31/03/2022
Always! ❤️
Breathe. Just take a breath. Take slow, deep breaths. How often have you heard these words or something similar? But what is it to breathe?
When we breathe in, air passes from the atmosphere around us in through our nasal passages and into our sinuses. These structures humidify and warm the air to body temperature before it passes on down over our vocal cords to the wind pipe, or you may know it as the trachea. The air passes down the trachea into the lungs where the structures here pass some of the oxygen into the blood vessels in exchange for some carbon dioxide. The now deoxygenated air returns up the trachea and out of the nose or mouth when we breathe out.
For the air to be brought into the body, our diaphragm moves down as our ribs expand out, opening up the thoracic area to allow the lungs to fill. For the air to leave the body, the diaphragm moves up, the ribs come closer together and the chest becomes smaller as the lungs empty. Whilst you’re reading this you may notice your shoulders rise and fall a little as you breathe in and out. Your collarbone lies below your first and second ribs who, as with all the other ribs, participate in breathing.
Breathing is normally an unconscious, involuntary, automatic process. It is controlled mainly by the respiratory centre in the brain so we never have to think about inhaling or exhaling, it just happens. But what about when we hold our breath, which we often do when we’re concentrating, or just trying really hard, or other times when we may be fearful or anxious. In James Nestor’s book ‘Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art’ he describes an experiment which showed that everyone and almost all living things, including insects and bacteria, suffer from “the deep fear and crushing anxiety that comes from the feeling of not being able to take another breath”. Later in the book Dr Justin Feinstein, who conducted this experiment, offered the opinion that “what anxious patients could be experiencing is a completely natural reaction……that anxiety, at its’ roots, isn’t a psychological problem. Dr Feinstein explains this theory needs to be rigorously tested which he’s planning to do in the coming years. It’s an interesting theory and it will be fascinating to see the results of his future research.
So why not take some breaths. Stop and do it now. Take 10 gentle breaths in and out. Or for something more interesting try this:
1. Breathe in and out 3 times and then do the same for each of the following movement suggestions can you feel which parts of you are moving as you breathe. Maybe your chest, your tummy, you may even sense the up down movement of your diaphragm.
2. Now gently close your nostrils with your thumb and forefinger on either side and breathe gently through your mouth. You may feel instinctively that as you breathe that your nostrils try to open and close.
3. Stop for a moment now use your fingers to close your left nostril and breath just through the right nostril.
4. Pause again and then just close the right nostril and breathe through the left nostril.
5. Pause, which was the easiest way of breathing - through the mouth, the right nostril, the left nostril or was it all about the same?
Put your thumb and forefinger on either side of your nostrils again but this time lift them as needed to allow these next breathing movements
7. Breathe in through the right nostril and out through the mouth, pause
8. Breathe in through the left nostril and out through the mouth, pause
9. Breathe in through the right nostril and out through the left nostril pause
10. Breathe in through the left nostril and out through the right, pause
11. Play with any of these combinations if they interest you
12. Which parts of you can you feel moving now? Is more of you involved in the movements of breathing? Is your breathing faster or slower than when you first started?
Congratulations you’ve just completed a short Awareness Through Movement lesson. You’ll find many more at
http://www.feldenkrais.co.uk/audio.php
Photo by Bob Osias on Unsplash
