Published: 08/14/2018 - Updated: 02/08/2019
Author: MSc. Miriam Reyes
Oxygenating the body well is absolutely indispensable to keeping it healthy. And proper breathing is how we can help our bodies to absorb enough oxygen. Most people are used to breathing incorrectly, seeing as how they are influenced by harmful habits like stress, poor posture, a contaminated environment, smoking, etc.
We must oxygenate our bodies because several bodily functions depend on it.
Contents
Good breathing:
- Improves and strengthens the nervous system, keeps the brain (which is, in fact, the first thing to benefit from good breathing), the spine, the nervous centers, and our nerves healthy.
- Relaxes and removes tension from the body, allowing nutrients to be effectively absorbed and helping to eliminate toxic waste from the body.
- Rejuvenates the glands, most especially the pituitary and pineal glands.
- Decomposes waste material in the body.
- Helps control body temperature.
- Helps in appropriate burning of food sources.
- Helps appropriate control of emotions and altered states like anxiety, stress, nerves, rage, depression, etc.
- Promotes an increase of blood. This boosts toxin elimination from the body.
- Absolutely necessary for bodily construction.
- Rejuvenates the skin, making it softer and reducing facial wrinkles.
- Reduces alterations or imbalances in our vital energy.
- Helps control weight, seeing as how excess oxygen helps burn extra fat.
Breathing with your diaphragm during deep breathing exercises massages your abdominal organs like the stomach, intestines, liver, and pancreas. Appropriate diaphragm movement also provides a healthy and delicious massage to the heart, which stimulates blood circulation in the cardiovascular organs.
Proper breathing
There are several techniques for proper breathing. Yogic breathing, for example, is slow and deep, and reduces the work load on the heart. It also helps strengthen the lungs, supplies the brain the oxygen, helps weight loss, relieves tensions in the body, and centers it in deep relaxation.
Yoga practice is recommended for learning to breathe properly, but there are also other techniques you can learn, like abdominal breathing. Kundalini Yoga, for example, teaches this type of deep and prolonged breathing as the first step to learning the breathing that they call the Fire, since it helps in creating consciousness of full distension and contractions of the diaphragm.
If you prefer something more “homemade” or simple, however, just walking, swimming, bicycling, or any other daily exercise, for at least 20 minutes a day, is necessary for your body to absorb proper oxygenation.
If you would like to know whether or not you are breathing well, you can look up “breathing techniques“, which have become popular in the United States. You should be able to find a few internet sites that provide tests to see if you breathe properly or not.
Revised by: Dra. Loredana Lunadei on 02/08/2019
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