The Perfection of Breathing
“Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
Inhale.
Exhale.
Now breathe slowly.
Inhale and pay attention to your body as the breath is drawn in.
Exhale and mentally note any changes to your body.
When you inhale, does your body tighten? Do you feel as if you’re in pause mode, waiting for the next thing? Does your mind open to possibilities?
When you exhale, does everything release, maybe even relax? Like the tension has passed and there’s a tiny moment of calm?
Breathing is so natural and automatic that mostly we ignore it or forget about it altogether. It’s a body function that just happens. But when I pay attention to my breath, I focus, calm and feel the moment.
I’m most aware of my breath when I’m in the water — swimming, snorkeling, body surfing, scuba diving. Each water-based activity requires me to think differently about my breath, concentrating to get my breathing correct for the activity.
When I was learning to swim freestyle as a kid, breathing was the toughest thing. Turning my head to the side to catch a breath as my arm rolled out of the water and over my head seemed to take all my focus. I’m right-sided, so when I tried to repeat the action by breathing on my left side, I almost drowned. My head sometimes didn’t turn enough, other times my shoulder knocked my chin and splashed water in my open mouth. Coordination on the left side wasn’t smooth and breathing to the left was incredibly uncomfortable.
When I trained, and now when swimming leisurely, I can breathe on both sides if I think about it. When I swam competitively, I never breathed on my left because it took too much concentration and slowed me down. I was always a little concerned that I’d run out of breath when I was racing.
Snorkeling is all about slow, even breaths as you glide across the top of the water, and then a deep breath before you dive under, and either holding that breath, or letting that out slowly. Sometimes you need to blow that breath out when you surface to jettison the water from the snorkel tube. You need to plan your breathing, sort out what type of breath you need, and for how long you need it.
Freediving is a more extreme version of snorkeling. Learning to hold your breath while swimming underwater for a length of time can be quite daunting. You need to practice, to work out buoyancy, overcome any fear, and ‘train’ your lungs to hold your breath. But once you’re underwater, like a fish, there is nothing that compares to that freedom. Nothing at all!
Scuba diving is all about never holding your breath. You have to breathe constantly, in a calm slow manner. No breath holding at all. Ever. Holding your breath can result in burst lungs and other complications. So always breathing. Consciously breathing…even if you get a scare and suck in a breath, you need to remember to let it out, expelling those bubbles. On top of that, you need to monitor your air supply as scuba tanks hold a finite amount and everyone breathes differently, so it’s a personal responsibility to know when to finish a dive with enough air in the tank to surface slowly and do any safety stops required.
Out of the water, breath wasn’t something I thought about until Michael Hutchence’s death brought auto-erotic asphyxiation into my awareness. And ten years later, Tim Winton’s book Breath, bought it to my attention again. There’s an undeniable intrigue in the link between breathing and orgasm, which I think is tied up in the fear/excitement continuum which I like to explore in my erotic writing. Orgasm is sometimes called ‘the little death’ (or le petit mort) and I wonder if breath-holding brings death a little closer and the orgasm becomes more powerful.
Lessons from Yoga and Meditation
Recently, I’ve been practicing Kundalini yoga and meditation. I attend a class each week where yoga exercises are paired with breathing and meditation. I’ve noticed that as I struggle with a difficult exercise, I hold my breath. I tense up, try to push through, holding my breath and focusing my body and brain on just getting this done quickly. What I’m supposed to do is use my breathing to make the exercise easier, smoother. I’m told to push my breath into a muscle that hurts or a body part that is stiff.
I’m supposed to use my breath to help me during the tough times. I should be breathing through the pain, not gritting my teeth as I turn blue!
Realizing this in yoga classes makes me more aware of my default setting when things get tough, not just during exercise — I grit my teeth, tense up, breathe shallowly, and narrow my focus so I get the damn task done. I make high-stress situations even more stressful with this reaction. My body is in fight/flight/freeze mode because I’ve reacted to the situation in a non-calm manner. And my muscles are in a state because there’s not plentiful oxygen circulating my body — I’m depriving my body of air while it’s already stressed.
What if I’d been taught to breathe when I was stressed?
What if the mindful, deep and calming breaths yoga is teaching me were what I turned to when things get tough? I wonder if life would be a bit easier if my body wasn’t prepared to flee, freeze, or slog it out, but could focus on what I needed to get done in a relaxed way.
Now, when I find myself with competing deadlines, I have been trying to be more conscious of taking time to breathe. The few moments I spend taking deep and slow breaths seems to suspend time. My body instantly calms. It’s like I’m free to think again, no longer caught up in panic. I focus and go back to my deadlines with more purpose. Those few moments seem to gain me time, which makes no sense!
One exercise that fascinates me in yoga is a breathing one where we count as we breathe in, and count as we breathe out. We deepen our breaths. As we relax, then we try to suspend the breath. So I breathe in for the count of four, and then before I exhale, I hold my breath for a count of four. Then I exhale for a count of four, and before I inhale, I keep the breath out for a count of four. There’s something deeply calming about that exercise. I can lose myself in those counts. Tension slips away. Those pauses with the breath held in and held out are significant moments where time seems to stand still. Little moments of perfection.
With something as automatic as breathing, it’s interesting to think of it as a tool for managing my body and time. I’ve always taken it for granted, not paying it the slightest bit of attention, and yet it’s such an incredibly powerful controller of how our body functions.
Next time I’m feeling stressed, I’m going to try to remember to take deep, calming breaths. I might try that counting technique where I can suspend breath and time. When I exhale, that relaxing calm will fill me, and tension and stress will slip away.
Doesn’t that sound perfect?
