The woo: Balancing your chakras
Autonomic Nervous System Regulation
Shifting between sympathetic and parasympathetic states
- Porges, S. W. (2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74(2), 116–143.
- Thayer, J. F., & Lane, R. D. (2000). A model of neurovisceral integration in emotion regulation and dysregulation. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61(3), 201–216.
- Posadzki, P., Kużdżał, A., Lee, M. S., & Ernst, E. (2015). Yoga for heart rate variability: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 40(3), 239–249.
Polyvagal Theory, the framework behind Porges (2007), is genuinely contested within physiology. Some researchers argue its core claims about vagal pathways are inconsistent with established neuroanatomy, others defend it as a still-evolving systems-level framework. Cite it as one influential perspective, not settled consensus. The specific mapping of each chakra to a named nerve plexus (root–coccygeal, sacral–sacral plexus, solar plexus–celiac plexus, heart–cardiac plexus, throat–pharyngeal plexus, third eye–carotid plexus, crown–cerebral cortex) reflects traditional yogic anatomy, not a peer-reviewed anatomical finding.
The woo: Clearing a limiting belief
Memory Reconsolidation
Updating how an old emotional memory is stored
- Nader, K., Schafe, G. E., & LeDoux, J. E. (2000). Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval. Nature, 406, 722–726.
- Clond, M. (2016). Emotional Freedom Techniques for anxiety: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 204(5), 388–395.
- Church, D., Stapleton, P., Vasudevan, A., & O'Keefe, T. (2022). Clinical EFT as an evidence-based practice for the treatment of psychological and physiological conditions: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 951451.
The woo: Future Life Manifestation
The Documented Hypnotic Brain State
Vivid imagined experience becomes measurably real to the brain
- Rainville, P., Duncan, G. H., Price, D. D., Carrier, B., & Bushnell, M. C. (1997). Pain affect encoded in human anterior cingulate but not somatosensory cortex. Science, 277(5328), 968–971.
- Rainville, P., Hofbauer, R. K., Paus, T., Duncan, G. H., Bushnell, M. C., & Price, D. D. (1999). Cerebral mechanisms of hypnotic induction and suggestion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11(1), 110–125.
- McGeown, W. J., Mazzoni, G., Venneri, A., & Kirsch, I. (2009). Hypnotic induction decreases anterior default mode activity. Consciousness and Cognition, 18(4), 848–855.
These are neuroimaging studies with small samples, typical for this kind of PET and fMRI work, where highly hypnotizable, well-screened participants are limited in number. The strength here comes from replication: three independent labs, over three decades, converging on the same shift in the anterior cingulate cortex and default mode network during hypnosis.
The woo: Feeling gratitude in your heart
Vagal Tone & Oxytocin Release
The physiology behind feeling safe and connected
- Kok, B. E., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2010). Upward spirals of the heart: Autonomic flexibility, as indexed by vagal tone, reciprocally and prospectively predicts positive emotions and social connectedness. Biological Psychology, 85(3), 432–436.
- Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377–389.
- Kok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., Brantley, M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health: Perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1123–1132.
The woo: Trusting your intuition
Interoception & Implicit Pattern Recognition
The body reading patterns before the conscious mind names them
- Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 59–70.
- Craig, A. D. (2002). How do you feel? Interoception: The sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(8), 655–666.
- Damasio, A. R. (1996). The somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the prefrontal cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 351(1346), 1413–1420.
The woo: Grounding
Parasympathetic Activation
Slow breath shifting the body out of stress response
- Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psycho-physiological correlates of slow breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 353.
- Lehrer, P., Kaur, K., Sharma, A., Shah, K., Huseby, R., Bhavsar, J., Sgobba, P., & Zhang, Y. (2020). Heart rate variability biofeedback improves emotional and physical health and performance: A systematic review and meta analysis. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 45(3), 109–129.
- Brown, R. P., & Gerbarg, P. L. (2005). Sudarshan Kriya yogic breathing in the treatment of stress, anxiety, and depression: Part I — neurophysiologic model. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 11(1), 189–201.