CHANGING YOUR LIFESTYLE: BREATHING

Posted by admin on April 22, 2009 under General health | Be the First to Comment

Breathing is an activity to which most of us give little thought yet we are aware that when we are tense we breathe shallowly or sigh a lot. When a person is relaxed and happy his or her breathing is slow and rhythmic and healthy breathing involves the whole ribcage. When we are tense breathing becomes rigid, shallow and only the uppermost part of the chest will move. Many relaxation and meditation programmes involve breathing manoeuvres, mainly because thousands of years of experience have shown that breathing control can alter a person’s state of mind and vice versa. Learning to breathe properly can be a valuable part of stress control. This works because stretch receptors in the lungs feed back information to the brain and alter central functioning in a way which tunes up the rest of the brain. Teachers of the Alexander Technique claim to be able to abolish all kinds of physical and even some emotional complaints solely by altering body postures and improving breathing techniques.

Breathing is one vital function of the body over which we have conscious control, and because it can be so easily mastered to our benefit it is worth learning how to breathe more healthily. The main purpose of learning breathing exercises is to be able to use them in stressful and painful situations. You can also use them to help you to get to sleep. If you doubt that breathing exercises can be of help in tense and stressful situations just watch tense people and see how they sigh a lot, catch their breath, gasp or show laboured breathing. Panicky people over-breathe and can get tingling in their fingers and toes as a result.

There are many good breathing exercises and the reader should refer to a specialized book on the subject, but here I will just outline one-three-stage breathing.

• Start by lying down on your back with your lower back touching the floor. You may have to bend your knees to achieve this.

• Rest the palms of your hands on the upper part of your chest and breathe gently. Breathe out slowly and completely and repeat this cycle ten times. Your hands are simply registering the movement of this part of your chest.

• Place your hands on your lower ribs on either side of the breast bone so that the fingertips almost touch when you breathe out. Watch and feel your fingertips being parted-one hand from the other-as you breathe in. Breathe in and try to separate your finger-tips as far as you can. Breathe out and try to get them to touch in the midline. Close your eyes, relax and repeat this ten times.

• Place your hands on your tummy at the level of the navel. Repeat the slow breathing and see if you can make your tummy expand as you breathe in. This shows that the diaphragm is working fully. Your fingertips will move back and forth as they did on your chest but probably more so. Repeat this ten times.

• With your hands on the floor breathe out completely and then expand your abdomen with your breathing. Then fill your lower chest-then your upper chest until all three areas seem ‘full of air’ (of course there is really no air in your tummy but it expands because of the diaphragm pushing down from the expanded lungs). Carry on until your whole respiratory system is full of air. This should take about 10-15 seconds.

• Reverse the process to exhale. Expel air first from your upper chest, then your lower chest, then your abdomen. Expel the last of the air by contracting your abdominal muscles slightly. Pause for 2-3 seconds and then restart the whole cycle.

• Repeat the cycle ten times.

The benefits of learning to breathe more deeply and fully include:

• You will feel more relaxed while you do the exercises

• You will be able to call on the: at times of stress and tension

• You can use them to get to sleep

• You can use them as a prelude t meditation or other relaxation exercises.

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