The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) regulates homeostasis when the body is at rest and is responsible for the body's "rest and digest" functions.  The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) regulates the body's responses to a perceived stressors and is responsible for our “fight, flight, freeze” response.

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The parasympathetic nervous system affects the same body functions as the sympathetic nervous system, but in completely different ways.  It slows down certain responses and brings about a state of calm to the body.  This allows the body to rest, relax, and repair itself.

When we get stressed from a perceived threat, whether it is an actual physical stress from an animal chasing you or a psychological stress such as a work deadline, job loss, or a divorce, our sympathetic nervous system takes over.  In modern times those psychological stressors are much more prevalent and responsible for a lot of imbalances in the body.  We should be in that calmer state at least 80% of our day and in fight flight freeze state 20% or even less.  Many find that this ratio is reversed.  When we stay in a sympathetic state we feel more pain, more inflammation, and even a lack of mobility.  In this post I wanted to discuss how our breathing can help easily tap into your parasympathetic system to help ease pain and increase mobility.

Pain is one way our body can perceive a negative stimulus.  It can be a physical stimulus or a psychological stimulus.  If the stimulus goes on long enough, the body can actually get used to that stimulus and keep sending that signal back down to your tissues, even after the threat has passed.  For example if you bend over and you feel pain in your lower back, you will notice your tissues start to bulk up and guard to protect itself.  This is the body’s same reaction if someone scares you, the body tenses, jumps, and freezes.  The lower back spasm is a way of protecting you.  Once the threat (physical or psychological) has been eliminated, the body no longer needs to stay in that protective state.  Learning to turn “on” or “off” that switch can be achieved in many ways, however breathing is one of the quickest and easiest methods to apply.

The action of breathing allows us to take control of the autonomic system and can help us address what state we wish our bodies to stay in.  Inhalation is more sympathetic, and exhalation is more parasympathetic.  To get our bodies into a parasympathetic state we want to shorten our inhalation phase and lengthen our exhalation phase.  A four second inhale followed by an eight second exhale is a great example.  However you can find your comfortable ratio as long as the exhale is longer than the inhale.  

The next important factor for breathing is where you are feeling the breath in your body.  The cause of a lot of tension in our neck, back, belly, and ribcage is from a lack of function of our diaphragm.  Our diaphragm is a skeletal muscle that attaches to a number of boney structures in our body including the base of the chest, the lower ribcage around the 11th and 12th ribs, and to the lumbar vertebrae.  It contracts and flattens when we inhale, expanding the ribcage, creating a vacuum effect pulling air into our lungs.  So many have lost the proper function of this muscle and we breathe with our secondary respiratory muscles in the upper back and neck such as the upper trapezius, scalenes, sternocleidomastoid, pectorals major, and levator scapulae.  This creates so much tension in these regions, just from breathing improperly.

To start activating this muscle, begin by sitting or laying down, placing your hands on the outside of the ribcage.  Give the ribcage a small squeeze to create some awareness, then relax but keep the hands on the ribcage.  When you breath in focus on the ribcage expanding against your hands both side to side and front to back.  Then feel the ribcage relaxing and coming down upon the exhale.  This is a great way to strengthen the diaphragm and start to activate it again.  This is called “diaphragmatic breathing”.  Try inhaling for four seconds with the hands on the ribcage, feeling it expand.  Hold for two seconds.  Then exhale for either seconds feeling the ribcage relax, and hold for another two seconds.  

Another benefit to this breathing method is that it will automatically put you into a meditative state.  This allows you to not think about anything other than your breathing and what you body is doing.  If you perform diaphragmatic breathing for five minutes before bed, or thirty to forty breaths if you don’t wish to time it, you will find it easier to fall into a deeper more relaxed sleep.

Lastly we can also start to train ourselves to breath through our noses more.  Nasal breathing filters out foreign particles.  Our nasal hair filters out dust, allergens, and pollen, which helps prevent them from entering your lungs.  Your nose warms and moisturizes the air you breathe in. This brings the air you inhale to body temperature, making it easier for your lungs to use. It also will produce nitric oxide.  When you perform nasal breathing your nose releases nitric oxide (NO) which is a vasodilator.  This means it helps to widen blood vessels. This can help improve oxygen circulation in your body, it will help the flow of lymph in our body, and help lower blood pressure.

The more we remind our brain and our nervous system how to respond and tap into a parasympathetic state, we can change our emotional response and our reactions.  You will find your daily responses to stresses will react with a more panoramic, open, calm state versus  a constricted, tunnel vision state of mind.  You will feel less pain and improved mobility in your body just from addressing your breathing.  Make your day better by trying these methods nightly, and you will see a difference!

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