Why is it important to breathe? Well of course we need to stay alive but taking a deep breath has huge benefits, not only does it help to clear your mind, it can make you healthier and reduce stress and anxiety levels.
Many of us don’t actually know how to breathe properly instead of taking deep breaths and using the diaphragm to fill the lungs; we take short breaths and use the weaker surrounding muscles. Breathing correctly creates more oxygen saturation in the cells, which activates a number of different nerves and creates a relaxed and alert state.
Lack of oxygen can make you feel tense and nervous. Taking a lovely deep breath lowers your heart rate, blood pressure and improves circulation, which calms you down and clears your mind.
Deep breathing is beneficial for the lungs in that it forces oxygen to fill the deepest parts of the lungs and breaks up any particles and residue that may be there. Deep breathing helps to improve lung capacity and performance.
Next time you feel anxious bring your thought to your breath, I guarantee you are taking short shallow breaths. These breaths trigger the mind to think it’s in danger which put you into fight or flight but when you change to take deep and slow breaths the brain receives a message that tells the nervous system to calm down.
When you focus on your breath you bring your mind into the present. You also are taking control by telling your brain to concentrate on breathing deeply, when its focus is on the breath, it can’t be thinking about things that can make it nervous.
Allow these few reasons to encourage you to breathe deeply:
The correct way to breathe:
Most of us don’t breathe correctly. We breathe with our chest, which ends up working the wrong muscles. We really need to be breathing into our stomachs using the diaphragm.
Variation 2: The 4-4-4-4
Remember sometimes it takes a while before we see results just keep at it and you will see the difference