Mind, body, and breath easily influence each other.
Thoughts and physiology influence our breath. Breathing influences our thoughts and physiology.
Our breath can be used as a tool to change the way we feel, moving us from agitated to calm or moving us from low energy to activated.
This tool is free of charge and exists already inside you.
Breath can shift the energy of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), having effects on BOTH sympathetic and parasympathetic activity:
- Sympathetic (SNS) = exciting
- Parasympathetic (PNS) = calming
Breath is the ONLY autonomic function that we can directly control, and it has the power to control a cascade of autonomic events. Breathing is both voluntary AND involuntary, it is unique in this.
The chart below shows different breath patterns and their effects on the ANS.
