Breathing Exercises

By controlling our breathing, you can control the functions of your brain and body. As your breathing slows down your body relaxes, for example when you sleep.

 

If breathing becomes fast, you can experience panic attacks and your body will feel under stress. The way we breathe is generally quite shallow and does not fully fill the lungs.

 

Deep breathing can feel alien at first as we generally hold our stomachs in as we breathe in, then push our stomachs out. Which is the reverse of the kind of breathing you should be doing, practice using the following techniques, try not to get frustrated.

Exercise one

Close our eyes

Try slowly deep breathing

Breathe in for the count of three and hold for a moment then slowly breathe out for the count of five

As you breathe in your stomach should come out and as you breathe out your stomach should move inwards it might help if you put a hand on your stomach so you can feel this

Now take a short rapid breath through your nose for as long as you can – don’t make yourself feel ill though!

How does this make you feel? This is hyperventilation – breathing too fast, like when we have a panic attack

Now slow your breathing down again

Use the first part of the exercise (slow stomach breathing) to bring the body back to relaxation

This exercise demonstrates how our breathing can make us feel. Breathing is the most important part of all relaxation if you do not get your breathing right you will not be able to relax fully.

Also just by doing some simple breathing exercises you can go from tense and aggravated to calm and rational.

Exercise two

Closed our eyes

Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth, feel the body begin to relax.

As you breathe in imagine you are breathing in pure white lights this is all around you.

As you breathe out imagine this is grey smoke this is all the stresses and strains, which are in your body.

If you have thoughts that you do not want, then imagine these as the grey smoke and exhale them.

Do this exercise for five to ten minutes until you feel calm and relaxed.

Physical exercise

In combination with a breathing exercise, you can add this physical exercise to relax and reduce tension in your body.

Take your attention down to your feet, clench the muscles in your feet and curl up your toes while you breathe in, and then relax them as you breathe out.

Do this three times, notice how different your feet feel from relaxed to tense? Repeat the breathing and clenching three more times until your feet are relaxed.

Now move your attention to your calves, clench the muscles in your calves as you breathe in, and relax on the out breathe, again repeat this three times until your calves feel relaxed.

Repeat the exercise moving up your body relaxing each of the following muscle groups in turn.

• Knees
• Thighs
• Bottom
• Stomach
• Chest
• Shoulders
• Upper Arms
• Lower Arms/Wrists
• Hands
• Throat/Neck
• Head/Face

Now bring your attention to the whole body, If you have any areas which do not feel relaxed repeat the exercise.

Now your whole body is relaxed, and your breathing is calm. Try this exercise when you go to bed or set some time aside in your day to complete the exercise.

Why this works

As well as helping you focus on your breathing this works on the theory that any muscle that has been put under tension will be more relaxed than other muscles.

For instance, when you have carried a heavy load and your arm feels more relaxed after you put it down.