Lets start small. Lets start with something pretty easy. Something you have been doing for years.... since you were born in fact. Lets start with breathing. Take a deep breath and notice what part of your body moves when you breath. If your chest moves up and the stomach in on an inhale try an inhale where your breath fills the stomach and then the chest. This type of breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, is the most efficient type of breathing to fill even the lower part of the lungs with Oxygen while chest breathing, fills only the middle and upper portion of the lungs.
Infants and young children are primarily diaphragmatic breathers because the development of the body only allows for this, but then at some point we typically learn to do chest breathing. Who knows why exactly... It could be because we don't want out stomachs to hang out over our jeans or because we subconsciously notice everyone else breathing that way. In any case, chest breathing is very common, but the good news is that we can control our breath. Even though it is often operating on auto-drive, we can teach ourselves to breath differently and get some more delicious Oxygen into our lungs.
Try doing some diaphragmatic breathing on your way to work or school or the store. Inhale slowly counting to six and then exhale slowly counting to six. You can even put your hand on the stomach to make sure it is expanding with inhales. The exhales tend to come out a little quicker but try to slow them down.
If you are interested in learning more about the mechanics of breathing, try reading the book, "Science of Breath" by Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine, M.D. and Alan Hymes, M.D. It explains the physiology of breathing but does so in a clear and understandable way with helpful illustrations and also includes some breathing exercises.
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