You know all that Zen and Taoist stuff about letting go? Well, our primary access to that feeling of peace and tranquility has been inside us all along… in the way we exhale. The surrender sigh is our #1 best healing tool available to us. And it’s free... with no harmful side effects.
The Surrender Sigh teaches us how to let go and let be. The Surrender Sigh reduces pain, releases physical tension, dissipates the effects of asthma and anxiety, and strengthens our Core. It is the parasympathetic nervous system that should return the body to a calm baseline. The surrender sigh stimulates the vagus nerve, increasing relaxation chemicals (GABA levels) in key areas which raise parasympathetic nervous system tone and lowering sympathetic nervous system activity. Therefore the surrender sigh offers the nervous system permission to give the body (muscles/fascia) permission to LET GO. With practice the Surrender Sigh functions as a built-in trigger release out of asthma, anxiety and pain. We learn to manipulate our breathing and therefore nervous system in order to improve our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. As a method to counter the mental, emotional and physical effects of the UCVM, we can employ our mind-body-respiratory connection to help ourselves switch out of the Fight/Flight/Freeze/Faint (sympathetic) nervous system and drop into the Rest/Relax/Renew/Repair (para-sympathetic) nervous system (PSNS). The surrender sigh is at the basis (along with physical therapy, movement re-education, core work, restorative yoga, vocal entrainment and meditation) of TWM's highly successful work with those facing challenges of anxiety, panic attacks, asthma, GERD (acid reflux), COPD and vocal pathology.
The Surrender sigh is our internal key to letting go, and letting be.
