Brain health and Breathing by Dr Sanjay Shrivastava

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to Breathe Well and Live Well. So in this podcast, I got Dr. Srivasava. He's a medical doctor and we are very humbled and honored to bring him to our podcast and our talk show. Dr. Srivasava ji, thank you so much for accepting our invitation and coming here to share your knowledge and wisdom to our participants. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Padmaji. Thank you very much.

Yeah, so today the main topic is about the brain and breathing. What is the relation between breathing and brain? So we are going to discuss and go more deeper into this topic. Before that, let me introduce you all to Dr. Srivasava. So Dr. Sanjay Srivasava is an experienced medical professional who serves as a medical manager for HIV patients at Leprosy India. It's one of the NGO nonprofit organizations in India. He graduated as a medical doctor and gained extensive experience in working in critical care and multi-specialty hospitals. Later, he moved to the development sector, especially he started working with individuals struggling with HIV issues in Madhya Pradesh. His organization is pioneer in treating drug addicts and HIV patients, also holds 50-bedded drug addiction center in Bhopal. He also worked with UNICEF and HIV for HIV and Global Fund for Patriotic HIV. The one of the beautiful thing about his drug addiction center is completely operated by the patients who got recovered from HIV and drug addiction. He, he has very extensive experience in working in mental health, especially incorporating Eastern practices like yoga, meditation breathing, etc. He and his wife are Art of Living practitioners and Art of Living teachers. He is a technical manager for the mental health program in Madhya Pradesh. Dr. Srivastava is also a nature lover. He promotes natural farming. He manages a goshala and he also working for village development and growing his own food and promoting natural farming. He played an instrumental role in connecting his village to the city, serving 400 families with natural food, organic milk, and milk products. It's very, very honored for us all to bring Dr. Srivasava. After going through your profiles, sir, I can see so many similarities between you and me. Okay, so I'm quite young, but I aspire to be like you. You know. I also worked in the space of natural farming. I, I being an engineer, I moved to development sector, so, and I worked in this space especially in the agriculture and like, uh, in education and different spaces. Seeing you, I feel like we are so much connected as well, like in terms of interests. So my first question to you is what really motivated you to like move to the development sector. Being a medical professional working in a hospital, you can earn so much money. What really motivated you to move to development sector and what really motivated you to work with HIV patients?

Thank you, Badrinathji. Yeah, and it is pleasure for me also to talk to you and know that you also want to do certain things which I am doing. To start with, when I completed my medical education and I started working for critical care, and in critical care I was seeing so many cases coming up daily and they go back to their history, then I thought that preventive aspects are needs to be more focused and more cared which are missing. For example, food. For example, when they go education and educating about preventive aspects. So at the same time, I found that there is some center nearby my home which has been treating addiction. And I had been grown up in the same area, but I was not knowing that addiction was such a big problem. I was just thinking it is a metropolitan problem. But when I came to know that there is a de-addiction center very near to my place, I visited that and I got an opportunity to work for addicts. And then that addiction-related work and the psychiatrist there, he was also very much a spiritual person. So we used to discuss so many things with him. Regarding mind and brain and other things. And at the same time, I started working with addicts at the same time. And from there, I shifted to this development sector. And then gradually, from working with addicts— as you know, that addicts, those who are into intravenous drug addiction, they are very prone for getting HIV. Yeah, it is sharing practices. And at the same time, we started working for HIV interventions for high-risk groups in Madhya Pradesh. And I got an opportunity to work in the initial interventions designed for Madhya Pradesh, and I was, I was there as technical support manager for designing all these things in MP. So this is how I started, and gradually then we came on to mental health, pediatric HIV, and all these things are related from one place to another place and Then going back to my village where I started doing organic farming and all those things.

Wow, wow, that's very, very inspiring. Like, if you see, like, especially in the society, people not even, uh, like, comfortable to talk about HIV, right? So whatever you are doing, like, which is very, very important, and this is like, uh, like society discriminated them. Like, we need people like you to really help and solve the real, real problems which we are facing today in the world. So, uh, could you please share any one of your experience working with them? How does their life got changed? And also, it was very inspiring to know that like your center was operated by the recover— like people who got recovered from this. Could you share some insights about this?

Yeah, so when we work with HIV patients or addicts patients, the common thing in all these patients, or even with the patients those who are having mental problem, all these patients are having lot of self-stigma. Whatever society is offering to them, that is not sufficient, because if you come to facilities, health facilities, They are discriminated. There is no, almost no intervention happening, complete intervention happening for drug addicts, even for HIV. Now the things are much better than what it has been 15, 20 years back. We, our work has done so many things with government where things had evolved to much better situation. But still, any case which is having HIV or drug addiction problem or mental problem, they have a lot of self-stigma. They have their own understanding because society is not accepting, and even they are also not accepting themselves with this situation. So always they, they are stressed, they do not want to go and seek services, and all these factors lead to more complicated situations and And I remember when we started working for HIV, we used to see so many cases with having AIDS, that is the end stage of HIV. They lose weight, they come up with very less weight, having so many complications with them at that time. But things had improved a lot. I will not talk about one person, but we see as the community as whole, They had mobilized so much, they started talking about their own rights. They are now more comfortable because their health has improved, and even because of the ART drugs which are available for them, they are living a wonderful life. So I do not see individual, but as a whole community in Madhya Pradesh, not only in Madhya Pradesh but in India also, we are finding better situation for all these, especially for HIV cases.

Yes, that is very much required at this moment, at this time in our society, to really eradicate these problems and work on preventive health, like, which is not very much emphasized in the mainstream.

Correct.

So, so my next question, like, today, like, we are mainly about understanding the brain and understanding the breathing, right? So before that, I wanted to know what is brain, what is its function, what is the functions of brain. But if you can explain us in simple words, because it's a very complicated mechanism to understand. So if you can explain, enlighten us in simple words, that would be really helpful.

Yes, definitely. Some terms when we want to understand about ourselves. Actually, there is a science which talks many aspects of understanding that what we are. And here comes that whenever we ask ourselves that what we are, then we are confused at what we are. So when we talk about brain, and then comes to talk about mind, and then about soul, and all those things. So I simply We all know that there is a car, right? So car is having tires and engine and gates and so many things, seats, all those things. And we call this car that it is having a body. Yeah, this vehicle is having a body. So we are also having a body. And if we see closely then this body is also a vehicle, right? So to drive this vehicle, or to drive a car, there is an engine, there is a mechanism which controls each and every part of the body of that vehicle. And that engine which operates through a mechanism, which can be— there are wires, there are nuts and bolts, and so many pieces are there. So in the same way, there is a system which we call it— there is a central nervous system, right? And brain is part of this whole mechanism. So to control this body, it is easy to understand that this body is of no use, like a vehicle is of no use without an engine or mechanism which controls this whole body. So there is this brain is with us, and this brain type mechanism is there also in the vehicle or in the car. But these two things are of no use without a driver. Yeah, yeah. So car is there, engine is very good, and the vehicle is also— that body is also very, very good. It is well maintained, but if the driver is not okay, then this vehicle is of no use. Because if the body of the car or the engine of the car is given to a wrong person who is driving this thing, maybe spoiled in few days or few years' time. Even a single drive can lead to a big accident. So the driver who is there driving the vehicle, there is also some mechanism within us which is driving us on the driver's seat, and that is mind. Yeah, right. And the mind, because the driver's mind can lead the vehicle to any direction, and driver's will can take this vehicle to any direction. Same is this will and our mind which can ask the brain to do whatever we want. For example, if we want some sweets to eat and craving for that, then this comes up in mind. This doesn't come up in body, this doesn't come up in brain, this comes up in our mind that we like this sweet or this rasgulla or some other thing, whatever. Then this mind will give instructions to the engine of our body that how to get this thing. The brain is having this whole analysis or whole understanding to work for the mind to get this thing done for the mind. But this food or this need of the mind is right or wrong? There needs to be somebody who can sit behind the seat of the driver and command the driver that what needs to be done at this moment of time, whether it is right for the driver, engine, vehicle, and the purpose for this for which this whole system is given to us. So we call it what is right and what is wrong. There is one more higher center which we sometimes call it soul, some people call it atma, which decides what is right, what is righteousness, what is right. So at a point of time, if the at the back seat of the driver, if this commanding person or the commanding energy is missing, then this whole mechanism can be derailed or spoiled. So you see how beautiful it is. It is easy to understand. We can't give our vehicle keys to a driver which is untrained. Yeah. Do not know how to drive the vehicle.

Yes.

But when our mind raises some voices, it is difficult to say to the mind that, okay, this thing is right, this thing is wrong. So mind also, there is a higher center which is— and if you see, there is energy which flows from the owner of the vehicle to the driver, and that energy goes to the engine, and that energy goes to the vehicle, right? So there is energy. If that energy is not there and it is not positive in terms of instructions, then it may spoil the whole thing. Then all the things, even the tires are in danger, engine is in danger, driver himself is in danger, and the owner who is sitting back, he's also in danger. Yeah. So this energy which flows through the whole mechanism of our existence is known as prana, right? Yeah, the vital force, the vital energy. If this vital energy is— we know that how to keep this energy uplifted at the higher level, at a positive level. So then they all come in union, and the whole purpose of our Ancient yoga, yogic practices, or the spirituality is how to bring all these four together for a cause, for a purpose, where it can be better for ourselves, better for our family, better for this society, and what better for this universe.

Yes, exactly. It's like living as an integrated person. Integrated as a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual— like the spirit which we are talking about today, like, which has been not given that priority in the medical sciences. Like in the recent discussion, which you one time you have also mentioned that you learned something when you went to yoga school which you are missing in your, uh, in your medical school. So what are the main things? Because today Like you just brought up the topic of prana, right? So the prana is what? Vital energy. Like my mentor is also always give an example that imagine there is a dead body, so you will tell that he passed away. What is passed away? But the body is still there.

Yes.

So the vital energy, the force, the spirit has been left from that body. There is no use of that body. So which is what people— it takes a lot for people to realize. For me, it took 5 years to realize that when I started yoga, even though I started yoga, to understand the real concept behind the spirit, to understand my real spirit and connect with my real spirit, took me 5 years. So because like it's a complex mechanism which is not very well understood by people, So can you tell me, like, what are the— what, what did you, like, uh, see, like, uh, especially when you move to yoga, like, when you learn about yoga, which is missing in medical sciences?

Yes, we need to understand that, um, we need somebody to tell us what— tell us the answers which we are seeking, right? In medical education, when we go then there are so many books which anybody can read. They are all in English. There are some terms, but they need some teacher to tell you what exactly this means, what's the purpose of this sentence or what paragraph or this book. In the same way, there are certain questions which come to our mind And those can't be answered at medical education. For example, I will quote an example to you. We talk that how malaria is caused, and we go back and know that how malaria comes to a body, what is the etiology, and what happens when malaria happens to an individual. What comes the outcome or prognosis of all those things. But if a person comes with suicidal tendency, so love, anger, and all those things are never described because he may be falling in love with somebody, but which leading to depression, and he may be attempting a suicide. Or in pharma, if you talk in other sciences also, somebody has done something wrong with and been entered into jail, might be the anger might be the cause. Yes. But when we talk in science, anger is not at all talked when we are dealing with medical sciences. And mind is the term which is not mentioned. I hadn't seen anywhere the term coming up with medical education, which is part of our existence. So mind is driving a diabetic person for eating sugar when doctor has said that it's very dangerous. A smoker keeps smoking because the mind is craving always for the cigarettes. Yes, alcohol is always alcoholic. I had seen in intensive care there are so many cases which come with liver failure and people are giving them plasma, life-saving supports are given, still they are craving for alcohol. So all these things are going up in mind, but this mind is never talked in medical sciences. I do not know where this Why this big missing piece has been there. So in the same way, when these questions are unanswered to ourselves, we seek, we try to know, we want to know all these things, the missing pieces. So on this path, I am fortunate to find my Guru. Yeah. And for medical education, I found many teachers who taught me about medical sciences. It is not something which is not answered. I found my Guru. And that's why we say that in our Eastern practices, Guru is very important.

Yes.

Which is unanswered, then Guru is needed to answer all those things. So then we started knowing about yoga and meditation and All these things came up by the grace of my Guru, by the blessing of my Guru. So this is—

yeah, so yes, even like, uh, whenever I discussed with previously doctors, like, they only talk about the external body which is visible, because whatever happened here, like, if there is an operation, you can do operation for heart, operation for brain, but you cannot do any operation for your mind. Correct. Because there is no tools like which has been addressed in our philosophy of yoga or whatever philosophies like Vedic philosophies which has been addressed these elements, these aspects. That's a very, very interesting actually, like very much needed because at this moment if we see the root cause of all the diseases is psychosomatic. Like we call many of the diseases are psychosomatic disorders. The mind is, uh, the 80% diseases which is caused, the root cause is the mind. And we are not really dealing with the root cause of the problem. We go to the hospital, we seek the tablet, we take that for headache, for example. If we have it, we'll take that tablet and the headache will go for few days. Again it gets repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated. So there is no addressing for the root cause. I believe like These practices will really help for people who wanted to really work on address their root cause and live a happy and fulfilling and purposeful life of your lifestyle. Thank you, sir, for that. And my next question for you, could you please explain about the relationship between breathing and brain?

Yes, so, um, Before entering to this next level discussion, we need to understand that there are certain limitations of science. When we talk about brain and body, then it is very easy to hold brain, we can take out brain, we can study that, we can dissect it, we can study with the body, mechanism, chemicals are there, and all things we can study. And the area which is covered by these tangible things is very easy to study through science. It's not difficult. You can analyze and all those things. But our existence is not only made up of these things which can be held with our hands. There are things which can't be held with our hands, which can't be measured in terms of inches or centimeters, or or millimeters. And these things which are very much not easy to hold are very strong things, very powerful things. For example, I will say emotion. Any emotion which comes to our mind or comes to us has an effect on each and every cell. This is not needed to explain it to each and everybody. It is everybody's experience that any emotion which comes to us, whether it is good or bad, has an effect on us. At the same moment, if somebody talks to us in a nice way, then we start feeling good and every cell is enjoying that. When this person is going to meet me again?

Correct?

If somebody talks to us in a wrong way, this emotion comes. But when we think to hold this emotion or give a tablet, make a tablet of this emotion, give to somebody, then it is not easy to make a tablet of some emotion like emotion of love, emotion of anger, emotion of hatred, and certain other things. Then it is not easy to give that tablet. So there is certain other aspect which is very strong, and that is spirituality.

Yes.

So one side is science, one side is spirituality. And these both things need to be understood well to know ourselves. Right. And there comes the connect between breath and brain. So breath, and we know, everybody knows that When we are angry, there is a pattern of different breath which comes to us. When we are happy, then our breathing pattern is totally different.

Yes.

When we are sleeping, it is different. When we wake up, it is different. When we are tired, it's different. If we are having 10 or 100 of situations, different situations, then I will say 100 different patterns are there for the breath. And again, I will come to the spirituality aspect which has been covered in yoga as pranayama. Pranayama itself means giving a direction or ayam to our breath. So unknowingly, these emotions or things keep on changing our breath. But if you start understanding your breath well, then emotions can be well managed in that way. If you start practicing pranayama, if you start practicing yoga, then just by breathing in the right way, I will say, You can change the mental situation, and those mental situations can heal up the mind or make the mind work in the right way, and body can also be healed by this thing. So just, this is just shifting our focus from healing from a higher level to—

Wow. Wow, that's very, very interesting and good to know that even medical professionals are really acknowledging the science. Like, the problem today, like, if both work together, we can create miracles. We can create a better world, like, healthy world and better human beings in the world. So this element has to be— I also feel always like, feel like both has to work together. Both has to be integrated and work together. So in the— by coming here, like you already mentioned that like you are incorporating these techniques in your hospitals and the medical centers which you are operating. Could you give some examples like how did you incorporate them? How did these impacted your patients, the patients you worked with so far?

Yes, uh, we, uh, we in addiction problem, uh, it started when— because, uh Addicts, when they are treated, they are not at all willing for this, right? Not only in addiction, but all the mental problems, if you see, fundamental difference is that the person who is addicted do not want to get treated because he is not having that desire to leave this chance. But anybody who is having pain in chest, pain in heart, chest pain, pain in any part of the body goes to a doctor and wants the relief as early as possible. Correct? Yeah. So physically, if somebody is having some problem or any ailment, then they are more interested in going to the doctor and taking the treatment and following the advice what they want. But in mental problem, it is difficult. Family need to come forward and almost force that person to take medicine, to get treated. And this fundamental difference is because of the mind. Mind is into an indulgence where it is enjoying to spoiled the whole body or the brain. What I had been talking initially, that driver, wrong driver is sitting now, and the owner of the vehicle is missing now. So establishing those fundamental things back, restoring all those fundamentals back improves the chance of recovery. And the center which we are operating is now basically totally managed by recovered addicts themselves. And why it is managed by themselves? Because they had restored that they now know that what needs to be done in their life. Because there the higher authority is back in their existence, in their life. So anybody who is suffering from any element of mental or any mental element, mental problem, if these fundamental things are restored, then the recovery is fast, then the relapse is less. And, um, and basically the purpose of healing is this only. If somebody is having vitamin 12 deficiency, we want to restore it. If somebody is having less calcium in the body, suffering from osteoporosis, we want to restore it. If pathogens are there, some viruses are there, some bacteria is there, we want to remove them. We want to restore the immunity of the body. So this is a fundamental thing which we want to establish when we want to heal. If there is weakness at the level of prana, if there is weakness at the level of mind, and mind, if it is, mind is drifted to or tempting to do the wrong things, then if the higher center is started doing things right with this thing, if it is there, then things are easy to be restored. And there we started our program which is called as Medication to Meditation.

Oh wow.

Meditation, the thing which we want to do work at the level of spirit, spirit of our existence. Meditation, where it is needed to, for the body and where brain is there. So, we start with medication and we end up with meditation. So initially, if an addict is there, the initial things are there that he might be craving. He might be craving in the body, then certainly some drugs are required. He may be needing some sleep medicines, some medicines which reduces the anxiety level. But these are always not required. Soon he will be recovered from craving and other things. But the mind might be keeping on craving because that mind is desiring those things which are going. Might be he might be looking for things which may be giving pleasure for a few moments. But if the righteousness comes back, if the higher centers start performing, giving the instructions in the right way to the mind, And this comes by practice of pranayama, by practice of meditation. And certainly, like a physician is required, or psychiatrist required to give medication where a patient can be feeling less pain during craving, might be sleeping at that time, then to work with the higher centers, there also requires somebody. Therapist or somebody who knows what meditation is, how to bring these people into these healing techniques. And there comes our Medication to Meditation whole complete approach.

Yes, it also feels like from recovery to responsible, from recovery to the responsible citizen or responsible person. Is what's really important. Like, some people just recover, but they don't— they still, again, they get addicted easily because they don't really understand the responsibility of being born as a human. So here it is, this is the approach like where there is no, like, no way that like people go back and get addicted again. It's very, very interesting to know. Like, I think everyone should adopt these practices which you are really doing. And I am very much interested to know, like, why do they get addicted? Like, what are the reasons? Maybe you might have worked with many people. What are the reasons, like, they get addicted to these drugs or any other substances?

Yeah, yeah. Any element or any disorder comes to anybody 3 factors are very important. One is the agent, then the host is there, right? And the environment. Anything which is removed from this thing, if agent is removed, if host is not there, host means vulnerability is not there. I mean, host only can be vulnerable. When you are vulnerable, 10 people might be there nearby you. If you are having a good immunity, then tuberculosis can't come to you. You might be having tuberculosis in you, but that is not going to harm you because you are having immunity. So if you are host to those things, if agents are agent positive agent is there, and if your environment is there. Oh, this, all these things, like we see that youngsters are now getting into addiction problem more. Yes, because they are more vulnerable. Yeah, they are more vulnerable, then an environment is there, and agent more, it is very easy to get those substances there. So chances of prevalence of mental or addiction problem is more. Same you see in mental problem. More we are ambitious now, and because of these ambitions, we are— because our competition and other things, exposure also, we are highly exposed to the information. And because of this high exposure, information is there and we are having so many desires coming in within ourselves. And agent is also there. These are the factors which are leading to a lot of stress in our life. So whether it is any medical problem, physical medical problem or mental problems, the fundamentals remains the same.

So my final question for you is, could you please provide some tips for maintaining the mental hygiene?

Mental hygiene, very interesting term. We always talk about oral hygiene, always talk about other hygiene, hand washing and bathing and all those things. But mental hygiene also, which comes, and it is very important. So for mental hygiene, I will say that my— I will quote my guru's words now because this is final question, and I will put his words. He says that bathing is meditation for the body, and meditation is bathing for your mind. Okay. I will put it in Hindi. Right. So when we talk about meditation, taking out a few minutes in our life, in 24 hours' time, take out some time to do the brush, This is very important to keep our oral hygiene good. We take out some time to give, 6 to 8 hours we give our time to take rest. This is important to keep our brain healthy, body healthy. We read some positive books to keep our knowledge updated, and do several more things to keep ourselves fit and fine. But what do we do to keep our mind healthy? So meditation is the best, one of the best ways to keep our mind healthy. If our driver is healthy, we are also comfortable. Our vehicle will also be good. If the driver is devoted to you, to the owner of the vehicle, then he will keep the car very nicely, he will keep the engine very nicely, he will keep it maintained. And he will be obedient to the Master. And meditation is the thing which keeps the Master connected to each and every part of our existence. Taking out some time, might be 15 minutes, might be If you have more time, you can put 30 minutes or an hour or more, whatever. But taking out some time for yourself or for your mind or your Master within yourself, the righteousness, what is right, is all about.

Yes, especially the viewers who are watching this, the doctor, the medical doctor itself recommending you to do meditate for at least 5 to 15 minutes in a day. Start with this and you will see the miracles happening in your life. It's like you will stop from complaining mode to operating mode. You will move from complaining mode to operating mode. So incorporate them. I think this is— there is no other best tool than meditation which will really help. Even when I'm reading, sir, when I'm reading all the successful people, their patterns, they all incorporated meditation, some form of meditation into their life. That is the reason they could able to really operate themselves better way. So here comes like my curiosity into know actually how can you do this many things, right? So, so you, you are a medical doctor, you are working as a medical manager, you are looking after your village and farming and the goshala, organic milk, and you also volunteer for UNICEF and many other organizations. How can you do all these many things?

It is not much difficult, I will say. When we are having this intention, we always find there is a crisis of time, So many things to do, how to do, resources are less. But if we do meditate, take out some time to make this mind rest for some time in a day, whole day, right? Give good rest. If our mind rests properly, then this brain also gets a lot of rest. Then this body also really gets a lot of rest, which is not possible only with sleep. And if this happens, this mind gets rest, then it comes up with a lot of energy within itself. And this happens. That's why those who meditate, they have more organizing power within themselves. And everything is because of your organizing skill. If you can integrate so many things within, with the limited resources, with the limitation of time, limitation of everything, then certainly organizing power needs to be improved. Then only output and outcome can be improved. And meditation, doing pranayama, Maintaining your mental hygiene and caring for others. And each and everything is important at this when you want to do all these things. I am not— I will say that I am doing so many things. There are so many people around me, and you can also know that how much they are productive, and they keep on working for days and months without taking any rest. I will not quote name, but you see in the world, so many people are just keeping them as inspiration and getting inspiration from them and doing the things whatever we can do best to our skills, may improve certain things.

Yeah, true, true, sir. I completely agree with you. Like, It's about the intention to serve, first thing. That should come from your heart. You understand that you can do better than what you are today. So when you have that, I think everything will come out. And meditation is a tool that will help you to recharge yourself and help you to organize yourself and make you operate in the better possible way of this instrument which you have mentioned in the beginning. So then I think, uh, this is the end of this session. I thank you so much for coming here and sharing all the information about the mind and how the breathing influences the mind and how Eastern practices like yoga, breathing, or meditation help to like improve our mental hygiene. I can say like, yeah, because we are using the word called hygiene, so improve our mental hygiene, and also how how the mind plays a crucial role in our life. This was very, very interesting discussion we had, and thank you so much for taking your time and coming here, sir.

Thank you so much. Yeah, best wishes from my side.