (glottis) against the exhalation allows
-pressure to build and makes the laugh sound like a series of rapid-fire punches. They should
-roll out somewhat like the Rs when you roll your tongue. Practice this as an exercise and
-attempt to make the laughter last for at least five seconds, but shoot for 10 to 20 seconds.
-Laugh all the way to the bottom of your range of exhalation. Use the principles of anti-
-rigidity. Try the following variations:
-
-1) Focus on and coordinate the laughs (glottal closures) so that they proceed at a
-smooth and steady rate.
-
-2) Notice inadvertent irregularities in timing, as well as the tendency to gulp,
-choke, or falter, and iron these out. It’s okay if it sounds mechanical and
-robotic at first while you are relearning the basics.
-
-3) Cause the punctuated exhalations to roll out as fast as possible while
-maintaining a fixed rhythm. After you gain coordination in speeding them up,
-try slowing them down.
-
-4) Do this using your voice at various pitches but focus most on using a deep
-voice to create a deep laugh.
-
-5) Explore your preferred ways of laughing, varying resonance, inflection, and
-timing. Modulate each in as many ways as possible.
-
-6) Employ different melodies and model other people’s laughs. Spend time
-listening to and imitating actor Mark Hamill’s maniacal Joker laugh.
-
-7) Try laughing while exhaling completely until it turns into a wheeze and you
-feel you don’t have a cubic centimeter of air left in your lungs. Ensure that the
-laughing pattern remains coordinated even at the bottom of your exhalation.
-This will greatly strengthen the muscles involved.
-
-8) Don’t raise your shoulders when you laugh and focus on keeping them pushed
-toward the floor. Maintain the tenets of optimal posture. Don’t allow your
-spine to curve into a forward “C” shape. You might try lying on your stomach
-while you laugh to ensure that your spine is straight.
-
-9) Do this with a thoroughly relaxed face or while you massage your face so that
-you can laugh heartily without intense facial constriction. Induce paroxysms of
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-laughter without raising the eyebrows, squinting, sneering, or tensing any
-other muscles.
-
-10) The pressure to keep exhaling should be forceful and have a life of its own. It
-should feel like a boa constrictor is wrapped around your chest, squeezing you
-hard and only giving you a short period to inhale every few seconds.
-
-11) Laugh authoritatively, compellingly, boldly, forcefully, mightily. Work on
-making it contagious.
-
-Because the muscles are strained, stagnant, and uncoordinated, your laugh may sound like
-that of an insane villain at first. But, with practice, it will become friendly and ebullient. It is
-important to do this exercise loudly, gleefully, and unhesitatingly, so make sure that you are not
-worried about others hearing you. Do it in a closet or, better yet, in the car.
-
-It will be uncomfortable at first. The muscles you engage may be so weak that they feel
-susceptible to damage. Mine certainly were. If so, take it easy the first few days and build up to
-doing it vigorously. Use laughter to work out the cramp in your diaphragm. This exercise is a
-powerful complement to diaphragmatic breathing exercises and will help you reach muscles
-that you otherwise could not. To this end, try it while lying on your stomach, from a forward
-fold, or from happy baby pose with your belly pushed out.
-
-At first, the laughing exercise should make you feel weary. After only one week, you will be
-able to push harder and be more adept at coordinating the pulses of laughter. After a few
-weeks, you will be good at it and find yourself laughing more often. This exercise transformed
-my laugh from a flimsy, perfunctory, courtesy laugh into something enjoyable. Now | laugh
-spontaneously, heartily, resolutely, and much more frequently. | find laughing tremendously
-gratifying, and things that were barely amusing to me before are now hilarious.
-
-| believe that laughing evolved to help humans let off steam. It may have allowed instances
-of camaraderie and social bonding to influence an individual’s life strategy to place less value
-on the adaptive aspects of trauma. In other words, the more conducive your environment is to
-laughing, the more your body assumes that your environment is a good one and that it is safe
-to be optimistic. A real laugh was probably designed by evolution to help us attain a full-range,
-hard contraction of the diaphragm. As with pant-hooting (Exercise 11.6), this contraction
-relieves the diaphragm of the partial contraction caused by stress and shallow breathing.
-
-The more you rehabilitate your laugh, the more you increase your diaphragm’s potential
-for providing you with endorphins. Remember that endorphins are most reliably produced by
-grooming, singing, laughing, and play.!4 These are addressed in Chapter 6, Chapter 12, this
-section, and the next section, respectively,
-
-Some people with relatively calm nasopharynxes can clear their nasopharynx in the same
-way others clear their throats. It is like snorting, except it involves breathing out rather than
-breathing in. Some people call it a nose laugh. | see it as a dominance signal conveying that the
-person’s nasopharynx is not tense. When my nasopharynx was tense, | was incapable of
-doing it. Once you have compressed your nasopharynx using the exercises in Chapter 11,
-you can build the coordination to perform this empowering laugh.
-
-Some people use this signal to laugh at something they find inferior, like rolling the eyes.
-Please don’t use it derisively or to ridicule people. Instead, use it as a heartfelt laugh to
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-communicate that you are enjoying absurdity. People usually find it exciting, and it makes them
-want to laugh along with you.
-
-Happiness Exercise #25.2: Laugh through the Nasopharynx
-
-Use a brief (0.5 to 3 seconds) but powerful exhalation to force air out through your
-nasopharynx with the mouth closed. This snort is similar to a scoff or chortle. It sometimes
-arises when you try to withhold laughter. First practice doing it in small, short bursts to
-develop the proper coordination so that you can build up to doing it in a prolonged way.
-With practice, you will be able to hold convincing, three-second nose laughs. It is a convivial
-way to express amusement that improves quickly with practice.
-
-Be Playful
-
-“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” — George Bernard Shaw
-(1856-1950)
-
-Play, like laughter, is a form of medicine, but certain conditions must be met for it to be
-genuine. All stressors (anger, fear, pain, hunger, and separation) reduce play. Animals must be
-well fed, comfortable, and healthy for play to take place. When these conditions are met, rats
-and mice chase and pounce, wrestle, pin, nip, poke, and knock each other over. This is the kind
-of play that generates high-frequency laughter-like chirps at 50 kHz. Physical rough-and-tumble
-play is the most fun of all. At one point, | thought all aggressive acts were unpleasant, but
-judging from play in other mammals, feigned aggression can be joyous.
-
-It is important to note that when mammals play, rapid role reversal is a defining element.
-In other words, they know it is friendly when everyone gets a chance to be on top. Knowledge
-of this should influence us to pass being dominant back and forth with our friends. The rat that
-ends up on top more often during pins becomes dominant. The continuation of play
-necessitates a willingness on the part of the winner to self-handicap. Dominant rats that go
-easy on others always have playmates, but those that bully are ignored when they try to solicit
-play. Play helps animals determine who to avoid and with whom they can develop cooperative
-relationships. They learn to dominate but also accept defeat without being “defeated.”
-
-Dominant animals would rather play, but aggressive animals would rather fight. Rats
-involved in a fight bite each other and box. This can lead to injury. They stand on their hind legs
-and strike each other with their front paws. When they do this, the 50-kHz “laughter” turns into
-22-kHz “complaints.” This is similar to chimpanzees among whom play is accompanied by
-wrestling, panting, and a play face, whereas fighting involves boxing, tearing, scratching, biting,
-and barking.
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-Ilustration 25.1: Animals playing.
-
-Rather than being based around wrestling, human play focuses on verbal interchange and
-banter. Repartee involves provocation, rejoinders, biting commentary, and, if friendly, laughter.
-As in other mammals, this form of verbal jousting can engender friendship, respect, and
-cooperation. It can be made more fun with the use of bombastic quarreling, absurd
-braggadocio, frivolous histrionics, grandiose pretentiousness, and ostentatious balderdash.
-When you do it, be spunky, employ exuberance, and enjoy it. You don’t have to act excitable to
-be sparkling and bubbly; you just need to be playful. Usually, if you manage to entertain
-yourself, others will be entertained as well.
-
-Remember to be like the mice during play and allow others their opportunity to be on top,
-lest you risk losing playmates. This includes giving others equal chance to talk and refraining
-from dominating conversations. A dog initiates play by crouching. A monkey initiates it by
-exposing its rear end. Both of these actions involve self-diminishment and vulnerability.
-Showing others that you don’t take yourself too seriously or exposing a vulnerability can make
-them want to play with you. After experimenting with this for years now, | have concluded that
-you can be as vulnerable and nice as you can, and as long as you are playful, it won’t be
-mistaken for weakness.
-
-Play ranks among the most beneficial neuroplastic interventions. Placing rodents into
-enriched environments where they can socialize, wrestle, and play with others results in
-heavier brains and higher levels of dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin. Studies have found
-that rats deprived of play are more fearful and aggressive toward other rats. Encouraging
-playfulness in animals is one of the few behavioral interventions known to reverse anxiety and
-depressive symptoms.*> This is probably because it allows them to shift from the threat
-response to the challenge response.
-
-Social play involves creativity and requires that we learn to approach others in diverting
-and lively ways. Imagination and fantasy can also facilitate play. My favorite way to play with
-people is to make up imaginary scenarios: “What would you do if...?” | am animated,
-shameless, and immature when doing this. My scenarios include helicopters, ninjas, dinosaurs,
-and hats with pinwheels on top of them. When other people do this, recognize it as play,
-participate, and egg them on by laughing with them. Whenever someone uses an analogy or
-poetic license to describe a situation, help them flesh it out until you have created a whimsical,
-comical cartoon world. Feel at home with wordplay, punning, nonsense, and silliness.
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-Ask outrageous questions, set up outlandish hypotheticals, and feel comfortable acting like
-a kid. If you have genuine, heartfelt fun, they will, too, so entertain yourself and your sense of
-humor first.
-
-Reawaken Your Play Face
-
-A simple open-mouthed expression in primates called the “play-face” communicates that play
-is either underway or about to begin. It often accompanies primate laughter. The jaw is wide
-open, and sometimes, the corners of the mouth are slightly drawn back. Unlike the primate
-sneer or grin, the expression is relaxed, and the teeth are usually covered completely. All apes,
-as well as macaques, patas, vervets, and rhesus monkeys, use the play-face. Common during
-play sessions in juveniles, it is also an adult expression. It is used to enlist others to play and is
-accompanied by a jaunty, sprightly air. The display is usually reciprocated immediately. It is often
-interspersed with tumbling, tickling, chasing, wrestling, play-gnawing, and lip-smacking sounds.
-We know the primate play-face as gaping in childlike wonderment. Our ability to gape has
-been reduced by our uptight attitudes and by excessive tension in the jaw. However, we can
-refurbish it. Recover yours because, in some ways, the play-face is better than the smile.
-
-Happiness Exercise #25.3: Gaping in Childlike Awe Is the Play-Face
-Bring back your childhood ability to express astonishment and delight. Relax your eyebrows,
-widen your eyes, and allow your jaw to gape widely. Gape without baring the teeth. Gape as
-if you have no inhibitions about how your wide-open mouth will appear to other people.
-Imagine that your wide mouth influences others to share your sense of playfulness and
-excitement. Pretend you are seven and just discovered something wonderful that you can
-share with your buddies. Alternate this expression with your smile. When you use it, think:
-“That’s incredible!” or “Wanna play?!?” It also makes a great greeting or a reaction to
-a surprise.
-
-Illustration 25.1: A. Woman in awe; B. Chimpanzee play face; C. Baby excited.
-
-Happy babies open their mouths wide when laughing. Socially defeated adults open their
-mouths the least. In my twenties, | wasn’t able to open my jaw fully, and trying to was painful.
-Any gaping would make my jaw creak and crack. Dropping my jaw in any social situation
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-seemed like dropping my guard. Pairing gaping with diaphragmatic breathing for less than 30
-minutes gave my jaw an oil change. It has never creaked or cracked since. Now that gaping feels
-natural, | feel less serious and more encouraged to have fun. Master your play face.
-
-Become a Great Conversationalist
-
-One of the best ways to play with and love others is through conversation. Unfortunately,
-
-most of us have learned to converse competitively. The conversational narcissist wants to keep
-the attention on themselves and control the conversation as much as possible. We are all
-narcissistic in this way, and we all see conversations as competitions to some extent.
-
-We pretend to listen but are really just thinking about what we want to say once we have found
-an opening or way to interrupt. This is like the mouse that always wants to be on top. Nobody
-wants to play with him.
-
-Lavish your attention on the other speaker. Support their topics of choice. Question how
-you can get this person to open up further. What is their underlying interest? Keep asking
-“why” until you get to what they want to say but aren’t saying. “Why” helps you discover their
-motivations for speaking. It also helps to ask what, where, when, and who. Keep your
-interrogatives open-ended. They should act like bridges, not dead ends. Ask open-ended
-questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. Ask, “And what did you say next?”
-and “Then what happened?” Focus on positive topics and use the word “you” more than “1.”
-Turn “Yeah, but” into “Yes, and.” Separate asking for clarification from disagreement and
-separate debate from criticism.
-
-Without empathic listening and anticipating the motivations of others, talking becomes
-socialized egoism. So, urge them to elaborate. Active listening involves engagement, empathy,
-and validation. Refer back to what they said earlier. Reiterate their point but put a spin on it.
-Use your knowledge to help them flesh out and provide evidence for their ideas and opinions.
-The more interested you are in them, the more interesting you will be to them. Make people
-feel like they matter. The more you treat them as mature, intelligent, and well-functioning, the
-more they will see those qualities in you.
-
-Have you ever had a night out with a friend during which an absorbing conversation left
-you feeling deeply satisfied? Try to attain this kind of satisfaction for you and the other person
-during every conversation. Pursue a deep feeling of connection that makes the rest of the world
-feel less important. Good conversation is the primary form of social engagement for us humans,
-and the emotional connection it provides is one of the best ways to bond, play, and laugh. It is
-also a surefire way to activate the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system. Even
-simple things like brief face time, short chats, small talk, and meals with others are vital to our
-health. Maximize your time spent with people who make you feel good after being with them
-and try to be that person for others.
-
-Practice Dancing as a Form of Play
-
-Dancing is one of the best forms of play. It has been squelched for most of us due to social
-apprehension, self-inhibition, and contamination from distressed breathing. The following
-exercise will address this by teaching you to rest while dancing.
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-Happiness Exercise #25.4: Uninterrupted, Free-form Dancing
-
-Put on your favorite type of music to dance to. Don’t worry about using a breath metronome,
-but you might want to place some tape over your lips to ensure nasal breathing. If you don’t
-have natural rhythm, start by sitting down and making a fist. Strike your fist softly on a stable
-surface to the beat of the music. Try to synchronize as best you can with the rhythm.
-
-Next, bob your head in the same way.
-
-Take this synchronization with you as you stand up and start to pound your feet on the floor
-to the music. Step forward and back, left and right, so that your foot makes contact with the
-ground at the exact time the beat hits. Bend, sway, whirl, and move your arms in time with
-your feet. If you don’t know what to do with your feet, then look up the “two-step.”
-
-Here’s the key: Don’t stop no matter how awkward it feels. Continue dancing completely
-uninterrupted for at least one entire song. Then, try to dance through several songs while
-imagining you are a professional performer or go-go dancer on a stage. Since you are being
-paid to dance, you cannot stop. By not stopping, you force yourself to close the gaps in your
-performance. These gaps are where you usually stop dancing because you start to feel self-
-conscious and you look around at your friends with a sheepish smile while breathing
-shallowly. Push right through them. Also use startle awareness to ensure that you are not
-startling while moving.
-
-You brace certain body parts while dancing. These tend to fatigue very quickly. However,
-
-if you force yourself to keep moving, you will learn to stop bracing them out of necessity.
-
-As you continue to fatigue, you will have no choice but to learn to rest while dancing.
-
-You may have to dance continuously for at least 10 minutes to reach this point. In doing this,
-your dance moves will become less neurotically charged, more fluent, jubilant, and playful.
-
-Let loose. If it helps at all, dance in the dark. Dance as if no one is watching, with no fear of
-being seen as a quirky goofball. The only reason you might look goofy is that letting loose
-is unpracticed.
-
-Savor Goosebumps to Strengthen the Response
-The full-body tingling that you feel when you get goosebumps comes from a surge in
-endorphins. It is also known as the aesthetic chill response or frisson. This happens when you
-feel victorious, encounter something beautiful, hear a moving melody, or even when you find
-yourself strutting in the face of danger. The goosebumps on your skin come from the bristling
-of tiny hairs in a reaction called piloerection. It makes furry animals look bigger by forcing their
-hair to stand on end. This is responsible for the “raised hackles” on a surprised wolf, the plump
-tail of a cat before a fight, and for the bristling fur on a chimp that is marching around, putting
-on a dominance display.
-
-There are ways to elicit the response deliberately. You can try listening to your favorite
-music, singing loudly and unabashedly, pant-hooting, partaking in “ASMR” via online videos,
-or by using the massage and caressing techniques discussed in Chapter 6. Another way to send
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-a shiver up your spine is to combine the postural exercises from various chapters to walk
-around in public as if you have an “S” on your chest. Regardless, the best way to strengthen the
-bristling response is to savor it when it happens to you. Savoring a sensation in this way is often
-called “sensate focus.” Focus on extending the feeling and pass your hand over the gooseflesh
-to heighten the sensation. Like all positive feelings and emotions, every time you get
-goosebumps, relish the feeling and prepare yourself to welcome its return.
-
-Concluding Activity #25.3: Awaken to the Pleasure in Your Body
-
-Scientists recognize multiple painkilling substances that are produced naturally within the
-body: endorphins, enkephalins, endocannabinoids, endogenous morphine and others. Each
-are being released, more or less, all the time. They have powerful analgesic effects blocking
-the communication of pain signals. If you pay careful attention, you can feel their effects.
-Too often we look for the pain. Instead, look for the pleasure.
-
-There is bliss to be found in everything you do. Every breath, every heartbeat, every quiver of
-every muscle holds a small amount of gratification. You can magnify these pleasures just by
-paying attention to them. Most people know to look for the pleasure after they use alcohol.
-They ask themselves: “Wait, | just had a drink, | am supposed to feel euphoric, where is that
-feeling in my body? Oh, there it is.” That same feeling is constantly being generated within us
-all the time, just at a smaller scale. All we need to do is sensitize ourselves to it. I’m still not
-good at it yet, but | believe we can all build this skill. As often as you can, remain open to,
-and delight in, the sensations involved in your body’s natural production of pleasure.
-
-| wish | had a more reliable method of activating and strengthening the pleasure response
-because | believe it is very positive. But | can report that the frisson response is much more
-frequent in my life since | have been using the Program Peace exercises. | believe that the
-improvements that anti-rigidity has made to my posture played a large role. As your confidence
-increases, your charisma will start to give you goosebumps.
-
-You Have Everything It Takes to Be Charismatic
-
-| want you to develop charisma in the same way that you developed your dancing abilities in
-the section above. In other words, practice it under relaxed conditions, hitting all the beats
-without stopping. Assert your opinions in front of others with conviction and panache,
-
-and keep them rolling at a sustainable pace. This will unshackle you from all the bracing
-patterns that typically bar you from doing it fluidly.
-
-To master charisma, you need to indulge in a little showmanship. You can never be the life
-of the party until you start trying. Hazard risks with a take-charge demeanor. Be fully present
-when speaking to people. Give them your full attention, and expect theirs. Don’t try too hard
-to impress people. Instead, focus on impressing yourself. Let your style and positivity make
-them want to impress you. Think of your social abilities as inexhaustible. Imagine that they
-replenish infinitely.
-
-When you deliver a line or story and you feel like it fell flat, don’t let that get you down.
-Often, listeners just don’t know what to say in response. Don’t let their silence take away your
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-momentum. If you keep hitting them with smooth deliveries, they will eventually show some
-appreciation.
-
-To exhibit charisma, you need to act in a way that makes people think that it would be a
-good thing if you were in charge. You must show the competence of a leader. You want to
-come across as strong, decisive, and a person others can rely on for guidance. To do this, create
-a sense of constructive forward motion. As a leader, boss, or manager, express high
-performance expectations of the people around you, combined with confidence in their ability
-to meet those expectations. By having faith in others, you build their confidence in themselves,
-and in you. You want to send out indicators of alliance so people unconsciously assume that
-you like them, that you respect their opinion, that you will include them, and that you will back
-them up when it counts.
-
-Did you know that psychologists generally consider optimism to be the key to charisma??®
-Charisma is a set of nonverbal behaviors giving the impression that you have not only strength
-but also a positive attitude. It is a special mix of power and warmth that makes charismatic
-people influential, memorable, persuasive, and inspiring.
-
-Caring for Others Will Make You Happier
-
-Moral integrity is key to happiness. People who have ethical social habits are happier than
-people who do not. The first reason for this is that people are more likely to value you if they
-see you as a good person. Psychological research has found that the most important traits to
-increase your likability are trustworthiness, forthrightness, warmth, and kindness. So, choose
-your words politely, honor boundaries, compromise, show consideration, admit when you are
-wrong, honor your word, and show respect.
-
-Get over your issues. Don’t be petty or vain. Don’t seek attention. Don’t be racist or sexist.
-Never hate anyone. Be a good sport and a good loser. Don’t say bad things behind people’s
-backs. Acknowledge other people’s contributions, helpful advice, and good decisions. State
-explicitly what they did to help you and how it helped. Acknowledge people’s success, no
-matter how small, and pay a compliment every time you notice something good. Don’t judge
-people. Be courteous. Ask whether you can lend a hand. Make an effort to be a friend.
-Remember that you must be a friend to have a friend.
-
-The second reason why moral integrity will make you happier is it stimulates an old part of
-the brain responsible for tending and befriending. All mammalian brains have a care and
-nurturance system. This system initiates instinctual behaviors meant to take care of the young.
-In female rats, stimulation of this area promotes nest building, licking, grooming, arched-back
-nursing, hovering over pups, and gathering those that stray from the nest. Caring for young is as
-vital to reproductive success as obtaining food and sex. This is why it has similarly strong
-connections to the brain’s pleasure systems. In other words, instead of using food and sex to
-make yourself feel better, use nurturance.
-
-When you care for others, you activate this brain system along with the related reward
-pathways. This is why nurturing others naturally produces endorphins. Helping others has been
-shown to protect against the harmful effects of life trauma. Volunteering after a natural
-disaster, protecting others during an attack, caretaking, community service, and becoming a
-peer counselor have all been shown to reduce stress. It quiets the amygdala and decreases
-inflammation. It is sometimes called the “helper’s high.” People who volunteer in any capacity
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-have lower rates of heart disease and stroke, lower mortality risk, less depression, and an
-increased sense of purpose. Activating the brain’s nurturance system also subdues the defeat
-response because they are inherently incompatible. Be a good, kind person; the best person
-you can be. Dig up all the good that you want in your life from within your own heart.
-
-Practice Being Pure of Heart
-
-Being pure of heart has a reciprocal relationship with being free of nasty thoughts. Seeing
-yourself as wholesome and virtuous is the quickest route to becoming free from negative
-rumination. Repeatedly ask yourself whether your actions are noble and pure. Holding yourself
-to high standards sounds like an adult burden but will make you a kid at heart.
-
-Goku from the original Dragon Ball comic and TV show is a small, naive child who doesn’t
-have a bad bone in his body. He has a trusty cloud (Flying Nimbus) that he rides like a magic
-carpet. Only people who are pure of heart can ride the cloud. Billy Batson is another small boy,
-this time from the world of DC comics, whose purity allows him to take on the mantle of the
-superhero Shazam. Thor from the Marvel universe has worthiness that enables him to lift
-Mijolnir, his enchanted hammer. | have asked myself on many occasions, “Would | be able to
-ride that cloud, don that cape, or lift that hammer?” Would you?
-
-Let us practice indiscriminate and promiscuous kindness. Let us do this not to be rewarded
-but because it is the right thing. | like the saying that tells us, “Love the one that you are with.”
-| take this injunction further to mean that you should love whoever you find yourself with at
-any moment. Love thy neighbor. Love thine enemy. Use “agape,” which is the Greco-Christian
-term for selfless, unbiased, non-possessive, universal love. Or, experiment with using the
-“unconditional positive regard” that many psychotherapists use with their clients.1” When your
-primary aim is to broadcast goodwill, you act much less defensive and your composure quotient
-will soar. Thus, a pure, lighthearted mentality not only gives you access to the moral high
-ground but will also affect many minutiae of your body language and microexpressions,
-improving your overall aura. This is the bravery of the innocent.
-
-The key to being popular is to like more people. Research has shown that likable people
-like others. On average, the most-liked people like larger numbers of people and they like those
-people more.*8 So, forgive those you feel have wronged you. Forgive your parents, siblings,
-all your family and friends. Then, forgive everyone else from your past and present, and even
-your future. Forgive people from every walk of life. Forgive the rich, the poor, all sides of the
-political spectrum. Forgive humanity, then fate, and then the entire universe. Have no fear of
-rejection from others, have no need to be accepted. Be able to say “| love you” with no regret.
-Cherish yourself and your body the way it is and know that you, along with everyone else,
-are absolutely worthy of being loved.
-
-Human kindness is the surest step toward deep healing from any kind of trauma.
-
-Expect only good from others and project this expectation in the form of positive overtures.
-People won’t be able to help but respond to you in positive ways, and their responses will
-reinforce your view of the world as a pleasant place, further entrenching your expectations.
-If you work hard at becoming pure of heart, you will earn your way to peace. Combined
-with altruistic acts, you'll find pleasure. And, combined with assertiveness and composure,
-you will find power.
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-| used to have a stinging pain in my chest that would surface during stress. It was healed
-after | made a deliberate effort to be pure of heart. The notion that | had pure intentions
-reassured some last bastion of muscles in my thorax that they could stop their defensive
-bracing. | could feel these muscles release. And, because they could finally relax, | was able to
-bring them to a full contraction using exercises such as the coughing, laughing, pant-hoot,
-and diaphragmatic stretching exercises. Being pure of heart is the most foolproof way to ensure
-that you are breathing easily, and | consider it the eighth and final tenet of optimal breathing.
-
-Conclusion
-Most people have a secret fear of being bad or having done things for which they can never
-atone. But it is never too late to start being pure of heart. You can do it at any point in time.
-Start now. As you take on the Program Peace system, | recommend that you imagine yourself
-turning over a new leaf. Decide to let go of the regret, shame, and guilt you have carried with
-you from past misdeeds and mistakes. Turn any ounce of self-hatred that you may harbor into
-self-forgiveness. Guilt keeps us from becoming good people, so use your participation here as
-an excuse to get rid of it. Purify your heart by allowing yourself to make it a clean slate.
-Trauma has made it difficult to be cool, playful, humorous, and pure of heart. By removing
-the trauma, you will make these things much easier. See yourself as going from afflicted to
-blessed. See yourself as principled, incorruptible, and salt of the earth. When you think “pure of
-heart” think dominant but non-dominating. Think non-subordinate but non-aggressive. Think
-assertive but lighthearted. Having faith in your goodness is the key to making optimism and
-relaxation possible. Know that what you’re doing comes from a good place with other people’s
-best interests in mind. As long as you know that you mean right by others, you don’t have to
-worry about offending them with your composure. Expect yourself to be pure of heart in
-everything you do and conceive of your life from here on to be a hero’s journey.
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-Chapter 25: Bullet Points
-
-e Treat everyone as if they are the least awkward person you have ever met.
-
-e There are so many ways to be endearing. There’s no need to forfeit your composure or
-health to do so.
-
-e Creating a “pure of heart” mindset will make many of your troubles disappear.
-
-@ When mammals are playful, they are truly wonderful creatures.
-
-e You can directly reduce stress by stimulating the play and nurturance areas of your
-brain. To do this, you must be playful with and nurture others.
-
-e The “feel good” neurochemicals like endorphins, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin
-derive from kind behavior. Nature endorses morality.
-
-e Remember that real virtue does not complement itself and is not even aware of itself as
-a virtue.
-
-e Laughing exercises will give you a bold laugh and fortify your innards.
-
-e Every laugh should almost sound antagonistic, as if you were laughing at someone,
-but only because it is assertive and unaffected by submissive tendencies.
-
-e Anight full of fake laughing and smiling will increase the tension you feel the next
-morning. And yet, one minute of genuine, unadulterated laughing can relieve all
-that strain.
-
-e Self-stimulating happiness is key to perpetuating your upward developmental spiral.
-
-e Self-amusement is very healthy and a trait of dominant people.
-
-e Feel free to be silly.
-
-e Act like every day is your birthday and every night is Saturday night.
-
-@ When you are mistreated, think of it as an opportunity for personal growth. Consciously
-deciding to under-react to negativity is regarded by many to be the most powerful way
-to achieve spiritual growth.
-
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-Chapter 25: Endnotes
-
-1. Hermann, H. R. (2017). Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals: The great
-game of life. Academic Press.
-
-2. Snyder, C. R. & Lopez, S. J. (2009). Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed.).
-Oxford University Press.
-
-3. Taylor, S. E, & Armor, D. A. (1996). Positive illusions and coping with adversity. Journal of
-Personality, 64(4), 873-898; Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. E., & Segerstrom, S. C. (2010). Optimism.
-Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 879-889.
-
-4. Scheier, M. E., Weintraub, J. K., & Carver, C. S. (1986). Coping with stress: Divergent
-
-strategies of optimism and pessimists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6),
-1257-1264.
-
-5. Frederickson, B. L., & Levenson, R. (1998). Positive emotions speed recovery from the
-cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. Cognition & Emotion, 12(2), 191-220.
-
-6. Wohr, M., & Schwarting, R. K. W. (2007). Ultrasonic communication in rats: Can playback of
-50-kHz calls induce approach behavior? PLoS ONE, 2(12), e1365.
-
-7. Simonet, P., Versteeg, D. & Storie, D. (2005, July 31-August 5). Dog-laughter: Recorded
-playback reduces stress related behavior in shelter dogs [Paper presentation]. Proceedings of
-
-the 7th International Conference on Environmental Enrichment.
-
-8.  Panksepp, J. (December 2000). The riddle of laughter neural and psychoevolutionary
-underpinnings of joy. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(6), 183-186.
-
-9. Provine, R. R. (2000). Laughter: A scientific exploration. Viking.
-
-10. Folkman, S., & Nathan, P. E. (2010), The Oxford handbook of stress, health, and coping.
-Oxford University Press.
-
-11. Godfrey, J. R. (2004). Toward optimal health: The experts discuss therapeutic humor.
-Journal of Women's Health, 13(5), 474-479.
-
-12. Dunbar, R. |. M. (2017). Group size, vocal grooming and the origins of language.
-Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24, 209-212.
-
-532
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-13. Dunbar, R. |. M., Baron, R., Frangou, A., Eiluned, P., van Leeuwen, E. J. C., Stow, J.,
-Partridge, G., MacDonald, I., Barra, V., & van Vugt, M. (2012). Social laughter is correlated with
-an elevated pain threshold. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Biological Sciences, 279(1731),
-1161-1167.
-
-14. Dunbar, R. |. M. (2017). Group size, vocal grooming and the origins of language.
-
-15. Wohr, M., Kehl, M., Borta, A., Schanzer, A., Schwarting, R. K., & Hoglinger, G. U. (2009).
-New insights into the relationship of neurogenesis and affect: Tickling induces hippocampal cell
-proliferation in rats emitting appetitive 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations. Neuroscience, 163(4),
-
-1024-1030.
-
-16. Van Edwards, V. (2017). Captivate: The science of succeeding with people.
-Penguin Random House.
-
-17. Rogers, C. (1980). A way of being. Houghton Mifflin.
-
-18. Sanders, T. (2005). The likability factor. Crown.
-
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-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” — Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
-
-“Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.” — Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
-
-The Exercises and Activities
-
-The results you will gain from this program come in many forms and interact synergistically.
-They don’t merely complement one another in an additive way but in a multiplicative one.
-For example, the benefits derived from paced breathing, diaphragmatic jogging, passive
-exhalation, and stretching the diaphragm supplement each other. As you get better at one,
-you get better at the others. Because these skills are all interrelated, they promote and
-reinforce each other. This leads to recursive improvement in which the skills form structural
-platforms, elevating you into an upward spiral.
-
-| hope you now feel that you have a tool kit of actionable exercises and access to deep
-wells of strength that had previously laid untapped. You may not be sold on all the exercises
-here. Choose the ones you like the most and practice those for now. As you monitor your
-progress, you may realize you have largely rehabilitated certain body parts. This may motivate
-you to go back to other exercises that didn’t seem as appealing at first. In this book, | wrote
-about what | found helpful to pair with paced breathing. What benefitted me is not necessarily
-what will best benefit you, so | encourage you to experiment with your own forms of
-diaphragmatic generalization. If you come up with a new technique, please share it on the web
-with our online community.
-
-Do keep in mind that a few days of changed perspective might feel like enough to gain the
-full benefits of Program Peace. However, it may not be sufficient to override your ingrained
-routines permanently. This system is all about rehearsal. Sustained weekly practice is key.
-
-Be persistent, and your efforts will pay off. Some of these activities may feel onerous at first,
-but they will quickly become comfortable after you have completed them a few times. Most of
-the exercises in this book are at least partially routinized after the first five sessions. This means
-they can be done with minimal concentration from that point on (i.e., while on the phone or in
-front of the TV).
-
-It was incredibly heartening to know that these exercises were slowly making me a
-stronger, happier person. | knew that | was making daily progress and that something of value
-was germinating within me. Anticipate positive results with pleasure and excitement. When this
-happens, the exercises become intrinsically rewarding. As you watch yourself change, you will
-realize that all these attributes you assumed were genetic and fixed at birth are trainable.
-
-By the end of this book, the first table from Chapter 1 should take on an entirely new
-meaning. Employ as many of the dominant displays from that table as you can in the
-exercise below.
-
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-Concluding Exercise #26.1: Diaphragmatic Phone Conversation
-
-Perform paced breathing with a breath metronome while on the phone with a friend.
-Breathe nasally guided by a metronome when the other person is speaking. When you are
-talking, take complete inhales without gasping and then speak over a complete exhalation.
-Try it in front of a mirror and look yourself in the eye calmly as if you were looking at your
-caller. Next, use a hands-free attachment for your phone and walk around your house, back
-yard, or neighborhood while using as many of the elements of optimal body language
-described in this book as you can.
-
-Stress and Overexertion
-
-As this book has contended, operating without composure can gravely deplete our health.
-When we live in distress, we are borrowing health from our future. It is the toll exacted ona
-methamphetamine addict or a president during an eight-year term. We are talking about a
-constant state of overexertion in which the body takes a lot of abuse at the expense of your
-charisma, physique, intelligence, mental health, and spiritual growth.
-
-Distress is an appropriate strategy for an animal with strong evidence that it may die ina
-few seconds. It is a terrible strategy for you and me. We have discussed how your fight or flight
-response is seldom directed toward actual fighting or taking flight. Instead, it is directed to
-bracing, strain, paradoxical breathing, hyperventilation, apneic disturbances, rapid heartbeat,
-pain, egoism, and submission. To prove to your body that you are not at risk of premature
-death, you have to divert your focus away from the bad toward gratitude, playfulness, purity,
-and optimism.
-
-The retraction of the gill by the sea slugs discussed in Chapter 2 shows that they don’t
-have faith in their world. The slugs exhibiting this defensive reflex in response to being
-uncontrollably prodded and shocked in the lab are “on high alert.” Their defensive and escape
-responses are exaggerated, and their responses to positive events are blunted. The slugs that
-have not been subjected to this don’t show the same defensiveness and are referred to by
-scientists as “naive.”
-
-Just because you are not on high alert doesn’t mean you are naive. Be the sea slug that has
-seen it all and yet, still knows that the best way to live is never to brace its gills. Don’t treat
-every threat as novel. Generalize your desensitization to negativity toward every conceivable
-peril. Do it now. Drop your facade, let your gills hang, keep drawing long, deep inhalations,
-and learn to expect the best from the world.
-
-Your Transformation
-
-Before Program Peace, | was uncomfortable with my own presence. | exuded tentativeness and
-a lack of any conviction. | would wring my hands constantly. My dreams were always desperate
-situations. Once a week, | would wake from sleep yelling in terror. Between the ages of 25 and
-30, | would find myself whispering the words “Oh my god” over and over, every day. “That was
-a nightmare” was my mantra. | had unbearable tension welling up inside of me, gushing out in
-the form of tortured body language. | hated my home, everything in my room, everything on
-
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-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-my desk, all things, and all people because | experienced them through the throes of
-distressed breathing.
-
-When | turned 20, | discovered that everything hurt a little bit. It hurt to stand up, it hurt to
-run, it hurt to sit for too long, it hurt to turn my neck, it hurt to use the restroom, it hurt to
-swallow, and every social interaction hurt. | concluded that this was an irreversible effect of
-aging. But now | am twice that age, and none of those things hurt. After two years of Program
-Peace, you should find that you feel much younger than when you started. You will experience
-a personal metamorphosis internally and externally. You will have acquaintances ask what kind
-of antianxiety or antidepressant drugs you have been prescribed. Others will ask which
-cosmetic procedures you have undergone.
-
-Now that | breathe diaphragmatically and send very few subordination displays, the core of
-my personhood has changed. | used to take dangerous risks that bordered on having a death
-wish. | never do that today. | am less impulsive, less compulsive, and less codependent. The
-“imp of the perverse” no longer haunts me, and | no longer play the part of a scapegoat, jester,
-martyr, or victim. | am no longer consumed with melancholy and self-pity. | am no longer a
-defeatist or misanthrope. These were recurring themes in my life since childhood. Now, they
-are distant memories.
-
-All my favorite fictional works involve going on an epic adventure, encountering bad guys,
-converting them into allies, and then recruiting them to the team. The antagonists in this story
-are really good guys waiting to be reformed. The thoracic breathing muscles, the sneering
-muscles, the muscles involved in headaches, and those that make us sick to our stomach are all
-potential allies. Once converted, your chakra-like modules will become trusted comrades.
-
-You will find yourself using them to transform other people into comrades as well.
-
-Breath Mastery
-
-Breathing slowly and deeply with the diaphragm is difficult at first because your respiratory
-musculature and the nerves that control it have developed their own default pace. You must
-overcome this default. It is a bit like standing chest-deep in the ocean, trying to keep your
-balance amid turbulent, unpredictable waves. As you reprogram your breathing, accept the
-occasional unexpected breaker. Embrace the uneven gushes, the chaotic swells, and the
-startling surges knowing that, with time, you will control the tides. Permanently. This final
-exercise will engage your diaphragm using anti-laxity to help accomplish just that.
-
-Concluding Exercise #26.2: Slow Inhale from a Deep Squat
-
-Rest in a deep squat where your butt is nearly touching your ankles. Lean your torso forward
-and downward so that your chest is touching your knees. You might place your knees in your
-armpits. This position will push your diaphragm up against the internal organs of your
-abdomen making it much more difficult to inhale fully. Take 5 prolonged inhalations that
-each last between 10 and 30 seconds. Feel free to rest and catch your breath between these
-inhalations. You might use a stopwatch or your paced breathing app to ensure that these
-breaths are long. This can be made more challenging if done after a meal.
-
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-As you are inhaling and your diaphragm descends, it will be exposed to a much heavier load
-than usual. It may feel shaky or tremble. Use the anti-laxity protocol from Chapter 13 to
-engage the diaphragm firmly as it expands. Doing this slowly and smoothly using the “belly
-breath” technique from Chapter 3 will build strength and stability in the diaphragm and
-enhance your control of it.
-
-COQ
-
-Illustration 26.1: Inhaling slowly from a deep squat can challenge and strengthen the diaphragm.
-
-Whether squatting, lying, sitting, or standing, taking a deep diaphragmatic inhalation for
-more than 10 seconds is a long trek across a barren desert. After the first five seconds,
-you realize that you’re not going to make it to the other side unless you let go of excess
-baggage. The baggage consists of those burdensome bracing patterns you are incapable of
-setting down until you are engrossed in respiration. Try it now. Take a 10-second inhalation.
-Halfway through, you will feel strain throughout your body begin to drop away. When
-breathing at long intervals, you don’t have the craze and furor to haul this luggage around with
-you. Every time you cross this desert by taking a prolonged inhalation, you further program
-your chakra-like modules to let go of their unnecessary burdens.
-
-Allow me a final analogy. You may be familiar with the Greek mythological figure of
-Sisyphus, a man condemned to rolling a boulder up a hill. As soon as he gets the boulder to the
-top, it rolls back down, and he must start over—for all eternity. It is a sad story and is
-considered a tragedy. Now, imagine that Sisyphus didn’t let the boulder roll down the hill.
-Imagine that he unnecessarily lowered it down using his hands, step by step, at great effort.
-
-If this were the case, then the poor guy would never have a chance to rest. Right?
-
-“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Albert Camus (1913-1960)
-
-Relating this back to the body, merely being an animal is hard work. We must labor
-every day just to provide our bodies with what they require. When stress causes our muscles to
-remain tense, even when they should be resting, this work becomes Sisyphean. The same goes
-for breathing. The inhale takes work. Your exhale is your diaphragm’s only chance to relax, so if
-you keep it braced during those few seconds of outflow, you are completely depriving it of rest.
-In Exercise 5.1, you practiced allowing your diaphragm to go completely limp during the
-exhalation, thus giving it the brief respite it needs to stop contracting so that it can regenerate
-
-538
-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-properly. Whenever you notice that your muscles are not passive during rest, imagine letting go
-of Sisyphus’ boulder and letting it roll down the hill on its own.
-
-aly
-SBS
-
-—J—a
-
-Illustration 26.2: Concluding analogies.
-
-This book has laid out eight tenets of peaceful breathing. | think of them as an eightfold
-path to optimal respiration. Here they are:
-
-The Eight Tenets of Peaceful Breathing:
-
-1)
-
-2)
-3)
-4)
-5)
-6)
-7)
-
-8)
-
-Breathe deeply (high volume): Breathe more fully, breathing most of the way in and out
-in a way that pushes the belly forward during each inhalation.
-
-Breathe longer (low frequency): Breathe at longer intervals in which each inhalation and
-exhalation lasts for more time.
-
-Breathe smoothly (continuous flow): Breathe at a steady, slow, constant rate.
-
-Breathe assertively (confident): Do not let social concerns or stressors conflict with the
-other rules.
-
-Exhale passively: Allow your breathing muscles to go limp during each exhalation.
-Breathe nasally: Breathe through the nose with nostrils flared.
-
-Ocean’s Breath: Relax the back of your throat and breathe as if you are fogging up
-
-a glass.
-
-Breathe with purity of heart: Knowing that you have only the best intentions, and that
-you exemplify the combination of nonsubmissive and nondominating, will infuse your
-breathing with peace.
-
-| used to imagine how mind-bogglingly complex it would be to use brain surgery to reduce
-someone’s propensity for negative thinking. For instance, you cannot just cut out the amygdala
-because this produces all kinds of unwanted side effects. Instead, it would involve complex
-submicroscopic manipulations of billions of neurons and trillions of synapses. Where would you
-start? Diaphragmatic breathing retraining does precisely this but requires no neuroscientific
-knowledge, no futuristic technology, and no invasive techniques. By placing you in a state of
-
-539
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-calm from which you can reconceptualize your life, paced breathing will make precise,
-peace-producing alterations to your cerebral cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus, brainstem,
-heart, diaphragm, gut, adrenal glands, and other organ systems all over the body. The figure
-below depicts the curative effects as a virtuous cycle to be contrasted with Figure 5.2.
-
-RESPIRATORY
-
-Assertive, Loose,
-Nasal, Passive Exhale,
-Mobile Diaphragm
-
-Happiness
-
-PSYCHOLOGICAL
-
-Assertive, Calm, Self-assured,
-Positive Thinking / Worldview,
-Sociable, Leadership, Playfulness,
-Positive Human Interactions,
-Sharing, Helping, Mending,
-Contentedness, Optimism,
-Confidence, Positive Affect
-
-BEHAVIORAL
-
-Muscular . . " Sustainable
-Diaphragmatic Breathing, ] __________» | Resting, Microbreaking, }| Optimal Length,
-Deep, Long, Smooth, Relaxation Optimal Posture, Loading Optimal Blood Flow,
-
-Dominant Displays,
-Muscle Regeneration,
-Limber, Open, Inviting
-
-THE DIAPHRAGMATIC
-
-MUSCULAR
-
-Elongation of Trigger Points,
-Optimal Alignment,
-Muscle Growth,
-
-Even Use, Hypertrophy
-
-Physical Pleasure
-
-BREATHING CYCLE
-
-Emotional
-
-A
-
-Pleasure
-
-PHYSIOLOGICAL
-
-Parasympathetic Upregulation,
-De-aging, Chakra Healing,
-Homeostasis, Anabolism,
-Beneficial Developmental Plasticity,
-Endorphins, Oxytocin, Serotonin,
-Optimal Heart Rate, High HRV,
-PFC and Hippocampus Growth
-
-Figure 26.1: Diaphragmatic breathing creates a virtuous cycle.
-
-A Gene’s Eye View
-
-The scientific evidence suggests that we are here on Earth because a complex molecule got
-stuck in a rut of self-replication. Our situation as survival machines for DNA can be given a
-negative or positive valence. Our pain and the pain we inflict on each other can make this
-situation a curse. It is too often a frenzied free-for-all where, as Tennyson said, nature is “red in
-tooth and claw.” But if we are actively engaged in improving the quality of our life and other
-sentient beings’ lives, then we transform the condition from a curse to a blessing. | believe
-making this transformation gives life meaning. Your every action, display, and word may have
-reverberating repercussions on reality that will continue to echo in the physical universe
-forever. Instead of contributing to pain through abusive communication, contribute to peace
-
-and love.
-
-The nerves that course trauma through our bodies are the reigns by which our selfish
-genes control us. From our genes’ perspective, happiness and confidence are risky and might
-get us killed. They are only to be expressed in utopian environments. Our cells operate on the
-assumption that aggression and submission keep us on the straight and narrow; that living
-without them is problematic, applicable only when our environment is sending us reliable cues
-that it is unrealistically hospitable. We must overcome the genetically hardwired negativity bias
-and fear of relaxation. To do this, we can use diaphragmatic breathing to trick our organs and
-
-540
-
-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-cells into thinking that our world is an unparalleled paradise. This will give you the elbow room
-you need to coddle your inner pet, encourage your inner child, and admire your inner
-caveperson. If we can do this, we all, no matter our age or the extent of our trauma, have the
-developmental plasticity to become genuinely happy.
-
-Turn Off the Behavioral Inhibition System
-
-Jeffrey Alan Gray proposed the “biopsychological theory of personality” in 1970, and it remains
-a widely accepted model. The theory hypothesized two systems: a) the behavioral inhibition
-system, which stops us from doing things out of fear, and b) the behavioral activation system,
-which causes us to do things out of positive motivation for reward. He proposed that these two
-systems are constantly interacting and that people vary in the extent to which these systems
-influence their behavior.
-
-People who have an overactive behavioral inhibition system spend their life repressing
-their impulses and restraining their desires. They are sensitive to punishment and perceive it as
-highly aversive. A predisposition toward behavioral inhibition starts in infancy. Toddlers who
-are behaviorally inhibited have higher heart rates, higher stress hormone levels, tighter vocal
-cords, and highly reactive amygdalae.? | would assume that they are also predisposed to
-distressed breathing.
-
-The behavioral inhibition system has been proposed to be the causal basis of anxiety and
-depression. It is what keeps us from dancing, laughing, and improvising and pulls us to retreat
-into our shells.? The behavioral activation system is the opposite. It promotes approach
-behavior: cheerfulness, spontaneity, and sociability. As you might have guessed, the exercises
-in this book aim to activate the behavioral activation system. The following table offers
-further detail.
-
-Behavioral Inhibition System Behavioral Activation System
-Emotion Fear of pain Excitement for pleasure
-
-Motivation Avoid punishments Approach rewards
-
-Arousal Sympathetic Neutral / Parasympathetic
-
-Personality Introverted / Reserved Extraverted / Outgoing
-
-Personality Disorder Anxious / Depressed Impulsive / Exploitative
-
-Hierarchical Station Submissive Dominant
-
-Affect Negative Positive
-
-Outlook Cynical Hopeful
-
-Table 26.1: Comparing the Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Systems
-
-You will find that the consequences of these two systems reach into every facet of your life.
-For instance, as | shot a basketball in my twenties, | would retract from the ball in a cringing
-motion. This was the behavioral inhibition system in action. Today, my hand follows through and
-remains briefly in the air at full arm extension. Disinhibiting your follow-through is integral to
-your ability to score. Be an exhibitionist and treat everything like a game you are playing to win.
-
-We need to be accepting of the fact that we will continue to suffer social failures. We will
-displease some and not be liked by others. But, if we let our fear of these things lead to
-
-541
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-inhibition, social defeat will be inevitable. Never choose to withdraw when confronted by a
-stressor. Always approach. When you find yourself upset, don’t pull away. Push back playfully.
-You deserve to be loved and respected while being your true, unfiltered self.
-
-See the roadmap for your life as a long series of green lights and ease off the breaks.
-
-At every fork in the road, ask yourself: “How would an undamaged, badass version of me deal
-with this situation?” Start visualizing this person when you think about yourself. When you
-imagine doing something, picture this person doing it. In time, you will become that person.
-
-Within a pack of mammals, status roles are often initially determined by an animal's
-intrinsic energy level. The boisterous youngsters become the pack leaders. These are usually
-animals that have very low activation of the behavioral inhibition system. The animals that
-expend more energy in play, foraging, and socializing rise to leadership positions. How can you
-get your energy levels up? This book has detailed how: how to remove knots, how to reverse
-frailty, and how not to leak energy.
-
-Dominant people proactively pursue their interests without being hindered by
-unproductive social fears. They have faith in their ability to succeed and trust that others can’t
-stop them. They are not embarrassed easily. Neither do they second-guess themselves or worry
-about what others will think. Don’t stifle the pleasure principle and hide your desires just to get
-along with others. Like a rambunctious wolf cub, learn to be okay with the social conflict that
-arises when you try to gratify your wants.
-
-Don’t be a zoo animal released into a wildlife park that still crouches within the invisible
-confines of its old cage. Having put yourself on a short leash, you are the only one who can take
-it off. To beat the behavioral inhibition system, you must be spontaneous and do the first thing
-that comes to mind more often. Don’t be afraid to let your inner animal free. Be resolute in
-your opinions. Charm people with pizzazz. Make bold and audacious announcements about
-positive things. Show some backbone, sing with your heart, and live with guts and gusto.
-
-542
-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-Ilustration 26.3: Analogies used in this text.
-
-Being Pure of Heart Will Free You from Retaliation Apprehension
-
-Let me leave you with a description of one final concept from psychology: retaliation
-apprehension. This is when we feel worried that someone will take what we are saying or doing
-in the wrong way and get offended. Retaliation apprehension shows in your face, breathing,
-and body language. It is difficult to describe verbally, but people recognize it immediately when
-they see it.
-
-My brother has extraordinarily little retaliation apprehension. This is why he can make a
-personal joke about someone, and they never get mad. Often, it seems that he can say
-whatever he wants to anyone at any time and get away with it. If | were to say the same thing
-in the same tone, people would be miffed. My brother can do this because he shows zero
-concern about the other person retaliating. This allows him to poke fun at people and things in
-a playful way without offending.
-
-Retaliation apprehension is not just an admission of remorse for known wrongdoing. It is a
-state of mind we have even when we have done nothing wrong. A tendency toward retaliation
-apprehension can start very early in life. Many adults have “anxious attachment” issues that
-stem from their early relationship with their parents. The child with anxious attachment is
-preoccupied with what pleases and displeases their caretaker. They see their relationship
-with their mother and father as fragile and they feel at risk for rejection and abandonment.
-This leads to fear of, and obsession with, the emotions of others.
-
-543
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Refrain from scanning others for a hint of displeasure with you. It is submissive. The best
-way to do this is to not think about it. Drop any worries about defending yourself. Expecting the
-other person to like you and not being offended should be presumptive and implicit in your
-demeanor. Regularly dropping your defenses in this way should lower your cortisol, blood
-pressure, and heart rate while raising your feel-good neurotransmitters and HRV. It should also
-make it easier to breathe with the diaphragm.
-
-Acting with zero retaliation apprehension is one of the most dominant things you can do.
-Still, it must be authentic. To do it properly, you must have good intentions. This is where being
-pure of heart (discussed in the last chapter) comes in. When you feel completely secure in the
-fact that your actions are well intentioned and that you are a force for good, fear of retaliation
-won't even cross your mind. It will make social harmony a default that you don’t have to work
-or strive for. When using the “pure of heart” mindset your retaliation apprehension can be nil
-even when your behavioral activation system is running at full force.
-
-Conclusion: How to Play the Dominance Game
-
-Humans have a strong instinctual predilection for submissive behavior. When submissive body
-language goes on for too long, it makes us vulnerable to various forms of muscular tension,
-which in turn make us vulnerable to disease. This biological propensity should be studied
-through both basic and applied research and fully addressed by medical science. There should
-also be explicit social contracts that limit the extent of submissiveness we “require” from one
-another in both personal and professional sectors. The more awareness you and | can create,
-the sooner this will happen.
-
-Hopefully, this book has made it clear that the abysmal repercussions of submission and
-aggression hamper human potential. If we can minimize our tendencies toward destructive
-status striving and the social tensions that eat us up inside, we can increase our productiveness.
-If we can help others do this, we can increase humankind’s productivity and problem-solving
-potential.
-
-If someone has better posture than we do, we should still stand tall. If someone has a more
-powerful voice, we should continue to speak powerfully. If someone has a bigger smile, we
-should keep smiling wholeheartedly. Comparing ourselves to others, like arming ourselves
-against others, is for animals in “submissive mode.” Put your sword (anger) and shield
-(rejection sensitivity) down. Let your burdensome armor (retaliation apprehension) drop to the
-floor. Recognize that the combination of being non-aggressive and non-submissive has made
-you not only invulnerable but incomparable.
-
-If you are going to play the dominance game, play it with a competitive spirit, play it fairly,
-play it without malice and without exposing yourself to trauma. Play it breathing
-diaphragmatically all the while. Don’t flaunt your position or be embarrassed by it. Don’t puff
-up when things go your way, and don’t shrivel up when they don’t. Think of yourself as
-dominant without having to dominate. Keep in mind that no one really wins in the end, so there
-is no reason to keep score. Instead, see competition as “iron sharpening iron.” See it as
-productive play that makes every participant stronger. Turn contests into friendly cooperative
-games in which everyone is a teammate whether they know it or not. This will not only earn
-you friends, but it will also make you imperturbable, indomitable, and self-possessed.
-
-544
-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-Chapter 26: Endnotes
-
-1. Braem, S., Duthoo, W., & Notebaert, W. (2013). Punishment sensitivity predicts the impact
-of punishment on cognitive control. PLoS ONE, 8(9), e74106.
-
-2. Moehler, E., Kagan, J., Oelkers-Ax, R., Brunner, R., Poustka, L., Haffner, J., & Resch, F.
-(2008). Infant predictors of behavioral inhibition. British Journal of Development Psychology,
-26(1), 145-150.
-
-3. Gray, J. A. (1970). The psychophysiological basis of introversion-extraversion.
-Behavioral Research and Therapy, 8(3), 249-266.
-
-545
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Program Peace: Paced Breathing App for iPhone and Android
-
-Download the free Program Peace app as a companion to this book. Using the app will train you
-to breathe deeper and longer. It also provides an easy-to-use interface without bloat, clutter,
-ads, sign-ins, in-app purchases, or full version upgrades.
-
-Place the app next to a book, computer monitor, tablet, or TV so that you can pace your
-breathing while you attend to other things. Listen to music or audiobooks while using the app.
-Place it in your pocket and select vibrate if you want to use it in silence, hands-free. Select how
-long you want your inhales and exhales to be. Peruse the preset breathing rates to learn about
-various breathing methods. Practice the Program Peace exercises to build confidence, a positive
-mindset, and rehabilitate systems throughout your body.
-
-Scientific studies have shown that paced breathing lowers blood pressure, heart rate, muscle
-tension and calms the mind. Research has also shown that breathing at longer intervals can
-improve mood, focus, and flexibility, increase athletic performance, reduce recovery time,
-mitigate fatigue, and help people get to sleep at night. This app is designed to help you take full
-
-advantage of those benefits.
-
-For more information, you can visit www. programpeace.com.
-
-6:58 ler»
-
-raosnayy SET BREATHING RATE
-
-\\ pee - 3.8 Breaths Per Minute 7/0/9/0
-eA Inhale 7.0 sec
-ioe .
-Inhale Hold 0.0 sec
-= +
-Exhale 9.0 sec
-= a ap
-Exhale Hold 0.0 sec
-= ap
-Start Session Ji)
-Cycles (20) 5 min 20 sec
-= oe ap
-
-Preset Rates
-
-Easy Pace (4/0/6/0) i)
-Beginner Pace (5/0/7/0) i}
-
-Intermediate Pace 710/910) @
-°
-Before Sleep (4/0/8/0) i)
-Box Breathing (5/5/5/5) Fi}
-
-(BINIBION
-
-Cardiac Coherence
-
-~
-
-Rate
-
-6:58 rs
-
-aay, EXERCISES
-
->
-
-The following are some of Program Peace’s most
-beneficial exercises. Click on a button below to
-read about and start an exercise. Your progress
-will be recorded,
-
-Name Count Length
-
-# 0.0: Using the
-Metronome
-mE] # 1.1: Prolonged
-Vocalization
-# 3.3: Practicing a
-Smooth Inhalation
-* 19 Ov
-Oi
-# Eyes with
-No Facade
-Fi
-# 4.9: L ip
-While Talking
-
-# 5.1: Unbracing the
-Diaphragm While
-Exhaling
-
-Exercises
-
-546
-
-FEATURES:
-
-* Customizable breathing bar
-
-* Choose your breathing intervals
-* Over a dozen preset rates
-
-* Optional breath holds
-
-* Current and longest streaks
-
-* Track your history and progress
-* Multiple sound effects
-
-* Rank system
-
-* Multiple color themes
-
-* Custom reminders
-
-* Recommended exercises
-
-* Vibrate function
-
-* Multiple audible cues
-
-* Dark mode
-
-* Color palette options
-
-* Original informative content
-
-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-Program Peace: Fitness Manual & Journal
-
-Download this free journal to keep track of your Program Peace exercise sessions and progress.
-It also includes a 90-day program that teaches you the fundamentals of exercise, nutrition, and
-fitness according to current scientific research. Whether your goal is weight loss, muscle gain,
-flexibility, cardiovascular health, or just logging your exercises, this fitness planner can help.
-
-Track numerous fitness metrics and establish monthly goals. Make records about your exercise,
-diet, sleep, stretching, meditation, strength training goals, daily steps, heart rate variability, and
-other important data. By completing the worksheets and following the recommendations, in
-
-just 90 days, you can build new, long-lasting habits. Buy the paperback on Amazon or download
-the free PDF at www.programpeace.com.
-
-oe
-
-FITNESS MANU
-
-ARED E
-
-Daily Fitness Tracker
-
-jewnor -@ yenuey SsouDy © 3DVad WYYDOUd
-
-"yd _y3S3u “3 GUE
-
-Diet and Nutrition
-
-Use the table below to get a general sense of where your calories should
-be coming from and how to balance your meals. The information is
-adapted from highly reliable sources, including the US Nutrition Board,
-and is promoted on the basis of scientific studies. Check the website for
-U.S. food recommendations at www.myplate.gov and the website of the
-American Dietetic Association at www.eatright.org. For individualized
-dietary advice, see a registered dietician.
-
-USDA ChooseMyPlate.org: Recommended Daily Food Intake For a 2,000 Calorie Diet
-Daily Average
-
-Food Group Cos sence Significance
-Grains 602. Energy and fiber
-
-Whole Grains 402
-
-Refined Grains 2oz
-
-Nageaine eee Potassium, magnsiym, ler, vitamins
-Dark Green Vegetables S cups
-
-Teup
-teup
-25 cups
-Other Vegetables 25 cups
-pre ities Potassium, magnesium, fiber,
-
-vitamins, and minerals
-
-Dairy (Low- or Non-Fat) 3 cups Calcium and protein
-
-Protein Foods (Meat ee Protein and magnesium, zinc,
-and Eggs) vitamin B12
-
-Protein and magnesium, zinc, vitamin
-Seafood 9 02. por wook Sposa
-ils 30 grams Essential oe acids
-
-IGRAM,
-
-FEATURES:
-
-that last.
-
-* Customizable, undated worksheets to log your
-favorite exercises, sets, and reps.
-
-* Keep notes about duration, intensity, and
-impressions to keep track of your progress.
-
-* Space to record nutritional intake, body weight,
-self-massage, blood pressure, flexibility, balance,
-cardio, heart rate, skin fold measures, body
-circumference, BMI, TDEE, RMR, and workout goals.
-* Record hours of nightly sleep, breathing exercises,
-flights climbed, hours standing, and much more.
-
-* Read detailed fitness and diet recommendations to
-help you understand your body and achieve results
-
-Understanding Your Waist and Hip
-Circumference
-
-The relative location of fat deposits on the body influences disease risk.
-
-The apple-shaped fat distribution (fat in the abdominal area) carries greater
-health risks than the pear-shaped kind (fat on the hips and thighs). This is
-because abdominal body fat is more easily released into the bloodstream
-For this reason, a lower waist-to-hip ratio is preferable. Comparing your
-waist-to-hip ratio can provide a helpful measure of health monitoring
-information. This ratio is calculated by dividing the waist circumference that
-you found in the last section by hip circumference. You want this fraction to
-be small, and it is best if it is less than 1.0
-
-Waist circumference / Hip circumference = Waist-to-Hip Ratio
-
-Waist-to-Hip Ratio Norms
-
-Gender Excellent Good Average At Risk
-Male < 0.85 085-089  0.90-095 >0.95
-Female <075 0.75 -0.79 080-086 = > 0.86
-Criteria for Waist Circumference
-Waist Circumferenc:
-
-Risk Category Females Males
-
-Very Low <Zin <31in
-
-Low 27-35 31.39
-
-High 35-43 39.47
-
-Very High > 43 > a7
-
-Health Risks Associated with Excessive Body Fat and Waist Circumference
-impaired cardiac function due to increased workload on the heart;
-hypertension; stroke; heart disease; high blood pressure; diabetes;
-
-in thrombosis; increased insulin resistance; renal disease; sleep
-apnea; pulmonary disease; problems receiving anesthesia during surgery;
-osteoarthritis; degenerative joint disease; gout; endometrial, breast, prostate,
-colon and other cancers; abnormal plasma lipid and cholesterol levels;
-gallbladder disease; psychological stress; social stigma; and discrimination.
-
-547
-
-Calculate Your Daily Protein Needs
-
-How much protein should you be eating daily? The average person
-needs between .4 and .8 grams of protein per pound of body weight
-per day. A sedentary individual should eat between 40 and 90 grams
-of protein per day. An athlete should intake between 100 and 200
-grams of protein every day. To find your optimal intake, use the table
-below to choose a protein factor to multiply by your body weight in
-the equation below.
-
-Grams of Protein Needed Per
-Pound of Body Weight
-
-Protein Factor
-4 grams
-
-iso 5 grams
-Moderate Exercise 6 grams
-
-7 grams
-
-8 grams
-
-Calculate your daily protein needs:
-
-Body weight (Ibs.) Protein factor Grams per day
-
-Increasing your daily protein intake has benefits. Protein takes more
-energy to burn than fats and sugars, meaning that increasing the
-protein in your diet can help boost your metabolism. Also, protein is the
-macronutrient that is the most difficult to convert into fat. High-protein
-diets have been shown to be more filling than other types of diets,
-which can reduce your urge to eat. Consider eating extra protein
-before and directly after exercise to help in the synthesis and repair
-
-of muscle proteins.
-
-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
-
-Anti-Rigidity: How to Release Muscle from Partial Contraction
-
-Anti-rigidity is a rehabilitative method for releasing muscles from excessive tension and partial
-contraction. Because it was used throughout the book it is outlined here.
-
-Optional
-Preparation
-
-Anti-Rigidity
-
-Afterwards
-
-e Stretching
-
-e Cardio
-
-© Weightlifting
-e Heat
-
-e Massage
-
-Increase blood flow using:
-
-Assume stiff, rarely used
-positions and postures
-
-Firmly contract the muscles
-involved until they fatigue
-
-Explore configurations that
-crack
-
-Use diaphragmatic breathing
-
-Search for and contract into
-aching or soreness until it
-fades
-
-Help the muscles rest using:
-
-e Repeated contraction
-e Full relaxation
-
-e Heat or cold
-
-e Massage
-
-e Vibration
-
-Muscle in Partial
-Contraction
-
-Muscle in Full
-Contraction
-
-Muscle at Resting
-Length
-
-Before Anti-Rigidity
-
-During Anti-Rigidity
-
-After Anti-Rigidity
-
-(\
-
-548
-
-Chapter 26: Conclusions
-
-Program Peace: Tools and Ways of Being
-
-Personal
-Care
-
-Paced Breathing, Prioritize Composure, Exercise, Hydrate, Sleep Eight Hours,
-Walk, Take Time for Yourself, Live in the Present, Awareness of Startling /
-Flinching / Trembling, Fasting, Interoception, Using a Stethoscope, Optimism
-
-Social
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-Optimal Body Language, Nonsubmissive, Nondominating, Nondefensive,
-Grooming / Caressing / Massaging Others, No Unnecessary Competition,
-Camaraderie, Steady Eye Contact, Annunciating Clearly, Playfulness, Laughing,
-Smiling, Connectedness / Bonding, Nurturance, Healthy Sex, Free and Open
-Body Language, Taking Up Space, Humble, Indomitable, Forgiving,
-Affectionate, Breaking Up Fights, Sharing, Helping, Mending, Loving
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-Breathing
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-Paced Breathing, Long / Deep / Smooth / Assertive Breaths, Passive Exhale,
-Belly Breathing, Rehab the Diaphragmatic Speedbump / Dormancy / Apneic
-Disturbances, Nasal Breathing, Taping the Mouth, Diaphragmatic Vocalization,
-Reading Out Loud, Throat Limp, Voice Deep and Relaxed, Pant-Hoot, Ocean’s
-Breath, Diaphragm Stretch, Breath Holding Exercises
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-Muscles
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-Anti-rigidity, Anti-laxity, Microbreaks, Postural Awareness, Massage /
-Compression / Percussion / Vibration, Delocalized Pressure, Bidirectional
-Control, Progressive Relaxation, Body Scan, Stretching, Yoga, Firm
-Contractions, Full Range of Motion, Decompression, Stretchlying,
-Glidewalking, Counterposes, Postural Variety
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-Mindset
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-Egalitarian Worldview, Nonjudgmental / Nonresistant / Nonattached,
-Empathy and Compassion, Desensitization, Control, Rising to Meet Adversity,
-Eustress & the Challenge Response, Coolness, Pureness of Heart, Watching
-the Thinker, Mindfulness, Gratitude, Fearlessness, Fun-loving, Composed
-Kindness, Emotional Maturity, Dominance, Imperturbable, Self-possessed
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-Avoid
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-Retaliation Apprehension, Rejection Sensitivity, Timidity, Domineering,
-Gasping, Breath Holding, Lack of Rest, Lack of Sleep, Overeating, Overly Sweet
-/ Salty / Fatty Foods, Lying / Gossiping, Vanity, Taking Offense, Addictive
-Behaviors, Violent Media, Horror, Unnecessarily Loud Music, Drugs & Alcohol,
-Inhibition / Withdrawal / Avoidance
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-Postural
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-Neck Retracted, Shoulders Back and Down, Abs Contracted / Chest Spread,
-Glutes Contracted, Feet Parallel, Urine Retention and Expulsion, Eyes Wide,
-Eyes Fixated, Eyes Up, Head Pointing Up, Ability to Glare and Frown, Eyes
-Unblinking, Relaxed Eyebrows, Expressionless, Mewing, Sneer Awareness,
-Smiling
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-PROGRAM PEACE Self- Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body
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