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Deep Breathing

GE: stress management

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akansharachelpaul
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11 views5 pages

Deep Breathing

GE: stress management

Uploaded by

akansharachelpaul
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Deep Breathing

Introduction
• Deep Breathing: a relaxation technique performed by purposefully
taking slow, deep breaths. When practiced regularly, deep
breathing provides both immediate and long-term relief
from stress and anxiety. During periods of anxiety, the body triggers a
set of symptoms called the stress response.

• Deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress in the body.
This is because when you breathe deeply, it sends a message to your
brain to calm down and relax. The brain then sends this message to
your body.

• Deep breathing also goes by the names of diaphragmatic breathing,


abdominal breathing, belly breathing, and paced respiration. When
you breathe deeply, the air coming in through your nose fully fills
your lungs, and the lower belly rises.
Procedure
• Sit comfortably with your back straight. Put one hand on your chest and the
other on your stomach.

• Breathe in through your nose. The hand on your stomach should rise. The
hand on your chest should move very little.

• Exhale through your mouth, pushing out as much air as you can while
contracting your abdominal muscles. The hand on your stomach should
move in as you exhale, but your other hand should move very little.

• Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your pursued
lips (mouth). Try to inhale enough so that your lower abdomen rises and
falls. Count slowly as you exhale.

• If you find it difficult breathing from your abdomen while sitting up, try
lying down. Put a small book on your stomach, and breathe so that the
book rises as you inhale and falls as you exhale.
Another method
• Place one hand on your chest and the other hand on your abdomen.
When you take a deep breath in, the hand on the abdomen should
rise higher than the one on the chest. This ensures that the
diaphragm is pulling air into the bases of the lungs.

• After exhaling through your mouth, take a slow deep breath in


through your nose, allowing your mind to focus on the undersurface
of the nose where the air enters the body. Inhale for a count of 4.

• Slowly exhale for a count of 6-8. As all the air is released with
exhalation, gently contract your abdominal muscles to completely
evacuate the remaining air in your lungs. It is important to remember
that we deepen respirations by completely exhaling air, rather than
inhaling more of it.
Benefits of Deep Breathing Technique
• Cardiovascular diseases. Deep breathing can be effective in reducing high blood
pressure (Brandani, Mizuno, Ciolac, & Monteiro, 2017) and heart rate (Saoji,
Raghavendra, & Manjunath, 2019) in hypertensive individuals.

• Stress. Empirical evidence based on both objective and subjective measures points
to the effectiveness of deep-breathing exercises for improving psychological and
physiological stress (Hopper, Murray, Ferrara, & Singleton, 2019).

• Anxiety and depression. Deep breathing can reduce anxiety and depressive
symptoms in the general population and people with those clinical conditions
(Jerath, Crawford, Barnes, & Harden, 2015).

• Respiratory diseases. Deep breathing can help in the treatment of asthma and
tuberculosis, as well as contribute to cigarette withdrawal (Saoji et al., 2019).

• Diabetes. Breathing techniques can enhance the quality of life and improve
sympathetic responses in people with diabetes when combined with traditional
treatments (Saoji et al., 2019).

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