Hello and welcome to another episode of the Karm Kampas podcast. So in today's podcast episode, I want to talk to you about your experience with stress. Sometimes we know the different things that are making us feel more stressed, more reactive, and it's looking at the habits that are going to support us, but also what we can do that is going to enhance our life. So we're feeling more of that equilibrium, we're feeling more of imbalance and we can basically learn how to support our body. We're teaching our body that when we feel that we are triggered or we're feeling in a reactive state, how do we come back? How do we start training ourselves? Now, all of the things that I have spoken so far in this podcast is very important. You need to have habits. You need to do things consistently every single day. That is going to support your experience in your life. It's not just by looking at the body or going to the gym. It's looking at a very encompassing approach of how you do your life, how you start approaching and perceiving your thoughts, understanding your mind right and understanding how we can support our bodies better and the most powerful way that we can learn how to go from a really highly stressed state to coming to learning how to go to more of the stressed state the sympathetic nervous system to a parasympathetic nervous system is through something you do every day and that's through breath. And there are so many different ways we can cultivate our breath and so powerful we can learn how to we're wanting to feel more energised, we bring more oxygen in. That's where we're breathing more, through more air, basically oxygen, and that's, you know, things like you know, sometimes when we're doing breath of fire, that can be really good for energising. But when we're in a really stressed state, we need to actually go from that sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system. And you might be like, well, what is the sympathetic nervous system and what is the? You know what is the autonomic nervous system? Okay, so let's start from the beginning. So the autonomic nervous system is essentially sort of like think of it as like a guardian, and so it's in the background. It monitors things like your heart react, your things like your body temperature, your breath pattern, okay, and it's a vital component of the peripheral nervous system. Okay, so it's all. It's regulating those involuntary bodily processes, you know, breathing right, blood pressure, respiratory digestion, sexual arousal, things like that. Okay, and the autonomic nervous system has three distinctive divisions, so it has the sympathetic, the parasympathetic and the intrac systems. Okay, so the autonomic and controlled process.
Speaker 1:
Breathing is a physiological function right, and it occurs autonomically, without conscious awareness. So you're breathing right now Okay, but we can improve that even better, okay. So the sympathetic nervous system is your body responding to stress Okay, it's our body's emergency response team right, and basically it's priming us to handle unexpected stressors, dangerous situations right. So when we perceive a threat or maybe we encounter something frightening, it kicks in Okay, our heart rate increases, directing blood flow to the critical areas right, and it triggers the fight flight or flight, flight, flight, flight, flight, flight, flight response okay.
Speaker 1:
However, if we are in this state all the time chronic stress, that's when we're feeling more anxious that's not just impacting our mental health, it's impacting all your organs, your hormones, your physical health, and it's doing damaging right. But you can start learning how to cultivate and go into what's called the parasympathetic nervous system okay. So your parasympathetic nervous system is very different. It's helping you rest and heal okay, and the parasympathetic nervous system induces a state of calm okay. So it's basically helping your body rest, heal and digest okay, and we need this. Okay. This is very, very crucial, and one of its main components is what's called the vagus nerve and sometimes we hear this when we're, you know, around anxiety and how we can support ourselves and basically that travels from your neck to the abdomen and it influences things like your heart, your lungs and all your organs and it ensures it works all nicely together, okay. And when we activate the parasympathetic nervous system, it can be achieved by mindful exhalation, okay. So something that is really helpful is, when you inhale, you're activating your sympathetic nervous system, and sometimes you know when you're really stressed, you might be breathing and hyperventilating. So that's something to take into account. When you exhale, you're activating the parasympathetic nervous system, so something as easy as just having longer exhales can just be so beautiful for your body of learning how to do that, and that's something that you do every day.
Speaker 1:
As women, we have a very tendency to breathe very upper respiratory, and it's just training our body. You know a lot of it is training our body and our mind. We just have to start initially being very conscious about how that is okay. So we have, when we are experiencing stress and you're noticing that it's, what we have to do initially is start training our body of breathing. Okay, and sometimes people say, you know, just take some deep breaths, and they are absolutely right, but when we're under stress we're like breathing what do you mean? That sounds so simple, it is so simple, but we always dismiss sometimes things that are actually so crucial.
Speaker 1:
So something that you can do that is really, really helpful for you is just taking longer exhales and maybe it's just taking even doing box breathing, which is beautiful.
Speaker 1:
You know, you're counting in for four, you're holding for four, you're exhaling for four and you're holding, and what's called a box is you're breathing in for four, so you're going up, you're going across for the hold, you're exhaling, which is going down, and then you're holding, which is across for the hold before you do the next inhale. And when we start training our body how to start breathing and get into that parasympathetic nervous system, even a couple of minutes every day, we are training the body just as much as we're training the mind, and then our body and mind can be in harmony, in sync. So I hope you found today's podcast episode helpful for you and, if you did, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple and tag us at Real Fish and Life Coaching. So we know you've left a review and have the most beautiful day and let us know how you're going in your journey here. Bye.