About breathing

At our movement classes we work, amongst other things, on synchronising our breath with our movement, and on breathing freely and naturally. The subject of breath is a central subject in many natural health methods. Sometimes we use breathing also during a massage treatment for various effects.

You probably have heared many times some spiritualists talking of the deep effect breating has on mood and state of mind. It is true that we have to breath to live, but whats so special about breathing in context of mood? why not just decide that scratching the left ear five times should invoke sleepiness, or raising the left pinkie should induce a laughing fit?

The special thing about breath is the both simple and powerful fact: This is a life proccess in which our consciousness meets with unconscious. On one hand, we do not need to consciously about it when we breath - we do it while sleeping, running, reading etc. On the other - we CAN controll the action of breathing, we can decide to take a deep breath or for example stop breathing (for a period of time). Moreover - the levels of oxigen and especially CO2, that are affected by the way we breath, also directly participate in setting our mood, heart rate, and many aspects of our physical state for short and long terms of time. In fact, its as if Nature itself gave us access to our switchboard: with some familiarity and practice one can use breaths to relax or become more sharp and focused, to purify or ease pains, etc.

If you are generally healthy you can perform a simple experiment: sit up, take a deep breath. Now stop breathing, count to five and return to breath normally. Now examin yourselves: pace of your heart, your concentration, mood, note the effects.

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Note:

This article draws from my experience and studies, but is eventually based primarly on the excellent books on meditation and pranayama authored by Gregor Maehele, a great Yoga practitioner and teacher, whom on one of his books I've been working on translating, because it gives an exquisit overview of this and other topics:

https://chintamaniyoga.com/product/yoga-meditation/

I thank Gregor for his work which illuminated this topic for me, and greatly reccomend the book for anyone interested in organizing their insights.

And I apologize for not getting around to finis this text (:

If you are reading, thank you, you are wellcome to talk to me: contact@tipul-bemaga.co.il