Breathing Brooms - The Cilia

You are certainly familiar with the clear, warm, sticky blanket of mucous that lines most of your respiratory passages. The multipurpose mucous layer protects the underlying tissues of your nasal cavities, sinuses, throat and descending bronchial passages that wend their way between your nose and your delicate deep lung tissue.

Mucous is a super “fly paper” that releases moisture into the incoming dry air while at the same time grabbing up a billion bits of airborne bouncing garbage before it finds its way into your delicate lungs. Mucous is great stuff but once it has picked up a full load of garbage, you don’t want it hanging around.

Sprouting outward from the walls of most of your respiratory tunnels are millions of microscopic hair-like projections called “cilia” that beat and sweep like tiny brooms. A healthy cilia-covered wall resembles a microscopic wheat field in a stiff breeze. These extraordinary pushy little brooms beat as many as 50,000 times per hour to push along your mucous layer.

Under ideal conditions old polluted mucous is regularly dumped out through your nose, mouth or digestive tract. At the same time new fresh clean mucous is produced by tiny goblet cells embedded in your bronchial walls. For this defense system to work effectively the mucous layer must be moist enough to be pushed along easily and the sweeping cilia must remain strong and active. Infection, smoking, lack of fluids and allergies can stun or cripple the cilia and can halt the movement of the mucous in its tracks.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Breath Watch

I’ve never been drawn to complicated meditation rituals. If, however, a trusted teacher has assigned you a meditation exercise, a personal mantra or chant and it feels right for you, then I encourage you to stay with your current practice.

I personally believe meditation is a natural aspect of our survival and that we do it several times a day without labeling the process as “meditation.” If someone were to ask you if you meditate, you might say that you haven’t and you aren’t interested. Don’t be so sure.

Mother Nature shuts down our noisy fussy conscious mind and opens up the deeper mind, the mind that knows more, stores more, and is perhaps connected to a larger “database” than is our small conscious mind.

Meditation doesn’t lull your mind to sleep so don’t write it off as being lazy. Brain scans show quite the opposite. Meditation is simply a different (and awesome) kind of busy.

Don’t be fooled by the deceptive simplicity of the Breath Watch exercise because it is an ancient, respected and powerful meditation that you can summon at will.

1. Close your eyes and simply observe your breathing. Feel it. Listen to it.
2. When you begin to lose concentration, rest for a few moments and begin again.

There is no right or wrong way to breathe for this exercise. You will quickly learn to become a respectful observer, rather than a director or critic. Simply observe without dictating the results.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Three Hearts

If the primary job of your heart is to move blood into and out of every nook and cranny of your body, then let’s consider that there are two additional “hearts” that share in that duty. Your blood delivers oxygen (food) and carts away spent fuel (garbage). We can’t survive more than a few moments without the former and can’t tolerate much build-up of the latter. For efficient movement we need a foolproof 24/7 pumping system.

The primary heart is, of course, the one behind and slightly left of your breastbone. Number two is the diaphragm – that powerful muscular floor of your ribcage that domes up when you exhale and flattens down when you take air in. The diaphragm behaves with a syringe-type movement that not only moves air in and out but also presses down on major organs and guts when you inhale, helping to push the blood along. Number three is the collection of big powerful thigh muscles that squeeze and release.

All three hearts must be strong and busy. You may be a jock but when you sit at the desk for too many hours or are stuck in a plane for a long flight, your two secondary hearts shut down almost completely! Your primary heart is left with all the work. GET UP OFTEN. Give your primary heart an assist by taking a few really deep slow breaths and by pumping those leg muscles often.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Darth Vader and the Cash Cow

Smoking is an amazingly brilliant commercial venture that lures the consumer into giving vast sums of money to tobacco executives who collect paychecks larger than yours and mine combined. Your addiction to their paper-wrapped weeds will continue to keep these Darth Vaders in summer homes, silk suits, round-the-world travel and fat portfolios. How does it feel to be a cash cow?

Not one of these executives will be there to comfort your family when smoking erases your life. Not one of them will offer to do your grocery shopping when you are dragging around an oxygen tank.

Tobacco company executives are, at this very moment, searching for a foolish consumer to replace you when you go. That replacement consumer may well be your child or grandchild.

It will take every ounce of strength and determination you have to beat these guys but you must. You cannot let them win. In spite of their philosophy, you are neither replaceable nor disposable. You are unique and you are important.

Make no mistake, you are in deadly combat with Darth Vader but you must and you will win this battle. May the Force be with you.

Be well. Breathe beautifully (and for a very long time.)

Drumming

The purpose of Drumming is to create a gentle vibration deep within the chest without causing any surface discomfort. Your relaxed drumming hand will travel from your shoulder toward your breastbone. Your drumming path is just below your collarbone. Drumming often produces a few small natural cleansing coughs.

1. Make a loose, relaxed, soft fist with your right hand. Your arms and shoulders remain relaxed, your spine erect and your right bent elbow against your ribs.
2. The palm-side of your right fist will tap just below your left collarbone, moving from left shoulder to mid-line.
3. Stop every inch and tap gently at least six times. Repeat this path several times from left shoulder to breastbone. Tap hard enough to hear the sound in your chest.
4. Then, begin under your right collarbone with your left hand in the same manner. It is important to keep your curled fingers and your wrists relaxed. Repeat until you feel the circulation has increased in your upper chest.

Breathe through your nose as you drum and cover your mouth when you cough.

Breathe well. Breathe beautifully.

Breath-counting and Pain

It is natural to tense up when something hurts or even when you THINK something is going to hurt Eeeerp! He snapped on that disposable glove! That thing looks reeeeally sharp! When you’re hit with a shock of pain, your primitive fight-or-flight syndrome kicks in, but too often you are unable to EITHER fight OR flee so you lock down!

When you are in pain, notice how quickly you begin to shallow-breathe or worse yet, hold your breath until your ears ring. Unfortunately, tension obstructs blood flow and oxygen delivery and that, in turn, intensifies the pain.

Counting each exhalation is a simple and effective exercise that will help keep your mind and body relaxed. Our goal here is to keep the pain to an absolute minimum. The exhalation is the natural release and “letting go” phase of every breath cycle so it makes sense to work with your exhalation to ease your tension. A fair portion of your “hurt” is due to physical tension and psychological apprehension. The hurt is bad enough without embellishing it?!

COUNT TEN SLOW STEADY EXHALATIONS and then begin again with ten more. Continue counting in sets of ten until your body is as relaxed as possible.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Nose Breathes. Mouth Eats.

The nasal cavities earn an “A+” for their efforts to filter, moisten, warm and otherwise prep the incoming air as it travels toward your lungs. All this processing occurs in a split-second (hour after hour, day after day, year after year). Your nose is an extraordinary design with at least half a dozen clever built-in systems to protect you from illness and even death.

Your mouth, on the other hand, provides pretty much an unprotected straight shot in and down. The mouth is built for eating and kissing, NOT BREATHING. When you inhale through your mouth, the air is not slowed down for processing the way it is in your nose. Your mouth warms and moistens the air a bit but gets an “F” for filtering out airborne garbage.

There is also a tendency to breathe high in the chest when you mouth-breathe because the air rushes in and isn’t slowed by passing through the wonderful furry, sticky, bumpy, twisted maze of your nasal cavities.

If you have a deviated septum, if your allergies obstruct your nasal passages, if you have a chronic sinus irritation, then it is time to see a specialist to diagnose, correct or at least improve the situation. Every breath you take through your mouth contributes to polluted lungs and a dried out respiratory system.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.