Relax, sit back, and take a breather

TYLER HAYWARD / SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR

Maryann Ashley

SHEC Media

At the end of last semester, when all of my final papers were due and the impending doom of exams was pressing down upon me, I had a pleasant and unexpected surprise in one of my classes. My professor finished our class a little bit early and offered to teach some relaxation exercises to anyone who wanted to stick around.

Only a few of us ended up staying behind. I’m really glad I did though, because not only was it educational, but it was also nice to see a professor taking an interest in the wellbeing of her students.

One of the main things we talked about that day was the importance of breathing. It should be pretty obvious to all of us just how important breathing is – we need to breathe to be able to live. Simple. Without food or water we can survive for days; without oxygen we die within minutes.

Our breathing can do a lot for our bodies besides just keeping us alive. It’s a natural process that eliminates waste products and toxins from our bodies while also filtering in the good stuff.

Even though breathing is so important, many of us are walking around doing it wrong. That’s right, although it is a natural process that happens automatically, there are still proper and improper ways of breathing. If you’ve ever taken any yoga or Pilates classes then you know how important the focus on breathing is to our health. Sadly, we need that reminder, because in today’s society we tend to use a smaller percentage of our lung capacity and our entire bodies can suffer for it.

Do you ever slouch, lean forward, draw your arms together, bend your head down or focus so hard on something that your body becomes really tense? This sounds like every typical student to me, and all of these postures restrict our inhalation and exhalation process.

This ultimately leads to a lesser amount of oxygen being present in our blood stream, which means that our organs aren’t getting as much as they could. It also means we are not sufficiently eliminating carbon dioxide. In our fast-paced lives, our breaths are too quick and too shallow. We literally need to just stop and take a moment to smell the roses.

There are a lot of benefits to be had from simply breathing properly. First of all, if you breathe through your nose then you are simultaneously protecting yourself from unwanted particles in the air (there’s hair in there for a reason) while warming the air before it enters the rest of your body.

Oxygen also energizes the body, rejuvenates the skin, improves brain function, has a calming effect, improves sleep and relaxation, and helps to regulate your body temperature.

My professor also told us about how we don’t breathe through our nostrils equally all of the time; you alternate between favouring the left nostril or the right nostril throughout the day. Your right side is associated with energy, while your left side is associated with relaxation and calming (this is the side you want to be breathing from when you’re trying to fall asleep). With this in mind she gave us two different exercises we could do.

If you’re feeling sleepy and it’s only the middle of the day and you still have four chapters to read, two meetings to attend and a paper to write, try this one: stand up.

Take three quick breathes in while swinging your arms with the breaths, once to the front, then out to your sides, and back to the front. Then bend your knees and swing your arms downward and exhale all the air out of your lungs through your mouth. Repeat.

If you’ve had five cups of coffee throughout the day, and you’re pacing the floors because you don’t know what to do with yourself and you have to wake up in only a few hours because you have early morning class but you can’t fall asleep, then try this one: sit straight up, feet on the floor.

Keep your shoulders down and really open up your chest (we spend so many hours sitting at desks all day with terrible posture). Rest your hands on your knees directly in front of you, palms up.

Focus on your breathing. Eventually inhale through your nose then hold your breath then exhale and pause again before inhaling again. Just focus on your breathing and try to feel it rejuvenating and relaxing your body.

Breathing properly really does benefit your body in so many different ways. So the next time you’re hanging out with someone and they sigh really loudly, don’t just ask them, “What’s wrong?” Maybe you should give them props for taking in a bit of extra oxygen.