You may experience a dry mouth or clenched jaw when stressed but generally it’s not the area of your body you think of to help you relieve stress. Here’s how you can use your mouth to influence your stress.
Physiological Sigh
This first tool involving the mouth goes beyond the standard advice to “take a deep breath.” Stanford Neurobiologist, Andrew Huberman and his team have identified a “real-time tool” of incorporating 1-3 physiological sighs when feeling stressed as a way to shift the stress response.
Huberman says you take 2 inhales through your nose and an extended exhale (I like to add an audible sigh here, hence the association with the mouth) through your mouth. The double inhale allows for the intake of more oxygen.
I know, the previous post said to be sure you are breathing through your nose. This exhale through the mouth with the sigh is the exception. The physiological sigh is a pattern of breathing that we go into automatically when we have a build up of carbon dioxide in the blood. Shifting into this pattern voluntarily can quickly help us offload that carbon dioxide and calm the stress response.
HumMing, SingiNG or GarglING
While humming or singing are things that may be associated with happier times, and gargling is connected to brushing your teeth, intentionally doing any of these actions while stressed can have a positive impact.
Simple vocalizations or gargling all bring stimulation to the vagus nerve - this nerve is the communication system relaying information from the brain to body and body to brain. This stimulation helps create vagal tone, just like muscles that need to be worked out to be stronger, the vagus nerve needs stimulation to be healthy.
THE SHIFT
Just as with the other areas of the senses, while experimenting with any of these tools, you may notice a spontaneous shift in your nervous system that could come in the form of a deep breath, yawn, sigh, or a settling. Your body will have its own sign to alert you to a shift and it could be different depending on the day/time. The key is to pay attention. Which tool will you try on for size?
