Life is stressful. 

You may be constantly bombarded with crises to handle and fires to put out. It can often seem like there are just not enough hours—or energy—to manage everything and still take care of yourself.

The neck, back, or shoulder pain you may be feeling from just managing your life can add fatigue and tension. It's even more stressful when you've got an injury.

There may be relationship demands: sometimes coming from our jobs, sometimes from our kids, our spouses, or our parents. We can often feel pressure from all of these relationship stressors at the same time.  

We may be feeling financial stress as the economy and inflation go up and down, and our go-tos for managing stress may not be readily available. 

You may be processing a lot of stress, and it’s damaging your health. 

If you don’t process stress in a healthy way, that stress stays stuck in your body. If you continually fail to complete the stress response cycle, you run the risk of serious health conditions, like: 

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Cardiovascular disease
• Gastrointestinal problems
• Neck, shoulder and back pain

Stress can be released in many ways, but the easiest technique to access is Belly Breathing. 

Calm your nervous system immediately with Belly Breathing.

Belly Breathing is an effective technique for relieving anxiety, stress, pain and tension.

Deep, slow breaths downregulate your stress response—especially when your exhalation is long, slow, and goes all the way to the end of your breath. It’s a great way to siphon off a little pressure to get you thru a difficult situation.

It often just takes 1-3 deep belly breaths to complete the stress response cycle.

Taking a brief mindful moment to belly breathe when something stressful comes at you, or you feel anxious or tense, will:

• Calm down your nervous system
• Release tension in your body
• ​Siphon off a little pressure 
• ​Help you feel less stress
• ​Help you sleep better
• ​Help you feel happier
• Give you pause to respond, rather than react
• Promote your physical and mental health

If you start integrating Belly Breathing into your life, you’ll begin to feel a shift in your stress levels. You'll begin to connect to a sense of calm and peaceful wellness. Wouldn't it feel great to feel more calm and peaceful? 

How to Belly Breathe

1. Lay on your back with your knees bent or supported by a pillow. You may also sit if you prefer.
2. Close your eyes and place your hands on your belly. 
3. Take three deep breaths in and out, each time trying to raise your hands towards the sky by filling your belly with air. Think about pressing your back into the bed/floor by filling up your entire abdomen with breath.
4. Once you can breath through your belly, try taking in a breath for two seconds and exhaling for four seconds.
5. Do this a few times and try extending the intake of breath for three seconds and the exhalation to six seconds.
6. Keep breathing slow and steady.

Are you having pain that's making your stress worse? Book your appointment online. We'd love to help you at our chiropractic clinic in Aptos. 

Feeling overwhelmed and stressed out all the time?

Maybe you'd like to take better care of yourself? Stop the stress-cycle? Make more time for you? Dr. Goldi has a newsletter to help. It's called Small Acts of SelfCare. 

If you want easy-to-do self-care activities that take less than 15 minutes, and take you from stressed-out to feeling calm and nurtured, sign-up for the bi-monthly newsletter.