Breathing

Overview: A detailed explanation of the various components of Wisercise and how they work together to provide a life-long urban health fitness training system.

Mindfulness: Harness the Power of The Mind-Body Connection with the practice of Mindfulness. Free yourself from mechanical, conditioned ways of thinking and living which may be harmful to yourself or others.

Breathing: Ageing and the pressures of modern daily life will cause you to change the way you breathe. This article introduces a technique of deep breathing called the Complete Breath and highlights its role in maintaining good health and quality of life.

Posture: Many of the muscles used for breathing are also used for postural alignment. Good posture will improve your breathing and balance in addition to preventing falls and injuries. Learn how to fine-tune your posture for best results.

Stretching: Stretching is an extremely versatile and accomodating form of movement used by physiotherapists, athletes, ballet dancers, pugilists and the military. It is not only a bookend to vigorous exercise but a beneficial exercise in itself!

Aerobic Exercise: Add Years to Life & Life to Years with a traditional, easy-to-do exercise form that positively affects the years of life after age 40, lengthening life while postponing and compacting end-of-life disability.

Inside Aerobics: Find out what happens to you when you exercise aerobically and the benefits to your heart, brain and vital organs.

Best Aerobic Exercise: Researchers have found Walking to be the best aerobic exercise for daily health and wellness maintenance due to its accessibility, lowest injury rate of any exercise form and ability to reduce risk of premature death, dementia and other diseases.

Quickstep Overview: An overview of the Quickstep aerobic briskwalking technique. What is it? How can it benefit you?

Inside Quickstep: An inside look at Quickstep. Find out about Walking Mechanics, Tensegrity, Core Muscles and Balance and how to make these work together to make Quickstep go.

Are You Breathing Correctly?

Ageing and the pressures of modern daily life will cause you to change the way you breathe.1.2

Stress and gradual weakening of respiratory muscles invariably leads to shallow, rapid breathing.3

The risk of respiratory tract and other diseases increases with the decline in efficiency of the respiratory system.4

In this article I introduce a technique of deep breathing called the Complete Breath and highlight its role in maintaining good health and quality of life.

The ability to breathe correctly and powerfully is not limited to a select few. This skill is inborn but often lies dormant.

Reawakening it allows you to tap into one of your body's strongest self-healing mechanisms and gives you access to a remarkable array of health enhancing processes.5

Take a little time every day to train yourself to breathe properly. In doing so, you'll improve your health, alleviate many common ailments and feel more energized.

How to perform
The Complete Breath

The Complete Breath is a type of deep abdominal breathing technique which brings many health benefits.

You could use this versatile breathing technique in sport, meditation, to help you relax or sleep and in most day-to-day activities. It is also a key feature in the practise of Mindfulness.

When practising The Complete Breath, flow from the steps of the inhale phase to the steps of the exhale phase without interruption.

Inhale Phase

Step 1
Push the belly forward and downward. The contracting diaphragm descends, pushes on the abdomen and massages the organs.

Step 2
Separate the ribs sideways to draw in a little more breath.

Step 3
“Sip” in just a little more air to fill the upper chest, all the way up to the collarbone. This will cause the area around the heart (called the heart center) to expand and rise.

Exhale Phase

Step 1
Let the breath go first from the upper chest, allowing the heart center to sink back down.

Step 2
Let the ribs slide together.

Step 3
Let the air go from the belly, gently drawing the navel back towards the spine.

Source:
Lucia McBee,
LCSW, MPH.
Springer Publishing Company, 2008,
ISBN 0826115292, 978-0826115119

The Health Benefits of
Deep Breathing

Your respiratory system has numerous functions in addition to its central role in gaseous exchange. It is involved in regulating blood pH, controlling blood pressure and also plays a part in mechanical non-specific immune defences.6.7

Your lungs do not have any muscular structures. They rely on the diaphragm and other associated muscles to power the breathing process.8

The act of deep breathing engages your diaphragm, a strong sheet of muscle that divides the chest from the abdomen.

Your lungs are inflated by the expansion and contraction movements of your diaphragm.

As you breathe in, the diaphragm moves downward, pulling your lungs with it and pressing against abdominal organs to make room for your lungs to expand as they fill with air.

As you breathe out, the diaphragm moves back upward against your lungs, helping to expel carbon dioxide.

The diaphragm moving through its entire range of movement downward and upward has significant health benefits.

On the way down it massages the liver, stomach and other organs and tissues below it.

On the way up, it massages the heart.

The massageing effect helps to detoxify vital organs, promote blood flow, improve peristalsis and pump lymph more efficiently through your lymphatic system.

Your lymphatic system is an important part of your immune system but, unlike your cardiovascular system which has the heart as a pump, your immune system has no pump of its own and relies on muscular movements to function, including the movements of breathing.

Control Stress with
Deep Breathing

Day-to-day events such as traffic jams, job worries, or relationship problems give rise to to a stress response commonly known as "fight or flight".

This response prepares the body to fight or flee.

Breathing rate increases, more blood is pumped to the heart and muscles, a host of chemical and hormonal reactions are activated and all nonessential functions are shut down.

As a temporary state, this reaction serves the body well.

However, when the stress reaction is prolonged, the normal physical functions that have either been exaggerated or shut down become dysfunctional and the source of many health problems.

The stress response suppresses the immune system, increasing susceptibility to colds and other illnesses.9

A buildup of stress over time may contribute to anxiety or more serious conditions such as depression or high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease.10

Most sources of stress are unavoidable in modern day living. But, we may develop ways of controlling the stress response.

Breathing is a voluntary action which you control. For instance, you can take slow and deep breaths or fast and shallow breaths.

Deep breathing has been scientifically proven to reduce and alleviate some of the chronic negative effects of stress.11.12.13

Eastern Perspectives
On Deep Breathing

Eastern traditional exercises have long recognised the health benefits of deep breathing and emphasize the pivotal role of breathing in the execution of movement.

Yoga (Yuj)

Breathing techniques (prāṇāyāma) are an important component in developing postures (āsana).

It is believed that practicing prāṇāyāma clears the energy channels (nāḍī) which in turn, helps to improve the flow of your vital life force energy (prāṇā) while promoting Kundalini awakening.

Tàijíquán (T'ai Chi Ch'üan)

Tàijíquán is a uniquely Chinese style of of pugilism which has distinct "inside" and "outside" aspects.

Both aspects must be exercised harmoniously in order to attain health and fitness benefits.

Practitioners employ various types of deep abdominal breathing, motivated by focused awareness (Mindfulness) of the dynamic requirements of each body part at any given moment.

The focused concentration generates Neidan (internal) Qi (Ch'i) at points located throughout the body, thus cultivating and improving circulation of the vital life force while strenghening the postures.