Breathe!

Breathing is essential!

Do you ever feel like the world is narrowing around you? Outer noises overlapping your own thoughts? Lack of personal space that tenses your whole being, tying your body into a knot and causing anxiety? BREATHE!

Even if you don’t practice more complicated breathing techniques like pranayama (“Prana” and “Ayama”, translating to “energy” and “expansion”), simply DEEPENING your breath has a great therapeutic influence.

Deep (Abdominal) breathing starts in the nose and moves towards the stomach as the diaphragm contracts, making the belly expand (like a balloon) and the lungs fill with air at their full capacity. This way you distribute more oxygen into your body and quiet your sympathetic nervous system and therefore reduce stress or anxiety. So simple? Not entirely. It takes some practice to get used to deeper breathing: full breaths in and complete breaths out. But this is a proved path to a simple formula: Calm Breath means Calm Mind.