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Deep Breathing
There are many benefits of deep breathing.
When you breathe deeply, the air coming in through your nose fully fills your lungs, and the lower belly rises. It’s an inborn skill that often lies dormant. Reawakening it allows you to tap into one of your body’s strongest self-healing mechanisms.
Yet for many of us, deep breathing seems unnatural. There are several reasons for this. For one, body image has a negative impact on respiration in our culture. A flat stomach is considered attractive, so women (and men) tend to hold in their stomach muscles. This interferes with deep breathing and gradually makes shallow “chest breathing” seem normal, which increases tension and anxiety.
Breathing engages the diaphragm, a strong sheet of muscle that divides the chest from the abdomen. As you breathe in, the diaphragm drops down, pulling your lungs with it and pressing against abdominal organs to make room for the lungs to expand as they fill with air. As you breathe out, the diaphragm presses back up against your lungs, helping to expel carbon dioxide.
Shallow breathing limits the diaphragm’s range of motion. The lowest part of the lungs — with its many small blood vessels that are crucial to carrying oxygen to cells — doesn’t get a full share of oxygenated air. That can make you feel short of breath and anxious.
Deep abdominal breathing encourages full oxygen exchange — that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, it can slow the heartbeat and lower or stabilize blood pressure. |
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