Breathing exercises
Pursed lip breathing
This exercise will help you to re-learn diaphragmatic breathing. Many of us use our chest muscles to draw air in to our lungs rather than our diaphragms. This pattern of breathing results in extra stress on the chest, shoulder and neck muscles, a reduced amount of oxygen being taken in and an increased amount of carbon dioxide being expelled. The likely result of which is having to take more breaths to delivery the required amount of oxygen to your system and increased sensitivity of the nerves due to a more alkaline blood.
Place yourself in a comfortable seated position, and exhale slowly and fully through pursed lips (as though you are blowing through a drinking straw), with your lips just barely separated. Imagine that a candle flame is about 10 inches from your mouth and exhale (blowing a thin stream of air) in such a way as to not blow this out, but to just make it flicker. When you have exhaled fully, without strain, close your lips and pause for a count of one and then inhale through your nose.
The complete exhalation will have created a "coiled spring" so you do not have to try to control how you inhale. Then, without pausing to hold the breath, exhale fully and slowly through pursed lips once again, blowing the air in a thin stream until you feel the need to inhale. Close your lips, pause for a count of one, and then inhale freely through the nose again.
Repeat the inhalation and exhalation for not less than 30 cycles of in and out.
Practice this exercise morning and evening. You might feel light-headed after the 30 cycles, so rest for a few minutes before resuming normal activities.
Sometime help is required to restrict the movement of your chest muscles whilst doing this exercise.
With the hands hanging loosely at your side. On inhalation, gently turn the arms so your thumbs point slightly backwards, and on exhalation relax so they return to the resting position.
