Breathing to Calm Down
If you are feeling anxious, I want to teach you a skill I learned from reading the book Breath by James Nestor. You can breath to calm down with this exercise. Depending on the nostril you are breathing through, will depend on whether you will have a sympathetic or parasympathetic response.
The right nostril speeds things up.
-Your blood pressure rises
-your heart rate increases
-cortisol levels go up
-your body gets hotter
This is great if you need to do something like making logical decisions, or computing information. This kind of activity uses the prefrontal cortex and will be a great exercise to practice.
The Left nostril slows things down
-getting ready for bed at night
-slow heart rate
-drop your blood pressure
-lower the temperature of the body
-reduce anxiety
The other side, the left nostril is more your parasympathetic, it slows everything down.
Just practice breathing through the right and left nostril. Nestor makes a recommendation in the book about when you sit down to eat, you want to be more of a parasympathetic state. Think of slowing down during that time, relaxing, moving through the eating nice and slow. Or at the end of the day, when you’re getting ready to go to sleep. That is when you’re going to want to breathe through your left nostril. When you want to calm your body down, you’re going to cover your right nostril with your thumb or an index finger and breathe through your left side.
Remember, left nostril slows things down. Right nostrils speeds things up. When you wake up in the morning and you’re wanting to get moving and get going start practicing breathing through the right nostril, while keeping your mouth closed. Then when evening comes about, start breathing through the left nostril. Again, for those of you who deal with anxiety, this is also a great practice to start to help calm you when you are anxious.
If you are interested in learning more about breathing techniques and what they can do for the body, then give our Membership a try as we have a lot of information on breathing techniques in there. You can try a Week FREE.
Other Blog Posts you may enjoy:
Tools to Help Children Dealing with Anxiety
Calm your Child with Feng Shui
