Yogic Breathing Exercise for Anxiety and Depression

According to research 80% of the time Anxiety and Depression are co-occuring, and can impact the functioning of the person that is experiencing the symptoms that coincide with those diagnosis. Cause the person to have a lack of motivation and as if your mind keeps going in these negative thought loops. Yoga can be a way of balancing your body and mind, so the state of the mind is calm and clear and the body feels more energy. 

Here is a simple yogic breathing exercise to practice at home: Come into a standing position, your feet parallel and one fist’s width apart for stability. Draw your tailbone down. Lift your shoulders up to your ears, inhale to 2/3rds capacity and hold in the breath for 3 counts and then exhale. Make fists of your hands, tighten the muscles of your face, and hold your breath for 3 counts and then exhale. Now stretch your arms out in front of you. Inhale and make fists of your hands. Exhale and relax. Close your eyes and feel the effects of the breathing exercise.

Yogic Breath Can Health Relieve Depression

If you've ever been in a yoga class, they most likely cued you to focus on your breath, this is done not only to make sure you're getting oxygen in your body, but also to increase mindfulness. In addition, the practice of deep breathing stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), responsible for activities that occur when our body is at rest. It functions in opposite to the sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates activities associated with the flight-or-fight response. In other words, breathing deeply/using yogic breath signals your nervous system (including your BRAIN) to relax and rest.

By making the choice to voluntarily change the rate, depth, and pattern of our breathing, we can change the messages being sent from the body’s respiratory system to the brain. These messages from the respiratory system have a rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior.

Here are three ways to practice yogic/deep breathing to help relieve depression:

Coherent Breathing

This breath is achieved by counting to five inhaling and count to five exhaling. These five-minute rate breathing maximizes the heart rate variability (HRV), a measurement of how well the parasympathetic nervous system is working.  The higher the HRV the better because a higher HRV is associated with a healthier cardiovascular system and a stronger stress-response system.

Resistance Breathing

Resistance breathing is exactly what its name suggests: breathing that creates resistance to the flow of air.  So, simply breathe out of our nose, to create more resistance than breathing through the mouth. and Inhale deeply and slowly in this way.

Breath Moving

An example of Breath Moving is as follows:

As you breathe in, imagine you are moving your breath to the top of your head. As you breathe out, imagine you are moving your breath to the base of your spine, your perineum, your sit bones. Each time you breathe in, move the breath to the top of the head. Each time you breathe out, move the breath to the base of the spine. Breathe in this circuit for ten cycles.

Try it out for 5-10 minutes a day and record your results each day, to see if you are making any progress.

Breathe

Have you ever been in a situation where you were instructed to “just breathe”? Perhaps this occurred before you had an important interview, or test or performance? Breathing is vital to us, yet often times we take it for granted or forget that we are actually breathing.
With that I wanted to address the value of breath today and ways in which our breath can effect us.
Breathing or inhalation and exhalation is an autonomic process in our bodies, in other words, we don’t have to consciously ask our bodies to breath, it’s a “built in” feature. As we breath we inhale oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and other gases present in the air. As we exhale our breathe primarily we are letting our carbon dioxide. That science lesson is meant to highlight the chemical reaction that takes place in our beautifully complicated bodies, as well recognize the importance of taking effective breaths. An ineffective breath is called paradoxical breathing, which is when you inhale with the chest muscles and exhale from the abdomen. Effective breathing is the breath or “natural breath” occurs when you take breaths from the abdomen. Take these steps to facilitate deep breathing:
Breath in through your nose slowly and evenly and guide air to your abdomen. As you do so, experience your stomach region expanding and inflating. After holding this breath for a second or two, release it with the same pace in which you drew in.
Practice of this conscious breath will allow the natural breath to occur more regularly.
This technique is useful for Mindful breathing that is taught in Distress Tolerance of DBT. The technique may benefit anyone experiencing anxiety, stress, tension, or anyone that simply wants to experience the natural breath.
The breath is endless, and you may breathe in ease, well being and peace, breathe out tension, worry and pain. 

Have a mindful day!