Healthy & Restricted Breathing

Introduction to Breathing

For the physical process of breathing, see The Anatomy of Breathing. In this lesson, we focus on the physiological and emotional effects of various breathing patterns

• Breathing affects every system in the body.
• Unlike other functions within the autonomic nervous system, breathing can be consciously controlled.
• Our ability to consciously work with the breath gives us a way to reduce stress and manage pain.
• Research shows a direct connection between breathing patterns and emotions.

BREATHING AFFECTS EVERYTHING!

Breathing affects your respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, muscular, and psychic systems and also has a general effect on your sleep, your memory, your energy level, and your concentration. Everything you do, the pace you keep, the feelings you have, and the choices you make are influenced by the rhythmic metronome of your breath. – Donna Farhi 

BREATHING NOURISHES CELLS & OPTIMIZES BODILY FUNCTIONING

Proper breathing nourishes the cells of the body with oxygen and optimizes the functioning of the body on all levels. – Dr. Arthur C. Guyton

AN AUTONOMIC FUNCTION THAT CAN BE CONTROLLED AT WILL

Your body’s breathing center is actually in the brainstem, where many of your autonomic functions are controlled, such as your heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, and digestive process. Breathing is the only autonomic function that you can control at will, kind of like a manual override. Research indicates that when you manually take control of your breathing, you are given a little bit of control over your other autonomic functions as well… Probably the two most important benefits of yoga breathing are its effectiveness in stress reduction and pain management… The most phenomenal aspect of yoga breathing is that you are in control. You can send health-enhancing yoga breathing messages to your body anytime, anywhere. – Larry Payne

CONSCIOUSLY CHANGING THE BREATH LEADS TO BIG CHANGES

Your breath is part of a stress or pain response that is the easiest to consciously change. There is no way to consciously block the transmission of a pain signal from one brain cell to another or ask your adrenal glands to stop releasing stress hormones. You can, however, easily learn to slow down or deepen your breath… Small changes in your breathing can lead to big changes in how the mind and body function, including lowering stress hormones and reducing your sensitivity to pain. – Kelly McGonigal, PhD

STUDY: HOW YOU BREATHE IS HOW YOU FEEL

The two-way connection between how you breathe and how you feel was elegantly demonstrated in a study that observed how the breath naturally changes during joy, anger, sadness, and fear… The researchers induced these four emotions in participants and measured the changes in breathing… They found that there were characteristic changes for each emotion. In a second study, the researchers turned the observations for each emotion into breathing instructions. They had participants change their breathing according to those instructions, with no hint that the breathing patterns were connected to specific emotions. The study found that the breathing patterns reliably created the emotions they were associated with, without any other emotion cue or trigger. – Kelly McGonigal, PhD,

Restricted Breathing

Introduction

Your students may not have a felt-sense of unhindered, natural breathing. Oftentimes, unconscious breathing is not free, but rather is restricted and incomplete. Before attempting to manipulate the breath with pranayama, students need experience with the fundamentals, and the first is free and natural breathing.

PERFECT BREATH

Watch any resting animal breathe, and you’ll witness the perfect breath: rhythmic, efficient, with the belly expanding and contracting. Young children [also]… will usually breathe low in their bodies, using their diaphragms. Yet… few people sustain that lower-body breath to adulthood… In essence, they’re breathing the way our ancestors did when they were faced with fear, anxiety, or other temporary situations. Unfortunately, we’ve transformed these short-term solutions into long-term abnormal breathing patterns. – Dr. Belisa Vranich

MANY PEOPLE DON’T KNOW HOW TO BREATHE

‘I just realized that I don’t really know how to breathe.’ I hear this often after students encounter their constricted breath during their first experience of yoga. Even with clear instructions, it takes many weeks of practice before some students can actually breathe fully all the way to the bottom of their lungs, and even longer for some to be able to rapidly pump their bellies toward their spines in an energizing exercise like Kapalabhati. – Amy Weintraub

BREATHING CORRECTLY IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF HEALTHY LIVING

If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly. – Dr. Andrew Weil

Potential Causes for Breathing Issues

Some of the reasons for breathing inefficiently and ineffectively include:

• Excessive sitting
• A hunched posture
• A habit of sucking in the belly
• Tight clothing
• Chronic pressure or stress, and chronic tension in the body
• Excessive hurrying or busyness
• A fall or other injury that caused torso pain
• A bad fright or other stressful event
• Trauma

THE BREATH SHOULD NATURALLY MOVE THE BODY

Our breath should naturally move us, and it did — before society trained us to breathe inefficiently. What were we told as we got older? Suck it in and squeeze your belly. We wore tight clothes that restrict breathing. As we get older, many of us unintentionally trained ourselves out of the most efficient and natural method of breathing. – Ann Swanson 

 SHALLOW, QUICK BREATHING IS COMMON & HAS “TERRIBLE” HEALTH REPERCUSSIONS

We want everything fast: We walk faster than we did ten years ago, we eat faster, we communicate faster… We are under constant pressure to go to sleep quickly and to wake up quickly. And, what happens? Our breathing is constantly in “fast mode,” shallow and quick which in turn has terrible health repercussions. – Dr. Belisa Vranich

Effects of Restricted Breathing

Poor breathing can lead to:

• Neck and shoulder pain
• Difficulty in concentration and memory
• Worsening of depression
• Increase in blood pressure and anxiety
• Exacerbation of chronic pain
• Lower energy
• Digestive issues
• Sleep disorders