Women Are More Prone to Stress & Poor Breathing

When we experience stress and anxiety, breathing becomes restricted. When we remain stressed and anxious breathing remains restricted. 

When we remain unaware of our stress levels and breathing patterns we are very likely to develop dysfunctional breathing habits.  

This is especially important for women as we are already prone to more stress and poor breathing due to our physical makeup and natural hormonal cycle 

For example:  

• In the middle of the monthly cycle, we have increased levels of progesterone. Progesterone increases respiration (breathing). When breathing is increased we experience higher levels of stress and anxiety.

• During pregnancy, not only are we breathing for two but the space within the abdominal cavity becomes smaller as the pregnancy progresses. This can aggravate feelings of stress and anxiety and cause dysfunctional breathing patterns to develop that last even after the pregnancy is complete.

• Due to the change in hormones post menopause, we are 200 times more likely to develop dysfunctional breathing patterns including obstructive sleep apnea (a condition where we hold the breath during sleep and is detrimental to our health) 

99% of the time we have absolutely no idea we have developed poor breathing habits and dysfunctional breathing can cause, aggravate or maintain many common conditions including:

• Constant stress which causes burn out, fatigue, exhaustion 
• Jaw and shoulder tension 
• Decreased immunity which causes regular illness 
• Impaired digestion which causes poor gut health 
• Noisy anxious mind 
• Pelvic pain including PMS
• Insomnia or restless sleep 

Breathing is the most powerful function in the body that we can actively control, which means (if we want to) we can slow down our heart rate, reduce anxious thoughts, turn on our digestion in preparation to eat, calm all systems down to get a great nights sleep, reduce muscle tension and so on.  

With simple techniques and regular practice we can actually train our body to breathe better every second of every day. When we learn to breathe better we not only improve physical, mental and emotional health but we can also learn how to hijack the stress response - which is a super power. 

When we learn how to hijack stress and bring ourselves back to calm we can

• Improve the quality and quantity of sleep (improving memory, focus and detoxification)
• Reduce mental noise to increase clarity of thought
• Improve our reproductive health (balance hormones and reduce pelvic pain)
• Improve digestion and ability to absorb nutrients (for healthier hair skin nails) 
• Improve immunity (to prevent illness)
• Reduce muscle tension
• Increasing our ability to experience pleasure (in and out of the bedroom)

So how can you start finding calm throughout your day and build your superpower? 

Check out our 'Breathe Yourself Calm' breath training, an educational course with practical steps to build healthy calming habits and enhance your wellbeing - https://www.breatheable.online/breatheable-breath-training 

xo