Did you know that the simple act of conscious breathing can improve your general wellbeing? Taking a moment to focus on your breath and can have a wide range of benefits. It’s all about controlling your fight-or-flight response and decreasing general levels of anxiety in your body.
It’s not that you should never feel adrenaline and should always be looking to control your fight-or-flight response to outside stimuli. However, there is a level of constant anxiety these days, brought on by the use of screens, being always connected and not learning to switch off properly, that is causing us to feel this response at a low level all the time. The long-term damage of this constant state of heightened awareness is not good.
This is why it’s so important to use some mindful breathing techniques to help calm the mind and the body. This will lead to benefits such as:
- Reduced Stress Levels
Panic attacks are largely characterized by a shortness of breath and a racing pulse. You may not realize it, but you can often be experiencing a low level of this on an ongoing basis thanks to constant stimuli. This overloads your system and puts you in a state of distress. Another big response to stress or feeling overwhelmed is to hold your breath.
Both of these mean that you are not getting enough oxygen to your cells and are less able to cope with your stress levels. Mindful breathing counteracts these responses and gives you a moment to refocus your body and get back to work effectively.
- Better Posture
Breathing and posture often go hand in hand. Many of us spend hours sitting at a desk, looking at a computer screen or playing at grandrush.com. This leads to hunched shoulders, a rounded spine, and the closing off of your lungs. The more rounded your back is, the harder it is to fill your lungs effectively with each breath. This means that your breathing rate has to increase in order to get enough oxygen in.
When you take a moment to do mindful breathing, you tend to sit up straight so that you can fully inflate your lungs. This reconnects you to your entire body and reminds you to sit up straight at your desk. Doing this a few times throughout the workday can act as a constant reminder to improve the way you sit.
- Pain Relief
Studies have shown that you can deal with chronic and sudden pain a lot better when you focus on your breathing. Just look at the way women in labor are coached to breathe through their contractions to deal with the pain and focus on what they are doing. You can get through a lot of physical pain when you breathe properly.
In chronic pain cases, people who suffer from migraines or fibromyalgia for example, mindful breathing can reduce the need for pain killers. This is a far kinder method of pain relief on your body and will help long-term mental benefits too.
