Just breathe! The Importance of Diaphragmatic Breathing

We all need to breathe to be alive. The simplest act of living is taking oxygen in and breathing carbon dioxide out. Too often, we don’t give this vital task the same kind of importance we do other things like eating and drinking well for our health, wearing proper foot wear for walking, or our sitting posture at work. Most of us don’t stop to think about how we breathe, we just do it automatically without realizing that our breathing and how we breath may have a much bigger impact on our wellbeing. 

How to do deep breathing exercises

1. Lie on the floor face up with knees slightly bent and place a small pillow under your head if that is more comfortable for you
2. Place one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest.
3. Concentrate on breathing using the diaphragm by promoting the rise of the stomach hand and avoiding that of the chest hand. Remember to breath in through your nose.
4. Hold for 1-2 seconds.
5. Let the stomach fall naturally when slowly breathing out through pursed lips.
6. Repeat 10-12x, 2-3x throughout the day.
7. The next stage is to stand up and place your hands in the same position again. Remember to relax the shoulders and feel for how you instinctually breathe. Try to promote diaphragmatic breathing (as above). Surprisingly, you may find this step requires some concentration initially.
8. Finally, make it functional. Practice breathing correctly during your day-to-day activities.