Underlying Observations:

This model is based upon the following observations:

• Body and mind comprise an integrated system requiring an integrated approach to the problem of human condition,

• The brain is the controller of all life processes working through the body-mind system,

• The brain exercises its control by responding to every sensory input it receives whether the input originates from within the body-mind complex or outside in the external world,

• In general, an autonomic input in the unconscious or subconscious domain generates an autonomic response while only an input in the conscious domain can elicit a conscious response,

• As any controller, the brain can be overwhelmed by the demands of the processes it controls,

• Human brain is structured to permit self-regulation of the control demands of the mind-body processes consisting of three mutually dependent types:

  1. Autonomic life support processes in the unconscious domain running 24/7,

  2. Life related mental processes in the sub-conscious domain such as worry, anxiety, fear, phobias, complexes, likes, wants, dislikes, cravings, longings, habits, addictions, aversions, hatreds, etc. that creep up on us 24/7 minus periods, such as of deep sleep and one-pointed focus, which continually keep getting rarer and briefer, and

  3. Activities in the conscious domain arising out of conscious life involvement during waking state.

• Mind is capable of entertaining only one conscious activity at a time,

• Sub-conscious can move into the conscious and become volitional when our will connects with it,

• Sub-conscious processes permit conscious control only when they move into consciousness,

• Control demands of the sub-conscious and unconscious domains may be lumped together in an ‘inner autonomous’ group as they generally increase and decrease together with the exception of the digestion system the demands of which decrease when those of others increase and vice versa,

• High inner autonomic demands can only accommodate low volitional commitments without overloading the nervous system,

• Of the autonomic life support processes running 24/7, only breathing lends itself to conscious control,

• Volume of the inner autonomous demands is much higher than that of the volitional ones,

• Although the autonomous inner demands do not ordinarily lend themselves to conscious control, their volume makes it incumbent on us to limit their volume to prevent overwhelming the brain,

• Autonomous demands are handled by the fast acting limbic part of the brain while the volitional ones by the slow acting neo-cortex,

• High activity of the limbic brain results in high activity of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system in relation to that of the parasympathetic division,

• An imbalance in the activity of the sympathetic division of the autonomous nervous system over the parasympathetic overloads the brain and adversely affects the immune system,

• Repeated overloading of the brain sets in motion a run-away cycle (Figure 1) of adjusting the hormonal mix to rewire the brain to meet higher and higher demands,

• The brain restructured to meet continuously high demands deals with all inputs, whether of the autonomic or volitional nature, at high speeds stressing the body-mind beyond its coping capacity,

• Continuously stressed body-mind leads to poor physical and mental health, bad behaviour and poor intellectual and learning abilities with consequential social and economic repercussions,

• The original disposition of our body-mind depends upon the neurological structure of the brain at birth inherited genetically from the parents and environmentally from the time of conception onwards,

• Upregulation of the neurological control of life processes begins with a conscious reduction of the inner autonomous demands of the body-mind using breath as their only available handle,

• Regulating respiration is noted to regulate all inner autonomous processes of the body-mind affecting our conscious disposition,

• Volitionally slowing the rate of breathing increases the activity of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic over that of the sympathetic reversing the reactive disposition of the brain caused by the high activity of the sympathetic division of the autonomic over that of the parasympathetic,

• High activity of the sympathetic division of the autonomic over that of the parasympathetic makes for quick, reflexive, reactive and unconsidered response for all stimuli including those originating from the external world, and

• Conscious regulation of the inner autonomic demands also modulates those originating consciously in our own volition.

• Figure 2 diagrammatically shows the practical application of the conceptual model.

Self-Regulation and Personality Types

If we quantify control demands broadly as high and low, we can have four possible combinations of the two groups of them. Each of the four combinations broadly defines a personality type into which we can move with the subject self-regulation. In this regard, we must keep in mind that individuals in the same class can be markedly different from each other.

1. Low Autonomic and Low Volitional: We may be born with this kind of disposition or somehow develop it later. Individuals with this dispensation lack any significant ambition. Laziness and sloth set in and life becomes listless and self-centered without significant volitional involvement with others and the environment. Self- centeredness prevents human connection with others in the environment. Slow deep and diaphragmatic breathing for a few minutes a day can open the thought process to the higher perception of mutual connections and dependence.

2. High Autonomic and Low Volitional: This combination is the most common human condition.  Inner autonomous demands keep us aroused to an extent that there is little physical energy, psychic energy or clarity of thought left for successful life involvement. Our brains react primarily instinctively or reactively rather than respond with consideration. Expectations are generally unmet making us frustrated, unhappy, and unhealthy. The most direct way to help this human condition is to engage in slow deep and diaphragmatic breathing for a few minutes every day to develop the habit of slow and rhythmic breathing. Once such a habit is established, one can respond to the volitional demands more effectively. 

3. Low Autonomic and High Volitional: This is the most desirable combination typical of high achievers. Such human beings generally are calm and considerate. They live in the moment without being bothered by the sub-conscious mind. The result if efficiency and success in whatever they undertake. Brazenness and carelessness can follow in the wake of success if care is not exercised with preventive measures. One needs to keep practicing deep breathing as a measure to prevent the lapse into the less desirable combination of autonomic and the volitional.

4. High Autonomic and High Volitional: This is the least desirable and highest risk combination. It is unsustainable as it is most likely to keep the brain revved up overloading the nervous system. Life is taken over by limbic control to the virtual elimination of the intellectual function of the neo-cortex.

Content of human mind exists in three interacting parts: conscious, subconscious and unconscious. Only a small part of it is conscious with the rest divided into subconscious and unconscious. Parts of the subconscious content randomly move into conscious and conscious content moves into subconscious domain. Similarly parts of the unconscious move into subconsciopus and vice versa.

As noted above, ordinarily in waking and dreaming states there is a degree of ongoing interactivity between the conscious and the subconscious, and the subconscious and the unconsciousness parts of mind.  Some content of the conscious moves into the subconscious and that of the subconscious into the conscious. Similarly, some content of the subconscious keeps moving into the unconscious and that of the unconscious into the subconscious. We cannot excercise any control on this interactivity. Anything can pop into and out of our consciousness randomly at any given time making it difficult to pay attention to a specific subject for a significant amount of time. For this reason, mind is compared with a monkey that keeps jumping incessantly from one branch to another.

Whatever happens in our bodies or whatever we do in the external world begins with a conscious or subconscious perception in the mind. Our mind is the controller of our bodies and our behaviour in life. Brain is its physiological correlate. All controllers including our brains work with a feedback loop. When the controller perceives the need to do something, it does that in response to the perception and when it perceives that it has done enough of it, it stops.

A unit of perception is called a stimulus. We must do something in response to it. We may react or respond. We simply are built in that way, there must be a reaction or a response to acknowledge every stimulus whether it is in conscious or subconscious domain. Sensory nerves transmit the stimulus to the brain and motor nerves transmit our reaction or response to the appropriate parts of the body to acknowledge it. If the stimulus is subconscious, our reaction is also subconscious and immediate: without any conscious consideration or thought. If the stimulus is in conscious domain, we may react subconsciously or respond with conscious consideration. The term reaction is used to indicate subconscious activity and response for the conscious.

Various body functions such as beating of the heart, breathing, metabolism, etc. run 24/7 to sustain life. All of them must work autonomously or unconsciously all the time we are alive. They generally do not lend themselves to conscious control. The only exception to this rule is breathing which ordinarily runs unconsciously but can be run under our conscious control.

Heart pulsation is a typical example of a body function which works only in an autonomous or unconscious manner. When our brains receive a subconscious signal about the availability of oxygenated blood to be pumped, it reacts subconsciously in sending a motor signal to the heart muscle to pulse. All the cardiac pulsations happen autonomously without the possibility of our direct and conscious interference.

On the other hand, consider breathing; when the brain receives a subconscious signal through the sensory nerves about inadequate oxygen and excessive carbon dioxide in the lungs, it is a stimulus for it to subconsciously react with a motor signal for the lungs and associated muscles to breathe out. When the brain subconsciously perceives that the lungs do not have enough air in them, we subconsciously react to it by breathing in. When we decide to run the breathing function consciously, the stimuli to breathe in and to breathe out are in conscious domain and so are the responses.

We just examined physical survival related activities of our mind within; let us now look at life in the external world and related mental processes. We spend much of our time dealing with subconscious feelings broadly classified as (1) likes, wants, desires, cravings, longings, habits, addictions, etc., (2) dislikes,  aversions, hatreds, etc., (3) fears, worry, anxiety, phobias, obsessions and the like, and (4) complexes, feelings of finitude, helplessness and inadequaccies, depression, anger etc. These subconscious feelings seem never to leave us alone as they creep up on us almost 24/7. In addition, we need to look after involvements in the conscious domain during waking states. These involvements include business, professions, duties that we take on ourselves, school, learning, leisure, sports, family pursuits etc.

Thus, our mind true to its metaphor of the iceberg spends most of its energy in dealing with the unconscious and the subconscious pursuits which because of the immediacy, urgency and unpredictability of its nature takes precedence over the conscious pursuits which to an extent are subject to planning and procrastination.

Which kind of pursuits should we prefer to engage in for full, healthy, successful and meaningful life? The obvious answer to this question is that we should attend to the conscious ones. Will that work?

The answer to this question becomes obvious if we ask this question, "What kind of stimuli then are critical for full, healthy, successful and meaningful life?" Isn't it obvious that we should first manage the unconscious, then the subconscious and finally attend to the conscious if we want to ensure success? Failing to do so is risking confrontation with the interests of the unconscious and the subconscious parts of the mind represented by the submerged part of the glacier which is humongous in comparison with the visible part representing the conscious. Submerged glaciers are known to be responsible for many a shipwreck.

Ordinarily breathing is an autonomic process running 24/7 in the control of our unconscious mind in accordance with our emotional state of which we hardly are aware. Deliberate deep diaphragmatic breathing run by our conscious mind puts it in control of the unconscious. The unconscious mind under the influence of the conscious interacts with the subconscious mind which so influenced then interacts with the conscious preventing random thoughts of the subconscious from  popping into consciousness. Figure 2 shows this channel of interactivity superimposed by deep breathing in gold. This initially superimposed channel gradually replaces the ordinary channel of interactivity.

The reduction or elimination of stray thoughts from conscious mind reduces or eliminates related nervous traffic calming the nervous system. Calmer nerves help us to pay attention and think in a focused way to learn, solve our life problems and adjust our behaviour in the community and family in addition to prevent physical and mental disorders.

Regular practice of deep breathing for a few minutes a day over a period of time changes our disposition from reactive to thoughtfulness. In addition, it makes us healthier, happier and in harmony with the family, community and the environment.

Regular practice of deep breathing is a self management tool the use of which up regulates our control system for health, happiness and oneness.