Breathing and reconditioning are not irreconciliable. There might be exaggerated claims of the benefits of different kinds of breathwork but the notion that breathing practices can modulate mind and body is likely accurate.
Disease and discomfort are central concerns for most of us. This is as much a function of the mind as the presence of actual physical insult or injury. Our reactions and responses to aversive conditions and stimuli are deeply ingrained. The substrate for this embedding or conditioning can be both the body and the mind. Physiological changes as a result of illhealth or dysfunction are in all likelihood modifiable, at least to some extent by perceptual and cognitive mechanisms. Breathing and reconditioning therefore could be viewed as processes that are intimately linked.
Strangely, from a realist perspective, even the mind is a nebulous concept. But do we doubt its presence? That we can willingly alter the salience of what is distressing is undeniable. Attention is a powerful determinant of the evolution as well as the outcome of not just mental but bodily aberration. Thus the influence of something like breath awareness on bodily function has its basis in physiology rather than fancy.
Thousands of years ago, practitioners of breathwork experienced the benefits of this attention to the breath. In Daoism, there exists the concept of energy centers. Even though, in the present day, this seems far fetched, the focus on such supposed centers could easily be viewed as a form of attention. Attention that can condition responses and even alter physiology and disease processes. Viewed in this way, attending to say the lower ‘Dantien’ is simply a way of directing attention and sensory awareness to the lower abdominal area!
Apart from the process of attention, that the brain maps the body is well known. Selective visualization or focus of different sections of the body could therefore considerably influence brain activity. Couple this with breath awareness and you have a sound attentional and somatic framework for reconditioning. This reconditioning doesn’t have to be limited to permissible conditions. Over time, it could very well influence the course of disease and other pervasive and inflexible physical and mental circumstances.
Worldwide, thousands of practitioners attest to how good breathwork feels. It helps steady the mind and generate stillness. This silence can be a profound experience and owing to its pleasurable qualities, breathwork can dim the preoccupation with fear, anxiety and threat. And, I think, one can learn to initiate rest-repair responses within the body at will. Breathing is the primary physiological process exerting influence over each and every system within the body and it is imminently possible to pair breathing and reconditioning maneuvers to enhance health and defer sickness.
Despite views on popular media, breathwork is not new age. It has been around for thousands of years. The kind of breathwork I teach and practice combines sensory awareness and breath consciousness that draws from ancient daoist thinking. Gentle movements, bodily stimulation and visualizations are paired with breathing. Regularly doing these exercises is probably beneficial in reconfiguring the valence of the body and mind to what might be seen as harmful or negative. Our bodies and minds are constantly learning and if we are open to it, breathwork can be a mutisensory way to reprogram both the perception as well as the emphases of our body and psyche.
In traditional chinese medicine, there is the notion of the corporeal soul. Viewed pragmatically, this is just another way of saying that we have an internal map of our body. In working creatively with this map, it is quite possible to redefine how we cope with stressors and the pliability and adaptiveness of our thoughts, feelings and action. Some people are quick to dismiss age old concepts just because they are difficult to measure. Perhaps we should not be hasty in judging the mechanisms and value of paradigms and practices that came before the scientific method did. Not just because these practices were cultivated with a great deal of reverence and sincerity but because they could indeed be proven to have a sound basis in the future to come.