Hormones and your nervous system affect your breathing. Your breathing pattern is a result of your life history and your body’s current emotional and physiological condition. When we need to be alert and active, our breathing pattern is a little quicker. When we’re at peace and relaxed, our breathing pattern is a little lighter, softer, […]
What is anxiety and does breathing help? Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something an uncertain outcome. From psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Jud Brewer’s book, Unwinding Anxiety: Anxiety is everywhere. Many people don’t notice that they have anxiety since it hides in bad habits. Anxiety is
In our modern lives, we rarely have a truly life threatening event, we typically are NOT being chased down by a lion, bear, or violent invader. Yet we often feel like something major is happening, as we work on a big project at work, determine who to date, decide which product to buy, choose which
What does breathwork have to do with inflammation? To explain this connection, let’s first start by explaining why the body creates inflammation. Inflammation is the body’s response to a threat. This threat could be a bacteria or a virus, or this perceived threat could be physical, psychological, or emotional stress. Inflammation is your body’s defense
We need Carbon Dioxide. When we first learn about breathing, we learn that humans inhale in oxygen and exhale out carbon dioxide. While that isn’t wrong, it’s not completely correct either. We actually exhale most of the oxygen we inhale. We don’t exhale out all of the carbon dioxide we produce. The stimulus or urge
Your diaphragm muscle will work all by itself or you can control it. Your diaphragm is your main breathing muscle. When you inhale your diaphragm moves downward which creates more space in your lungs, causing air to flow into the body. As you exhale, your diaphragm moves upward and compresses your lungs, squeezing air out
Your Diaphragm – one of my favorite muscles in the body Read More »
Why is Breathing at Altitude so hard? What happens when we travel up in elevation? Why do athletes go to higher elevation to train?To start we need to talk atmospheric pressure. As we go up in elevation, the pressure decreases. Decreasing pressure means there is less stuff moving around in the air. The air around
Your tolerance to carbon dioxide determines when you feel the urge to breathe. We must breathe to get rid of excess carbon dioxide produced during cellular metabolism. However, we also need to keep some carbon dioxide in our lungs and blood so that our red blood cells are able to let go of oxygen and
