The secret to longevity and great health is breath and to a large extent readily available and within our hands. Yoga breathing requires no equipment, is free and is readily accessible. Our breath is both deliberate and automatic. Yogi’s have known for centuries that long, victorious breathing is the best for detoxing the body but why? Dr. Marcelle Pick, a co-founder of Women to Women Clinic in Yarmouth, Maine explains.
Breathing serves as the pump for the lymphatic system, just as the heart serves the circulatory system. Your cells must have oxygen to survive moment to moment. In order to thrive, the cells in your body rely on a complex exchange between the circulatory system and the lymphatic system. Blood flow carries nutrients and ample amounts of oxygen into the capillaries, while a healthy lymphatic system carries away destructive toxins. Proper breathing is the moderator of this exchange.
It works like this, blood is pumped around the body by the heart, transporting nutrients and oxygen to the cells. Once the cells have absorbed what they need, they excrete debris and toxins, which then get flushed and deactivated by lymphatic fluid. The fluid then drains into the circulatory system through two ducts at thebase of your neck and become part of the bood and plasma that pass through the kidney and liver.
Unlike the circulatory system, your lymph system does not have a built-in pump. It relies on the act of breathing and bodily movement to move all that waste fluid around.
While you are helping your body to clean house, you’ll also be fighting stress. Deep breathing is the fastest way to trigger your parasympathetic nervous system, or what some practitioners call the relaxation response. This relaxation response has long been recognized in many Eastern cultures as cultivating a positive relationship between the body and mind, one that results in a more tranquil state of being and a more resilient physiology.
Make a commitment to your physical fitness and practice by conscious deep breathing beginning from the belly several times per day. In doing so, you will shift from chest breathing, the fight or flight response to a much greater relaxation response, eliminating toxins and welcoming oxygen, energy!
Would you like to know more about deep yoga breathing and its benefits? You can read more about these topic: www.womentowomen.com/fatigueandstress/deepbreathing.aspx
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