Your emotions and thoughts influence your breath.

You want your breath to respond to and change with your emotions. This is natural, important, and is how your body adapts to what’s going on. Every emotion has a different breathing pattern. Emotions are part of what makes up the richness and texture of our life. We want to feel and experience these emotions.

Your emotions are a physiological response of your nervous system. Your breath influences your nervous system.  Your nervous system influences your breath.

Our breath is part of our body’s communication system

Our breath is an incredible tool for our conscious body to communicate with our unconscious body. By observing our breath, we can become more aware of our emotions and how we feel. By intentionally breathing, we can let our unconscious body know that we are okay and it doesn’t have to be as nervous, anxious, or worried. Intentional breathwork can be a way to influence our autonomic nervous system.

By noticing your breath, you can become more attune to how you feel. By changing how you’re breathing, you can change how you feel.

Improving your understanding of your breath, greatly improves your self-awareness. As you become more aware of what’s going on in your body, you are more able to be in the present. You are more able to thoughtfully respond, rather than habitually react. Breath awareness is huge.

Why is the breath a body communication tool?

The breath is linked to the body’s self-regulating system or autonomic nervous system. Our Autonomic Nervous System controls and manages our unconscious processes, including our heart rate, our blood pressure, our breathing, and our organs.

Every breath can impact our heart rate. Our Inhale breath speeds up heart rate, and our exhale breathe slows down the heart rate.  The Inhale breath energizes the body, the exhale breath relaxes the body.  We all have one heart rate pattern while we are inhaling. We have a different heart rate pattern while we are exhaling. By intentionally slowing your breathing rate down, breathing softly. smoothly, and steadily, you can bring more balance to your nervous system and stimulate your body’s ability to rest and digest.

By intentionally slowing the breath down and breathing a little deeper than normal, you activate stretch receptors in the lungs and help the body know it’s safe. When we lengthen the exhale compared to the inhale, we create an additional signal for the body to know it’s okay. This is true even when you’re working out and breathing faster. If your exhale is relaxed and slightly longer than the inhale, your body knows its safe, muscles cay stay in a relaxed and lengthened state allowing you to perform at your best.

How are you breathing?

Take a moment, check in with your own breath.
How are you breathing right now?
How does your breath vary throughout the day?
Is their a time in your life when your breath really caught your attention? How were you feeling at that moment?

By noticing your breath, you can become more attune to how you feel. By changing how you’re breathing, you can change how you feel.

Improve your understanding and function of your breath. Take a group or private breathwork session with Nicole.