How Do You Breathe
How Do You Breathe
Have you ever considered “How do you breathe?”. I would suggest it is definitely something that you do not think about much at all. Yet it is a skill that we are masters at, at a very young age, yet soon learn bad habits as we start to grow up. Any practice of spirituality, martial arts or exercise will require focussed attention on breathing, and if these key areas require such a basic function, why do we pay so little attention to the subject?
As babies, we breathe fully into the bottom of the lungs and release gently. As adults, we lay over bad posture, with hunched shoulders, neck down, head forward and we breathe shallow into the top part of the lungs. This is not where the full oxygenation process occurs, that is the bottom. By attention to the breathing, you bring yourself back to the here and now, and breathing is really the most important thing you can do here and now so why not pay it due attention. By breathing in a controlled manner you can alleviate stress and anxiety and you can help to bring your heart rate down and consequently blood pressure.
In spirituality (meditation, yoga etc) paying attention to the breathing allows your mind to stop its process. I have written many times about the mind. Your brain is important for problem-solving, the mind is superfluous to pretty much every part of your life, it is the chatter, the questions, the hyperactivity and none of it relevant to the now.
In martial arts, I believe, breathing creates a dual purpose, firstly it assists in bringing the mind into the now and secondly it helps the body to move in the precise ways required, it frees up the flow of the body, in this case we can call it Chi or Qi.
In exercise, of any kind, breathing is considered to be a key part of the training, especially power sports such as weight lifting or movement sports. I, therefore, consider it a very important part of life, and as such we pay it such little attention that we don’t even realise small facts, such as breathing through the nose will randomly be through each nostril, not both together. A small detail, but it is true.
Given its overall importance, is it not very weird that we do so little to improve ourselves even the slightest by harnessing the power of breath? So what are you going to do about learning How Do You Breathe?
