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Mind & Mood
Breathing lessons
Learning to "belly breathe" helps ease your body's response to stress and tension.
The average person takes between 17,000 and 23,000 breaths per day, but there is a good chance we don't always breathe the right way. Chalk it up to how we deal with stress.
"When we feel something as a threat, our fight-or-flight response automatically kicks in," says Dr. Katherine Rosa, with the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine. "Our breathing becomes more rapid and shallow and our hearts beat faster, all of which prepares us to run away from the threat."
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