After you read this sentence take a moment and notice how you are breathing. Close your eyes and just listen and feel…go ahead, I’ll wait.
If you do yoga regularly you’re probably pretty in tune to
your breath and what is considered normal breathing. If not, you may be
completely unaware that the way you are breathing is affecting your energy and
your emotions. When we are stressed or anxious we will take shallow breaths.
This deprives our bodies of much needed oxygen. This can lead to more stress
and anxiety creating an unhealthy breathing cycle. Over time this is just how we breathe, we perceive it as normal. We
wonder why we are tired or feel on edge all the time.
Take a moment to lie on your back. Place one hand on your
stomach and one on your chest and just breathe. As you breathe the hand on your
stomach should rise as your stomach inflates like a balloon. If you don’t feel
this, if you feel your stomach collapsing then you are an anxious breather. I first discovered this at my teacher training. I couldn’t believe it, I was breathing wrong and had for years. It took me a few months before I could correct my breathing (you will have to retrain your chest and abdominal muscles to breathe correctly) but I noticed a change when I did. I also had to work through some of the emotional stuff that had lead to my anxious breathing. I broke the cycle by calming my emotions and the proper breath allowed me to stay calm. If I felt tense or anxious I would take a moment to check in with my breath and sure enough I wasn’t breathing normal. Old habits are hard to break, it is a constant practice to correct them.
Taking some more breaths now focus on the hand on your
chest. Does your chest fully inflate as you breathe or is it just a slight
expansion? Does the hand on your belly barely move? If this is the case you are
breathing shallow, not taking full breaths. You may notice that if you breathe
like this that you yawn a lot, are tired more often than you should be. Perhaps
you are anxious a lot.
Our breath is a direct connection to our bodies. In the book
Bodymind by Ken Dychtwald, he talks about our emotions and how it affects the
way we hold our bodies. If we are insecure or anxious we will tend to concave
our chest. This compresses our lungs and doesn’t allow us to take a full
breath. This will lead to shallow breathing depriving the body of oxygen which leads to us drinking a lot of coffee.
Instead of reaching for that cup of joe, try taking some
deep breaths. Regularly check in with your breath. Whenever a negative feeling
arises in us we hold our breath in an attempt to hold back that feeling. It’s
awful, we don’t want to feel it. But by doing this we are hurting our bodies. If
you are working on something challenging or in a stressful situation, notice if
you are holding your breath. If you can
focus on regular healthy breathing, notice how it affects your mood, your
energy.
“ Show me how you breathe and I will tell you how you live.”
Eugenia Gerrard
Our breath affects our lives. You can change your life by
correcting the breath. In yoga the breath is prana, which is our life force.
Without a strong life force we can’t live a full and happy life, we will only
stumble along. Take a deep breath and live life to its fullest. Your breath may be trying to tell you something about your life, something that may need to change for the better. Take the time to explore these feelings, taking deep breaths as you do. You may be surprised at what you find and the profound changes that can be made.
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