A
s a way to quickly and
effectively take back control
over your body and mind, the
breath has long been used as
a way to calm even the most fevered of
emotions. Yet most people don’t breathe
very well; they over-breathe, chest-breathe
or hold the breath when they should be
filling their lungs with rejuvenating oxygen.
Given that breathing is an automatic
function of the body, this chronic lack of
skill is a curiosity of the modern era.
The breath, it would seem, is often only
focused on when compromised. In so many
ways, breath and breathing are intrinsic
to wellbeing. Becoming more attuned to
the breath can improve memory, anxiety
levels, digestion and chronic pain among
other things. Learning about the breath
and becoming more efficient at breathing
can not only boost energy levels and
improve thinking, it can also enhance the
connection between the body and mind.The act of breathing
Physiologically, the act of breathing is
completely automated, controlled by the
respiratory centre in the brain’s medulla
oblongata. This sends signals to the
muscles that control respiration, causing
breathing to occur.
Each breath you take allows oxygen to be
absorbed into the body while each exhalation
pushes carbon dioxide out. Your breath
filters out microbes and debris, cycling fresh
oxygen to organs and tissues while removing
waste gases the body doesn’t need.
The muscles that control the lungs
include the diaphragm, which sits
underneath the lungs, and the intercostal
muscles between the ribs. When you
breathe well, nourishing oxygen flows
through the body; however, when you
don’t breathe well, you can restrict
oxygen through half-breaths or saturate
yourself by over-breathing.
While the average person breathes
in and out more than 23,000 times a day,most of these breaths, especially when
you’re awake, are short and shallow,
only reaching the chest. While these
shallow breaths are enough to keep you
functioning, they don’t provide the kind
of sustenance you need for optimum
psychological and physiological wellbeing.
Ironically, you begin your life knowing
how to breathe properly. Babies and
children breathe well and deeply,
nourishing body and mind and efficiently
regulating their systems. But by the time
you reach 10 years of age, your breathing
skills diminish and you start to breathe
with very little depth.
Why a skill so essential to living is lost
comes down to a variety of cultural and
lifestyle factors. According to researchers,
these include imitating the poor posture and
movement of parents and peers, wearing
restrictive clothing, cultural cues that make
you feel you have to hold your stomach in
and increasingly fast, emotionally stressful
lives. Add lack of exercise, long periods in
front of computers and sedentary lifestyles
and there are a number of ways that
breathing is compromised.
The consequence of compromised
breathing is you end up using only about
a third of your lung capacity. As humans
have become more sedentary, they now
breathe at a rate of around 15 or more
shallow breaths per minute as opposed
to the 10 our ancestors took 100 years
ago. Rather than using your diaphragm
to breathe down into the abdomen, you
might use your rib and neck muscles to
breathe into the upper chest.
This shift from using the diaphragm
and intercostal muscles to using the
neck, ribs and chest puts pressure on
these muscles, creating neck and back
pain and even pelvic floor issues. This is
because a key function of the diaphragm
is to use the action of breathing to
co-ordinate the deep abdominal and
back muscles as well as pelvic floor to
generate intra-abdominal pressure.Your daily breath
Learning to breathe better not only boosts your energy levels.
A controlled, calm breath can help reduce stress, improve
your thinking, ease chronic pain and bridge the connection
between your body and mind.Wo rds NIKKI DAVIESPhotography^ GettyImagesbody
BREATHE126 | wellbeing.com.au