Deep Abdominal Breathing
One of the things that I did not realize until my body became over-stimulated was how deep breathing exercises can have a calming effect on our nervous systems and help relief anxiety.
To give a brief overview, our nervous system is split into two parts – the sympathetic and parasympathetic, both of which effect a number of our bodies functions and physical responses. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the ‘fight or flight’ response and the parasympathetic is best known for its ‘rest and digest’ function. The two systems complement each other and are normally in a state of balanced ‘tone’.
During times of stress the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated – we perspire, our heart rate rises, our muscles tense and our breathing becomes rapid and shallow. Those of us who have become symptomatic have stressed our bodies enough that our nervous systems are now out of balance and ‘sympathetic’ dominant.
Chronic stress causes a restriction of the connective and muscular tissue in the chest resulting in a decreased range of motion of the chest wall. This results in more rapid, shallow breathing which is less efficient at transferring oxygen to the blood and delivering nutrients to the tissues.
Slowing down and deepening your breathing causes a direct stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system which helps to bring your nervous system back into balanced tone and, over time, a reversal of the changes seen during the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system.
I first learned about this from my doctor, who told me that I should be aiming to do deep abdominal breathing exercises every day. I still do them to this day, both on their own and as part of my own yoga practice. As with all things that you do as part of your recovery, you should not expect your symptoms to disappear quickly. Recovery takes time and everything you do has to be done with an attitude of acceptance of how you are and with whatever symptoms are currently disturbing you. Symptoms will eventually go, but trust me when I say it will take MUCH longer than you expect.
Abdominal Breathing Technique
Breathing exercises such as this one should be done twice a day or whenever you find your mind dwelling on upsetting thoughts.
* Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. When you take a deep breath in, the hand on the abdomen should rise higher than the one on the chest. This insures that the diaphragm is pulling air into the bases of the lungs.
* After exhaling through the mouth, take a slow deep breath in through your nose imagining that you are sucking in all the air in the room and hold it for a count of 7 (or as long as you are able, not exceeding 7)
* Slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of 8. As all the air is released with relaxation, gently contract your abdominal muscles to completely evacuate the remaining air from the lungs. It is important to remember that we deepen respirations not by inhaling more air but through completely exhaling it.
* Repeat the cycle four more times for a total of 5 deep breaths and try to breathe at a rate of one breath every 10 seconds (or 6 breaths per minute). At this rate our heart rate variability increases which has a positive effect on cardiac health.
I found it much easier to do these exercises with something to occupy my mind. Its all very well doing deep breathing but if you are thinking about and fusing with stressful thoughts it can make it much harder to relax. This became obvious to me when I started using biofeedback as I could see the relationship between stressful thinking on my heart and perspiration rate. I highly recommend using a tool that helps keep your mind relaxed too whilst doing breathing exercises. A few of the resources are shown below.
Resources:
1) Healing Rhythms Biofeedback software. (See my reviews for more information):
2) I also found the “Breathing: the Master Key to Self Healing” audiobook extremely useful not only for its content but also for the exercises which were great for calming the mind also.
On Amazon:
On iTunes:
