Hi, and welcome to The Aromaspecialists, I’m Renée Hughes, Nationally Certified Aromatherapist and Certified Natural Health Consultant. And today we’re going to talk about a breathing technique to help with constricted breathing. What is constricted breathing? So constricted breathing is just when you are not breathing properly, kind of like you’re holding your breath, give a check right now and just pay attention to whether not you are breathing properly. Oftentimes we can feel in our gut when we give a check and actually we’re a little tight in our chest, but we’re not really having like that relax breath, it is scrounged up. Why does this happen? So just in general with stress, we stop breathing. When we experienced some type of stress on the body, we stop breathing. It’s why you’re a fitness instructor always throughout the entire routine keeps reminding you to breathe. They always say, don’t forget to breathe. Why? Because your body is going through stress. You’re building muscle. You’re feeling that tension. You’re doing moves. That may be a little difficult. You’re challenging yourself, all which is great. But with that, the tendency is to stop breathing.
But now what if the stress that your body and your mind is going through instead of a fitness routine it’s your job or your family, or maybe you have a chronic illness that you’re dealing with. So these are stresses that you’re living with, stresses you embody. And so you could potentially have been walking around for months, maybe even years with constrictive breathing. What effect has that had on your body? Well, for one, you may notice panic attacks may notice feeling you’re really anxious most of the time. And you may notice feeling really exhausted a lot of the time, even after you’ve had a night’s sleep, you may also notice an intensity in how you experienced trauma. And so maybe it’s just a bad day. Maybe it’s some bad news that you’ve gotten that just goes through your body in a way where you feel like you’re not going to be able to manage it, won’t be able to handle it. So those are some things that could potentially let you know that you’re dealing with constricted breathing. So just want you to kind of give a check and notice how you’re breathing right now.
Do you feel like you need to catch your breath? Normally under normal circumstances, when a body is working in harmony and everything’s balanced, we just breathe. Just breathe. Normally we don’t have to say, Hey, Renee, stop, breathe. It just happens. We are naturally built that way. However, because of stress, it can take a back seat to the rush of saving our lives, being in a dangerous situation. You know, we have that adrenaline rush that fight or flight or freeze that happens. We can be embodied in that all the time. And when that happens, the breath changes.
Think about when you’re running or you’re being chased or you’re feeling like your life is in danger…if that ever happened to you… your breathing changes. So all of that kind of describes constricted breathing. It’s when you’re holding your breath, you’re not breathing. Subconsciously you’re like holding it in. And so what I want to show you how to do is to breathe in a way that you can practice on a regular basis to train your body that even under stress, that it would breathe this way. This is best done along with Aromatherapy because it trains your brain to continue to do this and it deepens the effect of the relaxation.
But today we’re just going to talk about the breathing technique and then I’ll pop up a couple of oils that it’d be nice for you to do this with. Okay? If you’ve done breathing before, for example, if you practice yoga or meditation, it’s similar. It’s not the same. This is not an ’emptying your mind’ type of thing. This is more of a training your body to breathe properly. You’re ready. So INHALE through the nose, you want to hold that breath. This is really incredible guys, when you start doing this, okay, so you’re breathing in through the nose. You’re holding it for five seconds. That part is tricky. Especially if you already dealing with anxiety, holding the breath can feel like, ‘Oh, I can’t breathe’. And so that can be difficult to do. You may have to practice that. You may only be able to hold it for a second. But practice holding that for five seconds, slow in, slow out in, through the nose, out through the mouth, both very slowly. When you’re breathing in, you also want to expand your stomach. Here’s a video here where I show you how to do the technique as well. So you can take a look at that video(see youtube video minute 5:33). So you’re expanding the stomach and you’re breathing out and in slowly. So you want to just be careful that you don’t do it too fast. If you do it too fast, it continue into hyperventilating. So we don’t want to do that. Alright, so pay attention and just practice this slowly and ask me if you have questions ready. Now, I’m not going to talk this time. So you can actually see me doing it, breathing into the nose(see video below).
And I know what you’re thinking. There is no way she was breathing out all that time, but I really was. So it’s because you’re taking your time breathing out. You want to let all that breath out. If you have asthma, this is going to be similar to how you take your inhaler. So you know how you take all that air out and then you breathe in. So this is a great thing that you can do even during allergy season, or even for any reason that you’re having difficulty breathing. This is a great thing that you can do for your lungs and for your body and your brain to really deeply relax. And it’s going to help you to not be so anxious. You want to practice this. So practice doing this a few times a day, and it’s gonna get more and more natural for you so that even if your body is going under stress, or even if there is something going on, it’s going to be more natural for you to breathe properly.
In my program I always talk to you about the Mental Clarity and Emotional Release Program. Check out the link here. You’ll see the program there. In this program, we do this together. So I’ll have you do this multiple times. We do it before they run Aroma Tapping. Sometimes we’ll do it after, and it really is just a great way to train your body to relax. Okay. Now, if you take a look at your screen(see video minute 7:52), you’ll see a couple of the Essential oils that would be great to diffuse while you’re doing this. So in the morning, maybe when you get up, you can do a routine where you’re breathing and you got those oils going and that is going to do a lot for your body, for your brain, for your whole everything. Okay? And so you can use Eucalyptus, Ravinsara, Cedarwood and Oregano. So those are just some of the oils and what they have in common is 1-8 cineole. This is known for helping to open up the breath. So it’s going to help you to breathe, help to open that chest up. Oregano can even be used. And so those, especially Ecuadorian oregano, Mexican mint is another word for it. So all of those oils that you can diffuse while you’re doing that breathing, and you’re going to feel your chest open up even more. And you’re going to feel that you’re breathing, that you’re getting a nice cleansing breath that causes you to relax or causes you to release it. Very relaxing, very helpful in reducing anxiety, even in a moment, even in a situation, but especially longterm. And that’s what we want. So practice it. Let me know how it goes. And thanks for being here.
Don’t forget to like subscribe and share this video if you found it helpful, any questions you might have put them in the comments and I’ll be sure to respond. Thank you.
