The Benefits of
Deep Breathing

The benefits of deep breathing are many. Learning deep breathing techniques is simple, safe and doesn't cost any money. Yet most of us go throughout our entire day with routine, shallow breathing. Oxygen is the most important nutrient to the body, and we can only live minutes without it.

The muscle that helps us to breathe is called the diaphragm. It is a dome shaped cavity located near the lungs and separates the chest cavity from the abdomen. When we breathe the diaphragm expands and then contracts when we exhale. If our diaphragm is impaired in any way it can compromise our breathing.

When you find yourself feeling stressed learn to identify your breathing pattern. You will most likely find that when you are in a highly anxious or agitated state, your breathing will be rapid and shallow. Using this deep breathing technique you will find that you can almost instantly reduce your stress. To effectively experience the benefits of deep breathing you will need to learn how to do abdominal breathing. Shallow breathing is acidic to the body and interestingly, most chronically ill people are shallow breathers.

To properly do abdominal breathing, you actually need to feel your abdomen (not chest) extend outward when you are inhaling. To get the feeling of this, you may want to lie down and see or feel if you are correctly extending your abdomen.

Take in a deep breath through your nose and while you're inhaling, say to yourself I am.......... (as you are inhaling)

After you have taken in as much air as possible, exhale slowly through your mouth and say to yourself "....... relaxed (while you're exhaling).

You are not only changing your respiration but you are telling your subconcious mind that you are relaxed. It really does work if you do it correctly.

Repeat this technique until you start to feel more relaxed, usually within five minutes.

Since we know that stress negatively impacts our health and leads to disease, it's wise to make a deep breathing exercise a daily activity.

Find a time during the day when you can get some quiet time to do your deep breathing exercise.

Again you will begin by breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.

As you inhale begin counting your head,

In 2-3-4 as you inhale and Out 2-3-4 as you exhale.

As time goes on try to increase your counting up to 10 or more and try to do this for five minutes a day.

It's important to remember when you exhale, to try to force as much air out of your lungs as possible before you inhale again. This will leave more room in your lungs for the inhaling part of the exercise.

As with anything else, it will take some practice. Try to do your deep breathing exercise everyday and before long you'll find that it will just become automatic.

If you're having a particularly stressful day, you can enjoy the

stress reducing benefits of deep breathing anytime and anywhere and instantly feel more relaxed.

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