“The Breath of Life”
“Breathing is not just for oxygen;
it’s now linked to brain function and behavior.”
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered for the first time that the rhythm of breathing creates electrical activity in the human brain that enhances emotional judgments and memory recall.
More specifically, “If you are in a panic state, your breathing rhythm becomes faster,” Zelano said. “As a result you’ll spend proportionally more time inhaling than when in a calm state. Thus, our body’s innate response to fear with faster breathing could have a positive impact on brain function and result in faster response times to dangerous stimuli in the environment. When you inhale, you are in a sense synchronizing brain oscillations across the limbic network.”
So what does this mean for those of us who don’t study neuroscience as a hobby? When it comes to health, it’s important that your body and mind are appropriately responding to it’s environment – i.e. if a tiger starts chasing you, rapid breathing and a fear response is very appropriate.
However, we live in a culture where our perception of threatening stimuli from the environment is altered. More often than not, we practically live in the “fight or flight” response whether we are consciously aware of it or not.
Emails, text, traffic, deadlines, finances, relationships, school, work….
The list goes on. This response can show up in our posture, tight muscles, health challenges, huge emotional swings, even deeper defaults in our body that we can’t feel or detect.
Over time, if we don’t do anything to break the cycle, the nervous system can become “stuck” in this pattern. Small things become triggers to larger problems down the road.
At Inspire Life, we focus on helping your body break this cycle through specific, gentle adjustments to the nervous system, cueing the brain to become more self-aware, more self-healing, more at ease, and retrain itself to become more responsive than reactive over time.
The truth is - many of the perceived stressors in our culture will never disappear. But if we can help your body, mind, and brain build a strong, internal fortress and a better relationship with it’s environment, we can in turn make a world of a difference for your health, healing, and life!