The power of breath
A saying goes that the way you breathe is the way you live. How do you live your life? Is it just a long phase of frenetic activity with mandatory rest in between? Or you live purposefully, making the most of each moment? To answer these questions, take a moment and listen to your breathing. Is it powerful, purposeful and revitalising? Or is it something you just do because you are alive?
According to bestselling author Donna Farhi, breathing affects your respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, muscular, and psychic systems, and also has a general effect on your sleep, memory, ability to concentrate, and your energy levels.
Two-time Nobel Laureate, Winner of Nobel Prize for Cancer Research, Dr Otto Warburg, even believed that cancer has only one prime cause. It is the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of the body’s cells by an anaerobic (oxygen-deficient) cell respiration.
Learning to breathe
Yoga digest, an online portal, gives a step by step guide to proper breathing
• Get comfortable either laying on your back or sitting in a chair.
• Place your hands on your abdomen, one hand on your sternum and the other below on your belly.
• Close your eyes and begin to slowly and gently inhale through your nose feeling the air expanding through your chest, back, and belly – feeling one hand than the other move as your belly rises.
At the top of your breath, focus on slowly, gently, and evenly beginning to exhale through your mouth, extending your exhale (without force) a count or two longer than your inhale.
