Millions of people suffer from hypertension or high blood pressure, a condition that places stress on your circulatory system and puts you at a significantly increased risk of heart attack and stroke. High blood pressure is often controlled with medications such as alpha inhibitors and beta blockers. Patients are cautioned to lose weight and exercise. But few doctors routinely advise their patients about another simple and important way to reduce high blood pressure--learning to breathe properly by training your body to take slower and deeper breaths that utilize the lower portion of your lungs.
Instructions
Getting Started
1. Sit up straight either on the floor or in a chair that provides firm support. If sitting on the floor use a yoga mat or towel and place another rolled towel at the base of your spine for added support. This exercise can also be done standing up straight with shoulders relaxed.
2. With both hands on your abdomen, draw in a slow, full breath of air, through your nose if possible, consciously filling the lower half of your lungs while you let the muscles of your abdomen relax and your stomach expand.
3. Hold the breath for a few seconds before slowly exhaling through your nose as you contract the muscles of your abdomen.
4. Do not begin inhaling immediately. Instead wait for your body to signal when it is the natural time to inhale again.
5. Repeat this process for five to 10 minutes, remaining conscious all the while of the timing of your breaths and the movement of your abdomen.
Re-Trainiing Your Lungs
6. Use moments of anxiety, stress, pain or fatigue throughout the day as reminders to regulate your breathing.
7. Recall the sense of calm and rejuvenation that you feel after your daily seated breathing exercises, and use that recollection as an incentive to focus on your breathing for longer and longer periods of time as you go about your ordinary activities.
8. Keep a diary or log noting the frequency and results of your breathing practice. Also, log blood pressure readings you have taken before and after breathing exercises and at other times of the day. Over time, you should see your blood pressure become lowered.
Tags: blood pressure, your abdomen, your breathing, breathing exercises, high blood, muscles your