Monitoring your breathing rate is a great way to know that you’re exercising at the proper intensity and also a great way to monitor your stress level. You can check your heart rate anytime, but it’s not as easy to tell how fast you’re breathing. People tend to breathe more deeply when stressed out, so monitoring it can help us know how much we’re reacting or overreacting in certain situations. Here are 5 ways to monitor your breathing rate:
- Check the pulse at the wrist:
This is a very simple way to monitor your breathing rate. Sit by a mirror or a window and place your fingers on either side of your wrist and notice how they appear; they usually look like pinstripe lines on the skin; if both lines are equally close together, then you are breathing correctly. If one line is much longer than the other, then you need to slow down your rate of respiration.
- Monitor your breathing by counting:
A slightly more advanced way of measuring your breathing rate. While staying seated in a chair or lying down on a bed, place the palm of your hand on your abdomen for about 10 seconds, now take a deep breath and count to 10 (or however long it takes you to exhale all of the air) and then do it again. This is called diaphragmatic breathing. If you are performing this correctly, then after two breaths, there should be no sounder or “hissing” coming out of you, which would mean that you are hyperventilating.
- Exercise:
Exercise is a great way to monitor your breathing rate because it’s something that you do every day, and you’re already counting your heart rate. If you walk or run outside, use a heart rate monitor to gauge your intensity level. If you’re doing a slower workout on a treadmill or stationary bike, just count the number of times you exhale through the nose in 30 seconds and multiply that by two. That’s easy enough to do when doing most exercises or sports.
- Practice Yoga or Meditation:
A great way to tune into the way you breathe while doing something relaxing like Yoga or Meditation. This will not only help you learn how to breathe correctly in a variety of situations, but it will also help you sense if your breathing is off. Yoga and Meditation are very difficult to practice correctly; if one is hyperventilating, then the movements and poses performed tend to be very jerky and feel uncomfortable. Relaxing into the movements while focusing on the breath is more appropriate.
- Track your breathing with an app:
Breathing apps are becoming more widely available for download on various mobile devices, like the iPhone or iPad. These apps allow you to track your breathing rate by using a finger placed over your camera lens. The app is designed to detect the changes in your breathing based on the light variations that appear in the video stream. The apps are usually free, though there may be some that require a fee to unlock certain functions.
Conclusion
Monitoring your breathing rate is an excellent way of learning more about your health. It’s especially important if you have asthma, hypertension, or other chronic respiratory conditions. You’ll be surprised how much a couple of minutes of deep breathing can help lower your blood pressure and reduce stress.