Start with breath: Your best tool for easing pain and stress
This past weekend, I was doing some spring cleaning in my basement—sorting through old stuff and moving heavy boxes. After getting up from a particularly awkward squatting position, I felt a sharp stab of pain on the left side of my lower back. I immediately recognized it as my wonky SI joint popping out of place. The pain was sharp and localized, but what struck me most was how it literally took my breath away. My body went into a lockdown mode, and I couldn’t take a deep breath or exhale fully.
Many things in life can take our breath away. Sometimes it’s joy or awe that makes us feel overwhelmed. Other times, it’s acute pain, bad news, or stress that leaves us breathless and frozen. These strong experiences jolt the nervous system, throwing us into a heightened state of alert. Our breathing becomes shallow and rapid, which reinforces the fight-flight-or-freeze response. This, in turn, creates more physical tension and emotional distress—trapping us in a vicious cycle.
In our efforts to manage physical pain, we often turn to movement or stretching. To cope with mental stress, we might try meditation or distraction. These are all helpful tools, but our breath is actually the first and most effective line of defense when it comes to dealing with an overstimulated nervous system. Whenever we’re in pain, stressed, or overwhelmed, it helps to turn our attention to our breath. Gradually deepening the inhale and lengthening the exhale can ease both physical and emotional discomfort.
How we breathe also matters. There are three very simple, yet powerful breathing techniques that can help calm the nervous system and ease physical and mental suffering. These are the techniques I turned to during my latest SI joint flare-up (alongside my reliable movement routine).
Below, I’m sharing the first of these breathing tools. We’ll explore the other two next week.
Throughout the day, we usually move from one thing to the next, taking more and more information and experiences in and often neglecting to process it all properly. All those unprocessed experiences build up and can make us feel distracted and agitated, increasing stress and affecting our sleep quality. There is a simple trick we can use to deal with this constant stream of intake. It is something you can do at any point of your day and at any location. Try it for yourself and see if it makes a difference!
Tune in next week for two additional techniques!
