Breathing exercises to help decrease stress to decrease headaches/migraines

Stress is reported as the number one trigger in headache and migraine sufferers. Although other things are often the cause of headaches and migraines, a stressed system will encourage your body to hold on to pain longer. Therefore in order to help your body get rid of your headaches and migraines faster, maintaining low stress levels is key. Stress can come in many forms, including both emotional and physical stressors, which leads to an increase in the stress hormone, cortisol. There are many exercises which can be used to help decrease stress which can help to decrease your headaches and migraines, but one very effective and easy way is through breathing exercises.

 

Breathing exercises have been around for centuries and have stood the test of time. Ancient yoga masters believed that many diseases are connected to disturbed or insufficient breathing. The more research into the effects of stress on the body and how beneficial breathing techniques are to manage this prove these ancient yoga masters right. More and more research is being done in to breathing exercises to demonstrate scientifically how beneficial these exercises are for both your body and your mind.

 

Breathing exercises work in variety of different ways, but the main way I want to discuss is through vagus and phrenic nerve. The phrenic nerve supply’s motor function to the diaphragm, and the vagus nerve provides parasympathetic information from the diaphragm and torso back to the brain. The parasympathetic nervous system is the part of the central nervous systems that helps to calm you down after a stressor or activity.

 

The vagus nerve travels from the top of the neck, all the way through the torso and is commonly known as the ‘wandering nerve’ for that reason. New research is showing the importance of the vagus nerve in not only breathing, but also in digestive disorders and immunity disorders.

The vagus nerve controls involuntary muscles of the digestive tract, including the intestines, oesophagus and stomach. Essentially, it connects the brain to the gastrointestinal tract and relays information about the state of the organs to the brain. This works by increase vagal tone and inhibit cytokine production. Both are an important component of resiliency: being chronically stressed stops your immune system from working at its regular capacity.

 

Benefits

The effects of breathing exercises can be widespread, and many studies are currently being done to accurately document all the benefits. Currently known benefits include:

• Reduced perceived stress
  • Increase in clarity
  • increases ability to organise thoughts
  • helps with productivity
  • increased parasympathetic drive
  • calming of stress response systems
• Increased release of helpful anti-stress hormones
• Can help lower blood pressure

 

Types of Breathing

This list is non-exhaustive, but compiles the breathing techniques that have been found to be most effective for headache and migraine sufferers.

 

Abdominal Breathing

• Deep breath through your nose, allow your stomach (diaphragm) to inflate, and slowly exhale. 6-10 slow breaths per minute for 10 mins per day can help reduce heart rate and blood pressure.
• Also helps to strengthen the diaphragm, indicated for those with COPD and asthma (with guidance)

 

Sama Vritti – Yoga breathing

• Inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 4 counts
• Should be done through the nose for maximal effect
• Most effective before bed – calms the body down to allow the body to power down for the night

 

Nadi Shodhana / Alternate nostril breathing

• Sit comfortably in a meditative pose, make a fist with your dominant hand, then release your thumb and 4^th and 5^th Bring your hand up to your face and press the thumb onto the outside of one nostril, at the peak of inhalation, release your thumb, press your ring finger on the outside of your nostril and exhale.
• Do this for 1-2 mins before switching sides, spend equal amounts of time on each side. Can help to refocus and re-energise

 

Kapalabhati or “skull – shining” breath

• sit upright with good posture, hands on knees, take a long, slow inhale through nose, then exhale powerfully through nose by contracting your lower belly
• When comfortable, work towards 3 inhale/exhale every 2 seconds for a total of 10 breaths
• This breathing technique can be intensive on the abdominal muscles, and is good for increasing energy

 

Studies have shown that regular slow/controlled yoga breathing 30mins a day for 5/week for 12 weeks had a reduced impact on perceived stress as well as various cardiovascular parameters. Breathing exercises are a quick, easy and effective way to help modulate perceived stress and help manage headaches and migraines. Best of all, they are free! Why not try today?

 

If you are sick of suffering with headaches and/or migraine and are looking for a better way, call us today on (03) 9486 7543 to book in for an initial consultation with one of our practitioners so that we can help you find a better answer to your pain.