Diaphragmatic Breathing aids digestion
Easy rhythmic breathing helps digestion and also eliminates abdominal discomfort
Simply by putting 5 minutes of effort into your breathing every day, you can make a massive difference in the ability for the body to digest and assimilate the food you eat.
1. Diaphragmatic Breathing massages the internal massage; aids digestion.
Since diaphragm being the chief inspiratory muscle, it massages your liver, stomach and intestines during diaphragmatic breathing. By doing so, it enables stomach to produce proper enzymes, break down food and mobilizes it through intestines.
But when we breathe from upper chest, our core collapses and put pressure on the abdominal organs. This can hamper blood supply to these areas and can affect peristaltic movements required to void bowels from our body.
2. Breathing exercises can increase oxygen intake by 5-times; optimised digestion.
Many of us are not aware of the fact that the loss of energy of our body is mainly due to inaccurate breathing. Besides, we are not utilizing the complete lung’s capacity, resulting in inadequate oxygen supply to digestive organs.
Further, it can lead to poor disposal of waste products, sluggish metabolism and affect cells and tissues regeneration.
As oxygen is essential for catabolism of food we eat, breathing exercises by increasing oxygen intake by five times, can aid in digestion of food.
3. Breathing exercises helps with Natural Weight loss.
A person with sine wave breathing takes about 2 hours to digest a regular meal whereas a compromised breather takes more than double the time to process the same food.
4. Breathing activates parasympathetic nervous system; rest and digest system.
Breathing slowly and deeply through nose can activates your parasympathetic nervous system- the” rest and digest” system.
Upon activation, it will draw more blood to digestive organs, stimulates liver, stomach and digestive organs to produce digestive juices and enzymes needed to break down the food, regulates gut barrier function and maintains gut mobility.
It also facilitates elimination of gas, bloating, discomfort, constipation and other symptoms of improficient digestion.
5. Breathing exercises strengthens diaphragm; helps control reflux.
Reflux of food occurs when your stomach contents move backwards into your esophagus. “Studies have also shown that breathing exercises that strengthen the diaphragm muscles may prevent reflux by reinforcing the barrier between the two organs,” as stated by Ian Harnik, MD, a gastroenterologist in the department of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in N.Y.
Unfortunately, majority of us do not give proper attention to this incredible maneuver, and the consequences are devastating to our health. But, the good news is that it doesn’t matter what your health condition is at this time, if you start to practice conscious deep breathing, you will see benefits in no time.