A human can survive approximately one month without eating, approximately one week without drinking, but only minutes without breathing. We need clean water and nutritious food, but we MUST breathe properly for optimal health—physically and emotionally.
Even those of us who know the importance of breathing deeply, get busy or upset, and fall into shallow breathing patterns.
Shallow breathing triggers the excess manufacture of adrenaline. A negative chain reaction can result, elevating blood pressure, contributing to pain, and leading to hyperventilation.
Deep breathing has been linked to the production of endorphins, which flow throughout your body sending messages to your brain to relax your entire body.
According to the article “3 Breathing Exercises to Reduce Anxiety” by Therese J. Borchard, Associate Editor of Psych Central, breathing is the only automatic function we can easily control voluntarily. In The Healing Power of the Breath, doctors Richard P. Brown, and Patricia L. Gerbarg write:
[W]e can, by changing our breathing patterns, send specific messages to the brain using the language of the body, a language the brain understands and to which it responds. Messages from the respiratory system have rapid, powerful effects on major brain centers involved in thought, emotion, and behavior.
Here are simple ways to do three types of conscious breathing:
Coherent Breathing
Breathe in to a count of five, then breathe out to a count of five.
Resistance Breathing
Sing, chant, or simply exhale through your nose.
Breath Moving
Use your imagination to move your breath throughout your body, such as breathing in from the souls of your feet, and breathing out to the tips of your fingers, or on the inhale move the breath to the top of your head and on the exhale move it to the base of your spine.
The authors of The Healing Power of the Breath report that breath moving was taught to the warriors by the Russian Christian Orthodox Hesychast monks to keep them safe from harm.
This week, be grateful you do not have to be a warrior to benefit from breath moving. Be alert to sharing this information with someone else who needs to breathe. Everyone will benefit!
This week’s health tip originally appeared online at https://scs-matters.com/Breath-Moving/.
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Tips from 5 April 2010 to 6 August 2012 are here: Archived Tips
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Rev.Debra Basham
Voice: (269) 921-2217 Email: debra@scs-matters.com https://scs-matters.com http://ImagineHealing.info http://SurgicalSupport.info Small Changes … Infinite Results™
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~ |