"Take a deep breath. It calms the mind." - Regina Brett
I hope you have been enjoying my blogs on stress management and they have been very informative and life changing. Last blog, we spoke about the importance of meditation and how meditating is wise in terms of learning how to relax, find inner peace, and be calm so you can have optimal executive functioning and logical skills. Therefore, meditation is a great technique for stress management and now we will transition to our next topic which is deep breathing.
Now in the book called "Breath" by James Nestor, he speaks on the importance of prana which is an ancient theory of atoms. Let's go into some excerpts surrounding prana and we will expound on it's importance, "The concept of prana was first documented around the same time in India and China, some 3,000 years ago, and became the bedrock of medicine. The Chinese called it ch’i and believed the body contained channels that functioned like prana power lines connecting organs and tissues. The Japanese had their own name for prana, ki, as did the Greeks (pneuma), Hebrews (ruah), Iroquois (orenda), and so on."
Now prana is an energy or a life-force which flows throughout the body and different cultures have called it different things throughout history. This prana is an energy or life force which flows throughout your whole body. As your prana increases, you have an increase in vitality and longevity!! Now breathing exercises are able to enhance your prana, which then enables you to have more relaxed, ease, less tension and stress. Let's go into some health benefits of breathing techniques as listed below...
Reduce Anxiety
Reduce Depression
Managing Stress
Improving Focus
Better sleep
Faster recovery from exercise or exertion
Those are some benefits directly affected by deep breathing and how it can affect your prana. Now let's go into some deep breathing techniques you can apply to reduce your stress overall!!
Diaphragmatic Breathing: Is a breathing technique that is done by contracting the diaphragm, a muscle located horizontally between the thoracic cavity and abdominal cavity.
Eupnea: Control of breathing during rest and during exercise.
Costal Breathing: Requires contraction of the intercostal muscle and is also called shallow breathing.
Hyperpnea: This is the term for breathing in more air than you normally do. It's your body's response to needing more oxygen.
Overall, deep breathing has many health benefits and positive outcomes when applied properly. I hope you enjoyed my blog, and stay tuned for tomorrow!! Peace! :)
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