When daily events cause you stress, your breathing shallows and this can make feelings of stress worse. The good news is that you have control over getting yourself back to a state of calm simply by paying attention to your breath.
Firstly, let’s take a brief look at the biology of breathing.
Become aware of your breathing has a significant impact on your health and wellbeing and has the following benefits:
Here are some tried and tested breathing techniques to start practising with.
The purpose of breathing is to transport life-giving oxygen to the cells throughout your body. When you breathe, your lungs take in oxygen from the air, transport it to the circulatory system which then distributes this to the cells throughout your body. At the same time, carbon dioxide, which is a waste gas, is transported from your blood to your lungs and expelled from your body when you exhale. This is called gas exchange, and it is vital to sustaining life and maintaining good health.
The main muscles that control the movement of breathing is the diaphragm, the intercostal muscles (the muscles between your ribs) and the abdominal muscles. If you feel stressed, these muscles contract and cause the breathing to become shallow which can make feelings of stress or anxiety even worse.
Even though the stress response can be involuntary, you can get back in control of this response through your breathing. By being mindful of your breathing, you can ease and alleviate symptoms of stress and anxiety.
This three-part breathing exercise is simple and a good way to begin breathing exercises. It is essentially about practicing mindfulness around breathing, using all three breathing parts of the body properly – the diaphragm, chest and abdomen.
This is basically a first step to becoming more aware of your breathing if you’re new to breathing techniques.
This technique will help you to relax and get back to sleep if you wake up in the middle of the night.
You’ll feel yourself relaxing as this breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system which places your body in a more resting mode.
This breathing technique increases the use of your diaphragm and therefore the lungs to their full capacity, which in turn increases lung efficiency.\
You can practise this breathing lying down or sitting in a chair.
Repeat these steps for 5 minutes. Keep the hands on the chest and abdomen so that you get accustomed to the feeling of the chest being still, while the abdomen inflates and deflates.
Just like breathing properly, the name Kosmea means “to harmonise” and bring into balance. Ever since we began manufacturing rosehip oil in 1993, our commitment has been to support people’s health and wellbeing and this ethos is carried in each of our products, from plant to bottle.
When you buy Rosehip Oil from Kosmea, you’re supporting communities in Lesotho, South Africa, who handpick the rosehips for our 100% Certified Organic Rosehip Oil and rely on this source of income for their families.
Need some help with your skin type? We’ve created specific skin care routines for your skin type. Each routine recommends one of our nutrient-rich products to help cleanse, moisturise, soothe, while boosting elasticity, improving the quality and rejuvenating skin cells for the ultimate skin-glowing complexion.
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