|
Home / Personal Development / Stress Management
Breathing: The Real Secret To Stress Relief
By:Abbas Abedi
It has never occurred to most people that something they do everyday, every night – continuously – can be a source of powerful stress relief.
I remember when my father’s friend was doing an awards presentation. For entertainment he said he was going to test how observant we were. He then told us NOT to look at our wrist watches and asked questions about the color, the type of watch is was, were the numbers Roman Numerals or regular English numbers and so on. NO ONE was able to answer all the questions.
Another, better known, story is about Christopher Columbus. When Columbus arrived in the new world and landed on his rowboat…the natives could not see his ship out at sea! Their familiarity with their environment and the ocean in particular was such that they couldn’t perceive the ship. An elder medicine man who had the flexibility of perception had to describe the ship to his fellow tribesmen before they could see it.
This same familiarity applies to how we perceive our breathing.
Our breathing is something that we have become so familiar with that we are almost completely unaware of its effects. Consider this, our breath bridges our conscious and unconscious i.e. unconsciously we are always breathing and at any time we can consciously focus on our breathing.
This is important to remember because all our emotional states are reflected in our breathing. If we are stressed our breathing tends to be shallow and focused in our upper lungs.
In fact jerky breathing itself will actually increase anxiety and stress. While when we are relaxed we tend to breathe fully into our belly. Practicing belly breathing (diaphragmatic breathing) can be extremely beneficial.
Simply knowing this can make a big difference like remembering to breath deeply if you are stressed to feel better. In other words, you had an unconscious shallow/jerky breathing pattern when you were stressed and by consciously taking control you can choose a breathing pattern that is better for your mind and body.(which would be diaphragmatic breathing)
In Yoga, breathing is considered to be so important that before any task a yogi first prepares his/her breathing. Proper breath control is considered the key to healthy living. In fact, learning to do proper diaphragmatic breathing has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety permanently.
Diaphragmatic Breathing
Sit or stand with your back straight, put your hand on your belly and breath in a slow and deep pattern. Don’t try to overfill the lungs or empty them - just breath softly - expanding your belly on the inhale and contracting on the exhale. Keep your attention focused on your breathing. You will find that your mind will tend to drift. That is normal. Simply return your attention to your breath when you notice you got distracted. Allow the relaxation from this breathing pattern to spread through your body and just enjoy yourself.
Practicing diaphragmatic breathing on a regular basis will alleviate stress and give you the ability to manage your stress better. All because of some deep and slow breathing.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: stress, stress management, stress relief, reduce stress, stress reduction, stress and anxiety
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
By Abbas Abedi
Learn how to reduce your stress in 2 minutes, remove stress with a thought and more from my free e-course “4 Days to Break Free From Stress”. Join now by visiting, Free e-Course
|
|
| Top Stress Management Articles |
- 1). The Causes Of Stress By : blueboy
This article looks into the causes of stress and gives free tips to help you control and reduce your worries.
I have, as I am sure many people do, stressed for most of my life for many different reasons.
Even though I still worry about many things, I have now learned how to handle many of these situations and will write about how I go about doing this, in this article.
|
- 2). How to Keep Stress Out of the Car By : Ken Snowie
We’ve all experienced it: it’s morning rush hour, you have five minutes to get to work, and you are stuck in traffic because of a major accident on the highway. The stress of being late for work makes your blood boil or it’s the evening rush hour, and you’re late to pick your child up from day care. You narrowly avoid an accident because of a careless driver.
|
- 3). Stop Stress Now: Ten Proven Techniques By : Art Turner
There's no such thing as a stress-free life. We face challenges every day, and our bodies are designed to react automatically, equipping us to achieve more than we thought possible. But we were also designed to deal with stressful events quickly and then recuperate during a period of rest before facing the next threat. Many of the things that cause us stress today are not easily handled by fighting or fleeing.
|
|
|
- 5). Coping With Stress in The Workplace By : Ken Snowie
Stress at most jobs is unavoidable. It could be caused by a boss who is very demanding, or a coworker who doesn’t pull his or her weight. Or maybe you have a typically stressful position, such as medicine or law. While some stress on the job can drive you to succeed and be healthy, too much can be very bad. It can cause many health problems and be detrimental.
|
|
|
- 7). Combat Stress - 7 Practical Methods By : Rene Graeber
A stress-free lifestyle could very well do wonders in eliminating depression.
Here are 7 practical methods to combat stress:
1. Express Amusement And Be Happy.
Laugh hard and loud. If you don’t have a sense of humor, find someone else who has. Laughter releases endorphins (happy chemicals) from the body, and it helps boost your immune system.
2.
|
|
|
- 9). Keeping a Safe Distance from Management Stress By : Hector Milla
You finally got your well-deserved promotion. After working years and years on proving your worth, having been recognized for your efforts and getting that sizeable increase is making all the hard work well worth it.
But then again you didn't count on all the pressure the new job comes with. You suddenly notice that you're always tired, irritable and hardly gets any sleep, in other words you're all stressed out.
|
|
|
| New Stress Management Articles |
- 1). Overcoming Panic Attacks By : Mark Webb
Panic attacks are usually progressive in nature if they are not treated properly. Many people who suffer from panic attacks go for months and years before getting the correct diagnosis.
|
|
|
- 3). Journaling To Reduce Stress By : Jason Johns
When you get stressed, journaling, i.e. writing things down, is an excellent method of releasing the stress and making sure you can deal with it better in the future.
|
|
|
|
|
- 6). How Email Is One Of The Greatest Causes Of Stress By : Terence Young
When email first hit the scene many experts were touting the end of snail mail. After all they said email can be sent for free, it was instant and you were able to potentially receive a reply to your communication faster than it would take you to drop of your snail mail at your local post office. Decades on email has certainly far from replaced the use of snail mail.
|
- 7). Quiz - Are You An Expert At Fighting Stress? By : CD Mohatta
Stress is becoming pervasive in modern life. We are now finding that stress causes many diseases that can affect our life style. Stress damages our mental peace and physical fitness. Quiz yourself and find out if you are an expert at fighting stress.
Stress will always be there - To hope that stress can be avoided in modern life is difficult. All of us face stress in our life.
|
- 8). Quiz Your Anger By : CD Mohatta
Anger is one of the most common emotions. Most of us get angry . some of us get angry at the smallest provocation, while for some others it takes more. Some of us keep our anger with us and seethe with that while others may release it immediately.
Anger over what was done wrong with us is the most damaging emotion. It tires us very fast. Any betrayal can give rise to anger that can go out of control.
|
- 9). Stress Management, The New Health Trend. By : Trenton Martkes
What is it about stress and stress management that everybody has their panties up in a bunch about now-a-days? I mean do we really think that our society today is more stressed out than back in the days when people were dying right and left, eaten by large animals, starving, being shot with arrows, etc.? I mean you've got to be kidding me right? Well yes and no.
|
- 10). How To Cope With And Reduce Stress By : blueboy
I have always struggled to live a stress-free life. I worry about almost every aspect of life and living this way has caused me a lot of problems including various bouts of ill health from time to time. I needed to find a way of coping with and reducing the amount of stress in my life and in this article I write about how I have managed to achieve this.
|
|
|
