Breathing for Your Wellness and Well-being

Your breathing cycles affect your wellness and well-being. It is important to speak to the importance of finding time to take the benefits of simple breathing meditations you can practice to diminish stress with natural breathing modalities.

Breathe as deeply as you would like to heal. The simple act of taking a relaxed full rhythmic breath cycle is one of the most beneficial actions you can take for your wellness and well-being. On the physical level, regulating your breath improves your digestion, the amount of oxygen that is transported into your blood, and brain function. On the emotional and mental levels, regulating your breath so that you are able to inhale and exhale fully allows you to experience greater calm in the midst of stressful situations and to regulate negative emotional states.

In Resonance Repatterning®, sessions work with breath patterns that are present and related to your issues with frustration, fear, anger, grief, sadness, shock, anxiety, and stress. Sometimes a client’s breath cycle is stuck on the inhale manifesting as holding the breath without an easy exhale. Other times, the client’s breathing pattern might show up with excessive sighing, or shallow breathing.

These limiting breathing patterns originate from different times in your life including birth process interruption of breath, a shock, or trauma, smoking, or even reactions to environmental toxins.

Breath Patterns for Well-being

1. Get in Touch with Your Breath

The easiest way to determine your breathing pattern is to put one hand on your upper abdomen near the waist and the other in the middle of your chest. If you are breathing properly, the hand on your abdomen should be expanding and contracting with each breath. If you notice that you are constantly breathing solely through your chest, start a daily abdominal breathing practice. You only have to do a few minutes per day to notice a difference. You can also use this technique in a stressful situation.

2. Sea of Tranquility Breathing Meditation

Get in touch with your breath. While taking even breaths for your inhale and exhale, you can massage the center of your chest known as CV17 to relieve anxiety and panic attacks. This point can be found by drawing an imaginary line from the crease of your armpit to the center of your chest. You can apply pressure with your fingers or place your hand in a prayer position with fingers pointing up and your elbows out to the side. Allow them to raise slightly along with your head on the inhale, and return back to a neutral position with your exhale. Exhale slowly through your mouth and let your belly contract as you do this. This will allow your mind and heart rate to move into a more relaxed state.

Stay with this breathing meditation for 2-3 minutes. Practice this a few times a day to bring greater harmony to your body-mind system. This will benefit you when you are anxious, depressed, or need to recover from emotional or physical injury.

Breath Patterns for Wellness

1. The Sea of Chi Breathing Meditation

Place both hands on your abdomen. Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose and breath into your belly. Your hands should rise as your belly rises and there should very little movement in your chest. Research shows that inhaling for 7 seconds and exhaling for 7 seconds can activate the part of your nervous system that calms stress. So as you breathe in, slowly count to 7 and do the same as you exhale. This will entrain your breathing with your nervous system.

2. Inhale for 4 and Exhale for 6 Breathing Meditation

Another breathing exercise for calming both the nervous system and your overworked mind is a timed breath where the exhale is longer than the inhale. When your exhale is even a few counts longer than your inhale, the vagus nerve (running from the neck down through the diaphragm) sends a signal to your brain to turn up your parasympathetic nervous system and turn down your sympathetic nervous system. This breathing pattern can turn down the cortisol and adrenaline response in your body-mind system.

3. Buteyko Breathing Meditation

This breathing pattern will allow your body-mind system to calm down and create relaxation. This is a light breathing exercise that increases nasal nitric acid which enhances oxygen uptake in the blood.

Aromatherapy to Breathe in for Wellness and Well-being

Another way to receive the benefits of breathing for your wellness and well-being is to use aromatherapy. What you smell is transmitted directly to your emotional brain.

There are many essential oils you can diffuse to support your Nervous System to calm and relax. You can use clary sage when you feel you need to ground yourself, feel like you are spacing out or after a shock, lavender can relieve headaches related to tension and also help you sleep better, citrus oils can relieve anxiety as well help you feel more energized, and vetiver can help you focus on what you need to do next.

You can inhale essential oils in a few ways. 1) Place a few drops on a tissue or paper towel, and then place it in a plastic bag. Open your bag to inhale the scent when you feel anxious or depleted. 2) Diffuse essential oil into the air with a candle or electric diffusers. You can also use your tissue clipped to an air source such as a fan. 3) Add a few drops on a cotton ball or pad to place inside your pillowcase to help with sleep like lavender. 4) Use steam a combination of a few drops of essential oils or plant material of sage, thyme, or rosemary to relieve congestion in a bowl of steaming water. Be sure the water is not boiling or too hot. Place a towel over your head, close your eyes, and inhale the benefits for up to 10 minutes.

You can also use teas and foods to enhance your aromatherapy experience. Eat an orange. Smell the rind of the orange to get the benefits of the oils in the peel to reduce anxiety. Make a citrus tea and inhale the aroma between sips. Drink Earl Grey tea for the calming effects of Bergamot. You can also drink mint tea to create clarity while also supporting your digestion.

Kimberly Rex, MS is a Master Resonance Repatterning® and Wellness and Well-being Life Coach, and Person-Centered Expressive Therapist. She works with people all over the world by phone, Skype, and proxy during these times.

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