Want to Change Your Life? Learn to Breathe!

I want to share with you about possibly the most important, most misunderstood, simplest, yet most complex functions of the human body: THE BREATH. I hope you’ll keep reading.

I’ve been reading and studying lots about breathing over the years, since I work with it so much. And you wouldn’t believe how much you can notice about how you feel by learning to work with the breath. In sessions, we pay attention to breathing, sensations and personal experience.

That’s what I’m going to share with you in this and future articles.

One curious thing about breath is that it has this paradoxical quality: it is an unconscious, automatic function, and yet we can also pay attention to it consciously. That’s pretty powerful for something we barely even pay attention to.

Notice this for example—when something shows up, an emotionally charged situation—whether pleasant or unpleasant, our breathing can change. We can start to notice that, and notice how we feel as we breathe.

So there is a lot to share about breathing.

Here’s the first installment:

Learning to breathe. Really. So many people I work with breathe only into the top part of the chest. The shoulders and chest lift and contract, the belly contracts. What do you notice in your own breathing?

Stop now and take a relaxed, normal breath and notice where you feel it in your body. Your belly, your side ribs, back shoulders, chest? Ideally when you inhale your side ribs should expand outward, indicating that the lungs are actually filling with air. You should also feel it expanding your ribs in the back. This actually feels really good as it stretches out those tight back muscles from the inside. Try it!

Notice when you fill the bottom of the lungs, that the upper chest and shoulders don’t move much. They don’t have to. You may notice that the shoulders actually get to relax and let go—what a concept. You may also notice a relaxed feeling in your head! There’s a good reason for that—which I’ll talk about next time.

If you’re not used to breathing this way you may have to practice. The next time you inhale, consciously send the breath down to your side ribs and back, letting the lungs fill up from bottom to top, and then let the breath sigh out gently, feeling the lungs deflate from top to bottom. Keep practicing—close your eyes and just feel where the breath wants to go in the body. You actually do breathe this way when you sleep, so your body knows how to do this, once your stressed out brain gets out of the way!!

What do you notice as you breathe this way? Let yourself feel the long, slow, gentle exhale.

Practice this kind of breathing as a gift to yourself. Let it be gentle. Don’t force yourself to breathe too deeply. Notice what feels comfortable, and return to your normal breathing whenever you want.

Just the pressure of living in the 21st century can make it easy to forget to pause.

There is more to explore about the breath and its place in our spiritual lives.

Till next time—Blessings, and Don’t forget to Breathe!