Why Breathing Exercises

I often recommend breathing exercises for stress relief, as a stand-alone strategy or to be used in conjunction with other stress relief techniques..

Breathing exercises are one of the most popular and commonly-recommended stress relievers for good reason:

• They work quickly.
• You can do them anywhere.
• They take very little practice to master.
• They’re free.
• You can use them in the middle of stressful situation to stay calm.
• They can effectively reverse your stress response, helping you avoid the negative effects of chronic stress.

The Benefits of Breathing Exercises

Breathing exercises bring wonderful benefits because they can reverse your stress response, which, if chronically triggered and not reversed in a timely manner, can lead to chronic stress. This can really wreak havoc on your body. Therefore, breathing exercises can be said to bring the over-reaching benefit of reversing the myriad problems caused by chronic stress. But, more specifically, breathing therapy has been successfully applied in the treatment of the following conditions:

• Feelings of tension
• Hyperventillation
• Burnout
• Headache
• Chronic fatigue
• Sleeping problems
• Concentration problems
• Anxiety and phobia
• Panic disorder
• Depression
• Heart disease
  

NOTE: It’s important to note that breathing exercises should not replace a doctors care in the treatment of serious conditions, but that breathing exercises can be an effective part of treatment.