Investment

 Breathe Energy & Health Back Into Your Body

But we can develop poor breathing habits that adversely affect our health.

Last year I experienced a rather alarming period of serious arrythmia [ irregular heart rate]. This was accompanied by a feeling of faintness, headaches, smell of car fumes, and overall complete lack of energy. I was going through a rather stressful time, but thought I had this well control. I was right in one aspect, I had it mentally under control, but what I didn't realise was that my body was reacting to the stress in ways I was not perceiving. And the most notable physical reaction was that my breathing became very shallow, and at times I would stop breathing all together. I was not conscious of either of these events.

Although the ECG showed the heart beat was all over the place - no pathology was diagnosed.

It wasn't until I had completed all these tests and was trying to isolate what may be causing these symptoms that I detected that rather than my heart rate increasing, as it does with many suffering from arrythmia, mine was dropping so low I was pumping insufficient oxygen to the brain to stay fully alert. In fact, I was concentrating so hard on the tasks at hand that I didn't realise that I was no longer breathing normally.

The solution was simple - breathe!!!

Breathing is such an overlooked aspect of health - yet it is essential to maintaining a sense of well being and inner peace. Adopting a breathing program has proved very beneficial in the treatment of all kinds of physical and mental trauma. Just ask any woman who has been through child birth.

Our body is strongly self healing - it works to not only provide the essential nutrients to all the cells of the body, but to rid the body of toxins and repair any damage. Oxygen is a critical part of these processes. Insufficient oxygen results in overall poor performance of the body, and decline in energy.

Learning to breath correctly can improve your energy levels and bring all aspects of your physical and mental wellness into balance.

Proper breathing:

- boosts the oxygen content of your blood.

- increases circulation throughout your body

- improves headaches

- energises the whole body

- promotes health lungs

- helps with respiratory diseases, such as asthma and hyperventilation

- improves mental wellbeing - reduces feelings of anxiety, depression and negative emotional states.

You can test if you are breathing correctly by placing your hand on your abdomen whilst you breathe in and out. Did you you abdominal muscles move at all, or were your breathes so shallow they only moved your rib cage.

A correct breath is when your abdominal muscles move out as your breathe in and in as you breathed out. Try it a few times right now. It may feel strange to start with, but with a little practice you can change your poor breathing habits and enjoy the benefits of more energy and happier brain!