Stress, Bad Breathing and Stressed Posture.

Stress sucks Ballzzz….

Stolen Borrowed from www.weheartit.com

I mean, it’s necessary for life and all, but too much of it can really jack-you-up….especially if it’s prolonged.

And these days it’s prolonged…waaaay too prolonged.

There seems to be a never-ending To-Do list.

The minute something gets done, something else happens, and we never have time, and we never break even and we never get ahead….and, for the most part, it’s all B.S.

“the things we all find stressful– traffic jams, money, worries, overwork, the anxieties of relationships. Few of them are “real” in the sense that the zebra or lion would understand. In our privileged lives, we are uniquely smart enough to have invented these stressors and uniquely foolish enough to have let them, too often, dominate our lives.” -Robert Sapolsky

You’re like:

“Go F- yourself, my life IS stressful”

and it is, but ONLY because YOU made it that way.

Real stress is being attacked by a lion and having your guts spread out across the floor.

Compared to that, cutting the grass doesn’t seem so pressing…huh?

And that’s what the stress response was developed for. It was made to deal with ACTUAL life and death situations.

Not, “My boss doesn’t like me and I have to pick up dry cleaning”. 

Here in lies the problem.

We’ve overreacted and learned to perceive EVERYTHING in our lives as super stressful, so we turn on the stress response, crank it to the 10’s and live like that.

All day, EVERY day

WE NEVER TURN IT OFF!

And that’s a really bad thing because not only is it hell on our lives it affects cognitive function, immune system, cardiac system, total body inflammation etc, etc.

 

Sorry, Roy couldn’t make me bigger, cause he’s a stupid idiot computer semi-literate, but if you click me you’ll get a bigger version and you should cause I’m really cool.

And that’s not even the anatomical changes that take place.

Short version:

1. You see tiger
2. Stress response initiates
3. Heart rate increases
4. Breathing rate increases
5. This means you take shorter/ shallow/ chest breaths

What do you think happens to your body (from an anatomical standpoint) when you initiate this response ALL DAY, EVERY DAY?

Answer: You learn to take shallow chest breaths constantly.

Over time the muscle that should be responsible for breathing, the diaphragm, atrophies, turns itself off, and you’re left with your default breathing pattern being the pattern that is supposed to happen ONLY when under extreme stress.

Only now it’s how you breath…EVERY BREATH…. ALL DAY.

And you wonder why you feel stressed all day?

Anatomically, this, stressed breathing, results in the muscles of the upper back, and neck becoming VERY tight because they’re constantly turned “ON”, working and under tension.

Combine this with Desk Jockey Syndrome and you’re really in for it.

The result usually is a raised shoulder/ rounded over/ head forward posture.

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Simply from being stressed and defaulting to stressed breathing ALL DAY.

How do we get out of this posture and hit the “reset” button on stress?

#1: De-Stress…..easy to say, hard to do.

Whatever it is, whatever works for you, do it.

#2: Get Regular (hard) Exercise. 

You don’t have to go out and beat the living sh@t out of yourself everyday.

But a daily sweat session is good for the stress response.

Our bodies are built to move.

Lift, push, pull, walk, run, jump etc.

Doing these things helps give our bodies a “real” way to initiate and regulate the stress response in the way it was meant to be used.

In response to a PHYSICAL stressor…

Not an emotional, brain-based, stressor.

It is call Fight or Flight, not Sit and Worry

If you can’t get these two right you will not get out of a “stressed” default pattern, simple as that.

If you can, you should do these next:

#3. Re-learn Diagrammatic (Belly) Breathing. 

You knew this and USED to do it….you just shut it off for so long, you don’t do it anymore.

Really good explanation of what we’re trying to accomplish here in this video.

Feet Up: 

Key Points:

• Relax, don’t force it, don’t just push the stomach out. You have to breeeeaaaath into the belly.
• Don’t let the chest raise
• Focus on raising the stomach
• Relax
• Ohh, you should relax, that would help
• Push out in ALL directions

#4: Release the Tight Muscles of the Upper Back, Neck and Chest

Ball on Mid/ Upper Back:

• Slowly increase the pressure, don’t kill it right off the bat

Ball on Chest:

• Pull the shoulders back and get the arm out-of-the-way

 

#5: Regain Length in the Upper Back, Neck and Chest:

Trap Stretch:

Levator Scapula Stretch:

Lat Stretch:

Chest Stretch:

 

#6: Strengthen the Lower Traps and Mid Back:

Underhand Band Pull-Aparts:

Don’t let the ribs “pop up”, keep them “tacked” into the core.

Diagonal Pull-Aparts:

Think about putting the shoulder blades in the opposite side back pocket and NOT rotating through the torso.

No Money:

If you struggle with a band, drop it and don’t use any weight at all.

Wall Slides:

Keep your shoulders down and try to keep the forearms flat.

If you’re constantly having shoulder and neck pain and headaches, there’s a good chance you’re living in a “shoulders to ears” stressed posture for too much of the day (like, ALL DAY LONG).

You need to take steps to reduce the stress in your life and regain proper breathing function if you’re going to “reset” this posture, and get your posture back in line.