For one to remain healthy, breathing properly is very important. In truth, proper breathing means much more than just taking in air and breathing it out. It is more than the normal process of taking in oxygen into your lungs and removing carbon dioxide out of your lungs. More often that not, you will find that most individuals perform improper breathing. The following steps will guide you on how to breathe properly so as to increase the amount of oxygen in your body.
How to Determine If You Are Breathing Properly
First, you need to determine whether you are breathing properly by taking a very deep breathe while watching your chest. If you notice that your chest rises along with your shoulders, and your stomach has been sucked in, then you are only breathing with the top part of the lungs, which means that you are breathing improperly.
Proper Breathing
To breathe properly, you need to lie down the floor so as not to slouch. This will enable you to properly see and feel how you are breathing because you will not be crouching on your torso. Then you need to put your hands on top of your belly immediately above the belly button and below the breastbone. Once you have done this, take a nice, deep breath. Check whether your hands and chest move. Breathe out as you continue watching the direction in which your hands and chest move. Once you are through with that, now use your nose to take another breath just like the first while expanding your diaphragm. Prevent the chest from rising and watch if your hands will rise on your belly, but you must breathe slowly. The air that you have breathed in through your nose should now be exhaled slowly out of your mouth. Your hands will sink into your belly. Make sure that your shoulders and chest remain as still as possible. Now you need to repeat the whole process until you find that you can automatically breathe like this. Once you have confirmed that you are able to perform the same without any difficulty, this is the proper way.
Breathing properly will increase the amount of oxygen inhaled into the lungs, thus improving your health. In addition, you can try to breathe in and out while standing and walking around as you continue exercising vigorously. Note the difference between the mechanisms and determine which one you should adopt to enable you to have proper breathing.