Breathing: Our Natural Stress Reliever
Aromatherapy, warm baths, massages, exercise even a glass of wine are all great recommendations for relieving stress, but our bodies have a built-in mechanism for reducing stress: breathing. “As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it’s been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.”-Gretchen Cuda on NPR Morning Edition.
Although breathing can be an involuntary function necessary to continue life; when we take time to focus on our breath as a voluntary function it can have vast positive impacts on our physiology and our health. “You can influence asthma; you can influence chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; you can influence heart failure…There are studies that show that people who practice breathing exercises and have those conditions — they benefit.”-Dr. Mladen Golubic (Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Integrative Medicine).
While these studies form part of modern science the concept of using breath to heal the body is not a new one. Breathwork called Pranayama has been an integral part of Yoga practice for thousands of years. In Yoga breathing and focus on Pranayama is used to affect both the body and the mind. It is also an integral part of any mindful meditation.
“Research has shown that breathing exercises like these can have immediate effects by altering the pH of the blood or changing blood pressure.
But more importantly, they can be used as a method to train the body’s reaction to stressful situations and dampen the production of harmful stress hormones. “-Gretchen Cuda on NPR Morning Edition.
To use our breath for stress relief we should focus on slow, deep breathing. This stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system in a way that calms us down and may lower our resting heart rate. Using a breathing resistance exerciser like Expand-A-Lung is an excellent way to practice deep breathing exercises. The resistance provided on both the inhale and exhale elongate the inhales and exhales by making us breath more slowly and intentionally. Additionally, it deepens the breath by activating the respiratory muscles.
Relaxation Revolution- a book written by Harvard Researcher Hebert Bensons demonstrates that we can use our breath to alter the basic activity of our cells with our mind. “It does away with the whole mind-body separation…Here you can use the mind to change the body, and the genes were changing were the very genes acting in an opposite fashion when people are under stress.”-Herbert Benson.
Breathing can be a powerful tool to improve health and decrease stress. Before you open that bottle of wine after a long day take a moment to breathe deeply. Even if you do open the wine after…you’ll enjoy it that much more.
