Just breathe…
Correct breathing is such an important role, as it affects virtually every part of your body. We rarely think twice about it during our busy days. During those times of stress or anxiety, your sympathetic nervous system triggers the body’s fight or flight response. Your heart rate increases, your breathing becomes more rapid and your body is revved. To counteract these symptoms, deep breathing can calm down your stress receptors by stimulating the main nerve in the parasympathetic nervous system known as the vagus nerve. Every breath you take truly does affect the mind, body and nervous system; this makes deep breathing an important tool in improving your health.
Are you breathing correctly? Observe your breathing throughout the day, especially during those times of stress and anxiety.
To support our body, breathing properly:
Breathing improperly can produce the following symptoms in our body:
Improper breathing can include shallow breathing, chest breathing and rapid breathing. Not breathing properly can bring on a cascade of symptoms in the body’s circulatory, endocrine, immune and central nervous systems.
Let’s find out if you’re breathing properly…
Get into a comfortable position lying flat on your back. Place one hand on your belly and relax the abdominal muscles just below your rib cage. Continue breathing as you would normally. Be mindful if your abdomen rises as you are breathing or does your chest rise? It may be helpful to close your eyes and take several breaths.
If your abdomen rises, which means your chest stays low, you’re breathing properly. If your chest rises and your abdomen barely rises, you are not breathing properly.
Your diaphragm is a breathing muscle directly below the heart and shaped like a parachute. When you breathe in, in an ideal environment, your belly rises. When the belly rises, the diaphragm contracts and moves down which creates space for the lungs to fill. When you exhale, the belly contracts and the diaphragm goes back up – that’s relaxing – that’s letting go of what you don’t need.
When we breathe diaphragmatically, it communicates to every cell in our body, via our nervous system, that everything is okay and that we’re safe.
Deep belly breath exercise for proper breathing…
Lie flat on your back or upright in a chair. Place a hand on your belly. Keep the tip of your tongue behind your upper front teeth, where the tissue and teeth meet, throughout the exercise. Take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale completely through your mouth while making a deep sigh sound from the mouth. Then, breathe in deeply for a count of 4 as you picture your belly fill with air and your abdomen and hand rises. Hold the breath for a count of 7. Exhale slowly for a count of 8 as you feel the air leave your belly and hand go down. Repeat 3-4 times. Practice this breathing every day. After the first month, you can increase to 7-8 breaths to strengthen effectiveness. Use this breathing during times of stress, anxiety, emotional upset, food cravings and difficulty falling asleep. Try to do deep belly breathing outdoors and in oxygen rich environments.
This soft belly breathing relaxes the nervous system and helps the body get centered and balanced. From that place, health is optimal.
