How Keys to a Long and Healthy Life

One of the most important keys to a long and healthy life is to avoid getting overly stressed. In a bid to beat this stress, many join yoga classes, get massages or take the time out to meditate.

There is however one method that is pretty good at relieving stress but is always being overlooked by so many people despite the possibility of being able to be done anywhere and at any time.

Breathing is done involuntarily and naturally and as such many people underestimate its potential to relieve any kind of stress. It can be done at absolutely any time and place. All that one needs is their set of lungs and they are good to go.

To be able to use breathing to get rid of your stress, you will have to get accustomed to breathing exercises. These require that you maintain a moderately slow rhythm of breathing that mainly uses the diaphragm. It sounds very easy to do but in reality it actually requires a lot of practice before one can be doing it subconsciously. Starting with a routine practice of once a day is a good way to get a hang of it.

To know that you are doing it properly, you will have to put one of your hands on your chest and the other one just a bit above your belly button. Take a deep breath slowly counting to seven in your mind before exhaling slowly. The whole point of the hands is to tell if you are doing it the right way. The hand on the chest should not rise further out than the one on your abdomen.

When it comes to exhaling, it has to be very slowly through the mouth while you are contracting your abs at the same time. This is to make sure that all the air is expelled from your lungs.

The count this time while exhaling will have to be one second longer than the seven for inhaling so that you can push out all the spent air.

This cycle should be done for a total of 5 times. Just to make sure that these breathing exercises are at their maximum effectiveness of removing away your stress, think of a positive aspect you want coming into your life and a negative one that you want to get rid of. As you breathe in speak out the positive word e.g. Fresh air and as you exhale speak out the negative word e.g. Stress.

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