In my previous articles I talked a lot about deep breathing exercise and how it helps you to overcome so many problems related to brain, mental health and psychology. It is an exercise considered to be very important in psychological treatment. Psychiatrist and psychologist advice to do deep breathing in almost every treatment strategy related to any psychological problem. In my previous articles I have mentioned that how deep breathing helps a person to control overthinking, mange stress and also helps you create happiness in your life.
Today I am going to discuss about the importance of deep breathing, how to do it in a proper way and how to adapt the habit of deep breathing. To master the deep breathing habit, it is important for you to do it in a right way otherwise people sometimes feel dizzy and a little headache after this exercise. A person has to practice how to do deep breathing to get better results.
What Is Deep Breathing?
Breathing in and breathing out is something that we do all day without putting so much thoughts on it because it is a natural process. Our lives relay on the process of breathing. It is very essential for us to notice the importance of breathing process. When we breathe the air circulate throughout our whole body and provide oxygen to our blood. So this is very important for us to do breathing properly.
It is slightly different from our regular breathing process. In deep breathing you inhale the air more deeply and kept it in your body for longer duration. So it is common sense logic that if you keep the air for long time in your body, it will provide more oxygen to your body and automatically helps your body to work better. Extra oxygen in our body does wonders for both our brain and body. It can open, clean, and soothes different parts in our body and improve their functioning.
So ask yourself a question that how much time you deep breathing in a day. May be some people do deep breathing a few time during a day but no one do it frequently. But most people don’t know that this simple exercise of deep breathing can actually make drastic improvement in a person’s life style. No, I am not exaggerating the words when I said that. It is one of the most convenient, extremely easy and a natural combat tool against different type of anxiety, stress, to relief pain, help in high blood pressure and even help in proper digestion. It can help a person to relax both his/her mind as well as body and also help to get a better sleep.
Benefits of Deep Breathing
Breathing in a proper way is very important for a person’s overall well-being and quality of life. The benefits of this exercise is uncountable but still I’m listed some of the most important benefits down below.
Stress and Anxiety Killer
Deep breathing is very important to get a control on your everyday anxiety and stressed situations. When a person get stressed or feel anxiety his/her brain released a stress hormone called cortisol. When a person does deep breathing exercise during this situation their heart rate get slow, more oxygen entered to their blood streams and a communication happened with brain to calm down. In the meantime it also helps to raise the level of endorphins, that is a pleasure hormone and help you to stay calm and make you happy. Due to endorphins a person gets the feeling of well-being
Natural Painkiller
As I already mentioned above that during deep breathing the level of endorphins increase in your brain. Except for giving you pleasure and happy feeling, endorphins also work as a natural painkiller that is created by your own body. So deep breathing also work as a pain released exercise.
Deep Breathing and Blood Flow
When a person does deep breathing exercise his/her diaphragm move upward and downward that helps to relax the body muscles. When your body muscles relaxed it helps blood vessels to dilate and that resulting into a better circulation and blood flow throughout the body. During this exercise a person’s heartbeat and heart rate get slower and regulated, that helps to moderate the blood pressure in your body. Better blood flow in our body increased the level of oxygen and better functioning of our body. That result into improved stamina and enhanced energy level.
Help in Detoxification
As we all know that during breathing we release carbon dioxide, that is a natural toxic element and need to be fully released from our body. Numerically 70% of our body’s toxins are released through our breathing and the rest 30% is released by bowels and bladder. So, when we are compromising in our breathing, these toxins don’t completely release from our body. In order to completely release those toxins our other body parts have to work extra and hard that makes our body weak and vulnerable to illnesses. But when we do this exercise on a daily basis it makes our body healthy and strong.
Strengthen Immune System
As deep breathing detoxify our body and gives our blood more oxygen. When fresh and extra amount of oxygen enters in our body through deep breathing and our blood fully oxygenated. It also improves the functioning of other vital organs in our body such as immune system. When your blood has more oxygen, it helps to protect our body from infection-causing germs and make our immune system stronger. Deep breathing helps to clean the blood and also help in better absorption of essential nutrients and vitamins into our body. They work as shield in our body against illness, make it harder for illness to stay in your body and make sure to recover you faster from illnesses.
Help in Digestion
Deep breathing provide extra amount of oxygen to our blood, purify it and that also make other systems to work better such as our digestion. It increases oxygen in blood throughout the body which makes our intestinal action to work effectively and in the result our overall digestion improved. Moreover, when a person mentally disturbed his/her digestive system also become upset and work poorly. When deep breathing helps to make a person mentally calm and relax, it resulting into enhancement of optimal digestion of a person.
Deep Breathing and Inflammation
Researches claim that the chronic diseases such as cancer attacks to a body more easily those are acidic in nature. So deep breathing helps to detoxify our body and reduce the acidic level in our body and make our body alkaline in nature. It is also proven that different mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety make a person more vulnerable to diseases like cancer. This is because anxiety increased the acidic level of our body. Therefore, when deep breathing helps us to control our anxiety it automatically moderate the acidic level of body and protect us from cancer like illnesses.
Improve Quality of Sleep
During deep breathing your body as well as mind get relaxed and your body get cleaned from toxicities. That helps to improve the quality of sleep and help you to get sleep easily and effectively. Individuals suffering from insomnia and sleep related problems always advised by psychologist to practice deep breathing before going to bed. Medicines will never help you alone to overcome sleep related problems so you should make it your habit to do deep breathing exercise before going to bed. Normal individuals should also make it habit to do deep breathing to improve your sleep quality.
Steps of Deep Breathing Exercise
Deep breathing exercise is a step by step process that is define below
Step 1
Find a quiet, calm, comfortable place with less bright light and sit or lie down as you feel comfortable. Stretch your shoulders backward, in a straight position to relax them.
Step 2
Close your eyes. It is also up to an individual that if he/she want to close their eyes or not. But while closing your eyes you feel more relaxed and calm. Try to empty your head from thoughts and think about things that make you happy and relax such as flowers and your favorite pet. If you are not comfortable with eyes close than keep them open and just focus on your breath.
Step 3
Inhale a deep breath for about two seconds. Make sure to fill your stomach with air as well along with your lungs.
Step 4
Hold the breath as long as you can inside your body. At first if you don’t hold on your breath for long time than its okay. There is no need to be worry because after sometime when you practice deep breathing, you can easily hold on your breath for long time. The maximum time for holding your breath should be 5 seconds and never hold your breath for longer than 7 seconds.
Step 5
Exhale the air through your mouth slowly. While exhale your all focus should be on your breathing. Imagine the feeling like all your worries and problems are removed from your body and vanished into air. Try to make O shape with your mouth during exhaling.
Repeat this inhale exhale process for about 10 to 20 minutes.
Tips for Better Results
- The main reason of deep breathing is to calm down your body and mind so, do it gently and slowly.
- Deep breathing is different from regular breathing and your body is not habitual with this. So, it is like a new skill and requires practice and time.
- Don’t go hard on you and start from baby steps. At first start from 5 minutes a day and gradually increase the time when you get comfortable with it.
- Do your deep breathing exercise at the same place and at the same time daily. It will help your mind and body to be habitual with the time and place. After sometime, your body automatically starts feeling good at particular time and place.
- Place one hand on your chest and other on your stomach to make sure that you inhale enough amount of air and exhale it properly. It will also help you to concentrate on your breathing.
