Health & Wellbeing
Breathing your way to better health Consciou s breath ing can
help quiet en an anxio us mind. photo :
Jason An on Unspl ash
Our new health & wellbeing officer, Gillian Harris, shares one simple thing we can all do to feel better.
flight or freeze) and the parasympathetic nervous system (quietens the mind – rest and digest).
Breathing is an automatic process. It’s the first and last thing we do in life, but how many of us give it much thought in the years in between?
The parasympathetic nervous system is controlled by the vagus nerve, also known as the ‘wandering nerve’.
We breathe between 12 and 16 times a minute, adding up to around 18,000 breaths a day. The average 80-year-old has clocked up almost seven billion breaths over a lifetime. But although we breathe without having to consciously remind ourselves, it is also something we can control. We can – and should – stop and notice our breath. Bringing the breath under control can help to calm an anxious mind. Just taking time to focus on your breath for a few minutes can be enough to settle your thoughts and clear your head. There are proven health benefits of regulating your breath: reduced anxiety & depression, help regulating emotions, increased feelings of optimism & happiness, improved sleep, and reduced addiction cravings. Conscious breathing can be done anywhere by anyone. You can do it sitting down, lying down or out walking. You don’t need any equipment, it’s free and it’s available 24/7. So how does it work? Breath is linked to the autonomic nervous system (which regulates glands, blood vessels, internal organs). The autonomic nervous system is made up of two branches – the sympathetic nervous system (fight,
Observing and regulating the breath during a period of anxiety or panic activates the parasympathetic nervous system to take over and stimulates the vagus nerve into making the mind relax. Research shows that making the exhale longer than the inhale – for example inhaling to a count of 4 and exhaling to a count of 6 – is the most effective way of activating the parasympathetic nervous system. To see how breathing practices can help, let’s look at the damaging impact that loneliness can have on health and wellbeing. Acute loneliness is a public health epidemic, creating chronic levels of anxiety and putting older people at greater risk of depression, low mood and cardiovascular disease. It also doubles the risk of developing dementia. While breathing practices alone can’t cure isolation, they can help people handle some of the symptoms. Observing the breath and bringing it under control activates the parasympathetic system to reduce stress. In time, regulated breath becomes a tool that can be used to stop an anxious mind from spiralling. There is a growing body of scientific evidence to support the benefits of regulated breathing. But the best proof is to try it for yourself. Take a big breath in and a big breath out… and relax.
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