One of the secret recipes to a long and healthy life is to make sure that you do not let stress get to you. There are a lot of exercises that people follow today to get done away with their stress like yoga, meditation or a regular massage.
There is one proven to work technique that everybody can do at any time but not many take advantage of.
Due to the fact that breathing is something that occurs naturally and completely involuntarily, a lot of people disregard it as a stress busting technique. Little do people know that one of the simplest ways to get into a state of relaxation is breathing. It works for everybody anytime and the only requirement is a working pair of lungs.
The whole process of breathing exercises is to make sure that you slowly inhale air down to your diaphragm. As much as you may think that this is straight forward, a lot of practicing is actually necessary before you can be executing it properly unconsciously. It is imperative that you practice these exercises at least once on a daily basis.
Take your left hand and place it on your chest while placing your right hand on your abdomen. You then need to proceed and take a slow deep breath through your nose. The correct way of doing it will require that your right hand, on the abdomen, rises higher than its counterpart on the chest. Make sure to slowly count to seven before you exhale.
To make sure that you completely get rid of the air inhaled, you will have to slowly exhale through your mouth this time while contracting your abdominal muscles. This time when you are exhaling unlike inhaling, you will have to count up to eight instead so as to make sure that absolutely all the air exits your lungs.
This breathing cycle has to be done up to a minimum of five times if you want to feel the stress dissipate. To add to the breathing exercise, you will get a better effect if you put in one more practice. When you are inhaling your deep breaths, try to think to yourself a positive word that you would like to come into your life. For example, if your goal is to just relax then try to say to yourself “relaxation” as you inhale deeply. When you are exhaling, say to yourself a negative word that you would like to get out of your life for example “stress”.
