Years ago, while watching a particularly gifted person think through a difficult problem, I would try to picture how those hidden brain circuits were working. At times, I would imagine particularly vivid cerebral scenes, as different sections of the individual’s brain—connected by an unbelievably complex network of synapses, dendrites, and axons—flashed and exploded here and there, firing messages back and forth, until finally some significant thought or insight emerged.1
Of course, I knew I was indulging in fantasy. What I didn’t realize was that someday, through such tools as brain-wave measurement, we would actually have the means to observe firsthand those inner events that occur when creative juices begin to flow. Furthermore, I wasn’t prepared for the surprises that other new medical technology would bring, both to my own research involving the relaxation response, and also to my work in developing the Breakout Principle.
One major eye-opener for me emerged during the sophisticated research technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This procedure showed that the complete calming of the brain during prayer, meditation, or relaxation exercises was a myth. Instead, the fMRI, which is able to measure precise brain activity through blood flow in different regions of the brain at specific moments, showed that the brain combined areas of quietude with cerebral activity.
For many years, I had assumed that when a person evoked the relaxation response, the events in the brain automatically tracked the physiologic calming in the rest of the body. In other words, I thought that the entire brain became less active as the calming activity—such as meditation, muscle-relaxing exercises, or the like—lowered blood pressure, metabolism, heart rate, and output of stress hormones.
But my assumption about the calming of the brain was only partially correct. Our new research at the Harvard Medical School has shown that effective relaxation response exercises—and by inference the “release,” or inner calming phase, that must precede a Breakout—typically usher in a dynamic mental state, which may best be described as creating a paradox of calm commotion.
The paradox of calm commotion
In a pioneer study reported in the May 2000 issue of NeuroReport, and also in the November 23, 1999, issue of the New York Times, our team, led by Sara W. Lazar, used a functional MRI scanner (fMRI) to study responses of several Sikhs during meditation. (Sikhism is a monotheistic Indian religion founded in the late fifteenth century A.D. that combines principles of Islam and Hinduism.)
For me, this study was particularly exciting because of the new scientific tools at our disposal. In the past, I had been able to measure cardiovascular and other metabolic and respiratory changes and also to catalog subjective emotional responses during interviews. But now, as a result of breakthroughs in neuroscientific research, I could watch actual brain alterations occur as the subjects elicited the relaxation response. Also, I reasoned that the fMRI pictures were recording neurological patterns associated with the Breakout trigger.
Before launching the actual experiment, my colleague Dr. Lazar asked the subjects to practice their meditative technique under study conditions. They were cautioned that they would not be sitting by themselves in a quiet room, as they usually did. Instead, they would have to deal with a clanking fMRI machine, technicians and researchers who were moving about, and other potential distractions. In some ways, they were being forced into a situation that included all the distractions that might be found in a typical office or other real-life environment.
To simulate this atmosphere, the participants engaged in practice sessions at home while listening to a tape with the clanking sounds. Also, they adjusted their relaxation sessions to conform to the procedures established for our scientific study. Specifically, they followed this agenda:
For an initial six-minute control period, the participants directed their thoughts toward naming animals, such as cat, dog, and bird. Then they were instructed to focus on repeating silently, on the inbreath, the term sat nam, a meaningful religious phrase they typically used during meditation. On the outbreath, they repeated silently wahe guru, another meaningful phrase. In this way, they enhanced their physiologic and mental benefits by incorporating their deepest, intrinsic beliefs into their activity. In other words, they combined the repetitive impact of a relaxation response exercise with concepts from their personal belief system.
Several minutes into the meditation a number of changes—both expected and unexpected—occurred in their bodies and brains. As was the case with many studies I have conducted over the past few decades, an overall calming and slowing of the breathing occurred. But the neurological measurements turned up some new information, including a few surprises.
The fMRI brain mapping showed that most sections of the entire brain became dramatically less active. Interestingly, however, we couldn’t identify the source of this overall, marked quieting with the fMRI device. In other words, this operation of the mind might have arisen from somewhere inside the brain, but it might also have originated from outside the brain, perhaps in a separate “mind dimension.”
Furthermore, as the general brain quieting occurred, isolated areas of the brain—especially those associated with attention, space-time concepts, and “executive control” functions, such as decision-making and choice of mental focus—became extremely active. But once again, we were unable to identify the root cause of these changes. They might have arisen from within the physical brain, or from some outside location.
During the meditation exercises we also observed significantly increased blood flow in the limbic system and brain stem, the “primitive” parts of the brain that control the autonomic nervous system, including blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing rate. Our research team’s separate physiologic measurements, which I referred to above, confirmed that the practical result of this increased activity in the brain stem was actually to lower respiratory rate.
Finally, the fMRI showed that a particularly remarkable phenomenon happened at the very end of each meditation period. The subjects were asked to stop their formal meditation and fix their attention for three minutes on a spot on a screen in front of them. During this exercise, their overall brain activity increased dramatically.
So to sum up, our scientific study with the Sikhs demonstrated clearly that during deep relaxation—including the significant release of stress that typically occurs just before a Breakout—a complex, dynamic series of events, encompassing both calm and tumultuous commotion, occurs in our minds and bodies.
At first blush, this “calm commotion” phenomenon may seem contradictory. But in fact, both the calming and the highly active dimensions appear to be essential to personal health and well-being. In particular, those who have used relaxation techniques and have experienced this paradoxical calm-commotion phenomenon have consistently reported relief from high blood pressure, insomnia, mild and moderate depression, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), and symptoms of cancer and AIDS.
Our brain-mapping investigation with the Sikhs also suggests that a healthful and productive dynamism occurs at a crucial stage of the Breakout. Specifically, it seems that in the release stage—as prior mental and emotional patterns are broken and the Breakout trigger is pulled—these events typically take place:
With this neural and physiological platform in place, the Breakout proceeds automatically and, I believe, paves the way for a peak experience. So now, when I observe or hear reports about someone going through the Breakout process, I find that I no longer have to fantasize about what is going on in the brain and body. Instead, I can be confident that any outward or conscious activities and thoughts I may be watching are merely the tip of a vast brain-body “iceberg,” which is supporting the unfolding peak experience.
But even though the basic biological events behind every Breakout are the same, the outward events or thoughts that trigger this phenomenon are quite varied, and sometimes surprise me—as is evident in the following illustration involving Robert, a prominent attorney who succeeded after failing to follow my suggestions.
When I ran into my friend Robert several years ago, he was embroiled in a major crisis—with many of the medical danger signals of excessive stress: incapacitating anxiety, occasional irregular heartbeats, insomnia, and frequent bouts of the cold sweats. I knew that a recent medical exam, including an electrocardiogram, had shown that he was in no immediate danger. But the encouraging report didn’t relieve his emotional and physical discomfort or give him a good night’s sleep.
Robert was a good attorney who sensed he might be on the verge of becoming great. So he felt under tremendous pressure as he prepared for one of the most important cases of his life. Barely forty, he had already achieved a fine reputation, but if this trial went well, his career could soar to significant new heights.
Unfortunately, Robert wasn’t handling the spotlight well. He was edgy and nervous and felt himself becoming so distracted that he feared the quality of his trial presentation would suffer.
I sensed that unless he found a way to decompress, he might push his body and mind so far that he would face serious medical consequences. As a result, I suggested a series of practical “rules” of stress reduction that I knew had helped others in similar situations. Also, I suspected that by reducing his stress, he might lay the groundwork for a Breakout that could dramatically improve his legal performance. Unfortunately, as an independent self-starter, Robert wasn’t particularly receptive to my suggestions about how he might escape or cope with the stress—and thereby break the destructive inner mental and emotional patterns that were plaguing him.
First of all, I asked if he might consider trying a repetitive, nonreligious meditation technique to lower his anxiety. After all, this approach had worked beautifully for thousands of my patients and others around the world who had read my books and articles.
His response was a little deflating: “Those never help me. My mind doesn’t work that way.”
So I tried a different tack: Could he postpone the trial for a week or so—and maybe take off a few days to relax?
“Impossible. Too many delays already.”
Okay. If he was adamant about going ahead with the trial, could he at least get his cocounsel to take some of the load off his shoulders?
“I’m the only one who can do it.”
Clearly, Robert was dead set on handling the entire show himself—and staying firmly embedded in his familiar but extremely anxious thought patterns. Sure enough, when the trial began, he seemed to deteriorate emotionally.
As I followed the proceedings, I fully expected the worst. I was sure that Robert would become increasingly confused and out of control during the public proceedings, and that his image would suffer. I even worried that he might undergo some medical crisis. After all, he had been exposing himself to extraordinary emotional stresses and strains for most of his career.
But I was in for a surprise—and so was Robert. The climax of this little drama occurred just before he rose to deliver his summation, his closing argument to the jury.
“What followed didn’t make sense,” he recalled. “The tension was overwhelming, and I was a mess. My heart was pounding, and I could hardly breathe. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to get a word out.”
Yet as he related later, just before he stood up to face the jury, he felt overcome by a sense that “none of this really matters.” He had become so fatigued by the stress he was bearing that he could no longer proceed a step further under the emotional load. So, in effect, he “threw up his hands,” at least symbolically, and abandoned his conviction that everything depended on him. Simultaneously, the worries that had been weighing him down seemed to fall away. On a purely physical level, he became conscious that after an initial, burden-releasing sigh, his breathing became regular and easy.
“Suddenly, I felt very light, and this strange inner calm gripped me,” he recalled. “As I spoke, the words came out naturally and fluently. I had absolutely no need to refer to my notes. I connected to my listeners amazingly well, as though I had merged with them at some deep level. I sensed they could understand my thoughts as well as I did.”
In the end, Robert won his case, and his career and professional reputation got a considerable boost. But as a mind-body specialist, I remained puzzled by his report.
Robert had apparently taken none of the usual steps that I had identified to evoke the relaxation response or to bring about a Breakout. For example, he had not relied on a repetitive word or movement, and he had not employed any form of meditation or prayer. Yet he had apparently still experienced a Breakout, along with the same remarkable mental quietude that is associated with disciplined meditation.
As I reflected on his description of his experience, I finally realized that his unexpected inner tranquillity had occurred because he had chosen to abandon all control over his situation. This state of total abandon had effectively broken his prior negative mental and emotional patterns and caused his anxiety to disappear.
Perhaps most important of all from Robert’s viewpoint, his inner sense of calm had moved him directly into successful action. The stress and anxiety associated with the struggle phase gave way as the tranquillity of the release took over. Finally, the sense of abandon triggered the Breakout and his peak performance in the courtroom.
Certainly, I had been aware in the past of “surprise Breakout” cases similar to Robert’s, but I had always considered them exceptional. Now, I have begun to expect Breakouts in unexpected places—even in those circumstances where the individual undergoing the Breakout may be resisting the experience.
But even though individuals who are surprised by the Breakout Principle will almost always benefit, our ultimate objective should be to learn how to harness the impulses evident in Robert’s story so that they can be called into play on command. That way, we can exercise more control over our high-performance faculties and, more regularly, put ourselves in a position to gain the greatest personal and psychic rewards. In fact, Robert’s experience of total abandon is one of the six basic triggering mechanisms for a Breakout—which we will introduce a little later.
But now, let’s take a closer look at the amazing biology of the Breakout by taking a brief tour of the workings of the human brain.
I like to think of the process that Robert was experiencing as a cascade of inner impulses and events, which were hurtling along the network of cerebral channels of the mind-body continuum. Countless thoughts, ideas, and fragments of ideas transmute, crystallize, and finally break forth into a dynamic set of concepts, such as the ones that changed the course of Robert’s courtroom experience.
As we take this journey, it won’t be anatomically or neurologically accurate to try to divide the brain up into clear-cut centers of activity, because in most situations, the cerebral messages and instructions whip about in nonlinear patterns through many parts of your neural network. So as we enter Robert’s brain, imagine that we are always on the move, being swept along on a flow of molecular currents that can’t be measured or described easily with normal space-time technology.
In the simplest terms, here is what seems to have happened when Robert began to experience anxiety, fear, irritation, or some other disruptive emotion during the struggle phase:
As he plunged into gathering information to prepare his legal case, the cerebral action began in a general region that might be called the thinking brain. This physical area encompasses what many other researchers have included in the neocortex and controls such functions as attention, analytical thought, artistic skills, and sophisticated memory and learning. These abilities are a large part of what distinguishes humans from other creatures.
In these thinking-brain regions, Robert formulated his courtroom strategies and also did all his basic legal research. Unfortunately, his analytical thinking and awareness became overly engaged. If he had been hooked up to one of our fMRI scanners, the parts of his brain that controlled such thinking and language skills would have been lighting up on the pictorial printouts.
Instead of the blinding insights that Robert had expected from such hard work, he started to experience “mental roadblocks.” These obstacles and frustrations in turn produced anxiety, irritation, and other uncomfortable emotions in other regions of his brain, which is sometimes called the primitive brain. The brain stem, which is situated at the top of the spinal cord, and the cerebellum, located at the base of the skull, are the physical seats for much of this primitive brain activity. Robert’s primitive brain houses his autonomic nervous system and is also the source of primeval feelings and emotions, such as fear and anger. This region represents a combination of what scientists in the past have called the reptilian brain.
At this level, reptiles, mammals, and humans share many characteristics. But humans have special problems because of their higher intelligence. For example, out-of-control analytical thinking—including an obsession with horrendous worst-case scenarios, which periodically plagued Robert—can stimulate stress-related responses in the brain stem and related regions. Such responses may result in negative health consequences, including cardiovascular problems such as heart abnormalities or hypertension. These physical responses will typically stymie creative thought and productive work. Robert’s case was a prime example of this negative fallout.
Robert’s stressful physical responses presented him with a number of difficulties as he sank deeper and deeper into fear and anxiety about the prospect of failing with such an important case. His overawareness of the possibilities, both good and bad, caused excessive arousal of his brain stem and autonomic nervous system, to the point that he practically became immobilized.
It’s helpful at this point to recall the bell curve of the Yerkes-Dodson Law. According to that principle, too much negative activity in the thinking, analytical part of the brain will overload the body with stress. The result will be a steady decrease in productivity, not to mention such side effects as higher blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and metabolism. Breakouts simply cannot occur in such an overheated mental environment—as Robert discovered.
So what was the solution to Robert’s mind-body bottleneck?
Robert’s destructive mental patterns were short-circuited when he stumbled upon the Breakout mechanism. In effect, he gave up on his attempt to control and solve everything by analysis—and thereby severed the prior thought and emotional patterns that were holding him back.
We can infer from a medical and biological perspective that a number of good things now began to happen in Robert’s brain. When an unexpected, indefinable “something” clicked inside him, he decided that he was tired of worrying so much about the case. Simultaneously, he saw that nothing was to be gained through such anxiety. He had done all the preparation he could. What was going to happen was going to happen, regardless of any further concern he might feel.
“So what do I have to lose by refusing to worry?” he thought. “I’ve had it! From now on, I’ll just go with the flow.”
In this simple attitude shift, Robert completely abandoned his need to control the legal case—and was surprised with a Breakout. Specifically, when he backed off from his intense legal analysis and preparation, he found that he was able to sit quietly at his counsel’s table just before his summation. The new attitude of abandonment and release of control had succeeded in “cutting off” the negative patterns that had blocked a free flow of constructive mental messages through his mind-body highway. Finally, his mind was free to operate in more creative ways.
To put this in terms of brain research, as Robert released his anxieties and any expectations about how the trial would come out, his brain moved into that paradoxical calm-commotion state recorded in our brain-mapping studies. In a flash, the primitive brain regions sent calming signals to his cardiovascular and respiratory systems and his body’s metabolism. As a result, even though thoughts and words from his summation were flowing fluidly through his mind, he experienced a lowering of heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and output of stress hormones.
Robert began to feel so relaxed and confident that just before he stood up to speak, he actually put aside his written notes. His thoughts had stopped churning, and his breathing came easily and regularly. His feelings of stress decreased still further as he turned away from anxiously focusing on himself and his performance and instead concentrated on the judge and the jury.
From a medical viewpoint, what had most likely happened at this point was the scientifically measurable phenomenon that I’ve called calm-commotion. In other words, most of Robert’s overall brain activity had quieted down—marked by a significant reduction in blood flow throughout the brain. At the same time, activity increased in his learning and memory centers, his concentration centers, and areas controlling his rate of breathing.
When Robert finally stood to give his summation, this stimulated activity in his brain stem and related regions, with a resulting stablilization of his cardiovascular functions. He found himself at a maximum level of mental alertness and sharpness, but not so much on edge that unproductive stress and anxiety would once again take over.
As he opened his mouth to speak, Robert, like any seasoned public speaker, knew the first words that would come out of his mouth. He understood the supreme importance of simply getting started. But he had cast aside any concerns about what he would say after that. With his creative mind firmly in charge, he floated lightly over his subject matter. The initial calming effect also prepared him for the next phase of the Breakout process—a peak experience.
As Robert proceeded with his summation, he found that he could connect in almost a telepathic, mind-to-mind manner with his listeners. While speaking, he could simultaneously read their responses and adjust his words to meet their needs. The intensity and persuasive power of his closing argument increased until finally, almost before he knew it, he had completed perhaps the most powerful summation of his career.
Robert’s experience and that of many others who have experienced significant Breakouts point to an important ongoing issue in mind-body research—a question that will probably never be resolved satisfactorily in scientific terms. I’m referring to the precise nature of the mind, and the relation of the mind to the brain.
For many years, scientists have argued about whether the mind is entirely a part of the physical brain or is some sort of separate entity that may transcend the confines of biology and space-time. Most neuroscientists these days believe that the mind is simply a function of the physical brain. They argue that, although we cannot currently measure or explain such phenomena as artistic creativity, human self-consciousness, the experience of space-time transcendence, or spiritual insight, it doesn’t mean we will never have the tools to make such measurements.
But I’m not so sure. One factor that gives me pause is that my investigations have caused me to accept the possibility of an “extradimensional reality”—or if you prefer, a “spiritual” dimension—which transcends the brain’s ability to recognize the four dimensions of space-time. In contrast, much modern scientific and medical research has been based on the reductionistic assumption that, either now or at some point in the future, all reality will be measurable and understandable with the tools of human science.
On the other hand, if an extra dimension or other reality beyond space-time does exist—and if we are making use of some inner faculty that enables us to interact with such an extradimensional realm—then it’s inevitable that at some point we will reach our human limits. In effect, we will arrive at an impenetrable intellectual wall, beyond which our ordinary mental abilities cannot take us.
To put this another way, what we perceive as the human “mind”—including such distinctive human features as our self-consciousness, creativity, and spiritual capacities—may reach into regions that lie beyond space-time. In other words, because of the physical brain’s inherent limitations, the workings of the mind may ultimately lie outside our capacity to measure, analyze, and comprehend. Some evidence for such a radical conclusion may be the simple fact that we clearly have the awesome capacity to reason and speculate about transcendent qualities and possibilities. Other evidence may be emerging in our scientific studies involving fMRIs, PET scans, and the like.
Of course, I’m in no way suggesting that the mind doesn’t interact with human biology. Our studies with the Sikhs and other brain-mapping research projects demonstrate clearly that the mind and the brain profoundly influence each other. But at the same time, it’s not at all clear that the mind is completely defined by or contained in the physical brain. In fact, such studies as the one with the Sikhs, which we published in the May 2000 issue of NeuroReport, seem to call into question the normal laws of causality, which state that the intangible cannot affect the tangible. That particular study showed through brain scans that it’s possible that an intangible mind, perhaps arising from or influenced by a source outside the physical brain, can apparently affect the tangible, physical brain and body.
Although the idea that the mind and the brain may in some way be separate entities remains a minority view, a number of prominent scientists and philosophers have been intrigued by the concept. The Nobel Prize winner Sir John Eccles has made a number of strong arguments in favor of an active, searching, self-conscious mind that is distinct from the physical brain. He has even gone so far as to acknowledge the existence of a human soul outside human biological systems (see John C. Eccles, Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self [London: Routledge, 1989], 178, 203–5, 216, 226, 236, 237–38).
The British mathematical physicist, theologian, and Templeton Prize winner John Polkinghorne goes even further, believing that God may interact with the creation, including human beings, by inputting information into the “open physical process” of the universe (see his Quarks, Chaos, & Christianity [New York: Crossroad, 1994], 71). Similarly, the University of Pennsylvania scientist and physician Andrew B. Newberg and his colleagues, who have used PET scans in their research, argue that a “real” realm of the spirit lies beyond our brains and biology. But they believe that God uses our mental processes to break through to us (see their Why God Won’t Go Away [New York: Ballantine Books, 2001], 38, 164).
It seems quite possible to me that some part of the mind—perhaps what theologians may refer to as the “spirit” of human beings—may be linked to a dimension beyond the physical matter, DNA codes, cell structure, and other limitations of our brains and bodies. Certainly, at the very least, as we suggested in our discussion in our 2001 Brain Research Reviews article (35, 3–4), the mind must be a “unified entity” or “unified consciousness” capable of highly developed cognitive strategies and integration processes. In the end, of course, we may never pin down precisely every source of the mind with our scientific instruments. But the important thing is that no matter what your mind may consist of, it can work for you in ways that you may never have understood or even imagined.
Sometimes, you may be lucky enough to be surprised by a life-changing Breakout, as Robert was. But why just rely on luck? To enjoy the full benefits of this phenomenon, why not learn to trigger Breakouts and peak experiences at will? If you can develop this skill, you may very well find that you have also discovered an “ultimate self-help principle” that has the power to transform your entire life.
1 In brief, an axon is a relatively large extension of a neuron, or nerve cell; a dendrite is a much smaller branch of a nerve cell; and synapses are the connections between axons and dendrites.