It may be hard to believe that there exists a free method for reducing stress, increasing your energy levels and helping to become a healthier person. Health experts recommend that diet and nutrition are excellent, simple ways to reduce stress. But there is another method that can help reduce stress and lead to a healthier lifestyle as well. It is something often taken for granted, something everyone does on a daily basis without even thinking – breathing.
Learning easy breathing techniques or simply becoming aware of breathing and breathing techniques can help to reduce stress, and other things in everyday life. It’s a powerful tool for the mind and body.
Studies have shown that learning how to breathe correctly can help to improve both mental and physical well being. While it's not likely to use proper breathing techniques to heal all diseases and illnesses, it can be used to gain control over anxiety and stress that lead to other health concerns. Proper breathing soothes the nervous system, clears the mind, and improves concentration, focus and the ability to handle stressful situations.
Breathing Affects Everything
Breathing is important for two reasons. Of course everyone needs to breathe in order to survive because it supplies the body with much needed oxygen. Proper breathing provides oxygen to help the body function correctly. In addition, proper breathing allows the body to metabolize food properly. The oxygen nourishes muscles and organs, and can dispel the body of fatigue and anxiety. It can also help with reducing cravings, combating depression and helping to deal with emotional situations such as grief and sadness.
The second reason is that breathing can help free the body of toxins and waste products. A lack of oxygen can result in sluggishness, fatigue, a loss of mental balance, concentration, memory and control of emotions.
And while improper breathing affects mental state, the mental state also affects breathing. But how does one know if they are breathing correctly? It’s an automatic reaction, meaning it happens without even thinking.
However, most people breathe in a very shallow manner, generally caused by stress and fatigue. When faced with stressful situations most people hold their breath without even realizing they are doing it. Shallow breathing, such as apnea, a temporary stopping of breathing, can even contribute to suffocation a little bit over time. Quick shallow breathing also results in oxygen starvation, which leads to reduced vitality, premature ageing, a poor immune system and other health factors.
For a healthier lifestyle, most people need to learn to breathe more slowly and deeply. If time is set aside to learn techniques for regular, everyday breathing and techniques for relaxing, deep breathing, it can help reduce stress and achieve a more balanced life.
By learning simple breathing exercises and becoming more aware of breathing patterns and the act of breathing, more control over life, mind and body will be gained. However, in order to adapt everyday breathing, it's necessary to spend some time consciously practicing deep breathing techniques. Learn to control the breath throughout the day.
Breathing Exercises are Simple to Try
However, there is a difference between regular, everyday breathing and deep breathing. Regular breathing comes from the lungs, using the chest muscles. Normal breathing provides oxygen to the heart which in turn makes sure the oxygen gets to the cells in the body.
In contrast, deep breathing involves learning to slow the breathing process down and not use the chest muscles but instead use the diaphragm, the muscle located beneath the lungs. A simple exercise to do practically anywhere is to sit up straight, relaxing the shoulders and taking a long, deep breath inhaled through the nose. When done properly, the chest will rise and the diaphragm can be felt moving upwards.
To exhale, release the breathe slowly through the mouth counting to five. Remember to fully exhale because it's not possible to inhale fully without emptying the lungs completely. Try to take time to complete this exercise five to 10 times. When there is more awareness of the breath, it becomes easier to breathe deeply without paying so much attention to the action.
Deep breathing can be helpful by allowing the body to take in more oxygen in one breath and release more carbon dioxide, a toxin. If done properly deep breathing can lead to many health benefits, including lower blood pressure, slowing of the heart rate and relaxation of the muscles. It can also calm the mind and help in the reduction of insomnia.
In addition to learning deep breathing techniques, there are also special breathing exercises which can be learned while participating in aerobics, meditation or yoga. Many Eastern cultures have long recognized the importance of breathing to cultivate the relationship between the mind and body.
One of those techniques is yoga breathing or pranayama. In this breathing technique, students learn to take a conscious control of his/her breath and create a rhythm of slow, deep breathing. In yoga the breath, body and mind are very closely linked. Therefore a change in one can immediately affect the other two.
It’s believed that by developing control of breathing with pranayama exercises, one can bring about beneficial changes to both the body and mind. Pranayama cleanses and strengthens the physical body while benefiting the mind and reducing stress. Though pranayama exercises are not exactly deep breathing, they do activate the lungs, neck, chest and abdomen so that deep breathing can become more natural.
If all of this seems too much and it seems impossible to have time to practice deep breathing techniques, think again. Deep breathing is something anyone can do just about any time of the day and anywhere. It can be practiced while washing the dishes or folding the laundry. It can also be practiced while sitting at the computer or even taking a walk with your dog. Breathing is something everyone must do to survive and by taking a few moments a day to really pay attention to it, it creates a momentum toward a healthier and happier lifestyle.
Cheryl Heppard - Cheryl Heppard lives Michigan where she is a board certified holistic health counselor and also a business and marketing coach for health ...
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