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- Discover two simple breath techniques, fox breathing and the 4-7-8 breath, which can be used to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, thereby reducing stress
- Recognize the importance of avoiding a constant stress state to protect thyroid health and overall well-being
- Learn how to practice these breathing exercises in everyday situations to manage stress and promote calmness
Jen Pfleghaar, DO, FACEP
Hi, it is Dr.Jen, I want to just talk about some easy breathwork techniques that you can use and the two are; Box breathing and the 4-7-8 Breath. Okay, so we will start out with Box breathing. This one is very simple. I will use this for my children. I will use it sometimes and we are just inhaling, it’s like a box for inhaling, hold, exhaling, hold. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. So you just imagine going around like a box and slowing down that breath, bringing that parasympathetic at rest. That rest and digest up in the forefront. Right. So our sympathetic nervous system is the fight or flight and run from the bear. And we are not supposed to be in that mindset, in that part of our autonomic nervous system. We are not supposed to be in that all the time because if we are running from the bear, we are not going to be digesting our food. We are not going to be wanting to reproduce. We are going to have hormone problems. Our thyroid is going to be shunting everything to reverse T3, which we do not want. We want our thyroid hormones to be in free T3, in the T3, the active thyroid hormone. So that is why we want to do this.
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