Breathing Exercises for Your Health

Breathing Exercises for Your HEALTH

Why and HOW to leverage this insane tool

Most people breathe at 10-20% of their full capacity
Heart rate, blood pressure, circulation, digestion, hormone secretion, mental and emotional states can be controlled, regulated, and healed through proper breathing
Studies have revealed breathing practice to be an effective intervention for emotion enhancement, including reduction in anxiety, depression, and stress (Stromberg et al., 2015)
Studies have shown regular breathing to significantly increase attention and significantly lower cortisol levels

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Breathing drills don't seem sexy until you stop experiencing chronic pain, notice that your anxiety/stress management has completely changed, efforts like jogging, swimming, training in general are WAY easier, and your mobility improves despite doing LESS stretching and soft tissue work. It's lit, fam.

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3 DRILLS TO UPGRADE YOUR BREATHING

Box Breathing

Basically tempo breathing. Try to inhale softly through the nose and allow the chest to expand with the lungs w/o raising your shoulders and exhale with an open mouth slowly - like you're trying to fog a mirror.

3s inhale
3s hold at the top of your breath
3s exhale
3s hold at the bottom of your breath

x 8-10 anytime

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Nasal Breathing

Sitting tall, inhale slowly through your nose, feeling air inflate your lungs and belly. As you exhale through your nose, force the air out from your stomach (note: If you can’t breathe fully, you may need nasal irrigation like NeilMed - I do it 2x/week).

x 2-3 minutes first thing in the morning or anytime you need to redirect some stress

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Prone Belly Breathing

Lying on your stomach with your head on your arms, inhale through your nose, expanding your stomach into the ground followed by your upper back. Then exhale, pressing all the air from your stomach upwards.