Breathing Techniques to Combat stress

Yoga is a five thousand year old Hindu discipline. It is essentially concerned with training the conscious mind with insights that are laced with spirituality and calmness. It advocates the use of action, erudition, and whole-hearted belief to achieve the end object of a spiritually healed physically conscious body.

It employs different body postures that are aimed at inducing a particular effect physically, physiologically, mentally, and spiritually.

Breathing is an important activity in all actions of yoga. All the postures are synchronized with a specific breathing state.

What can yoga do for you?

- You can reduce your anxiety and stress levels
- It can help you control your blood pressure
- It will increase your body strength
- You will get relief from respiratory problems

A good way to start off would be to regulate your breathing. Many people are not aware of the power of breathing. Thousands of years ago a lot of intricate bindings were discovered between a persons breathing habits and the associated physiological and psychological attributes.

You can breathe your stress away by just breathing well. Good breathing habits increase your life span. It can also help you overcome respiratory disorders, blood pressure, and anxiety amongst other things.

Here is a small summary of your breathing and its effect on our body mechanism..
When we inhale air, oxygen from this air is absorbed by the body. This oxygen is used to turn all the raw materials stored in the cells into energy that the body needs.

And when you exhale, the by product of this process, that is carbon dioxide, is thrown out of the body.

So, in other words, if you exhale more oxygen, this means the cells in your body will get more capacity to give you more energy.

Below is a good breathing exercise to get into the good breathing habit

Alternate nostril breathing exercise:

- Sit in a steady position.
- Bring your right hand up towards your nose.
- Close your left nostril with the sides of your curled index finger
- Inhale air with your right nostril
- Now close your right nostril with your thumb and release your left nostril
- Exhale through your left nostril
- Now repeat the whole procedure starting off with your left nostril
- Remember to always inhale and exhale deeply