From "Meridian Nourishing Life", do you know? In fact, human lungs are as big as two footballs on average, but most people only use one-third of their lungs in their lives. According to a survey, no matter what the development level of the country is, at least half of the urban population breathes in an incorrect way. Shortness of breath means that the inhaled oxygen has begun to exhale before it reaches the lungs, and no fresh air is inhaled at all. Our usual way of breathing is called "chest breathing", which mainly focuses on the activities of ribs and sternum. When inhaling, the air directly enters the lungs and the chest cavity becomes larger. In this process, the abdomen is always flat. But in this way, the alveoli at the bottom of the lung can't expand and contract completely. Without good exercise, oxygen can't be fully transported to all parts of the body. Chest breathing will leave two-fifths of alveoli in a state of disuse for a long time. Over time, many organs of the body will experience different degrees of hypoxia, such as bronchitis, emphysema, pulmonary heart disease and so on. It can be seen that a healthy breathing style is extremely important to the body. The common ways of healthy breathing are abdominal deep breathing and lip-shrinking exhalation. There are "three tones" in traditional qigong health preservation with abdominal breathing, one of which is "pranayama"-regulating breath and breathing. The commonly used pranayama method in Qigong is abdominal deep breathing. Abdominal deep breathing can be divided into two types, namely anterior abdominal breathing and reverse abdominal breathing. The former mainly refers to the relaxation of the lower abdomen when inhaling and the contraction of the abdomen when exhaling; The latter, on the other hand, contracts the lower abdomen when inhaling and relaxes the abdomen when exhaling. Normal abdominal breathing takes about ten to fifteen seconds at a time, and you can inhale about 500 ml of air. But no matter which one, it is required to do abdominal exercises consciously when inhaling deeply, that is, relax or contract the rectus abdominis. If abdominal deep breathing is adopted, two fifths of the alveoli that chest breathing can't use can be exploited, and the internal organs of the chest and abdomen can be moved through the back and forth movement of the abdominal wall and the up and down movement of the diaphragm, which is conducive to promoting the blood circulation of these internal organs, dredging the meridians connecting the internal organs and giving full play to their normal functions. Specifically, you can stand, sit or lie down according to the body position advice given by the doctor because of your illness. Generally speaking, beginners are suitable to do it in a semi-recumbent position, with their knees half bent (or a small pillow under their knees), relaxing abdominal muscles and putting their hands on their chest and upper abdomen respectively. When inhaling slowly through the nose, try to relax the diaphragm, and the hand placed on the abdomen should feel lifted, while the hand placed on the chest remains motionless; When exhaling, contract the abdominal muscles, and the abdominal hands should feel descending. Abdominal breathing can be practiced for five to fifteen minutes every day and repeated seven times, so that after a period of time, you can develop a stable and slow breathing habit. It is worth noting that because abdominal breathing is deep and slow, try to use your nose instead of your mouth. Of course, at the beginning of practice, in order to avoid "going astray", you can also check whether your practice method is correct. When inhaling, check the movements of the chest and abdomen. If your chest and abdomen are tightened at the same time, it means that you are not practicing correctly, or put your hands on your chest and abdomen respectively. If the hand placed on the chest fluctuates more than the hand placed on the abdomen, or the hand placed on the abdomen hardly moves, it can also indicate that the method is incorrect and may be caused by shortness of breath. Abdominal breathing is helpful to increase ventilation and reduce breathing frequency. It has obvious effect on office symptoms. Lip-shrinking breathing method Lip-shrinking exhalation method is to inhale through the nose, but exhale with lip-shrinking. When exhaling, the abdomen is tightened, the chest leans forward, and the lips whistle, so that the gas can be exhaled slowly through the narrow mouth. Generally speaking, the time ratio of inhalation and exhalation in lip-contraction exhalation method is 1: 2 or 1: 3. The key to this method is to take a deep breath and breathe slowly. The degree of lip contraction is up to you, as long as you don't feel laborious. Do it seven or eight times a minute and practice it twice a day for ten to twenty minutes each time.