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Mindful WTF - The no bs place to discover short meditations

Breathing toward peace - Ultrabrief mindfulness moment

Every system in the body relies on oxygen. From cognition to digestion, effective breathing can not only provide you with a greater sense of mental clarity, it can also help you sleep better, digest food more efficiently, improve your body's immune response, and reduce stress levels.

Breathing more slowly, gently and deeply helps to calm and relax and can also reduce tension and anxiety and improve concentration and memory. Shallow and fast breathing can contribute to anxiety, muscular tension, panic attacks, headaches, and fatigue.

By practicing slow, deep breathing, your mind will calm down and your body will relax. Diaphragmatic, or, abdominal breathing is one of the easiest ways to produce the relaxation response.

Practice 3 or more minutes to learn the proper technique for deep relaxation, helping to reduce muscle tension and anxiety. Throughout the day, frequently take a few slow, deep breaths or do a couple minutes of diaphragmatic breathing, especially when feeling stressed.

The human body can survive 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, but only 3 minutes without air – unless you are one of those freaky free divers, which I’m assuming you are not.

Without air the brain starves of oxygen, normal bodily functions cease to exist and essentially we die. That makes breathing high on the priority list for human life. However, for most of us we don’t stress or worry about breathing, whether there will be enough air to breathe or even how we breathe, until we have a lung infection or an illness of the lungs which limits or compromises our ability to breathe.

In short, we take breathing for granted and often don’t pay it very much attention.

Breathing is something the body does automatically. But did you know that the way we breathe changes depending on our state of mind and how we feel? Have you noticed how your breathing pattern changes with your emotions or in certain situations? When we are stressed or fearful we tend to take fast and shallow breaths, whereas when we are relaxed and at ease we breathe gently and more steadily.

Mindful WTF - The no bs place to discover short meditations
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