Stress Management Technique 1:
Breathing Exercise
Online Self Help with Sandi Anders, M.Div., R.Y.T.
Stress Management: Counter Harmful Effects of Chronic Stress in Your Body
The experience of relaxation is essential to counteract the harmful effects of chronic stress on the body. Through the regular practice of relaxation techniques, one can begin to reverse this cumulative, damaging process, and engage the body's incredible potential for self-healing.
Herbert Benson, M.D., Harvard Professor and stress reduction specialist, first coined the phrase "Relaxation Response" in the early 1970s to describe the physiological and mental changes that occur when one consciously relaxes. In The Wellness Book: The Comprehensive Guide to Maintaining Health and Treating Stress-Related Illness he writes that the relaxation response is "a physiological state characterized by a slower heart rate, metabolism, rate of breathing, lower blood pressure, and slower brain wave patterns."
Benefits of Relaxation
Here are some of the beneficial changes that occur when your body is in the Relaxation Response:
-
Heartbeat and respiration become slower.
-
Oxygen consumption is markedly lessened.
-
The expiration of carbon dioxide drops.
-
Blood pressure is stabilized.
-
Blood lactate levels (which some researchers believe are associated with panic attacks) decline steeply.
Stress Management Using Breathing Exercise
There are many tested stress management techniques which encourage this state of profound rest and release. This article focuses on rhythmic, deep, diaphragmatic breathing.
This most important stress management tool is "right under your nose" and as close as your breath! When you focus on slow, deep breathing, the inhalation fills your lungs and causes your lower belly to expand as the diaphragm drops downward into the softness of your relaxed belly.
Try it right now:
Relax your body and release any signs of tension. Allow your tongue and jaws to relax. Drop your shoulders away from your neck. Notice your breathing just as it is. Then take a deep, full breath, allowing the breath to move all the way down into the lower belly. It is helpful to imagine that there is a small balloon in the belly. As you breathe in, let that balloon gently inflate. As you breathe out, feel how the balloon gently deflates.
Take in several of these slow, gentle, deep breaths. Then begin to notice that there is a slight pause that naturally occurs at the end of each exhalation. Allow yourself to wait here without rushing to take the next in-breath. Let the next inhalation surface when your body is ready to welcome it.
Enjoy the soothing tranquility of the pause. Float peacefully in the silence between exhalation and inhalation, letting the breath happen by itself.
If you are just learning diaphragmatic breathing, it can be of great help to begin the learning by lying on your back with your knees bent. In this position, you can more easily feel how the belly rises with inhalation and falls with exhalation. You can also place your hands on your abdomen and let yourself breathe into their warmth, noting how the hands rise as you breathe in and fall as you breathe out.
Another great way to discover the feeling of deep belly breath is to lie on your belly. In this position, the only way you can breathe is diaphragmatically!
Finally, it can sometimes be helpful to let yourself sigh out loud with the exhale, perhaps with a soft "ah". Sounding is a useful way to let go of stress and tension.
Deep diaphragmatic breathing has a profound effect on the body and is an excellent stress management technique. Just three minutes of soft-belly breathing can shift your body out of Stress Response mode into the Relaxation Response!
Learn Relaxed Breathing with our Guided Meditation CD:
The Alchemy of Peace & Love
This 2-CD set by Stress Management Specialist Sandi Anders and Psychologist David Yarian teaches you how to use your breath to manage stress and create deep relaxation.
Beat stress and get rid of worry and tension!
Order your Guided Meditation CD today:
Ship to U.S. address |
|
|---|---|
 |
Ship to international address |
