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Deep Breathing - A Simple, Drug-Free Antidote to Stress

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Feeling tense? Your reaction to stress can tighten your muscles, make your heart beat faster, raise your blood pressure, and create numerous chronic health problems unless it is stopped in its tracks. Luckily, relief can be as easy as a deep breath away.

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Feeling tense? Your reaction to stress can tighten your muscles, make your heart beat faster, raise your blood pressure, and create numerous chronic health problems unless it is stopped in its tracks. Luckily, relief can be as easy as a deep breath away.

One of the most underutilized, yet effective, stress reliever is deep belly breathing. It can help calm you, refocus your energy and actually change your body chemistry. Deep breathing oxygenates your blood and keeps cortisol levels in check, counteracting the negative effects of stress.

Shallow, fast, upper-chest breathing is a classic sign of the fight-or-flight stress response, while slow, deep abdominal breathing can provide "instant stress relief." By only using the upper chest to breathe, you're cutting out the amount of oxygen and energy you take in with each breath by as much as 2/3, slowly starving yourself of oxygen and energy, which can lead to many serious health issues over time.

Do you have heart problems? Deep abdominal breathing brings the diaphragm into play far more than upper chest breathing and helps to gently push blood throughout the system, taking a load off the heart.

Need to detox? Deep breathing boosts the lymphatic system, causing the lymph to move through the vessels, delivering nutrients and collecting cellular waste.

Nervous? Diaphragmatic breathing activates the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, calming every nerve in the body. It's been shown to stop an anxiety attack within seconds.

ANCIENT BREATHING TECHNIQUES FOR MODERN STRESS

Piko-piko is a Hawaiian breathing technique I learned at a Hawaii Health Getaway that simultaneously relaxes and energizes the body. Based on the word, 'piko,' meaning 'navel' or 'center,' the technique involves centering your attention on one location (e.g., the crown of the head) as you inhale, and centering your attention on a different location (e.g., the navel) as you exhale. The act of centering the attention and moving the attention automatically results in a deeper than normal pattern of breathing, increasing circulation and relieving tension.

To try it, center your attention on the crown of the head while inhaling, then center the attention on the navel while exhaling. To add visualization to the method, imagine breathing in energy from the sky above on the inhale and breathing out any stress below the feet into the center of the earth on the exhale.

Pranayama is another ancient breathing technique, from the yogic tradition, that relieves stress and increases energy. A simple pranayama exercise is Three-Part Breathing.

First breathe in deeply to your belly, then exhale through your nose while drawing the navel back towards your spine to make sure that the belly is empty of air. On the next inhale, when the belly is full, draw in a little more breath and let that air expand into the rib cage. On the next inhale, fill the belly and rib cage and then the upper chest, all the way up to the collarbone, causing the area around the heart to expand and rise. On the exhale, let the breath go first from the upper chest, then from the rib cage, then from the belly, drawing the navel back towards the spine. Repeat for another five breaths.

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