TAKE A DEEP BREATH & SOAR TO YOUR FULL POTENTIAL

TAKE A DEEP BREATH & SOAR TO YOUR FULL POTENTIAL

The momentous importance of deep conscious breathing

 

 John Douillard, author of ‘Body Mind Sport’

“To experience the zone in training is our birthright, and it is within the design of our human nervous system to access it. To push ourselves to exhaustion when we have the capacity to allow effortless, perfect performance to flow naturally, from the inside out, seems somehow primitive and a waste of time. I have never heard of a peak experience that was described as painful, grueling or exhausting. Rather, the descriptions always fit the original definition of exercise: rejuvenating, stress-reliving and accessing full human potential.”

It will come as no surprise that many of us are either, over tiered, over stressed, over extended and/or overwhelmed within our lives.  This constant ‘state of being’ coincidently leaves our bodies in a regular stress state response: fight or flight.  Unfortunately, there is not a great deal we can do to counter the outside circumstance of our lives (as nice as it would be to leave our jobs and have the ability to go sit on a sunny beach for months on end…It is not very realistic…but worth trying to manifest ;D), so the work of countering our bodies fight or flights responses is up to our own selves to manage. On a very basic level, fuller deeper breathing is useful for producing calm and resisting our bodies physiological responses to stress. Deep conscious breathing stimulates the lower lungs to distribute greater amounts of oxygen throughout the body. The lower lungs are rich with the parasympathetic nerve receptors associated with calming the body and mind. Unconsciously, most of us do not take these deep breaths throughout our days and rely on short upper lung breathing (chest and mouth breathing…or if you are like me, you unconsciously hold your breath for short periods of time). To the body, these short breaths are sensed by the body as a mild form of hyperventilation and will trigger our sympathetic nerve receptors, which results in the fight our flight stress reaction.

To give greater emphasis to the enormous health benefits of deep breathing, in 1931 the Nobel Prize was given out for determining that only oxygen-starved cells will mutate and become…cancer! This is mind blowing considering, according to experts, most people only breath 10-20 percent of their full capacity. Plainly put, oxygen is our main source of life and exhalation is the main way our body regularly expel toxins. Not taking deeply focused breaths can contribute to a multitude of health problems and gravely decrease energy levels in the body.   

We all want long term health that subsequently fits in our daily lives. For centuries, yogis have put a great deal of focus on deeply focus conscious breathing. This is because, and modern science agrees, conscious deep breathing is a central function in improving, maintaining and repairing unconsciously run and harmful systems of the body. Imagine, if you will, a record being played on an old rusted record player. One scratch from the rusted record player will not affect the entire record, but if the record is continuously played on the same old rusted record player and is continually being scratched over a period of time, eventually the record will be so scratched up it will be impossible to listen to its melodies and eventually find its way to the garbage. Unconscious breathing will certainly occur throughout our lives but the danger is having that breathing system be our reliable source of breath and doing so over a long period of time; eventually leading to a multitude of health risks. 

Through the work of deep breathing our whole body will become healthy, deeply nourished, aligned and calm. In this state, the whole body can soar to its truest and fullest potential.

Deep Breathing: Exercise 1

1. Sit or lie flat in a comfortable position.

2. Put one hand on your belly just below your ribs and the other hand on your chest.

3. Take a deep breath in through your nose, and let your belly push your hand out. Your chest should not move.

4. Breathe out through pursed lips as if you were whistling. Feel the hand on your belly go in, and use it to push all the air out.

5. Do this breathing 3 to 10 times. Take your time with each breath.

6. Notice how you feel at the end of the exercise

Deep Breating: Exercise 2 (advanced)

To start, put one hand on your belly and the other on your chest as in the above exercise.

1. Take a deep, slow breath from your belly, and silently count to 4 as you breathe in.

2. Hold your breath, and silently count from 1 to 7.

3. Breathe out completely as you silently count from 1 to 8. Try to get all the air out of your lungs by the time you count to 8.

4. Repeat 3 to 7 times or until you feel calm.

5. Notice how you feel at the end of the exercise

Addition Benefits: 

·  The lungs actually extract oxygen from the air during exhalation, in addition to inhalation. Because the nostrils are smaller than the mouth, air exhaled through the nose creates a back flow of air (and oxygen) into the lungs. And because we exhale more slowly through the nose than we do though the mouth, the lungs have more time to extract oxygen from the air we’ve already taken in.

·  When there is proper oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange during respiration, the blood will maintain a balanced pH. If carbon dioxide is lost too quickly, as in mouth breathing, oxygen absorption is decreased, which can result in dizziness or even fainting.

·  Air that we inhale through the nose passes through the nasal mucosa, which stimulates the reflex nerves that control breathing. Mouth breathing bypasses the nasal mucosa and makes regular breathing difficult, which can lead to snoring, breath irregularities and sleep apnea.

·  Breathing through the nose forces us to slow down until proper breath is trained; therefore, proper nose breathing reduces hypertension and stress.  It also helps prevent us from overexerting ourselves during a workoout.

·  Our nostrils and sinuses filter and warm/cool air as it enters our bodies.

·  Our sinuses produce nitric oxide, which, when carried into the body through the breath, combats harmful bacteria and viruses in our bodies, regulates blood pressure and boosts the immune system.

·  Mouth breathing accelerates water loss, contributing to dehydration.

·  The nose houses olfactory bulbs, which are direct extensions of part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is responsible for many functions in our bodies, particularly those that are automatic, such as heartbeat, blood pressure, thirst, appetite and sleep cycles. The hypothalamus is also responsible for generating chemicals that influence memory and emotion.

·  The increased oxygen we get through nasal breath increase energy and vitality