Slow, regular deep breathing has the major benefit of massaging all the internal organs
and giving them tone, enhancing digestion, assimilation and elimination.

The greater amount of  oxygen purifies the blood and enables it to carry more wastes.
Inside the cells, it enables the combustion of blood sugar and fat to be completed,
producing the ‘clean’ waste carbon dioxide, instead of more toxic intermediate products.

When the bloodstream carries its full complement of   oxygen, every cell in the body
comes alive and you have much more energy. The body’s engines, including the heart,
lungs, liver and kidneys, have the potential to operate at peak performance and power
the body and mind along at full strength.

Deep breathing delivers oxygen to air sacs much deeper in the lungs than can occur
with shallow breathing. When the chest is close to full expansion, the microscopic
air tubes are straighter and  wider, allowing air to flow more freely. It is less likely
that the mucus coating on their internal surfaces will block these tiny tubes, and this
has major significance for relieving chronic bronchitis and asthma.

Our hearts  love deep breathing because it makes their job easier. An expanded chest
provides the heart with more space and alternating pressure within  the chest cavity
assists the circulation, especially in the veins. During inhalation, the reduced pressure
within the chest draws blood back towards the heart  from other areas of the body.
A revealing study of 153 heart patients in Minnesota hospital showed that all were
shallow breathers.

Even more convincing evidence comes from a Dutch study, described in Conscious Breathing by Gay Hendricks, where two groups of heart attack patients were compared.
The first group was taught simple diaphragmatic breathing, while the other group was given no training in breathing.The trained group had no further heart attacks, while seven out of twelve of the untrained group had second heart attacks during the following two years.

The reason behind these differences, believes Gay Hendricks, is that the human body is
designed to discharge a large amount of toxins through breathing. If your breathing is not
operating at peak efficiency, you are not ridding yourself of toxins properly.

The lymphatic system, which drains the wastes from every cell in the body, multiplies its
effectiveness with deep breathing.A Californian lymphologist  conducted a study on the
effects of breathing on the lymphatic system. Using cameras inside the body, he found that
deep diaphragmatic breathing stimulated the cleansing of the lymphatic system by creating a vacuum  effect which sucked lymph along its vessels. This increased the rate of toxic elimination by up to 15 times the normal rate.

When bones are used regularly, they function better, which means that the rib-bones –
the biggest collection 0f long bones in the body – produce many more red blood cells,
enabling the blood to carry more oxygen. Deep breathing is the only way that we can work
our rips.

Even elevated blood pressure has been found to decrease when rapid shallow breathing
is changed to slow, deep breathing.

Located at the center of the diaphragm is the solar plexus, a concentration of nerve cells.
he more work we give the diaphragm, the more we stimulates the nerves, thus increasing
the amount of nerve energy going to the vital organs. There is a general calming effect
on the entire nervous system, enabling us to cope with stress  and pressure more readily.

Oxygen deprivation is thought to be a factor in many nervous diseases.
Deep breathing is nature’s tranquilizer and calmative. The rhythmical effect of long- slow
breathing facilitates natural and effortless meditation and improved concentration.

Deep breathing helps change our posture from round shouldered with an attitude of defeat to square shouldered with a bearing of pride and confidence – head high, shoulders back and chest forward. As the American Health educator Paul Bragg, put it in his book of the same name – breathe high, wide and handsome