Life is a beautiful journey. How many of us can say this today? Sadly, not many! Most of us don’t find our lives to be beautiful. The main culprit because of which we feel so is- stress. Imagine, if your life gets completely rid of stress, how will you feel about it? Won’t you start finding your life to be beautiful again? You’ll, isn’t it? This implies that your life is as beautiful as it used to be when you were a child, but now the clouds of stress have obscured its beauty. If you learn to keep your stress levels managed, you’ll start experiencing inner happiness and enjoy living. In this blog, we will discuss a simple technique that can help you stay well relaxed and known as belly breathing.
Belly breathing for stress management:
Do you know that as infants and children, we used to practice belly breathing naturally? Yes, that’s true! But, as we grow up, we lose our natural rhythm of breathing and start breathing through the chest, which is not good. This is because we cannot draw air up to our full lung capacity while breathing through the chest. As a result, our body doesn’t get as much oxygen as it needs to function well. But, when we practice belly breathing, we draw maximum breath into the lungs. As our brain receives proper oxygen supply, our nervous system calms down, which helps with stress management. Further, with the calming of the nervous system, our body begins to relax too. As a result, our heart rate goes down, blood pressure gets reduced, and we begin to feel peaceful. If you keep practicing belly breathing, you’ll begin to feel a certain kind of calmness and joy within. This is because when your cells receive proper amounts of oxygen, they rejoice, which in turn triggers positive emotions in your body. If you feel calm, positive, and relaxed throughout the day, your life will eventually begin to feel beautiful again, isn’t it? Now, let’s proceed to discuss some additional benefits of belly breathing too:
Some additional benefits of belly breathing:
- Enhances the supply of oxygen and nutrients throughout the body
- Increases the supply of blood to muscles
- Lowers your heart rate
- Improves the stability of core muscles
So, you can reap many health benefits only by changing your way of breathing.
How to check whether you breathe through the chest or the belly?
You can quickly check whether you breathe through the chest or the belly. Given below are two ways to do so:
- Place your hand on your chest and inhale naturally as you do. If your chest displaces your hand significantly, then you breathe through the chest.
- Stand in front of a mirror and inhale naturally as you do. If your shoulders get raised as you inhale, you are breathing through the chest.
Learning to breathe through the belly:
Learning to breathe through the belly is relatively easy. But, to make it your primary way of automatic breathing, you’ll have to practice belly breathing two to three times every day. As you do so, you’ll naturally develop the habit of breathing through the belly. Further, you can also practice this breathing technique wherever you feel overwhelmed by stress. When you are stressed, your breathing naturally becomes shallow. Under such circumstances, you can reduce your stress levels by practicing deep conscious breathing through the belly. Now, here is how to practice belly breathing:
- Sit comfortably and relax
- Gently place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly.
- Take a deep breath in, and the hand on your chest should not move much. Further, the hand on your belly should move up to a considerable distance as your belly inflates.
- Then, exhale slowly, and as you exhale, your belly should deflate
- Repeat the same process ten to fifteen times
- Notice how you feel. Aren’t you feeling calmer?
- to take it easy and don’t try to force your belly to inflate and deflate. If you relax and don’t force much, it will start happening naturally.
Further, you can also learn to practice deep breathing with the help of Youtube videos. But, to make it your natural way of breathing, you’ll have to practice daily. As you keep practicing regularly, you’ll slowly practice belly breathing even while walking and performing different tasks, which you do daily. This will help you keep stress at bay, induce a calm mental state and benefit your overall well-being.
Wrapping up
Belly breathing can help you induce a calm mental state during stressful times. If it becomes your natural way of breathing, you’ll enjoy greater peace and inner joy. So, you should try to practice belly breathing every day to make it your natural way of breathing again slowly. Now, wishing you All the Best and stay blessed!
About The Author:
Jessica Robinson loves to write interesting and knowledgeable blogs regarding business management, education and life to satiate the curiosity of her lovely readers. Currently, she is serving as a content manager at the ‘Speaking Polymath’. Every piece of content that she writes demonstrates her immense love and ion for her profession.
Linkedin: https://www.ltakeitpersonelly.casinowinning.net/in/jessica-robinson10/
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