You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Take a deep breath” one too many times especially when you’re feeling anxious or angry at something or someone. You might even be aware of how your breathing changes when you’re excited, sad, or when you’re about to burst a vein in anger. Little do we know that learning how to practice proper breathing can actually have benefits to our overall health. So what exactly can proper breathing do for you?
- Increase your overall happiness. There are times when we’re feeling out of sync with ourselves that everything that we do comes out wrong. This is definitely frustrating and can cause us to feel bad about ourselves. However, learning how to breathe properly or taking deep breaths can actually elevate our mood.
- It releases toxins from our body. Another benefit that we can gain from learning how to breathe properly is that it helps us get rid of toxic buildup in our system. As you exhale, you are releasing carbon dioxide into the air which is considered as a waste in our body.
- It improves our sleep. If you can’t seem to get a good night’s sleep lately because there are so many thoughts running through your head, try breathing exercises. Deep breathing teaches you how to achieve a calm state of mind while encouraging your body to go into a relaxed state. This will help you to slip easily into sleep.
- It reduces tension. We are not really aware of our muscles becoming tense which causes us to experience headaches, back pain, and the like. But did you know that performing breathing exercises can actually help your muscles to become more relaxed? When you’re angry or stressed, your muscles tend to seize up and your breathing becomes shallow. Through deep breathing you can unravel the tightness in your muscles and tendons so that you’ll be able to breathe better.
- It can improve your posture. Another advantage to learning how to breathe properly is that it can help you correct your posture. If you tend to slouch when standing or sitting down, you’re actually preventing oxygen from flowing freely throughout your body through your bloodstream. Practicing breathing techniques, on the other hand, can teach you how to inhale and exhale properly that will help you fix your posture so that you can stand or sit properly for long periods of time.
- It strengthens your heart. Learning breathing exercises can help your heart or cardiovascular system to grow stronger. This is due to the fact that deep breathing strengthens your lungs so that more oxygen can be delivered throughout the body through your blood. This way, your heart won’t work double time just to ensure that your body has sufficient oxygen in it. Also the pressure differential in the lungs increases which means more blood can circulate throughout your body which lessens the workload of the heart.
As you can see, deep breathing does help us in so many ways. Why not try learning how to do proper breathing to experience these results?
