Deep Breathing Demonstration for Menopause

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Dr. Susan Jewell. Now in this clip I’m going to show you one of the ways to be able to reduce the stress and anxiety of going through menopause. Now one of the things that you could do is a breathing technique, learn some of the relaxation and breathing techniques called deep breathing or paced breathing. So I’m going to demonstrate to you how we do paced breathing, but let me quickly go through exactly what you do. First of all you need to relax your whole body, put your arms by the side, of both sides, relaxed, and then what you do is you have to put your head back so that you are actually extending your neck and then you, while you’re doing that you take in very deep breaths and you count to five. So you go; one thousand one, one thousand two, up to one thousand five, five seconds, breathing in, inhaling deeply using your stomach and your diaphragm muscles, to do, to inhale a big amount of oxygen into your lungs and then you hold that for about two to three seconds and then you exhale. But while you’re exhaling you’re going to flex your neck and force your head forward and move it down and so that is exactly how you could do the paced breathing but you could repeat that process several times and then you feel afterwards your anxiety is reduced, you’re relaxed, so let me show you how you do this. You turn sideways, then what you do is relax your arms and take a deep breathe in and hold, and count one thousand one, one thousand two, up to one thousand five. But while you’re doing that you’re going to move your head back as you extend your neck back. Hold it in that position and hold your breath for about two to three seconds and then you’re going to exhale. But remember to use your diaphragm and your stomach muscles and exhale slowly counting again, one thousand one, one thousand two, while you’re exhaling so that you have a deep exhale too, so you exhale all that gas and carbon dioxide and you relax. You do this several times. "