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Natural Breathing
Many people hardly breathe at all. Yet the way we breathe has a tremendous impact on the way we experience ourselves and our lives. To know what natural breathing looks like, watch a small baby. Babies take effortless, deep breaths like waves moving through the body. As we get older, our breathing often becomes more shallow and restricted. Different emotional states such as anger, sadness and fear have different breathing patterns.
With shallow breathing, we tend to be more anxious and more reactive. With relaxed, deeper breathing, we are more relaxed and better able to respond to whatever is happening in our lives. Natural breathing helps us to be more centred and focused, to rest in our depths.
With shallow breathing, our thoughts are more scattered and it seems as if there is not enough time. The brain wave patterns are busy with high peaks and lows and there is a lack of space. We get more identified more caught up with thoughts and emotions. With deeper breathing, the brain wave patterns slow down the waves have more space. There is an opening to wisdom, peace and creativity.
Bringing your attention to the breath helps you to be more present. Make a few signs with the word Breathe as a reminder or a symbol for that and put them up, e.g. on the computer, the bedside table, the fridge. Always allow the out-breath to happen on its own effortlessly and naturally almost like a sigh.
It may sound surprising that so much is possible just from restoring natural breathing. Well, nature tends to give us what we need and it is often closer than we think. A small change really can make a big difference. So why not try out natural breathing for the next 21 days and experience for yourself the benefits.
(If you have breathing difficulties, consult a practitioner)
Exercise: Natural Breathing Throughout The Day
Let your body stay relaxed, flexible and open throughout the day. Allow the body to move with the breathing. hroughout the day how is your body, how is your breathing? Is your belly relaxed? Breathing into the belly is helpful. Have a sense of the breath filling the whole body as you breathe in. Feel the shoulders rising on the in-breath and relaxing back down on the outbreath. Feel the movement of the ribs gently expanding and relaxing. Feel the hips expanding and relaxing back.
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© Kevin Olver Ltd 2010 |