Breathing exercises have become all the rage, but what makes them work for us. The trick is to avoid shallow breathing and breathe fully with a ‘belly breath’ that allows us to complete inhale and exhale the air from our lungs. It also allows us to activate our rest and recovery system – the parasympathetic nervous system – rather than fight flight, which is triggered when we breathe rapidly and shallowly, or chest breathing.
Let’s Practice
- Place hand on chest and hand on belly.
- Exhale as completely as you can and breath in.
- If your hand on your chest is rising work to feel that you’re breathing into your belly. This just means that you’re relaxing your muscles and allowing your diaphragm to lower, which gives your lungs as much room as possible to fill.
- Practicing for just a couple minutes a day can be all you need to learn better habits of breathing.
