Want to improve your health and heal yourself? Practice deep breathing, often!
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When our body, mind or emotions are put under high stress for a continuous period of time, it can cause some pretty serious disruptions to our health.
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This is because our bodies go into fight or flight mode, which raises our blood sugar levels (because our body thinks we need dump sugar into our muscles to fight or run fast), and temporarily switches off and/or reduces the function of non-essential systems like the digestive, immune & reproductive systems for example.
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Can you imagine the downstream effects on the rest of the systems, and what kind of damage this could be doing if we’re constantly in this state?
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I’ve spoken before about how stress can cause fat gain due to the imbalances caused by being in the sympathetic mode (fight or flight), however it doesn’t stop there.
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I believe most disease, especially chronic ones, are birthed from either physical or psychological stress.
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FYI long term poor health, infection, nutrient deficiencies, eating foods which don’t agree with you, heavy metal exposure , etc, can be drivers of physical stress on the body.
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A very powerful way to offset this is to put your body into parasympathetic mode – which is the rest, heal and digest mode.
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The most effective way to get into parasympathetic mode is to practice deep, abdominal breathing EVERYDAY. If you can’t fathom doing it everyday, do it whenever you remember and then build from there.
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This type of breathing is also known as yoga or pranic breath. There are many different sequences, and Ayurvedic practitioners are very knowledgeable about which sequence is used for what purpose. You can also utilise some sequences to run faster/lift heavier etc!
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Here’s a basic method which everyone can use to calm their nervous system:
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- Sit in a comfortable position, keeping your back as straight as possible.
⠀ - Slowly take in a breath through your nose for 10 counts.
⠀ - Hold the breath for 5.
⠀ - Release the breath through the nose for 10 counts.
⠀ - Hold your breath for 5.
⠀ - Repeat this sequence 10 times, preferably first and last thing in the day, and during any stressful events!
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