Breath Work

BREATH WORK

Open is a great online meditation and breathwork resource. They have 10, 20, and 30 minute breathwork sessions among other offerings.

Ostara Apothecary offers seasonal breathwork online as well focused on the change in seasons and ancestral healing.

Siedeh Foxie offers periodic breathwork sessions as well as a breathwork training.

Niraj Naik of Soma Breath has excellent guided meditations. Here is one for balancing emotions and getting to a place of deep relaxation.

MINDFULNESS BASED STRESS REDUCTION (MBSR)

Stress reduces our immune resilience by decreasing lymphocytes, white blood cells that help us fight illness. Chronic, low grade stress also increases the hormone cortisol and, when left unchecked, leads to increased inflammation that then exhausts the immune system even further.

Unfortunately, we can’t wave a magic wand and make stress disappear. But we can become more mindful of how it’s showing up and how we are reacting to it in order to combat its negative effects. Mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques are associated with decreased cortisol levels and improved immune system biomarkers like cytokines.

This approach uses three key steps:

1. Do a body scan: Quietly and slowly focusing on sensations throughout the entire body, from feet to head, lets us observe where we might be physically holding stress in the body and systematically let it go. Not to mention, taking twenty minutes to relax in a calm environment is a great way to reset the nervous system from all the chronic stimulation we’re exposed to. 

2. Mindful movement: Yoga often goes hand in hand with mindfulness exercises, as it can be an intentional, slow, gentle way to move the body while paying attention to the thoughts and physical feelings that come up. Noticing without judgment and staying mindful of the way the body and mind are interacting lets us embrace those same skills off the mat and stay calmer when stress hits. 

3. Mindful meditation: While we often try to distract ourselves from stress or run from it, that only worsens its impacts. Instead, cultivating present moment awareness lets us acknowledge feelings of stress and move through them. Mindfulness meditation involves paying attention to your breath and when you notice your mind wandering, just return to the breath. Do it again and again. This helps rewire parts of the brain to improve awareness and stress tolerance and improve immune system markers, even when we're not actively meditating.

Thank you to Dr. Mark Hyman for this healing information.

INTUITIVE EATING

Intuitive eating, also called mindful eating, involves paying full attention to the experience of eating and drinking, both inside and outside the body. We pay attention to the colors, smells, textures, flavors, temperatures, and even the sounds (crunch!) of our food.

We pay attention to the experience of the body. Where in the body do we feel hunger? Where do we feel satisfaction? What does half-full feel like?

We also pay attention to the mind. Without judgment, we watch when the mind gets distracted, pulling away from full attention to what we are eating or drinking. We watch the impulses that arise after we've taken a few sips or bites: to grab a book, to turn on the TV, to distract the mind in some way.

Now, we have a choice. When we notice that the mind is distracted, we can follow the distraction and stop eating. Alternatively, we can return to just being present with our food and the work of eating it. This is freedom. We are not being pulled away by the past or the future. This is a joyful experience that we can attain every time we eat.

Please listen to this brief guided meditation on mindful eating. Make sure you have a raisin handy. Whether this practice is totally new to you or something you have done many times before, approach it now with a beginner’s mind.

Write reflections in your journal.

The Center for Mindful Eating has many more resources.

The habit of eating without paying attention can be hard to change. Lasting change takes time, and is built on many small changes. We start simply.

Try taking the first three spoon-fuls of soup with full attention.

At a household meal, you might ask everyone to eat in silence for the first few minutes.

To hear more about mindful eating, I recommend this video by Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hahn.

STRESS AND GUT HEALTH

Stress is a physical expression of our “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system’s survival mechanism. A threatening situation will trigger a stress response, which prepares us to confront or flee a possible danger. This helps for immediate danger, but unfortunately the stress response is also triggered by tense situations where physical action is not an option, such as unreasonable boss, heavy traffic, or financial problems.

There are two types of stress.

Acute – Acute stress prepares us for fight or flight, and is generally short-term.

Acute stress is a short-term response by the body’s sympathetic nervous system. How long acute stress lasts may vary—the response can last for a few minutes or a few weeks. During an acute stress response, the adrenal glands, located on top of each kidney release over seventeen different hormones. Physical responses: blood sugar levels rise; blood vessels constrict; pulse quickens; blood pressure rises; digestion stops.

Chronic – Chronic stress is long term and is the main cause of stress-related health problems.

Chronic stress occurs when continuous acute stress responses keep the body on alert, thus continuously, negatively affecting health. The ongoing stress response causes the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain to release stress hormones, which in turn stimulate the adrenal gland to produce and release cortisol. Cortisol is one of the hormones associated with waking and sleeping. Levels of cortisol naturally fluctuate during the day. Cortisol levels are highest in the morning and lowest at night. Higher levels of cortisol in the morning help us wake up. When chronic stress stimulates cortisol production, the daily cycle of cortisol levels is disrupted. High levels of cortisol may occur at night, resulting in insomnia, headaches, anxiety and depression.

Practicing stress management techniques can help minimize the effects of stress on your health. One of the best ways to de-stress is to breathe!

You can use meal times as an opportunity to practice deep breathing. Not only does this practice help us to digest better, but it also takes us out of chronic stress mode.

You can also eat foods that reduce stress, such as: corn, oats, walnuts, dark chocolate (80% or more), fermented foods, organic chicken or beef liver, and dark, leafy greens (kale, collards, chard).Every food that we eat has an important role in our body's function as well as in our stress modulation.

Fermented foods are especially supportive in mitigating the effects of chronic stress because they feed the beneficial gut bacteria. These bacteria secrete the hormones we need to feel rested and relaxed.

BREATH WORK PRACTICES

Breath work practices are ancient. They date back centuries in Africa, China, India and more indigenous cultures. If you are interested in reading more about the origins of breath work and the science behind it, you can read the book Breath. You can also listen to the author, James Nestor, speak about the book during a podcast with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee here.

When you feel yourself getting worked up: The 5-5 breath.

While our natural tendency is to breathe at a rate of two or three seconds per minute, Coherent Breathing, or the 5-5 breath, is a controlled and conscious breathing practice that slows down our breathing to 4 seconds and then 5 seconds. The 5-5 breath is ideal for an overall sense of calm and can be practiced throughout the day.

How to do it:

To start, focus on the natural rhythm of your breath to obtain a baseline length of each inhale and exhale. Then for 1 minute, breathe in for 4 seconds, and exhale for 4 seconds. Then repeat for 5 seconds, then repeat for 6 seconds, and if you want to, gradually expand to 10 seconds. Start with 5 minutes total and work your way up over time to 20 minutes. Imagine the earth energy rising up into the body, and then the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in the body that you no longer want to hold on to, releasing out of the body through the exhale.

When you feel overwhelmed: The 4-7-8 breath.

The Relaxing Breath from Andrew Weil, M.D., also known as 4-7-8 breathing, helps to slow down and calm the body. It slows the heart rate, brings our consciousness to the present moment, and slows the nervous system, bringing a feeling of calm and peace. This breath is ideal when you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, angry, triggered, and have trouble sleeping. It has the added bonus of teaching the body to take in less (in a culture where we saturate the mind and body with external stimulation), how to create space between inhale and exhale, as well as how to release excess energy and thought from the body.

How to do it:

The traditional way of doing 4-7-8 breathing is to empty the lungs of air, breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds, exhale out of the mouth for 8 seconds, and repeat at least 4 times.

As you breathe in, imagine the grounded and nourishing energy of the earth, mountains, trees, plants, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and herbs coming up into your body. As you hold your breath, visualize the breath spiraling up the center of your body and pulling any energy or thought that does not serve you. Then as you exhale over 8 seconds, imagine that excess energy releasing out of the mouth, and visualize light pouring through the top of your head back down to your feet and the earth below you.

When you need an energy boost: The 4-4-4-4 breath.

Box Breathing comes through the Navy SEAL lineage and is also known as Square breathing, or 4-4-4-4 breath. This breathwork technique slows the heart rate and deepens concentration. It heightens efficiency and performance, as well as provides stress relief. It's best to use in the morning to wake up, in the middle of the day if sleepy, or before a big project or meeting that requires your focus.

To practice this technique, start by releasing all of the air from your chest, and hold your breath for 4 seconds, then breathe through the nose for 4 seconds, then hold your breath for 4 seconds, then exhale out of the nose for 4 seconds. Repeat this cycle for 5 minutes to feel the effects.

As you are inhaling, imagine the earth element of the north rising up and nourishing the physical body. As you hold your breath, imagine the breath swooping through the mind like the wind element of the east, clearing out any thoughts that do not serve and keeping the thoughts that do serve you. As you exhale out of the mouth, imagine the fire element of the south that resides in the center and heart of our body, burning any thoughts and feelings in our emotional heart and belly to release through the mouth (traditional box breath exhales out of the nose, but I like to exhale out of the mouth to incorporate the heart energy).

As you hold your breath for the last 4 seconds, ask the loving higher self, the gentle feminine water element of the west, to come into your presence and be with and guide you through the waves of your life.