We are anxiously awaiting the birth of our second grandchild. The miracle of new life! Can you picture the dramatic moment when the baby finally presents it’s brand new face to the world for the very first time and then… wait for it… whew!... starts to wail. That first breath must be quite the experience. All the adult participants are certainly overjoyed to hear it. It means LIFE!
Then we watch the baby soooo closely to make sure he keeps breathing. Even the soft spot at the top of his head will move with the breath. His whole body will oscillate with the miracle of life as he inhales and exhales.
So how are you breathing right now as you read this? It’s typical for us to hold our breath or breathe quite shallowly as we concentrate on a screen of some sort. Our breaths might be uneven or jerky and not involve very much movement in the body at all. What happened to that full, unfettered breath that we were born with? Could our compromised breathing patterns be preventing us from embracing life fully, like we could do when we were very young?
As a yoga therapist, I have worked for decades on understanding breathing and how humans experience that basic function. Many of my clients have reported that health professionals have instructed them to breathe more “deeply” but they just don’t know how to accomplish that. Forcing breathing can do as much harm as not breathing consciously.
The first step is to fully appreciate how fundamental appropriate breath patterns are to how you feel moment to moment. In the course of a day, you will automatically change breathing to accommodate what is going on in your environment. This is your body’s natural intelligence at work. Where problems arise is when your environment holds you for unnatural lengths of time in a particular breathing pattern.
For example, someone startles you, you gasp! That quick in breath will probably be accompanied by a contraction of the belly muscles. You were automatically bracing for a blow. If life is providing a lot of startling situations, your belly might get used to being contracted. It might forget that you need to be able to release the belly to take an inhale during relaxed breathing. So you can’t get relaxed. It’s a bit of a vicious circle. It’s pretty safe to assume you are experiencing chronic stress response if you are surviving in this jungle we call 21st century living.
Complicating matters is the cultural obsession with a flat belly. We think tight abdominal muscles mean a healthy back or an attractive body. Strong muscles are flexible muscles, not ones that are held tight and contracted. A health body will probably have a little curve in the belly area so movement, and especially movement for breath, can occur easily.
Some simple stretching can help release tense muscles. Then your natural intelligence can restore healthier breathing patterns automatically. The above illustration is a posture you can even try in bed. It opens the side body and encourages each lung to breathe a little more freely. You might rest on each side about five to 10 minutes.
Here is a video that guides you in a couple of other relaxing practices that will improve your natural breathing.
Health problems from fatigue to anxiety to pain to insomnia to auto-immune diseases and beyond can all be ameliorated by attention to breathing. I use controlled, relaxed breathing to survive fun life events such as root canals. And chances are that my daughter-in-law, when that big moment finally arrives, will be supported in trying a couple breathing techniques as she delivers the most important work of her life.
