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Breathing exercises can have huge long-term benefits for your health -- physical, mental, emotional, and energetic. They also make you feel better right now by relieving the misery of anxiety and stress.
This breathing exercise will allow you to turn off your stress response and relax deeply:
Breathing like this is called diaphragmatic breathing, abdominal breathing or belly breathing. It tells the body’s stress mechanisms that the danger is over and it’s OK to relax. (It has a number of other wonderful health benefits, too!)
If it helps, you can count your breaths to help you keep the rhythm even. (As in "In 1-2-3-4-5, Out 1-2-3-4-5.)
Once again, if it helps, you can count to help you keep the proportion about right. (As in, "In 1-2-3-4-5-6, Out 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12, or whatever is comfortable for you. Keeping it comfortable is crucial -- longer isn't better if it makes you uncomfortable. Do this for at least a couple of minutes.
Caution
Because breathing exercises can make you light-headed, do not do them while driving or operating heavy machinery (or standing on the edge of a cliff).
"Most of us hold our breath often or breathe shallow, anxious breaths. Deep, slow, full breaths have a profound affect on resetting the stress response, because the relaxation nerve (or vagus nerve) goes through your diaphragm and is activated with every deep breath."
Breathwork, by helping us to relax, helps our subtle energies to shift more easily to a state of healthy balance and flow.
Another reason belly breathing works on an energetic level is that it balances and soothes the 3rd chakra, which is located just below the diaphragm.
It also helps us ground to our own bodies, connect the upper and lower chakras, and unify the subtle and physical aspects of our being.
Prolonged stress can make you vulnerable to illness. It also accelerates aging. Over time the stress response can contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcers, autoimmune diseases, cancer, anxiety, insomnia and depression.
Fortunately, as we have seen, you can use breathing for relaxation techniques to relax and relieve stress any time, anywhere. And there are other simple methods for relaxation as well.
If you’d like to learn how to meditate to relax, click here.
Learn how to do Progressive Muscle Relaxation here.
Learn how to use breath as a powerful tool for energy healing.
Return from Breathing Exercises to Relaxation Techniques main page.
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