Re: stopping your pulse :S
meditation, visualization, and biofeedback are all ways one can learn to affect heart rate, blood pressure, and vascular flow. while historically it is often expressed in metaphysical terms, and it can be visualized/expressed as an energy flow in order to learn to do it, what is happening in the body is you are learning to directly alter the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic = speed up/fight or flight, constricted abdomen, etc ; parasympathetic = slow down/lower pulse, blood pressure, relaxed gut, etc)
slightly off topic aside: one way to prompt a parasympathetic response is called "vasovagal response" but unfortunately it is a pretty strong, fast, unmodulated parasympathetic cascade: pulse slows to under 50, you get a cold sweat and feel faint and may pass out. sometimes powerful bearing down (like on toilet) or stress (watching somebody start an IV or give birth) will trigger it.
i'll likely be offline on vacation for a wk or more; what a fun factoid to go out with!
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