Our Breath

Our Breath

The breath is life. It marks life's beginning and end on earth.  Without it, we wouldn't be here, yet we tend to take it for granted. It's automatic. We don't tend to think too much about breathing unless of course we climb a high mountain, have a medical condition affecting our lungs, are in a smoke-filled room and so on.  Then it suddenly becomes really important.

With awareness, we can observe how our breathing affects our mental, emotional and physical state. Equally our mental, emotional and physical state affects our breathing.

In an anxious state, our breathing becomes rapid and shallow which actually increases our state of stress. It's a vicious circle. Anxiety fuels the erratic breathing and the panicked breathing accelerates the anxiety.

However, we can help ourselves.  If we focus on our breathing and take deeper slower breaths into our tummy we can calm this unsettled state.  Thus we break the self-perpetuating stress-inducing cycle.  It is also a distraction from our unhelpful thoughts as we shift our focus and attention to our breath.

Slower deeper breaths also increase lung capacity, thus improving physical and athletic ability and performance. I learned this from running! Athletes know this, yogis know this, singers know this. I guess we also innately know this, but do we use it.

So when we hear the wise words "just breathe" or "take a deep breath" we understand the wisdom behind the words. So we've heard it, now it's time to use it.