Breath AS Medicine: Stress Event - Stress Recovery = STRONG VAGAL TONE

The trouble with stress . . . it’s all in our heads. Well, and our brains.  Technically, it’s created in the mind/body/brain.  It’s a psychological, physiological and biochemical response to our thoughts, feelings and emotions.

The optimization of breathing is a means to improving our health as breathing rates & patterns influence our biochemical, biomechanics, psychological or physiological response from the body/mind/brain.  Therapeutic yoga breathing (or Pranayama) is arguably the most comprehensive approach we have to reducing stress and building physical & psychological resiliency. Pranayama is the “regulation of breath with certain techniques and sequences” where the breath is intentionally altered in order to produce specific results.  

To appreciate the role of mindful yoga breathing as a tool in stress reduction, prevention and recovery, it’s important to understand the relationship between nasal breathing, the relaxation response, the vagus nerve and the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which…