Take Some Time to Breathe
by Dr. Christopher Notley

“John, you have to relax …. Slow down…. Breathe!” In this day an age our life seems to be running on fast forward. You need to multi-task at work dealing with bosses, employees or customers. When you go home you have bills to pay, house to maintain, kids to take care of. It is never ending. It stresses you out. It affects you physically you start getting tight muscles and headaches. You start eating poorly; junk food, sugary food, and easy to prepare processed food. It affects your whole health.

A healthy thing you can do for yourself is to take some time for yourself and breath.

• Find a quiet place.
• This exercise can be performed either laying down or sitting in a comfortable chair. Better yet you can do it while laying is a hot bath or Jacuzzi.
• Place one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest
• Slowly inhale through your nose
• Imagine as though you are filling your stomach up with air.
• Feel your stomach rise up; your chest should barely rise up.
• Hold your breath briefly
• Slowly exhale through your mouth. While you are doing this say to yourself, “Relax”, or any other word that you find calming.
• As you exhale you should feel your stomach drop down and your chest should barely move.
• Repeat this process for about 10 minutes.

This time is used to focus on you to forget about the rest of the world for 10 minutes and take care of yourself.