Learning to Breathe Again

I first read about abdominal breathing from a second hand book I bought at university 20 years ago.

It was this little purple book on esoteric yoga called ‘Raja Yoga’.

I loved it, all the talk of secret mystical abilities available to someone when they train in yoga had me hooked.

However, the thing that really changed my life from that book was how it coached me on shifting the position of my breath.

Naturally as we age, our breath becomes more shallow. This means we don’t take in as much oxygen.

We slowly stop breathing deeply, not using our lungs to their full capacity.

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Let’s do a quick test.

Put one hand on your chest.

Then put your other hand on your belly.

Now, breathe normally.

Don’t try to control your breath, just breathe as you usually do.

Now, which hand moves more?

For most of us, unless we’ve been trained, the hand on your chest will move more.

The difference is often so much, that for many of us, the hand on our belly doesn’t move at all!

If you have a chance, watch a baby breathe.

Their whole belly puffs out like a balloon, naturally breathing deeply.

Babies naturally breathe with their belly, as a natural extension of getting their nutrition from the umbilical cord when they were in the womb.

If you look at the anatomy of our lungs, when we only breathe with our chest we’re not using the full capacity of our lungs.

The way to fully, deeply breathe, is to do what’s called diaphragmatic breathing or abdominal breathing.

This is the breathing that is taught to singers, martial artists, qigong and yoga practitioners to fully utilize their lung capacity.

When you expand your belly out when you breathe in, you use your diagphraghm to draw air deep down into the bottom of your lungs, invigorating your blood with oxygen.

Abdominal breathing is powerful. It will bring you both energy and relaxation.

Make sure you try it today.

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Today’s Exercise

The best way to practice abdominal breathing is by doing the exercise I asked you to do before.

With one hand on your chest and one hand on your belly, breathe slowly and deeply, but try to move the hand on your belly through your breathing.

Don’t force this process.

It’ll feel strange at first.

Just try and remain relaxed and use your attention to guide your breath.

You can combine this with the breathing relaxation exercise you learnt in the 2nd key to Meditation lesson.

Practice abdominal breathing a little each and you’ll be amazed by how quickly you’ll start to naturally just do it!

Your body will quickly remember to breathe like this.

Good luck with this and I’ll see you with the 3rd Key to Meditation soon!

 

For breath is life, so if you breathe well, you will live long on earth.

– Sanskrit Proverb