your breath is your anchor
Take a moment to focus on your breath. Do you breathe through your nose, or your mouth? Is your inhale longer than your exhale, is the breath balanced?
How we breathe has a significant impact on our ability to manage stress, anxiety, how well we sleep and our overall health. The breath controls our heart rate, digestion, blood pressure and even diverts blood supply towards the reproductive system. Breathing exercises, particularly in moments of stress, can have a significant impact on our ability to respond to external stimuli and can help to quickly calm the nervous system and clear the mind. Practiced regularly, they can help relieve chronic stress and enable us to live our lives on a calmer playing field.
Adopting a regular breathwork practice may feel intimidating - you may not know where to start or why it’s important. For me, it wasn’t until I understood how and why breathing exercises work, what is happening in the body to influence my response to stress and anxiety, that I started to apply them regularly in my own practice and through my teaching.
BREATHING THROUGH THE NOSE
The diaphragm is the primary breathing muscle. Situated at the base of the ribs it’s activated by breathing through the nose. Not only does it control our breath, but it’s also connected to our emotions. When we breath through the mouth the breath is shallow, coming from the chest, and the fight or flight response in our body is activated. Whereas breathing through the nose is deeper, actively targeting the diaphragm and increasing the oxygen uptake in the blood and cells, which in turn helps the mind and body to relax.
To feel the difference between the two place your left hand on your heart space and your right just below your ribs. Take a breath in through the mouth and feel the chest rise as the ribcage expands, notice how shallow it feels. Now, close the mouth and take a breath in through the nose - notice how the breath rises from the abdomen and is deeper and longer.
When we breathe through the mouth the breath is fast and shallow and inhibits our ability to calm the mind, which then links into poor sleep and turns into the cycle of agitated mind, agitated sleep, agitated mind, agitated sleep. However we can help to change this by focusing on predominantly breathing through the nose and into the diaphragm, encouraging the mind and body to relax, restore and recentre.
CALMING THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
The breath is also directly connected to the autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that controls processes in the body outside of voluntary control.
On the inhale, our heart rate increases and we activate the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The SNS is responsible for the secretion of the adrenaline and cortisol, the` hormones that create the fight or flight response in the body sending us into a state of stress. Whereas the exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system, slowing the heart rate down, lowering blood pressure, calming the mind and body.
When the inhale is longer than the exhale we are living in a heightened state of stress and anxiety. By focusing on longer exhales we can re-balance the nervous system, deactivating the sympathetic nervous system as it stimulates the stress hormone release that keeps us in this heightened state.
REBALANCING WITH BREATHWORK
Breathing exercises are a great way to rebalance how we breathe and guide us to a more relaxed and calm state in moments of stress.
There are over 22,000 breathing opportunities every day to change how we breathe to better our quality of life. Mindfully focusing on how we breathe can help to reduce stress, anxiety and improve sleep, and live in a more relaxed space.
To start your breathwork journey download THE BREATHWORK TOOLKIT which includes simple, easy breathing exercises to quickly calm the mind and body from the YOGI MA store.