Free Breathing: Your Core Power

When F. M. Alexander first began sharing his newfound discoveries about human psycho-physical functioning, he traveled around his native Australia and became known as "the Breathing Man." The core of his work was free and full breathing and its relation to overall wellness. Science is now catching up to what Alexander knew in the 1890s, and the public is beginning to understand how simple and powerful healthy breathing can be in reducing stress and living well.

The Alexander Technique remains one of the best ways to understand the anatomy and physiology of your own breathing system, and to begin to reverse some of the unconscious habits that develop in everyone. Over time, these habits interfere with healthy breathing and are often the underlying cause of many unpleasant symptoms, such as fatigue, muscle pain, and foggy brain.

During a lesson with a man recovering from a day-long outpatient surgery, he told me that one of his post-op instructions was to take a few deep breaths every hour or so for the first several hours once he got home. They explained that this would increase oxygen flow to his bloodstream and speed the healing of his surgical wound. It also must be enormously helpful after being intubated and receiving general anesthesia. He reported that he experienced such a benefit from this that he has kept it up, setting a timer on his phone to remind him to stop and breath deeply.

I was encouraged to hear this. Doesn't it seem like deep breathing would be one of the best -- and least expensive -- things hospitals and clinics could do to put patients at ease during procedures and post-op recoveries? Not to mention, knowing how to breathe mindfully would help the caregivers themselves (kind of a no-brainer).

Yet most of us remain largely unaware of how we are breathing and what affects our respiration. Unless you are a full-time professional yogi or you have a disorder like asthma or COPD, you probably take your breathing for granted. After all, it is a reflexive action, something that happens automatically. We don't have to consciously choose to breath in and out all day long, thank goodness! We'd never accomplish anything.

The cool thing about the breath (one of them anyway) is that it is also a process that can be directed. You can choose to hold your breath until you're blue in the face if you want to (but you probably still won't get your way). You can coordinate your swimming with breathing in and out. You can sing. You can breathe your baby out in childbirth. You can slow your breathing down or speed it up. We do this, consciously and unconsciously, all the time. The more awareness of our breathing apparatus we have, the clearer and more powerful our breathing becomes.

First, you need to know your equipment. Take a look at this 1-minute animation of how the ribs move when we breathe. What surprises you about what you see? Can you sense your own ribs moving as you watch? While a good anatomy video is a joy forever, the best way to learn is by direct experience with our own bodies. Cool Thing #2 about the breath is that it is always with us and so it can be investigated any time.

Hey, how about now?

Bodymind Experiment

Assuming you are sitting this as you read this, begin by settling into a comfortable upright position. Let your feet rest on the floor, feeling the contact of the soles against the ground.

Feel the support underneath you. What is holding you up? How is the weight of your body making contact with the seat you’ve taken? Notice the contact of your back against the chair, or if you are not using back support, simply become aware of the space behind you.

Begin to observe your breath by feeling the sensations of its movement. Notice how it drops in and drops out. Follow the in-breath and the out-breath, allow your breathing to be the focus of your attention.

Feel what is moving in your body as you breathe. What is happening in your chest? In your belly? Can you feel your shoulders rising and falling as you breathe in and out? Is anything moving in your back? What else do you notice?

Take in a very full, deep breath through your nose. Let it out through your mouth on a sigh, releasing your jaw as you breathe out.

Repeat this two more times.

What changes do you observe in yourself after taking three big sighs?

Were you surprised at how much is going on in one simple breath? And this is just the really obvious stuff, like shoulders rising and air moving in and out through nostrils. There are all kinds of chemical exchanges going on every time we breathe, and information about our immediate environment being processed by our neuromuscular system. It's fascinating to realize that the air we take in and then release out again is our most continuous, intimate connection to the world. 

Most of what happens in life is out of our control. The way we breathe is one exception. We have some choice about whether or not to cooperate with this core power. You can learn to breathe with freedom and awareness, decrease the stress in your life, and boost your immune system.