In the thousand-year-old Eastern tradition, the act of breathing is an integral aspect of most meditative practices and is considered crucial to achieving a meditative state of consciousness, or “samadhi” (Patanjali, Yoga Sutras).The breath is called "Prana", which means both "breath" and "energy" (i.e. the conscious field that permeates the entire universe). “Prana Yama” (literally “stopping/control”, but also “raising/expanding the breath”) is a set of breathing techniques aimed at directly and consciously regulating one or more parameters of breathing (for example, frequency, depth, inhalation/exhalation ratio). Pranayama is primarily associated with the practice of yoga, but is also part of several meditative practices.
Jerath R., Edry J. W., Barnes V. A., Jerath V. (2006). Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: neural respiratory elements may provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system. Med. Hypotheses 67, 566−571. 10.1016/j.mehy.2006.02.042
Scientists have found evidence of increased psychophysiological flexibility linking parasympathetic activity, central nervous system activity associated with emotional control, and psychological well-being in healthy individuals during slow breathing techniques.
Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, Garbella E, Menicucci D, Neri B, Gemignani A. How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Front Hum Neurosci. 2018 Sep 7;12:353. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.353. PMID: 30 245 619; PMCID: PMC6137615.
We experience signs of a special neutral state whenever brain activity switches from one mode of operation to another. For example, immediately before falling asleep or in the morning at the moment of awakening, a so-called intermediate state arises, when you are no longer asleep and at the same time are not yet awake. This intermediate state between sleep and wakefulness is most favorable for self-hypnosis.
This “waking” state has healing value: psychotherapists who practice autogenic training or other methods of self-hypnosis recommend that their patients learn to capture the intermediate “waking” state and use it for self-hypnosis. With the help of self-regulation you can easily learn this.
The “drowsy” state is also known in hypnology, it is called somnolence and characterizes the first initial stage of hypnosis, when the patient experiences slight drowsiness, numbness, reluctance to react to the environment, readiness to obey the voice and influences of the hypnotist. There is no hypnosis here yet, but there is a readiness for a hypnotic state, when the patient’s psyche and body begin to be completely in a neutral state, there is no such analysis. Everything around is equal. The human psyche is subject to the readiness to perceive reality from a certain given point of view. managed by external teams.
powerful holistically directed coordination Let's imagine the cerebral cortex. In the normal state, competition between many foci of excitation—dominants—continuously occurs in the cortex. These excitations mutually neutralize each other’s influence on the course of internal physiological processes of the body. That is why in the normal state the possibility of creative decision-making is provided, since the thought process is not constrained by the physiological processes of the body. Under these conditions, not a single mental signal becomes unconditionally determining when choosing decisions; it is subject to systemic analysis and criticism, and at the same time cannot influence the body. Mental processes seem to be autonomous from physiological ones, occurring freely and independently of them.
Thus, competition between dominants is a condition for free decision-making and protection of the body from mental influences. The usual conscious state is ensured by a regime of parallel activity of competing dominants in the brain.
The neutral state is another matter.
Here the cerebral cortex is relaxed. According to I.P. Pavlov - inhibited. And therefore there are no obstacles to the focus of excitation, which under these conditions is capable of limitlessly spreading its influence to all structures of the brain. And the starting point in this situation is the psychological attitude formed during hypnosis by the hypnotist’s team, and in the process of self-regulation - by the desire of the person himself. In conditions of a relaxed cerebral cortex, any more or less volitional effort is capable of inducing a region of the brain, that is, causing generation, arousing its activity to action, which easily spreads to all other corresponding zones. The influence of these zones depends on the content of the psychological attitude: they suggested that they want to sing like Chaliapin, the brain structures associated with singing are activated, they suggested something else, other corresponding areas are activated. This is a mode of sequential activity of dominants, or a mode of controlled phase state.
If in a normal state, due to the active tone of the cerebral cortex, the influence of mental stress on the activity of the entire psyche and body is, as it were, closed due to the controlling mechanism of brain work, then in a neutral state it is open: a volitional wish can induce excitation of cortical activity, which is generalized according to other, provided in the psychological setting, areas. Here the internal productivity of the body increases: with less volitional effort, intensive holistic reorganizations can be achieved. I.P. Pavlov called this reaction the paradoxical phase, where weak conditioned signals (words) cause objective physiological changes in the body.
__________________________
'The key to yourself. Etudes about self-regulation'; Aliev, Khasai; Publishing house: M.: Young Guard, 1990; ISBN: 5−235−1 007−8.