If you’re still feeling stressed out, anxious or fearful due to COVID-19, learn how to switch on
your parasympathetic nervous quickly and simply.
We’ll explain what that even is and why you should care.
We have two parts to our autonomic nervous system – sympathetic and parasympathetic.
Both are important, but they play different roles.
We could spend hours here getting into the anatomy and science of all of this, but we’ll keep it simple.
When your sympathetic nervous system is dominant, you are in “flight or fight” mode.
When you feel the emotional feeling of stress, nervousness or anxiety, you are being governed by your sympathetic nervous system.
There are times when this comes in handy, like when you’re being chased by oh, say, a grizzly bear.
If this were to really happen, you wouldn’t want to be relaxed – you’d run like heck!
However, most of the time our sympathetic nervous system is working in overdrive.
Not only can this lead to feelings of stress; it can actually cause us to lose sleep.
It can also lower our immune system, cause digestive issues, negatively affect our sex drive and cause all sorts of other problems.
One of the fastest ways to turn on your parasympathetic nervous – the antidote to this issue – is your breath.
Slowing your breathing down and taking long, slow deep breaths is a simple and quick way to immediately turn on your parasympathetic nervous system.
This cancels out the sympathetic nervous system and has an immediate calming effect on on the body.
So how can you activate this system?
It’s just about as simple as that old “Count to 10 and breathe” advice that so many of us received years ago from well meaning friends or parents.
Stop what you’re doing, inhale deeply, exhale even more deeply (all the way out), then repeat.
Do this often throughout the day, as soon as you feel yourself “going to the dark side”.
After just 3-5 long, deep breaths, you should notice a significant and positive change in how you feel.
Once your parasympathetic nervous system is activated, it takes over, lowering your blood pressure, relaxing your muscles and calming you down.
You can turn on your parasympathetic nervous system just about anywhere, anytime, by simply breathing.
You can also enjoy feeling more calm & relaxed by regularly doing yoga, as the most important part of yoga is the breath.
Virtual yoga is a simple way to turn on your parasympathetic system, as we do a lot of deep breathing in yoga as well as specific breathing exercises called “Pranayama”.
If you’re looking to make a positive change in your life to help manage stress & anxiety, consider Virtual Yoga.
Virtual Yoga could be for just yourself, for yourself and a partner or in a group for your office team, sports team, condo building or seniors group.
Our company offers Virtual Yoga in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sunnyvale, San Francisco & more.
COVID-19 isn’t over yet. Take care of yourself. We can’t control what’s going on “out there”, but we can control how we react to it (or don’t.)
And we can absolutely control our breath.
The next time you feel stressed, give it a try.