How to Not Circle the Drain: Keeping it Together in the 21st Century

Breathing

Breath is your most accessible and portable tool to calm and center yourself.  Slow deep breathing  increases pulmonary efficiency and excretion of the waste product carbon dioxide, while maximizing the oxygen that is available to the bloodstream.  There is no cost for breath and no taxes on breath - a truly free commodity in a world that often reduces things to product status - breath is not a brand yet!

If you think that the breath is not important try this: pinch your nose closed, close your mouth and cover it with your hand.  Hang out for a few minutes - there it is!  Essential to life and constant while you are alive. Breath techniques are ancient and are practiced world-wide in different religious and spiritual practices, as part of various healing modalities, and in yoga, various martial arts, and other physical activities.  Some techniques are quite basic, such as simply noticing and following the breath and body sensations, others more involved, involving control of the breath and bodily contractions or muscle locks.   The test drives in this chapter are not breath control - focused, rather they offer an opportunity to explore greater varieties of breath release and breath access to your body.  The first step is breath awareness,  simply to slow down and notice your breath.  Focus your attention on the breath flowing in an out of your nostrils, the engagement of your chest and abdomen, the pace and depth of the breath itself, any sensations and movement in the body.  Just stopping to notice the breath is a way to take a detour from the busyness of daily routine and switch gears. 

Another important thing to notice is when you are holding your breath, sometimes we just naturally do this during some sort of exertion, when the release of breath may be our greatest ally.  I noticed myself recently holding my breath while trying to retrieve something from a high shelf, and again when trying to clean a hard-to-reach corner.  When I notice it, I immediately free my breath and notice that whatever I am doing feels easier.  Practicing awareness of the breath leads to heightened observation of changes in our breath pattern throughout our daily life. 

The breath is always with us, but we generally take it for granted.  Breathing is the singular involuntary bodily activity over which humans can exert some conscious control.  It happens whether we focus on it or not, but with attention we can improve the quantity and the quality of our breathing.  There is not a "wrong way" to breathe, but there are more efficient ways that will optimize the functioning of the human organism on many levels.  

The breath is a bridge or connector between the human and the external environment.  Working with our breath allows us to take in a greater amount of oxygen, and expel greater quantities of the waste product carbon dioxide.  The breath is in a continuous feedback loop with the environment through this molecular exchange.  Our breath also reacts to different stimuli,  we breathe faster and more  shallowly when afraid or agitated, we hold our breath or do a sharp intake of breath when startled,  we may sigh or more forcefully exhale when frustrated or depressed. 

The diaphragm is the principle muscle of the breathing process.  What is often referred to as "diaphragmatic deep breathing," is more accurately described using the term abdominal breathing, or belly breathing.  This because the diaphragm is always active in the breathing process, no matter the technique.  Abdominal breathing is natural during sleep, and is the way that we breathe when we first come into the world.  Watch a baby breathe and witness belly breathing in action.  Breathing from the belly allow a greater amount of air to circulate in the lungs than a more shallow, or chest movement method.  It gets us out of the top portion of our body, and into our core, literally our center. 

Test Drive #1:

Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. The spine should be straight no matter your position.  Align your head, neck and trunk so that the breath as an easy pathway.  This technique is done with your mouth closed. Begin to focus on your breath, noticing it flowing in and flowing out. Now place your hands on your abdomen.  Relax the abdominal area, attempt to soften any tension that you are holding there.   Let's now consider the breath like an ocean wave, one that will flow through the body from top to bottom.  Try not to exert too much, or try too hard.  This is a gentle process. 

Exhale first, and get all the air out.  Then inhale, make your belly big by extending it outward, feel the  expansion of your rib cage. Imagine the breath wave is going all the way up to the crown of your head. Hold for a moment at the top of the breath, and then contract your belly button to your spine while slowly exhaling, imagining the breath wave going all the way down to the feet, and letting all the air out.   Your hands should be rising on the inhale and falling on the exhale.  Notice how your entire body is actually engaged in the breathing process.  Now, experiment with an equal part breath count, for example inhale to a count of 3, then exhale to a count of 3. If this feels comfortable, try a count of 4 or 5.  

Another technique is to implement abdominal breathing and to extend the length of the exhalation, making it longer than the inhalation.  Try inhaling to a count of 3, and exhaling to a count of 5.  You can experiment with the breath ratio, simply ensuring that the exhalation is always longer than the inhalation.

Test Drive #2:

Take a deep slow inhale through the nose with the mouth closed, and then slowly exhale with your mouth wide open, like an extreme sigh. Let your body collapse a bit on the exhale. Whew, it feels good to just let it go!  You can add on before or after by opening your mouth as wide as it will go and stick out your tongue.  Then loosen up the jaw by reciting the vowels in an exaggerated way with your mouth open. Inhale again with a closed mouth and exhale out of the open mouth with a sigh. 

Slow breathing, different breath techniques, and simply focusing on the breath through attention or counting is an excellent way to calm and support the nervous system. Most of us have a well-developed imprint for nervousness, agitation, and anger. While using breath to calm the body, we create a new imprint of calm centeredness. The more that we flex our calm "muscle" the more probable it is that we can access it when we really need it. Slow and focused breath activates our parasympathetic nervous system, the "rest and digest" component, in contrast to our sympathetic nervous system, "fight or flight." Give your body and brain a break by slowing it all down with some simple breath practice. It's portable, no props required, it doesn't get more basic than that!