How We Help With Inflammation, Reduced Cognitive Ability & Epilepsy
INFLAMMATION, REDUCED COGNITIVE ABILITY & EPILEPSY
INFLAMMATION
Did you know that learning to breathe well offers you a natural pathway to reduce inflammation?
Inflammation is one of the ways the body responds to stress as a defence mechanism in order to neutralise pathogens or repair injured tissues for example.
When stress is prolonged or severe, it can set off a chain of reactions in the body including overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), also known as the fight or flight response.
This overactivation has been implicated in causing chronic low grade inflammation.
If you can get the body to switch off the SNS and instead turn on the parasympathetic pathway (PNS), i.e. your rest and digest mode, then you will have a natural way to help reduce inflammation.
Breathing well can do just this because it helps to activate the vagus nerve which is the main component of the parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system.
REDUCED COGNITIVE ABILITY
Correct breathing exercises have a direct impact on the way the brain works. It does this in several different ways:
- When the body is at rest, the brain consumes around 20% of the body’s total oxygen supply – it is a big oxygen muncher!
Breathing well helps to optimise delivery of and release of oxygen to the brain. It does this by helping you to balance your blood carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen levels. Correct blood CO2 levels are more important than many people realise in assisting both vasodilation (widening of blood vessels) and in efficiently delivering oxygen to the brain, heart and other muscles of the body. - Breathing well can also improve memory function and both reduce stress and the effects of stress through the lowering of cortisol levels and calming of the body.
- Correct breathing also helps to improve brain agility and the ability to learn through correcting dysfunctional breathing patterns and optimising gas exchange which impacts the information processing areas of the brain.
EPILEPSY
Simply put, epilepsy occurs when the electrical signals in the brain get disrupted, causing seizures, sometimes loss of awareness, changes to sensations or unusual behaviour.
Anyone can develop epilepsy. Epilepsy affects both males and females of all races, ethnic backgrounds and ages and can be the result of genetic makeup, brain injury, trauma or a stroke. The cause is not always known.
Of note is the fact that levels of blood carbon dioxide and oxygen found in people who experience chronic hyperventilation is similar to that in a person experiencing disturbance or an epileptic seizure.
It is now believed that breathing exercises can help reduce the frequency and severity of seizures.
When a breathing assessment is carried out at the Breathe Free Clinic, a number of parameters are measured such as your breathing rate, blood carbon dioxide and oxygen levels as well as assessing how you are breathing biomechanically and more.
It has been recognized that seizures can negatively alter these breathing parameters, in which case it is useful to have a check-up to assess your breathing health and learn whether retraining would be warranted.
