IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT SOMETHING as natural as breathing, if taken for granted, could be responsible for stress and ill health.
During brief acute stress, or drawn out, chronic stress, two fundamental kind of changes happen. One is basically chemical: adrenaline and other chemicals pour out into the body’s system to give it the best chance of survival. The range of chemical changes that occurs with stress is vast. Hormone levels change, affecting our immune system and the nervous system. The other fundamental change is in breathing.
While much is known about the chemical changes in stress, very little is known about the breathing changes. It is surprising, because while chemical studies are complicated, expensive, and often painful for the patient, examining our breath could hardly be easier.
And these chemical changes that are measured Be almost completely outside the conscious domain. Even if abnormalities are found, there is not much the patient can do about them.
Breathing can either be spontaneous and natural, an organic response to the moment, or it can be habitual, mechanical and reactive. Watching the breath was Gautama Buddha’s way to consciousness via meditation. It is little wonder then that most health-care centers attach a lot of importance to breathing techniques.
It follows that if the detrimental breathing habits can be unlearned, the result will be curative. On the contrary, the most successful treatments for stress-related diseases that have emerged from the purely chemical approach have been largely symptomatic. That is, they lend to suppress the symptom, without necessarily under standing what the warning is about.
The other thing about breath therapy, as opposed to chemical therapy, is that it is simple and can be made available very inexpensively. Natural breathing is the essence of meditation, so it is no harder than that.
Research has demonstrated that our breathing becomes rapid when we feel stressed. When stress becomes chronic it causes an inappropriate loss of carbon dioxide in the body. As this is drawn from carbonic acid, this excessive breathing causes an excessive loss of acid. In an attempt to maintain the Ph (acid base) level, the body compensates by giving out extra alkali. With a loss of alkali our ability to buffer lactic acid is reduced, so that any little amount of activity makes our breathing laboured and we feel easily exhausted. This also has an adverse effect on our memory, our ability concentrate and on our energy level.
Fatigue, almost certainly, precedes most diseases. And if breathing stressfully can cause tiredness, then we have a clear connection between stress and ill health. This connection stretches a little beyond breath, stress and health. Awareness of breath is one of the essential elements of yoga and meditation.
A person learns to concentrate, to have a healthy, deep, and slow breathing, and to relax through the practice of yoga. Soft light and Oriental musk contribute to help meditation. A person can achieve conscious and controlled relaxation through the Amnas (yoga postures). At the sante time, yoga stimulates and regulates energies that don’t function adequately, by providing the body with deeper consciousness
The Asanas should be done slowly with meditation, accompanied by complete and rhythmic respiration. The pasha of yoga have a great influence over the mental, physical and spiritual aspects.
Deep breathing is fundamental in any type of yoga. The breathing has to be conscious, using the total lung capacity. With this, the blood receives more oxygen, and as a result of this, our body will function better as a whole.
Breathing should be done through the nose and never by the mouth during the practice of yoga exercises. All of this has to be accompanied with a mental attitude of concentration and relaxation to get optimum results mentally, physically and spiritually, so the body can keep healthy.
Use your stomach to help you breathe, not your chest.
This kind of breathing is called Abdominal Breathing. When we breathe in air, we are absorbing energy from the air. If we use our belly to breathe, the diaphragm sinks down, creating more room to hold Meek in, thus we can absorb more energy. It also charges up our blood with plenty of oxygen and improve our vitality by supporting our body with oxygen rich blood. Another positive effect of Abdominal Breathing is its calming effect. It helps us to relax. Often, many energy work, such as Tai Chi, Yoga, Taoist Inner Alche. my, and other meditation arts, start out their practice with a series of Abdominal Breathing to calm down the mind of the practitioners. When we practise Abdominal Breathing regularly, the breathing will be slow and deep; which is the ultimate goal in breathing. When our breathing is deep, we can take in more air. When our breathing is slow, we have more time to fully digest the energy within the air.
To maximize breathing capacity, relax your chest by sinking the sternum and dropping the shoulder. Then round your chest from I he scapulas by pushing your arms slightly forward and to the sides, creating a gap in the armpits. The mason to round the chest is to take the pressure off the sidm of your ribcage, which in tom take the pressure off your chest. Relax and do not force your breath.
Try regulating your breathing pattern and free yourself from stress.
