Stress Test

by Nina

Under the Beach Umbrella by Joan Webster 

“You did great,” my oral surgeon said. “In fact, you were the most relaxed patient I’ve ever worked on. You even fell asleep there for a while.”

“Wasn’t asleep,” I mumbled through my numb and swollen lips. “Was doing yogic breathing.”

He looked at me with fascination, then quickly handed me a piece of paper and a pen. “Could you write down what you did for me?”

“Uh, email you later?”

Of course I didn’t become so good at yogic breathing just so I could stay, uh, relatively relaxed during gum surgery (though it was certainly an interesting test of my skills). As someone who once suffered from agitated depression, I’ve been using yogic breathing, along with many yoga techniques, for many years to manage my stress levels for my emotional wellbeing.

Now it turns out that I’ve been practicing yoga for healthy aging while I was at it. Because I can tell you right now that along with exercise and diet, stress management is one of the most important keys to healthy aging. Chronic stress contributes to many common age-related diseases, such as high blood pressure and heart disease, and can cause a weakened immune system overall. It also affects the quality of your life. Possible effects of chronic stress include: chronic anxiety or depression, insomnia and/or fatigue, headaches, and digestive disorders.

And how does yoga help you manage your stress? Let me count the ways:

• breath practices and meditation trigger the relaxation response 
• inverted poses (and semi-inverted poses) physically reduce your stress levels 
• restorative yoga poses relax your body and quiet your nervous system
• active yoga poses (such as standing poses, twists, and backbends) release stress from your body and create a focus for your mind
• yoga philosophy teaches you to cultivate equanimity in the face of difficulty

Over time, I’ll be providing detailed information and instructions for techniques in each of these different categories. And I hope very much that you’ll find one or more that’s useful.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did eventually email my oral surgeon. Next time you’re in a dentist chair (or are lying sleepless in bed, need a break after a stressful day, or just want to experiment), maybe you can try:

Breath awareness. Focus your attention on your natural breath, observing how your abdomen or chest rises with your inhalation and falls with your exhalation. When your mind wanders from your breath (to the dental procedure or any other topic), simply, and without judgment, return your attention to your breath. It is natural to be distracted from this practice, but it seems to work even if your attention wanders repeatedly.

Focusing on your breath will enable you to keep your mind of neutral topics rather than stressful ones, and after 10 or 20 minutes, the relaxation response (identified by Dr. Herbert Bensen of Harvard Medical School in the 1970s) will be triggered. 

Extending the Exhalation. The heart slows during the exhalation (and speeds up during the inhalation) so extending your exhalation is a relaxing breath practice (and also provides the benefits of breath awareness above). Take a deep soft inhalation followed by a deep soft exhalation. At the end of the exhalation, instead of inhaling again, retain your exhalation for one or two beats. Repeat through the procedure. Keep it easy. At no time should there be strain. If needed, return to your natural breath at any time. 

During my procedure I did the second breath practice (extending the exhalation). But I’m very experienced with yogic breathing, and we generally recommend that beginners to start with simple breath awareness. 

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