EW DELHI: Yogic breathing techniques may be doing much more than relieving stress. A senior psychiatrist at Columbia University, New York, Dr Richard P Brown, says certain techniques may actually help people connect better with each other and regulate their dietary intake and thereby help lose weight.

In New Delhi to participate in a two-day international symposium on Sudarshan Kriya, Pranayam and consciousness organised by the Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in association with the Times Foundation, which concluded on Sunday, Brown has been experimenting with meditation techniques to cure his patients of depression.

Here is how, he explains, yogic breathing techniques such as Pranayam and Sudarshan Kriya can activate certain positive bodily processes: Rapid breathing activates a nerve, Vagus, that connects with the diaphragm and some of the organs, including the heart and the brain. As a result of this stimulation, messages are sent along three different pathways that tell the body to shut off areas of worry while awakening areas that control feelings of happiness in the brain.

So, one pathway is created that leads up to the frontal cortex of the brain and starts shutting down areas controlling excess worries and depressions. Another pathway shuts off anxiety producing parts of the brain stem and a third wakes up the limbic system, which controls positive emotions, explains Brown. At the same time hormones are released that encourage connectedness in mammals. One such hormone, called the Cuddle hormone, released during sexual activity and also after child birth, is said to be released after the Sudarshan Kriya. The hormone encourages bonding.

He said that quite early on in his practice of psychiatry he began getting dissatisfied with the effects of drugs. ‘‘I began looking for natural treatments. People responded to it very well. ‘’ He then tried meditative techniques, but some of them were found to be strenous. ‘‘The best results so far have been with Sudarshan Kriya,’’ he said. ‘‘Other techniques are either so difficult to do that people just stop practising them or take 30 years or more to show results,’’ adds Brown, with a long standing interest in complementary medicine. ‘‘The impact with the Art of Living course on Pranayam and Sudarshan Kriya, was so significant that I started sending people with horrible depressions and they became better,’’ he added. ‘‘People sent me ‘thank you’ notes even months later.’’ Doctors need to understand that there is a scientific basis to it and it is not just a suggestion. It helps control eating disorders as well.

‘‘People often soothe themselves by eating.’’ But after this course, as the tension drains off, people can actually begin to lose weight. The hormone that promotes connectedness also has a relationship with a peptide hormone. Controlling the release of this hormone can in turn influence hunger and the body’s ability to take only the required amount of food. ‘‘People question me on whether I am following a cult and my answer has been ‘If it’s a cult, it’s a cult of love. And it only encourages people to help others.’’

For more information on Art of Living, contact, C-9 Greenpark Extension, Phone:6562606 or Dr Vinod Kochupillai, Head, Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital, AIIMS. Phone:6516821.