Diaphragmatic Breathing (Anxiety Skills #12)

[whoo] did you know that yawning is an important skill for anxiety reduction? Today, we're going to talk about how to activate your parasympathetic nervous system by triggering the vagus nerve the vagus nerve is different than most of the other nerves in our body because it sends information in both directions down from the brain to our bodies and From our bodies back to our brain so the vagus nerve helps trigger the bottom-up approach to resolving Anxiety. The bottom-up approach is basically the fact that a calm body can create a calm mind. I recently heard a great story about this a woman adopted a dog that she found on the side of the road It was just running around on the side of the road, and this dog was a great dog It was good with kids It was good with families it was wonderful to have around it was obedient and it listened to them but the dog had one major drawback- When they would put the dog in the car and take it anywhere like on a trip or to the park The dog would freak out it- would just have a crazy Anxiety response and it would start to throw up in the back of the car. So after this happened over and over again and their their car was just smelling disgusting the woman who owns the dog took the dog to a dog trainer and asked "what do I do? I cannot figure out how To help this animal?" And the wise dog trainer said "In order to help this dog feel calmer it needs to have a calm body" First she taught the woman how to direct the dog to sit down and lay down and They constantly trained the dog to do that so they bring it into the car have it lay down and force it into a relaxed position and As they did that the anxiety that the dog was experiencing decreased and pretty soon the dog was not throwing up in the car anymore. This this story illustrates the principle that a calm body can create a calm mind. Ancient societies have known this for years People practicing yoga or meditative breathing Understand that we can change our mind's reaction by changing our body and today I'm going to teach you a couple of techniques to do that. So the first technique I'm going to teach is diaphragmatic breathing. That means breathing with your stomach. Now most people don't realize it But they spend most of the day breathing with their chest. We have some ability to expand our chest But when we only breathe with our chest we're about 70% less Oxygenated than when we breathe with our stomach the diaphragm is a muscle that's right below our ribcage and as we take a deep breath our diaphragm pushes down and pushes those abdominal organs out. So in order to breathe with our diaphragm We need to see our belly moving in and out One of the ways to do is take your hands cross your fingers and put them on your stomach and then lean back a little bit in your chair and Take a few deep breaths and try and get your hands to move out when you breathe That's it diaphragmatic breathing. Now these are called self-regulation techniques And they're called self-regulation techniques because you can regulate yourself in any situation You don't have to leave the situation to calm down. Relaxation is where you go leave a situation, Take a hot bath, get a massage, etc. If we could do that all day long We wouldn't have a problem with our nervous system. but the reality is we're often stuck at work or in stressful meetings stuck in a commute, or a traffic Jam and We need to be able to regulate our nervous system during stressful experiences not just avoiding stressful experiences. So diaphragmatic breathing is something you can do in a meeting you don't have to make a loud noise. Just sit there and take deep breaths and have your stomach move in and out. It even helps a little if you put your hands behind your head lean back in your chair and take a deep breath. This increases the ability of your lungs to expand and again you should be seeing your stomach move in and out as you do this And you don't have to do it as loudly as that. This is an activity you can do during meetings, phone calls, while reading an important email, whatever it may be,

Channel: Therapy in a Nutshell

Views: 52,824

Rating: 4.9559693 out of 5

Keywords: Diaphragmatic Breathing, Belly Breathing, breathing exercise, breathing technique, deep breathing exercise, abdominal breathing, breathing techniques for anxiety, Managing anxiety, Anxiety management techniques, parasympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic vs sympathetic, biofeedback for anxiety, breathing exercises for anxiety, breathing exercises

Id: t4aupp_YO9c

Length: 4min 30sec (270 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2017