Tai Chi & Breathing

When performing Tai Chi, correct breathing is vital to gain maximum benefit from the movements. Your aim is to gain control of your body’s functioning to allow it to receive the physical benefits of the rested state. The physical activity of proper breathing has psychological as well as physiological benefits – it reduces your metabolic rate, thus making you feel more relaxed.
 

Correct breathing is abdominal breathing. To breathe abdominal, you need to use your diaphragm, not just your chest, which allows only shallow breathing. This breathing technique is not complicated to learn as Tai Chi naturally enhances or induces it.

The physical benefits of abdominal breathing are many. By tensing and relaxing your abdominal muscles, the pressure is alternately high and then low. This not only makes the blood within your abdominal cavity flow more smoothly but its rise and fall include the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the stomach, the small and large intestine, the gall bladder, bladder and so on.

The movement of your limbs and body in Tai Chi enhances the massaging effect abdominal breathing has on these, some of the most important organs for life. Breathing is one of the first things affected by stress. In the ‘fight or flight’ response, your breathing rate speeds up, and the nostrils and air passages in your lungs open wider in order to take in more air as quickly as possible. With sustained stress, your breathing becomes shallow and insufficient oxygen circulates through the body, limiting your energy.

Proper breathing, however, can not only undo many of the stress-related problems you may experience but can also act to reduce the level of mental stress as well. Abdominal breathing during your Tai Chi exercises will help to overcome any stress you may be feeling and thus restore calmness, energy and strength.