Modern Day Life Causing Sympathetic Dominance & How Breathing Can Help.

What is sympathetic dominance and how does breathing help?

Recapping.

Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your body that is responsible for unconscious functions such as breathing, heart rate, and digestive functions. Within the autonomic nervous system there are three main parts which are the Sympathetic (fight or flight), Parasympathetic (rest and digest), and Enteric (digestive).

All parts of your autonomic nervous system are important, and a well functioning autonomic nervous system is able to maintain homeostasis by adjusting involuntary responses to internal and external stimuli. The hypothalamus is the brains control center for the autonomic nervous system. The hypothalamus takes sensory input (temperature etc..) and emotional signals from the limbic system and coordinates physical responses. It even translates feelings such as fear or embarrassment into physical ANS (autonomic nervous system responses eg a racing heart or blushing.

In the case of sympathetic dominance the "fight or flight" mode stays overactive due to chronic stress. This keeps the body in a constant state of activation. There is growing evidence that the sympathetic nervous system being overactive is related to many disease states and mechanisms behind this (doi: 10.1016/j.autneu.2009.02.003). Sympathetic overactivity means the body is not accessing the restorative functions of the parasympathetic nervous system. As the body is always seeking homeostasis the body may adapt to this state as the "new normal", creating feedback loops of stress.

Modern life creates many areas of chronic stress triggers without outlets that we evolved with. Examples of modern activities that trigger it are digital triggers such as information overload, social media, perceived threats; lifestyle such as poor sleep, diet, toxins in the environment, overtraining; physical and biological such as chronic pain, infections, and poor gut health. We can consider this as a allostatic load which was coined as "the biological burden from repeated or prolonged stress". This means that there is chronic activation of the stress system which causes wear and tear on the body this prevents the body from moving into parasympathetic states to recover. Bursts of stress can be healthy such as exercise -- chronic inescapable stress really causes a hard time for the body. We have done a bad job designing the world as far as stress goes!

Breathing.

All that said, breathing offers an exciting intervention. Breathing while automatic most of the time is unique in that we can consciously overtime breathing by choice! This allows us to temporarily let the body shift into relaxation states (when considering countering Sympathetic Dominance) and to shift into energetic states at other times. Here, I am focusing on breathing that allows the body to relax. I want to recap that again: through breathing we can consciously impact an unconscious system! As a one off we can give our body some rest it deserves and, as a more regular practice it can help the body learn to shift back into this state breaking the pattern of sympathetic dominance and offering a tool in fighting back against chronic stress from our modern environment.

When we focus on breathing in certain patterns we signal to the body that it is safe. This allows the body to deactivate and move from sympathetic to parasympathetic. By slowing our breathing we activate the vagus nerve, improve gas exchange, among other positive impacts on the body. By regularly practicing we begin to shift the bodies automatic state and move towards a calmer baseline state. A common example of breathing for relaxation is coherence breathing. This is where you inhale and exhale for the same length and slow you breath to about 5-6 breaths per minute. This type of breathing is known to increase heart rate variability. With other methods we may take smaller breaths with exhales longer than inhales slowly increasing co2 in the body in a way that is relaxing. When we breathe through the nose this also better activates our parasympathetic system, diaphragm and better oxygenation - saving mouth breathing for very intense exercise instead. Breathing exercises may also help with neural oscillation patterns.

Breathing is an underappreciated tool in breaking the cycles of chronic stress on the autonomic nervous system.