How to Increase your Energy, Intelligence, 
Vitality, Endurance ... etc.
Copyright (c) 1993 Patrick Flanagan & Gael Crystal Flanagan

A very simple exercise may lead to increased brain capacity and 
increased overall energy and well being. This exercise takes very little 
time, but the final results are truly remarkable.

When Albert Einstein's brain was analyzed, the only difference between 
his brain and an ordinary person's brain was that Einstein's brain had a 
larger number of cells known as glial cells. This means that Einstein's 
brain was more vascular (had more blood flow) and this meant that his 
brain received more oxygen than most brains. The greater the blood 
flow to the brain, the greater the oxygenation, the greater the neural 
networks and the higher the intelligence. We can all increase our brain's 
vascularity.

In 1974, I met a Sufi Master from Istanbul by the name of Hassan 
Shushud. He spent some time with me and taught a special breathing 
exercise that he said would lead to higher consciousness. His breathing 
exercise was very simple but it had powerful effects on the body and 
the mind. His exercise was to first breathe out all of the air from your 
lungs in three stages, emptying the top, middle and finally the lower 
lungs. The breath in from the bottom up, first filling the lower lungs, 
the middle lungs and finally the top portion. Then, hold your breath for 
as long as you can, until you have a desperate need for air. Then you 
repeat the exercise all over again. He told me to hold my breath this 
way for as long as I could over a period of thirty minutes. He told me 
to do this exercise every day as a form of meditation.

I found that after several months, I could hold my breath for longer 
and longer periods of time. My hereditary asthma disappeared and I 
felt better and stronger. I had built a device that is known as a ballistic 
cardiometer. This device is able to plot the flow of blood throughout 
the body in a dynamic way. When I hooked myself up to the 
cardiometer and performed Hassan Shushud's exercise, the cardiometer 
showed that my blood flow increased significantly throughout my entire 
body and most especially the brain.

At that point, I read a book by Dr. Glen Doman on how to increase 
the brain capacity in brain damaged children. Dr. Doman used a special 
technique called masking to increase blood flow to the brain. It seems 
that the brain needs blood and oxygen more than any other organ in 
the body. We have special sensing devices at the base of the skull. 
These devices measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood. If 
the level of carbon dioxide goes up too high, these sensors cause the 
arteries and blood vessels in the brain to dilate to twice their normal 
capacity. This causes more blood and oxygen to reach the brain. This 
"carotid reflex" keeps the arteries open for thirty minutes after the 
crisis has passed. Dr. Doman used this  reflex to exercise the arteries 
and to get more blood to the brain. When we increase blood flow to 
the brain over a long period of time, the brain responds by growing 
more vascular and by increasing the glial cell numbers. In the process of 
masking, a mask or paper bag was held over the child's face. This 
forced the child to re-breath his own air for about one minute. This 
process increases the carbon dioxide in the blood and triggers the 
carotid reflex. Dr. Doman found that if masking were performed once 
every half hour, all day long, that within a short period of time the 
brain was able to create new circuitry that compensated for brain 
damage.

I immediately realized that the effect of the Sufi exercise was to trigger 
the carotid reflex. By holding our breath, we were getting the same 
result as masking. Our research indicated that this process was good for 
the entire body. We also discovered that, when the carotid reflex was 
triggered, that our brains switched on a powerful 8 cycle per second 
alpha rhythm.

If this simple reflex could heal a brain damaged child,  what could it do 
for an adult with a "normal" brain? Make us all into Einstein's? One 
thing is certain, these techniques increase feelings of well being and have 
profound effects on our energy levels.

If I am sleepy and need to "wake up" I either mask myself with a paper 
bag or hold my breath for as long as I can for several cycles. The effect 
on alertness and energy absolutely astounding!

When I discussed my own research with Dr. Doman over the telephone, 
he told me that since he was a "senior citizen" he had started masking 
himself several times a day. He told me that the process is the only 
known way to exercise the arteries in the brain. The arteries expand and 
contract as a result of the process. He told me that this process would 
hopefully keep his arteries flexible and clean so that he would not have 
to suffer from "hardening of the arteries".

One thing is certain, the process works. It has a profound effect on 
consciousness, it increases energy, it causes the generation of brain 
waves that are usually only seen in Zen masters. The process probably 
has a profound effect on generating beneficial brain peptides. Finally, it 
may cause our glial cells to increase in number and thus increase our 
own intelligence.