Deep breaths are a cornerstone to a lifetime of good health
If healing breath were to be sold as a prescription in a bottle, it would be the number-one selling drug in the world. The most progressive functional and integrative medicine physicians prescribe healing breath as their single best anti-stress medicine. Dr. Andrew Weil maintains, “The simplest and most powerful technique for protecting your health is proper breathing.”
Weil teaches breathwork to all his patients. “I have seen breath-control alone achieve remarkable results: lowering blood pressure, managing pain, ending heart arrhythmias, improving long-standing patterns of poor digestion, increasing blood circulation throughout the body, decreasing anxiety and allowing people to get off addictive anti-anxiety drugs as well as improving sleep and energy cycles,” he says.
The Natural Breath
If you observe a sleeping baby, you’ll witness correct breathing. Watch how the abdomen naturally rises and falls with each full breath. A baby’s full, relaxed breathing moves the diaphragm, that broad muscle sandwiched between the lungs and the abdomen, to achieve what’s called diaphragmatic or belly breathing.
As we live our lives, we begin to hold life’s stressors within the mindbody physiology and, as a result, we unconsciously tense, constricting our ribcage and lung capacity, and the diaphragm “freezes.”
We become shallow chest breathers, and subtly hyperventilate. This causes us to stay in a constant state of stress, governed by the sympathetic nervous system. This unrelenting state of fight-or-flight can severely denigrate our bodily systems and mental processes.
When you bring air down into the lower portion of the lungs, where the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange is the most efficient, your mindbody physiology changes dramatically. You stop the overflow of the stress hormone, cortisol, through the bloodstream and receive efficient delivery of oxygen to the brain, organs and muscles. The movement of lymph through the lymph system is optimized, enhancing immune system functioning. Overall metabolism improves, and with this, digestive, absorptive and eliminative processes. The heart rate slows down, blood pressure normalizes, tense muscles relax, the busy mind calms down and unhealthy emotional patterns ease up. You are shifting into the relaxation response (also called the relax and digest mode) governed by the parasympathetic nervous system.
Deep breathing can relieve headaches, backaches, stomachaches and sleeplessness. It helps to normalize release of the natural painkillers and mood-enhancers called endorphins; boosts serotonin and dopamine levels, our bodies’ natural anti-depressants and tranquilizers; and boosts the release of vasodilators, immunomodulators and human growth hormone or DHEA.
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
Let’s Practice: A Breathing Exercise
Find a quiet space where you’ll be undisturbed. Stand, sit up straight or lie down. For the most efficient flow of the life force energy, you want your spine in alignment.
Let your shoulders melt down away from your ears. Close your eyes. Bring in a deep breath through your nose. Feel the flow of this life-giving energy as it travels into and through the length and depth of your lungs.
You may feel the abdomen moving outward. Visualize every cell in your body receiving this life-giving energy.
As you slowly exhale (through the nostrils if possible), your abdomen will move inward. Imagine the navel moving inward toward the spine.
Don’t give the exhale short shrift here. Fully exhale. (Gulping in the next inhale without having fully exhaled is a primary culprit in shallow breathing.)
Sense the release of stress that you may be holding in any part of your body. You will begin to feel a deep sense of relaxation, while at the same time feeling a heightened flow of energy.
For those who have sinus issues, deviated septum, asthma, etc.—do the best you can with inhaling/exhaling through the nostrils. If this is difficult, then with teeth gently together and lips slightly open, breathe through the mouth.
Take 10 deep diaphragmatic breaths. Work toward full breathing that is deep, soft and easy, with no pauses or jerking. The deeper and easier the breath, the more the torso expands and contracts.
Breathwork is an integral part of meditation as well as yoga, so if you plan to build these practices into your life, be sure to master breathing first. There are few things in life as satisfying as this gentle dive into tranquility.