Breathing Exercises

موضوع: Breathing Exercises الخميس سبتمبر 06, 2007 7:41 pm

Deep Breathing Can Improve Fitness

In a study published in the May 2, 1998, issue of The Lancet, researchers working with cardiac patients at the University of Pavia, Italy, have established an optimum healthy breath rate of 6 breaths a minute. When you consider that the average resting breath rate is 12-14 times a minute, this represents a substantial reduction in breath rate. Patients who learned to slow down their breathing through special deep-breathing techniques ended up with higher levels of blood oxygen and were able to perform better on exercise tests. According to the report, low blood oxygen, which is common in cardiac patients, "may impair skeletal muscle and metabolic function, and lead to muscle atrophy and exercise intolerance." The authors of the study conclude that their findings support other research "that report beneficial effects of training respiratory muscles and decreasing respiratory work in (cardiac heart failure patients), or physical training in general."

Digestive Breathing
Digestive breathing is a simple but effective breathing exercise that can help promote digestion. It is based on using your hands to stimulate energy points related to the spleen and stomach meridians (energy pathways described in Chinese medicine), while you simultaneously direct your breathing deep into your belly.
To undertake this breathing exercise, sit on a firm chair with your spine erect, yet relaxed, and your feet flat on the floor in front of you. Place your hands on your knees with the heel of your hands above your knee caps and your fingers pointed downward. Use your fingers, especially your index finger, middle finger, and ring finger, to find three indentations in your knee where the fingers can comfortably fit. Your middle finger will be over the center of the knee cap. Now simply keep your hands there, using just a slight pressure to stimulate the meridians running through the knee area. Sense the warmth going into your knees from your hands.

As you breathing in, sense that you are breathing energy gently into your expanding belly. As you are breathing out, sense your belly naturally contracting. Do not use force. Work in this way with your breathing for at least five minutes after each meal, or any time you have digestive problems.

Diaphragmatic Breathing Can Help Your Heart
Recent research seems to show that there is a relationship between upper chest breathing and heart attacks. According to Donna Farhi in her recently published book The Breathing Book (Owl Books, p. 59), patients who had experienced a heart attack were later taught how to integrate diaphragmatic breathing into their daily lives. "In doing so," says Farhi, "they significantly reduced their chances of having a second heart attack. Another study showed that all 153 patients of a coronary unit breathed predominantly in their chests." By learning deep, diaphragmatic breathing we can apparently help our heart.
Conscious Breathing For Relaxation & Pain Reduction
Yogis, chi kung practitioners, meditators, and alternative health practitioners have known for a long time that conscious breathing can help reduce stress, increase relaxation, and decrease pain. In her new book Molecules of Emotion, famed neuroscientist Candace Pert tells us that bringing our attention to our breathing during meditation brings many such benefits. Such mindful breathing helps us "enter the mind-body conversation without judgments or opinions, releasing peptide molecules from the hindbrain to regulate breathing while unifying all systems." The key here, it seems, is simply to be present to our breathing, using our inner attention to follow our inhalations and exhalations as they take place by themselves. So if you want to increase relaxation and reduce stress and pain, try sitting quietly each day for at least several minutes and simply follow your breathing with your attention. (For information about some of the more spiritual aspects of working with your attention and consciousness
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