Practice Notes is a Journal series that I created to share tidbits of information that I am currently incorporating and/or learning in my personal yoga practice and teaching. In my previous Practices Notes, I shared with ya’ll a simple and effective breathing pattern called the “4-7-8 Breath,” you can read it here! And I hope you’ve been practicing it! I also mentioned that I was going to write another article for this series that takes more of an in-depth look at breath-work and why we do it. You know, like why does conscious breathing produce the effects that it does??
I was first introduced to breath-work as pranayama (the Sanskrit word for “breathing practices”), through yoga. In a Vinyasa-style practice, you are encouraged to move through your practice via the guidance of the breath (typically an Ujjayi pranayama), and I found that the fusion between my movement and my breath was one of the quickest and most effective ways to get myself totally present… Like completely out of my head and fully into my body. In the past couple of years, my interest in breath-work has expanded from pranayama and Vinyasa yoga to other techniques and applications for surfing, static apnea/breath-holding, stress management, and even digestive health. And aside from all of the different breathing practices and theories and techniques, I think we can collectively agree that there lies a little bit of magic in taking a slow, deep breath. It just feels good. But why is that??
Well, to understand the breath we need to take a look into the body’s Nervous System. A quick Google search led me to this image by socratic.org that I found to be relatively easy to comprehend, despite the complexity of the Nervous System.
The Nervous System can be divided into two branches. You’ve got the Central Nervous System that is made up of the brain, which receives and processes sensory information, and the spinal cord, which transmits signals to and from the brain. To understand the breath, we will focus on the second branch, the Peripheral Nervous System, which you can think of as the nerves extending from the spinal cord and out into the body.
The Peripheral Nervous System further breaks down into two branches: the Somatic and Autonomic Nervous Systems. The Somatic Nervous System controls our voluntary movements, while the Autonomic Nervous System controls our involuntary responses.
To quote H. David Coulter in his Anatomy of Hatha Yoga text book, “Breathing goes on 24 hours a day. We can regulate it mindfully..., if we want, in the same way we can regulate our movement and posture (Somatic Nervous System), but most of the time our minds are occupied elsewhere and we rely on other motor centers (Autonomic Nervous System) to manage the respiration.”
He goes on to explain that “we constantly depend on smooth interactions between [both] the somatic and autonomic nervous systems. [For example] You race around the block using your skeletal muscles, which are controlled by the somatic nervous system, but you would not get far unless your autonomic nervous system sped up your heart, stimulated the release of glucose from your liver, and shunted blood from the skin to the skeletal muscles And if, instead of running around the block, you sit down and read a book after dinner, you flip the pages using your skeletal muscles and depend on the unconscious operation of your autonomic nervous system to digest your meal. Respiration, as it happens, is the foremost function in the body in which signals from internal organs have a constant and continuing effect on somatic function, in this case the rate and depth of breathing, 24 hours a day.”
Stay with me here. I promise it’s about to all come together here soon.
So let’s take a look at the autonomic nervous system, which controls our involuntary responses like heartbeat, digestion, pupillary response, and, if we’re not consciously controlling it, our respiratory rate. The autonomic nervous system can be broken into, you guessed it, two more branches: the Sympathetic Nervous System and the Parasympathetic Nervous System. The Sympathetic Nervous System is also known as our “fight or flight” response... And I’m sure you’ve probably heard of it. It’s an ancient response that’s essential, especially if something is seriously threatening to our life. During this response our heart rate and blood pressure and respiratory rate increases. Blood and oxygen are pumped into our larger muscles, our pupils dilate, digestion slows, and our bodies literally go into a sort of “survival mode” so we can be ready to fight for our lives, or run like hell in the other direction (maybe a little dramatic, but you get the point… and athletes, you could associate the sympathetic “fight or flight” with being in sport or competition or training).
The second branch of the ANS, the counterbalance to the Sympathetic System’s “fight or flight” response, is the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is also known as the “rest and digest” response. Equally as crucial as our survival mode, this system helps our bodies calm down and recover in between those “fight or flight” moments. Here is where the heart rate and respiratory rate slows, blood pressure decreases, blood flow returns to the organs of the belly, and digestion is enhanced. In this state our bodies can relax, restore, and repair themselves. Healing happens in a parasympathetic state.
So, by now, we can all hopefully agree that the nervous system largely influences our breathing. But let’s shift the focus onto how actively controlling our breathing can influence our nervous system.
To do this, let’s take a look at what happens during a breath. Now, I am not a doctor, physical therapist, anatomist, or physiologist. I am a yoga teacher that has barely scratched the surface of anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics, so to briefly explain what happens on the in-breath and the out-breath, the following two paragraphs have been copied from this article by PsychologyToday.com:
“When you inhale, blood is drawn from your heart into the vasculature of your lungs. This creates a relative deficit of blood for the rest of your body. Your heart compensates by increasing the heart rate and pushing more blood into your body. The increase in heart rate is made possible by decreased Parasympathetic Nervous System…
When you exhale, blood returns to your body from your lungs and the heart slows back down as the Parasympathetic Nervous System increases. The increase in heart rate during inhalation and decrease during exhalation is known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia and is a sign of a healthy heart.”
And while there are a number of other things going on during this process of taking a breath, to me the value lies in the relationship between our breath and our nervous system. We can actually tap into and regulate our nervous system through our breath!
To once again quote Coulter (yoga students & teachers, I highly recommend reading this text!): “Abnormal breathing patterns can stimulate autonomic reactions associated with panic attacks, and poor breathing habits [can] product anxiety and chronic over-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system,” aka the “fight or flight” response. And maybe that abnormal breathing stems from lack of awareness, or poor posture, or societal pressure, or fear, or stress - think about it, do you breath deep when you’re stressed?? Nope - but being in this constant state of “fight or flight” can be detrimental to our bodies and overall health and, often times, is a major cause of digestive, cardiac, and mental health issues.
Coulter continues with, “by contrast, quiet breathing influences the autonomic circuits that slow the heartbeat and reduce blood pressure, producing calm and a sense of stability. Our ability to control respiration consciously gives us access to autonomic function that no other system of the body can boast.”
So, this is where conscious breathing comes into play. Regular and intentional breath work encourages equanimity and a healthy balance between our “fight or flight” and “rest and digest” responses.
Smoothing out the breath can help to settle the mind, and knowing that our inhale can decrease the parasympathetic response and that the exhale can increase the parasympathetic response immediately gives us the power to take control over our response to stress. This fact alone, along with a few other contributing factors, is why you probably have experienced a calming effect after practicing the “4-7-8 Breathing Technique” that I described in my first Practice Notes post. By maintaining that constant ratio of an exhale that’s double-ish the inhale, you encourage the body and the mind to shift from “flight or fight” to “rest and digest.” And as I mentioned before, healing happens in this relaxed, parasympathetic state.
So keep this in mind when you need to encourage relaxation and recovery, or you want to reduce your reaction in response to stress. The power lies in the exhale. Maybe try on that “4-7-8” Technique again, and as you do it, really keep your awareness wrapped around the exhale… Notice your ability to allow the mind to settle, to let the body fully relax, and to give permission for the “rest and digest” response kick in. Get curious with it on your own and take note of the effects and sensations that occur within your own body and mind. Get comfortable with it on your mat or meditation cushion, then begin to bring it with you out into the world, like another tool to add to your mindfulness tool belt. As you encounter stressful, uncomfortable, or anxiety-fueiling moments (which you will because, life), come back to the breath and remember your ability to lean into your exhale.
Breath-work works, and all it requires is your attention. Nothing more. Breath-work has certainly created a huge shift in my practice, my surfing, and my day-to-day life. I look forward to sharing more techniques with you in this Practice Notes series, and, as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and experiences with pranayama, the “4-7-8” Technique, or any other breathing techniques that you practice or find helpful!