The way you breathe affects everything in your life

I like a good film! Star Wars is one of my favourites so you can probably guess my age from that!

Have you noticed that when you are watching your favourite good guy battling it out with the arch villain, that your body changes. Your heart rate is elevated and your breathing has become shorter and shallower.

This is because the film has activated the "fight or flight" part of your nervous system. The example chosen here is a pleasurable one but many things can activate your fight or flight response and they are not all fun! I could be mortal danger, stress, caffeine or anything that makes your body think that there is a risk.

Our nervous systems have two main states - fight or flight and relaxation. They have evolved over a long time - many thousands of years. Unfortunately, modern life tends to pressurise people into the fight or flight part and so many people never really relax properly which is bad for your health.

Breath is the major link between your body and mind. Long slow breathing will make you more relaxed but short sharp breathing gets you ready to fight or run.

There are many people who have breathing problems and find it hard to take long slow breaths. This will also activate the fight or flight response and give that person a higher base line of stress in their lives and is detrimental to health.

I have been very fortunate to have been the Tai Chi coach for a group of people in Spalding called "Happy Breathers". We give these people with COPD weekly sessions where we use a combination of Tai Chi, standard exercises, stretching and meditation to make them fitter and have the opportunity to make friends.

It really does work! There is no "quick fix". This group has committed to a regular programme of exercise and relaxation and can see the benefits. All of the regular attendees with COPD have improved their health by attending the groups.

You may at this point think that if you do not have COPD, then there is nothing to worry about. There are many other health issues that are connected to the fight or flight response. These can be very diverse - some examples are fatigue, inflammation, stress, aches and pains and many others.

I used the example of the COPD group because it is a concrete real thing that is going on now and it is a good example of how using Tai Chi, fitness training and meditation on a regular basis can make all sorts of unexpected improvements to your health.

Perhaps people with COPD have a lot of motivation to improve. They start gently and gradually get stronger and feel better for it. If you have the motivation and persistence then seemingly unsolvable health problems can sometimes be improved - or avoided in the first place.