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view on HEALTH
Just
Breathe
By Jennifer Sperry | Dandelion Photo Credit: Lilli Wheeler
S
pending time in the outdoors has many health benefits. Studies show that taking time in nature can support the improvement of positive mental health wellbeing and encourage the decrease in certain disease risks. Finding time to get outdoors may be the challenge for you. Don’t hit a huge goal today. Success is many goals hit. Give yourself something you can achieve. Take a “smoke break”! Before you close my article hear me out! No, I am not saying smoking is healthy, I have a degree in health. But interestingly, people feel calm from “smoking”, which is actually scientifically impossible because Nicotine is a stimulant! So minus the Nicotine, think about the beauty of a “smoke break”! Your company probably allows “smoke breaks” and you step outside to the outdoors, taking a break from your stresses, stretching those muscles, and inhale just good old fresh air; slowly, deeply, and hold it… before you release the breath. This is actually breathwork! “Smoke breaks” allow a person to step away to the outdoors where they are surrounded by the beauty of the local area, fresh air, possibly enjoying other friends and coworkers and just breathing! So yes! I think everyone should just take a “smoke break”, walk away from your world for a moment, give yourself some time, maybe multiple times, throughout the day to be present with your breath. Breathing decreases stress, calms the nervous system, stimulates all our body systems to work the best they can.
Germs cannot live in an oxygen-rich environment, and studies show sleep can be improved. Calming the nerves can literally take seconds with the right breathwork because when you breathe deeply, it sends a message to your brain that you are safe, you are calm. So reduce that tension! Take that “smoke break” at work and again at home; give yourself that time in the outdoors! Knowing that Nicotine is a stimulant, yet “smoking is calming”, we know the actual act of “smoke breaks”, the deep breathing and holding of the breath, is the reason the mind and body become calm. That is exactly what you are going to do! You are going to remove yourself from the indoors, find a space, take a long, deep breath and hold it before you slowly let the exhale release.
| |VIEW VIEWON ONMAGAZINE MAGAZINE| |May/June May/June 2020 2020
