Breathing. Sounds pretty simple, a no brainer. But did you know that a lot of people don’t breathe correctly? To test your breathing take a look at a child around 2 and see how they are breathing. You’ll notice that their stomach expands as they breath in and that the movement goes from the stomach up to the lungs. Now look at how you breathe. Does your breath go down to your stomach or does it finish at your chest?
Most people only breathe in the chest area and for some it’s only the upper chest area. Our ability to take in oxygen is then greatly reduced as there are whole organs that are missing out on the process. When we don’t take in enough oxygen we don’t have as much energy and when we do an activity that is energetic, it’s easy to get puffed and worn out or dizzy for the increase in oxygen supply that our bodies are not used to.
So what happens in between childhood and adulthood where our breathing changes so dramatically?
It’s our defense systems that change our breathing. As the body contracts and holds on to our pain, our negativity and our distorted beliefs it has to prevent energy flow in order to stop everything from coming up. Then it just becomes habit and often people don’t even realize that their breathing is so limited and that sometimes they even hold their breath when they are nervous or worried about something.
Breathing in the upper chest area can cause neurotic thinking and definitely makes anything you are worrying or anxious about ten times worse. Take a minute and limit your breathing to your upper chest and see how you feel. I beet even after 10 seconds it doesn’t feel that great, panic starts to set in and it does not feel relaxing!
In order to relax the body (and the mind) we need to increase the oxygen flow and increase the energy moving around in our bodies and we do this by breathing. Start each day with 5-10 deep breaths and then each time you are feeling stressed, panicked, angry or worried, stop and take 5-10 more deep breaths and notice the difference such a small thing has made.
Breathing allows you to be more connected with how you are feeling and also when you reach that peaceful state of calm you can come up with solutions that work or gain clarity on issues that you cannot do when you are stressed. When the body is stressed the heart races, breathing escalates, blood vessels dilate and the body is in fight or flight mode. This is why after the stress has gone we often still feel we have been hit by a truck. This is the damage stress does as when the body is in fight or flight mode it releases the hormones adrenalin and cortisol which would be burnt up in the body if we were in fact in a physical fight or were running for our life. If however we are just sitting at our desk or in the car it’s all just sitting in your system with nowhere to go.
Sometimes you can’t eliminate all the stress in your life, and if you have children you especially know what I mean! But lots of us have high powered jobs and deadlines to face that all involve elements of stress. But if you can reduce the effect of stress in your body and also learn to handle stress in a better way by implementing techniques like breathing, then you can start having less incidents of major stress and more peace and who doesn’t want that.
