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#Post#: 74--------------------------------------------------
Research: Why Breathing Is So Effective at Reducing Stress
DIR By: LightMove
Date: December 4, 2021, 1:36 am
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When U.S. Marine Corp Officer Jake D.’s vehicle drove over an
explosive device in Afghanistan, he looked down to see his legs
almost completely severed below the knee. At that moment, he
remembered a breathing exercise he had learned in a book for
young officers. Thanks to that exercise, he was able to stay
calm enough to check on his men, give orders to call for help,
tourniquet his own legs, and remember to prop them up before
falling unconscious. Later, he was told that had he not done so,
he would have bled to death.
If a simple breathing exercise could help Jake under such
extreme duress, similar techniques can certainly help the rest
of us with our more common workplace stresses. The combination
of the Covid-19 pandemic and battles for social justice have
only exacerbated the anxiety that many of us feel every day, and
studies show that this stress is interfering with our ability to
do our best work. But with the right breathing exercises, you
can learn to handle your stress and manage negative emotions.
In two recently published studies, we explored several different
techniques and found that a breathing exercise was most
effective for both immediate and long-term stress reduction.
In the first study run by our research team at Yale, we
evaluated the impact of three wellbeing interventions:
Breathing Exercises
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Foundations of Emotional Intelligence
Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three programs
or to a control group (no intervention). We found that
participants of breathing exercises experienced the greatest
mental health, social connections, positive emotions, stress
levels, depression, and mindfulness benefits.
In a second study, conducted at the University of Arizona,
breathing exercises was compared to a workshop that taught more
conventional, cognitive strategies for stress-management (in
other words, how to change your thoughts about stress). Both
workshops were rated similarly by participants and they both
produced significant increases in social connectedness. However,
breathing exercises was more beneficial in terms of immediate
impact on stress, mood, and conscientiousness, and these effects
were even stronger when measured three months later.
Before and after the workshops, participants underwent a stress
task that simulated a high-pressure performance situation, akin
to presenting at a business meeting. In anticipation of the
stressful performance, the group that had completed the
cognitive workshop showed elevated breathing and heart rates, as
expected. In contrast, the breathing exercises group held steady
in terms of breathing and heart rate, suggesting the program had
instilled in them a buffer against the anxiety typically
associated with anticipating a stressful situation. This meant
that they were not only in a more positive emotional state, but
also that they were more able to think clearly and effectively
perform the task at hand.
Similarly, in a study with veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan
who struggled with trauma, we found that not only did SKY Breath
Meditation normalize their anxiety levels after just one week,
but they also continued to experience the mental health benefits
a full year later.
So what makes breathing so effective? It’s very difficult to
talk your way out of strong emotions like stress, anxiety, or
anger. Just think about how ineffective it is when a colleague
tells you to “calm down” in a moment of extreme stress. When we
are in a highly stressed state, our prefrontal cortex — the part
of our brain responsible for rational thinking — is impaired, so
logic seldom helps to regain control. This can make it hard to
think straight or be emotionally intelligent with your team. But
with breathing techniques, it is possible to gain some mastery
over your mind.
Research shows that different emotions are associated with
different forms of breathing, and so changing how we breathe can
change how we feel. For example, when you feel joy, your
breathing will be regular, deep and slow. If you feel anxious or
angry, your breathing will be irregular, short, fast, and
shallow. When you follow breathing patterns associated with
different emotions, you’ll actually begin to feel those
corresponding emotions.
How does this work? Changing the rhythm of your breath can
signal relaxation, slowing your heart rate and stimulating the
vagus nerve, which runs from the brain stem to the abdomen, and
is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is
responsible for the body’s “rest and digest” activities (in
contrast to the sympathetic nervous system, which regulates many
of our “fight or flight” responses). Triggering your
parasympathetic nervous system helps you start to calm down. You
feel better. And your ability to think rationally returns.
To get an idea of how breathing can calm you down, try changing
the ratio of your inhale to exhale. This approach is one of
several common practices that use breathing to reduce stress.
When you inhale, your heart rate speeds up. When you exhale, it
slows down. Breathing in for a count of four and out for a count
of eight for just a few minutes can start to calm your nervous
system. Remember: when you feel agitated, lengthen your exhales.
While a short breathing exercise like this can be effective in
the moment, a comprehensive daily breathing protocol such as the
OPUMP breathing trainer, will train your nervous system for
resilience over the long run. These simple techniques can help
you sustain greater wellbeing and lower your stress levels — at
work and beyond.
HTML https://theopump.com/
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