3. The Power of Breath
Perhaps not unlike you, I never thought much about breathing. Our autonomic nervous systems control our respiration, so we don’t have to think about it. Maybe if my nose was congested and I couldn’t draw air into my nostrils, I’d become aware of it, but then forget about it again as soon as my sinuses cleared.
I thought a lot more about my weight, even as a young girl, and was conscious of needing to keep my belly sucked in all the time. This was the ’60s and Twiggy (a model so thin her body was said to look like a stick) was much celebrated. As soon as I hit puberty, I started wearing a “longline” bra (which constricts the upper torso) and a girdle, which squeezes the belly, so that my fleshy body might appear smooth and flat.
This didn’t seem so unusual to me. Women in the United States are taught to keep their belly muscles contracted; fashion for women is designed to produce sleek long lines instead of the curves and voluptuousness of many women’s bodies. Trim silhouettes are enforced with constricting garments like bustiers or Spanx. These garments, like the whalebone corsets of earlier generations, ensure that women can’t breathe properly.
Have you ever found yourself breathing shallowly due to the tightness or constriction of the clothes your were wearing?
Not getting enough oxygen is not empowering.
Until I studied yoga, I never knew that when we breathe deeply, allowing the belly to inflate on the inhale, the diaphragm drops down, the rib cage expands, and the whole torso can fill with breath. When we exhale, we can contract the navel toward the spine and push all the breath out, causing the ribcage to snap closed and the diaphragm to lift again. Those things can’t happen when our abdomens are constricted, whether by our undergarments or by clenching the muscles.
It was in yoga that I learned the diaphragm is connected to both the heart and the lungs, and when we breathe correctly and the diaphragm moves, those organs get a little massage, which keeps them healthy as well. This further stimulates the Vagus nerve[i], activating the parasympathetic nervous system and calming the brain waves.
But too many women never take a full breath into their bellies; they breathe shallowly, just into the chest. Especially those who sit at a desk most of the day run the risk of further constriction the diaphragm, pushing it into the stomach. They’re breathing just enough to stay alive but not getting the full benefits of the breath, the life force. As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?”[ii]
Will you take this moment to consider whether you’re aware of your breath? Are you breathing deeply or shallowly? Is tension causing you to hold your breath? In this moment, can you relax your belly and take a full breath into it, then relax it slowly, letting all of the breath release. Do you feel different?
Until I studied yoga, nobody told me that shallow breathing and deep breathing do not accomplish the same things. Breath that only comes in as far as the chest and quickly goes back out again does not feed the bloodstream an adequate amount of oxygen. This deprives the muscles, the organs, and the brain. Oxygen is needed to produce ATP, the energy used by all our cells.
Short, shallow breaths also limit the amount of carbon dioxide you release when you exhale. “Chest breathing,” as it is sometimes called, can lead to fatigue, muscle weakness, suppressed endurance, and fuzzy thinking. On an emotional level, short, shallow breathing can induce a state of anxiety, even panic. “Chest breathing” stimulates the sympathetic branch of the nervous system, the fight-or-flight response, increasing our agitation. Breathing deeply into the lower lobes of the lungs instead stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which governs rest, repair, building, and digestion.
Are you aware of how your breathing can influence how calm or how distressed you feel?
To check out the way you are breathing, lie on your back, either on the floor or on your bed. You can have your knees bent with your feet on the floor or mattress. Rest one palm on your belly just below your navel point. Place the other palm on the middle of your chest, above your breasts. When you inhale, see if you can allow your belly to lift that palm up a little bit. See if you can keep hand on your chest unmoving.
As you draw breath in through the nostrils, try to send it all the way into the belly. Think about the way you fill up a glass of water; it fills the bottom of the glass first. Let your inhalation fill up your torso the same way; fill the belly, then the chest, then up into your collarbone.
As you exhale, let the belly empty, and feel the hand resting on it sink down. Empty out as much breath as you can, then squeeze out a little more. The more you empty, the more room you have for the next inhalation.
Practice for a few minutes, then see if you can breathe the same way when you’re sitting upright, or even standing.
After a few minutes, can you sense a change in how you feel?
Breathing deeply, sending the breath into the belly, has been demonstrated to shift the nervous system away from its sympathetic (excitatory) function and into its parasympathetic function, which calms us down. Being someone who spent my childhood in a pretty constant state of stress, and then carried that habit of being agitated into my adult life, finding a tool that would calm me down was an amazing gift.
Because the mind and body are one, breath also affects the mind. Kundalini Yoga taught me that breath is a technology that can help us expand our consciousness. Yogis refer to the Pawan Guru, the wisdom of the breath.
One of the ways we can access this wisdom is by becoming aware of the breath. Rather than just breathing automatically, we can slow down, tune in to ourselves, and pay attention to each breath coming in and going out. This is part of the mindfulness practice we talked about in “The power of presence”; by concentrating on the breath, we begin to cultivate an inner awareness.
The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh advises adding a mantra, a silent recitation of the words “Breathing in, I calm my body” on the inhalation, and on the exhalation, “Breathing out I smile.”[iii] In Kundalini Yoga we use “Sat” on the in-breath and “Naam” on the out-breath. “Sat” means true, “Naam” means name, so we’re reminding ourselves of our true identity. Adding the element of intentional and positive self-talk helps to focus and to screen out the other voices in my mind that are sometimes critical or berating.
Guru Grrrl knows that when we breathe, we draw in more than oxygen. Every inhalation brings us prana, or life force. We bring in new energy to every cell of the body and the brain. We bring the chance for a fresh perspective and new ideas.
Each exhalation is apana, a chance to let go and release whatever we no longer need — toxins in the body, fatigue, negativity, old thoughts that no longer serve us. The more completely we exhale, the more room we make for new life force to enter. I tell yoga students that they can think of every breath as a little vacation, a chance to leave behind the old, used-up energy and a chance to draw in vitality and renewal.
Another way we work with the breath is to control it. The Sanskrit word for this is pranayama. We might count the number of seconds we take on the inhale and match the same number on the exhale. If we want to calm ourselves, we might stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system by making the exhales twice as long as the inhales. We might focus on breathing only through one nostril or the other. Yogis have written entire books focusing on techniques of pranayama.
The simplest of these techniques (anyone can do it, anytime, anywhere) is called Long Deep Breathing. Researchers have measured the brain waves of meditators and found that even three minutes of Long Deep Breathing will calm your brainwaves[iv].
Practice: Long Deep Breathing
(If you’d like to listen to this practice, click here)
- Sit in a comfortable position, cross-legged on the floor or in a chair. Let your spine be straight. Position your shoulders right above your hips, and consciously drop the tailbone down, to lengthen the lower back.
- Place one hand on your belly, as you did before. Make sure your breath is filling up your belly. When you exhale, make an effort to pull the navel point back toward the spine; your hand will move in closer. This will help push more breath out.
- Find a comfortable count — start with 4 seconds — and use that same count for your inhalations and exhalations. With practice, you might be able to expand that count to 6 seconds, 8 seconds or more.
- You can do this for 1 minute, 3 minutes, or as long as you want. If you’re someplace private, close your eyes. Many people like to focus the gaze of the closed eyes at the point between and slightly above the eyebrows, called the Third Eye. You might feel a little tingling in your forehead when you do this.
- But you can also do this while driving (keep your eyes open!), in class, at your job, or in the middle of a challenging conversation.
- You might add either of these embellishments:
- Make your exhalations longer than your inhalations (this stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and may further calm you.)
- You can hold the breath out at the bottom of the exhalation, just for a few seconds and only to your comfort level, before drawing your next inhalation. This practice signals your body to produce substances that enhance memory, lower blood pressure, decrease inflammation, and strengthen immune response.
As we take time to slow down and pay attention to the breath, we have an opportunity to become more aware of what’s around us and what’s inside of us. While you are doing Long Deep Breathing, can you take the opportunity to notice the sounds in your environment? Is there wind? The sounds of birds? A jackhammer? What about scent? Is someone in the building baking cookies? Is jasmine blooming outside the window? Or tactile sensations? What’s the temperature of the air on your skin? Against what texture is your hand currently resting?
Allowing yourself to register the sensations you are having in your environment increases your sense of presence in the moment. When we bustle through life not paying attention, we miss a lot of what brings richness to life — the pattern of clouds in the sky, the scent of orange blossoms on the breeze, the comforting softness of a worn sweatshirt.
Learning to concentrate on the breath has helped me become more present, more focused, and quieter in my mind. When challenges appear, I feel more secure about my ability to face them. Guru Grrrl has given me an essential tool to deepen my inner power.
[i] The vagus nerve is the longest and most complex of twelve pairs of cranial nerves that begin in the brain. The vagus nerve affects many systems of the body, among them, the parasympathetic nervous system.
[ii] Oliver, Mary, “Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches,” West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems, Mariner Books. 1998, 61–63.
[iii] Hanh, Thich Nhat, Being Peace. Parallax Press (2nd edition). 2005, 15.
[iv] Zaccaro Andrea, Piarulli Andrea, Laurino Marco, Garbella Erika, Menicucci Danilo, Neri Bruno, Gemignani Angelo. “How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Vol. 12, 2018. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353/full
