5 ms·

This is something that yogis have been saying for 1000s of years, using breathing techniques like 'pranayam'. It's ironic that how until something is promulgate

This is something that yogis have been saying for 1000s of years, using breathing techniques like 'pranayam'. It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited. Now we are seeing an explosion in breathing related practices from Wim Hof, to Kelly Starrett and the Navy Seals essentially taking a practice that people have been doing for millennia and making it seem novel.

mpweiher 6y ago
"The act of controlling one’s breath for the purpose of restoring or enhancing one’s health has been practiced for thousands of years amongst Eastern cultures. For example, yogic breathing (pranayama) is a well-known ancient practice of controlled breathing, ..."
zabil 6y ago
> It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited. I don't think it was discredited. It's just making the case stronger using science. I believe this will keep happening and that's good!
Reimersholme 6y ago
"It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited." The 'western university' idea of using scientific methods to test claims is what has allowed us to sort out useful actual impact of breathing exercises and meditation from supernatural claims like astral projection, teleportation, telepathy etc., but sure, let's just trust eastern wisdom because anything else would be western colonial oppression...
ethanbond 6y ago
This is such a tired critique of any science that touches on traditions. There are plenty of traditions that have turned out to be useless, plenty that turn out to be useful. Empirical validation is a good thing and has literally nothing to do with east versus west nor tradition versus modernity. It has to do with knowledge versus suspicion, and the more useful things we can pull forward from suspicion into knowledge, the better off we'll be.
- crazynick4 6y ago
  I think his point is that it would be more helpful to everyone if people remained agnostic to things that they haven't properly investigated instead of actively denying them simply because the research hasn't been done yet. This kind of attitude keeps a lot of people from researching fringe subjects some of which may have something there. But people are discouraged from looking and ridiculed for their interest because there's no evidence to support it (yet). It's a self-reinforcing cycle and not very productive.
  - ethanbond 6y ago
    Pretty sure every child on the planet has been told to “take a breath” in the middle of a temper tantrum. The assertion that people have dismissed this particular idea is obviously not true, but is also a hard thing to prove in the general case as well.
    - 613style 6y ago
      In many things related to mindfulness, breathing, yoga, and meditation, we in western culture have a bad habit recognizing the value of a very small part of a larger practice and then writing off the rest as spiritual mumbo-jumbo. For example, everyone knows that "taking a breath," helps your child to calm down. But we don't often go further into breathing practices, partly because they start to bump up against spirituality, because we as Very Good Scientists are naturally skeptical and usually biased against that. Mindfulness is another example that we're just a little farther along with. It's now becoming widely known that being mindful for 5-15 minutes a day will lower your stress levels or help you control emotions or rise in the corporate ladder or help with other sorts of problematic behavior. But what happens when you go further? 2500 years ago, people knew that meditating for 1-2 hours a day leads to dramatic, permanent, and wildly transformative changes to your perceptions of reality and your relationship with the sensate world. But words like "awakening" are spiritual mumbo-jumbo so we apply our natural scientific skepticism, largely ignore the deep parts, and do our society a disservice. So on one hand, you're right that we don't just completely dismiss these things. But on the other hand, we do often dismiss the important parts.
ImprobableTruth 6y ago
>This is something that yogis have been saying for 1000s of years, using breathing techniques like 'pranayam'. Well, sure, and they've also been saying for 1000s of years that if you just meditate hard enough you'll get supernatural abilities. If you mix religion and actual knowledge, I think you should expect to generally be dismissed until there's some more evidence.

mpweiher 6y ago

"The act of controlling one’s breath for the purpose of restoring or enhancing one’s health has been practiced for thousands of years amongst Eastern cultures. For example, yogic breathing (pranayama) is a well-known ancient practice of controlled breathing, ..."

zabil 6y ago

> It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited. I don't think it was discredited. It's just making the case stronger using science. I believe this will keep happening and that's good!

Reimersholme 6y ago

"It's ironic that how until something is promulgated by or studied by a western university it is discredited." The 'western university' idea of using scientific methods to test claims is what has allowed us to sort out useful actual impact of breathing exercises and meditation from supernatural claims like astral projection, teleportation, telepathy etc., but sure, let's just trust eastern wisdom because anything else would be western colonial oppression...

ethanbond 6y ago

This is such a tired critique of any science that touches on traditions. There are plenty of traditions that have turned out to be useless, plenty that turn out to be useful. Empirical validation is a good thing and has literally nothing to do with east versus west nor tradition versus modernity. It has to do with knowledge versus suspicion, and the more useful things we can pull forward from suspicion into knowledge, the better off we'll be.

crazynick4 6y ago
I think his point is that it would be more helpful to everyone if people remained agnostic to things that they haven't properly investigated instead of actively denying them simply because the research hasn't been done yet. This kind of attitude keeps a lot of people from researching fringe subjects some of which may have something there. But people are discouraged from looking and ridiculed for their interest because there's no evidence to support it (yet). It's a self-reinforcing cycle and not very productive.
- ethanbond 6y ago
  Pretty sure every child on the planet has been told to “take a breath” in the middle of a temper tantrum. The assertion that people have dismissed this particular idea is obviously not true, but is also a hard thing to prove in the general case as well.
  - 613style 6y ago
    In many things related to mindfulness, breathing, yoga, and meditation, we in western culture have a bad habit recognizing the value of a very small part of a larger practice and then writing off the rest as spiritual mumbo-jumbo. For example, everyone knows that "taking a breath," helps your child to calm down. But we don't often go further into breathing practices, partly because they start to bump up against spirituality, because we as Very Good Scientists are naturally skeptical and usually biased against that. Mindfulness is another example that we're just a little farther along with. It's now becoming widely known that being mindful for 5-15 minutes a day will lower your stress levels or help you control emotions or rise in the corporate ladder or help with other sorts of problematic behavior. But what happens when you go further? 2500 years ago, people knew that meditating for 1-2 hours a day leads to dramatic, permanent, and wildly transformative changes to your perceptions of reality and your relationship with the sensate world. But words like "awakening" are spiritual mumbo-jumbo so we apply our natural scientific skepticism, largely ignore the deep parts, and do our society a disservice. So on one hand, you're right that we don't just completely dismiss these things. But on the other hand, we do often dismiss the important parts.

ImprobableTruth 6y ago

>This is something that yogis have been saying for 1000s of years, using breathing techniques like 'pranayam'. Well, sure, and they've also been saying for 1000s of years that if you just meditate hard enough you'll get supernatural abilities. If you mix religion and actual knowledge, I think you should expect to generally be dismissed until there's some more evidence.