Read on to discover the effect your breathing has on your stress level.
Breathing too fast
During everyday activities we often – unconsciously – breathe faster. Bram Bakker and Koen de Jong explain in their book Relief:a practical book about the benefits of slow breathing that it is pointless to breathe quickly because it consumes energy and can cause complaints such as depression, high blood pressure, headaches and sleeping problems. /P>
Tips
– People with a high level of stress should reduce their breathing pattern to a maximum of twelve breaths per minute. With this little inhalation and exhalation, your body will immediately go into rest and begin to relax.
– If you breathe even less, eight breaths per minute, your parasympathetic nervous system activates. This is the part of the autonomic nervous system that influences the organs in such a way that your body can recover in a state of rest.
– Breathing in and out only four times per minute will relax you the most. Your body then comes into a state of rest that stress disappears.
