Breathe Your Stress Away
Posted on December 21, 2007
Filed Under Self Improvement |
Stress increases heart and breathing rates as well as increases the bodies demand for oxygen. Rapid shallow breathing decreases the efficiency of oxygen delivery to your brain, muscles and the rest of your body and inhibits the clearing of carbon dioxide (a metabolic waste product) from the body. Lack of oxygen causes increased anxiety, poor mental concentration and inhibits growth and repair of tissue. Learning to control breathing is one of the best ways to control stress and to assure your cells are receiving adequate amounts of life giving oxygen while ridding the body of toxic waste products. Controlled breathing is in itself an easy and time efficient relaxation and is the prerequisite to other effective relaxation techniques such as meditation, guided imagery, and progressive relaxation to name just a few.
Effective breathing is initiated by the diaphragm muscle and ensures maximum oxygen uptake. It is imperative to become proficient at diaphragmatic breathing (also known as abdominal breathing.) It may be easiest to first practice abdominal breathing when you’re lying down. With practice, you should be able to do abdominal breathing anywhere and anytime.
Abdominal / Diaphragmatic Breathing
1. Put one hand on your abdomen, at the naval, and put your other hand on the center of your chest.
2. Inhale deeply through your mouth, pay close attention to your abdomen. Proper diaphragmatic breathing will cause your abdomen to rise as your lungs fill with air. The hand on your chest should move only slightly. If your chest rises more than your abdomen you are breathing from your chest.
3. Repeat, but this time, breathe in through your nose. Breathing through your nose is better than breathing through your mouth because your nose: warms filters and moistens the air and allows more efficient delivery of air to the lungs.
Exercise 1:
Push the air out – The best way to maximize respiration is by exhaling more air not inhaling it. Full exhalation allows you to push the air out from the bottom of your lungs and create a vacuum that will help ensure abdominal breath when you inhale. For most people inhalation lasts much longer than exhalation. Your goal should be to have your exhalations last at least as long as your inhalation. To do this you will need to exercise your intercostal muscles, the accessory breathing muscles found between your ribs. The following exercise will strengthen the intercostals and allow you to eventually lengthen your exhalations unconsciously.
1. Start with two or three nice relaxed abdominal breathes
2. At the end of the second or third breath try to push or squeeze more air.
3. Try to make exhalation last twice as long as inhalation.
Believe it your not, you can significantly affect your ability to handle stress by simply changing the rhythm and depth of your breaths. The following exercises are easy to do and can practiced almost anywhere and in any stressful situation.
Exercise 2- Breath slower, deeper, and more relaxed:
1. Start with a series of nice relaxed abdominal breaths.
2. Pay close attention to the rate and depth of your breathing.
3. Consciously try to slow down the rate of you breathing and focus on taking deep, quiet and relaxed breaths.
4. Try to make you exhalations last at least as long as you inhalations.
Exercise 3 - Count your breaths:
1. Start with a one or two of nice relaxed abdominal breaths.
2. At the start of the second or third breath count to yourself “10”
3. At the start of the following breath count “9”
4. Repeat counting down with each breath counting down until you reach zero.
When you reach zero chances are you will be feeling noticeably more relaxed. If not simply take a few more easy breaths and start over.
Bill is a licensed Registered Nurse as well as a National Strength and Conditioning Association – Certified Personal Trainer. In the summer of 2001 after spending years practicing in the specialty of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, Bill founded Precision Fitness-Personal Fitness, Inc. Bill has dedicated his career to helping individuals identify and overcome obstacles that stand in the way of optimal wellness and peak physical performance. As a recognized expert in the field of corrective exercise and performance, Bill has contributed to numerous publications and industry websites and has co-authored two books on fitness and performance. Since opening Precision Fitness, Bill has enjoyed helping clients that range from the professional athlete (NFL, PGA, NASCAR, PBA) to the student athlete and from fortune 500 CEOs to stay at home moms.
Bill can be reached via e-mail at bill@ncprecisionfitness.com
Tags: Breath work, meditation, Precision Fitness, relaxation, stress, stress-management, wellness
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