Your pineal gland
is both mystical and mysterious.
Today I'll be going over the yogic
and physiology perspective to understand your pineal gland
and how it works better.
(gentle music)
My name is Ann Swanson,
and I am the author of the book SCIENCE OF YOGA
I'm a yoga therapist,
as well as an anatomy and physiology teacher.
Your pineal gland is often associated in yoga
with your third eye, or ajna chakra,
which is located right between your eyebrows
in the glabella region,
which is just a fun word to say, glabella.
So right here is where your third eye is.
And if we dive deep into the brain right there,
right behind there is your pineal gland.
This gland has been deemed mystical from ancient Egyptians
to ancient Greek philosophers,
as well as of course the Hindi and yoga philosophy.
Rene Descartes even said that it was the seat of the soul.
In many yoga traditions, like Kundalini yoga,
it is said that meditations and certain practices
like headstand stimulate your pineal gland.
Is it true? Can it really stimulate this gland?
Well, stick around to the end as I evaluate this claim.
But first let's talk about the pineal gland
from an anatomy and physiology perspective.
Your pineal gland is located right in the center.
And it is very unique in that it is a single gland.
It is not paired.
A lot of your brain structures are paired and lateralized,
but not the pineal gland.
It is located in an area of the brain called the diencephalon
and near the hypothalamus.
Your hypothalamus is basically the boss
of your neuroendocrine system.
Notice I call it the neuroendocrine system.
It's really hard to separate the nervous system
from the endocrine system, or your hormone system,
because they work so closely together.
Your pineal gland secretes and releases
a hormone called melatonin,
which is often called the sleep hormone
because we believe it to regulate your light-dark cycle
and your sleep-wake cycle.
So here's what happens.
Your retina takes in light throughout the day,
and it determines how much light is there.
Then a signal goes to the hypothalamus,
which remember is in charge,
and it determines what it's going to tell the pineal gland.
If there's not very much light,
it'll tell the pineal gland to secrete more melatonin.
It's time to be focusing more on sleep, and better sleep.
But when we're bombarded with light,
whether it be light from the sun,
or light from the blue light of our screens,
or the lights around us,
we tend to affect our light-dark cycle and sleep-wake cycle.
The specific area in your hypothalamus
responsible for this decision-making
is called your suprachiasmic nucleus.
Basically, this is your biological clock,
or in technical terms
it's in charge of your circadian rhythm.
Now, almost everything living on earth
has a specific circadian rhythm that is in line
with the 24 hour cycle of the Earth spinning on its axis.
And it seems your circadian rhythm is very much interrelated
with the melatonin levels.
Now, note that a lot of people take melatonin as a pill
to improve their sleep.
This seems to help for some people and not for others,
but really this is out of my scope
because I'm here to talk about how we can adjust
your melatonin levels just through healthy lifestyle
and yoga, not taking an oral supplement,
which you would need to talk to your doctor
or a specific trained nutritionists about.
But back to how your lifestyle
can affect your circadian rhythm.
You can, as you're winding down at night,
try not to look at as many screens.
Try to spend less screen time.
Try to dim the lights,
even to the level of like a candle light
so that you're going into that place
of getting closer to sleep,
telling your brain
that you are getting closer and closer to darkness.
But of course, sometimes we need to look at our screens
in the evening, right?
Moderation in everything,
including moderation in moderation.
So we wanna look at it as a practical thing.
We can put a blue light filter on our screens.
We can have our phones in night mode,
so that it's a little reddish and a little dimmer
as it gets closer and closer to night time.
But even the role of your pineal gland
in modern physiology is not fully understood.
Our brains are so mysterious
and we're constantly gathering evidence and information
to interpret what's going on.
You may have heard that your pineal gland
is responsible for releasing DMT,
which has psychoactive components.
It is said to be present in really vivid dreams
as well as near death experiences,
and many yogis claim that certain meditations
will increase your DMT levels.
Well, to this day,
we don't have a lot of evidence of DMT in human brains.
We do have evidence there is some, it seems,
but not in high levels to be psychoactive.
We don't have evidence in the lab
that meditations increase DMT levels, but it makes sense.
It's just conjecture at this point.
And there's so much more.
This topic unraveled to be so fascinating
that I split it into a three-part video series.
So discover more on the yogic perspective of the third eye
and pineal gland activation,
and put it to practice with a meditation.
I'll put the links to the next part
at the end of this video.
But first I wanna share something really exciting for you.
If you are fascinated with the science
of yoga and meditation,
you won't wanna miss The Science of Yoga masterclass,
which is opening up.
So check out the links below,
and here's that video I promised you.
It's probably here, but it's definitely below also.
Thank you so much, and be well.