I’m teaching breathwork classes again. I was reminded that in the classes that students have a wide range of experience with breath. There are those who have studied breathwork deeply and want to come just to see what else they can learn or to enjoy the shared experience. I also meet people who are unable to take one deep breath. The class is (was) structured for a beginning level practitioner but this experience with such a wide range of students nudged me back to the blog, as the place to share more ideas than I can in a short workshop. This is first in a series on breathing well and why it’s so important.
Don’t forget to breathe. Part 1
Breathwork is a buzzy word right now. SO many approaches, classes, workshops, retreats, articles, books and more all talking about the breath. Good, I say! We all need to understand the power we have in our ability to breathe. My goal here is to talk about basic aspects/powers of breathing that you might not have learned in physiology 101.
Breath is, of course, the way we bring oxygen into the body. No breath, no life. However, your life and the quality of it hinges on so much more than just bringing oxygen into the body. First lets talk about basics of what happens physically when you breathe. Then I’ll wander on into the energetic and spiritual aspects of breathing the future blogs.
Join me… breathe in and when you’re ready, let that air flow back out. Allow your attention to stay on just breathing now. No adjusting what you’re doing… just notice how you are breathing. There is no right way or wrong way, just your way at this moment.
You feel the air flow in, through your nose or mouth. Breathing in through the nose can be better from the aspect that the nasal passages help warm, moisturize and filter the air coming in. Check in with your body as you are breathing. Is your chest expanding? Does your belly move as you breathe?
Quick physiology lesson for those who might appreciate.
In the pic above, the blue thing is your diaphragm, a circular sheet of muscle that rests between lungs and stomach, near lower edge of your ribs. The diaphragm moves down making more space for the lungs to expand. Your ribs also expand- to front, sides and back, a bit like an umbrella beginning to open. The volume of the chest cavity gets bigger, creating a vacuum so air can rush in. As you exhale, diaphragm moves back up, ribs relax back down and air is pushed on out. All this happens on autopilot until an occasion like now where we turn our attention to breathing- we begin to breathe consciously.
Here are some exercises to play with to get familiar with how you breathe.
1. Notice where you feel movement in your body as you inhale. Can you feel expansion in the chest from top to bottom of ribs? Do you feel expansion in front, sides and back? If you only sense movement in your upper chest, you are breathing shallowly. That’s just something to notice. We’ll work on it.
2. Now, check in if your belly expands on the inhale. When our belly expands, the organs can shift down a bit giving the diaphragm more space to move in. Its movement downward just increases the space for the lungs to expand. Play a bit with inhaling , imagining you are inhaling right into your belly. If this isn’t something you normally do, it will feel awkward at first. Just practice a bit when you think about it. Just that shift can create a slower, more relaxing breath.
If you find you breathe shallowly and it’s difficult to breathe more deeply, here are some exercises for you.
1. Try counting, to yourself or by watching a clock, and find about how long your inhales and exhales are. Counting is just a way to get a baseline on your breathing rate. I often just count to my heartbeat. You might find you breathe in to a count of about 3 or 4 or 6 and your exhale might be about the same..
2. If you breathe in and out for 2 counts, next breath try for 3. If you can make 3 then breathe that way for a minute. If you breathe in for 4 counts, then try for 5. You want to gradually allow your length of inhale and exhale to expand. If it feels uncomfortable to breathe more slowly for a minute, just return to your normal breathing pattern whenever you wish.
3. Imagine (visualize or pretend) you are breathing the air down into the bottom of your lungs or into your belly. Go slow. Adding this change can sometimes make it easier to breath deeper. We’re just exploring here so try it, if it’s uncomfortable, just do it for a few breaths. If you can manage it for a minute, then go for it.
4. A goal in conscious breathing is to extend the length of your exhale beyond the inhale. So if you inhale for 4 counts, you’ll want to try to exhale for 5 or more. A trick to extending the exhale is to breathe out through pursed lips, like your blowing out thru a milkshake straw. Pursing the lips restricts the air flow, allowing you to exhale more slowly. In the next blog, I’ll talk more about why this long exhale is so beneficial but for now, just enjoy it as a way to slow down.
Do not get into a place of judgement here. You might breathe shallowly but it’s not bad. Just something you might like to improve on as you can. Sometimes there are medical reasons for why you breathe like you do. If you have respiratory disease or lung function challenges, check with your medical professional on breathing exercises that might be best for you.
If you don’t have a medical reason for breathing rapidly or shallowly, then it can just be the result of habit or a response to stress. Slowing down the breath, allowing it to be longer and deeper, has many benefits. I’ll talk more about those in future posts. For now… practice breathing with awareness.
Have fun!!
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A reference article from Health News Today-“What exercises can help increase lung capacity?”-https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323787
#breathwork #breathedeep #betterbreathing #breathe