What if the chronic stress you experience has dulled your parasympathetic nervous system? As you exhale, your heart will not slow down and the time between heartbeats will not lengthen, meaning HRV will be low. Precision monitors are used to measure these intervals between shots. High HRV, that is, short intervals when breathing in and long intervals when exhaling, indicates that you have a strong parasympathetic system that balances it in response to your sympathetic system, and this is a very good thing. Instead, if HRV is low, that is, there is little variability, this indicates a parasympathetic system that has difficulty pressing the brakes. In states of stress, anxiety, depression or anger, the natural variability of the heart rhythm weakens and becomes irregular or chaotic. This variability increases and becomes consistent in states of well-being, compassion, gratitude, or when attention is focused on breathing. As we said above, the sympathetic system is active while breathing, and the parasympathetic system is active when breathing out. For this reason, in many types of meditation, the exhalation time is kept longer than the inhalation time. When we focus our attention on our breathing, and sometimes by keeping our exhalation time longer during this focus, we exercise our parasympathetic system.
Sit comfortably with your back upright. This position gives complete freedom of movement to the air flow, which travels from the nostrils to the throat, then to the bronchi, and finally to the bottom of the lungs before returning. Initiate relaxation by slowly taking two deep breaths with intense attention. A feeling of relaxation, lightness and well-being will settle in your chest and shoulders. As you repeat this exercise, you will learn to allow your breathing to be guided by your attention. It is very important that your attention accompany each inhalation and the slow, graceful departure of the long exhalation from the body. Until there was nothing left but a thin, barely perceptible breath. Then there is a pause. In this pause you learn to dive deeper and deeper. You often feel the most intimate contact with your body when you stay there for a short time. Then, at the end of the pause, you notice a tiny spark shining on its own, starting a new breathing cycle. Of course, after a certain period of time, our mind moves away from breathing and turns towards the outside world: home. debt, exam, past worries and future obligations... The essence of this therapy is to push aside all the thoughts that come to your mind at that moment and focus on the person who really needs you, that is, yourself, that is, your breathing. The only thing that will bring peace is to direct your attention to the long breath and the pause that follows. It is possible to tame your vital functions by calming down and listening to your breathing for 10 minutes twice a day.
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