The Power of Deep Breathing & What You Should Know

by Lovena Suson | Mar 23, 2021 | Health & Fitness, Stress Management

 Discover The Power of Deep Breathing

With the current health environment, we have all heard about the effects of COVID 19 on the respiratory system. The need for ventilators and a continuous supply of oxygen just to survive was common. For survivors who lived through the corona-virus onslaught, their fight was fierce. Unable to breathe on their own and the anxiety of other complications are known facts.

It makes one realize that something that we enjoy for free every day can mean the fine line between life and death once your body succumbs to the coronavirus.

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Deep breathing techniques are often cited as an important tool that can help you immediately alleviate stress, anxiety, frustration, and anger. This is also especially useful to the COVID 19 survivors. 

Many people have difficulty practicing deep breathing exercises because they either don’t believe that it can help or they try once and are not motivated to try again. No judgment, as I myself am guilty of forgetting this very simple activity that can make a difference in how your day goes. So I have programmed my watch to remind me to take deep breaths every hour.

The same is true for breathing exercises, however, as is true for many other things: practice makes perfect. It is a surprising fact that many of us do not really know the proper and ideal breathing pattern! Singers however are trained to breathe using the diaphragm efficiently for volume. 

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The more you get into a routine of practicing breathing exercises, the better you will become at doing so. This will give you the ability to reduce stress, anger, and frustration with more ease than before.

 Why do breathing exercises work to relax our bodies and minds?

The body has two systems within the nervous system: the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. 

Both of these systems contribute to the reasons why deep breathing exercises can calm us down.

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Discover how the nature of our physiological systems contributes to the positive effects.

The Fight or Flight Response

Our biological systems have a natural ability to react during times of stress, especially in those situations where we face a significant threat. As a matter of survival, humans have this innate ability. In prehistoric times, humans came face-to-face with all sorts of wild animals, such as bears or tigers.

In response to such a threat, our body activates the Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response, or FFF reaction.

The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the physical sensations we get when we feel stress, anxiety, or severe anger and frustration. These can include sweaty palms, increased heart rate, and faster breathing. The activation of the FFF response is preparing our bodies to either run, fight the threat, or freeze.

Perceived Threats

The problem with the activation of the Fight or Flight Response is that it can be activated whenever we perceive that we’re up against a threat – whether we really are facing a threat or not.

Even though we experience negative situations in our lives, this does not necessarily make them a threat to our physical well-being.

Situations involving personal relationships, work responsibilities, work promotions, verbal arguments with others, and bad news about your health or the health of loved ones are just a few scenarios that can trigger the flight or fight response.

Despite the fact that all of these situations may be emotionally hurtful or painful, our body’s nervous system may interpret them as physically threatening. As such, our bodies activate the natural FFF response to get us ready to fight or run away.

Triggering the Opposite Reaction

In order to tell our biological systems that the situations we’re facing don’t require a fight or flight response, we must trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system produces the opposite response to the FFF, causing a relaxation response instead.

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One other important aspect of the Fight or Flight Response is the way that it diverts your blood flow. To prepare you to fight or to get ready to run from a perceived threat, blood is diverted away from the brain to the extremities in the body, such as the arms, legs, hands, and feet.

Breathing exercises send the blood supplies back from the extremities (since we’re not concerned with running or fighting) to the areas of the brain that allow us to think, reason, and problem solve.

TIP: When you notice that your blood pressure is high, take slow deep breaths for at least 10 repetitions. Then take your blood pressure again. You will notice a drop in the reading just with deep breathing. Although this may not be the ultimate solution for controlling high blood pressure it can at least help you deal with it for the moment.

This is why breathing exercises work to calm us when we experience acute stress, anger, or frustration. Blood is returning to the brain and it becomes easier for us to think.

How to Practice Deep Breathing

There are several ways in which you can practice deep breathing to relax both your body and mind.

The simplest way to practice in times of stress or anger is to:

 

1.    Close your eyes. This eliminates distractions in your surrounding.

2.    Tense your whole body for four seconds while inhaling deeply: In through your nose.

3.    Exhale slowly. This is out through your mouth, slightly pursed lips to regulate the volume of airflow.

4.    Repeating this three or four times can take you back to a state of relaxation and calm.

 When you are calm, your brain is clearer which helps with being able to think better and make more rational decisions and actions.

As you can see, the body’s natural ability to fight or flee from a perceived threat has been useful throughout the ages and is still useful today.