Relax and Breathe

We breathe all the time, so why practice breathing? Great question, because breathing in a focused way is powerful – helping you calm down your nervous system activity. In other words, belly breathing is calming, so relax and breathe with the exercise that follows.

This fabulous exercise helps to reduce your stress chemicals running around in your blood stream, as it reduces cortisol levels.

Does this sound like you may need this?

Think about some of the oldest healing arts, like meditation, yoga and Tai chi. They all use the breath as a focus point to bring you back to your body but to also remind you that we are part of a bigger picture. We need the air to survive so breathing is vital for life.

What happens when you are feeling stressed and upset? Your heart rate goes up, the number of breaths you take increases and your breathing may become more shallow.

The opposite is true when we want to relax our mind and body and get ourselves in a healing/parasympathetic state. This state is opposite to the flight/fright state that is also known as the sympathetic state.

How to belly breath?

  • sit comfortably in an upright position
  • Relax the shoulders and if it helps close your eyes
  • Rest your hands on your belly
  • As you breathe in push your belly out as air is filling up your lungs and pushing your diaphragm down. Do not lift shoulders. Breathe in for 5 seconds
  • Hold your breath for 5 seconds
  • Let the breath our for 5 seconds

Aim to do this twice a day or when feeling overwhelmed. When you get better with the belly breathing, then you can increase the holding breathe and the breathe out.

Give it a go and see how you feel.

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Categories 31 Day Posture Challenge
 
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