Practicing mindfulness and meditation may help you manage stress and high blood pressure, sleep better, feel more balanced and connected and even lower your risk of heart disease.
Positive responses from your body
Did you know taking slow, deep breaths can prompt several positive responses within your body?
Deep breathing can
- Help to manage stress and even pain
- Reduce feelings of anxiety and depression
- Stabilize (or lower) your blood pressure
- Send more oxygen to your body’s organs
- Promote calm, by affecting your nervous system
- Should be involuntary, but also controllable.
Of course, you go on breathing without ever thinking about it. But you can control your breathing, with just a little effort. That means you can get the many benefits of deep breathing whenever you need to!
Just Breathe
There are a handful of deep breathing techniques you can try. For example, with “4-7-8 breathing,” you inhale through your nose for four counts, then hold that breath for seven counts. Finally, exhale through your mouth (slowly) for eight counts.
Do the exercise here:
Exercises you can do at work:
