Breath: The Gateway to a Better, Stress-free, Life
The stress of modern life always comes at us in an assortment of ways. Some people can't seem to relax no matter what they do. Many experience insomnia. And then there is the teeth clenching, the chest pains, the foggy minds, the never-ending tiredness. Do any of these sound familiar to you? As a yoga teacher and a life design teacher, students often come to me with these problems. In my practice of over 20 years, I have put together an arsenal of remedies, which always starts with the most basic: breathe.
Always On Alert
Let's begin by framing the problem. These days, we are being required to cope with increasing high (a difficult job) and low (increased screen time) levels of stimulation that our bodies were just not designed for. For this reason, we are developing all kinds of physical and mental maladies ranging from certain forms of cancer to insomnia and clenching our jaws. Robert M. Sapolsky , author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers wrote: “A large percentage of what we think of when we talk about stress-related diseases are disorders of excessive stress-responses.” In other words, the continual, prolonged need to attend to increasingly accepted stressors in our current society is behind these maladies.
As humans we quickly normalize what we see around us. We live our life according to what we experience in our environments, most times without question. What if grinding your teeth and insomnia had less to do with your issue with your partner and more to do with your nervous system losing its natural ability to regulate? We have a magnificent nervous system that runs our body, the autonomic nervous system. In response to our thoughts, outside stimuli and situations, the nervous system tells our organs, cells and systems when and what to turn on or shut off, and what and when hormones should be released. It has the ability to keep us in a beautiful and balanced response to the world around us.
Fight or Flight vs Rest and Digest
The switch-on functions are mostly carried out by the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS). This part of the nervous system is what is also referred to as our fight or flight response. It’s the part of us that has to show up in a big way when we are in danger or in high stress situations, for example when you are being attacked or your child is hurt. You might have seen those images of an ordinary man able to pick up a car to save his child. It’s our superhuman strength. It is always working in balance with our Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) and when needed it can and will kick in and override PSN giving large amounts of blood to the parts of us that are needed to get the job done.
On the other hand, the switch off functions are carried out by the PNS that presides over our rest and digest operations. It helps our organs process longer tasks like digesting foods, repair our bodies, or fight dangerous viruses and bacteria. The PNS allows us to sleep and regenerate and is a good place to be in for our general well being. It is important to note that when the SNS is needing all that extra blood to lift cars and fight enemies it's getting it from the systems of the PSN. It literally shuts them down in order to keep you safe from danger. Preserving our life is always a top priority. Amazing, isn’t it? It can be, when it is working as it should. Like most things in the body it is a natural function in the body’s elegant design. When we do too many things that stress the natural balance, that's when we run into trouble.
A Dangerous Imbalance
Our bodies are built to live mostly on our PSN and occasionally visit our SNS. Unfortunately , we do just the opposite: we live in a world of fight or flight and rarely if ever rest and digest. There is an increasing body of science and research to support this, and now you can understand why the stress symptoms I mentioned in the opening paragraph are so common around the world. Ask 20 people and 19 of them will tell you they grind their teeth at night! The 20th could possibly be lying.
Not only do we spend too much time in fight-or-flight mode, but our bodies are slow to recover from it. As Robert Cole, PhD has noted “Effects from a fight-or-flight response take a long time to wear off. Muscles that have tensed are left shortened and do not automatically go back to their former length. [...] Muscles aren’t the only part of the body slow to recover from a fight-or-flight reaction. Stress hormones remain in the bloodstream for quite a long time, and more may be released in response to memories of the danger.” Scary right? What he is saying is that, in these times where there is a made-up urgency to “react” to emails, phone calls and social media notifications, we are perpetually and literally ready for battle. Our system reacts the same way whether there is an army of men with machine guns or a really scary boss. It doesn’t know the difference, it only knows you feel threatened.
If this is the case, how could we ever trust to shut off enough to sleep through the night? Of course there is always tension in our chest! Because we are living within a continuous stream of fear hormones rather than trust hormones. Nothing may be happening at the moment, and yet our body is pumping out high levels of cortisol and adrenaline. Then we take a yoga class and wonder why we are still so tight. Even there we are ready for a struggle. We push and pull our body, and then lie down for 7 mins in the hopes it all turns out ok. In our current day the need for this reaction doesn’t seem to ever stop. We are constantly bombarded with stimuli and so our SNS is always on high alert. Never shifting to and balancing with PSN to rest and digest.
Sadly, this is another example of how we live according to what we see around us, relinquishing our power to design our own life. This time it is not just our happiness that is in jeopardy, but our health. This is a concerning example of how we are asleep at the wheel of life and to no fault of our own. We do what we see around us. We live as our parents did until we ask … why? Asking why helps to bring things back in focus and invites consciousness back in the door.
A Simple and Effective Solution: Breathe
Consciousness is one of the ways to begin to take our life and health back, and we can begin to do this with the breath. It might seem too simple an answer for a problem that appears quite daunting and pervasive. The thing is: most good solutions are just that simple. The yogis have known how to regulate these very systems for centuries. James Nestor, author of Breath, explains in an interview: “There's a reason why in yoga classes they have you do your alternate nostril breathing, and it's called Nadi Shodhana. [...] And there's a zillion different ways to do this. But they all circle around the same theme. And that inhales and exhales through the left nostril are associated with a parasympathetic response. What I mean by that is, it helps to relax you, your blood pressure is going to go down. It cools you, your heart rate is going to go down.”
Robert M. Sapolsky highlights another relevant aspect of breathing “Whenever you inhale, you turn on the sympathetic nervous system slightly, minutely speeding up your heart. And when you exhale, the parasympathetic half turns on, activating your vagus nerve in order to slow things down. If you have taken a yoga class you have been asked to do just this time and again. When you extend your exhalation you almost immediately feel better, more relaxed. By increasing the length of the exhalation you are turning on the PSN and begin to rest and digest, literally sending an invitation to your body to live instead of fighting. This is the part of the nervous system that we need to be in to heal and revitalize. No healing can go on in the SNS. In fact, prolonged periods of time in this part of the SNS is the reason for many of our current common illnesses. If you want to heal, if you want to live fully, you must access your PNS.
Take control of your life
I recently taught a workshop on three important breathing techniques and a few easy exercises that can help you stop snoring, clenching your jaw and help you to sleep better. Essentially restoring the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic activities. Something as simple as noticing how many breaths you take per minute and slowing down to 6-10 could make a big difference in your anxiety level and your general quality of life.
However, it is not just about hacking your nervous system, it is about taking back your life. It is about being brave enough to listen to what your body is telling you and choosing to live your life by your own conscious design. And that design can start with choosing your health, choosing to de-stress your life. Your life is your choice. We can say it is not our fault when you don’t have all the information, but when we do and still make the same choice, we are simply unwilling to break a pattern. Unfortunately, this one may be more costly.
Remember all good solutions are simple. Start slow, perhaps with the breath, but stay committed to finding and resolving all the ways you are sleeping at the wheel of your life. Wake up, your awesome life is happening now!
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