Benefits of Deep Breathing
Due to changes in the way people work, a sedentary lifestyle has become prevalent in recent decades. It has become common to spend countless hours behind the computer every day. This creates many health and stress issues, including stiff necks and shoulders. To alleviate stiffness, several relaxation techniques can be applied. One of these techniques is deep breathing while focusing on muscle relaxation.
Many people have heard about the importance of breathing for combating stress. Not many people, however, understand that breathing is also deeply connected to the body and all the tension that is stored in it. Even fewer people realize that breathing correctly is just as important as physical movements and exercises. When the proper breathing technique is applied, it can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn will decrease the tension in the muscles (Aritonang, 2020).
Deep breathing causes general relaxation in the neck and shoulders, which in turn creates relaxation in the mind and body. As a result, one feels both mental and physical relief. Someone who has never tried breathing as a muscle relaxation technique might not understand where to start.
Guide to Breathing
Without a step-by-step guide, one can do things incorrectly, which will produce no results and cause frustration. Thus, it is crucial to have a comprehensive series of steps for the person to apply. Each step must be followed thoroughly to ensure apparent results.
Step 1 would be for the person to become theoretically informed about the importance of breathing and why some breathing patterns contribute to stress and physical tension while others do the opposite. Here, it is necessary to be informed about how sympathetic and parasympathetic systems work and how deep breathing can activate the latter. It is also necessary to learn the difference between belly and chest breathing and the benefits of the former.
Step 2 is for the person to check whether they breathe with their chest or belly most of the time. To do it, a simple test can be done: a person takes a deep breath and sees whether mostly the stomach or the chest has increased in volume. Another important thing to consider here is the shoulder movement: if the shoulders go up when breathing in, then chest breathing prevails; hence, it is necessary to change the breathing pattern.
Step 3 is to practice belly breathing. For this, one must take a comfortable position and place one hand on the chest and the other on the belly. When breathing in through the nose, the belly must expand while the chest must remain relatively still. An exhale must be done slowly through the mouth while the belly is deflating. The process is to be repeated until the person gets used to breathing through the belly.
Step 4 is to ensure that the exhales are longer than the inhales. To ensure this, one can start counting while breathing. A typical pattern is to count to 4 when breathing in and to count to 8 when breathing out. Making an exhale two times longer contributes to activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
The final step is to focus on the neck and shoulder muscle relaxation while including the previous breathing steps. It is necessary to focus on relaxing the neck and shoulders with each exhale. While continuing to breathe deeply, ensuring that the exhale is longer than the inhale and breathing is done through the belly, it is also important to imagine any tension or stress disappearing from the neck and shoulder area. If all the steps are followed through, one will feel significant tension relief.
Reference
Aritonang, Y. A. (2020). The effect of slow deep breathing exercise on headache and vital signs in hypertension patients. Jurnal Keperawatan Padjadjaran, 8(2), 176-182. Web.