Complete Breath

The Complete Breath massages and cleanses all the nooks and crannies of both lungs. It isn’t often necessary during a typical day to function in “full lung mode.” Most of the time you can do well enough by deep breathing without activating the tight narrow upper chest.

However, when you dash up the stairs (for those of you who still dash) or chase after a two-year-old, you need additional oxygen so you ADD mid-chest and collarbone breathing TO the deep breathing (NOT INSTEAD OF). It is, however, essential that you exercise every square-inch of your lung tissue regularly to keep it clean and elastic.

1. Empty as much air as is comfortable while keeping a straight and balanced spine. As you inhale slowly through your nose, let the first bit of incoming air expand your lower ribcage.
2. Continuing with that same inhalation, ADD a bit more of breath #1 to the mid-lungs (behind the breastbone).
3. The final bit of air fills the tight narrow upper lungs. Raise your shoulders slightly to make space. This single incoming breath should flow seamlessly without strain or exaggeration. Do not overfill!
4. The outgoing air follows the same pattern – empty the bottom first, then the breastbone area and finally the small amount of remaining air from the narrow and restricted upper lungs. If you have been lazy-breathing for sometime, Complete Breath may make you cough once or twice as you clear all the lazy bits.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Waterwheel

We have made a to-do about getting your basic breathing down from the tight narrow upper chest into your wide elastic lower ribcage. Deep breathing is more efficient, more rewarding and produces more miles-per-gallon (if you were a car).

However, it is important to activate and be aware of all areas of your lungs. During Waterwheel you will direct the incoming air into your MID-CHEST, just behind your breastbone. Accurate placement is more important than how much air you take in so there is no need to swell up like a weather balloon. Waterwheel is more about quality than quantity.

1. Sit on the front edge of a straight-backed chair. Fold your thumbs into your palms and lay the backs of your hands on the chair seat behind you, palms up and fingers pointing backwards (index fingers close together if possible).
2. Breathe in slowly through your nose and gently blow out the outgoing air. Keep your shoulders low and motionless and your bellybutton absolutely still.
3. Let the incoming air fill up the space just behind your breastbone. Imagine that is the only place where you have lungs. Guide the incoming air there. Continue for as long as the exercise is comfortable and pleasurable.
   

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

A Dangerous Bend in the Road

The good news is: there is a sharp downward bend at the back of your throat. The bad news is: there is a sharp downward bend in the back of your throat.

Incoming air travels horizontally through the nose-maze and suddenly turns downward toward your lungs. Food and saliva travel horizontally through your mouth and suddenly turn downward toward your stomach.

There are a couple of really scary inches in there that resemble a major intersection in downtown Beijing at rush hour. Actually it is always rush hour in downtown Beijing.

Mother Nature wasn’t having a Stupid Day when she put this design together. The 90-degree bend causes the incoming air to drop some of its pollution-load so the mucus can grab and dump irritants before they sneak into your fragile lungs. The bend is like a sharp turn in a stream that causes the dropping of silt.

There is, however, a tricky crossover at that point. The food must be kept separate from the air or your liverwurst could end up in your lungs. There is even a tiny trap door that slams shut when you swallow to guard your airways.

Countless wonderful human beings die each year because they simultaneously eat and laugh, eat and talk, eat and lounge, drink and smoke. That little right angle bend is a tricky piece of road. It is a dangerous place to multitask.

Not Born To Formaldehyde

The design of the human body is a work in progress. The species adapts and changes very slowly, taking thousands of years to show measurable change. Perhaps in 75,000 years man will have very thin fingers to meet the demands of tiny keyboards. He may have huge flat feet that double as flippers when all the icebergs have melted. His larger nose will help to filter out the increasing air pollution that he will surely face. But for now . . . .

We cannot begin to accommodate all of the indoor chemicals to which we are exposed (even though our respiratory systems have some extraordinary built-in protection). Until recently humans lived with all natural materials. They traveled only as far as the horse could carry them so they rarely had the respiratory shock of exotic materials. They spent long hours outside hunting, gathering, planting, ploughing.

Eventually, costly global health disasters will force governments, builders and manufacturers to select non-toxic and sustainable materials. The improvement probably won’t be complete in our lifetime. Even then, older homes and older office buildings will continue to put out toxic gases. In the meantime, be a force for change in the marketplace and get outside whenever possible to break your chronic exposure.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Good Cough. Bad Cough.

Once in awhile you inhale something that is just too much for your creeping mucus blanket to trap and dump. Mother Nature in her infinite wisdom designed a number of back-up defense systems to keep garbage out of your fragile lungs.

A 400-mph cough is one way to knock that junk out of the park. An EFFICIENT cough is amazing and can keep you from aspirating that tuna sandwich downstream into your lungs. A cough can forcibly eject saliva from dripping down the wrong tube and can expel the gnat you just inhaled.

An INEFFICIENT cough, however, is nearly useless and can actually work against you. An irritating chronic dry hacking cough that doesn’t seem to move anything out of the chest is the body’s cry for help and it needs to be brought to your doctor’s attention. A ten-day cold doesn’t count. A ten-month cough should never be ignored.

You may have an allergy. You may have asthma. The mucus blanket may be too dry because of one of your medications. The air quality inside your house may be causing problems.

The cough that was designed to protect you, begins to tear up the very system it was meant to defend. Over-the-counter stuff may simply mask the symptoms and delay the cure. The cure could actually be something quite simple. But residual damage is often irreversible so please see your doctor as soon as possible.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

More About Dust Mites

Dust mites are always a breathing hazard to you and especially to young children in your home. Mites are microscopic monster-movie critters that don’t bite but poop a lot. It’s their poop that gives you a lifetime allergy for which there is no cure.

1. Google “dust mites.” Know your enemy. Outsmart them because they outnumber you. A typical mattress may contain 100,000 mites. There are new anti-mite products available that cost a bit extra but then what is the price of an asthma attack?

2. Mites feed on dead skin cells. Your pets shed more skin cells than you do. Treat their bedding with the same care as you do your own.

3. Cover all mattresses and pillows with plastic or mite-proof covers. If you spend many nights in hotel rooms, take along your own pillow cover. Put a Post-it note on the inside of your door to remind you to remove it when you leave.

4. Keep your bedroom temperature below 70 degrees and the humidity below 50%.

5. Invest in a HEPA vacuum. It’s worth the money.

6. Wash your blankets, pet bedding and the children’s stuffed toys every two weeks in hot water. Warm water does not kill mites. Wash sheets every week.

7. Go synthetic. Replace all down and feathers with man-made stuffing. Replace all wool with nylon. Get rid of carpet and drapes in the bedrooms. Dust with a damp cloth.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

LINK: Sleeping with Monsters

Sweeper Wisdom

To protect and preserve your irreplaceable lungs and to avoid chronic breathing problems:

1. Wear a dust mask EVERY single time you vacuum (which should be often) or,
2. INVEST in a good quality vacuum cleaner with a special filter like a HEPA.

Since the more advanced machines cost a little more, I would suggest you do your homework before purchase to be sure you are getting your money’s worth. There are review magazines available in your public library. Dealers often pad the online reviews.

The old-fashioned sweepers without filters simply churn and blow carpet garbage directly into your face (please do not make me draw another dust mite)!

Huge amounts of irritating airborne stuff will eventually settle onto your carpets and floors. In addition carpets collect all that disgusting street mess that gets tracked in on shoes and boots.

If you have a vacuum with a disposable bag, ALWAYS wear a dust mask when you dump and replace the bag. It’s a good idea to have your carpets cleaned professionally as often as you can afford. The carpets (and your lungs) will last longer.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

LINK: Sleeping with Monsters

Late-Night Snack Attacks

Who hasn’t enjoyed the guilty pleasure of a big bowl of buttery popcorn, a comfy couch and a late movie? Buttery popcorn is probably OK for an occasional treat. But the comfy couch tends to scrunch you down into a position less than ideal for moving food easily into the stomach. The movie is your choice (although Texas Chainsaw Massacre is likely to mess with your dreams).

It takes a couple hours to chew food well, move it down your esophagus and into your stomach. If your popcorn, the dish of Rocky Road and a big slice of cold pepperoni pizza (yes, I was watching) is half-chewed, spread out along the esophagus, the food will lie in there undigested most of the night. There is always the troubling possibility that a lump of food will throw your esophagus into spasm or cause you to choke.

There is the possibility of coughing up food or stomach acid in your sleep and aspirating it into your lungs. I know it is a lot to ask that you chew each bite carefully while you are watching a horror movie. You need and deserve these occasional guilty pleasures but would you at least consider sitting up a little straighter and watching your movie at eight instead of midnight? Thanks.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Toss Pills Into A Puddle

What does breathing have to do with eating or taking pills? Remember that your descending food tube (esophagus) and your descending air tube (trachea) are basically Siamese twins. They descend more or less in tandem from the back of your mouth to deep down into your chest. When you irritate one tube, you generally annoy the other.

A tiny swallow of water will probably float your pills as far downstream as your second shirt button. Your job is to get those marbles ALL the way down, OUT of the esophagus and INTO your stomach. The esophagus doesn’t take kindly to having stuff stuck along the way. You risk spasm or rupture and that threatens your breathing!

Take a few swallows of water FIRST before the pills and then take your pills so that you are sending your pills down into “a puddle.” Chase the pills with a full glass of water. Remember, “Puddle Before Pills.”

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Winged Breath

Breathe gently and slowly in and out through your nose all the way through this exercise. The Winged Breath gives you the opportunity to concentrate on the often-neglected LOWER, LATERAL areas of your lungs. As always, CONTINUE ONLY AS LONG AS YOU CAN HOLD YOUR CONCENTRATION AND YOU FEEL COMPLETELY COMFORTABLE. Eyes open for now.

1. Stand (or sit) with your feet hip–distance apart, toes pointed forward. It is important to keep your shoulders down and relaxed at all times. ONLY THE ELBOWS MOVE, floating up as you breathe in and down as you breathe out.
2. Join your palms in front of your chest, with your elbows resting near your sides. Your hands never move during the exercise.
3. Empty first. Then take a full and gentle breath, floating your elbows up for as long as you are breathing in.
4. Float your elbows down as you breathe out.

THE LENGTH OF YOUR BREATH ALWAYS DICTATES THE LENGTH OF YOUR MOVEMENT. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Sleeping with Monsters

Your sleeping body sheds copious amounts of dead skin cells because that’s what skin must do to keep you looking fresh and beautiful. To make matters worse, you are not able to be careful about your breathing when you sleep. Mouth open and all that.

Your skin cells are everywhere in your bedroom. So are the microscopic dust mites that feed on them and grow fat. Remember, Mother Nature doesn’t waste much. Mites survive because humans and their pets shed and, as thanks, they irritate your respiratory system because humans are super sensitive to proteins left behind in the mites’ feces.

Mites are microscopic, eight-legged, spiderlike, sightless super ugly critters that would be great in a horror film if they were as big as a cow. They eat. They poop. You cough. No symbiosis here.

They thrive by the millions in dusty, dark, humid, warm places. STARVE THEM OUT!

A perfect bedroom is bright, cool and dry without upholstered furniture and clutter (sorry, kids). If possible replace your carpet with flooring that can be wet-mopped. If you can’t bear to part with your lovely new bedroom rug, then steam clean it often. Shutters or blinds are better than drapes.

Vacuum and dust thoroughly at LEAST once a week. Wash your bedding OFTEN in HOT water. Keep pets and food out of the bedroom or at least bathe your pets frequently. Sweet dreams.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Death By House?!

Indoor air pollution is rated as one of the top five environmental risks to health and quality of life. Did we actually believe that once we were locked inside our homes that we would be safe from harm?

Smog alerts come and go. Fortunately for us and for our children, they are not a constant threat (yet). Your lungs get a few days relief in between the bad-air days.

I trust you have carbon monoxide alarms around the house, that you have had all appropriate appliances checked for possible gas leaks and that all containers marked “danger” are safely locked up.

But consider the potential pulmonary damage from the synthetic stuff inside the house because these irritants are CONSTANT and RELENTLESS and CUMULATIVE. Man-made glues, plastics, preservatives, paints, stains, and such let off volatile fumes that irritate delicate respiratory tissues especially in children.

EVERY DAY, even in winter (sorry), you need to bring fresh air into your house. Open windows at opposite ends of the house. Turn the oven vent on “high” at the same time to help draw the air in. Every few minutes of cross-ventilation helps.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Good Green. Bad Green

Green peas. Green apples. Green tea. Green eyes. Green green grass of home. Lovely.
Green snot? Not so much.

When the beautiful clear protective mucus that you normally spit, swallow or blow out appears green for longer than ten days, you may have upgraded your basic run-of-the-mill viral head or chest cold to a bacterial sinus or bronchial infection. Congratulations! REMEMBER THAT ANTIBIOTICS ARE USELESS WEAPONS IN A VIRAL WAR BUT THEY CAN ALMOST ALWAYS KNOCK THE CRAP OUT OF BACTERIA.

Get thee to thy doctor immediately for an evaluation, expert advice and pills that work against your particular bug. Of course, you are smart enough to continue taking your antibiotic until the bottle is COMPLETELY EMPTY. Even though you may feel better after the first few pills, you need to obliterate the few remaining bugs that can lurk in the damp and dark nooks and crannies of your head or chest. From the few come the many!

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Snot Is Your Friend

Oxygen Delivery: Where the Teeny Meets the Tiny

Your blood vessels, as they descend into your chest, get smaller and smaller until they are so narrow that blood molecules are forced to squeeze through one molecule at a time!

In the meantime your air tubes have also been getting smaller and smaller until they reach the end of the road where tiny bunches of air sacs (the alveoli) hang together like clusters of microscopic grapes.

In the very deepest part of the lungs, the tiny air sacs and the narrow blood vessels are so tightly woven together that they more or less share common walls. A blood molecule has only a fraction of a second to offload its oxygen, pick up its spent load of carbon dioxide and continue along its way. This exchange through the walls of the alveoli is what keeps you alive and kicking.

The gas exchange at this exact point in your chest is incredibly delicate and complicated. This is not an area that was designed to defend itself well. That would be like expecting a brilliant brain surgeon to do security duty at the front desk at the same time he is operating on a patient.

Remember that you have wonderful defense systems further “upstream.” Do your best to keep the bad stuff from getting past the defenses of your nose, throat and upper chest into your sanctum sanctorum.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

The Blind Nose

Advertisers have done a terrific job convincing the public that laundry, carpets and draperies cannot possibly be clean unless they reek with a company’s cheap perfume. Repeat anything long enough and consumers will believe it.

Pity your poor nose because it is bombarded every hour of every day with heavily scented capert cleaner, room freshener, furniture polish, scented toilet paper, kitty litter, hand soap, perfume, after-shave, deodorant, hair spray, foot powder, moth balls, candles and always – the laundry. Your pulmonary system was not designed for any of this and will eventually be on overload.

This is not 17th century France where perfume was designed and refined to mask horrific odors that would curdle our modern senses. Remember your nose goes “blind” a few seconds after you splash on that half-cup of after-shave. You quickly lose any sense of how you smell but others do not.

A great purple cloud of fragrance that continues to hover around you is rarely appreciated and can trigger allergies in defenseless bystanders, especially young children. It is easy to offend the pulmonary senses of friends and co-workers who never complain for fear of hurting your feelings. Ask a friend if they think you need to cut back a bit.

Scent is not a sin. Nor should it become a mindless indulgence. Another person should be able to register your particular fragrance only when they are close enough to hug you. We wish you many hugs.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Protect Yourself From Colds And Flu: Lesson Four

OK. The first three were easy. Four is more difficult. Unfortunately, it is also the most important. Fortunately, it is the last colds-and-flu lesson for now. Washing your hands often and correctly, touching shared stuff cautiously, using magic goo each time you exit a public place – all smart moves.

However, unless you scrub your hands (that includes cuticles and under your nails and under rings with a brush) every single time you touch a thing or a person, then you still won’t be as safe as you deserve to be. Remember, you may still pick up a cold or the flu from an airborne bug but we are aiming for AFAP – As Few As Possible!

LESSON FOUR (drum roll, please):

Unless you are at your very own clean sink (it is clean, right?) then DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT TOUCHING YOUR FACE FROM LATE OCTOBER UNTIL EARLY MARCH! No rubbing eyes, no itching ears, no gnawing nails, and the NOSE. Oy. The nose!

Your nose, in particular is off limits until spring. See? I said it was difficult. You will, as an added bonus, appear more confident, calm, and even more attractive when you give up the nervous fiddling-with-face syndrome. You can do it.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson One
Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson Two
Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson Three

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson Three

Swiping your hands under the cold-water faucet for five seconds barely wakes up the germs waiting to give you a cold or a stomach disorder. You’ve watched “surgeons” on television scrub up. Suds everywhere, scrub up to the elbows, fingernail brush working cuticles.

Since you probably don’t plan to take out a gall bladder today you probably don’t have to be quite that vigilant. Let’s settle for a little hot water, a little soap, and TIME. You will bring your hands into the “safe” zone in about the same time it takes to sing Happy Birthday to yourself (silently, please, thank you).

My personal favorite silent scrubbing chant is “Go away colds. Go away flu. Go away colds. Go away flu.” I find that one truly inspiring. It’s 20 or 30 seconds invested at the sink rather than ten days of a cough and runny nose. Your call.

Remember we are NOT playing Howard Hughes here but simply using our common sense to stay as healthy as possible.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson One

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson Two

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson Two

Keep at hand a little squirt bottle of killer goo during cold-and-flu season. Bad bugs adapt to human defenses at the speed of light but hand-sanitizers are at the moment ahead of the game. Never pass up a chance for soap and hot water but gel can protect you between visits to the sink.

The medical pundits don’t all agree on the effectiveness of sanitizers but let’s go with the weapons we have at hand (sorry about that) until something more effective comes along.

Killer goo is especially valuable when you move through shared spaces. EVERY TIME you exit a library, a store, a theater, a gym, a school, an office, the subway, an auditorium, a hospital (duh!) – squirt your fingers with a few drops of clear sanitizer.

Even when you have used the restroom and washed your hands, you have touched many things since you washed, including the exit door – just you and 10,000 other people. You think all 10,000 washed their hands?!

The “exit squirt” is a cheap and easy habit and takes only a couple of seconds while a cold devours a week to ten days.

Be well and breathe beautifully.

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson One

Protect Yourself From Colds & Flu: Lesson One

In spite of the fact that you are incredibly careful you may still catch a cold or flu. However, let’s stack the odds in your favor and aim for AFAP (As Few As Possible).

Invading bacteria and viruses love it when you TOUCH stuff. Protect yourself by learning a smarter way to touch disease-transfer points. Perhaps thousands (or at least hundreds) of fingers have touched those shared “hot spots” since they were last cleaned and even then “cleaned” probably means annoying the bugs rather than terminating them.

1. Push an ELEVATOR BUTTON with a knuckle instead of a fingertip.
2. Slide the outside edge of your hand along a STAIR RAILING rather than grasping the rail with your whole hand.
3. Use your palm rather than your fingers to engage a DOOR HANDLE or TOWEL DISPENSER.
4. MARKET BASKETS are like giant Petri dishes on wheels!! Hold the outer part, not the center, of the handle.
5. FLUSH with the outer wrist bone or a knuckle.
6. If you SHARE EQUIPMENT at work, in the gym, or at school carry along a bleach-wipe and (without fanfare) wipe down the common transfer spots at the beginning of your shift.

No need to play Howard Hughes here, a white-gloved prisoner in your own home! You develop some immunity through exposure. But for now let’s try for AFAP.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Get OUT!

The air outside your home is too often loaded with microscopic bits of soot, flying fertilizer, smoke, tires, asphalt, car/bus/airplane exhaust, toxic gases, grit and grime.

However, the air inside your home, office and car can present an even greater threat to your lungs. Have you noticed the thin greasy film that accumulates on the inside of your car windows? The automotive plastics and rubber are deteriorating and radiating gases that can easily find their way into your body. You are exposed daily to construction materials that threaten your quality of life: plastics of all kinds, particle board, veneers, paints, carpets, popcorn ceilings, carpet glues, linoleum adhesives, wallpaper glues, household cleaners, dry cleaning fumes, mothballs, cigarette smoke. You are built to tolerate a few of these irritants at one time for a short period of time.

Sensitivities arise when you have long and repeated exposure to any dangerous substance. Finally your overburdened respiratory system can no longer keep up the good fight and you find yourself with asthma or worse. These sensitivities tend to be permanent.

Lend your most powerful political voice to laws that clean up the environment and the building industry standards. Read the air quality reports every day in the paper so you can avoid unnecessary trips outside on bad-air days but reverse that when the air outside is relatively clear.

Try to avoid staying in any single setting for more than a couple hours at a time. Take a short break in a different venue as often as possible. Leave your office for a quick walk around the block to clear your head and to break your shallow breathing pattern.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.