Eddie Stern: As a species we have survived because of stress. And the stress response which is when the sympathetic nervous system brings us into a hyper arousal so we can preserve life, that's what fight or flight is.
Dr Rupy: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast with me, your host, Dr Rupy, where we discuss the most important topics and concepts in the medicinal qualities of food and lifestyle. This podcast is the place to be for anything to do with nutritional medicine and how we can use both food and lifestyle to prevent and manage ill health as well as maintaining your optimal well-being. And my guest today is the incredible Eddie Stern. He's a yoga teacher, author and lecturer from New York City and he is best known for his multidisciplinary approach to furthering education and access to yoga as well as his teaching expertise in a particular type of yoga called Ashtanga. His best-selling first solo book, One Simple Thing, a new look at the science of yoga, examines in clear and simple language the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms that make yoga an effective practice. He's also the co-creator of the breathing app, which guides users into paced breathing exercises that balances the nervous system, helping to improve sleep and reduce stress and anxiety. And breathing is something that we do cover in this podcast. Now, this podcast was a little bit different to what I'm used to. I'm used to talking about the mechanisms behind why food can have an impact on health. I'm used to talking about other lifestyle means like sleep and exercise and again, the physiological mechanisms behind why those are effective tools to improve health and maintain balance in our bodies as well. This podcast dove into different areas of things that I'm genuinely interested in. Not just the science of yoga and why it works or what we postulate as the mechanisms behind why yoga is an effective tool for things like blood pressure regulation, which I think is quite well recognised, but also the philosophy behind yoga. We even dive into areas of conversation that I haven't expected to cover on this particular podcast, given the subject matter of nutrition and lifestyle. We talk about consciousness, we talk about some things that I actually found quite difficult to comprehend at the time and you'll probably listen to that and hear that in my voice and the way I ask questions. And it wasn't until I actually listened back to this podcast and I gave even more attention to what Eddie was talking about that I've actually begun to understand the truisms in what he was talking about. I think you're only really going to understand what I'm talking about when you reach the end of this podcast. And what I would sincerely encourage you to do is if you do question or you lose track of what we're talking about, listen to this again, actually. Because I don't think I've actually realised just how impactful this podcast was until I listened to it twice. And the other amazing thing about it is that Eddie has just got the most soothing, calm, peaceful tone of voice. It was very, very relaxing to be in Eddie's presence and he's just a breath of fresh air, so comical, so lovely, very, very open and it's definitely been one of the podcast highlights for me. And it allows me to take you, the listener, on a journey through more than just food and more than just lifestyle, actually diving deeper into concepts that I'm personally very, very interested in. You can find some of the links to the studies that we discuss on the podcast as well as a YouTube video specifically about the yoga study that he did in New York with African Americans and reducing blood pressure using yoga as a tool. That was a control study with the control being general physical exercise. I found that absolutely fascinating and the video, which is about five minutes on YouTube, the link of which is going to be on the Doctor's Kitchen.com podcast with Eddie's episode, just really, really painted a great picture of just how powerful yoga can be. It's not for everyone, but it's certainly as a tool, I just think it's something that everyone should experience. Remember, you can check out the recipe that I made Eddie over on YouTube, plus you can find all of this information and more, the doctorskitchen.com. Subscribe to the newsletter for weekly science-based recipes. Give this a five-star review if you enjoyed our chat. And without further ado, here is my conversation with the incredible Eddie Stern.
Dr Rupy: How did you enjoy your lunch?
Eddie Stern: The lunch was fabulous. The flavours were really vibrant. I could taste the onion seeds cooked in there and the potatoes were delicious and they had really different flavours. Those small little white ones, they're juicy, the flavour jumps. And the purple ones are really beautiful to look at too. So it was a really quick, easy, delicious, nourishing meal. I feel full and good and happy.
Dr Rupy: Good. I'm glad.
Eddie Stern: Well done.
Dr Rupy: I think that's the most emphatic that anyone's been about the lunch.
Eddie Stern: You've answered my questions about onions and cutting boards. You don't have to use soap. And I've learned a lot.
Dr Rupy: That's great. And I've learned a lot ever since you stepped into the studio, like straight away, you gave us a recital of part of the Bhagavad Gita. We, you know, we talked a lot about.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, we've been quoting scripture, we've been talking about Sikhism.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, which I've actually, I've never really talked about that on the podcast before. The podcast is largely about the science behind food as medicine, the science examining lifestyle as well. We've talked a bit about yoga in the past as well, and this is why I was so excited to have you on because not only do you blend the science of yoga, but you don't shy away from the origins of yoga and what it was designed for. Your book is fabulous. I've been reading it religiously over the last two weeks or so. And one of the things that I picked out from it was how human beings have always had stress, whether it's in the modern era, which is full of social media and what we now believe stress to be like, we've always had it. And that's essentially what yoga was used for as a as a sort of counter to what we've seen.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, because as a species, we have survived because of stress. And the stress response, which is when the sympathetic nervous system brings us into a hyper arousal so we can preserve life, that's what fight or flight is. So when people say fight or flight, what they're saying is preserve life at any cost, don't die, whatever is coming after you, you know, whether it's an angry email or an animal in the forest or jungle, you know, stay alive. So that same thing that was happening in the jungles or savannahs or wherever is the same thing that happens on the street of London, the street of New York, the streets of Bombay, everywhere that is preservation of life. And and that's really subtle too, because preservation of life for us could mean not getting insulted, not getting offended or feeling that our sensibilities have been trotted over by someone who has judged us or criticised us or or feeling shame about things. So this whole range of emotions that causes us to go into a stress response are all things that we're using to protect life, which we largely identify with as our identity.
Dr Rupy: And everyone comes to yoga from a different path, right? You you came to it out of turning into a vegetarian through a friend of yours whilst you were working in New York. What led you to actually make that huge step and go to India as you described in your book?
Eddie Stern: A lot of times in life you do things without knowing why you do them. Um, and as a, you know, as a sort of a ex-punk rocker and a goth and a skateboarder, um, a lot of the things I did were for no discernible reason. Like, you know, young boys do stupid things on skateboards and BMXs all the time. Like, what would drive someone to skateboard as fast as you could towards a long flight of stairs, jump your skateboard up in the air, land on a railing, slide down the railing and then land on the other side. Like, is there any logical reason for that? No, other than the thrill of accomplishment. And that's why people have been doing stupid things like that for a very long time. Jumping out of airplanes, you know, getting married, it's the thrill of accomplishment. So I think that, um, you know, the thing that led me to yoga was I was actually looking, I was on a spiritual quest, even though I didn't have the language for it at the time. And I was looking to be healthier and happier and more connected. And I was looking for meaning. But the thing that led me to go to India was just that it was the suggestion was made by my yoga teachers and it sounded like, oh, here's a good idea, or, you know, maybe I should just try this. Like skateboarding, you know, off a cliff in Central Park. Let's try it. That's all.
Dr Rupy: And when you were there.
Eddie Stern: I never thought I would go back again.
Dr Rupy: Oh, really?
Eddie Stern: Yeah, I thought I'll go to India one time and then I'll come home. You know, then we'll see then we'll see what happens.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, because it seems to have spiralled since then. So you went to India, you learned yoga from a yoga master. I think you actually came back to India to to learn because they weren't teaching at that time or something.
Eddie Stern: Well, I went to India in 1988. I went to the Shivananda Yoga Centre. It was an ashram in South India and Kerala. I spent a month there and then I travelled through India for about three and a half months after that, came home, started teaching yoga. And then the next year I went back to India to go help them at that course. And then the next year I went back again and before you knew it, I was going to India like every single year. So I've basically been every year since 1988. Um, from 2009 to 2011 or 12, I skipped a couple of years, but otherwise it's been once or twice a year since then.
Dr Rupy: And has your understanding of what yoga is and what it represents and why we have it as a system of thinking about things or perhaps something that actually I heard you in conversation with Deepak Chopra talking about how yoga transcends a thought system. Yoga is the closest you can get to the science of consciousness, which I thought was quite a nice way of describing it because it's not like mythology or religious teaching. It's actually something that gets us a bit more connected to the idea of the universal being, if you like. Um, but has your idea of what yoga represents and why we have it as a system or whatever you want to call it, changed over your that period of time that you've been practising?
Eddie Stern: Yeah, it changes quite a lot. Uh, in India, they have a metaphor, I guess it is, of peeling an onion, that you keep peeling one layer after another, after another, after another, after another until there's nothing left. And um, AG Mohan, I wrote about this in the book, who's a yoga teacher from South India said, but yes, you peel the onion till there's nothing left, but the one who remains is the one who peeled the onion. And so I think the one who peeled the onion is the impulse we have to know. And that is the observer or the witness aspect of consciousness that is the basis of who we are and of how we connect and how we perceive and everything. And yoga sutra Patanjali said, the of the ways of having a correct perception about something, there are three different ways. One is by your own direct perception, and then another is through inference and another is through testimony, like scripture and text and things like that. So to know who we are and to understand things, to find meaning, the best way is not to infer it from other people, not to pick things up from books or things that we've read, but to examine ourselves and through self-evaluation and all the different inward practices we can do, we'll have a deep experience of ourselves, of consciousness, of awareness, of whatever you want to happen to call it, of God even. And then that is who you become. And so the journey to that is going to go through different layers and and you're going to traverse, you know, when I was younger, I was very free. I could just wander around India with no possessions and you know, I'd go there with $500 and I'd come home four or five months later with $100 still in my pocket because you could live very cheaply and and you didn't need much. And so I thought that I was a like a holy person. You know, I thought I was like a quasi monk. I had long red hair and I had a long beard and you know, I was wearing white all the time. Like, you know, a red-haired, you know, disciple of Jesus or something. So, um, and then, and then I fell in love and I got married and then we had a baby and so my identity shifted from being this very um, focused Yogi to being like a husband and being a father and then really just trying to be a good father. And then what that leads to is a lot of survival issues. I need to make enough money to send my daughter to King's College in London, you know, and I need to pay the rent and I need to do all this, have health insurance and all that. And so then, and now our daughter's in school and my wife now is on a meditation retreat in Burma for three weeks and I'm, and uh, I'm um, you know, continuing to work and do all that stuff. And um, but our emphasis now is shifting a little bit again, like so our daughter's not home every day, we don't have to cook for her every day and she's, we're watching her become a young woman. And so now we're in a phase of our life where we're shifting more towards our spiritual practices again too. But for that 18-year period, our practices were more like being parents and you know, taking care of the house. And now it's shifting slightly again. So that's another layer of the onion. And um, and now, so I'm 52 years old now. My body is different than it was when I was 25. I don't do the same intensity of yoga practice I do. And I use yoga in a different way now than I did then. It is more for um, expanding my field of awareness of inhabiting my body in ways that I hope will sustain it for a long time so that when I'm in my 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, you know, may I make it so long, that I can be independent. I can mobilise myself. I can walk around, I can do the dishes, I can cook, I can take care of myself. So, so the way that I'm practising now is twofold. One, to make sure that I have a good future and a healthy body. And two, that I use the practices in a way that creates a feeling of awareness, of meaning, of connectedness, um, so that I can continue to be skilful in the body that I'm inhabiting. And 25 years ago, I did yoga, um, for some of those same reasons, but also I wanted to be really good at the poses because they're fun, frankly. And and it's cool to do stuff with your body. And so, but I don't quite do those, I don't do it in that same way anymore.
Dr Rupy: You mentioned something there, identity, which I want to come back to because you mentioned identity and its relationship to Avidya and Vidya as well, which are the concepts of ignorance and knowing, if I'm right in saying.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, the word Avidya commonly translated as ignorance means not a complete knowing of who you are, but only a partial knowing. And Vidya is the full knowledge of who you are.
Dr Rupy: So, I wanted to talk about that because I think I'm on a very personal level, I'm constantly struggling with the Vidya. As I think everyone, everyone is.
Eddie Stern: With Avidya.
Dr Rupy: With Avidya. Have you got to a point where you're transcending that or do you feel like it's you're still in a place where you're constantly battling with who you want to identify as or what you want other people to perceive you as?
Eddie Stern: Well, I definitely have not transcended anything. Um, I and I think that one of the things that is a good practice to do is to be very accepting of who you think you are. Because quite often who we think we are is someone that we want to push away from ourselves because we find fault with ourselves a lot. Um, and but even if who you think you are is like a wonderful person, then embrace thinking that you're a wonderful person. And if you have shame or guilt or you're constantly criticising yourself, that part of you that you might criticise that you're not disciplined or that you have a hard time keeping up with the vows that you make to yourself, embrace that part of yourself too and and give it love and pull it in. And because when we fight against ourselves, then we widen the gap. But when we embrace those parts of ourselves that we don't like, and say, hey, I'm going to give you a big hug, you know, then love creates togetherness and togetherness creates growth. And so if we really want to grow, we have to embrace the difficult parts of ourselves and not push them away and and try to bury them somewhere else.
Dr Rupy: And is it something that you've begun to, you've learned very early on in terms of your practice? Was it something that you come to realise later on?
Eddie Stern: Later on, because in the beginning, you know, as I have said before, like I was, I went through these different phases when I was a teenager, like we all have, of identifying very, um, uh, enthusiastically with different tribes, punk rockers, goths, hippies, and then yogis. And then the, you know, the last tribe that I was really identifying with was like being a yogi. And that is also a personality trap. And it probably of all of them, it was the worst one because in that personality of trap of thinking that I was a yogi, I thought I was better than everyone else who didn't do yoga. You know, it's like how some people follow particular diets and they think, you know, this diet is better than everyone else on the planet who does not follow this particular diet. And this is the problem of the mind. It does this. It latches on to things that we think will be the best thing that there is. Why? Because we're doing it. And what is this? This is preservation of life. This is all that response to holding on because if we don't hold on to that thing, who will we be? So the not knowing who we are is the scariest thing in the world. So we hold on to things that we aren't. And when we hold on to things that we aren't and we imagine that they're real, that is what Avidya is. But when we know who we are, then we don't hold on to the things that are not real and then we're free. So that's the basic process of observing ourselves where we latch on to things and demand that they be right. The need to be right, the need to be the best, you know, the need to know everything. All of these kinds of of things. So, um, I am, no, I'm I'm very much a work in progress. And I don't mind being a work in progress anymore. Uh, there, you know, like many people, I have moments of clarity and I have moments where I experience things that shift my perception of myself and of the world. Um, lately there was a practice that I was doing where at a certain point, I really had a deep experience that I didn't exist as a body. You know, I existed as awareness or as being, but I didn't exist as a body. And that hasn't stayed as my lasting waking reality, but it stayed enough in a visceral part of my memory that I can kind of still feel like, oh yeah, you know, the body is an accessory to to awareness or to consciousness. So you have these little insights into being or into who you are, and those insights stay with you. And if you keep practising in the same way or reflecting on them, all those little insights begin to compound themselves. So over time, they become more and more of your reality. Um, but if you push them aside or forget about them or just go back to your old ways, then you kind of lose those insights.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I guess it's like the process of constantly coming back to it. And I'm guessing those moments of clarity will extend for longer periods of time perhaps and permeate through a bit more of what you do on a daily basis.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, they might. They might. I would like that. I mean, who wouldn't? So I have great hopes. I have great hopes for myself and everybody.
Dr Rupy: We connected um, uh, during the game changers uh premiere. Um, I was invited by a friend of yours as well. And um, one of the things that struck me straight away is that your interest in the science behind yoga and you told me about this um study that you were involved in, um, with a small group, um, who are African American background, um, and how yoga, uh, a period of yoga, I can't remember how long, I mean, you can tell us in a second, but the amount of time and and how it impacted their blood pressure. And I thought that was fantastic for two reasons. One being um, the science of yoga and actually trying to understand what the physiological mechanisms behind yoga and how that has um, uh, actual effects on parameters of health like blood pressure. But two also because you were using a cohort, um, of participants that are fantastically underrepresented in research per se, but also but in particular wellness research and actually these um, free accessible modes of health that we all have access to. Um, so I wanted you to talk a bit more about that because I found that absolutely fascinating.
Eddie Stern: Sure. Uh, this was a study that was authored by my colleague, Dr. Marshall Hagans, and he and I have gone on to work together, um, since then for the past 10 years, we've been collaborating. And now we run the yoga and science conferences together. And his interest was to do a study on yoga and African-Americans with pre-hypertensive conditions. Most of them, I believe, were over 55 in the study. And um, because of the um, composition of blood cells, the difference between African-Americans and Caucasians is that they will absorb salt, I believe, at a much quicker rate, which leads to pre-hypertensive or hypertensive conditions, uh, in a different way that it does for Caucasians. And he wanted to see if yoga would help for that. So they had yoga twice a week in a class and three times a week at home, no lifestyle changes whatsoever, no dietary changes, nothing else. And in a 12-week period, we saw remarkable changes. I think overall, there was a five to seven mercury point decrease in their blood pressure and the sleeping diastolic blood pressure decreased also, which apparently is a very important marker. So, um, and they felt great and happy. And one woman, we did a video of it and you can see it on YouTube on the Chopra well, said that she, you know, went to her doctor and her doctor said, what have you been doing different? She said, I've been doing yoga. And he said, you know, whatever you're doing, keep doing it. That's amazing. So, yeah, that was a very interesting study.
Dr Rupy: Was that the first time you decided to step into the world of research and actually um, uh, sort of interact with uh people from the or uh researchers from conventional medicine or is this something that you've always had the idea of?
Eddie Stern: No, that was the first time I'd ever done anything with science. Uh, I hadn't, you know, I'd been very focused on yoga, um, chanting, ritual, philosophy, spirituality, and no science whatsoever. And um, so that was another one of those things like when you ask like, well, why did you go to India? You know, it was like skateboarding down a flight of stairs. Um, why did you do the science study? Seem like a good idea. Marshall walked into the school and asked me if I would do it. We had never met. And I said, yeah, sure. Yeah. Um, it sounds good. And um, and I've learned a tremendous amount from him over the years. It's been really very cool and very eye opening. And that's really one of the things that led to to this book.
Dr Rupy: Because in the book you talk about, you know, your interactions with physical therapists and medical doctors. And it's perhaps through that understanding or these interactions rather, you begin to understand the science of why yoga works in so many different ways, the poses, the breathing, the positions and how that relates to our nervous system.
Eddie Stern: One thing that Marshall talks about is that science is storytelling. And that if you, let's say do a good study and you can tell a compelling story about it, the way that you create the narrative will be the way that it is perceived and read. And and then you need some substance to it, of course. So he said that science is basically competitive storytelling. And yoga is another type of storytelling too. Whether we talk about mythology or we talk about the nadis or chakras or the, you know, the stories behind the asanas or anything, it's all storytelling. And there's no reason why one storytelling is better than another storytelling if both of those are aiming towards knowledge, um, liberation, relief of suffering, all of these types of things are like those are really good things for humanity to have more of, especially relief of suffering. So, um, I already had the yoga storytelling part down pretty good. And frankly, a lot of it wasn't very satisfying because there aren't a lot of answers. Um, you know, why should you do this? You get asked why all the time. Why should I do it like this? Well, just because it seems to work. Okay, fine. But why does it seem to work? That's a kind of storytelling that science can fill in for the people who are interested in that. Some people don't care. They they take it at face value. I did for a long time too. I still basically take it at face value. But and, you know, I do. I don't really question it. I know that yoga works. I know that it's good for you. I know that it connects you to a deep, deep part of yourself. But I also really enjoy the storytelling of science and the language of science and how things are examined because it sharpens your intellect and it sharpens your way and expands your way of looking at people in the world that we live in. So what do you say in medical school that the eyes don't see what the brain doesn't know? I know you know that one. And so when your brain is trained to see something in a particular way, like someone walking into your office and you've been trained to see that, oh, without them even talking, I know that they have this particular thing going on. So that's now a skill that you have because you've trained your brain to perceive something in the world that you didn't perceive before. So then what happens is, so your brain is trained to see things that you that and someone helps you to see them or you get an insight so you see it differently and then you always see that. And that's your new way of looking at the world. And there's like a a myriad of ways that we can continue to do that in all different sorts of ways. And that, you know, that helps to make us better people or better communicators, better healers, if you're a doctor, and better yoga teachers if you happen to be a yoga teacher. And um, so science for me has uh, been enjoyable that way because it helps me to look at all of this stuff that I've been doing for such a long time through a new set of eyes and to understand it in different ways.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, on the subject of the eyes don't see what the brain doesn't recognise. It's also perhaps improving your ability to converse with the scientific community that might have been traditionally skeptic. Um, about the whole process of yoga. Um, and it also encourages us to communicate together as one sort of health system that is ultimately looking at trying to alleviate the suffering of multiple of many people. Um, I find the science of yoga particularly fascinating, but like you, I also know inherently that me moving my body in a certain way on a daily basis is going to help me and and having that storytelling or that explanation or the reductionist mechanistic view as to why yoga works, does sometimes help me uh convince my colleagues, but also convince myself.
Eddie Stern: Yeah. It does. And another thing too is that like, so everything inside of our skin and hidden by the bones is exactly that. It's hidden. We don't see it. So we don't see the synapses firing in our brain and we don't see the oxygen exchange in the lungs through the blood. We don't see any of these things. And um, so to be able to describe an intimate inner working of that which sustains us and keeps us alive, I think is a valuable thing. And the Yogis didn't shy away from it. They called them the nadis, they called them the chakras, they called them, you know, all sorts of different things. They didn't have the language that we have now. So there's, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't use this language to explain things that we can't see because it's natural to wonder how is it working? How does a thought form? How does a memory, you know, become uh fixed inside of me? We know we can't see thought, we can't see memory. Um, but we can see blood flow into the brain. We can see different parts of the brain working. We can see all sorts of things that make us think, well, if I do these postures and breathing in a particular way, it's going to have this effect on my brain, on my cardiovascular system, on my renal system, you know, and if I meditate in this particular way, it's going to have a very positive effect on the vagus nerve and on controlling inflammation levels in the body and all these types of things. So these are all valuable things to know, especially if you want to help make people better. And um, so I don't see any contradiction in it whatsoever. I don't think yoga will explain science. I don't think science will explain yoga. They are two different methodologies that exist within their own parameters, but they correlate with each other and they support each other. And I think we can use them both to expand our experience of being.
Dr Rupy: As someone from the outside, I almost see them converging together if I'm honest. So I see greater interest in the scientific community trying to understand postures and breathing and why those might have an effect. You mentioned the vagus nerve, for example, um, but also baroreceptors and chemoreceptors uh that change or are stimulated in different ways depending on how we breathe and how we move our body. And it there's just so much science behind it now. It just seems like they are kind of converging and that's why you're seeing gut health researchers or gastroenterologists actually recommending breathing techniques as a way to treat everything from IBS, IBD and even anxiety as well.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, there's a lot of research on all of those, especially on anxiety. And well, one of the reasons might be is that there are a lot more people doing yoga these days and a lot of those people happen to be doctors, researchers, scientists and and healthcare workers. So this is something that that, you know, Marshall and Satbir Khalsa say a lot, like, you know, there are a lot of people who might have been hippies in the 1970s doing yoga who then became doctors and researchers. I mean, Ram Dass started off as Richard Alpert and he was a psychologist at Harvard. And Timothy Leary, they were both working in the universities. So, yeah, yeah. And so, and what they did was sort of, you know, change the consciousness of an entire generation through LSD. Yeah. So, so there is a lot of convergence and there is there's definitely and in India, there's a tremendous amount of interest and there has been for a long time since the 1920s, researching yoga, holding conferences on science and yoga. So, you know, what I'm doing with with Marshall is not a new thing. It's following in a long tradition of people who have been looking at the convergence of these two worlds. Swami Kuvalayananda in the 1920s said, you know, yoga works. There's nothing better for your nervous system, your endocrine system, cardiovascular system, your sense of well-being and spirituality. Um, but for people who aren't convinced of that on its own, they need scientific proof. And so we can measure these things and show them. But one of the things that we aren't able to measure so far, but perhaps we will in the future, are transcendent states of consciousness, you know, what causes those? Um, does that occur in the brain? Is consciousness a um, a result of brain activity or is brain activity a result of consciousness? Um, you know, these are the hard problems of consciousness, which is popular in the philosophical worlds, that I'm definitely not going to answer. Uh, yoga has its own particular answer for that. And Vedanta has its own answer, but from a scientific perspective, this idea of of consciousness and matter, that's still an open question.
Dr Rupy: How does yoga describe that?
Eddie Stern: Classical yoga, Patanjali yoga describes them as two distinct entities. And they're both eternal principles. So consciousness is eternal and infinite, and matter or energy or nature is eternal and infinite too. So these two things exist as two banks of a river that, you know, never meet but are connected by the flow of water for lack of a better metaphor. So in classical yoga, Purusha is pure consciousness, Prakriti is nature. They are both infinite. They both exist. In non-dualistic Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta, everything is consciousness and everything that we see is a permutation of consciousness. Um, so consciousness uses um, you know, awareness to create the mind, the mind then creates the brain, the brain then perceives reality as the brain can perceive it, which is a limited version of reality. In fact, what we perceive is not reality at all, but only the very small bandwidth of the colours we can see, the sounds we can hear, the tastes we can taste, the smells and the touch that we have sensitivity for. But that's very limited to the human experience. So from a non-dual perspective, uh, consciousness that we experience now is how consciousness perceives things when it's in a human body. So this is consciousness as a human experience. But when consciousness is not um, within the confines of this body, maybe after our death, then consciousness will experience itself in a different way, in a different form. And we don't know what that form is necessarily now. Some people have near death experiences, they get a taste of that. Everything was light, everything was love, everything was perfectly free. Um, experiences like that. So consciousness in a body will experience the world in a human body like we experience it. Consciousness not confined to a body, this is spoken of in yoga sutra too, is the disincarnate beings will experience consciousness in a different way. Uh, cats and dogs and bats and worms and trees and flowers and clouds will all experience the world in the way that they experience it. But that's how consciousness will experience it through those particular forms. But the consciousness itself is just the witnessing aspect, the experiencing aspect. And the experience is identifying with the filtration system.
Dr Rupy: And I think you make an analogy in the book where you're typing away on a computer and you you say, you know, this isn't uh, I'm not typing away on a computer, I'm typing away on a manifestation of an idea that happened to be in Steve George's brain and then and that has now manifested itself into this computer over a series of different iterations along the time. Is that, is that what we mean by in terms of manifestations of consciousness?
Eddie Stern: Yeah, that can definitely be one that we live in a constructed world of a human mind basically. So everything in this kitchen right now has been thought through a human mind, created and now we're living in the reality that someone wanted us to live in. How everything is placed here, your stove, it's an electric, it's a convection oven, right? It's not gas and we have a sink here and the washing machine here and the table here and the lights are all above us and there's a window over there. Someone thought about that and they put it together and now we're living in it. So are we living in reality or are we living in someone's imagination? We are living in someone's imagination that has been, has taken the form through builders and a lot of other means as a structural thing, as a solid thing. So we take this solid thing to be reality, but um, but it's not, it's a construction. And so on a, on a level which is, if we examine and the Buddhists talk about this and the non-dualists talk about this as well, that if you look at this table of wood and you examine it closely, it's made up of of atoms. And if you look into an atom, an atom has a proton and a neutron and an a proton, electron and neutrons and they're and they're mainly empty space. And so, and the same with our physical body as well, we are made up of cells and cells are made up of molecules and molecules are made up of atoms and atoms are made up of their components and they're mainly empty space. So we are largely empty space, but we seem to have a form. And this table is largely empty space, but seems to have a form. So those two things can exist simultaneously, that the formless, that empty space, which is, you know, nothingness for lack of a better word, can exist at the same time as form exists. And you can identify in other ways. So the Buddhists will say that because this table has no inherent form because it's largely empty space, it doesn't have any inherent individual existence. Therefore, it's interdependent with everything else that exists in the world at the same time. Uh, nothing has any inherent independent existence. Um, so that's what they would say, that's where they would say it's empty because if it has its own independent existence, then it would be full, discrete. But nothing does. Um, if you examine it closely enough. So if we examine ourselves closely enough and we see that on an atomic level, we're mainly empty space and we begin identifying with that emptiness, we might identify with our being in a different way than if we think, I'm my body, I'm my name, I'm my personality. This is something that I need to protect at all costs. And in order to protect this body, personality and form at all costs, I might be aggressive towards you. I might be aggressive towards the person next to me. I might start a business and in order to keep my business to protect my personality, my name, my form and my livelihood, I might be aggressive towards someone else's business or religion or country or whatever else it is. So the root of violence and the root of aggression and animosity is again, we go back to preservation of life and a misidentification with form that really has no inherent individual substance in and of itself. And uh, and I hope I'm not getting too complicated, but and then another way that uh, both the Buddhists and the non-dualists will look at it is that even from a material point of view, we don't exist independent of the world around us. Like we need the planet to walk on, first of all. And we need air to breathe, we need the sunlight to grow food and ourselves and get vitamins from. We need the rains to fall so we have water. We need people to help grow food and deliver it to our supermarket so we can buy it and cook it and eat it and we need people to film podcasts so we can talk on them and put them on YouTube. So we don't do anything independently. We exist in a large mix of interdependent relationships. And we forget about those relationships when we identify with ourselves purely as separate beings. So part of the yogic path or any spiritual path is to recognise how we don't exist independently. Uh, Thich Nhat Hanh calls this inter-being, that we exist with other beings and as part of other beings too. And to live that way is the kindest way to live because then we will respect all other beings as our own body. And the same way that we would protect our own body, we will protect other beings as well. And that includes animals, the planet, the environment, the things that we use, recycling. All that kind of stuff, um, when we recognise that we're all inter-being together. So separation is the disease of mankind. And a lot of the work that Stephen Porges does with the vagus nerve and the way we express emotion and things like that through the vagus nerve has to do with what he calls co-regulation. That um, my facial expressions, you'll read them and you'll respond to them. My tone of voice, you'll hear it and you'll respond to it. And so we co-regulate ourselves with kindness, we co-regulate ourselves with aggression. And so when we understand how to self-regulate through yoga and through meditation and through food and sleep and exercise, when we learn how to self-regulate ourselves and be the healthiest we can be, the most understanding we can be, see that we are inter-being with everyone else, I'll behave that way with you and that will cause you to respond to me in that same way. And then I'll respond back to you in that way and we'll have this feedback loop of co-regulation, which leads us towards our our highest good for lack of a better word. And so this is a lot of, when we talk about the vagus nerve being supported and stimulated through yoga and all the associated practices and the microbiome and everything, uh, that's because not just does it make us healthier, but it makes us interrelate better in social ways with the world around us. And we are social beings and we are beings that live interrelated with the whole world around us. We want to do it in the best way possible.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I mean, it kind of um resonates with me quite a bit. Um, the connectedness of everything. Um, because as we spoke about before, I was raised in the Sikh religion. And the very first um sentence in our holy book is Ik Onkar, which is essentially uh the oneness of everything. Everything is one. Um.
Eddie Stern: Waheguru.
Dr Rupy: Waheguru, exactly. Yeah. Um, which I mean, I don't I don't identify with any particular religion. I just respect everything and the teachings, but it is quite interesting how everything does become quite a singular in terms of the ways in which uh everything is explained in terms of the oneness of the universe or the emptiness and the wholeness of everything. You are both everything and nothing at the same time.
Eddie Stern: All I know is that right now at this moment, everything that we think exists around us exists. Like you're existing, I'm existing, this table is existing, the tree outside, we're all existing right now at the same time. We're all existing together. We're not existing at different times in different places. That's how I feel about it. We're just all existing together. So we might as well try to behave like it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Yeah.
Eddie Stern: Which is pretty hard.
Dr Rupy: You mentioned the Stephen Porges, Dr. Stephen Porges.
Eddie Stern: The polyvagal theory.
Dr Rupy: And the polyvagal theory. Yeah, I'd love to talk a bit more about that.
Eddie Stern: Well, what he says is that the um, the polyvagal theory basically is that the vagus nerve, which is our parasympathetic nervous system, or at least 80% of the parasympathetic nervous system, has a hierarchical and predictable way of responding to the outside world. And our nervous system in general, as Dr. Bruce Lipton has said, is that part of us which coordinates all of the communication and information flows of our cellular environment, of which there are 37.2 trillion cells approximately, with the outer environment. So it's coordinating all of these information flows internally with the outer world. Our um, suprachiasmatic nucleus is tracking the movements of the sun so that it stimulates the pineal gland to release melatonin when the sun goes down and it's time to go to sleep. So our brain is tracking the universe basically, or at least our universe, our small corner of the universe that we live in. It's not really a corner. So, so our brain is tracking that. Um, we don't have to do anything. So this is, you know, one small example of nervous system interacting with the environment. And what Dr. Porges says is that one way we interact is social co-regulation. And this is going to be parasympathetic nervous system responding to the environment in a prosocial way. If we feel, and this is us seeking comfort and connection. If we're not being met with comfort and connection, then we're being met with threat. And if we are perceiving threat, then the sympathetic nervous system will respond with fight or flight to preserve life. And if fight or flight doesn't work and things are really severe, then the deepest levels of the vagus nerve, which are below the diaphragm, will respond with immobilisation. And so he says that immobilisation is different from fight or flight. So some people say fight, flight or freeze. And he says, no, fight or flight is one response of the vagus nerve, but immobilisation is a deeper part of it. So the nerves above the diaphragm are myelinated, so they're covered in the sheaths around the nerves which give very quick messaging, and then unmyelinated below the diaphragm will have slower signals. And that's where um, immobilisation is occurring.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's amazing how much research there is around vagal tone uh and how we can modulate vagal tone to elicit different uh beneficial effects. So there's some work going on in epilepsy where you can actually modulate vagal tone using deep neural stimulation um to reduce the uh firing or the excitatory activity of neuronal cells. Um, there's also a lot of uh uh information out there on inflammation as well.
Eddie Stern: Rheumatoid arthritis.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, which is super interesting. I mean, we've had a gastroenterologist on the show talking about um breathing exercises for IBS and actually uh lowering uh IBS patients' threshold for experiencing pain when they bloat, um, which I found fascinating. But that uh has a multitude of different effects or has the potential to have a multitude of different effects where inflammation is one of the issues um that's causing the symptom or causing the condition. Um, so it can be extended to things like rheumatoid arthritis or other pain states or mental health issues, um, because it is being potentiated by the cytokines that are created as a result of um vagal issues. Um, which I found fascinating. I mean, even we talked about the microbiome. Um, there's some research that demonstrates if you have rhamnosus bacteria in your gut, um, that's actually how it improves uh anxiety um and depression uh subjectiveness. And if you perform a vagotomy, so that's where you cut the vagus nerve in a rat, um, the rhamnosus bacteria doesn't have the same effect. And we know the vagus nerve is actually central to how what's going on in your gut can have an impact on your brain as well.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, so for and for the folks listening who don't know what the vagus nerve is specifically. So it comes from uh the word, you know, vagus means vagabond. It's the wandering nerve. We have 12 cranial nerves, right? Um, and the vagus nerve is the 10th of the cranial nerves. It's different from the other 12 in that all of the other or the other 11, that all the other 11 are only um promoting activity and nerve signalling from the shoulders through the face and through the head. And then the vagus goes down through the throat, through the trachea, into the heart, into the lungs, into the diaphragm, into the liver, into the spleen, into the pancreas, into the stomach and into the intestines. And so it is this is the body brain communication through the vagus nerve. And that's one of the things that it does. It picks up signals from the body, sends it to the brain, tells the brain what's going on. So when we talk about rhythmic breathing and IBS, what's happening is through the rhythmic movement of the abdominal region, we're sending messages of rhythmicity and safety from through the um abdominal nerves of which we have 100 million of them, as many as in our spinal column. And those messages are going through the vagus nerve that attach up into the transverse colon and other high areas of the of the diaphragm, of the uh intestines, up to the brain, sending the brain messages of safety and rhythmicity through this rhythmic breathing. So the vagus nerve is carrying the messages from the microbiome, from the all the nerves in the intestines up to the brain to tell the brain what the condition is going on down here. And so then the same with the heart and with the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, um, so that's one of the interesting things about how yoga is really effective for um, fine tuning or changing the signalling of the body because we're twisting this way and we're twisting that way. We're massaging the liver, we're massaging the spleen. We're closing the stomach, we're opening the stomach. We're closing the intestines down, we're opening them down. And all of this moving and massaging is sending messages up to the brain from the visceral body saying, hey, someone's paying attention to me. I'm not just being flooded with fatty foods and, you know, with and with stress and things like that, but I'm getting a nice massage now and I'm feeling good and stuff is getting released. And all that messaging is going up to the brain and the brain is going, okay, I'm going to respond now by, you know, sending, I'm not going to send signals to release more adrenaline and cortisol. I'm going to send some signals down of dopamine and of serotonin because things are feeling pretty good now. So you're going to change the chemical balance um of your body through signalling to the brain and the brain responding to that signalling. So it's very, very cool.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's super interesting. I mean, like um, even through the nutritional.
Eddie Stern: Is that all correct from a medical perspective?
Dr Rupy: From a medical perspective. Yeah. I mean, I don't know too much about splenic and hepatic massage, but it makes sense that if you're twisting and moving your body in different ways, it's not just the uh uh your anatomy that's being stimulated. It's your baroreceptors that are sensing different pressure changes. It's your breath work. It's all of that in conjunction. So it's kind of like going back to the scientific reductionist approach. Even though I really enjoy talking about mechanisms and pathways, it's a very dynamic process, yoga. And it's something you pick up in your book about all the all the different exercises that you do in yoga, whether it be chanting, breathing, movement, mindfulness. Do you utilise the exercise of breathing in your practice and and are there different methods for different sort of ailments and things?
Eddie Stern: There are, there are for sure. Um, some breathing patterns are heating, some are cooling, according to Ayurveda and according to the Yogis. So if you have a problem with too much phlegm, for example, you'll do things like Kapalabhati and Bhastrika. If you have a problem with heat in the body, you'll do things where you're primarily exhaling through your left nostril, which is said to be the cooling side. Um, so there are all different ways that the breath is associated with hot and cold, with phlegm, with people who have a hard time gaining weight, with people have heart problems. And I think essentially what the breathing patterns are doing, the pranayama practices is they're directly addressing our nervous system and they're directly addressing homeostasis. So, you know, when we inhale and when we exhale, the respiratory patterns are starting from our brain stem and the other respiratory centres of the brain as well. And the vagus nerve is going to be controlling the slowing down and the speeding up of the heart as we inhale and as we exhale. If we are breathing in smooth, even patterns, we're strengthening the vagal break, which is slowing the heart down on the exhale and relaxing the break on the inhale so the breath speeds up. And this is very good for cardiovascular health, but it's also good for and for keeping inflammation levels low in the body. It sends messages to the baroreceptors wrapped around the carotid arteries to monitor blood pressure. And so really through regulated breathing, we're regulating the, you know, the deep aspects of our autonomic nervous system. So our autonomic nervous system is doing all the things during the day which need to be done so we stay alive, things we don't need to think about. Heartbeat, respiration, blood pressure, digestion, um, elimination, sleep. And so, uh, and and breath is one of the functions of brain stem of autonomic nervous system function. So when we do conscious breathing, we are for a little while hijacking an autonomic nervous system function to do what to it, to help support it and restore balance to it. So for the kind of person who doesn't breathe well, we breathe shallow or we hold our breath a lot because we're stressed out, um, or we're breathing too fast because we're like really hyped up all the time. The pranayama practices will slow down the breathing, will stimulate these different aspects related to respiration, including the baroreceptors and monitoring blood pressure and different pressure changes in the body and regulate that. And then that helps restore balance to the body in all the different ways that it needs to be restored. So I primarily see the pranayama practices as working on the nervous system.
Dr Rupy: And there's a lot of evidence for that actually. I mean, there was a paper that came out a couple of years ago, I think I spoke to uh a friend of mine about it about volitional breathing, which is just a fancy word for saying mindful breathing. And it was about uh how um it was it was actually called breathing on the brain stem. I remember the paper now is in the journal of neurophysiology or something like that. And um it was all about how they measured EEG, so electrical potentials that are that we can measure using a swimming cap that you put on people's heads. Um and how that modulated neuronal activity and you could uh measure specific oscillations of neuronal activity when people are performing this mindful breathing exercise. And it was a very simple pranayama essentially. Um, and that honestly gives me a lot more hope that if more people can see the scientific benefits of it using the storytelling of the, you know, the language of science, um, then more people will be more uh believing of it, but they more people will be entertained by the idea of doing it. Because if I if I was to speak to my patients about breathing exercises for panic attacks or anxiety, depression, a lot of it is met with skepticism, even those who are quite open-minded. But if there is some degree of evidence that I can actually present to them like this is actually, this is what it's doing to you, um, then I think more people will be willing to pick it up. And that's great for yoga in general.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, it's good for people in general. I think it's a really good thing and I think it's one of the great uses of science. Um, the um, we know intuitively and instinctively that when someone is upset or stressed out or angry, we tell them to breathe. Like, how do we know to do that? We just know. Like that's it's wired into us to know that you hold your breath when you're freaked out. Um, you know, you breathe really fast when you're angry or whatever. So if a child is crying or upset, you tell them to breathe. So we know these things, but now what if you, you know, if you're hungry, you should eat some food. And so now you say, oh, you're hungry, eat some food. But what kind of food should I eat? Well, if you eat these particular kind of food, you're not going to feel hungry later. You're going to feel full now and it's going to last you for a while. If you eat a bag of potato chips now or a Twinkie, you're going to feel really good right now, but you're going to crash and need more sugar and more salt later and you're not going to feel so good. So why don't you try eating this wonderful meal of broccoli and beans and rice and potatoes and you're going to be, your mind will be more clear and your energy and your glucose levels will be more even throughout the day. So then people say, okay, I'll try that and then they'll feel it. So the same with breathing. You know, you in the beginning you can say, oh, you just breathe when you get freaked out. Now you say, well, if you breathe in this particular way, uh, not only will you still be breathing, like eating, but you're going to feel better for a longer period of time and in this is what's occurring when you do that. So there are people researching that now and an early study was um on single nostril breathing. That you put your thumb on your right nostril, you only breathe through your left nostril 27 times, four times a day. And this has been shown to improve spatial awareness. Right hemisphere function of the brain is to know where we are in space and navigate that well. And that through the right nostril breathing, 27 times a day, four times, 27 times, four times a day, it improved cognitive abilities, which is the jurisdiction of the left hemisphere. Now we have global activity as you know in the brain, but there's some specialised functions as well. So this was a study that showed, okay, if you want to improve cognitive abilities, you need to activate more this left hemisphere. If you want to improve spatial awareness, knowing where you exist around the things in front of you, uh, the things that are around you, uh, spatial awareness is a very important part of self-regulation because it also improves proprioception and interoception. Proprioception is how the limbs of our body know where they are in space. So sobriety test, you hold your arm out, touch the tip of your nose. Thank God I could do it. This is a proprioceptive test because drinking alcohol impairs proprioceptive abilities of the brain stem. So, um, the um, so the right hemisphere is going to be very much the jurisdiction of spatial awareness, interoception, knowing how I feel inside, proprioception, how I'm navigating the world around me. And it's been scientifically proven through single nostril breathing. And so there are other breathing practices which are starting to show little bits and pieces of how we know specifically what we can prescribe to a person who needs something. For example, if you have a lot of stress and anxiety, you don't want to take long deep inhales and hold your breath in. That is going to send pressure up to the baroreceptors, which is going to send a message to the brain that the pressure is off. It's going to speed up your heart rate, you're going to start to freak out. So you don't want that. You're already freaked out. So the opposite is long, slow exhales. Extend your exhale a little bit longer than your inhale because extended exhalations are going to down regulate the sympathetic nervous system, up regulate the parasympathetic and induce a state of calm after a few minutes. You can even extend your exhale and pause for a moment and then relax and inhale, extend the exhale and pause, relax and inhale. And then and that brings the pulse rate down, brings the blood pressure down, brings mental activity quieted down. So these are all things that we know in science and they can be prescribed because you're a doctor. Um, to people who you think would use them properly.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I think I need to learn a bit more about pranayamas before I Yeah, yeah.
Eddie Stern: You know, I'm not saying you should, you know, yeah, I'm not saying you should prescribe this to anybody. You know, I'll be the, you know, I'll be the one who ends up getting sued.
Dr Rupy: Um, there's a lot of things that are exciting about the future. I mean, you're already, uh, you've been doing the science of yoga festival for a while now.
Eddie Stern: Yeah, we're yeah, science, uh, yoga and science conference. I think we're in year number three or four. And, um, we have one in Stockholm in February, another in Austin, Texas in February. We just got an invitation to do one in Boston next year. We've done them in Zagreb, in Brooklyn, uh, with NYU Tandon School of Engineering, with Long Island University.
Dr Rupy: Amazing. And what kind of, uh, what kind of research do you guys talk about there? Is it all different sort of aspects of yoga or is it extending into different arenas?
Eddie Stern: Yeah, different arenas. What Marshall and I do is we take a look around at the researchers who are doing things that excite us in the fields of yoga and meditation. And then we invite them to come speak to an audience of largely yoga teachers and healthcare workers. So we think of ourselves as like, you know, well, he's a scientist, but I think of myself as um, as an end user of all this scientific research. So we we basically put the scientists together with the end users, which doesn't happen a lot as far as I understand in the scientific worlds. Usually with science conferences, they're specialised towards scientists. And what we want to do is we want to bring these scientists who have valuable information about the efficacies of yoga, uh, and the limits of it as well. And give that to yoga practitioners and yoga professionals so we can use it in our practices and and educate ourselves a little bit too.
Dr Rupy: And if people are going to start out with yoga, um, for people who are interested in it, but have got no experience of it in the past or have no idea where to where to even begin, what would your sort of advice to them be?
Eddie Stern: Look around, see what yoga schools are close by to you and go check them out. See if you like them. And if you don't like one of them, don't be turned off of it forever. Think that, you know, maybe there's another yoga school that they might teach differently and I might like that one. So try a few different things until you hit across something that works for you. There's a a scientist named Holger Cramer, Dr. Holger Cramer. He's presenting at our Stockholm conference next week. And he did a meta-analysis of 303, I believe, um, yoga research papers. And 277 of those papers showed positive results. And the positive results were largely along the same parameters of the ones we talked about earlier. And so what his conclusion was was that number one, yoga works. Uh, number two, the type of yoga that you do is based on only two things, preference and availability. And so if all you have around you is yoga taught at the YMCA, you go to that, it's probably going to work. And if you live in New York City or London and you have a thousand different yogas available on every different street corner, a lot of them aren't going to be palatable for you. So try a few until you find something that works for you.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I draw a parallel with that with with dietary sort of interventions as well. As long as you're choosing one of many diets that have been shown to work, whether it be vegetarianism, semi-vegetarian, Mediterranean, the principles that are underlying them are very much the same. It's about your propensity to stick with a way of eating that is more in keeping with your belief system or your ability to maintain it as well. So I think, yeah, that kind of marries quite well with the different types of yoga out there.
Eddie Stern: In Ayurveda, they say it's not what you eat, it's what you can digest.
Dr Rupy: There you go.
Eddie Stern: So I think it's probably the same with yoga. It's like not the kind of yoga you do, it's the kind of yoga you can digest.
