Did You Know that Breathing Deeply Can Help You Lose Weight?

Learning the correct way to breathe deeply can make a total impact on your health and also help you lose weight. Breathing deeply is something that most of us never really think twice about but maybe it's time to focus on breathing and train ourselves to breathe properly. The beauty of retraining ourselves to breathe properly and implementing some easy breathing exercises into our daily routine is that in a rather short time, you will feel the difference and it's not that difficult. Let me explain. . . -- Simply lay down totally flat on your bed, your couch, or floor. Relax for a second or two before taking a deep breath. Now breathe in deep through your nose. Push your belly up while taking the air inside. Stick your chin on your chest and watch your belly rise. When you've got as much air as you can hold, stop and hold your breath. Try holding it for ten or twenty seconds. If you're like most people, you're dying to let it out at the end of the twenty seconds. Go ahead. Pitiful isn't it? Not only that, but did you feel your lungs stretching out? You don't feel that very often do you? It feels good and bad at the same time, right? That's because you're not used to it. -- Try it a couple of more times. It gets easier each time, right? Don't you feel relaxed and refreshed at the same time? Your body is saying thank you, thank you! Just that very tiny bit of deep breathing and your body feels better. This is an immediate reaction. Now, think about this and how it works. . ..that extra oxygen you allowed into your body is now moving through your bloodstream, slightly increasing your flow, and getting rid of excess waste and fat. All that in a matter of seconds! Makes sense doesn't it? Think about it... Oxygen is fuel for your body as is food. There are no calories in oxygen. You can breathe in all you want for as long as you want and still no calories! Not only that, but the extra oxygen you take in will cause the chemical reactions in your body to take place much faster, thus, you burn more calories than you take in. This in turn speeds up your metabolism and makes you burn more fat. There are many other benefits to making breathing deeply a part of your daily routine. They include improving your immune system, flushing out those unwanted toxins, makes your blood pressure rock steady, helps you sleep deeply like a baby, adds more oxygen in your body which increases your energy, and increases blood circulation. The list of benefits goes on and on. Clean and unpolluted oxygen is the key. -- Keep practicing. Get used to how deep breathing feels. Close your eyes and sense the rhythm of the deep breath you're taking. Memorize it. Now sit up. Again, try to accomplish the same deep breath while sitting up. Sit up straight. Start breathing in through your nose -then slowly stick your chin on top of your chest and watch your belly inflate with air. This may be a little harder because you might unconsciously revert back to shallow breathing. You'll know that this is true if your belly isn't inflating and you feel all the air in your lungs high in your chest. Don't give up. Concentrate on inflating your belly. Once filled as much as possible, hold it for twenty seconds and release through your mouth. You should practice sitting up and deep breathing a few times to get used to it. Now you can do it anywhere! You should, by now, have a real sense of how to breathe deep. Take a day or two and just practice the techniques (lying down and sitting up). After a day or two of practice, you're ready to make deep breathing a part of your daily program and routine.