The Power of Breath in Post-War Healing

Breathing is the first and last thing we do in life, but most of us take the breath for granted -- unless we are scared, angry or winded.

Some veterans throughout the country are using their breath to overcome wartime trauma. For many, the breath gives back what years of medication alone have not been able to resolve. They are practicing an exercise called Sudarshan Kriya Yoga, also known as SKY, which releases trauma from the body and mind through a series of breathing exercises that also puts people into states of meditation.

A study conducted at Stanford University and published in August in the Journal of Trauma Stress showed that the exercises work. Emma Seppälä, a researcher at Stanford who led the study, says the breathing program, which is part of a project called "Welcome Home Troops," had an acute impact on the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who participated.

"We found that there were signs of reductions in anxiety and [post-traumatic stress disorder] immediately after the one-week program," Seppälä says, adding that those improvements were seen both one month and one year later, even in veterans who did not continue to do the daily breathing practices at home.

Deep In the Trenches -- of Healing

Robert Carter, a manager for the tactical combat casualty care research program at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research in San Antonio, Texas, says the course helped him overcome insomnia and hyper-vigilance related to his eight-month deployment in Afghanistan, where rocket-repelled grenades -- "flying bombs essentially" -- were daily occurrences.

"I had an immediate calming of the mind," Carter says, adding, "I slept like a baby." The breathing exercises also helped him become more aware of his own body, he adds. "In the end, I felt a lot of lightness, less tension."

Carter continued doing the breathing exercises on his own, and within months, his attention span improved. After one year of regularly practicing the breathing exercises, he also was cured of Crohn's disease. "These conditions are stress-related," he says. "I did something that clearly reduced my stress levels and contributed to the healing process." His blood pressure and cholesterol also stabilized.

John Osborne, national director of the Welcome Home Troops Project, which is part of a nonprofit organization called the International Association for Human Values, says the breathing practices based on ancient Vedic tradition allow the body to let go of trauma and remain present. That trauma often involves what Osborne calls "moral injury" -- when serving veterans were told to perform tasks they didn't want to do.

"One guy was locked in a fetal position after the Kriya session. Turns out he had been a convoy driver who ran over a 5-year-old kid," Osborne says. "By the end of the course, what happens to them has not changed. But their relationship to it has."

Osborne adds that even if people are unable to forgive themselves, they can at least be in the present moment and move on with their lives.

Seppälä says she consistently hears comments like, "I feel like I'm alive again." "This is the person they were before the war," she says.

Re-instilling a Sense of Purpose

Many veterans feel the sense of empowerment and purpose with which they served after trying Kriya.

"They are completely service-oriented," Seppälä says. "Many of them have seen life and death in the face; and once you've seen that, you've gained a certain sense of wisdom that others don't have. You don't sweat the small stuff."

"If you can remove the trauma, who are you left with?" she continues. "The most service-oriented individuals."

Osborne adds, "These people have a sense of ethics and integrity way above [the norm], and they want to continue to serve," he says. "They put their lives on the line. We owe it to them to take care of them."

Many veterans who end up in the course have tried other means to overcome war-related trauma. For most, that means a combination of prescription drugs and self-medicating with recreational drugs and alcohol.

"They get on medications for 20 years and are self-medicating to get through the night," Osborne says, adding that "medications mask symptoms, but this goes deep."

Seppälä says many veterans drop out of treatment programs, and there has recently been a push within the Department of Veterans Affairs -- by veterans themselves -- for more complementary and alternative medications.

"[The veterans] are not the type to depend on a therapist or drug," she says. "A lot of them say, 'I don't want to take drugs. I'm ready [to try Kriya].'" That doesn't mean going through the course is easy; in fact, many have to "kind of warrior through it," she says, but by the end, the vast majority feel relieved of at least some trauma.

Seppälä adds that a lot of VA hospitals throughout the country are interested in the project, which is free for veterans.

The Breath as One Form of Healing

The VA is also using other nontraditional forms of healing, such as equine-assisted therapies, meditation and yoga, adds Barbara van Dahlan, a psychologist based in the District of Columbia who in 2005 started a nonprofit called "Give an Hour," which is dedicated to meeting veterans' mental health needs.

Van Dahlan says the Sudarshan Kriya breathing techniques provide a valid healing method. "I think it's very clear that this approach to calming the mind and tuning into the core of life -- the breath -- is a very helpful strategy," she says.

That is not to say medications are useless or harmful, she adds. "When medication is used strategically, for some people, it can save lives," she says. "But we wouldn't want medication to be the only answer to someone who is dealing with very complex arousal."

Rather, the combination of medications and meditation or other therapies can often ultimately help people heal, she says.

Van Dahlan adds that traditional and nontraditional forms of therapy run parallel to each other. "Many of the mental health traditions include a very strong element that is about reflection," she says, adding that both traditional and nontraditional forms of healing "are actually on a continuum of how we think about the human experience in terms of becoming more comfortable with facing things that are difficult."

"The goal is to fit them together, and that's a really valuable message on Veterans Day for families to understand," van Dahlan says. "It's not one or the other. There's support for nontraditional approaches within traditional schools."

Kristine Crane is a Patient Advice reporter at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at kcrane@usnews.com.