Balancing Your Nervous System through Breathwork

BREATHWORK & YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

Regular breathwork can make huge changes to your nervous system. Your breathing system is operated by the autonomic nervous system, which is the nervous system that you don't have to think about. It's taken care of itself, and you breathe whether you think about it or not. 

If you take a breath and hold your breath in, after a period, the brain and the body would take over and say okay, that's enough. The autonomic nervous system kicks in; you can't just intellectually switch it on and off. So, it's an automatic autonomic function. And what can happen is that your biochemistry, biomechanics and mind-body connection can be altered based on how well this autonomic nervous system actually operates. 

So, the nervous system is, in effect, our brain. The nerves that are coming down from the brain and are spanning outwards. So it is the whole body. But it's a really, really deep system within the body. And our nervous system reacts and responds to our environmental stimuli.

So, a loud noise or something that catches our attention or something that's going on outside of our body, our nervous system adopts and adapts those signals, sends those signals to the brain and then the brain interprets what it should do with that stimulus. And that is often done from a rational, emotional, and intellectual perspective. The other case is that it happens through the autonomic nervous system. So, you might react to something before you even realise you have reacted to it. So in the case where something is a very stressful situation, you can instantly react, and maybe it's an overreaction, and then you step back, and later after the event, and you think, oh, did I react before even thinking about it?

Breathwork techniques can impact your body and bring your nervous system back into its state of homeostasis (your base level); this is your most authentic self. So that when these stressful situations come along, you're much more capable and equipped to cope with how to deal with them. It's not guaranteed you won't react in the same way, and that's not to say that those stresses won't be there. But once you get into the habit of practising Breathwork, you will have the ability to be able to manage and regulate how you react and respond to stress and not just stresses that you know about because you can very often be carrying things that you're unaware of. There's this kind of underlying stress where the body has gone into what we call fight and flight, and it's just operating at that level, and you've become so used to that that you don't even realise it.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND YOUR BODY

So, the nervous system is a series of perceptions and signals and the circuitry that allows you to survive. So you wake up in the morning, make decisions, move around your space, get ready for work, and whatever the day brings is a response to your nervous system doing its job. It's a bunch of signals travelling from the brain to the body, but IT'S ALSO FROM the body to the brain.

It's a two-way system. 

So it's like a dual carriageway, a motorway, or even just a really open road where you've traffic is moving in both directions. And the perceptions and information from the body are based on the environmental status. And what's going from the brain down will be based upon an interpretation of the environmental stimulus. So, the brain doesn't operate independently of the body; the brain signals in the body, and the body's interpretation of the external stimulus will send information to the brain.

This program will help us understand the stimulus from the body to the brain and intellectually alter the brain to the body. That's basically the nervous system, and it's how we operate. 

And if you can move into a more regulated nervous system, not just a calm nervous system, because there are times when you need a heightened nervous system. For example, if you are going to go and play a rugby match, you don't need a calm nervous system heading out onto the pitch for a big game. You need to be pumped and fired up, and your nervous system needs to be ready for action.

Understanding and learning about our breathwork can help us really fire up our breathwork. If you have to give a critical presentation in front of a bunch of people, you don't want to be so calm. You've got to create some stimulus. And having a healthy nervous system is the ability to do both. 

THE VAGUS NERVE

The way your brain works is the nerves run down from your brain, and all the information comes from the brain down to the body and tells the body what to do. i.e. Run away, that's a threat. Eat some food; you're hungry. Have a drink of water; you're thirsty. These are all signals from the brain down.

But we also have what's called the vagus nerve, also known as the gut-brain axis, where more of the information comes from the gut via the vagus nerve - actually, 80% of the information is coming from the gut to the brain.

The vagus nerve is responsible for stimulating the 'rest and digest' function in your body, a.k.a, the body's healing, restoration, and regulation of your physiology.

If you are a dysfunctional breather, your diaphragm may be dysfunctional because the vagus nerve crosses the diaphragm, which is the big muscle involved in breathing.

i.e., it's a muscle that's not operating to its full capacity. All muscles need the same things: strength, stretch, hydration, movement, and full contractile forces.

It's a 'if you don't use it, you lose it' system. So, if your diaphragm is not functioning well, your vagus nerve will not be in top health.

As your vagus nerve is responsible for your body's 'rest and digest,' bringing you down out of that heightened state, firing up the parasympathetic nervous system, which takes you out of 'fight or flight mode', restore, rest, digest, sleep, all of those elements of health. And that's why a lot of people will struggle in terms of vagus nerve health or vagal tone, as we call it if they're a dysfunctional breather.

If we learn how to breathe in a functional way, our nervous system will be nice and healthy.

EMOTIONAL REGULATION

It's cool to understand that you can massively improve your mental health, emotional regulation, and nervous regulation through breathing and changing the biomechanics, that is, the movement of the muscles and the biochemistry, the carbon dioxide oxygen exchange. 

And it's going to have an impact on your mental health, mental wellness, emotional regulation and all of those kinds of things.

 You could be breathing lots and lots.

You could be taking many breaths and still not getting enough oxygen into the cells. And that's really where it's important. The key to note is that oxygen in the blood is good. It's great we managed to get the oxygen out of the atmosphere because that's challenging. But it's not enough to stay in the blood because its energy is created within the cells.

So we got to figure out a way; how am I going to get all that oxygen that I have in my blood into my cells? And carbon dioxide is the key to that. 

I will teach you how to have an incredibly regulated nervous system. You can look forward to an incredible boat score. You will be breathing better- you'll be a nose breather all the time. You will be able to deal with and tolerate stress.

And you will start to become aware of this program of triggers. You will begin to say, that doesn't make me feel good anymore. So you may spend less and less time scrolling, less and less time ruminating through emails, less and less time being triggered because you're like, I really like the state of my nervous system now, and I want to keep it in this space. Every time I open a social media app, it causes me to step out of that place, and I want to stay in it. 

You'll have more energy when you wake up in the morning; you will understand your biomechanics better. You'll be able to be more in touch with any exercise or movement that you do. You'll have a tuned-in sense of how breathing and breathing well and having a functional breathing pattern will impact your life positively.

Want to learn more? We’ve got so much to tell you about the numerous benefits of Breathwork. Read more of our blogs HERE.

Or book a 1:1 session with our founder, Milena Jaksic, HERE

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Or book a corporate session with Milena at your workplace and introduce your team to all the physical and emotional benefits some daily breathwork can bring. HERE