Actually, it has a lot to do with it.
You see, within the nervous system there are two branches. One causes fight, flight, or freeze, which you might have heard of. This branch causes you to feel panic, worry, tension, and all the negative things that go along with stress as stress itself is what causes this branch to turn on.
I like to correlate it to a traffic light. When the traffic light turns red, fight, flight, or freeze is on and it’s telling your body to stop all unnecessary functions and focus on what’s causing stress. Essentially, it’s why you’re brain can start worrying and have thoughts that spiral over and over driving you nuts.
Now we don’t want that, but many people live a life where the light is red all the time due to constant stress. Living in the new world in recent years definitely makes this the way many of us live. If your one of them, it’s not your fault! You just have a lot of red lights in your way… but the great thing is… you can change this!
The other branch is referred to as the rest and digest state and it does the opposite in your body. This is the state that is the green light telling your body to go and it allows you to live freely, free from worries, free from tension, free from being stopped in your tracks with negative emotions and thoughts. This is the state you’re supposed to live in almost all of the time, but it can be hard to reach when you’re constantly going and busy and basically eating stress for dinner. This green light is also what can allow you to change how you feel and have power over your emotions, rather than feel they have power over you.
So how do you get your lights to stay green rather than always hitting the red lights on your journey through life?
By practicing tools!
When you practice tools to help with supporting stress you not only increase your resilience to stress so it doesn’t impact you as negatively, but it also helps turn on the calming rest and digest state. This is why I created a course called The Calming Toolkit. This is because when you understand what causes your red lights to go on and also learn what tools turn those lights red you ultimately build your resilience to stress so it doesn’t impact you as much and you ultimately have so much more control over how you feel. It’s amazing and easy. That’s why a toolkit is needed.
So what kind of tools turn on the green lights?
This is the fun part.
Using tools to change your life isn’t a challenge, and it definitely isn’t supposed to be another task to do that feels like a chore. Ultimately, if you don’t enjoy it, it’s not bringing you the peace you desire.
Anything you enjoy doing can actually be a tool to build your resilience to stress. However, there are certain tricks that really help turn the traffic lights green a lot quicker. One of my favorites, and there are many, is the breath.
There are many breath techniques that do this but one of my favorites that works super fast at turning off the red lights is called the 4-2-6 breath (or what I like to call it… the long exhale breath).
4-2-6 Breath
So this is a simple breath technique that not only turns on the calm state, but also really helps in times of panic, heightened stress, and increases your focus.
- Start by sitting up straight or laying on the floor.
- Take a nice slow deep breath in for the count of 4. Hold your breath in for the count of 2.
- Breath out slowly for a count of 6.
- Then repeat.
Now if you find it uncomfortable breathing out for that long lower the count to what works for you, just try to have the exhale be longer by a count of 2 because that longer exhale is amazing for turning on the green light. So for example, you can breath in for 2, hold for 1, and breath out for 4. Do whatever works for you.
This is just one of the many tools I go into detail about in The Calming Toolkit course as we discuss the power of the breath in quite a bit of detail with so many other amazing tools. Feel free to click on the link to learn more.
I created a handout you can download for free that’s actually from the course. The handout is a diagram on how to do this technique for you to print out as a reminder and to follow along so you can give the technique a try. Click here to get it.
We can’t all live completely Zen lives without being exposed to stress so implementing tools on a daily to weekly basis works amazing to help lesson the impact stress has on you. Breath work is just one of those amazing tools and one of the best!
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