Breathing Exercise

The aim of this exercise is to address chronic sub-clinical, sub-acute hyperventilation breathing pattern that a lot of us suffer from. Hyperventilation happen when you breath incorrectly, using faster but shallower breaths. This results in changes in the levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen in your blood, and this can cause a wide variety of symptoms such as dizziness / light-headedness, pins and needles around the mouth and other things like changes in muscle tone. When it is chronic sub-acute, sub-clinical this means it has been going on for a long time but isn’t bad enough for you to necessarily be aware of it. It will be causing issues with your physiology and this can have far reaching health effects.

To perform the exercise, sit comfortably and then take a good breath in, using mostly our abdomen but also some of your chest to do this. Pause for a second or two then blow the air back out through your lips, which you are pressing together as firmly as you can, the idea here is to create some resistance for your lungs and chest muscles to push against. Keep breathing out, trying to stay as relaxed as you can, until you feel a sense of tightening in our solar plexus. This tightening is the same feeling you get in your tummy when you have been holding your breath and your body is telling you to breath in again. Be honest with yourself about when you start to feel this sensation, and when you do, stop blowing out and hold your breath for a slow count of 5. Then breath in again and repeat 10 times.

You will feel a bit dizzy when first starting to do this exercise “ if this happens then simply reduce the number of cycles of the exercise you do, building up to 10. Repeat the exercise x3 per day.