Breathing control and Meditation

Relaxation and Breathing Exercises (Meditation)

How to Perform the Technique

These techniques required everyone in the class to take their heart rate. An average value for the class was calculated. The next step was to take part in breathing exercises that should calm and relax the body by focusing on breathing. Before starting the exercise everyone found a comfortable position and begun by closing your eyes or focusing on one spot in the room. The exercises involved concentrating on every breath and not dwelling on any stray thoughts.

The three techniques we used were:

1.       Complete Breathing – involves imagining your lungs being divided into 3 parts; lower, middle and upper sections. Imagine filling each part with air and focus on the air entering and leaving the sections of our body. The stages were continuous and smooth.

2.       Rhythmic Breathing – involves breathing to a rhythm e.g. inhale for a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4 and pause for 4.

3.       Concentration Breathing – involves concentrating and focusing on your rhythmic breathing. This exercise is also known as meditation.

The breathing exercises lasted roughly for 20 minutes. After this, the class retook their heart rate and again the average heart rate was calculated. The average heart rate of the class pre breathing exercises was 60.3 and the average post exercise was 54.7. My heart rate declined 6 BPM from 58 to 52 BPM.

 

How might this technique be used?

This technique can be used to lower heart rate and anxiety levels of athletes before they perform in order for them to reach their own personal levels of optimal arousal. Many athletes struggle with ‘over arousal’, where they are overly anxious and stressed or even over-motivated, before matches and this can have a negative effect on performance during the game. The use of breathing techniques can help overcome these negative pre-match effects by decreasing arousal to a level that is more suitable for the match situation, therefore ensuring that performance is not adversely affected.

Breathing techniques are most relevant in sports involving a ‘closed skill’, where there are fewer outside distractions during a match and there is the time available to take a moment to relax. For example, sports such as darts and snooker would appear to be tailor made for relaxation techniques as a player may find themselves becoming ‘over aroused’. In team sports, there will be times when deep breathing techniques can give an athlete a vital few seconds to ensure they are in the right state of mind to execute a skill effectively such as Messi hitting a penalty or Phil Taylor scoring a 180.  

What I thought of the Technique

I think that breathing exercises can be very useful, however it does heavily depend on the type of sport that an athlete partakes in and when they perform them i.e. before a competition, before training or before they sleep at night. I feel it would be effective to athletes who get too aroused before a performance, but only if they play a sport that requires low levels of arousal. Therefore I don’t think it would be useful for sports that require large amounts of arousal and awareness such as football or rugby where players need to have a ‘pumped up’ state of mind. However these games players may find it useful to use these breathing techniques if they over-think the night before competition. Breathing techniques would enable them to calm themselves and relax their minds. I would be one of those people who over-think about a match or a competition so this technique would be very useful so that I can get rid of a lot of nervous energy. However, in order for this technique to be at it’s most efficient it is important that the athlete has a quiet surrounding with no loud noises or distractions. Therefore, allowing the athlete to focus on their breathing. Overall I feel that it is an effective technique to relax the body and help athletes to reach their level of optimal arousal.