Cybernetic Meditation

A Meditative Approach to Enhance Fitness Training 

© Gérard Sunnen, MD

September 2024

Cybernetics is “the study of human control functions and of mechanical and electrical systems designed to replace them.” (Webster). Here, we broaden the definition to encompass the use of fitness machines for optimizing their job as wellness and performance enhancers. How, we may ask, in view of new knowledge on mind-body dynamics, can fitness machines help us to best realize the full potential of our bodily systems?

Fitness machines, if we look closely on how they are built, are wonderful creations of ergonomic engineering, if not art. They interact with and stimulate our bodily workings, increasing muscle tissue bulk and power and the fluidity of our joints, the resilience of our tendons and ligaments, the efficiency of blood gases dynamics, onward to greater stamina and performance. They engage our physical systems to reach higher connectivity among themselves and open portals to coveted states of experiencing ourselves that we may call “High Well-Being.”

The word “exercise” is problematic because its very mention evokes notions of effort, and possibly discomfort. “Fitness” is a quantum better word because it invites the participation of several dimensions of self, stretching beyond nervous system-to-muscle connections. Fitness implies psychological and even spiritual features that have to do with mental strength, resilience, fortitude and the clarity offered by enhanced cognitive functions such as concentration, focus and memory. 

Yet, as we engage with the wonder of fitness machines, are we extracting the totality of what they have to offer? Can we, in fact, interact with these exoskeletons of sorts to gain greater insights into our bodies and access higher performance, physical and mental? 

Wandering around fitness centers and their technologies, some much more elaborate than others, we notice a great variety of ways in how people use them. Casually observing styles of gym comportments, we witness an interesting spectrum of human-to-machine interactions. Some enthusiasts seem to attack the machines, engaging them with aggressively rapid motions. Often this leads to grunts of effort and profuse sweating. Others pedal nonchalantly, all too comfortably talking on their phones or engaging the integrated monitors carrying their favorite podcasts. Still others erratically flit willy-nilly from one machine to the next in enigmatic patterns.

Several conclusions can be gathered from the wealth of data derived from exercise physiological research, making for the creation of a variety of proprietary fitness systems. Commonly expressed goals are for strength, flexibility, coordination, power, balance, endurance, agility, reaction time and cardio-respiratory reserve. Other systems center on modifying body composition, specifically the betterment of the Body Mass Index (BMI), as a ratio of lean body mass to bodily fat.

Each of these fitness attributes is important, if not essential. Suggested, however, is the inclusion of yet another dimension of fitness whose aim is to harmonize the energies connecting psyche with its body, mind with its soma. When these higher energy communications are nurtured, gates open to superior performance capacities and to expanded states of well-being.

Said differently, the conscious mind is invited to wholly engage itself in the enhancement of the fitness process. The highest function of the psyche, sentience, is thus fused with its deepest bodily workings. This approach enhances the dynamic communication between mind, nervous system and end organs, starting with muscles and joints but eventually involving all bodily systems. The nervous system’s highest product is awareness, the elixir of sentient life. For our purposes, conscious psycho-physical activation becomes a catalyst for reaching ever higher states of personal performance. 

From mind to nervous system, to myoneural junctions and muscle action

Initiating voluntary bodily motion starts from a part of the mind we may call our “conscious self,” “Me” or “I.” Brain imagery attempting to pinpoint the brain circuits that spark decisions for action so far show no clearly defined center. We know, however, that each volitional muscular action recruits the participation of the totality of brain networks. 

Willful action dispatches signals to the brain motor centers and on to spinal cord tracts, eventually reaching muscles at myoneural junctions. At these points of nerve-to-muscle contact, the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is released, igniting chemo-electrical waves and muscular activation. Hyper-conscious fitness training augments every segment of this circuit. Myoneural junctions repeatedly activated by exercise` grow in complexity and size. Nerve fibers proliferate and acetylcholine activity intensifies while muscle tissue expands in bulk, efficiency and stamina.

Several exciting brain imaging studies show that consistent focusing, as practiced in meditation, leads to actual anatomical expansion of certain brain regions, a phenomenon known as neurogenesis. Could sustained attentiveness on the brain’s outer reaches, its “peripheral nervous system,” so central to fitness, be similarly enhanced?

Moving Meditation

Centering awareness on nervous system signals as the body moves has ancient roots. Of several practices, Tai Chi Chuan and Qi Gong stand out for their wide influence and their effectiveness in delivering what they propose: Energy, harmony and inner balance. 

A Taoist monk named Chang San-feng, is said to have activated Tai Chi Chuan's development in
the thirteenth century. Legend, however, dates its probable beginnings to the T'ang dynasty in the seventh century. Melding with meditative techniques emerging from India, Tai Chi's practice is offered as a series of graceful meditative choreographies that demand the fullest implication of awareness at all stages. Movements in Tai Chi are fluid, slowed down in time and space, and imbued with ever-higher sentience. Profoundly engrossed in their art, veteran practitioners often report a unique experiential phenomenon: Stillness merges with motion, and motion becomes stillness. 

Qi Gong, a meditative practical philosophy centers on concepts of opening primal life forces flow valves, aiming to vitalize the energetic currents coursing through and throughout the body. With historical roots reaching as remotely as Tai Chi, Qi Gong seeks to contact bio-psychic force fields, so they may reach their highest expression. 

Centuries of oral tradition sustained the Tai Chi and Qi Gong's philosophical, medical and spiritual roots upon which they were founded. Their deepest origins, however, are identified as spawning from ancient Indian texts, namely the Vedas (Vedas: from the Sanskrit "Vid," meaning knowledge, wisdom and revelation), written some 4500 years ago by rishis or sages in varied states of mystical transcendence; and works such as Patanjali's "Yoga Sutras" that, since the second century BCE, have provided pearls of insight into the philosophy of body-mind dynamics. The concept that fitness embodies the mental, and further afield, the spiritual, indeed emerged long ago.

Augmenting your fitness workout with cybernetic meditation 

The following points are suggestions for turning your fitness session into a meditation-enhanced fitness practice. 

Greeting your fitness machine. Your fitness machine is your friend. It is there to assist you in discovering the wonders of your inner workings. Greet your fitness machine with appreciation for the opportunity it offers you to build bodily strength and control. First, let your body espouse the machine by reaching a best ergonomic fit. In the case of a stationary bicycle, for example, adjust the position of your supports and calibrate the resistance of its elements. Gently start pedaling to reach a level of comfort and gentle challenge in motion. The resistance you engage should be fully in your comfort zone, not too facile nor too arduous. Think inner balance and fluidity. Next, gradually kindle your inner-directed awareness, fully experiencing your muscles and joints as they synchronize their motions, stretching your awareness to include more and more of your body’s active interior. As you do so you’ll gradually notice that any motion in any part of your body dynamically connects to all other body parts.

Enter your interior’s feeling space. The goal now is to expand the keen perception of your body’s interior as you connect with the fitness machine. Fully experiencing the messages from billions of sensors in muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, fascia and skin as motion is engaged, reenforces the fluid connections between the highest dimensions of the mind, consciousness, with the most elemental functions of its body. A strengthening mind-body bond is progressively forged.

Minimize your visual input. A huge portion of our brain is occupied by the perception and interpretation of visual images. Here, we seek to direct our energies internally into our peripheral nervous system and musculoskeletal system, not outwardly into our surrounding visual milieu. At some point, reduce your visual input by closing your eyes. Soon after you do, you’ll notice that your internal space will have become more poignantly present in consciousness. 

Check your auditory inputs. Just as visual inputs take away from your meditative thrust, auditory inputs can beckon you off course. Anything distracting the mind will impede the meditative body-mind fusion and expansion process. Similarly, listening to spoken language engages huge verbal areas of the brain, preventing full internally directed consciousness. Generally, silence is best. There are, however, certain types of music that can ease entry into nervous system networks

Slow is better. Fast repetitive movements are handled in great part by the cerebellum, a subsidiary of the central nervous system that makes possible the rapid complex harmony of movements. The cerebellum, however, contributes little to overall consciousness. Slowed-down motions, on the other hand, recruit the fullest participation of consciousness in fitness training. As you continue practice you’ll be able to consciously “take in” more rapid paces. In short, you will have extended the capacity of your brain’s consciousness networks to handle accelerated paces.

Invite breath consciousness. Breath consciousness now is added to your fitness meditation. Grow ever more aware of how your breathing flow connects to your most profound bodily motions. This requires dedicated meditative attention, which in turn develops cognitive abilities such as mental concentration, focus and memory.

Since the beginnings of meditation’s evolution thousands of years ago, the breathing process has held high esteem for its unique properties. Indeed, breathing is a gateway between the voluntary and the autonomic nervous systems because it can be both willfully altered or robotically automatic. Hyper or hypoventilation, for example, can both be fully willful. Alternatively, one can allow the breathing process to run by itself without paying it much mind. Meditative breathing extends the mind’s jurisdiction into its bodily kingdom. Learn to let the rhythm of breath become the bandleader to all your bodily motions.

Isometric meditation. Many fitness machines offer opportunities for providing sustained resistance to muscle groups. Whether pushing or pulling, the body may show little outward movement, yet internally, a constant muscular tone is isometrically maintained. This provides an excellent opportunity for inner directed consciousness to center on neurological circuits that travel from brain to muscles and joints, and back again via sensory loops, thus stimulating their expanded performance. 

Conclusion

A message central to this article is that adding inner-directed consciousness to fitness training enhances not only the performance of target muscles and joints, but eventually, of all organ systems. Cybernetic meditation teaches that the dedicated dispatching of awareness to internal space during fitness training solidifies the connections that bind brain, peripheral nervous system and all the end organs they innervate. Indeed, by way of its finest tendrils, the end branches of the nervous system touch on every cell in the body, either directly or via neurohormonal stimulation. Dynamic meditation’s beneficial effects include strength, flexibility, coordination, power, balance, endurance, agility, reaction time and cardio-respiratory reserve. In turn, the body’s increasingly synchronized harmony prompts the emergence of special states of consciousness that can be called “High Well-Being.”