About the importance of breathing practices
“Most people do not take seriously the advice of psychologists to use breathing practice as a method of overcoming anxiety and stress. To realize the importance of breathing practice, first of all, we need to talk about the positive physiological changes in the body, which will ultimately affect the stabilization of the emotional background. Today I will try to motivate readers to breathing practices.” The first step is to understand how the brain works under stress. When a person is in a state of acute stress response or in a prolonged anxious state, physiological processes occur in the body to mobilize the person to a “state of combat readiness,” in other words, to prepare for a battle for survival or escape. This is a complex process in which the body goes beyond homeostasis and enters a critical load mode. This process is called allostasis. The ancient brain is responsible for this process, namely the hypothalamic-pituitary system, which constantly monitors the entire cascade of information coming not only from the external environment but also from the internal organs of a person. The body prepares for the “battle” by enhancing the functioning of the endocrine glands, which produce the main stress hormones – cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine.While cortisol is the catalyst for this process, its follower adrenaline, by constricting blood vessels, deprives internal organs of the necessary amount of oxygen for the body to function properly. In addition, under stress, the diaphragm is disturbed, which leads to shallow breathing and, together with the action of adrenaline, further reduces the supply of oxygen to the body and brain. If the stress is prolonged, adaptation occurs and the person no longer feels the effects of adrenaline. Over time, this can even lead to inpatient treatment of cardiovascular and endocrine diseases. One of the reasons for organ dysfunction is the lack of oxygen in its tissues.
However, if a person knows the simplest breathing practices that imitate stable psychological states, then the body is not only saturated with oxygen, but also questions the ancient brain’s decision to prepare a person “for battle.” If the diaphragm imitates a phase of breathing that the brain has previously memorized as a phase of the “sun lounger” mode, then it eventually gives the command to reduce the hormonal outburst.
This process is similar to the so-called biofeedback. From early childhood, the brain keeps a record of our emotional states and reactions to them, a record of the work of facial muscles, behavior, and breathing! Children copy the behavior of adults and this process is called copying behavioral acts.
Do you remember if you breathe when someone scared you or when you heard a rustling in the thicket on your way home at night? Probably not, or very superficially and quickly.
The best meditative breathing technique is breathing with a slow exhalation. Normal inhalation, without excessive effort, and exhalation three times as slow. By the way, this technique is used by Indian yogis”.
Regarding the time of breathing meditation, yogis believe that a person’s age is the number of minutes a day they should spend on conscious breathing, excluding the option of musical accompaniment, focusing only on breathing with complete detachment from the external environment.
The best time to meditate is in the morning and evening. Although breathing practices require special conditions (sitting, holding your back and in complete silence), given our pace of life and the number of stressors, you can practice while standing in line, in the subway, taxi, or during a lunch break. You also need to remember that any practice requires training, and the maximum result will be felt over time. When you start practicing, it’s important to choose an accessible and realistic time to practice, without external stimuli. The method of slowing down the breath can also be used as an emergency aid in acute emotional reactions. Cortisol is a catalyst for hormones, so it breaks down quickly. Therefore, a few breaths in and out while it is doing its job will become an “iron gate” for adrenaline and help you to adequately assess the situation.
Insomnia.
“Triangle Breathing” is very effective for insomnia, the psychologist notes. This method imitates the work of the diaphragm during one of the phases of sleep. Normal inhalation, exhalation, and breath holding. Each phase of the cycle has the same time, either two or three seconds. Within a few minutes of such breathing, the ancient brain reads information from the diaphragm that a person is asleep and begins to reduce the concentration of stress hormones in the blood. Sleep comes next.
Panic.
In panic attacks, psychologists and psychotherapists often recommend the method of “Square Breathing”. In situations resembling panic, the main task of a person is to distract from the event itself and not to focus on it. It is necessary to find any object that resembles a geometric figure – a square and accompanying the vision along its edges to perform a breathing cycle as follows; moving the eyes along one side of the square to inhale, on the other – a delay in inhalation, on the other – exhale and the next face again a delay in exhalation.
Each face for 2-4 seconds. After that, you do everything in the opposite direction along the edges of the square. Thus, being distracted by controlling the edges, the external stressor is not aggravated by the internal stressor, because the biggest mistake in such a situation is trying to control your state. By breathing with delays, we give enough time for oxygen molecules to enter the bloodstream through diffusion with carbon dioxide, rather than throwing oxygen back out with rapid and shallow breathing. The result is oxygenated tissue and reduced anxiety.
“To summarize, I would like to note that every person is able to influence the decisions made by the ancient brain. These decisions are reduced to primitive hypothalamic commands, such as “Save Private Ryan!” and it is the breathing that imitates the opposite phase to stress that calls into question the correctness of these commands in front of the brain itself. Although such decisions save our lives, sometimes they are wrong, though not without our help.”
Text from the interview for GalInfo.
