Abdominal Breathing

Abdominal breathing, draws breath deep into your lungs to fully oxygenate your blood.  Your diaphragm is a powerful muscle that lies beneath your lungs, runs along the edges of your rib cage, and into the lower part of your back.  The diaphragm is a muscle which when it moves down, it pulls air into your lungs and pushes out your abdomen.  When the diaphragm relaxes your abdomen goes down and your lungs become gently squeezed and you exhale.

Here's a way to start breathing abdominally:

Find a comfortable position, either sitting or lying down.  The one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest.  Inhale through your nose making sure that the hand on your belly rises and the hand on your chest hardly moves at all.  Inhale slowly to a count of four and feel your belly hand rise. 

As you exhale feel your hand on your belly, falling gently as you can to four.

Continue breathing like this until deeply relaxed. 

Try taking ten long, slow deep abdominal breaths next time you turn out the light to go to sleep.