Using Yoga Breathing with Students to Manage Anxiety and Self Regulation

1. Using Yoga Breathing with Students to Manage Anxiety and Self Regulation Gaie Sarley Goodness, MS, CRC Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor/ Transition Specialist, Certified Kripalu Yoga Teacher Mia LaPointe, MS School Psychologist Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES

2. We hope to: Teach and practice Yoga breathing Show how we have used this with Special Education Transition Students Present an overview of the science and benefits of yoga breathing Show how yoga breathing can increase mindfulness.

3. Yoga Breathing can increase inner resilience Work with Students Self

4. Resilience is… • The ability to rebound after being compressed, bent or stretched (elasticity) • The ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change.

5. Why is it Important? • We can’t control the variables • We need to be able to recover in the face of perturbations (changes) What does resilience mean to you?

6. How and why to manage stress

7. Defining our terms:

8. Stress is caused by: Clinging Resisting Ignoring The 60,000 thoughts we have a day. Mindfulness Meditation and yoga breathing can minimize the effects of stress.

9. Stress can be good

10. Mobilization of energy Adrenals secrete epinephrine, norepinephrine Adrenaline released to stimulate the heart to beat fast Norepinephrine sharpens focus and stimulates memory Sharpening of cognition through the hippocampus Pupils dilate so you can see better Release of opiates and dulls brain reaction to pain Suppression of digestion, growth, reproduction, immune functioning The Stress Response: 1-3 hours

11. Allostasis: the process by which the body responds to stressors in order to regain homeostasis.

12. Maladaptation creates Allostatic load

14. Stress Response: 4 hours or more • Impaired hippocampus function • Atrophy • Decreased synaptic plasticity- lines of communication die • Inhibition of neurogenesis • Damage/death of neurons • Decrease release of dopamine • Enhanced amygdala function related to fear and anxiety • Impairment of prefrontal cortex (make decisions and control behavior) and its roles in executive functions

15. Additional Long term stress impacts Erodes chromosome endings telomeres (early aging) Grinds down one’s relationship to challenge in life (mediates tenacity and grit) Makes learning new things more difficult Lowers immune system (increased risk of cancer)

16. Stress Response 4 hours or more • Maladaptive response to stress • Fatigue • Hypertension • Excessive cortisol leads to thinning of stomach lining, increase risk for ulcers; damage intestines • Cortisol thins bones, putting elders at risk for osteoporosis or bone fractures • Psychogenic dwarfism • Impotency, low libido • Increase disease risk • Decreased delivery of glucose to brain

17. Research: In his 1988 landmark study, Dr. Hans Eysenck of the university of London reported that unmanaged reactions to stress were more predictive of death from heart disease and cancer than smoking cigarettes. The American Institute of Stress reports that as many as 75-90% of all visits to primary care doctors result from stress related disorders. Americans consume 5 billion tranquilizers, 5 billion barbiturates, 3 billion amphetamines, and sixteen thousand tons of aspirin each year in their attempts at dealing with stress.

18. Research: In one study of of 202 professional women, tension between career and personal goals was the factor that differentiated those who had heart disease with those who were healthy. In an international study of 2,829 people between the ages of fifty-five and eighty five found that individuals who reported the highest levels of personal mastery – feelings of control of life events – had nearly 60% lower risk death compared with those who felt relatively helpless in the face of life’s challenges. According to a Mayo Clinic study of individuals with heart disease, psychological stress was the strongest predictor of future cardiac events, including cardiac death, cardiac arrest, and heart attack.

19. Research: * In a ten year study, people who were unable to effectively manage their stress had a 40% higher death rate than non-stressed individuals. *A Harvard Medical School study of 1,623 heart attack survivors found that when subjects got angry during emotional conflicts, their risk of subsequent heart attacks was more than double that of those who were able to remain calm. *A twenty year study of over 1,700 older men by the Harvard School of Public Health found that worry over social conditions, health, and personal finances significantly increased the risk of heart disease.

20. What if we could teach people when they are young to manage stress better?

22. Effects of Stress on young people Nutritional stress Economic stress Impaired Brain Development Family stress • Pre-frontal Limbic atrophy • Weakened spatial memory • Salience and arousal issues • Impulse control problems • Short term memory pathology Stress from violence Unmanaged Stress School stress Peer group stress Sleep deprivation stress

23. What happens when we stay stressed?

24. Effects of stress on the brain

25. Prefrontal Cortex: executive function, intention to attention, emotional balance and regulation, body regulation, intuition Amygdala: emotional center (fight, flight or freeze), brain scans, emotion activation, naming deactivation Hippocampus: memory, stress inhibits storing information and recalling information

26. List of Executive Functions Response Inhibition—The capacity to think before you act, to resist the urge to say or do something to allow the time to evaluate a situation and the impact of the what is said or done. Emotional control—The ability to manage emotions to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behavior. Task initiation—The ability to begin a task or activity and to independently generate ideas, responses, or problem solving strategies. Organization—The ability to create and maintain systems to keep track of information or materials. Goal-directed persistence—The capacity to have a goal, follow through to the completion of the goal, and not be put off by or distracted by competing interests. Metacognition—The ability to observe how you problem solve. It includes self-monitoring and self-evaluative skills. Self-Monitoring—Recognizing what is going on inside your own mind, body, environment, and relationships. Self-evaluative skills—The capacity to evaluate how well you did and to make good decisions about how to proceed. Working Memory—The ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks. It incorporates the ability to draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or to project into the future

27. List of Executive Function Sustained attention—The capacity to keep paying attention to a situation or task in spite of distractibility, fatigue, or boredom. Planning/prioritization—The ability to manage future oriented tasks. Time management—The ability to estimate how much time you have, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines. Flexibility—The ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, new information, or mistakes. It relates to an adaptability to changing conditions. Shifting—The ability to move freely from one situation, activity, or aspect of a problem to another, in reaction to internal or external cues.

28. Events Thoughts Feeling Actions Wendy Baron 9/2/16

31. Experiment: • Try deep breathing. • What was your experience?

32. Premise: • The human nervous system can be toned and managed to create resilience and focus through specific practices. • Today we’ll learn some breathing techniques.

33. Key to complete breath is complete exhalation • Engage abdominal muscles, push diaphragm up • Blow out breath (Ahh!!) • Now engage muscles and push out more

34. Lungs are a barrel; make it deeper, taller, wider to space

35. Beyond the diaphragm

36. 3 part breathDirgha • Lower- abdominal muscles • Middle- thoracic muscles • Upper – clavicular muscles

37. The complete breath: Belly breathing Intercostal breathing Clavicular breathing

39. Stress management breathing: Complete breath Breath control through pharynx Exhalation is longer than the inhalation Visualization from periphery to pre-frontal cortex Deep relaxation of jaw, tongue, hands, and feet

41. What did you feel? • Relaxed • Sleepy • At ease • Restful • Warmer • Slower heartbeat • Increased saliva

42. Why It Works: Central Nervous System: Parasympathetic Sympathetic WE NEED BOTH

43. The Autonomic Nervous System

44. Functions of the vagus nerve

45. Effects on the brain

46. Physical benefits • Nose breathing: filters, warms moistens, awakens prana receptors • Massages, feeds, cleans, tones the organs within the abdomen • Aids digestion • Supports elimination • Enhances core strength and proper posture • Increases lymph action • Cleans and tones the lungs the lungs increasing efficiency of function

47. Physiological Benefits • Increases the efficiency of cellular respiration • Reinforces immune response • Engenders the ‘relaxation response’ by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system

48. Psycho-emotional Benefits • Increases self regulation and impulse control • Re-sets chronic emotional response patterns • Increases confidence in daily activities • Nurtures the ability to focus and attend to the task at hand • Makes the present moment accessible • Increases awareness of subtle energies and integration of feelings, thoughts, actions, and speech

49. Over-stimulated sympathetic system leads to low resilience of parasympathetic system.

50. Down Stream Health Impacts: • Sleeplessness, insomnia • Hyperactivity • Overeating • Diabetes • Poor digestion • Poor elimination • Chronic inflammation • Chronic disease