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Shallow Breathing, Its Effect On Health And A Simple Exercise.

What Is Hypertonia?

Do you have any of the following: chronic, stubborn high blood pressure, head pressure, dizziness, headaches, numbness, dizziness, (especially upon standing quickly), chronic fatigue, memory problems (possibly bordering on amnesia), nervous irritability, chest pressure or heart palpitations, sexual impotence, constipation or more?  Do you have to take drugs to keep them under control?  Maybe there’s another answer or collateral that will work for you.

All of the above can also be symptoms of suffocation.  By far the largest majority of people are shallow breathers.  Stress and tension contribute to shallow breathing.  Many instances of shallow breathing, like apnea, a temporary stopping of breathing, can contribute to suffocation, a little at a time and can be diagnosed as Alzheimer’s.  Bacteria, viruses and most diseases are anaerobic, they can’t live in an oxygen rich atmosphere. 

Some doctors and researcher feel that hypertonia, the old term for chronic tension and stress, is the number one cause of hypertension (high blood pressure).  Hypertonia upsets the chemistry balance of the entire body.  It affects cellular oxygenation, nervous function, muscle action and tension, blood circulation, digestion and the body’s long-term physical and emotional condition.  Anxiety and depression can also be symptoms of hypertonia.  Think about it.  What would the reactions be if we were being asphyxiated?

What if you could positively affect all of the above symptoms by practicing a simple exercise, one you could do at home, riding in a car, at work, lying down, seated or standing?  Would you be willing to spend five minutes, three times a day for a few months to begin seeing results?  Or, do you just want to take a pill and let someone else be in charge of your life, health and well-being?  

What’s the magic exercise?  Deep breathing.  Deep breathing is more than pumping iron, running or other aerobic or anaerobic exercise(s), it’s a science, long established in promoting health and longevity.   The following are the basics of how healthful deep breathing may help you. 

In the beginning, until you get a little practice under your belt, lying down is easiest.  Wear as few clothes as you feel comfortable with and practice naked if possible.  Restrictive or tight clothes can hinder your progress.  Once you’ve learned the basics it will be possible to practice almost anywhere, anytime and in a sitting or standing position.

Lie down and place your hands, one on top of the other, on your navel.  First, breathe in through your nose and direct the breath into your abdomen.  You should feel your hands rise upward.  Expand your abdomen until it’s full, this fills the lower lobes of the lungs.  Next begin breathing into your chest.  Expand the chest until your upper lungs, or what’s called the super lobes, are filled.  Don’t rush the process, breathe in slowly until your lungs are completely filled. 

On a personal note: if I breathe into the abdomen first, because of an accident when I was young, my sternum pops.  It makes breathing in, abdomen first, very uncomfortable so I breathe into the chest first and then fill the lower lungs last.  The reason for the other way is because most people won’t breathe into their lower lungs second from the force of (bad) habit of breathing shallow.

There are two schools of thought concerning the out breath.  Is it better to breathe out through the nose or through the mouth?  Research indicates that breathing through the mouth signals the body to go into the fight or flight mode.  I breathe in and out through the nose.  Try humming quietly for 20 seconds on the out breath.  You’ll find it’s difficult at first, but will be possible with some practice.  You may want to consult with your health care provider and have your progress monitored.  Don’t stop taking your medication but, with time, practice and patience on your part, your doctor may see fit to lower your medication in stages or possibly take you off it completely.
 
There are times when it may be necessary to see a competent chiropractor.  If your spine or neck is misaligned, it can pinch nerves that will affect the blood pressure.   

The whole process sounds easy but it takes conscious thinking to break lifelong habits.  My blood pressure is perfect but my tendency is to shallow breathe because I feel there’s always more to do than time to do it in.  I’ve been working on my known bad habits for years, but fall back into them when I fill my life with too many things, and when I do, I begin to shallow breathe.  Anxiety, where time is concerned, is my bug-a-boo.  I try to do my breath control upon awakening in the morning and before going to sleep at night.  The hard part for me is during the day.

            

 

Larry Miller: I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.
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