Our professor told us how many people, especially women, breathe shallowly from their upper chest. More women he said because of them being self-conscious about not wanting their belly’s to expand making them look heavier.
In response to his urging, I placed my hand on my lower chest
about my belly-button area to assist me in feeling my diaphragm expand allowing
me to breathe more deeply. By deep breathing I found the physical benefits
of moving the lymph fluid. The lymph fluid is the garbage by product in our body that relies
solely on the movement of our muscles and deep breathing for movement. Deep breathing creates a vacuum
suctioning effect, moving the lymph fluid. This strengthens and boosts our immune system
function.
When I became ill with Crohn’s disease just after
graduating college and started on my journey to regain my health back, I
discovered how deep breathing also helped me relax my mind and let go of stressful
thoughts and incidents. This is especially helpful in situations where it is
difficult to let go feelings like frustration, worry, and anger. This is
because deep breathing assists me to process and let go of these fear based emotions
that are not serving my well-being. I have found a variety of different
breathing patterns, many I learned in yoga classes, that help calm these
emotions and allow them to leave my body rather than getting stuck inside and
fester.
Lastly, deep breathing has allowed me to connect better with
spirit or as I like to say God & my guardian angels. Deep breathing can
help us get more deeply into a calmer and meditative state. This is where we
can tap into our creative thoughts and guiding messages that spirit is trying
to give us.
Breathing is the only automatic body function that we have
ready access to altering voluntarily. What I mean is we all breathe in and out
without having to think about it – it just happens automatically. However, we
can make conscious decision to alter this automatic function by inhaling and
exhaling more deeply and longer, as well as hold our breath for a specific
amount of time. In doing so, we can more control of all the main areas of our
lives (physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually) by the literal breath
of life.
All we have to do is remember to breathe more deeply and
expansively, especially when we get stressed or upset as that causes us to hold
our breath and increases the stress we are feeling by depriving our body of
necessary oxygen, the main fuel source for our cells. With practice, even deep
breathing will become more automatic and in turn give us more peace and love in
our lives.
Barbara Steingas is an award winning author, inspirational speaker and radiant life coach, helping people to optimize their health and vitality. She can be found at Steingasbooks. Barbara is joining Mind Key as a resident columnist, sharing her 21 Tips for Healing.
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