Stressed? Check your breath

Mother Nature provides more answers than she gets credit for.

Take stress — blamed for woes as simple as a headache and serious as a heart attack. From the instincts of pregnant moms comes nature’s lesson for most basic of stress relievers: proper breathing.

Next time you feel stressed, observe your breathing. It’s shallow, with shorter breaths and less volume; air filling the upper chest, instead of lower in the lungs.

Shallow breaths mean poor circulation. Poor circulation means fewer nutrients reach stressed areas of the body. That includes the brain; less oxygen there means thinking is less effective.

Pregnant women often instinctively place their hands on their tummies, protecting the child within. Mimic the habit, but think of what you’re protecting as the inner self, placing the hand on the belly when stress occurs as a reminder to breathe low and deep. If your stomach moves and ribs expand when you breathe, more air is taken in the lungs. Repeating this awareness exercise throughout the day will not only alleviate some unnecessary stress, it can prevent those ill effects.

Breathing’s primary job is to exchange the oxygen cells need with the elimination of their waste product: carbon dioxide. Insufficient or shallow breathing starves cells of oxygen and beneficial chemicals.

Culturally developed healing processes have long realized the healing benefits of breath. Think yoga, Tai Chi, and meditation practice. Some believe breath is the link between the physical body and the ethereal mind, and that enhanced spiritual insight is possible through conscious breathing.

Philosophy aside, scientific studies have shown correct breathing can help manage stress and stress-related conditions by soothing the autonomic nervous system, and improve thinking with more blood flow to the brain.

Using controlled breathing as a means of promoting relaxation can help manage a range of disorders, including anxiety, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, high blood pressure, panic attacks, and skin conditions.

The brain sets the breathing rate according to carbon dioxide levels, rather than oxygen levels. That stress breathing pattern — those small, shallow breaths — upsets the body’s balance of gases. Shallow breathing or hyperventilation can prolong feelings of anxiety by exacerbating physical symptoms of stress:

Chest tightness

Lightheadedness

Feelings of panic

Headaches

Heart palpitations

Insomnia

Muscular aches, stiffness, twitches, or tingling

The Mayo Clinic recommends yoga, especially slow, relaxing varieties, for long-term stress reduction and healing. If taught correctly, yoga retrains the body to breathe optimally with expansive body poses. Meanwhile, the mother’s instinct to lay a hand on the stomach can do wonders in the moment.

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Sholeh Patrick is a headache-prone columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.