Why I love breathwork
Life can be so crazy some – ok, almost all – of the time and we may find ourselves constantly sitting with a feeling of things not being quite right. An unsettling niggle that tells us that now is not the time to relax and we need to stay alert. This feeling of unease is actually our nervous system responding to what is happening in our brain. We do indeed tell ourselves things that are not necessarily true in an almost constant loop, only eased by our normalized addictions to food, alcohol, shopping, scrolling... You get the idea!
It’s impossible to avoid stress altogether so incorporating breathwork into the day can help you move from stressed-out to calm and balanced naturally, enabling you to:
Balance your nervous system. Most of us are dealing with some element of stress in our lives. For most people, dealing with near-constant stress on a daily basis has become common place. Whether this distress is real or perceived the body still deals with it in the same way... And this affects our health. Not all stress is bad. In fact, moderate or normal stress can confer benefits, whereas uncomfortable stress can overwhelm our body. But being able to toggle between the two stress states has profound benefits to the nervous system. The body ALWAYS wants to come back into balance and breathwork can help take us there.
Improve your stress response. Living each day in fight or flight mode doesn’t give us the chance to experience the flip side of calm, relaxed and rested. Our modern-day stress response is so maladaptive that most of us end up relying on poor habits just to get through the day, we sleep restlessly at night and then get up and repeat it all again the next day! On average, we breath around 22,000 times each day. Simply being conscious of a few of those 22,000 is a wonderful way to begin reducing stress.
Achieve better digestion. There’s no way around it, the body must be in the parasympathetic rest and digest state for proper digestion to occur. When relaxed, our body can assimilate all the wonderful food we are eating with ease.
Enable resiliency. Taking a moment to be present with ourselves can help us to recognize, understand and properly alchemize the triggers which are leading us toward anxiety, stress and limiting beliefs. During an intentional breathing practice, we allow ourselves to experience all emotions that come up. We can recognize an emotion – such as anger – we can name it, feel it and let it move through our body. It doesn’t need to stay and bury down deep inside. This is also an amazing tool for kids.
My favorite breathing technique to balance yourself FAST… The Physiological Sigh.
Out of all the breathwork modalities and techniques, the Physiological Sigh is one I use and recommend frequently. Actually ALL of us breathe this way naturally when upset and crying or when asleep. During the course of the day it is estimated we unconsciously sigh around once every 5 minutes. Bringing this under our conscious control is a super powerful breathing technique. The Physiological Sigh rapidly reduces stress and anxiety, balances the nervous system and brings you into a state of calm. The full inhalation into the belly and chest enables you to move from stressed to relaxed with ease. The inhalation brings oxygen into the lungs, expanding the alveoli while the long, slow, pronounced exhalation enables maximum CO2 offload which helps us feel more relaxed and slows the heart rate.
Getting started:
Begin with a double inhale through the nose. Followed by a long, slow exhale through the mouth.
The first inhale will be at 70% capacity, with a powerful second inhale.
Focus on an inhale of around 2-3 seconds and an exhale of between 7-10 seconds.
Repeat 2-3 times. That’s it!
Can be done anywhere in real time whenever a pocket of stress arises such as getting kids out the door in the morning, commuting, before a meeting, in a queue or any time you find anxiety starting to prickle. You are telling your body "I'm in control of the situation. I've got this" as you go about your day, helping you to navigate stress in real time.
If you would like to find out how you can achieve abundant energy and wellbeing using personalized nutrition, breathwork and mindset for optimal wellbeing, arrange a complimentary Insight Call today.