Instant Nervous System Regulation Practice

This is one very simple practice to regulate your nervous system,

No matter where you are.

You can do this at home,

At school,

At work.

When you are on the bus,

When you're traveling,

When you are out with friends,

No matter where you are,

You can do this practice to support your nervous system and to regulate your nervous system.

And I'm going to explain the neuroscience,

Why and the practice.

So the practice is really,

Really simple.

You just exhale longer than you inhale.

It is simple,

It's not always easy to do because we do breathe also unconsciously.

But our breathing is actively and voluntarily modifiable.

And through this we can signal to the brain that we feel more safe.

And we can rewire and regulate our nervous system through that.

Why is that?

Our exhale is.

.

.

Impacting the parasympathetic nervous system.

It is especially activating the vagus nerve.

It impacts the vagal tone.

And increases heart rate variability.

Through that,

We're signaling to the brain that there's no immediate threat there.

Because usually when we're threatened,

When there's danger,

The body has to be activated.

Breath is than usually happening up here.

We are breathing really shallow and short and we have a higher heart rate.

But when we elongate our exhale,

The heart rate drops.

We're breathing deeper,

More with the belly.

And that signals to the brain there's no immediate threat around us.

So only by increasing the exhale.

We can signal to our brain that we are in safety.

It also impacts directly the brainstem because the brainstem controls breathing and breathing rhythms and the brainstem activates our arousal states of the body through our state of how we breathe.

So again,

If we breathe shallow and rapid,

We are getting into a state of high alert of activation.

When we are breathing slow and calm,

The brainstem regulates our nervous system down to being at rest.

And being calm.

So those are some facts about how our breathing and our voluntary modified breathing can actually change how our system is feeling,

Whether we are in threat and survival response or whether we are in rest and digest.

Whether we feel calm and connected and we can enjoy what we are doing,

Whether we can feel present.

As always,

Everything in the nervous system is dependent on repetition.

The more you repeat something,

The more those connections will grow.

So you might not feel this immediate effect when you do it.

Maybe you do.

But remember,

The more you practice this and the more you repeat it,

The stronger those connections will be and the more the effects will be.

I believe in you and you got this.