In the past few blog posts, we looked at the benefits of strength training for quite a few areas of life that you might not have automatically thought of when lifting around some heavier bags or hitting the weights room at the gym. One of these areas was managing stress and counteracting low mood. A common symptom when stressed and/or anxious – or in pain, is a change in the way we breathe. For example, when stressed you might notice that you breathe in a more shallow way, with most of the breath entering the upper part of your chest and less breath entering the lower part/your stomach or perhaps that you tend to hold your breath, and then breathe fast “to make up for it” and then hold your breath again. In fact, for a lot of us, either of these may be true about the way we breathe all the time.
Deeper breathing and breathing out slowly, in contrast, slows down our heart and relaxes muscles. This is because of the way the heart and lungs are connected to the breathing centres in the brain. Simply put, a slower heart rate and more relaxed muscles ramp up the “rest and digest” part of the nervous system (rather than the “fight or flight/panic” parts of the nervous system) – making us more relaxed.
Now, there is a lot of information out there on the topic of breathing and many different opinions. If/when you read outside of this post, my advice would be not to let anything stress you more. Sure there are optimal ways of breathing, just as there is an optimal way of making a cup of tea, but that does not mean that the way you have been preparing tea is wrong, and your life is ruined just because you have been making tea in a different way all your life.
Many movement methods guide you to synchronise breath to the movement. For example, you might have tried Tai Chi or yoga, which have an explicit focus on breathing. Strength training is the same. Breathing deeper into your belly means your stomach muscles will be active and this builds more pressure to brace at the bottom of a lift such as a squat, a deadlift or bench press. As a result you may have more power and perhaps lift heavier with less chance of injury.
Over time, the breathing technique you practice for lifting or other movement methods may translate to your everyday life. This can lead to a downregulation of the “fight or flight response”, lower stress hormone levels, a synchronisation of your brain’s electrical activity enhancing communication between different parts of the brain and this in turn may make you less stressed and anxious and clearer in your thinking. In addition, in acute stress situations, having learned to pay attention to your breath and to be able to consciously regulate it (say in a panic attack) can put you back in the driver’s seat. Just another reason to take up or continue to build on your strength training – woohoo!
If you are keen to learn more about training for strength over the next months, keep an eye on this spot, follow me or subscribe to the blogpost. Also, feel free to reach out to me via my website to arrange for a free call to see whether you would like to work with me one on one in rehabbing an injury or getting you underway toward a health goal. I look forward to hearing from you.
References (for the extra keen)
Fincham et al. (2023)