Breathing Methods & Menopause

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Dr. Susan Jewell and in this clip we’re going to talk about breathing techniques for reducing some of the signs and symptoms that you experience when you’re having menopause. Now what are some of the breathing techniques that you could use? Well there is the deep breathing or what we call pace breathing. In the next clip I’m going to demonstrate to you what, how you actually do these different techniques, but let me explain what is the advantage of deep breathing and pace breathing. Basically breathing will help you reduce hot flashes and relaxes the body because you, when you deep breathe you take in more oxygen to the body and into your circulation. So what is the mechanism of the breathing, the breathing mechanism of the body? Well here I’ve drawn a diagrammatic picture of the chest. Now this is the chest, and these represent the lungs and these are the bronchial, now what’s important is that when you are not breathing correctly you are not taking the maximum amount of volume into the, into your body so, because of the volume of space, the capacity. Now normally when you are just taking some small breaths, normal breathing, your diaphragm which is a very muscular muscle that is, crosses the bottom of your thoracic cavity or your chest, it is at this relaxed stage so that when you look at that, you can see that this is the amount of volume that you can actually only take in to fill the capacity of your chest space. But if you take in a deep breath, then that muscle, the diaphragm contracts and it drops down so you’re actually going to be able to inhale even more air and so that’s why it is so important that when you breathe, you actually learn the techniques of breathing and to do deep breathing, especially when you are experiencing the hot flashes and the anxiety that you get when you are going through menopause. "