Northwind

Speaking gobbles up a surprising amount of energy so when you have spent hours on the phone, don’t be surprised if you feel exhausted. Talking is one of the most demanding and complicated processes that you do even though you aren’t swinging your arms around like a lumberjack. Why do you think the nurse won’t let you talk when she (or he) is taking your blood pressure?

Northwind is an exercise designed to drop your breathing down into your lower lungs, to stretch your tongue and open your jaws, sinuses and throat. Not much is visible from the outside because you will continue to breathe through your nose with your mouth closed.

1. Sit up straight, mouth closed and teeth slightly apart.
2. Slowly slide the tip of your tongue rearward along the bony ridge that runs backward along the center roof of your mouth. Stop your tongue when it gets to your soft palate and keep it there.
3. Holding this position, breathe slowly and evenly through your nose. Continue for as long as the exercise feels comfortable. Notice how quickly your breathing slows and deepens.

This position curls your tongue backwards in such a way that, if you could see into your mouth, you would be looking at the underside of your tongue.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

The Path From Throat To Lungs

Your windpipe is a large flexible hose held open by C-shaped pieces of cartilage open toward the spine (accommodating lumps of food traveling down the adjacent esophagus). The windpipe divides in two just behind your heart, one hose descending toward your right lung and the other toward the left. At this point these two slightly smaller hoses (the main bronchi) enter your lungs, along with essential blood vessels and nerves.

Because your large muscular heart is tucked between the lungs, and is positioned slightly off to the left, things get crowded on that left side. Therefore, you have only two lobes within the left lung as well as a noticeably smaller descending bronchus. The roomier right lung has three lobes, with a larger bronchus.

The bronchial hoses now begin to divide again and again creating progressively narrower bits of hose. This bronchial branching is often described as an inverted tree. Imagine the windpipe as the trunk, the bronchi as the main branches, the progressively narrow bits of air hose as the smaller branches and stems.

By now the microscopic subdivisions of air hose have become too narrow for cartilage-ring support. At the very end of each of the smallest subdivisions of the bronchial tree is a cluster of air sacs (the alveoli). Imagine a microscopic cluster of hollow grapes growing from a tiny hollow stem. Lung tissue is made up of trillions of these microscopic clusters. The cleaned warm oxygen-rich air at this point is embraced by your blood stream.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Reboot Your System

Most of us begin to slide downhill shortly after breakfast. Slowly at first but DOWN even so. Bad hair day. Ragged shallow breathing. Traffic jam. Clenched jaws. Cranky boss. Tight throat. High-pitched voice.

By lunch you feel like a giant knot with legs and a headache. Mounting tension makes you sound more like Minnie Mouse than your usual resonant self. Although this is a typical day for the typical professional, the gradual hour-to-hour build-up of physical, emotional and intellectual tension robs your energy, weakens your concentration and waters down your incredible business instincts.

You can find yourself weary and cranky with hours of grinding work still ahead. It is understandable that you go for a quick energy boost of a double espresso and a big chocolate chip cookie. Unfortunately, sugar and caffeine jazz you up and then slam you down.

What we need is a true “reset” that quickly washes away the accumulated tension leaving you fresh for another few hours. It is important to return to “default” mode EVERY FEW HOURS. A true reset must be quick, portable and without side effects.

1. Stand and stretch your body from stem-to-stern.
2. If you are working under artificial lights, try to change your light source, even if only a couple minutes.
3. Empty out your stale air comfortably. Take a few deep slow fresh breaths.
4. Close your eyes and lay your palms over your eyes for a few moments.

There you are, good as new. Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Easy Come Easy Go

Lung tissue has a full-time job just getting oxygen out of the incoming air and into your blood stream while it simultaneously grabs up the spent fuel from the blood so that can be dumped from the body.

It is left to your breathing muscles to actually move air into and out of the body. Muscles and lung tissue of course take orders from the brain where a second-by-second record is kept on exactly how much oxygen is needed by each muscle and body process at any given moment. A pretty fancy dance when you think about it. The brain sends orders for faster or slower breathing down to the respiration department.

A double layer of intercostals muscles is sandwiched between each pair of ribs and the big elastic diaphragm stretches across the bottom rim of your ribcage. To draw a breath in, the intercostals lift and swing your ribs gently out and up while the diaphragm flattens down. This effort creates a slightly enlarged ribcage. Fresh oxygen-rich air rushes in from outside the body to fill this new vacuum (similar to the action of a syringe or a bellows).

To exhale, the intercostals and the diaphragm simply relax and collapse. The ribs drop down out of the upward flare while the diaphragm rises to its domed-up resting position. This overall relaxation results in a slightly smaller ribcage with smaller capacity. There is no place for the contained air to go but out. Exhalation is simply a letting go of the breathing muscles without slumping the spine. Inhalation is active. Exhalation is letting go of that action.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

After The Crisis

Slowing down your rapid breathing is like pumping your car brakes to come to a gradual, controlled and safe stop. If you are racing to catch a bus you will, of necessity, breathe hard and fast for the moment because your body demands that extra measure of oxygen. However, if you find your heart racing when you are doing nothing at all, it is time for a chat with your doctor. Rapid breathing to accommodate activity is part of your inherited innate fight-or-flight ability to survive.

Unfortunately, there are so many aggravations and pressures in your professional and personal life that, too often, the body sometimes can’t perceive that the actual crisis is over. Your muscles remain tense for hours and your breathing stays shallow and fast. Eventually the brain accepts rapid shallow breathing and residual tension as the norm!

This unproductive post-crisis tension screws with your body’s chemistry. Eventually the system that was designed to protect you begins to eat you alive.

As always, change begins with awareness. This week, pay attention to how your ribcage expands. How fast are you breathing? How do you breathe when your supervisor is talking to you? How do you breathe when the line in the bank is moving too slowly? How do you breathe when a stranger is rude to you? Your homework this week is simply to BE AWARE OF WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOUR BREATHING.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.