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Living The Art Of Breathing.
Since your first breath, breathing has been one of the most important biological functions of your body. The rhythm of breath helps regulate a number of your body’s systems:- Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Gastrointestinal and Metabolic (Endocrine).
When we are stressed or anxious it’s natural for our breathing to become shallow. Simply improving our breath, by breathing deeply and slowly, benefits us at times of stress and anxiety and helps improve restless sleep and insomnia.
The breath is one of the only bodily functions that can be consciously and unconsciously controlled. It’s not surprising that conscious focus on the breath is the foundation of most Buddhist meditation practices.
The average person takes up to 29,000 breaths per day so you’d think we would be experts at breathing. However, it’s common for many people to practice paradoxical breathing. This is an incorrect form of respiration that involves expansion of the upper chest and sucking in the abdominal muscles during inhalation. Paradoxical breathing is linked to many problems including:
- Reduced oxygen content.
- Fatigue.
- Postural problems.
- Digestive complaints and bloating.
- Increased muscular tension especially in the neck and shoulders.
- Lower back pain.
Healthy breathing is when the area between the lower ribs bulges out on the in-breath and deflates on the out-breath. This makes sure that air is drawn into the lower parrts of the lungs. The breathing pattern should be slower, even and gentle. Drawing attention to your breath for 20 minutes per day will improve the way you breathe and your general well being, strengthen your lungs, regulate metabolism and help regulate your emotions and response to stress.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the lungs are a source of external Qi (Energy) and are functionally interwoven with the the Heart to regulate flow of blood and Qi around the body. The lungs are also responsible for the nourishment of the exterior body and often dull, lifeless skin or hair can be attributed to poor lung function from a TCM point of view.
Improving lung function, using a combination of Acupuncture, tailored breathing exercises and lifestyle can often have a profound effect on your health and benefit many of the symptoms listed in this article.
Can Chiropractic help a sprained ankle
Can Chiropractic help a sprained ankle?
A sprain is an injury to a ligament that involves that ligament being stretched beyond its normal range, often resulting in some degree of tearing. Chiropractic care can not directly help the ligament, but Chiropractic can improve the environment of the ligament and so assist in its healing indirectly. The force required to cause this type of injury will no doubt have jarred and impacted on the other structures at the ankle, namely the many bones and joints that make up the ankle and foot. The jarring to these joints will commonly affect the relationship of the bones to each other and so the integrity of the joints. This would upset the mechanics of the ankle and foot as a whole resulting in changes in mobility, impaired circulation and drainage and often pain. By improving the biomechanics of the foot and ankle using chiropractic techniques, these factors normalise which allows the the area to heal better and much faster.