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Breathing for Stress

Emma Seppala | 4:03

Transcript

We really depend on adrenaline throughout the day we pump ourselves up, we drink too much caffeine, we over schedule ourselves, wait till the last minute to get things done. And we depend on it. You know, many people want to feel that urgency in order to actually accomplish something.


However, what happens when we live that kind of adrenaline filled lifestyle is that we're exhausting our system. So we know that short term stress can be great, it can really help you get through a deadline and mobilize you. However, if you depend on that day, after day after day, you'll find that your body becomes worn out your immune system is impacted.


And even your mind your attention and your memory are impaired through that long term chronic stress. On the other hand, if you can train your train yourself to be more calm, rather than always, in high adrenaline mode, you will be saving your energy much more not to say that you shouldn't have that intensity and excitement in your life and spend a lot of energy.


But you should really be saving your energy and spending it when you want to for the big major projects in your life, the big events. So this is about energy conserving your energy. And this is where calmness comes in. And it's something that's not very much valued in American society. In particular, we value intensity at all times whether we're at work or whether we're at play, one of the most effective ways to bring calm into your nervous system is through breathing, breathing exercises.


In one very interesting research study, scientists looked at the link between emotions and breath, they looked in particular at whether emotions will change your breathing pattern.


So they had participants come in and they told them to, to elicit these emotions within themselves. And the scientists then measured how the participants were breathing, how deeply how long, etc.


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