How Deep Breathing Can Help You Destress

In recent months, I had an episode where I felt really tired all the time.

No matter what time I slept, when I woke up, I still felt tired. At the end of the day, I just felt totally drained. 

And as I looked inwards, I discovered that the culprit was stress. 

I had been going through a difficult time where I had to hang around someone who was constantly in attack mode. Usually, my mantra would be to "Keep Calm And Carry On". However, as there were some work deadlines at hand, my stress level went up a notch. 

During a coaching session I had, (yes, coaches receive coaching too), I realized that I was feeling so tired because I was constantly in a Fight or Flight mode. It took so much energy to keep my defenses up at all time. I took some time to deal with that and I could feel my energy coming back slowly.

The recovery process accelerated when when I learnt how to breathe from a teacher and friend! 

Deep Breathing

This breathing method helps you to go deeper into peace and helps you relief yourself of pent up stress. 

1. Breathe in through the nose slowly and then breathe out through the mouth slowly.. Remember to relax your jaw. Repeat 3 times. (This is also a cool move I use during coaching to help my clients center themselves or come back to their peace) 
   
   
2. Now you continue to breathe in and imagine that the breath goes through your nose.. to the top of your head then flow behind your head, down your spine into your lower ribs at the back of your body
   
   We have these two movable ribs at the bottom of your ribcage (where the red arrows point) that do not go around to the front of our torso and when we breathe into them, they expand.
   
   
3. Repeat and keep breathing into the area shown in the arrow and feel your ribs that are attached to your spine in that area expanding outwards as you breathe in.. and contracting when you breathe out. If you put your hands on your waist as you breathe, you will be able to feel the expansion and contraction.
   
   
4. When you breathe out, you can make a sound like "ah...." to release pent up stress..
   
   
5. Bonus hack: If you have a pain in your body while exercising or over stretching, you can also find relief by using this breathing. After your breadth goes to your lower ribs at the spine, feel them travel to the part of your body that is in pain. Repeat for a few breadths to see improvement. I actually find myself getting more flexible when I use this breathing technique during my yoga classes,

Recovery Breathing

If for some reason, you are feeling super tired or find it hard to sleep. Or maybe you didnt sleep well the night before, you can practice this breathing technique to help your body go into recovery mode. 

Doing this will help to calm your nervous system down and allow body to recalibrate and rejuvenate. 

Apparently, 10min in this pose like sleeping for 2 hours. I tried it and it works. I shared this with a friend who had insomnia and she mentioned that it helped her too.

You will need to practice deep breathing for a minute or so before you start on Recovery Breathing.

1. After you get used to breathing to your back.. now you can lie down on the floor and raise your legs up and rest your calfs either on your chair, sofa or bed... To help the energy flow better, you can place a small thick towel or a small cushion at your pelvis area.
   
   As you do deep breathing and inhale, you help the energy flow down from your legs, to your heart and then to your head. This adds on to the rejuvenation.
   
   
2.  You keep breathing to your back and you put your hands at the part of your tummy area near the part where your legs are bent. left hand on left side and right hand on right side... the arms of your hands should still be supported by the floor
   
   
3. As you breathe deeply into your back,  you now move into a rhythm.... Breathe in, Pause, Breathe Out, Pause. This is called Square breathing.
   
   You only breathe in when you totally exhale all the air.
   
   Take your time to breathe in and breathe out slowly and let your pauses be the same length as your in and out. So think of it like square... in, pause, out, pause... length of each step is the same. 
   
   
4. As you repeat, this you feel your back sink in deeper deeper into the floor... and your head getting more and more relaxed and going deeper and deeper into the floor. As you breathe out, just relax a little bit more than you did previously.
   
   
5. As you breathe out, you can also imagine all the stress and tiredness leaving your body through your feet.
   
   
6. Repeat and stay in this position for a few minutes.
    
7. For best benefit, do this for 5 min a day when you wake and 5 min a day before you sleep.
   

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