It is such a simple thing, breathing. Most of us take it for granted every day. It is precisely what those suffering from COVID-19 most severely are being robbed of. The breath is a powerful tool and it is totally free and just as accessible to a 40 year old middle class white male living in an urban environment as it is to a 12 year old minority female living in a suburban area and to everyone in between. It is so simple it seems silly and we may question whether it works.
Well, question not, because, IT DOES.
There is a plethora of research available to substantiate that breath work has a measurable impact on a number of body systems. Today, I want to focus on one major benefit of breath work and that is activation of the parasympathetic nervous system and calming of the sympathetic nervous system. I will give a bit of information about the two branches of the nervous system and go through a breath technique to help you activate your parasympathetic nervous system but first, I have a personal anecdote of a time when I saw first hand how powerful this technique can be.
I took my seven year old daughter to get blood drawn at the hospital. She had a fear of needles and strangers touching her so this was a super uncomfortable (to put it mildly) situation for her. Add to that her experience of the previous week when they had tried to draw blood from her arm at the GP surgery and failed but only after digging around in her arm while she sobbed. She was traumatised and was not ready to go through that again. She started to panic and, as expected, her breath became short and shallow. She was crying, turning away from the nurses, hiding her arms and, in short, terrified. Because she was lying inclined on a bed on her back I could see her pulse rate in her neck. I held her hand, looked into her eyes and started doing the 4-7-8 breath technique with her.
The first couple of rounds she couldn't do it for the actual count as she was sobbing but slowly she came out of her sympathetic state and started to activate her parasympathetic state to the point that she could properly participate. I could visibly see her heart rate drop and her pulse strength come back to normal in her neck. It was incredible to see. In just a couple of minutes she was calm, the blood had been drawn and the fear and anxiety were gone. It is really that easy.
Okay, first, a quick introduction to the branches of your autonomic nervous system then on to the 4-7-8 technique...
Sympathetic nervous system -- the fight or flight branch.
This part of your nervous system keeps you alive when there is a threat in your immediate environment. Our ancestors had very different threats than we do but our bodies respond in the exact same way as their's did when they were fleeing from an encroaching lion. Our body does not know the difference between real stress (a lion spotted crouched and ready to pounce) and imagined stress (ruminating over things, binge watching COVID-19 'news' stories on social media, worrying about things that have not yet happened, etc).
I am not suggesting that the stress we are feeling at the moment is not real, of course it is. We are in the middle of a global pandemic -- that is about as real as it gets! What I am trying to highlight is that when watching a news segment on COVOD-19 there is not an immediate threat to your life. COVID-19 is not in your TV or mobile device ready to attack you at any second. However, your body responds as if it is. There are many effects that the stress response has but, as I explained in this previous post, one particularly significant to what we are living through right now is that while in this sympathetic state our immune function is suppressed.
Having a suppressed immune system is obviously not good news at any time but certainly not right now.
Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to paint the sympathetic nervous system as the bad guy. Far from it. The sympathetic state is essential but we should be in it for short bursts when we really need it. Maybe we are about to collide with a moving vehicle and we need a quick reaction time to veer out of the way, or there is something in the toaster that has caught on fire and we need to respond now so the kitchen isn't next, or our pet puppy has jumped out of our arms and we need to catch it before it hits the ground and gets injured, or our children are sick and we need to use more strength and resource than we normally would because we need to be there for them including through the night, or we have an important presentation to lead in front of our senior management team. All great reasons to call on your sympathetic state and hope it is functioning optimally so you can respond with power, strength, speed and accuracy. Activation of the sympathetic nervous system will help you achieve all of those things.
As always, it is when we are out of balance that problems can arise. We want some sympathetic activation but also parasympathetic activation.
Parasympathetic nervous system -- the rest and digest branch.
This is the branch of the nervous system where you do all of your repair, digesting and absorbing nutrients, your immune function is modulated and behaving as is should. This is, ideally, your body's most common state. This is, ideally, your body's set point to return to when the 'threat' has passed -- the lion is gone, we are now safe, return to parasympathetic.
Unfortunately, many of us are not activating this branch of our nervous system nearly enough. We are moving from one stress to the next to the next all day long so are bodies are constantly in this fight or flight state. See if any of these resonate... Lack of sleep? The body sees that as stress. Poor nutrition? Yes, that is stress too. Lack of social contact (who doesn't have this one at the moment?!). Yup, that is stress. Dehydration (as in you are drinking less that 8 8oz glasses of water per day). You got it, that is stress. Financial strain due to this economically tumultuous time? Big time stress. Family relationships strained due to living on top of each other. Twenty. Four. Hours. A day? Oh yes, that is stress. Trying to participate in a zoom meeting with your boss while your three year old runs through the room naked and shrieking, your dog is barking and your partner is boiling the kettle? Oh boy, that is definitely stress. Watching multiple news sources at multiple times per day about the current global situation? Stress, stress, stress, every time you check the news, stress. I think you get the point.
Do you know what a really great way to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system is? Correct, breathing. It is literally as simple as that. Amazing, isn't it. You can reassure your brain and body that all is okay just by taking a few minutes a few times per day to consciously breathe.
So, breathe with me. I have made a short video showing you just one really simple technique to help you manage stress, reduce anxiety and help you sleep. The inhalation is the portion of the breath associated to the sympathetic nervous system as in sympathetic activation the bronchi dilate and more oxygen gets from the lung into the blood stream. The out breath is associated to the parasympathetic state. If you have the time to sit and breath out slowly there must not be a lion chasing you. So to activate the parasympathetic nervous system it helps to make the out breath longer than the in breath.
In the video I show you a simple 4-7-8 technique in which you sit comfortably (out in nature preferably, as time in nature activates your parasympathetic state as well). You can do it with your eyes open or closed, whatever is most comfortable for you. Breath in through the nose for a count of four making sure you fill the lungs all the way to the bottom, hold the breath for a count of seven and slowly breath out of your mouth for a count of 8. You can set a timer so that you do not have to look at the time or think about anything other than you're breathing. Try starting with three minutes (even one minute helps) and increase it to five if you can. Try to work up to sitting still breathing for 5 minutes at a time 3 times per day and see if you notice a change.
Have a look at my video. Try the technique. Let me know if you can notice a difference.
To wellness!
April