What if I told you I know a simple exercise that is so powerful that it can change your blood PH, making it more acidic or more alkaline in just a matter of moments??
What if I told you that this exercise can lower your heart rate, reduce your levels of the stress hormone cortisol, boost your digestive function and even help you to fall asleep at night??
What if this exercise when practiced to an extreme level could even produce trippy, hallucinogenic, LSD like experiences??? That usually gets peoples attention.
The exercise I am talking about, we do all day long without even realising. In fact it’s the most important thing that we do and rarely do we even notice its happening let alone pay attention to how we do it.
My name is Nikki Jo Edyvane. I’m a certified alternative medicine practitioner covering multiple science backed areas of practice and the exercise I am talking about in this blog is breath work, often referred to as yoga breath, pranayama or intentional breathing.
This blog is the first of many articles I will be writing to introduce and educate as many people as possible about this incredible, life changing practice.
During my 5years of practice and 3years of working in breath work I have both experienced and witnessed some of the most remarkable health turn arounds you can possibly imagine simply by breathing with intention for as little as 10 minutes a day.
From people suffering debilitating pain, stress and anxiety, serious digestive issues such as chronic acid reflux, heart burn, IBS and indigestion, to sleep problems such as insomnia and sleep related anxiety.
It doesn't stop there, these positive improvements are also mirrored in many of my clients that are suffering from more serious acute and chronic illness.
Breath work is simple, accessible to everyone but most importantly it is highly effective and backed by established science. Let me explain.
We all know, to live a happy and healthy life we need to focus on a number of different areas. We need to exercise regularly, we need to consume high quality nutrition, we need to keep well hydrated and we need to get a good nights sleep. These are all accepted facts.
However, if you did not exercise today you’re not going to die. At least, not directly as a result of your lack of breaking a sweat today and when it comes to nutrition, while it is certainly important in the long term, we can go without eating anything at all for over 40 days. Even water, our bodies can survive without, for up to 5days and if you don’t sleep, you may feel rather groggy but it would take quite a few sleepless nights before the effects start to have any lasting impact on your health.
How long do you think you can survive without breathing???
I like to let that one sink in a little. Obviously, its not very long at all. Breathing is literally the most important thing that we do but rarely do any of us even give it a second thought.
Why is this relevant I hear you ask, well although it is an automatic action, there is a correct way to breath and guess what, you are not doing it. Breathing incorrectly in your general day to day life can, and generally will, have devastating and profound effects on your physical and mental health. You can upset your sleep pattern, your digestive function, your anxiety and stress levels and even suppress your immune system.
On the flip side, intentional breath work exercises, when practiced both safely and correctly, are one of the most immediate and effective ways for you to take control your body, your mind, your nervous system and your endocrine system.
So, we all breath, (hopefully) and for 99% of us it is something that happens completely naturally. It’s controlled by our autonomic nervous system and is extremely important to our overall health and wellbeing for obvious reasons, but also for a number of lesser known reasons which we are going to cover in this article.
The way that you breath truly is linked to the way that you feel. You see, your breathing and your nervous system are intrinsically linked. This link is strong, in fact it is unbreakable.