Breathing for Stress Relief |
“What must be taught first is breathing.” —Confucius
It is somewhat alarming how much of our body is under autopilot. But given how easily distracted humans are, that’s definitely a good thing. If we had to remember to make our heart beat every single second, we wouldn’t make it to breakfast. Simple distractions like cat videos would be deadly. So, evolution wisely opted to give all of our organs their own control center. It sounds gross, but the heart still beats even when you cut it out of the body. The gut will still gurgle and pulse even if it gets disconnected from the brain.
These independent control centers are all coordinated by your autonomic nervous system, which has two parts, fright and fun. The frightening part is the sympathetic system that powers the fight-or-flight mode and communicates through your spinal cord. The fun part is the parasympathetic system that powers the feed and breed mode, followed by resting and digesting. It is definitely the party system, and it communicates through the vagus nerve.
There is one exception to this autopilot program: You can take control of your breathing. Surprisingly, that grants you some leverage over your stress: When you inhale, your frightening sympathetic system kicks in, and when you exhale, your fun parasympathetic system takes over. This is greatly simplified—we’re talking about biology after all—but that is the current........