Breathing to relax and reduce stress

Posted Wednesday 10 June 2015 om 11:03 am.

We all breathe, breathing keep us alive. But the everyday stress, running from one place to other, fixing, arranging, worrying and multitasking makes us often breathe shallow, fast and not regular .

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” ― Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation

We get tired, stressed, tense, dizzy, depressed. Our breath become shorter and some of us experience heart palpitations, chest and muscle pain, headache and other physical complaints. You can help your body and mind by starting to be aware how to breathe.

Regular relaxation and the breathing technique stops the production of stress hormones in the body. Abdominal breathing for 10 to 30 minutes a day can help us reduce anxiety and stress.

I will give you some benefits of good breathing: 

  1. Breathing increase the supply of oxygen to your brain.
  2. It stimulates the nervous system.
  3. It detoxify your body.
  4. It relieves pain (release endorphins which are the body "natural pain killer").
  5. It helps the body to keep a good posture.
  6. It gives you energy (higher oxygen content of the blood, helps cleaning the body of toxins and gives better circulation,better sleep,helps body work more efficiently).
  7. It helps regulate weight (when stressed body is burning glycogen instead of fat, breathing help with relaxation and encourage the body to burn fat).
  8. Breathing gives us connection between body and mind,focusing on breathing we stop focus on worries and we quiet our mind.
  9. It helps calming our heartbeat and decreases blood pressure.

If you want to discover more than take a look at some more benefits

How you can do it:

  1. Take a few minutes for yourself. Go lay on your back.
  2. Close your eyes, place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly. 
  3. Try to relax your body and start to take a deep slow breath through your nose. You should feel your hand on your belly slowly rising. 
  4. Keep your breath in for a few seconds and than slowly, gently breath out through your nose.
  5. Repeat this a few times.

Enjoy the silence, follow your breathing.

The exercises are very simply. Keep coming back to your breath during the day. Just take a moment. This will give your mind a steadiness and your breath a gracefulness...There's so much to let go of, isn't there? Your nostalgia and your regrets. Your fantasies and your fears. What you think you want instead of what is happening right now. Breathe."  Rodney Yee

Don't get frustrated when breathing doesn't go as deep into your belly as it should. Give it time ...don't be hard on yourself …just try, enjoy and …. breathe

Hugs Karolina