Now let's take a look at conscious breathing for digestive health. And I want to look at three different studies. The first study was done by the American Journal of gastroenterology. It was a small study looking at folks who had GERD or gastro esophageal reflux disease or acid reflux. In this study, they separated the group into two half of the group they had performed diaphragmatic breathing, or what we know is belly breathing, and the others did not. The group that performed the diaphragmatic breathing routinely found a decrease in the symptoms of acid reflux, and over time, they were taking less acid suppressing medication.

A second study was done by Dr. Sarah Kissinger, who's the Director of digestive health at Loyola University's medical school, and she was looking at breathing and its effect on it. Question and stress. Specifically, they were looking at the fight or flight mechanism which is activated by stress. When this system is activated, we see blood being pulled from our gut. It's usually an automatic response, and it happens for a short duration of time. But with our hectic lives, the fight or flight mechanism has been being stimulated quite a bit.

And so what happens is we see an increase in the incidence of inflammation, we see a weakened immune system and more digestive disorders. So what Dr. Sarah Kissinger did in this study is she broke the group into half and half the group she had do diaphragmatic breathing, and the other half did not engage in any breathing techniques. And what they found is the good news is that through doing diaphragmatic breathing, they were able to shut off or turn off the fight or flight mechanism in response to stress. The third study, I want to look at Through the International Foundation of gastroenterology. And basically what they found is using relaxation techniques such as meditation and breath work, they were able to manage digestive disorders, specifically what we referred to as functional dysphasia, which is difficulty swallowing, or Globus, which is a tightening or a lump in your throat, belching, constipation or diarrhea, even irritable bowel syndrome or IBS.

They found that these diseases the pain and the irritability were managed by doing relaxation techniques. And specifically in terms of breath work. They use diaphragmatic breathing, alternate nostril breathing and the 478 breath