People get into breathwork for a lot of different reasons. For some, breathwork represents a way to help relieve stress and anxiety. It really can do that. By learning controlled breathing techniques and employing them in a systematic way, it is possible to reduce anxiety and stress levels.
Stress comes at us from every angle. Between a 40-hour work week, the stresses of managing family life, and everything else that is being thrown at us, it is no wonder more people aren’t totally stressed out. And then there is all the anxiety that comes from living in a world that never stops moving.
Breathwork can meaningfully reduce stress and anxiety in most people. Better yet, there are plausible mechanisms we can look at to understand why breathwork helps.
Autonomic Nervous System Modulation
The human nervous system is divided into several parts. One of them is the autonomic nervous system. It is the part responsible for managing involuntary functions like heart rate and digestion. It has two subdivisions known as sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.
Slow, diaphragmatic, and controlled breathing activates the parasympathetic branch while simultaneously dampening the sympathetic branch. The results? Your mind and body are more ready to ‘rest and digest’ and less likely to be in a state of arousal. Symptoms of both stress and anxiety are reduced. As a bonus, heart rate and blood pressure go down as well.
Better Respiratory Control
Do you remember as a child your mother telling you to calm down and take a deep breath? She knew what she was talking about. Slowing down and controlling your breathing directly combats the irregular breathing that goes hand-in-hand with anxiety.
Anxiety produces irregular breathing. Likewise, irregular breathing creates more anxiety. It becomes an endless cycle that can make you feel like your entire world is falling apart. By actively taking control of your breathing, you can break that cycle. You can retake control of your momentary circumstances so that both your stress and anxiety are relieved.
Better Emotional Regulation
Studies suggests that breathwork influences brain networks, particularly those involved in emotional regulation. Controlled diaphragmatic breathing seems to increase the coherence between the parts of the brain responsible for executive function and limbic processing. With better cohesion comes better mood regulation. And when mood is regulated, you are less likely to experience persistent anxiety and stress.
Better Self-Awareness
Although breathwork does not need to include efforts to increase present-moment awareness, many practitioners choose to do so. They cultivate a mindfulness mindset that reduces rumination (continually thinking a stream of bad thoughts) thereby reducing anxiety.
All by itself, mindfulness is a wonderful practice for becoming more self-aware yet less self-judgmental. It is all about accepting the moment with no judgments or preconceived notions. When combined with breathwork, it can reduce stress and anxiety considerably.
Endocrine Regulation
The last mechanism is one still being studied: endocrine regulation. Though science hasn’t yet proved it definitively, there is some evidence that breathwork can help lower cortisol levels and simultaneously encourage either endorphin production or cannabinoid signaling. If the science ultimately proves correct, it will show that better endocrine regulation helps with stress and anxiety by improving mood.
The more we learn about breathwork, the more amazing it becomes as a means of contributing to better overall health and emotional wellbeing. It can be hard to imagine that something as simple as controlled breathing can do so much for the mind and body. But it can. And that is one of the reasons Maloca Sound is committed to teaching the latest breathwork techniques.
