Just Breathe.
- janlindquist
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
No matter what condition your mind and body are in right now, I have a powerful tool that you can easily and freely use to help calm your anxiety.
The Science of Deep Breathing.
Depending on your background, the idea of breathwork and meditation may initially cause you to disregard the concept. Maybe it conjures images of a mystic meditation on a mountainside, or maybe it feels like a new-age practice?
Yet there is solid science around the connection of deep breathing and our health.
When we breathe deeply:
Blood pressure lowers.
Our racing heart calms.
Clarity and our ability to think improves.
We feel more peaceful.
Deep breathing doesn't cure anxiety, nor is it a replacement for professional medical treatment or therapy. But it can be a powerful tool to add to our mental health toolkit.
Deep Breaths Are:
Short, aligned with the rhythm of our breath: while inhaling & exhaling.
Repeated several times to focus and center our rhythm of breathing.
They Are Not:
A new-age, humanistic self-healing practice.
Rooted in mystical practices.
A cure-all for anxiety.
Full of "mantras" designed to blot out what we are actually experiencing.
Anxiety & Our Body.
Worry and anxiety are common to the human experience. Worry finds its home in our mind and is usually fueled by our thoughts and concerns about events and circumstances that we are experiencing or have experienced.
Life is indeed full of stressful situations that can clog our minds with worry; and for many of us, that worry can quickly lead to its more intense counterpart, anxiety.
Worry and anxiety are interrelated, but where worry resides mainly in our minds, anxiety is worry we wear in our bodies.
The way our bodies process emotions and stressful situations is not an accident. Our bodies are designed in intricately connected ways, and understanding how the body experiences anxiety is the first step to understanding how to calm it.
The Autonomic Nervous System.
This system includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. These two systems connect our brain to every internal organ and automatically regulates numerous body functions, including our response to stress and anxiety.
When we sense danger, the sympathetic nervous system is triggered to go into action. It acts like an accelerator, revving up our internal systems to respond.
Heart rate increases.
Breathing becomes more rapid.
Fight or flight response is activated.
These complex responses happen almost at once, while the "emotional brain" [the amygdala] takes over and bypasses our "thinking brain" [the prefrontal cortex], making it very difficult to process thought rationally and maintain perspective.
Have you ever noticed that it's difficult to think when you're feeling fear?
We tend to respond on pure instinct in those moments.
Our 'gut' reaction takes over, and we can even feel out of control.
But, this is actually a good thing! Because when we perceive danger, we must react quickly.
Unfortunately, reacting quickly in the face of our perceived danger, [which really isn't dangerous at all], can happen many times each day causing our nervous system quite a workout.
In order to function well, we need both systems to operate so that our body through the vagus nerve activation can provide the calming it requires to restore and repair along with the need to deal with real danger.
Sometimes the sympathetic nervous system [fight or flight] is triggered so often that we are existing on "high alert". Our worries and fears are not always grounded in actual danger, and our stress responses can overreact, becoming highly active most of the time.
Balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems is an important step in regulating our emotional well-being.
Deep Breathing, the Bridge Between Our Brain and Body.
Just as emotions like worry and fear can trigger the body's stress response, what we experience physically in our body can affect our emotions.
To begin to quiet our worries and calm the symptoms of anxiety requires controlling one critical body function: breathing.
Breathing is one of the few body processes that can be regulated both consciously and unconsciously. Although we can't willfully regulate our blood pressure, we can control our breathing.
Breathing gives us a direct connection to the vagus nerve in our parasympathetic nervous system.
Changing our breathing can directly affect the signals being sent from the vagus nerve to the brain.
We can change how often, how fast, and how much we inflate our lungs which affects our brain and how it operates.
Breathing gives us a way to hack into our own brain and nervous system!
Deep Breathing 101.
Breathe in deeply and slowly through your nose. Feel your lungs fill completely.
Focus on filling your diaphram so that your stomach expands while your upper chest remains still.
Try placing your hands on your stomach to see if you are breathing deeply.
Breathe out slowly through your mouth. Empty your lungs fully.
Repeat several times finding a slow and steady rhythm. Begin with one minute, working up to five-minutes.
Why This Works?
Deep breathing with slow, deep breaths helps to activate the parasympathetic [rest & digest] nervous system, slowing the heart rate and calming the body.
Try These.
365
Three times per day, six breaths per minute, five-minute length
Inhale slowly through the nose for five seconds.
Exhale slowly through the mouth for five seconds.
Repeat for five minutes.
4-7-8 [The Relaxing Breath]
Inhale slowly through nose for a count of four.
Hold your breath for a count of seven.
Exhale completely through mouth for a count of eight.
Repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four cycles.
Box Breathing
Inhale slowly through nose for a count of four.
Hold breath for a count of four.
Exhale slowly through mouth for a count of four.
Hold breath for a count of four.
These breathing exercises can be done at any time and anywhere you are able to slow down, and be still, and breathe.
Consider This - Our Body Keeps Score.
For many of us, we've neglected to consider how living in the fast lane has begun to impact our health. So why not begin today and begin to actually breathe!
This simple, effective and free practice could be the missing link in improving your health.
We all could benefit from:
Stable blood pressure
More oxygen to our organs.
Support to our core muscles, creating better posture and fitness.
Improved weight management through hunger reduction and appetite.
Reduced stress and anxiety.
Improved sleep.
Clearer mind.
Better moods.
I hope you'll remember that we need to consider our whole health - a whole body approach to wellness. We will never be fully healthy if we continue to silo our physical health from both our mental and spiritual health.
I'd love to talk all about this with you.
You can find me here:
Thanks for reading.
Jan
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