Breathwork: Another Tool In The Belt
We breathe approximately 632,000,000 times in a lifetime, 21,600 times a day, 15 times a minute*. Yet, we rarely stop to consider how this affects us every second of every day. the way you feel in any moment hugely dictates the actions we take, thus the results we get. Ever got mad and regretted your actions? Felt nervous before presentations, or experienced anxiety? Well, our breath is a tool, one that when consciously harnessed, can be our biggest asset. It’s all about balance We all know what it’s like to be stressed and we all know what it’s like to be relaxed. Neither of these states are inherently bad…BUT, the problem is that our brains have not evolved to make us happy; they have evolved to keep us alive. As a result, we find ourselves in this state of stress and overwhelm thanks to the 74 gigabytes of information we process in just one day! That’s equivalent to 16 movies or reading over 200,000 words! The brake and accelerator of our nervous system (RPM= Respirations per minute) When we speed up our rate of respiration (RPM), we press the accelerator and start to ramp up our nervous system into the fight-or-flight response (stress). When we slow down our RPM, we pump the brakes of our nervous system, reducing our heart rate, and creating that feeling of relaxation, facilitating overall bodily maintenance and recovery - hence the term ‘rest and digest’. Over thousands of years We have evolved for short burst of stress, not hours, days and especially not weeks (Though we’ve all had them) however the rapid change in lifestyle we’ve seen in the last few hundred years has meant we’ve got some catching up to do. The key Here, isn't avoiding getting triggered, but in how quickly we get back to baseline. Just as we measure physical fitness by how quickly our heart rate comes back down, we should measure our mental fitness the same way - how long does it take for our nervous system to come back into balance. Finding balance, with just a few mindful minutes