The Power Of Diaphragmatic Breathing

When you meet with an accident or anything in the emergency room in a hospital the first thing they put on to you is oxygen because your vital organs require oxygen. Every one of those billion cells in the human body requires oxygen for survival. I could tie oxygen to almost every imbalance that is there in the body right from a cancer to hair fall, to Diabetes to cardiovascular problems, to the inability to sleep, to even weight gain and the inability to lose weight.

Now observe how you are breathing. Are you breathing to your full capacity? The answer in most cases would be no. Now take a deep breath; an inhale and an exhale and that’s exactly how the human body is designed to breath. So before we even look at more treatments and more medications we need to look and see if our body is even getting the right amount of oxygen it’s supposed to get for all of its hundreds and thousands of functions every single day.

I want to teach you a process a process called diaphragmatic breathing. A lot of you do deep breathing and pranayama. In fact pranayama is probably written on almost every single prescription I issue out every single day to people across the world because we need to learn this awesome and the scientific process of breathing. We need to learn how to train our bodies and our lungs to take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide and we need to train our bodies how to utilize the oxygen that we breathe in because as we move through our chaotic day all of us are breathing less and in the wrong way.

To start first with diabetes; i like talking about the subject because there are approximately 50 million people with diabetes in our country India right now and that number is expected to go up to 80 to 85 million people in the next five to six years and I would be happy if we could have a downward trend in these numbers rather than an upward trend, that would show that we are progressing, growing and taking care of our lifestyle and our health.

When we breathe the right way, when we start doing diaphragmatic breathing, our insulin beta in our cells improves and they strengthen. We all know that diabetes is a problem where your pancreas does not produce enough of insulin or your body doesn’t use insulin the way it’s supposed to use it. So when you strengthen these beta insulin receptors your body is in a better position to produce more insulin or to manage insulin in a more effective way and that can happen when we practice diaphragmatic breathing before your meals, after your meals, when you wake up and before you sleep. You don’t have to do it all these times but according to the gap that you see in your life and health right now you could choose when to do.

Diaphragmatic breathing reduces your carbohydrate cravings. So many people today have carbohydrates sugar and junk cravings that’s because our bodies constantly want sugar and carbohydrates because we have drops in our energy levels throughout the day. When you train your body to breathe the right way; deep belly diaphragmatic breathing, your cravings automatically reduce. Here’s a test for you to do. The next time you have a craving don’t give into it, just practice diaphragmatic breathing. You will see I guarantee you that you’re craving will become less or it may even just go away.

Diaphragmatic breathing also improves the quality of your sleep. We all know that sleep is the secret sauce to health and weight loss. Even a one percent drop in a level of sleep causes innumerable problems the next day. So diaphragmatic breathing before you sleep actually prepares your body for sleep, you have a better sleep cycle one and you have a deeper sleep cycle four which is absolutely imperative when it comes to your health. So people who have a problem falling asleep of people who have a problem with the quality of their sleep cycles, practicing diaphragmatic breathing over time will actually help you reduce that gap.

Everything starts from a cell. Every disease or every imbalance originates from a cell and we are made of billions and billions of cells. So when we only treat a problem at a symptomatic level and don’t address the problem at a root cause level, which is a at a cellular level we fail to heal and we get sicker. When you do diaphragmatic breathing you ensure that oxygen reaches all of these billion cells and oxygen is a life force needed by every one of those billion cells to perform all the functions required to keep us healthy, help us lose weight, keep our immunity strong, help us recover from diseases and help us prevent diseases. So oxygen has the ability to increase the lifespan of every cell by cleaning it. The more you clean a toxic cell the healthier you get and oxygen improves that lymphatic flow and the function of your lymphatic system is to decrease and wash out all toxins from you at a cellular level.

The more you breathe the more you produce that human growth hormone and the human growth hormone HGH is what helps you lose weight, build lean mass and it is also your anti-aging hormone. So the more that you breathe the younger you look. You can’t reverse aging completely but today most of us are aging much faster than we should be. So diaphragmatic breathing is your anti-aging pill.

It’s important to train your body to breathe and utilize oxygen the right way. Diaphragmatic breathing helps to strengthen your t-cell functions which is your immunity and your lymphocyte production which is also your immunity and these are levels that fall when people get cancers or people get sick with viruses or bacteria and we use everything possible to try to sustain life except utilize oxygen the right way which has a direct positive impact on your immunity which is why everyone’s suffering from cancer on my program has to undergo diaphragmatic breathing or some sort of pranayama that’s designed for their condition and their body and everyone out there should be doing this to strengthen your immune system.

The feel-good factor. So many people today do not feel good naturally. Feeling good should come naturally to us. We shouldn’t rely on that glass of alcohol all the time or that cigarette or all of these vices that we have to numb out pain and feel good about ourselves. We need to feel good about ourselves naturally and that happens when we have the right amount of oxygen because the right amount of oxygen produces the right amount of serotonin and endorphins which naturally helps us feel good. This is why when you exercise you feel good because you produce endorphins and serotonin.  When you eat dark chocolate or pure chocolate it produces serotonin which makes you feel good. So our body has the ability to help us feel good without having to become addicted or attached to any of the external vices that many people are attached to today.

It also improves your mental focus. The next time you feel groggy during a meeting or you feel sleepy or you feel tired or you feel that your mental ability is decreasing do diaphragmatic breathing for two to three minutes and four to five cycles and you will feel and see that your mental focus increases rapidly.

So many people struggle with meditation because they feel that their minds are too restless. Well before your meditation when you start diaphragmatic breathing, you move from the restless beta-cell wavelength to the more relaxing and the more happier alpha and theta wave length and that’s where meditation occurs and that’s where your mind gets lesser and lesser restless. We are always mostly in a beta wave length where we are restless, more in the present moment and more open to what’s happening around us so when you do diaphragmatic breathing. That’s exactly what happens you move to alpha, you move to theta wavelengths where you are calmer and you are in better state of meditation.

Stress is my favourite topic because almost everyone is stressed. There’s good stress, that’s acute where your stress levels go up and they come down and there’s chronic stress where our stress levels from the time we wake up to the time we sleep are constantly high and we all know the damaging effects of high cortisol levels. High cortisol makes us put on weight in our abdominal region, our midriff areas no matter how much we exercise, how well we eat we do not lose weight if our cortisol levels are high and when we have high cortisol levels we have high oestrogen levels when we have a high oestrogen levels that excess oestrogen binds with thyroxin and then we have low thyroxin levels and then we have a thyroid problem which inhibits us from losing weight the right way and causes a whole load of other issues right from fatigue to falling hair to low immunity. So you see everything’s linked to your stress levels. So the more oxygen you take in your cortisol level start falling. So if you’re extremely stressed right now your cortisol levels are high, the quickest and most inexpensive way to bring down your cortisol levels is to breathe deeply.

Let me teach you diaphragmatic breathing. All of you are probably doing it already in your pranayama practice in your breathing practice. So you’ve got to sit with your back straight, your spine erect and you inhale slowly through your nose, you put your hand on your belly. This is diaphragmatic breathing. Most of us breathe the wrong way. When we breathe our chest expands but that’s the wrong way of breathing. When we breathe from a diaphragm our belly has to expand. So now sit with your back straight, hand on your tummy and as you inhale slowly through your nose, your belly expands. Think of it as a balloon. When you put oxygen in a balloon the balloon expands. So now you expand your belly and then you hold your breath for 6 to 12 seconds at your own comfort level and then through your mouth you open your mouth and you slowly exhale from your belly. So keep your palm on your belly and as you exhale your palm moves towards your spine, completely exhale and then begin with the next inhale. So one whole cycle is an inhale with your hold for six to 12 seconds and then a complete exhale. That’s one cycle. We should aim for 10 cycles in a day.

You can do this when you wake up and notice how energetic you feel. You may not even need that coffee or tea eventually. For people who have diabetes or people who have digestion problems can start with two or three cycles before you eat and finish your meal 10 to 15 minutes later post your meal with five to ten cycles. Now if you aim for eight to ten cycles post your meal I can promise you your blood sugar levels overtime is going to get better and you can try this. It’s worked for like tens of hundreds of people who approached me with problems of high sugar levels and this is one of the simplest ways to have control over your insulin and your blood sugar levels and your digestive issues.

So end your meal with diaphragmatic breathing. You can also do this before sleep and just check the quality of your sleep; you probably start falling asleep while you’re even doing your eight or nine cycle. The depth and quality of your sleep cycle also improves. You can do the sitting up or you can also do this lying down before you sleep. Lie down, put your palm on your belly and do the same breathing; inhale slowly through your nose hold for six to twelve seconds and then complete exhale. Don’t force your body through this. Do it gently. You may be able to hold for just three seconds and then four and then five. Go as per your own body comfort level.

This is the power of diaphragmatic breathing. You should practise it even if you’re sick, healthy, trying to prevent the disease or to heal something, even if you’re trying to lose weight because you have more oxygen in your body and oxygen burns fat which is why when we exercise we automatically start breathing and taking more oxygen because oxygen breaks down and burns fat and fat provides energy to our system. So please practice Diaphragmatic breathing.