Diaphragmatic breathing
With the instability in today’s world, so many of us are affected by feeling anxious, unsettled and worried. Happy to share a few very helpful stress coping techniques I’ve used in my practice over the years to help you to feel more relaxed and supported.
Want to learn how by simply changing your breathing pattern, you can change the way you feel? How you can leave the anxiety, even panic attacks behind and feel more grounded and embodied?
- Please place one hand on your chest while hold the other palm on your tummy.
- Without changing anything about the way you breathe, please notice which hand moves on the inhale and the exhale.
- The chances are – you’re mostly breathing through your chest while the hand on the stomach doesn’t move at all.
More often than not, we tend to breathe as though we’re are stuck in a crowded elevator – in a shallow, quick way allowing air to reach our chest only.
Let me teach a much more powerful way to breathe that can be used for grounding, relaxing, releasing stress and even managing pain. The type of breath I will cover is called a diaphragmatic breath. In diaphragmatic breathing, your stomach expands outward, while the lower ribs expand sideways, which causes the diaphragm to contract.
- In order to experience it please take a slow breath through your nose into your tummy (making sure that your lower hand that is placed on your stomach moves away from your body)
- Hold the breath for as long as it’s comfortable
- Slowly exhale with your mouth open by visualizing the air leaving your stomach as though you’re closing an umbrella
This type of breath jump starts your parasympathetic nervous system that is responsible for relaxation, it also allows for higher oxygen concentration and therefore energizes you.
Please become more mindful to the way you breath, practice diaphragmatic breath when you feel stressed, ungrounded or simply would like to feel more energized. Please let me know how it goes ?
