Why Your Breathing Might Be Killing You...

Categories: Blog Sep 25, 2016

And now, a guest post by Original Strength Instructor from Down Under, Piers Kwan..........

(Imagine an Australian accent as you read this)
I was about 18 and was driving my car home one evening when I reached my driveway. My driveway was about 300-400m long with tall trees overhanging and a rocky, slightly uneven slope leading towards my house. As I drove up the driveway, my headlights caught a hooded figure walking alongside the road. I slowed down and wound down my window, but as I got closer the figure neither turned nor responded to my headlights...

It was at this moment that I started to think about the weirdness of the situation - no doubt my breathing quickened and I started to run through scenarios in my head. I thought for a moment and then accelerated past the figure up the driveway, the man in the hood then started to run, chasing my vehicle up the road, I got up towards my house and spun my car around in a small cul de sac and shone the lights down the road, weighing up my options as this figure came into view...

That response, the quickening of breath, the heightened intensity of focus, and the burst of adrenalin and cortisol that triggered it were extremely valuable things in that moment. This is the response that we refer to as 'fight or flight' and it is a critical skill for people who are seeking to survive a hairy encounter. In the words of Josh Hillis in Fat Loss Happens on Monday: "Adrenaline and cortisol are designed to shut down most of the body’s biggest functions, such as digestion, and divert all bodily power to the eyes and ears and heart so you’re primed and ready to run away from a tiger. And if you were running away from a tiger, you really wouldn’t care if your lunch digested well—you’d just want to run away."

Therein lies the rub. This response is fantastic for escaping a tiger, for making quick decisions, and for priming you to save your life, but what happens if you're constantly in this state diverting "all bodily power to the eyes and ears and heart" and shutting "down most of the biggest functions, such as digestion"? How does our body fare when it exists in this state continuously?

Our society is one wherein people are consistently in this heightened state, not because we have constant threats, but because we are over caffeinated, over stimulated by screens and white light, and we don't get enough sleep. Alongside this, and a critical factor that reinforces all of this, is that when we breath, we are constantly mimicking the breathing that we use in these fight or flight situations.

William James has been quoted as saying the following: “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.” In other words, our constant stress, and constant breathing using our fight or flight muscles, as well as our constant sitting which encourages the use of the same musculature for breathing, are meaning that we are reinforcing the stress and the cortisol production that should be reserved for emergencies, like running away from a sabretooth, almost all the time.

So how do we combat this?

There are a number of ways that you can combat these stresses:
Avoid extreme exercise - leave a little in the tank, definitely exercise, but view it as a practise or a refreshment rather than as a chance to beat yourself down. Avoid blue light late in the evening - turn off the TV and the computer an hour or so before bed, and make a point of minimising your tech use from then on, if you must use your phone, make sure that you either put on the 'night mode' that diminishes blue light, or go nuts and buy yourself some red glasses... Diminish your caffeine intake later in the day - give your body a break from stimulation, I love coffee, but not at bedtime. And finally, breathe diaphragmatically - in the video below, you can see Tim crocodile breathing, he talks a little about what's going in this article as well.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/embed/rSWuRJVcK4I[/embed]

If we refer back to William James' quote above, then we can logically look at breathing diaphragmatically and expect it to create an interesting response. In the video above, Tim discusses the way in which our diaphragmatic breathing can trigger our 'rest and digest' system to start working. Basically, by mimicking the way our body breathes when we are relaxed and enjoying a healthy mindset, we can help our body to relax and start to trigger healthy responses.

The research is very clear that breathing exercises can decrease sympathetic nervous activity, improve respiratory and cardiovascular function, decrease the effects of stress, and improve physical and mental health*. This means that even if you don't do the things I've suggested above, just by changing your breathing, and practicing the crocodile breathing referred to in the video above, you can make a significant, measurable change to your stress levels, and to the damage that they are doing to your body.

It doesn't take long. If you can commit five minutes per day to crocodile breathing, you will be shocked by the impact that it will have to your quality of life. The easiest way to get five minutes per day is to link your crocodile breathing to an existing habit. Take out a notepad, or pull up a new window and answer these questions - or flick me an email at piers@qldkettlebells.com.au with your answers and I'll be your friend that you can do this with!

- Have a think, when is going to be an easy time that I can lie down and breathe?
- What amount of time can I commit to that I'm 90-100% certain that I'll be able to achieve it?
- Do I have friends or a community that I can do this alongside?

The easiest point that I can think of for most people is either pre or post shower. Set up a quiet spot, maybe your bed, or even better, the floor beside your bed, set a timer, lie down, and focus on your breathing. An even better solution if you're able to, would be to do two minutes a bunch of times throughout the day. Do you have an office that will allow you to lie down quietly for a minute or two without interruption? Do you have a regular habit that you could pair it with? Getting a coffee, or a drink of water? A regular break time? If you can do this on a regular basis, then you'll eventually start to remind your body of the way it's meant to breathe, and reset your system to allow it to do all the important things that happen when we aren't stressed. This will do all the things referred to above, as well as increasing fat loss, and most importantly cardiovascular health.

The man in the hood? As he ran up the driveway and my headlights shone down towards his face, I realised that it was my friend Michael. He had thought it would be a funny prank (it was), but then his fight or flight system had kicked in when he realised that I would probably call the cops when I got into my house, and so he'd raced after to let us know what was going on.

*Pal, G.K. Velkumary, S. and Madanmohan. (2004). Effect of short-term practice of breathing exercises on autonomic functions in normal human volunteers. Indian Journal of Medical Research, 120, 115-121. (P.S. Stuff proper referencing! You can't control me! Got this reference from this article by the way, https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/Breathing.html)

Piers is an experienced coach and presenter who has worked with athletes of all levels. Piers gains great satisfaction from applying Original Strength principles with his clients and seeing the incredible changes to their movements on a regular basis at Queensland Kettlebells in Brisbane, Australia. You can get in touch with Piers by visiting www.qldkettlebells.com.au or by using the OS “Find a Coach” page.

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