Breathe your way to a more regulated nervous system
Breath is one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system, but what most people don’t realize is that your every day breathing pattern might be what’s keeping you in survival mode in the first place.
In this week’s blog we’re gong to dig into how the breath and your nervous system state is connected, and things you can do to utilize your breath to calm your body throughout the day.
There are a lot of things in the Autonomic Nervous System we can’t control. Our heart beat, the release of our hormones, what our Hypothalamus determines is a threat, the speed of our digestion, or our metabolic rate. These are all mechanisms that we can impact by our actions, but we don’t have conscious control over them.
(How amazing would it be if we could consciously turn up our metabolic rate?! But we’re probably not designed that way on purpose, we’d way over consume sugar and carbs)
But we DO have conscious control over our breathing. And when we take control, it can change everything else.
Our Parasympathetic Nervous System, otherwise known as our Rest + Digest or Feed + Breed, is largely controlled by our Vagus Nerve. This cranial nerve impacts everything from our breath to our heart beat to our digestion. There are a lot of ways to trigger our Vagus nerve, but the fastest is through your breath.
But what most people don’t realize is that your breath can be the trigger that turns on your relax mode, but it can be the trigger that turns on your survival mode, too.
Your breath is both being affected by the nervous system and informing the nervous system at the same time.
When something stressful happens, we tend to either breathe faster and higher up into our chest, or we might hold our breath. If you’ve experienced something traumatic in your life, then it’s very likely that you created a breathing pattern that you still fall into today.
Remember that our survival instincts are not because we’re broken, they’re because we’re resilient. These instincts help us to survive. The problem is when our body thinks moments of slight discomfort is something life threatening. When our survival mode is triggered on from something that is only uncomfortable.
And breath can be one of the things that keeps us in those survival patterns. We can get stuck in a feedback loop simply because we have poor breathing patterns.
When I tell you to take a deep breath, what happens? Go ahead and take one.
Did you rise higher in your seat? Did your belly extend outward? Did you breathe in through your mouth or your nose? Did your chest rise higher or go wider? Did your shoulders raise or relax?
Every breath you take is informing your nervous system whether or not you feel safe. If you have been breathing shallowly your entire life because you developed that pattern at a young age, then your nervous system is constantly getting the signal that you’re not safe.
This is why looking at your breath is so crucial if you want to rewire your nervous system. You might consciously feel safe in your environment, but if your breathing pattern says otherwise, then that’s what your nervous system is going to react to.
It’s not purely a matter of doing breathing exercises throughout the day, sometimes what needs to change is how we’re breathing all day long.
Common Disordered Breathing Habits
Mouth Breathing
When we breathe through our mouth, it can trigger our fight or flight mode, it limits our lung capacity, we tend to breathe more shallow (more on that below), and we have less oxygen uptake. It can lead to poor oral health, it disrupts our sleep, and overall has a negative impact on our body.
Sometimes mouth breathing is required in order to get in sufficient air, like when you’re walking uphill or when you have a cold and your nose is stuffed. It’s completely fine and normal to occasionally breathe through your mouth. But overall, we should all mostly be breathing through our nose throughout the day, and especially at night.
To take stock on how you’re doing with this, the next time you’re going to sit in one place for an hour, maybe while working, watching a show, or scrolling on your phone, use mouth tape and notice the impact. Is it hard to keep your mouth shut? Are you constantly wanting to open your mouth to breathe? You might be doing it more often than you think!
Here’s my favorite mouth tape to use that’s also incredibly cost effective, you only need a tiny bit: https://amzn.to/3Wll6vJ
*DO NOT use tape that doesn’t allow you to open your mouth if you need to. Do not try mouth taping if you struggle to breathe through your nose for any reason. I personally love mouth taping at night, but if you have disordered breathing then it may create a feeling of anxiety or claustrophobia. Talk to your doctor before trying it.
**If you are someone with chronic nasal blockages, allergies, a tongue tie, or any other reason you struggle to breathe through your nose, addressing this with a specialist should be a priority if you want to improve your overall health.
Improper Tongue Posture:
Yes, the way your tongue sits in your mouth impacts your breathing! Because of tongue ties, using pacifiers, or even just stress, a lot of people’s tongues are resting in a way that promotes mouth breathing.
So what is proper tongue posture?
The tongue should rest gently against the roof of the mouth, not touching the teeth.
The tip of the tongue should be positioned just behind the upper front teeth on the hard palate (but not pressing against the teeth).
The rest of the tongue should gently flatten and spread out across the roof of the mouth.
Go ahead and try this, and then try to breathe through your mouth while holding this position. You can’t do it! This tongue position immediately makes you breathe through your nose.
Interestingly too, this tongue posture impacts the shape of your face and it gives you proper jaw alignment. It even impacts your posture!
This is actually a fad among Gen Z because they want the more widened, chiseled jaw. But since it also gives you nervous system perks, it’s a trend I’m all for!
This might feel awkward at first, but just like any new movement or position, it will take some getting used to. Make it a point to bring your awareness to the position of your tongue throughout the day and do your best to practice this position. The more often you do it, the easier it’ll get.
*If you have a tongue tie, this position will feel impossible. But it is changeable! Talk to your doctor or dentist for recommendations on practitioners who can you teach you exercises or do manual therapy to address this.
Breathing Shallowly and Quickly
When we are in our survival mode, our body is very concerned with oxygen levels. In order to fight or flee, we need our muscles to be receiving maximum oxygen. Because of this, we tend to breathe more shallow because we’re breathing faster. In order to fully expand through your lungs, your breathing needs to slow down. But when we’re stressed our breathing tends to speed up.
You don’t need to be hyperventilating in order for your breathing to be impacting your nervous system. You might be completely unaware of it.
What is considered a healthy breathing rate has changed over time. Ancient medical texts from Ayurveda or Chinese Medicine have stated that 6-8 breaths per minute is ideal. Medical texts from the 1800’s say that 8-12 breaths per minute is healthy. In the 1900’s that increased to 12-16 breaths per minute. And now in the 2000’s, 12-20 breaths per minute is considered normal.
This isn’t because we’ve gotten better at breathing, it’s actually an indicator of how poorly our overall health has become. People are not getting healthier, they’ve just changed the metrics that decide what is normal.
No wonder all of us are drowning in stress and stuck in survival mode! I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that “normal”.
But before you set a stopwatch and try to slow your breathing down, just know that this is not an overnight fix. Just like changing your gait while walking takes time because you’re using different muscles and changing your neural patterns, it’s the same with changing your breathing patterns.
The first step is to help your body to get used to breathing correctly. To breathe deeper, you must engage your diaphragm and expand through your ribcage. This can feel very uncomfortable at first if you haven’t been breathing this way, so take your time with it. In this video, I teach you an exercise that helps you breathe correctly: https://youtu.be/Aj4qfT6O3xo?feature=shared
Once you start breathing diaphragmatically, then you can work on slowing your breath down. Practice 4-7 breathing. 4 counts on the inhale, 7 counts on the exhale. Do this a few times throughout the day. My favorite time is right before meals. This exercises calms your nervous system and primes your body for digestion!
Holding Your Breath
This is a pattern a lot of people get stuck in without even realizing it. This is something I’ve definitely struggled with. I’ll hold my breath when I’m concentrating and I’m not at all unaware of it until I suddenly need to take a big breath or start yawning.
This is a common pattern in people who have experienced trauma or abuse. It can also be a pattern you develop from having physical pain. When you hurt your back and you need to do a movement you’re worried will hurt, you often brace by holding your breath. But since this creates a pattern, you often will continue holding your breath while doing those movements. Even when the pain is gone, the pattern remains.
It’s the same with trauma or other forms of abuse. When we escape into freeze mode (which is an adaptive response) it’s common to hold your breath. That pattern carries on every time you’re about to do something uncomfortable or scary, or just when you’re stressed.
All of these patterns are changeable! But the first step is just noticing what your baseline is. Start paying attention to your breath throughout the day. Often times just bringing your awareness to your breath is enough to slow it down.
It’s just like working any other muscle in the body, go slow but be consistent. You’ll be amazed at the difference it will make over time.
NOTE: If your anxiety is at all tied to your breath, changing your breathing patterns or even noticing your breath may be triggering for you. I know it has been for me.
What helps me in this is recognizing that my nervous system is just trying to protect me. Changing my breathing patterns is a trigger, but it doesn’t need to stay that way. You may need the help of a somatic trauma therapist to work through these triggers before you can make changes to your breathing patterns. It’s completely worth it though, this may be your missing piece to being able to calm your nervous system.
