The way breathing effects the body is very important, if you stop you die. The way breathing effects the emotions tends to be much more subtle. When we get emotionally excited for instance we tend not to notice our breathing becoming more rapid and shallow, this is what adrenaline and noradrenaline does to us when our fight/flight response kicks in.
Along with the changes in breathing during the fight and flight response, our blood heads to our arms and legs, we find it hard to keep still, we become hyper-vigilant, our bodies get muscular armouring to protect it (ie the neck muscles stiffen), our fine motor coordination diminishes, our physical strength suddenly increases, blood pressure rises, heart rate (pulse) rises and we are ready for action, even if what has excited us poses no actual physical threat, just an emotional one.
Our fight and flight responses are there to protect us in short bursts, when we get wired and twitchy more as a habit than a necessity it can effect our sleep, our immunity, our ability to relax, our blood pressure even our relationships with other people. One of the ways we can turn this around is through making a conscious effort to breath more slowly, deeply and rythmically. It is hard to start with because when we get angry or frightened we tend not to think firstly and foremostly about our breathing but rather about what has upset us…which usually has the effect of further upsetting us.
Breathing exercises are very common to meditation practises for this reason, as a distraction and as a way of returning the nervous system to a more relaxed state. Even if you “get bored” with meditation or quickly lose your patience with “holier-than- thou” types who calmly tell you that you should chill-out a bit more, slowing your breathing WILL calm you down and it is an easy thing to prove to yourself if you try it. You may live longer for it too because you are much less likely to have a heart attack or a stroke if you avoid emotionally over-reacting, the creatures that enjoy the longest life-spans (such as sea turtles) have low heart rates while creatures with rapid heart and respiratory rates have shorter life spans, they are much more excitable by nature (such as rodents) too.
There can be a big difference to appearing calm and actually being calm, suppressing emotions might make you appear cool and collected but if your heart rate is still elevated your blood vessels and heart may sustain life threatening damage. Chronic jaw tension and neck stiffness are common signs of suppressed emotions.
Laughing and crying changes the way we breath too, our breathing loses it’s normal rythm when we do these things. Faced with a choice between the two laughing is a much more attractive option than crying although people can and do choke in the midst of a good laugh if they have airways congestion….it is safer to enjoy a good laugh with clear lungs.
In the case of crying from grief our tears contain feromones that literally have an anaesthetising effect on the body, grief really does numb us, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) too much grief or repression of grief is said to weaken our lungs, sometimes people become asthmatic after a bereavement or take up smoking. In TCM smoking very temporarily warms and strengthens lung energy but ofcourse in the long term it doesn’t help our lungs atall, if you know someone who has developed breathing difficulties since a major emotional crisis it is possible that the problem may have a more emotional cause than a physical one.
It is not just what you physically do that effects your lungs, what you think plays a part too. Breathing exercises can be done anywhere….don’t forget to breathe!