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Calm for the holidays - Harvard Health Blog
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Calm for the Holidays
A few quick ways to take holiday stress down, relax and invoke your calmer self:
- Breathe deeply.
- Exercise.
- Diffuse charged conversations.
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Deep Breathing
When your emotions run high, breathing speeds up, too. Slowing your breathing down relaxes tense muscles, bringing shoulders down from ears, calms roiling emotions, and helps disarm the hormonal ca...
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Move your body
Moving to do just about any exercise boosts your mood and manages your anxiety.
Just going for a walk can balance your emotions and provide positivity.
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Diffuse Charged Conversations
Many relatives would tread into topics that are going to raise your blood pressure. Diffuse inflaming conversations and remain your calm self.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Sama Vritti or “Equal Breathing”
How it’s done: Inhale for a count of 4, then exhale for a count of 4, all through the nose, which adds a natural resistance to the breath. Once you manage it, you can go up to a c...
Abdominal Breathing Technique
When it works best: Before an exam, or any stressful event.
Nadi Shodhana or “Alternate Nostril Breathing”
How it’s done: Starting in a comfortable meditative pose, hold the right thumb over the right nostril and inhale deeply through the left nostril. At the peak of inhalation, close off the left nostril with the ring finger, then exhale through the right nostril. Continue the pattern, inhaling through the right nostril, closing it off with the right thumb and exhaling through the left nostril.
When it works best: Crunch time, or whenever it’s time to focus or energize.
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Breathing and anxiety
We have become pretty bad at the most basic act of living: breathing. We breathe through our mouths and into our chests, and we do it way too fast.
Besides the health prob...
How breathing can calm us
Instead of trying to think yourself out of feeling anxious, you can do something more specific: breathe slow or fast, in a particular rhythm, or through a nostril; this can work as an instant relief.
A regular breathing practice will help you feel calmer in daily situations, but studies suggest that focusing on your breathing in moments of acute stress could also be useful.
Breathing: stress vs relaxation
The way we breathe can set off a cascade of physical changes in the body that promote either stress or relaxation.
Breathing impacts the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) branches of our nervous system, and certain techniques can promote more parasympathetic calm and relaxation. Some may also cause us to release hormones like prolactin and possibly oxytocin, the feel-good hormone of love and bonding.
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The Importance Of Breathing Techniques
- Many different civilizations have practiced different breathing techniques as a part of their culture and their lifestyles, such as Taoists and Hindus.
- Proper breathing a...
The Special Power Of Breathing
- The power of breathing is evident with people who have breathing disorders. As emotions affect our well-being, so does our breathing.
- Our parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems are in control of producing feelings of calmness and the latter, the body's rapid involuntary response to stressful situations.
- Many studies have confirmed the effects of breathing techniques against anxiety, stress, and insomnia. Although they do not disappear entirely, it helps alleviate their symptoms.
Cardiac Coherence
- It is a popular technique that promotes relaxation by coordinating our breathing, slowly and steadily, with our heart rate, stabilizing the heartbeat.
- There are many versions to cardiac coherence: 5-second inhale-exhale for a 5-minute repetition or 4-second inhale 6-second exhale cycle.
- Cardiac coherence’s stabilization of the heartbeat can dampen anxiety powerfully.