Breathing Excercises to Transform Your Life Today and Every Day

Breathing is the only way to be living here. The beginning of your life is probably measured from that moment when you took your first breath. From that point on,  you ‘know how to breathe’ so you completely forget about it except in those rare instances when you can’t! Suddenly more air can become very important – for example when you are underwater.

breathe Breathing
Air:  The First Food!

The truth is air is always important.  Most of us take on habits of not breathing properly and suffer because of this. It is, therefore, useful to learn how to breathe properly or to breathe deeply. The health benefits of proper deep breathing are numerous.

5 Benefits of Breathing Exercises:

  1. Reduce stress.
  2. Help to clear and focus your mind
  3. Increase your energy level
  4. Releases endorphins into the system. These are natural painkillers that create a natural high and easy sleep.
  5. Relaxes muscles a major cause of neck, back and stomach pains

These are just the physical benefits that are easily measurable.  There are a lot more. By practicing a breathing exercise for just a few minutes a day, the benefits continue into the rest of your day, and with continued practice, we create the habit of always breathing properly and therefore multiply the benefits many times. 

Breathing

Three Simple Breathing exercises: (check with your doctor if you have a respiratory illness)

1.  The simplest breathing exercise is simply to put your attention on your breathing as you are inhaling and exhaling normally.
Several things usually happen quite naturally. First, your breathing will slow down and lengthen.  If you try this even for one minute you will notice the difference.  Try it right now.  I dare you!
Secondly, you will start noticing the transitions between inhaling and exhaling.  Many people experience deep silence, depth, and expansion during those transitions.
2.  The next simplest exercise .... is to hold your breath just for a short comfortable time after each inhale. 
When you first start, this holding will be just a second or two.  Later you will enjoy this so much that you will hold it comfortably longer.
Yogic and Chi Gong experts explain that this slowing of your breathing allows your body to ‘digest’ the energy in the air more completely,  This extra energy or ‘prana’  activates your pituitary gland.  The pituitary is a master gland that activates all the other glands and thus rejuvenates your whole body.
Consider the tortoise, which takes deep slow breaths.  Tortoises are one of the longest-living animals on earth – some of them over 200 years old.
3. Still another easy exercise is to breathe with your BELLY. 
If you watch a baby breathing as it is lying down this is how they naturally breathe and it will be more obvious to you if you lie down also. You can introduce this after you become comfortable with conscious breathing in No. 1.
Instead of using the muscles of your lungs to expand the top part of your lungs (on the inhale), you use your diaphragm muscles and your belly expands. This gets air deeper into your lungs and is very relaxing. With a little practice, you will breathe more and more with your belly until you do it all the time without thinking.

You can employ these techniques for a few minutes every day for increasing benefits. You can also use them in an ’emergency’ such as when you are stressed, anxious or can’t sleep.  You can even consciously implement them as ‘micro techniques’ for just a second or two when you are walking, working and going about your day.  Every bit helps. The body will remember when it is more relaxed and try to go in that direction more and more – IF you give it the chance. That’s what regeneration is all about – giving the body the proper environment to renew and balance and do what it wants to do.

More on this topic:

Learning How to Breathe Changed My Life –  Diana’s Personal Story.
When I learned how to breathe into my belly, my life was changed forever! Not breathing into my belly was adversely affecting my health even as a young teenager but I did not realize that. I had stomach aches all the time and was medicated with little yellow pills for it during my teens. It was worse when I was stressed.

Read Diana’s Breathing Technique which she used to improve her digestion, stop the pain, and change her life.  Most people I have worked with do not know how to do deep breathing into their belly.  There are all sorts of complicated lessons on breathing but it does not have to be that difficult.  After all, babies do this naturally; it is not rocket science. What we want to do is get back to breathing the way we did as a baby.

Tips For Improving Air Quality:  It’s a little self-defeating if you are breathing better but your air quality is poor!

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Copyright © Randy Fritz https://www.realfoodforlife.com

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10 thoughts on “Breathing Excercises to Transform Your Life Today and Every Day”

  1. Great article Randy……yes we must breath in order to live; it is the most essential element to life in our body.

  2. Sue Klinefelter

    Your article on breating is very comforting to read.It validates what I am doing now. I especially like the deep breathing emphasis. When I played my flute as a teenager I remember my music teacher saying, “imagine you are breathing from your stomach. You have a large grapefruit there when you breathe in, and then breathe out to play the flute”. This gets rid of the shallow breathing. When deep breathing is necessary for playing a wind instrument correctly. I practice deep breathing when I initially sit down to relax through meditation. Deep breathing has saved me from making rash judgements when teaching. It fits throughout my day. NO PANIC ATTACKS now!!. Sue

  3. John Prokopchuk

    Thank you for the Breathing tips.

    We have a several Eli Bay breathing cassettes which we occassinally use to help us with deep breathing as there were times we didn’t practice deep breathing reguarlly.

    After My T.I.A in 2005 the Psychologist streesed deep breathig to control blood pressure and relaxation,this has helped me pay attention to a healtier life

  4. I have been practicing Conscious Breathing for 20 years now. Looking back, Conscious Breathing has helped me in making right decisions in life. It brings one to the awareness of unlimited power within, the source of power behind ever breath.

    It is easy to do. Just watch the inhale motion of your breathing. Pause and say “I am breathing”. Then watch the exhale motion. Pause and say “I am breathing”. Repeat as often as you can.

    The is done at bedtime about 5 minutes before sleeping and the first thing to do before leaving your bed in the morning.

    Every part of your body is wired to your brain. Conscious breathing help repairs problems in this wirings.

  5. Hello, I just searched this site on Google and wanted to take my time to thank you for adding this to the website. It is very informational on curing panic attacks and it has helped me understand more about them. I will be sure to see what else you have to offer. Thank you once again!

  6. Eva Ferianec

    Thank you for sharing this article. I just want to share, recently I started to swim and I realized that most of the time I am not breathing or my breathing is very shallow.  As I was walking from the swimming pool to my car,  I realized that the air was so delicious I felt like I never breathed before.
    I am now swimming almost every day and I feel wonderful enjoying goodness of the fresh air.

    1. Good for you Eva on the swimming. Thanks for the comment. ONE of the values of any exercise it that it forces us to breath MORE and we get in that habit when we are not exercising.

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