One thing I’ve learned since I started doing these videos on a regular basis was how much I had to learn about breathing. It’s funny how there can be so much to learn about something we all do instinctively in our first few seconds of life!
Done Properly, Breathing Can Reduce Anxiety & Strengthen Your Speaking Voice
Many people feel anxious when they have to give a presentation or go on camera. And when we feel anxious, we get tense. And one of the first places tension shows is in our breathing patterns. We start to breathe more quickly and less deeply. This fools the body into thinking we’re under some sort of threat. We start to take shallower breathes, which means less oxygen and more carbon monoxide circulating in our system. In some people it can even lead to panic attacks or hyperventilation.
How does feeling anxious and tense affect your speech? For one thing, shallow breathing restricts the fullness of sound and range your voice might have. It will sound squeezed or strained because you’re talking off the top of your lungs with a tight throat, jaw, mouth, and face. And breathing shallowly can become a vicious cycle.
The less air we take in, the worse we feel, the less effectively we speak. The less effectively we speak, the worse we feel, the less air we take in.
Luckily, there are a number of breathing exercises available on the Internet that can help you learn to control and then eliminate the anxiety you feel ahead of any speaking engagements.
Breathing exercise one
- Stand with your feet a comfortable shoulder width apart.
- Support the weight of your body through your hips and legs rather than locking your knees.
- Consciously release and relax your shoulders.
- If you’re holding your stomach in, let it go.
- Place your hands on your stomach.
- Breathe in through your nose to the count of four. Count slowly. As you inhale feel your diaphragm rising.
- Breathe out through your mouth to the count of four and now feel your diaphragm expanding.
- Do three rounds of inhale and exhale to a four count while making sure you keep your shoulders, stomach and legs relaxed.
- Once you have mastered the four count, increase it. Through regular practice you will soon be able to extend it for an eight or even ten count.
Breathing exercise two
- Stand with your feet a comfortable shoulder width apart.
- Support the weight of your body through your hips and legs rather than locking your knees.
- Consciously release and relax your shoulders.
- If you’re holding your stomach in, let it go.
- Bring your palms together in the center of your chest.
- As you slowly inhale through your nose, keeping the palms of your hands together, raise your arms as high as you can above your head. At the same time raise yourself on to your toes.
- Hold your breath briefly at the top of your inhale keeping yourself fully stretched and pushing without strain toward to the sky.
- Exhale slowly through your mouth and now bring your arms slowly down and round back up to your chest, with your palms together in the starting position.
- At the same time slowly lower your feet.
- Repeat for ten rounds.
The benefits of both these breathing exercises are both psychological and physical.
Physiologically you are using all your lungs rather than the top third, which means more oxygen and less carbon monoxide in your system. You’ll feel better, better able to deal with stress, to think more clearly.
The physical benefit is increased lung capacity, which allows you to speak longer overall and between breaths, as well as allow you to handle complex patterns of language more effectively.
The post Breathing Exercises To Strengthen Your Delivery appeared first on Arc and Crown Media.
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