Oxygen. In just minutes, without it, our bodies can no longer survive. How do we get it? Through our breath. It is automatic. We breathe when we’re sleeping, when we’re awake, when we’re sick. What most of us don’t think about is that how we breathe affects us.
How we breathe affects our mental health, our athletic performance, our energy, our blood sugar, our sleep. Surprisingly 80% of weight loss happens through our breath. The breakdown products are water and carbon dioxide – if you were to lose 10 pounds, a little more than eight of that would be released through the breath as carbon dioxide.
As a practice, improving your capacity to inhale and exhale gives myriad health results. Doing longer exhalations increases our nitric oxide, in turn lowering our blood pressure. It also allows for increased oxygen off-loading to cells increasing physical endurance. Deeper inhalation increases oxygen to the brain increasing our mental clarity and energy.
Sleeping with our mouths closed can eliminate snoring and sometimes resolve sleep apnea.
Breathing is important. How can you enhance yours today? Try doing 5 BOX breaths 2 x day.
Inhale for a count of 5
Hold for a count of 5
Exhale for a count of 5
Hold the breath out for a count of 5
Repeat 5 x on waking and before bed. As you become more comfortable, increase your cycles.
Your breathing needs to be diaphragmatic – this means inhaling from your belly. And exhale by pushing your belly button towards your spine. This stimulates a calming response in your body.
If you breathe from your chest it will activate a stress reaction. So always breathe from your belly. Try it out and let us know how it goes!