More Than Just Coping: The Power of Breath

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of posts online about various fitness challenges being suggested.  A popular one involves doing 30 seconds of plank every day for a week, and gradually increasing to a 2 minute plank over the course of 1 month.  Just to be clear, “plank” is when you hold your body perfectly level to the floor, usually holding yourself up on the forearms and toes, but can also be done from the palms, knuckles, or knees if modifications are needed.  The objective is to hold the body perfectly rigid, like a board. People who attend my Pilates classes regularly know how much I love to include planks.  The plank position is a fantastic strength building exercise for the core and lower back, with some bonus toning in the arms and chest.  In my classes we generally do a set of 3 planks (30 seconds, 45 seconds, and last for a full minute).  I suspect this 30 seconds to 2 minute plank “challenge” I’ve been seeing is intended for fitness beginners or people who don’t currently have much core strength, but want to start building that foundation up reliably.  For those people, I highly recommend it, and hope that it’s actually being tried and not just reposted.

For me, however, or people that I work with regularly, holding a 30 second plank once per day is not remotely a challenge.  So, I devised a different plank challenge for myself that would allow me to harness the benefits of holding plank position, but still offer a reasonable amount of challenge.  I decided that I would start with a 2 minute plank, push up into a 5 minute downward facing dog, and then level back out to a second 2 minute plank. I would then bookend it around my day, once in the morning, once in the evening.    Every week I decided to increase the length of the plank by 1 minute until I eventually reached a 15 minute set (meaning 5 minute plank, 5 minute downward facing dog, 5 minute plank).  I feel that 15 minutes twice a day is a reasonable amount of time to commit to a personal challenge.  Once reaching that goal, I decided I would add leg raises to increase the challenge without increasing the time.

At the moment, I am only in the second week of my self-proclaimed challenge. For the record, it’s hard! But that was the point.  I wanted to be challenged.  It takes my focus, but is not out of my reach.  And it has brought my attention back to one of the primary lessons I teach my clients: everything is easier when you breathe with purpose.  Sometimes when I get to the end of my day, after teaching Yoga, Pilates, Water Aerobics, Pilates again, and taking a 2 mile walk around the lake at lunch time (because I have also challenged myself to take an average of 15,000 steps per day—it’s good to have goals), I will be completely exhausted.  My focus and willpower during my evening set of planks is often flagging.  I will decide, yes, I am committed, and I’m going to stick with my plan, but that final minute of plank takes every ounce of my willpower to see it through.  The thing that gets me to the finish line is my breath.  I do a very deep, moderately paced, forceful breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth.  It goes in cycles of about 3 seconds in, 3 seconds out, fully using the diaphragm.  This breathing technique focuses me.  It steadies me.  It keeps me in plank, using good form, even when I’m tired, and carries me through to the end with strength and grace. (Grace on both a physical and mental level.)

Right now, I’m using this breathing technique to master a difficult physical routine that I want to achieve.  But I have used it in many other situations before.  That is what I want to share with you today.  Not the benefits of plank or the thrill of succeeding at such a challenge (and I am totally killing it so far, but the way), but to share the power of this simple breathing technique.

I have most often heard it called “The Energizing Breath,” but I’m sure there are many other names for this technique.  You don’t need a lot of lung power to begin using it, but using it will quickly increase your power and lung capacity.  You can use it to focus yourself,  and as I am doing with my current endeavor, to carry yourself through a physical activity.  You can use it for pain relief.  If you’re in chronic pain, or have a sudden pain that you can’t immediately remedy, doing this breath helps reduce the pain so that you can function until the pain subsides.  This technique also works well with emotional pain.

Over the past year, as I’ve been dealing with the grief of my mother’s untimely death, I’ve tried a wide range of things to help me cope with the oppressive weigh of that grief.  Having goals helps.  Having awesome friends and community involvement helps, too.  But sometimes, the pain is too much.  The inside of my chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.  My heart beats too fast, my vision gets tunneled, and I feel like someone has kicked me in the gut.  Grief manifests in many forms.  For me, this is the physical manifestation of my grief over living in a world without my mother.   It feels like I’m going to be crushed under the weight of it.  But if I remember to do the Energizing Breath, steady, deep, forceful breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, the pain begins to dissipate.  It’s like turning on a light in a very dark room.  Every time the grief tries to consume me, I do this breath.  It clears away the pain until I can bare it again.  I still feel the sadness, but it doesn’t suffocate me.  Using this breath, I do more than just cope.  I move forward.  I heal little by little.  I integrate my loss instead of being consumed and stagnated by it.

This is my offering to you today: focus, mental clarity, improved lung capacity, emotional and physical pain relief, and stress relief all in one.  This technique can also be used to help wake you up in the morning or calm you down before bed at night.  It’s totally free and takes practically no training to master.  Unlike other breathing techniques, such as what you might use during meditation, you can begin doing this one right away.  You will become better and better at it over time, but you don’t have to learn how to do it, or practice it in order to use it successfully.  You just need to try it.  Put force behind the breath.  Pull in through the nose quickly; push out through the mouth with purpose.  That’s it.  Breathe really hard as DEEPLY as you can.  That’s all there is to it.  Put it in your toolbox and use it every chance you get.

Book Signing

I will be having a Book signing for Kundalini Rising one week from today on Friday, May 24th at The Bay Leaf Market in Crawfordville, FL.  We are scheduled from 4pm - 6pm, but I expect to arrive a little early.  I'll be happy to sign 1st or 2nd edition copies of my book if you already have them.  If you don't have a copy of the book yet, you can buy the 2nd edition at the signing.  They're $14 each.  We'll also be having a drawing for those who attend.  The prize is a t-shirt with one of my illustrations from the book and my favorite saying, "When in doubt, just breathe."  I say this to my students all the time in my classes, but I think it's a great piece of advice for life in general.

Bay Leaf Market has food and books for sale and a cafe area.  There are vegan and vegetarian options available.  Come in and have a chat with me.  I'll be happy to talk yoga, food, philosophy, health and wellness, or answer any questions my readers have for me.  I may also do a short reading from the book.  I expect it will be a fun, community event. Everyone is welcome, even if you are new or inexperienced with Yoga.

For anyone in the area who is unfamiliar with my work, Kundalini Rising is an exploration of chakra clearing using Yoga postures.  It also includes a lot of general tips about health and wellness and was purposely written to be accessible to both experienced yoga practitioners and novices.  I included a lot of information about how to protect and realign your physical body for healing and to achieve the greatest benefit from each posture.  All of my illustrations that go with the various postures are loving caricatures of real people that I see in Yoga classes.  The 2nd edition includes an expanded index (I labored over that, for the record), new material, and updated information.  I carefully considered feed back and questions from students and readers when I decided what needed to be improved in creating the 2nd edition.

For anyone interested in the book who cannot make it to the signing, Kundalini Rising is available on Amazon.com in both kindle and paperback format.  For those who can attend, I look forward to seeing you there!  Namaste.

Five Minute Meditation

Anyone who has become part of the Yoga community or begun their personal journey toward inner peace has heard about the benefits of meditation.  It helps you focus, clears your mind, helps you sleep, helps you relax and release tension, improves your cognitive and intuitive abilities, reduces stress, lowers your blood pressure, and so much more.  So many of my students talk about wanting to incorporate more meditation into their lives.  So what's stopping them?  Why aren't we all meditative masters?

I think part of the issue is that we don't have a routine for it.  Many people feel like meditation needs to involve an hour (or maybe even more) of sitting and struggling to achieve the still and quiet mind and body.  I feel like that's similar to asking someone to jump off the high dive before they even know how to swim.  Meditation can start as a simply relaxation practice that you do once or twice a day.  You can do this when you wake up, when you go to sleep, or anytime that you have a few minutes for yourself. It can take as little as 5 minutes, and you will still get all the benefits you desire.

Here's my Five Minute Meditation.  Make sure you're in a place where you can be alone for just a few minutes.  I would not recommend doing this while standing or engaged in an activity like driving, because you will not be paying attention outside of your body.  Start by sitting up very straight and tall.  Place your feet flat on the floor.  Many people focus better when their eyes are closed, but you don't have to close them if you don't want to.  Bring your focus to your breathing. Breathe in through your nose.  Breathe out through your mouth.  As you breathe, think to yourself "breathe in, breathe out."  You can say this softly to yourself or just hold the thoughts in your mind.  Thinking "breathe in, breathe out" as you do the action helps connect your mind and body.  It also helps quiet the mind chatter.  You can also think "breathe in, breathe out.  relax, release" if you would rather.

As you continue quietly saying this little mantra and breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, imagine a bright, warm, white light pouring into your body from above the crown of your head.  It flows all the way down your body filling every space, organ, joint, and cell all the way down to the soles of your feet.  If you are not a visual person, try to imagine the feeling of warmth pouring over you and filling your being.  It doesn't have to be an image, and there is no need to struggle with it if the image isn't there.  Once you are filled with the warm, comforting, white light, let it drain completely way through the bottoms of your feet down into the earth, carrying away any tension or pain you feel, where it is release and resolved outside of your body.  Focus into the center of your chest, where the heart chakra is.  Focus on the feelings of joy, happiness, laughter and allow those feelings to spread, filling all of the empty space left behind when the white light drained away.  Then you simply say "Thank You," and end your meditation.

That's all there is to it.  You can take as little as 5 minutes or as long as an hour to do this if you choose.  But there is absolutely no excuse not to incorporate this very simple, short exercise into your daily practice.  You may be very surprised how much you gain from so little effort on your path toward inner peace.  Breathe in.  Breath out.  Relax.  Release.

When in Doubt

One of the foundations of Yoga is deep breathing.  I talked fairly extensively about the benefits of Yoga breathing and methods for improving breath control in my book, Kundalini Rising.  I'd like to devote some of my posts via Peace in the Body to examining breath work as well.

Let's start with the most basic controlled breath: an equal length in-breath followed by equal length out-breath.  The concept is quite simple, but people often struggle with it when they first begin.  I think the reason something so simple feels so hard is that we are not taught to breathe.  It's instinct; it's necessary; it's life.  We assume that we all do it well because we must.  Unfortunately, this simply isn't true.  We can get enough air to keep ourselves alive, but few people use their lung capacity well without training.  If you do not already do breath work as part of your daily health regimen, consider what a great untapped resource of rejuvenation and power you have right in your own chest.  This is something anyone can do, and anyone can improve.  Do you suffer from dizziness, anxiety, high blood pressure, insomnia, asthma, stress, fits of rage, depression, confusion, headaches or migraines, tension, poor memory, or chronic fatigue?  All of these things can be improved by conscious, active deep breathing and breath control. Do you want to improve your athletic stamina?  You need breath control for that, too.  Breath work not only strengthens your lungs, but your cardiovascular system as well.  Breath work also is a necessary foundation for meditation and integral to any relaxation technique.

This first exercise, the one I'm focusing on in this post, is The Equal Length Breath.  It is a great starting place for anyone who struggles with deep breathing or has had trouble with any of the above symptoms.  The best times to use this technique are right before bed, first thing in the morning, when you are in the grip of one of the issues I've listed above, before meditation or at the beginning or end of any physical exertion.  This exercise opens the lungs and increases the amount of oxygen circulating in your blood stream.  Over time it improves your lung capacity and mental efficiency.  It also gives your body the signal to continue using the opened lungs more fully after the exercise has ended, so the effect is longer lasting than just the time you spend doing the exercise.  It triggers your sympathetic nervous system  to slow down, shifting you out of a reactive state, into one that is more peaceful and aware.

To do The Equal Length Breath all you need to do is breathe in for a 5 count, and back out for a 5 count.  Do not try to hold your breath at all.  Let it flow in for 5 seconds and flow right back out for 5 seconds.  Do that again 10 or 15 times and then let the breath flow without counting.  Five is the lowest count you should ever do, and I expect most people whose lungs are not compromised can start higher. An 8 or 10 count is much more effective, but if you've never done any deep breathing or breath work or if you have lung disease, 5 is a good starting place.  After you've tried this a few times, increase your count to 6.  Then try 8.  Once you're able to do 10 don't ever go back to 5 or 8.  Always count very slowly.  There is a tendency to want to count faster and faster, especially if you are a goal oriented person.  The goal is not to finish the exercise!  Pushing for the end will actually cause you to miss the purpose of doing this.  The goal is to complete the best, slowest, most fully equivalent breaths that you can. If you think the counting you are doing has started to speed up, start over and count slower.  Always maintain a perfectly even count.  The basic 10 count is a great platform for breath work even if you haven't done it in a while. I always asks my classes to try their breath on a 10 count, and I don't feel like that is not too much to ask of Yoga practitioners.  You can increase it from there as you feel ready.  I generally count to around 30 or 40 myself, but have gotten up to 90 or 100 when I'm meditating.  For the record, I was born with fairly severe asthma, and I struggled with it all through my childhood, teens, and into my early 20's.  Growing up, I had the weakest lungs of anyone I knew.  If I can learn to do this, so can you!   

When you do this breathing exercise, I recommend breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.  This will help you maintain control, focus, and flow of the breath.  It should feel like your breath is a circle.  Breathing in takes you half way around the circle.  Breathing out completes it. One cycle of the breath is a full circle: all the way in and all the way out.  I always like to suggest that as you breathe in, you focus on the feeling of joy, filling yourself with good health and happiness, and as you breathe out, feel any tension, pain, or anxiety flowing out and evaporating into thin air.  Breathe in only what feels good.  If anything in your mind or body doesn't feel joyful, breathe it out and just fill your thoughts with the counting of the breath.  The numbers are neutral.  Use them to clear the cluttered thoughts out of your mind.

I always tell my classes, "The breath is more important than the postures.  When in doubt, just breathe."  That is what I am telling you, too.  Whatever you face today, pain or joy, whatever the obstacle, big or small, the first and best thing you can do is just breathe.