Just Breathe

Breathing is something we give for granted. No one can say we don’t know how to breathe, or we wouldn’t be here otherwise. All of us breathe enough to give our organism the amount of oxygen needed to sustain life, but there is so much more about breathing that we ignore.

We rarely take deep breaths and usually when we do it is as part of some kind of exercise or meditating and not as an everyday habit. We only take deep breaths to calm ourselves during a stressful event, when our mind instinctively whispers: “Just breathe“. Instead, throughout the day we inhale small amounts of oxygen and exhale rapidly and repeatedly.

Almost by accident, I stumbled with the benefits that deep breathing has on everyday life. I invite you to include deep breathing as a habit throughout your day by sneaking it as a part of your routine tasks.

What has worked for me is to take a good deep breathe before answering the phone. It only takes two seconds and given that my phone rings a lot, I find myself breathing deep often. You could do it every time prior to sending an email, or set an alarm to remind you every half hour to breath deep. Whatever works for you is fine as long as you are reminded to breathe deeply often during the day.

After just a couple of days you will notice that your body will request that extra amount of oxygen and deep breathing would have become a permanent habit.

The immediate results I have experienced after just a few days are:

1. It gets easier: We are so not used to deep breaths, that the first time we do it is incredibly uncomfortable. Our lungs are underused and not accustom to expand as much as they do when we breathe deeply. With a little bit of practice it will become easier and your lungs will actually get used to be filled. After a few days you will wonder how you lived breathing so little.

2. Habit: After just a couple of days you won’t need to think consciously about deep breathing or to link it to a routine task, like I did when answering the phone. You will find yourself breathing deep, often during the day almost unconsciously.

3. Energy: An amazing increase in the amount of energy at disposal, so much that the first days after I got used to deep breathing, I had trouble sleeping. Now I understand this was due to the fact that my body had much more energy that before but no new activities was included in my routine. So I highly recommend that you also add some kind of physical activity that helps you put to good use all the additional energy deep breathing brings.

4. Emotional stability: You will discover that your emotional stability will improve considerably. If you set your intention to remain in some particular emotional state, now it will be much harder to be knocked out of it. Is not by chance that it is recommended to take a deep breath when we feel anxious, stressed or angry.

I’m sure there are more positive effects of deep breathing regularly, but from experience I can confirm that you will experience the above mentioned just two or three days after you start practicing deep breathing as a habit. Just breathe and confirm by yourself!

If you know by experience any other effect related to deep breathing please feel free to share it!