I was driving past Coachella (windows down, sunshine in my face), and was instantly taken aback by how breathing the air felt so good. I’m from Chicago, and the city air is a completely different smell and feeling. Am I used to it, yes, because I’ve lived there my entire life. But in case you don’t know, city air can feel thick or heavy at times. Not by Coachella though. Instantly, deep breathing while there caused me to feel peaceful and happy (the beautiful scenery of course didn’t hurt!).
Honestly in that moment all I could think about was all the times I’ve missed being intentional about breathing. I remember I used to promise myself to deep breathe at least every day and take in a moment to myself; yet, I’ve been letting the rigors of day to day stop me from feeling refreshed just through simple breathing.
Clearly, Apple understands the beauty of deep breathing because they built in the breath app into their famous Apple Watch. For those of you who may not know what it is, it’s a deep breathing app that comes on once per hour and reminds you to deep breathe over the course of one minute to help reduce stress. Now even with this beautiful reminder right on my wrist, I still have passed over many opportunities to receive the benefits of intentional breathing.
Have you ever been in the same boat? If so, this post is absolutely for you.
Breathing probably gets a bad wrap because it’s something our body naturally does every second of every day, so we forget to take a small moment each day to just appreciate it.
But breathing has so many more benefits than just simply being just a natural action our body takes a part in. Let jump into it:
- Breathing is one of the best ways to reduce any anxieties or stress you may be experiencing in the moment. Now, when I share that, I don’t mean that intense, immediate stress will be out the window. Instead. by taking international breaths you’ll be able to reduce your blood pressure and calm down some. Simply doing that will lend way to less anxiety and stress when frustrated. Think of it this way, when you were a kid and upset, most likely you heard your parents say “It’s okay. Slow down. Breathe. It’s okay. Now tell me what’s going on.” Well the same principle applies here: intentional breathing helps slow your system down and gets you on the track to being more calm (especially when upset).
- Breathing also reduces the toxins in your body. Every day, we have to deal with tons of toxins (things like air pollution or bad water), and deep breathing helps your body to purify, release carbon dioxide and any buildup of those toxins.
- Deep breathing helps with better posture. When we deep breathe, it helps us to sit up better and stand taller. And you may possibly notice when you engage in deep breathing, your spine naturally begins to straighten (which is a large part of having better posture). So keep those breaths going strong!
- Deep breathing can also help you sleep better. When we take deeper breaths, we begin to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS); which in turn helps to trigger a relaxation response that improves your overall sleep.
- One of my personal favs about deep breathing is how it helps to make you more mindful of your body. When you take breaths in, you begin to be aware of how you breathe and how your body moves. And one of the best advantages to becoming more mindful is that overtime it becomes more easy to be aware of your emotions as well.
After all of this amazing talk about the benefits, let’s discuss how to actually deep breathe. Honestly, it’s really as simple as 1-2-3:
- Try to lie down or sit up in a comfortable position. Make sure you’re free from distractions for at least 5-10 minutes. Typically I would also try to stretch your muscles for 1-2 minutes before beginning to deep breathe.
- Inhale deeply. Usually this looks like breathing in for approximately 4-6 seconds.
- Exhale. Also for 4-6 seconds, breathe out your breath.
Repeat this process over 2-10 minutes and voila! That’s it my love. Calmness is the name of your game.
Have you tried keeping track of your breathing? Journaling is an amazing and simple way to do just that. You can find our notebooks here: Click here
