According to the Optimal Breathing website, “clinical studies prove that oxygen, wellness, and life-span are totally dependent on proper breathing. Improper breathing either worsens or causes every illness known to mankind.” Your shallow breathing may actually be making you sick.

When someone suggests that you ‘take a deep breath,’ they remind you of an essential element of survival. During times of stress, panic, insecurity or anxiety we require more oxygen flow to our brain, yet we often fall into the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome.

In this ‘fight or flight’ mode, our breath becomes shallow, our brain is robbed of oxygen and blood which are instead drawn to our extremities—hands and fingers for fight or feet for flight. Without proper flow of nutrients to our brain we are less equipped to handle challenges in any form.

My goal with my clients is to keep them at the top of their game, ahead of the pack, at their optimal level of success and fulfillment. Proper 'belly' breathing provides clarity and perspective needed to accomplish this goal.

The following exercise from Free Your Breath, Free Your Life (author Dennis Lewis) will shed a new light on how easy proper breathing can be for you:

“One of the simplest, safest, and most powerful breathing practices you can undertake is to consciously follow your breathing in the many circumstances of your life. As you inhale, simply be aware that you are inhaling. As you exhale, simply be aware that you are exhaling.

“Try this practice for 10 minutes at a time at least three times a day. It will help free you from your automatic thoughts and emotional reactions and thus enable you to wake up in your daily life more often, to live with more receptivity and clarity in the present moment.

“You may find this practice especially useful at moments when you are anxious or angry. With roots in Buddhism and the other great spiritual traditions, this practice will have a powerful influence on your respiration and in the many conditions of your daily lives.”

This week I challenge you to breathe! Feel your belly collapse as you’ve not felt it before. Take in as much air as possible, hold it for a few seconds and then take in more, hold it for another second and then let it out slowly. Try this again for a count of ten.

Feel the bounty of air expanding through your ribcage and body. Notice how it relaxes you. What perspectives have shifted in your world in a matter of a few seconds?

Enjoy your breathing discoveries and have an outstanding week!

Ann

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Permission is granted to either reproduce copy or distribute "Your Success Thought for the Week of September 14, 2005" so long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author is attached. The author is Ann Golden Eglé, Golden Visions Success Coaching, LLC, 541.385.8887, 1972 NE 3rd St, Suite # 307 Bend, Oregon 97701, www.GoldenVisionsSuccess.com