Abdominal Breathing: Your Number One Tool for Fighting Stress

This month marks the achievement of 10 years for this blog and to celebrate we'll travel back in time to the very first blog entry in March of 2015 where we looked at the importance of abdominal breathing in the reduction of stress and anxiety.  You can find that blog entry here

There are so many good things that come from learning and practicing slow, relaxed, abdominal breathing that once you've experienced the benefits, you will keep this technique close at hand to help you in any stressful situation that leads to increased anxiety.

The benefits of abdominal breathing are plentiful.  On top of decreasing muscle tension, it lowers your blood pressure and heart rate, which are two of the most common symptoms experienced by individuals who have panic and anxiety disorders.  It also reduces the stress response and lowers the levels of cortisol steroids in the body, which tend to flood the system when a stress response is present.

In addition, slow relaxed breathing releases endorphins, the feel-good chemicals that relieve pain, reduce stress, and improve mood.  It also helps to reduce insomnia and improve sleep, as well as improve overall energy.  This kind of breathing helps get more oxygen to the lower third of the lungs, which helps overall bodily functioning, muscle tension, and getting needed oxygen into the tissues.

All of the benefits mentioned here are why most people turn to slow abdominal breathing as the first- choice method for reducing symptoms of panic, anxiety, and stress.  It requires no pills, gadgets, tools, or devices and costs nothing at all.  It is readily available and can become your number one mindfulness exercise with the fastest results.

So, using the link above, travel back to the first entry of this blog from ten years ago and see what you can do with your breathwork.  It's one way to gain more control over your symptoms and see for yourself the results of slowing your breathing.  

"Breathing in I calm my body.  Breathing out, I smile."     ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Thanks to karoly czifra for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Stress Free Realistic Goals

It's a new year and maybe you made all sorts of resolutions in hopes of bettering your life.  It's never a bad idea to have good intentions for the future, especially if they mean growth and self-improvement.  Exercise, weight loss and improving one's diet are all at the top of the list each year for most people. In fact, the month with the highest number of new gym memberships is January. 

But statistics also reveal that only 25% of people who make these resolutions are still actually committed to the task after just one month, and January is also the month with the highest number of gym membership cancellations.  So yes, you heard that right.  It all happens that fast.  We see the new year coming, and the gyms see it too.  So they offer lots and lots of deals in December while everyone is buying gifts and wanting to set new goals.

That means at the writing of this blog entry in late January, 2025, you and many others like you are already losing your mojo and maybe even wanting your membership refunded.  You could be losing your drive for many other kinds of goals you set for yourself at the start of the new year.  

So what happens that causes many of us to get that inspirational drive to see the changes we want to make, set the goals and put things in place to reach them, but then lose whatever that energy was that set a fire under us to being with?

If you needed to climb a tall staircase and while standing at the bottom you focused only on that top step, you might lose your desire to begin the climb in the first place.  But if you divided the staircase into parts and set 4 different goals, the task might seem a little simpler if you only looked up that staircase 4 steps at a time.  Goal one is to reach step four, goal two is to reach step eight, goal three is to reach step twelve and the final goal is to reach the last step at the top.

Our new resolutions and goals can be seen this way in that if all we see is the final weight loss goal, or the final change we want to see (overnight) in our diet plan, or the newly changed exercise plan we want our body to be doing in the next 24 hours, then of course we can become discouraged fast as we discover, change doesn't come that fast.  Change takes time and any situation we are in today took a long time to reach.  So it will take time to change as well.

If you are reaching the end of January and already feeling discouraged about your new goals, rather than label the whole task as a failure, consider the idea of regrouping and restarting with a new approach.  Break the task down into smaller sections with each section being its own goal.  Rather than an entire diet change (overnight), consider adding or subtracting one thing you'd like to try to change in your diet first.  Such as cutting out just 500 calories a day, or reducing the amount of sugar you take in, or cutting down on just one cup of coffee a day, and so on.  Yes, the goal is to eventually stop the coffee completely, or cut out the sugars entirely, or get the caloric intake down much further than 500 calories a day, but the smaller goal may be more reachable.  Reach for step 4 on the staircase first, and leave the top step for later.

If your goal is to exercise more, regroup and restart by setting realistic goals such as just trying to go for a 15 min walk each day sometime before bed, rather than "I'm going to start running five miles a day and it must be first thing in the morning", or "I must workout for an hour a day starting now", even though you don't really have an extra hour a day to give.  Let the 15 min walk be your equivalent of just aiming for the fourth step on the staircase.  Letting the higher goals be later steps.

Thinking of your new goals as themes instead of resolutions can also ease the pressure to perform and allow the new goals to have aim but not demand.  Reachable goals bring success, not failure.  They are also a lot less stressful and your drive tends to be higher for things you know you can successfully do.

If you feel more discouraged than driven toward your goals as 2025 moves forward, consider regrouping and restarting with reachable and realistic goals.  Muscle is built over time and so is weight loss.  New habits are developed slowly with repetition, not by the flip of a switch.  Take it easy and try again.  Don't give up!

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity"     ~Amelia Earhart

Thanks to ray explores for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/