Rooted in ancient practices, the modern science of breathwork is revealing how a few minutes spent focusing on your breathing can not only bring an instant dose of stress relief, but also benefit your health in the long term.
Breathing is the first and the last thing we do in life. It’s a largely subconscious activity which our body carries out many times per minute in order to keep us alive and thriving. Yet an emerging realm of science is demonstrating that sometimes our bodies benefit from a little help to do it optimally.
This is the field of breathwork, an ancient art that has been practiced by different cultures for millennia. It ranges from techniques such as Indian pranayama, which looks to connect the mind and body by methods such as breathing through one nostril at a time, to Chinese qigong.
The overriding theme is that a more mindful approach to breath control, even if carried out for just a few minutes per day, can help calm and relax the body, with both immediate and long-term benefits.
“I like to describe breathwork as an ancient practice that is resurging in the modern day as the new mindfulness hack,” says Abbie Little, a researcher in theoretical psychology and medicine at Griffith University in Australia.
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