Do you ever pay attention to your breathing? If you are like many people, you do not. However, not focusing on your breathing will have you taking shallow breaths throughout the day or maybe even suffer from email apnea (or screen apnea where you might be holding your breath altogether. While this is okay, it is better if you practice deep breathing exercises. Those deep breaths are considered part of diaphragmatic breathing. They utilize the full capacity of your lungs. It is easy to do this type of breathing and there are numerous diaphragmatic breathing benefits. The diaphragmatic breathing for anxiety is quite helpful as well.
What is Diaphragmatic Breathing
When you decide to perform diaphragmatic breathing, or as we call it, Perfect Breathing, you will be using your stomach, abdominal muscles, and your diaphragm. By utilizing these three parts of your body, you will allow your lungs to fill up completely. When your lungs are completely filled, they will work better and more efficiently.
Diaphragmatic Breathing – How Many Times Per Day
I am not here to tell you that you must practice diaphragmatic breathing all day long. That would be next to impossible, unless it was the only thing you were doing every day! However, you should practice diaphragmatic breathing between three and four times per day. Each session should last between five and ten minutes for the most benefits.
Perfect Breathing Benefits
Yes, diaphragmatic breathing IS perfect breathing. As mentioned above, there are numerous diaphragmatic breathing benefits. While you won’t notice all these benefits after the first session or two, you will over time. And once you realize you are living a better life thanks to the diaphragmatic breathing benefits; you will begin to wonder why you didn’t start to breathe this way much sooner!
More Oxygen in Your Body
Our bodies require oxygen to live. While any amount of oxygen we get through shallow breathing is sufficient, diaphragmatic breathing supplies us with so much more. All the extra oxygen is used to stimulate blood flow. It also enhances the nourishment your muscles and brain receives. The best part is your blood pressure will be lower as well. This is one diaphragmatic breathing benefit no one will complain about!
Increases the Capacity Within Your Lungs
All the shallow breathing we all do creates an issue with how much oxygen our lungs can hold at once. This may not seem like an issue at first. But it will become one when you are constantly out of breath as you try to do the simplest task. Therefore, you should stretch your diaphragm with diaphragmatic breathing, so your lungs have more space. This extra space will allow your lungs to expand over time, which will give them room inside for more oxygen.
Less Stress
Stress is part of our lives every day. But we can handle it much better when we breathe differently. One of the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing is less stress, because the breathing causes your body to relax while performing mindful breathing. And once you are more relaxed, and there is less stress in your body, you won’t have as many chances of getting a serious illness. And if your anxiety levels creep up when you are stressed, diaphragmatic breathing for anxiety can be helpful.
Improves Concentration
We always need a clear mind to focus on tasks at hand. But that doesn’t mean our minds are as focused as they should be on a daily basis. One of the biggest diaphragmatic breathing benefits includes improving your concentration. As your body begins to relax, you will find your focus is much better. You will be able to concentrate on every single task you are trying to accomplish without brain fog getting in the way.
Reduces Pain
Pain is a common thing for most people nowadays. Whether you have muscle pain, headaches, or another type of pain, you probably are thinking you simply must live with it. Well, the good news is that you don’t! Diaphragmatic breathing will reduce the pain throughout your body. Breathing like this is great for pain management. This happens because your blood will be circulating much better, thanks to the extra oxygen. Migraine sufferers and those with fibromyalgia are only a couple of the types of people who will benefit from breathing with the diaphragm.
Better Sleep
We all have those nights when we are tossing and turning in our beds. Some of us even have nights when we keep our partners up with our snoring. What if there was a way to avoid those disruptive nights and get better sleep? There is with diaphragmatic breathing! This type of breathing can reduce the amount of time you spend snoring at night, while allowing you to sleep better at the same time.
Create Correct Posture
It is difficult to know if you are sitting or standing with correct posture. Over time, your body will get used to how you sit or stand and think it is correct. When you start breathing with your diaphragm, you will notice that you will have no choice but to have correct posture. Your diaphragm won’t lower, and your lungs won’t expand if you don’t.
Core Muscle Stability
If you don’t work on your core muscles, they will weaken over time. You could spend hours at the gym working out to get those core muscles stable again. Or you could try a little diaphragmatic breathing first. Now, your core muscles won’t automatically be perfect in a couple days. But after multiple breathing sessions, you will notice an improvement.
Likewise, this deep belly breathing affects the vagus nerve. Vagus nerve stimulation through breathing is a great non-evasive way to keep your vagus nerve healthy and working properly.
Less Anxiety
Diaphragmatic breathing for anxiety can be quite helpful, because it will calm you down. After you have been doing diaphragmatic breathing for a while, you will be able to practice it wherever you are. This means anxiety attacks can be lessened with a few breathing techniques. If you have never suffered from anxiety, you may not be aware of how lifesaving this could be for a person who is struggling.
Detox Without Special Foods or Drinks
You don’t need special foods or drinks to completely detox your body! Diaphragmatic breathing will perform a natural detox by stimulating your blood flow and giving your cells more oxygen. The detox will also include overcoming negative patterns in your life and help strengthen your energetic field.
The benefits of diaphragmatic breathing are huge! You may not think you have a few minutes available multiple times a day to practice this form of breathing. But you will want to make time, so your body can benefit from it immensely. If you have been looking to change your life for the better, changing the way you breathe is an excellent place to start.
To learn more about diaphragmatic breathing, and all the diaphragmatic breathing benefits, we wrote a book, “Perfect Breathing.” This book has everything you need to know about better breathing for anxiety and so much more.