The Power of Breath
Breathing. It’s automatic. It’s second nature. We don’t have to think about it. And yet…
When we do think about it, when we’re mindful of how we breath and how it feels in our bodies to take a satisfying breath, when we pay attention to simple things like how many breaths we take in a minute, how long we exhale, whether we use our diaphragm, whether our spine is elongated, etc, our breath changes pretty drastically. And quite quickly (often within 2 minutes), our brain, body and mind undergo significant changes.
A healthy breath cues your brain to communicate with your nervous system. Making your exhale at least as long as your inhale, engaging your diaphragm in the breathing process, using both nostrils to breathe, taking fewer breaths per minute - all of these things send a message to your brain to turn off your fight/flight/freeze response (sympathetic nervous system) and turn on your rest and digest system (parasympathetic nervous system).
When you are in that parasympathetic system or relaxation response, your mind can take a break. Your thoughts slow down and you become more focused and better able to process the information in front of you. Your ruminating mind relaxes and your mood stabilizes. You’re able to both see and feel more clearly.
Your body relaxes. In part, because of the physiology of the relaxation response. Your heart beat slows, blood pressure drops, muscles relax, vision widens and all of the systems in your body work better, including your immune, respiratory, lymphatic, and endocrine systems.
The body, mind and brain are one integrated system and when you have turned on your parasympathetic response, everything works better! This should be our body's default system. We should be in the relaxation response all day long, only entering the sympathetic nervous system in moments of danger and then returning to the PNS once the coast is clear.
Unfortunately, most of us are in the sympathetic system a lot more than that. There are a host of reasons for that and one of them is an inefficient breath. We just don’t always breathe well!
Instead of trying to uncover every single thing in our lives that trigger the fight/flight/freeze response, what if we just started with breath?
What if we started by paying deep attention to how we breath, noticing our breath patterns and learning new ways to breath that support our body, mind and brain?
I’d love to support you with this!
Click here to listen to a 4 minute practice with 3 breathing tips to help you calm your nervous system.
Or join me on July 31 for my upcoming workshop, The Power of Breath: Pranayama for Optimal Living and Breathing. This workshop will be on zoom and a recording will be available if you can’t make it in person.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send me an email. I’d love to hear from you!