Correct Breathing
Breathing is your body's most essential requirement for life.
However, unless you're an opera singer or play a woodwind instrument, nobody teaches you how to do it properly. The fact is that when we're born we know intuitively how to breathe correctly using our diaphragm but somewhere along the way we begin to lose that ability and predominantly only breathe through our chest and our neck muscles. This can lead to an increase in tension around the neck and sub-optimal posture amongst other things.
Benefits of a Correct Breathing Pattern:
- Improved detoxification
- Releases tension, Improves posture
- Calms the mind, Relaxes the muscles
- Massages + moves your internal organs
- Mental clarity, Elevated mood
- Oxygenates your cells
- Improved muscle gain and core function
- Improved digestion
- More efficient fat burning
- Improves the nervous system
Check out these tips on how to breathe correctly
There's some really handy bits of kit you can use to help improve your diaphragmatic breathing technique. A breathing mask can help develop the function of your diaphragm muscle. Here, our very own Bodyguards Trainers Dr Dunc and Mike Paul explain how nasal breathing can change your life !
Dunc says "Mouth breathing and resultant overbreathing elevates your blood pressure and heart rate and worsens asthma, allergies, rhinitis, sleep apnea, and deprives your heart, brain and other organs of optimal oxygenation"
Meditation
How to relax
Correct breathing is the basis on which the art of meditation and types of exercise like yoga is based. Meditation is a form of passive rest that can help restore the body's anabolic state which means by meditating regularly, you can improve the gains from your workouts in terms of improved strength, muscle size and muscular endurance.
Headspace App
You don't have to be a hippy to meditate ! Nowadays you can download cool little apps to your iphone or android mobile which guide you through the techniques required to meditate efficiently. All you then need to do is put aside 10 minutes somewhere in your day to pop some headphones on, start breathing properly and let the stress drift away ... HEADSPACE
If you're interested in learning more about meditation, then keep checking out the newsletter because its a topic I will be discussing in more detail in the future.
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