All about Deep Breathing

“Take a deep breath” you must have heard these words many a times but hardly anybody knows how it helps us. Breathing is very important part of our life. If we don’t eat we might survive for one week or if we don’t drink then we might survive for 3 or 4 days but if we don’t breathe then we can’t survive for more than 2 minutes. So let’s understand how deep breathing works and what are its benefits.

Old people say that everybody comes with pre decided breaths on earth. God have already decided how many breaths we will take on the earth so old people advice us to use your breath carefully. We might argue that we don’t control our breath, it happens automatically. That’s perfectly right, we don’t control our breath but what we do is we disturb our breathing pattern. God has given very good respiratory system but we harm it with our thinking and lifestyle.

Do you know that a dog breathes 29 to 30 times per minute? And on an average a dog has a life span of 25 t0 30 years. Human takes 14 to 16 breathes in one minute and have an average life span of 70 to 80 years. A turtle takes only one breath per minute and have an average life span of 200 years. What this analysis says is that more deep breath we take more we live.

Anthony Robbins has explained that deep, cleansing breaths give your lymph system a helping hand in clearing out the toxins from your body. The lymph system works by acting in harmony with the blood, surrounding every cell in the body and protecting each one by removing dead cells and any other toxins and excreting them from the body. The toxins are then removed from the body through our waste products, mucus, or our skin. Deep breathing is so important because, unlike our blood flow, the lymph system does not have a ‘pump’ to push the lymph fluids around our bodies. Rather, the lymph system requires the muscular movement which is created by breathing.

Some other benefits of deep breathing:
1- Deep breathing controls high blood pressure.

2- Deep breathing helps in reducing stress. Whenever you are stressed or angry, just lie down and take few deep
breaths. Your all stress and anger will go away.

3- Deep breathing also releases endorphins which help in reliving headache, sleeplessness and other pains.

4- Deep breathing is also used in Meditation which helps to focus mind. For me Deep breathing is a type of meditation.

5- If you regularly practice deep breathing then the capacity of lungs increases and you get more oxygen for your body.

6- Deep breathing also helps in proper functioning of your respiratory system.

Please note that as a beginner we should only try simple Breathing exercise. You just need to follow the formula of 1-4-2. - Breath in for 1 count
- Hold for 4 counts
- Breath out for 2 counts

For example – if you were to breathe in for two seconds, then you would hold your breath for eight seconds and then breathe out for four.

Try to follow above 20 times at a stretch. If you will follow the same three times a day then you will feel increase in your energy and immune power.

We all should be doing Deep breathing exercise everyday. It doesn’t consume much of your time, you can do it anytime and it’s totally free.