How the Pilates breathing principle delivers better muscle tone, can relieve stress and anxiety, and bolster your overall physical and mental health.
Your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) comprises two parts, sympathetic and parasympathetic, all housed in the mammalian part of the brain. These parts are called the “fight or flight” and your “rest, digest, and relax” states. The body needs to seamlessly and efficiently transition between these two states to help you navigate the world and its challenges. But what happens when those states become imbalanced? Such as living in a high-stress environment or dealing with sudden trauma like an accident, injury, or grief. How do we help return to homeostasis? Pilates’ mindful approach to breathing trains the body to balance between rest, digestion, relaxation, and heart-pumping stress response states. Plus the social interaction of our exercise community [3], plays a key role managing how the body responds to stressful and non-stressful states.
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Rest, Digest, and Relax
The Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) controls involuntary actions like rest, digestion, and relaxation, hence its name. The neural processing of such actions travels through the Vagus Nerve, a major part of the parasympathetic state, which serves as a highway of communication traveling from the brain to the gut [1]. It facilitates the adaptive responses to environmental challenges.
To voluntarily put your body into a state of rest, digest, and relax, you take control of the breathing, especially that of your exhales! Through your exhalation, the body carries carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the muscle tissue and organs into the lungs to be expelled. The exhale promotes growth and restoration by slowing down the heart rate, inhibiting the fight–flight mechanisms of the sympathetic nervous system, dampening the stress response system, and reducing inflammation [3].
Fight or Flight
The Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) controls involuntary actions affected and needed when fighting or fleeing. Degrees of risk or stress to the body activate the sympathetic nervous system, which triggers the fight-or-flight response. Your eyes dilate to improve focus. An accelerated heart rate delivers more oxygen to parts of your body. And your lungs relax to increase breathing capacity and airflow. These changes and others involuntarily prepare the body to respond to danger [2].
Exercise is a controlled stressor of the body. And so, under exercise, you voluntarily activate your body’s sympathetic state. To produce energy to move, your body consumes oxygen (o2) and releases carbon dioxide (co2) on a cellular level, called aerobic metabolism. Regular exercise at an elevated heart rate increases your body’s aerobic metabolism, which has been shown to transform your muscle tissue, think lean versus bulky, and subsequently improve muscular endurance and overall strength [4,5].
Part of balancing these two states is being able to control whether you live in a state of rest, digest, relax, or are always fighting or fleeing. Being able to control the transition between conscious and unconscious breathing helps your endurance, downregulates your nervous system, improves your mood, extends your metabolic burn post-workout, and helps improve overall muscle tone. In addition, mindful exercising methods have been shown to cultivate empathy, better cognitive function, and response inhibition. Exercise is important to improve the body’s control of these two parts: lowering your sympathetic nervous activity and improving the parasympathetic response to stressors to improve cardiovascular endurance and respiratory function.
How Pilates Breathing Relieves Stress and Anxiety
Incorporating mindful breathing during exercise improves your body’s ability to relieve stress outside of your workouts. Pilates’ principle of breathing focuses the mind on respiration, lowering the rhythm at which breathing occurs and increasing the duration of exhalation, which stimulates the vagus nerve and conditions your body’s ability to relieve stress and down-regulate the fight or flight state, lowering anxiety [6]. Plus, a safe environment promotes growth and restoration through physical movement and social interactions; soft, soothing voices, positive facial expressions, and gentle affirmative cues promote a sense of safety, providing further stress and anxiety relief [3].
Being a part of this beautiful studio, sharing support, and building bonds with one another on this journey called life encourages us to feel safe and open up to our neighbors. This creates a sense of community and keeps us moving toward our health and fitness goals! So practice your Pilates breathing with your neighbor, listening to their gentle rhythmic inhales and exhales, helping to relieve stress and anxiety. We can contribute to a balanced mind, body, and spirit together.
Disclaimer
THE INFORMATION EXPRESSED ON THIS SITE IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. WE DRAW ON OUR EXPERTISE AS PILATES AND MOVEMENT SPECIALISTS BY EXPANDING OUR PROFESSIONALISM THROUGH CONTINUING EDUCATION AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. WE AIM TO PROVIDE VALUABLE INFORMATION CONCERNING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PILATES, FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT, AND FITNESS. YOU TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ALL DECISIONS NOW OR IN THE FUTURE CONCERNING YOUR HEALTH, LIFE, AND WELL-BEING. THIS INFORMATION IS NOT TO BE USED AS MEDICAL ADVICE EITHER TO DIAGNOSE, TREAT, CURE, OR PREVENT ANY DISEASE OR AILMENTS. YOU SHOULD CONSULT A PHYSICIAN BEFORE BEGINNING ANY EXERCISE PROGRAM.
Citation
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23266-parasympathetic-nervous-system-psns
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23262-sympathetic-nervous-system-sns-fight-or-flight
- Porges SW. The polyvagal theory: new insights into adaptive reactions of the autonomic nervous system. Cleve Clin J Med. 2009 Apr;76 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):S86-90. doi: 10.3949/ccjm.76.s2.17. PMID: 19376991; PMCID: PMC3108032.
- Ueha, T., Oe, K., Miwa, M. et al. Increase in carbon dioxide accelerates the performance of endurance exercise in rats. J Physiol Sci 68, 463–470 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12576-017-0548-6
- Glenn C. Rowe, Adeel Safdar, and Zolt Arany. New Frontiers in Endurance Exercise Biology. Originally published 18 Feb 2014 https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.113.001590Circulation. 2014;129:798–810
- Gerritsen RJS, Band GPH. Breath of Life: The Respiratory Vagal Stimulation Model of Contemplative Activity. Front Hum Neurosci. 2018 Oct 9;12:397. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00397. PMID: 30356789; PMCID: PMC6189422.
