How to Breathe to Accelerate Recovery and Enter the Flow State

Your neurological system is coherent when you are functioning and feeling your best. The sympathetic and parasympathetic (rest and digest) branches of the autonomic nervous system are in harmony with one another. You will reach this “sweet spot” in your pursuit of completing a single activity when your nervous system recognizes the coherence between your skill levels and the difficulty or intensity of that work. In essence, your neural system must correspond to that. Not too at ease, not too tense, but a gradual rotation of the task’s yin and yang.

You can instantly control your nervous system by breathing. Your body responds sympathetically when you inhale and parasympathetically when you exhale. With knowledge and practice, we may therefore modify our breathing to match the intensity of the work.

Here are five elements that will not only improve your capacity to enter the flow state on a regular basis but will also raise your level of health and wellbeing.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

As absurd as it may sound, a substantial section of the population’s biggest issue is that they are overbreathing. When someone is overbreathing, it feels like they are hyperventilating constantly yet are unaware of it. When people are not using their diaphragm and are breathing in and out through their mouths, it feels as though their breathing is trapped. This results in what is known as hypocapnia, which is defined as a mean CO2 shortage, which then causes cell hypoxia, or insufficient oxygen.

For oxygen delivery, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are crucial. Your pH levels decrease as CO2 levels rise in your body and react with water to generate carbonic acid (acid). Hemoglobin releases oxygen when the pH is lower. As a result, oxygen is released and transported to your muscles and tissues more readily. But the inverse produces, well, the opposite outcome. Hemoglobin will hold on to more oxygen and not let go as CO2 levels drop.

Your CO2 level will drop as a result of overbreathing and hyperventilation, which, as you just learned, will lead to inadequate oxygen delivery. The Bohr effect is the concept that the right amount of CO2 causes hemoglobin to release oxygen.

Posture and The Diaphragm

The right posture is essential for diaphragmatic breathing that is effortless. Standing tall, with shoulders back and down but relaxed, chest open, and chin drawn back, a confident individual will project confidence. An insecure person will have rounded shoulders, a sunken chest, forward-rotated hips, and a lowered chin.

The Diaphragm

Your main breathing muscle, the diaphragm, can be strengthened through exercise just like all other muscles. At the base of your chest, inside the lower ribs, is a dome-shaped muscle. During inhalation, your diaphragm contracts and flattens to create space in your chest cavity for your lungs to expand. Your diaphragm needs the assistance of your intercostal muscles, which are located between your ribs, to lift your ribs and allow more air to enter your lungs. In the event that your intercostals are compromised, you also have your sternocleidomastoid, pectoralis minor, and scalenes as backup muscles. The sternocleidomastoid is the lengthy muscle on the side of your neck (it elevates the first rib.)

Feel your Diaphragm

Here are two exercises to help you get a sense of how your diaphragm should be properly engaged. The Diaphragm Pump acts as a warm-up for your diaphragm and is a terrific awareness tool for understanding where and how your diaphragm moves, while the Placing the Hands exercise is intended for beginners of diaphragmatic breathing.

Placement of Hands:

1. Put one hand on your chest and the other between your belly button and solar plexus.

2. Keep your mouth shut.

3. Let your stomach softly protrude as you take a deep breath through your nose.

4. Exhale and let your stomach gradually retract so that it is flat.

5. Without strain, repeat this motion.

Diaphragm Pump:

1. Place one hand on your solar plexus.

2. Breathe in through your nose twice.

3. On the exhale, hold your breath and pinch your nose.

4. Try to breathe through your nose now, with your nose pinched and mouth closed.

5. You will feel your diaphragm contracting.

6. When you feel the urge to breathe, then breathe.

7. Repeat for 3–5 sets.

Nasal Breathing

At the First Medical Institute of Moscow, Konstantin Buteyko began his medical education in Russia in 1946. The monitoring of dying patients’ breathing was a requirement of his training. Buteyko developed a skillfully exact eye for detail that was guided by his intuition, such that he could accurately forecast the time of death for these terminally sick patients to the minute.

Unfortunately, Buteyko was given a 12-month life expectancy at the time of his diagnosis of malignant hypertension, a lethal kind of blood pressure. Buteyko confronted the diagnosis head-on and dove headfirst into the hunt for a treatment with the help of his teachers’ inspiration and support. Nothing came to the surface at that moment.

While Buteyko’s symptoms continued to worsen, his intuition remained unchanged. During a portion of his medical training, he recalled that every patient he watched experienced hyperventilation. In other words, individuals were generally breathing through their mouths, and their breathing was too rapid and forceful. Therefore, Buteyko questioned, “Am I breathing too much?” Instead of remaining in the question, he moved and started to breathe more slowly by first closing his mouth.

Buteyko’s headache, kidney discomfort, and heartache vanished entirely after five minutes of slow nasal breathing. He took five rapid, deep breaths to further solidify this realization, and the pain soon returned.

Many people’s lives were affected by Buteyko’s breathing technique as it battled to break through the scientific community. Patrick McKeown’s life was among those that were altered, and he has persisted in raising awareness of Buteyko’s efforts. In conclusion, remember to breathe deeply through your nose and slowly.

Nitric Oxide

The molecule nitric oxide was first identified in 1772, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that its significance became clear. Nitric oxide is currently known as the secret weapon of health and performance, although back then it was thought to be a poisonous toxin. Produced by virtually every cell type in your body, this molecule is regarded as the major regulator of blood vessel health.

This is due to the fact that nitric oxide is a vasodilator, which means it relaxes the blood vessels’ internal muscles. As a result, the vessels enlarge, increasing the blood flow.

“In human beings, the nasal airways release nitric oxide. Nasal Nitric Oxide in Man, Lundberg J., Weitzberg E., published in Thorax, 1999. “During inspiration through the nose, this nitric oxide will follow the airstream to the lower airways and the lungs, where it enhances the quantity of oxygen intake in the blood.”

Therefore, breathing through your nose causes you to consume more oxygen. The more you practice breathing through your nose (until it comes naturally to you), the more oxygen you’re giving your body. As a result, as you may anticipate, this will improve health, recuperation, performance, and presence.

According to the 1994 article, “Behavioural and Psychological Approaches to Inhaling Disorders,” breathing simply through your nose causes about 50% more airstream resistance than breathing via your mouth. Your oxygen intake is therefore increased by up to 20% as a result.

The concentration will depend on the flow rate at which the sample is inhaled because nitric oxide is continually produced in the nasal airways. As a result, nasal nitric oxide concentrations are higher at lower flow levels, according to Lundberg and Weitzberg’s 1999 article, “Nasal Nitric Oxide in Man.”

Final Thoughts

You will be setting yourself up for an improvement in your health and performance when you correctly incorporate your posture, diaphragm, nasal breathing, nitric oxide, and carbon dioxide levels. You will unconsciously start breathing correctly after some persistent practice.

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