Dr. David O’Hare sat at his desk in his office, looking thoughtfully at Pauline. She had just told him that she had lost 10 kilos in the last three months… without any diet.
Previously, he had consulted her in connection with the problem of excess weight, but then it did not give any result. The doctor asked which of his colleagues she turned to and whether she took appetite suppressants (if effective, then only for a very short time). No, she did not take anything and did not turn to anyone – she only followed his advice on how to cope with stress. Polina worked as a teacher in a disadvantaged suburb and did not find a common language with her colleagues.
Dr. O’Hare advised her to deal with stress with special breathing. Now, listening a little incredulously to the slimmed-down Polina, he remembered: many patients confessed to him that they felt some kind of new “lightness in the body” since they began to practice breathing exercises. Maybe their feeling of lightness is due to the fact that they really become lighter?
Having been treating obesity for more than twenty years, Dr. O’Hare gradually lost interest in all kinds of diets – after all, more than 90% of those who go on a diet return to their original weight after a few years2. He focused on teaching his patients – and especially patients – to manage stress with a special breathing technique that equalizes the heart rate. At first, they had to find three minutes two or three times a day to breathe deeply and calmly – at a frequency of six breaths per minute (the time can be seen at least on a regular mobile). Two weeks later, when the patients had mastered this rhythm well, the doctor asked them to remember what was most burdensome to them in everyday life. This, of course, caused negative emotions. They then had to associate the unpleasant images with the soothing rhythm of the breath…
So, for example, Polina was very oppressed by almost daily skirmishes with colleagues at school. She said that in the mornings on the way to work, her stomach even cramps from unpleasant forebodings. To suppress this anxiety, she unconsciously swallowed everything that came to hand. Mornings and afternoons were dry, and in the evening she needed a hearty dinner to recover from a hard day. After Polina began to practice breathing, which regulates the work of the heart, she noticed that the usual lump in her chest and the feeling of heaviness in her stomach disappeared, and her body seemed to become lighter.
Now she did not have the old need to drown out unpleasant sensations with food. On the contrary, she began to listen more attentively to what her body was actually telling her. If it suffered from some kind of emotion, Polina began to breathe slowly and rhythmically: as if she were talking to her body, softly and gently comforting him, like calming a desperately sobbing child. Now that she was hungry, it was easier for her to accept that healthy food in reasonable quantities would satisfy her hunger quite well. She noticed: if, after eating, wait a little, then a feeling of satiety will come, which will allow you not to overeat.
What happens to us when we breathe in such a special way, known to our ancestors? Maybe it’s just a variant of meditation or introspection? It turns out that this rhythm – six breaths per minute – allows you to balance the opposite effects on the body of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that affect our well-being and behavior3. The pronunciation of certain Buddhist mantras or the recitation of prayers aloud, accompanied by the turning of the rosary, also affects a person.
If we find a way to pacify our negative emotions, the burden falls not only from the soul – our body also becomes lighter.
1. D. O’Hare “Losing Weight Through Cardiac Coherence.” Thierry Souccar Editions, 2008.
2. K. Goodrick и J.-P. Foreyt «Why treatments for obesity don’t last». JAM Diet Assoc, Octobеr 1991.
3. British Medical Journal, Dеcembеr 2001