Page 36 - NAMAH-Jan-2020

Namah Vol. 27, Issue 4, 15th January 2020

becomes adaptive and allows people to detached in the face of impending disaster.
trance out or go into a neutral gear. It can While we can assume that as this event
allow the subject to act as a spectator of occurred in India where practising Yoga is
the disaster without experiencing pain or not uncommon, some spectators could have
agony. The ICD-10 classification of Mental attained a detachment by consciously shifting
and Behavioural Disorders by the WHO to an inner poise; it would be naïve to assume
treats such cases of calm acceptance (belle that most of the spectators in the cinema were
indifference) of crisis situations rather cursorily yoga adepts. Instead, a different physiological
but it needs a deeper probing. Studies of phenomenon seemed to have taken place.
mountain climbers who survived potentially
lethal falls showed that those who fell from Researchers conventionally explain the reaction
great heights were unaware that their limbs to stress in terms of arousal mediated by the
had broken until they attempted to stand (1). sympathetic nervous system that results
in elevated heart rate, energy expenditure
A similar situation was observed when and anxiety, enabling the fight or flight
a devastating fire started at the Upahaar response. However, in a situation where the
Cinema in Delhi on 13 June, 1997. In an article subject knows that death is imminent, such
published in this journal, it was revealed that hyperarousal would not be beneficial and
a section of the audience who were destined to would actually exasperate the subject. Instead,
perish but somehow survived miraculously, a phenomenon of hypo-arousal, mediated by
reported that they were somewhat detached the dorsal vagal activation would result in
and were invoking Krishna’s presence, some sort of immobilisation. This response
oblivious of consequences in personal and is not new, it is an older functional system
familial spheres (2). that is adaptive for reptiles. As such hypo-
arousal state, if stretched for longer periods,
Thus dissociation of consciousness can allow might be damaging to the mammalian nervous
subjects to be calm, detached and depersonalised system, it was replaced by the hyperarousal
at times of intense life-threatening situations. mechanism during evolutionary progression.
In fact those who did not experience such However when hyperarousal is no longer
adaptive dissociation were more vulnerable protective, the organism can fall back on the
to psychopathology. However such episodes older hypo-arousal system (4).
of dissociation are adaptive if they disappear
after serving their purpose. Howell explains It can be speculated that such physiologically
that if such dissociation persists automatically hypoactive states may be functioning in
over time, long after the crisis has passed dissociative states during intense life-threatening
away, there can arise the development of crisis so as to enable a greater coping with
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in adversity. The hypo-arousal state can be
later life (3). consciously cultivated through consciousness-
based yoga practices. However, the automatic
It can be argued that people practising yoga hypo-arousal if prolonged can be detrimental to
or working on a consciousness trajectory the mammalian nervous system. But a conscious
of personal growth could remain calm and state of hypo-arousal wilfully cultivated

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