Dr J P Singhvi
In today’s busy life, a constant race against time continually causes an unhealthy amount of stress. Chronic stress leads to many lifestyle diseases. These are commonly caused due to lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating habits, inadequate sleep, alcohol, drug and smoking abuse, in addition to chronic stress. Some of the prevalent ones are hypertension, heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, acidity, chronic fatigue syndrome, psychosomatic diseases, etc. These diseases manifest at physical level, if the body, and more importantly, the mind is unable to cope with stress.
Chronic stress can lead to anger, anxiety and frustration, excess of stress hormones, chemicals, oxidative stress, and dysfunction of immune system.
Well being of one’s mind and body, is linked to breath. It is practically impossible to control the mind directly, however, if one can control the breath, mind can be tamed.
There have been many studies proving that breath is connected to our state of mind and our wellbeing. When you are feeling calm or happy, your breathing slows and deepens which produces a relaxing effect. Conversely, when you are feeling frightened, in pain, or tense, your breathing speeds up and becomes shallower. The body’s reactions to stress is now activated.
The state of the body affects emotions. Breathing, in particular, can affect state of mind. Our brain and breath are connected. The mind stress is directly connected with imbalances in right and left brain.
