Deep breathing exercises can improve your life in more ways than you can imagine. Your breathing change with your emotions or you can say it works the other way round. Your breaths become short and shallow when you are angry or when you are under control of your negative emotions. Making a conscious effort to take deep breaths in times of stress and anxiety can actually help you save your sanity. So, what exactly are deep breathing benefits? What is the right way to do these exercises? Let's find out more now!

Benefits of Deep Breathing 

Deep breathing can improve your overall health. So many people do not realize it but they only take a few deep breaths throughout the day. Here are some of the most common yet impressive deep breathing benefits:

1. Improved Energy Levels

You are going to have a more fulfilling life by maintaining better energy levels throughout the day. You can achieve this through deep breathing. You will feel more energetic when you have deeper, fuller breaths, and that is mainly because deep breathing allows you to provide more oxygen to every cell in your body.

2. Reduced Stress

You will feel calmer when you practice deep breathing exercises. It relaxes the mind by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. Shallow breathing is one of many symptoms that you are dealing with stress. The shallower your breaths are, the higher the chances of you experiencing tightness in your muscles. Your breathing helps regulate your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps release muscular tension and makes it easier to get out of stress.

3. Improved Digestion

One of many deep breathing benefits is improved digestion. Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system that helps keep your immune system healthy. Your digestive system also improves because deep breathing delivers more oxygen to the digestive organs and also improves blood circulation, which further improves your digestion.

4. Reduced Inflammation

An acidic body provides a perfect environment for diseases to grow and deep breathing can prevent this by reducing the acidity level of the body. Moreover, your body will become less toxic because breathing helps release toxins, especially carbon dioxide, which cannot be expelled because of shallow breathing. Deep breathing makes your body alkaline and prevents cancers as well as other diseases.

5. Improved Posture

If your breathing technique is incorrect, the chances are your posture needs serious fixing too. Bad posture has a direct link with incorrect breathing and you can improve your posture through deep breathing. Just by practicing deep breathing for a short time will make you upright and correct any postural problems. It happens because your lungs fill up when you breathe deeply and this not only strengthens your spine but also help you sit or stand taller.

6. Greater Awareness

More awareness of your surrounding is among many deep breathing benefits. This helps you live in the present moment and connect with your intuition. Your body has the ability to make you aware of how much rest it needs or how active it needs to be. You can develop that awareness by meditating and deep breathing. This helps you breathe slowly that prevents overeating and injuries while exercising.

7. Stronger Relationships

Deep breathing increases neurochemical production in your brain that increases the levels of feel-good hormones. With improved moods, you are more likely to enjoy your life and this happiness will also reflect on your relationships. Deep breathing exercises keep you calm down and the less reactive you are the higher the chances of you enjoying better relationships. You are less likely to find yourself in trouble when instead of saying something mean to someone, you step back emotionally and take your time before responding to any situation. Shallow breathing will trigger flight or fight response that can hurt your relationships in a bad way.

8. Better Cardiovascular Health

Deep breathing improves your cardiovascular capacity by making it possible to inhale more oxygen. Practicing deep breathing allows you to do more cardio easier, and this in turn improves your cardiovascular capacity. Since there will be more oxygen in your system, there will be less load on your cardiovascular system. This in turn protects you from heart disease.

9. Healthy Body Weight

Aerobic exercise helps burn excess fat and you can do more cardio when you practice deep breathing. Being able to burn fat cells can help regulate weight. Deep breathing also provides your body with enough oxygen that makes fat-burning process more efficient. It also triggers the relaxation response that lowers stress and keeps your body from burning glycogen instead of fat.

Guide to Deep Breathing

Now you know the benefits of deep breathing and may be wondering how to incorporate breathing exercises in your routine to get those benefits. Here is how to start enjoying deep breathing benefits:

• Lie on your back or sit in a comfortable chair in an upright position.
• Keep one of your hands on your stomach and the other one on your chest.
• Inhale slowly. Be sure to breathe from your abdomen instead of your chest. Ensure that your stomach rises as you inhale.
• Take a deep breath through your nose and then hold your breath for a few seconds.
• Exhale through your mouth but do it slowly. If it takes you 4 seconds to inhale you should take 8 seconds to exhale. Just focus completely on your breathing and forget about everything else.
• Be sure to do 4-8 breathing sessions thrice a day to see results.