Breathing. 4 out of 5 of us is doing it wrong. The following breathing techniques can help reduce your stress and immediately bring down your cortisol levels, not to mention rev up your metabolism. If you ever feel yourself losing it, try this:
Exercise #1: Standing up, breathe in circling your arms like a snow angel out to the sides and up overhead filling your lungs like a giant balloon. Exhale out releasing your arms back down in the same sweeping motion completely emptying your lungs. Repeat this 10 times.
Exercise #2: Lying on your back, try lateral breathing. This is great to learn to not only expand your lungs out fully, but for exercise so that you can maintain an abdominal contraction and still breathe properly. If you have one, use a resistance band around your rib cage, if not use your hands. Place your hands lightly around your ribs and on inhale, breathe only into the right side, moving your ribs into your hand and back together. Next breath into the left side only. Now breath both sides moving your ribs out into your hands on inhale, back together on exhale. Try a couple more times until you get the hang of it.
Exercise #3: Belly breathing. Most of us breathe shallowly, only using the top part of our lungs. It's impossible to relax and breathe this way! Try laying on your back, place one hand on your chest one on your belly and as you breathe in, only let the hand on your belly rise and fall. Keep the hand on your chest still. Again, picture your lungs like a giant balloon filling up completely and emptying completely.
Great job! By now you should feel ready to deal with that spilled red Koolaid on your new sofa;)
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