Convert Your Stress to Calm – Breathe Deeply

We know stress, from many sources and to varying degrees. Business owners carry a lot of responsibility and often have more stress than the average person. The past year has been no exception. Stress escalated for many with an ever-increasing amount of new information to navigate. Some businesses may not survive, and yet others took advantage of new opportunities. The constant stream of fear-mongering news did not help matters!

Experiencing extreme stress is much like being chased by a bear from your body’s stress response perspective. The intensity of a stressful situation has the same physiological stress response on your body. In historical times, when the stressor ‘bear’ goes away, the cascade of hormone responses switch to the relaxation response and the body can resume to its normal resting state.

However, in our modern world this typically isn’t the case since it’s never just one stressor at a time. Everyone has multiple kinds of stress, some short-term and some on-going, nearly all the time. This chronic stress becomes more damaging to the body as time goes on if not dealt with appropriately.

Ongoing stress produces a constant cascade of stress response hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol. These cause increases to your heart rate and blood pressure, shut down digestion, and release glucose into your blood for energy, to name a few of the effects. This prepares your body for ‘fight, flight or freeze’.

While it’s extremely beneficial to have our body react and prepare for a threat, chronic stress results in too much of these stress hormones which can increase risk for degenerative diseases, such as heart disease, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and others. It’s estimated that 75 to 90 percent of doctor visits are due to stress.

It’s become increasingly important to learn how to not only manage stress, but to master it. Common coping mechanisms include reaching for something soothing or even numbing after a long day filled with multiple stressors. Some people reach for comfort foods like chocolate, chips, other junk foods, or mac & cheese. Others go for alcohol and drugs. Some like going for a walk, a run or going to the gym. These often provide a distraction to get some relief from stress. We want immediate satisfaction, pleasure or comfort. Not all of those are bad, and we can choose appropriate things that won’t sabotage our health.

Making a conscious choice, knowing we’re capable of learning new skills and behaviors, empowers us to take more control over our response to stress. It’s important to recognize and pause when a stressful event happens and choose a response that’s appropriate and not add to the stress. We’ve all witnessed when someone over-reacts and escalates a situation – you don’t want to be that person!

One of simplest strategies to learn and practice to help you respond more appropriately to stress – in the moment, during painful memories, or anxiety – is breathwork. This method is simple, effective and helps the body and mind to relax very quickly. You don’t need any special equipment and it’s available anytime you need it.

Breathwork Method Basics:

• Inhale slowly through your nose, count to 4 or 6, feel your lungs and your diaphragm expand
• Exhale slowly through your nose, count to 4 or 6
• Repeat this slow breath pattern as long as you need until you feel your heart rate calm and regulate the rhythm, focus your mind on your breathing
• Close your eyes (unless you’re driving), and relax your body as much as possible.
• Practice staying focused on your breath and let go of thoughts. If clearing your mind is challenging, imagine a peaceful place that you enjoy (e.g. beach or forest), or use a mantra word or phrase that you can repeat in your mind.

Mindfully using breathwork stops the biochemical stress response and engages the relaxation response. It helps regulate your heart rate, blood pressure and helps you feel calm. Breathwork turns on the parasympathetic response of your nervous system.

There are several breathwork methods. The box breathing method (with a 6 second count) has been shown in research to help bring the heart rate into coherence very effectively for most people. Do what feels comfortable for you.

Breathwork will start to come more easily the more you practice. Try using it during stressful situations, and you’ll find it helps lower your stress on the spot. It will help you pause so you can think more clearly and choose your best response to the situation. This is a good place to start to reduce the effects of chronic stress in your life.

Numerous organizations have been researching the effects of stress and methods to help people take control of their stress for decades, such as the HeartMath Institute. If chronic stress is a problem in your life, start taking proactive steps to curb its impact on your health.

If you’re interested in learning more about reducing stress and how it can benefit your health, please get in touch with me to learn more about the Stress Mastery Program. There are many other helpful tools and strategies to help reduce and eliminate stress! Book a complimentary call with me here to learn more.

Click the video to learn how to breath deeply.

Article written by:

Melody Byblow

Registered Holistic Nutritionist
Workplace Wellness Consultant

Executive Wellness Coach
Stressmaster Associate

306-500-8200
www.holisticwellnessadvantage.ca