Just breathe!
Deep breathing increases the supply of oxygen to your brain and stimulates a part of the nervous system (parasympathetic nervous system), which promotes a state of calmness. However, in our high stress busy lives or when negative emotions run high, our breaths become short and shallow. And if you’re not taking deep breaths, you could be missing out on one of the simplest ways to drastically improve your health.
But with a little effort, deep breathing can become an easy and unconscious part of our daily life. By making a conscious decision to focus on our breath for a part of each day, we can make it so that we regularly breathe deeper without having to think about it at all.
Benefits of deep breathing:
1) Breathing Releases Tension
Think how your body feels when you are tense, angry, scared or stressed. It constricts. Your muscles get tight and your breathing becomes shallow. Deep breathing can help undo this constriction
2) Relieves Emotional Problems
Breathing will help clear uneasy feelings out of your body and brings your awareness away from the worries in your head helping you cope with life’s stresses and strains.
3) Breathing can help relieve Pain.
What happens to your breathing when you anticipate pain? You probably hold your breath. Yet studies show that breathing into your pain helps to ease it. Deep breathing triggers the release of endorphins, which improves feelings of well-being and provides pain-relief.
4) Breathing Improves Posture
Good breathing techniques over a sustained period of time will encourage good posture. In order to take a good deep breathe we need to be in an upright position with our shoulders back and chest open.
5) Breathing Strengthen the Lungs
As you breathe deeply the lung become healthy and powerful, a good insurance against respiratory problems.
6) Proper Breathing makes the Heart Stronger.
Breathing exercises reduce the workload on the heart in two ways. Firstly, deep breathing leads to more efficient lungs, which means more oxygen in the blood. So, the heart doesn't have to work as hard to deliver oxygen to the tissues. Secondly, deep breathing leads to greater pressure differences inside and outside the lungs, which leads to an increase in the circulation, thus resting the heart a little.
How to deep breathe
Breathing exercises should be deep, slow and rhythmic.
1. Inhale through your nose, expanding your belly, then fill your chest. Counting to 5
2. Hold and Count to 3.
3. Exhale fully from slightly parted mouth, counting to 5.
Spend some time each day consciously breathing slow and rhythmically, and bringing air down deeper into your lungs. It is a simple trick to automatically get energized and focused.
Source;
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/ways-relieve-stress.aspx
Ma. X, Yue. Z-Q, Gong. Z, Zhang. H, Duan. N-Y, Shi. Y, and Li Y. (2017)The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults. Frontiers in Psychology.2017; 8: 874.