Breathing with purpose

Breathing is a vital and an involuntary action that people seldomly pay much attention to. However, regular breathing with purpose unlocks an array of free health benefits that anyone can harness throughout their day.

Firstly, we need to understand that the correct way to breathe is to inhale through your nose. Your nose prepares air before it reaches your lungs, it does this by filtering the air, heating it up, pressurizes it, and moistening the air so that by the time it gets to our lungs we can extract about 20% more air breathing through our nose than our mouths. This ‘extra’ oxygen does wonders for the body and mind.

How we breathe affects our heart rate, our circulation, digestion, and how our brains operate. If we are breathing ineffectively, we put all these other systems of our body in a state of stress.

So how do we know if we are breathing correctly or incorrectly? Below is guide that will enable you to become mindful of how you are breathing. Enabling you to take control and put your system in a state of rest and digest.

Place one hand on your chest and one hand on your stomach. Breath in. If the hand on your chest moved the most then you are chest breathing, this forms part of the flight or flight syndrome. Chest breathing is shallow and frequent and is the bodies way of telling the mind to be on alert, constantly being on guard predisposes the mind to become anguish. If when you breathed in, you felt more movement on the hand touching your stomach then you are ahead of the game and you are breathing deeply engaging your diaphragm. Diaphragmatic breathing or deep breathing relaxes your nervous system, therefore you relax. Studies show that cortisol (the stress hormone) is significantly lower after deep breathing than that of peers in a controlled group.

We tend to put ourselves under a lot of mental stress and anxiety which often results in erratic shallow breathing, this however triggers more mental stress and anxiety. Instead train yourself to use the feelings of stress to trigger the uses of deep breathing techniques. We want to intentionally move from breathing using our sympathetic nervous system which leads to a stressed state to a parasympathetic nervous system which is a rest and digest state. When our body is more relaxed we can get into a better sleep state, we can better digest the foods that we are eating and therefore better repair our bodies on a cellular level, all from deep breathing with our diaphragms. Deep breathing also has a positive effect on circulation while the diaphragm moves up and down during deep breathing the heart is stretched and massaged.

How to move to a relax and digest state?

Inhale through your nose expanding your rib cage for 4 counts, then hold and exhale through your mouth for 4 counts blowing the air out. Repeat this for 10 rounds and then return to normal deep breathing inhaling for one count and exhaling for one count.

How should I breathe for a good night sleep?

When breathing to go to sleep breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 2 and out for 8 counts. After 10 rounds of this kind of breathing your heart rate slows and your blood pressure drops stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system, resulting in your body and mind relaxing.

The body and mind connection is truly incredible. That with a few well timed and repetitive breaths one can reduce anxiety anywhere at any time. Breathing coaching has long been with us, but, in our fast paced and pressured world it has become pertinent that we breathe with purpose.