Friday, February 09, 2007

How to breath right:

This is all part of natural healing:
There is so much more to breathing then most people realize. There are two methods of breathing, which are breathing from the chest and breathing from the diaphragm. For those who do not know this, the diaphragm is a muscle that is located in the lower abdominal area. We are generally taught to breath from our chests but this results in irregular, shallow breathing that is slow and causes carbon dioxide to leave the lungs too quickly which can create more tension in both the body and the mind. Diaphragm breathing is healthier and more beneficial to the body. In this case breathing is even and consistent and more breaths are taken in and can be breathed deeper into the lungs, which is a good thing.

Deep breathing does not just involve the lungs but also the lower ribcage, the back and the stomach. Diaphragm breathing creates a response from the nervous system that is called the "relaxation response" for the simple fact that it allows the body to calm and to become relaxed completely.
We were all meant to be diaphragm breathing and if you watch babies and young children closely you will see that they have it right. Youngsters breathe from deep down in their diaphragms and they use their entire lung capacity. When you see a baby's stomach rise when he or she is sleeping it is because the breathing is coming from deep down in the body. This is how nature intended it to be but as we age we tend to become more stressed and this affects how we breathe.

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