https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l4nVByCL44
How to Reduce Your Stress by Deep Breathing?
Deep breathing can be an important coping skill to learn. It may sound silly, but many people do not breathe properly. Natural breathing involves your diaphragm, a large muscle in your abdomen. When you breathe in, your belly should expand. When you breathe out, your belly should fall. Overtime, people forget how to breathe this way and instead use their chest and shoulders. This causes short and shallow breaths, which can increase stress and anxiety.
Why Chronic Stress Could be Making You Unhealthy, Unhappy and Just Plain Tired
If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed these days, youre not the only one.
In todays always-connected world, its practically impossible to hop off the hamster wheel and give yourself some much-needed downtime.
So you continue to burn the candle at both ends. And youre stressed all the time.
As a result, your health suffers. And so does your mood.
Because the reality is that your body simply isnt designed to handle the chronic stress that comes with modern life.
You see, when you become stressed, your body automatically reacts with a fight-or-flight response.
And your body quite literally cant tell the difference between encountering a man-eating saber tooth tiger and being stuck in a traffic jam.
So when you start to feel anxious (no matter what the cause) your body immediately begins pumping out cortisol and other stress hormones.
In the short-term, these stress hormones help give you extra strength and stamina. by raising your blood pressure and heart rate. And by directing blood away from your digestive system to your heart and large muscles.
That gives you enough extra strength to outrun that saber tooth tiger. Or to lift a car to save a trapped toddler.
And thats helpful when youre only experiencing short-term stress like running from that tiger.
But heres the problem
Why Chronic Stress Could be Destroying Your Health
When youre stressed out all the time at work, at home, even on vacation your adrenal glands continue to pump out additional stress hormones like cortisol.
As a result, your cortisol levels skyrocket. Even if your only threat is being late to an important meeting having an argument with your spouse or dealing with children who dont listen.
And that puts continuous strain on your body. Which makes you feel upset, sad and simply worn out.
It can also quickly eat away at your health:
making you more likely
to catch colds
keeping your body from healing properly
increasing your chances of gaining weight
interfering with your sleep
impacting your ability to
think clearly
causing you to age faster
making you feel sad and unmotivated
giving you gastrointestinal problems
causing your blood sugar level to become out of whack
and even damaging
your heart
What to do When Standard Stress Relief Strategies Just Dont Work
Now you probably already know that stress is bad for you.
And you may have tried many different things to try to lower your stress. Like meditating. Getting a massage. Or doing deep breathing exercises.
But if youre like many of the patients I see, it simply isnt enough.
The good news is that there is a NATURAL way to reduce the effects this stress has on your body and your mood.
The powerful herb Im about to tell you about actually REDUCES the amount of cortisol in your system. And this releases your tension, letting you remain calm and cope better.
So you can keep your cool even when dealing with the daily pressures of your everyday life.
Since 85% of our clients are shallow breathers, we teach them in our first session how to do the deep breathing to reduce their stress which contribute to 85% of all diseases.
A recent study published in Cell Metabolism in April 2019 revealed that during times of stress, it may be more important than ever to watch what you eat. The researchers discovered a key pathway in the brain that stimulates increased caloric intake and energy storage during stressful times.
Using an animal model, the team found that mice exposed to chronic stress along with a high-fat diet gained significantly more weight than mice eating the same high-fat, diet in a stress-free atmosphere. The authors speculate that this stress-induced weight gain is due to a molecule in the brain called neuropeptide Y (NPY), which controls the “stress-eating” phenomenon.
Upon analyzing the neurons in the amygdala of the mice, the scientists discovered that the NYP neurons have receptors for insulin and that this NPY pathway is upregulated during times of stress. They found that stress along with a high-fat diet increases insulin in neurons, which over time causes them to become insulin resistant. Once the neurons become resistant to insulin, NYP levels further increase in the neurons leading to increased energy intake and storage. Conversely, when the researchers switched off production of NYP in the amygdala of the mice, they found that weight gain was significantly reduced.
It turns out that what you eat and how much you eat during stressful times is more important than ever. The study highlighted that chronic stress combined with a high-fat diet can cause neurons to become resistant to insulin, produce more NYP and ultimately stimulate increased weight gain. The authors concluded that “it is the diminished insulin signaling capacity on central amygdala NYP neurons under combined stress and high-fat diet conditions that leads to exaggerated development of obesity”.
Essential Oils & Stress:
Did you know that our sense of smell is the only sense directly tied to the limbic area of the brain, which is considered the emotional control center? This means that when essential oils are inhaled, they go directly to the brain. Our other four senses taste, sight, touch and hearing are first routed through the thalamus before reaching designated areas of the brain. Because the limbic system is directly connected to the parts of the brain that control heart rate, blood pressure,breathing, memory, stress levels, and hormone balance, therapeutic-grade essential oils can have unbelievable physiological and psychological effects. Each of the essential oils has therapeutic stimulating, calming, sedative, balancing properties. When we inhale an essential oil molecule, it travels through the nasal passage to a receptor neuron that transports it up to the limbic brain, especially the hypothalamus. The limbic center in your brain is responsible for controlling all the physical, psychological, and emotional responses that your body performs based on stimulus coming from the outside. Thus, the ability of essential oils to target your limbic center, make them a powerful tool in treating many health ailments.
When essential oils are inhaled through the nose, tiny nerves send an immediate signal to the brain and go straight to work on the systems that moderate our minds and bodies. Inhalation can be the most direct delivery method of these incredibly nurturing components in essential oils, since the chemical messengers in the nasal cavity have direct access to the brain.
In studies performed at Vienna and Berlin Universities, researchers discovered that sesquiterpenes, a natural compound found in essential oils of Vetiver, Patchouli, Cedarwood, Sandalwood and Frankincense, can increase levels of oxygen in the brain by up to 28 percent (Nasel, 1992). Such an increase in brain oxygen may lead to a heightened level of activity in the hypothalamus and limbic systems of the brain, which can have dramatic effects on not only emotions but on learning, attitude, and many physical processes of the body such as: immune function, hormone balance, and energy levels. High levels of sesquiterpenes also occur in Melissa, Myrrh, Cedarwood, and Clove essential oils.
In 1989, Dr. Joseph Ledoux , at New York Medical University, discovered that the amygdala plays a major role in storing and releasing emotional trauma. From the studies of Dr. Hirsch and Dr. Ledoux we can conclude that aromas may exert a profound effect in triggering a response.
Essential oils can provide many benefits to the human body without side effects, whether it is through diffusing or simply inhaling the aroma straight from the bottle. Proper stimulation of the olfactory nerves may offer a powerful and entirely new form of therapy that could be used as an adjunct against many forms of illness. Therapeutic essential oils, through inhalation, may occupy a key position in this relatively unexplored frontier in medicine.
The ability of essential oils and its molecular properties to affect both physical and psychological functions in the body is one reason why it is currently being evaluated for brain injury treatments.
Frankincense Essential Oil and Your Brain
The human brain is the most complex organ within the body. Injuries to the brain range from mild concussions to more serious head trauma. Usually, various brain injuries are slow to heal, but frankincense oil can aid greatly in this process. Frankincense works by aiding oxygenation of blood going to the brain. This, in turn, will aid in oxygen absorption. When oxygen is absorbed effectively, it allows the brain to process and retain information, heal, and function correctly.
Frankincense is the Essential Oil of choice for any kind of brain disorder. Frankincense has a molecular makeup that includes sesquiterpenes, that is able to cross the blood/brain barrier. These sesquiterpenes stimulate the limbic system of the brain and other glands within the brain, promoting memory and releasing emotions. Frankincense slows down and deepens the breath. The therapeutic properties of Frankincense oil are antiseptic, astringent, carminative, cicatrisant, cytophylactic, digestive, diuretic, emmenagogue, expectorant, sedative, tonic, uterine, vulnerary and expectorant.