Using Breath to Rebalance Ourselves
It is our autonomic nervous system that maintains the balance between our bodies and our environment making sure that we react appropriately to the situations we find ourselves in in our everyday lives. It does this via the autonomic nervous system, controlling our systems vital for life without the need for conscious control through two opposing nerve networks, the sympathetic or ‘on switch’ that speeds us up (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic that slows us down (rest and digest). The analogy of an engine works pretty well, the accelerator on the one hand and the brakes on the other.
These systems are vitally important for life but create a problem when the balance is wrong and we begin to react inappropriately to everyday situations – our engine becomes over revved and parts wear out more quickly. This is chronic stress and is a major contributor to human morbidity, high blood pressure, strokes, poor sleep, anxiety, depression, digestive, immunity and inflammation issues, the list goes on.
If we can learn how to recognise the signs of low grade, chronic stress we can begin to manage it, take the matter into our own hands and restore balance in both our body and mind, to retune our engine.
The muscles of the head, neck and shoulders are the first muscles that begin to show the strain. It is no coincidence that we get headaches, aching eyes, grind our teeth and experience neck and back pain when we are stressed. We lose focus and feel anxious and this tension in the upper body along with quicker breathing in our upper chest are things that can happen without us really otherwise noticing, our engine is over revved.
Breathing is our one system vital for life that we can consciously control; through our breath we can engage with our parasympathetic nervous system and change our own physiology, switching off the stress response and switching on our rest and digest, restoring balance and harnessing a myriad of wellbeing effects for both body and mind.
Slow paced diaphragmatic breathing is easy to do and its effects and benefits well documented in science.
Your heart rate will slow, your blood pressure lowers, anxiety relieved and mood elevated. Blood flow is diverted away from your muscles to to your digestive tract, increasing flow through the liver, kidneys and spleen and so improving gut health, immunity and much more. - all this is activating the bodies innate ability to heal itself and can be done any time any place and any where.
Do try our ritual and our signature breathing balm, it is a fabulous tool for life and simply a lovely thing to do...