There’s something we all do automatically every minute we are alive that vastly effects our health and we don’t ever think of how we do it. It is essential for life itself, the simple involuntary act of breathing. The manner in which we breathe can effect our levels of tension, the amount of oxygen we take in and the amount of carbon dioxide we expel with each breath.
The way that we inhale and exhale effects the amount of stress we experience. A person with an anxiety disorder often breathes rapidly and shallowly leading to further anxiety and can even bring on a panic attack. For stress reduction, breathing exercises help you relax by consciously inhaling slowly and then exhaling slowly.
While doing yoga, the emphasis is on how you breathe to help you relax while doing the yoga postures. Oxygen is vital to life itself, our cells, our hearts , lungs and our brains. Yet, few of us think of how we do this essential life function.
One of the reasons we tend to breathe shallowly and rapidly is because we are a fast paced society and we feel the need to hurry at all times. Shallow, fast breathing is a response to stress, a sedentary lifestyle and our own overly emotional states.
Yoga, with it’s concentration on slow, deep breathing through the nose, not the mouth, breaks this habit of rapid ineffective respiration. The deep breathing done during yoga transfers to an awareness of your breathing patterns throughout the day. When deep breathing is done properly, increased oxygenation will occur and elimination of toxins from the body will be aided.
The deep breathing exercises will bring about a more relaxed state of mind and improve focus and attention span as more oxygen is supplied to the brain. The complete breath of yoga involves the entire respiratory system.
To inhale, take air in through the nose, first push your stomach forward, the ribs sideways and lift the chest and collar bone upward. To exhale, allow the chest and collar bone to relax first, then push in the stomach to expel any air left in the lungs.
The principles of these breathing techniques can be transferred to any workout activity to ensure your body is utilizing oxygen to it’s best advantage.
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm and is filed under Workout Regimens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.