Use Breathwork to Relieve Mental, Physical, and Emotional Tension
As more people practice self-care, breathwork has become increasingly recognized for its accessibility and utility. This practice can be done anywhere and at any time you are able to turn your awareness to your breath. Of course, wellness professionals have been fans of breathwork from the beginning, so we’re keen to further explore just how effective breathwork can be at helping us manage mental, physical, and emotional tension.
First, let’s talk about what is meant by the terms “mental, physical, and emotional tension.” Tension, or stress, is caused by an existing factor or “stressor.” When the stressor is gone, anxiety is the stress left behind.
Tensions can manifest themselves mentally, physically, or emotionally. For instance:
Mental tension is when your stress evolves into a more significant mental health issue such as depression or anxiety. Symptoms of mental tension may include forgetfulness, lack of energy, lack of focus, sexual problems, tiredness, or sleeping issues.
Physical tension is your stress manifesting itself in your body as issues such as high blood pressure, headaches, heart disease, aches and pains, diabetes, obesity, skin problems, or menstrual irregularities
Emotional tension is your stress affecting your emotions, and you experience chronic sadness, worry, panic, anger, or irritability.
Stress can happen to just about anyone, and it’s actually a necessary biological response for our bodies to retreat from a dangerous situation. (Think about the stress hormone, cortisol, and how it is a helpful response when you are running from that saber tooth tiger, or perhaps more commonly when you avoid an accident or head-on collision. This is our “fight or flight” response). So while short-term bursts of stress are functional, long-term, chronic stress caused by a demanding career, financial burdens, relationship troubles, etc... has been shown to affect our health in a negative way. This is the stress we really want to target to feel our best mentally, physically, and emotionally.
The good news is that there are multiple techniques you can use to mitigate your stress so you can focus on the joy in your life. One of these techniques is breathwork.
How can Breathwork play a role in alleviating these types of tension?
According to Mark Hyman, M.D. from the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, “There are many studies that show deep breathing is one easy, accessible practice that can help balance the mind and body and reduce the stress response. Breathwork has been shown to increase parasympathetic activity, heart rate variability, physiological flexibility. [It’s] one of the greatest tools I have in my medical toolbox to help individuals manage stress.”
However, it’s key to note that, despite the name, breathwork goes beyond inhaling and exhaling, so let’s break down the basics of breathwork.
What Is Breathwork?
To put it simply, breathwork is an active meditation in which the person focuses their attention on their breathing pattern. Breathwork at its most basic level is closing your eyes and taking some deep breaths while clearing your mind of anything but your inhalation and exhalation.
There are many different varieties of Yogic breathwork (Pranayama) including:
Three-Part Breath
Square Breath
Alternate Nostril Breath
Bumble Bee Breath
Victorious Breath
Fire Log Breath
At KYN, we borrow from each of these ancient techniques to engage the mind-body connection. You can find these short practices here.
Even if you’re not the biggest fan of meditation (or you tried meditation and failed spectacularly), adopting a short and sweet daily breathwork practice can work wonders on your body and mind.
Benefits of Breathwork
As the title suggests, breathwork helps you in three key ways: mental, physical, and emotional relief.
Breathwork enables you to take a break from the stressors around you and focus on the connection between your mind and body. Studies have shown that breathwork can yield incredible results by relieving stress, anxiety, depression, and even stress-related medical issues like IBD.
In 1975, Harvard physician Herbert Benson published research that relaxation techniques like meditation and breathwork could calm your physiological fight-or-flight response and the psychological stress response. He called this countering method the Relaxation Response.
In The Healing Power of Breath, Doctors Richard Brown and Patricia Gerbarg explain how “when we speed up or slow down our breathing, we activate the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses… By controlling our breath, we can willfully influence the brain and the autonomic nervous system and literally change our mind-body state. By changing the pattern of our breathing, we change the pattern of the information being sent to the brain.”
The new-age Master of breathwork, Wim Hof, has successfully created a business (The Wim Hof Method) solely around breathing. He teaches a type of “controlled hyperventilation or power breathing” that when practiced regularly will lead to more resilience of everyday stress. He even organizes retreats around this breathwork and claims it can improve your productivity, performance, and overall well-being.
Even without subscribing to the various “methods of breathing”, simply taking a moment to focus on your breathing can help you start your day with a clear mind and renewed energy. It can calm down your body when you’re on the brink of a panic attack. It can help you turn an overwhelming state of anger into a state where you can accurately communicate your feelings.
Breathwork is more essential than ever, especially now that we live in a world where the COVID-19 pandemic has blurred the boundaries between work, school, and home. The practice is like hitting the reset button so you can focus on the things in front of you. And sometimes, the most important thing in front of you is yourself, and you need to establish a connection to yourself.
We look forward to meeting you on the mat as you explore the world of breathwork and mindfulness and its benefits to your health.
