Conscious respiration as a supplementary in treating PTSD: what neuroscience says?

Abstract

Neuroscientists find major challenges in understanding the connection between the autonomic nervous system and homeostasis to emotional changes which is essential in treating various psychoneurosis cases. Whenever human encounter stressors, the signals from the hypothalamus take over the respiratory signals and increase the respiratory rate to facilitate the fight or flight response. This mechanism confirms the vital relationship between the respiration and emotion resulting in handling acute stress of day to day life. This current study emphasizes that reversing the same biological mechanism of fight or flight responses by conscious control of breathing (biofeedback) may help in balancing emotional imbalance and can be a supplementary treatment to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In simple terms the harmful effect of PTSD on psychophysiology of an individual can be successfully counteracted with the conscious respiration will be advocated in detail with neuro-scientific evidences.