Tension Increases Pain

Make a tight fist with your dominant hand and hold it tight while you count slowly to 20. How does it feel now? How does it look? Nothing has changed except for the addition of physical tension.

Most tension is OPTIONAL, destructive and painful. Of course, there are times when you must tighten muscles briefly to accomplish a specific task. We run onto the rocks when a tension “knot” has been there for so long that the brain accepts the knot as normal.

Does the tension accomplish something or is it just hanging around? Chronic tension strangles veins, arteries and nerves and pulls your bones out of alignment. It doesn’t serve you to put up a tension dam that slows the river of oxygen that flows through your body. The hurt you feel is your brain sending you an alarm that you are doing something very wrong.

The length of an EXHALATION is an ideal time to let go of unnecessary tension as if you are letting air out of a balloon. Let’s play with your jaw-hinge muscles first. Sit up comfortably straight. Relax your belly so you can drop your breathing down into the lower lungs.

Imagine that during each exhalation some of the tension drains out from the jaw muscles leaving them soft and loose. This usually takes only three or four breaths. Experiment with dropping your shoulders with each outbreath. Work your way through the body, releasing tension as you go.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Falling Leaf Breath

Sit on a straight chair with your weight distributed evenly along the back of your thighs and your feet flat on the floor. To balance your spine and lungs correctly your tailbone should never touch the chair seat. Rest your palms on your knees and let your shoulders stay down and quiet during the entire exercise.

During each inhalation “float” your hands up in front of your shoulders and over your knees.

Float your arms down, returning palms to knees, as you breathe out. The outgoing air exits through an almost silent “shhhhhh” – so quiet that the person nearest you wouldn’t hear. The movement and the breathing are smooth and steady.

Lead upward with the backs of your wrists and down with the insides of your wrists. As always, first establish a comfortable natural breath cycle and only then match the movement to it. Think of the breathing as the music and the movement as the dance.

Continue only as long as you feel comfortable and can remain focused.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Faster Isn’t Always Better

When you are trotting on the treadmill or sweating through a tennis match, your heart rate and breathing will accelerate to deliver the necessary oxygen to your hungry muscles and to dump the mounting burden of carbon dioxide. Your body will respond automatically to the increased physical demands by ramping up your heart and lungs. This is, of course, a good thing.

Unfortunately, strong emotions (especially those you can’t act upon) can also speed up breathing and heart rate even when you don’t actually need extra oxygen. Even an imagined threat can overheat your engine.

FAST breathing often means SHALLOW breathing. Shallow breathing is INEFFICIENT. Remember that the top of your lungs are small, narrow and locked in by unyielding ribs and muscles. Ideally, you fill the top of your chest AFTER the lower more elastic lungs are full. Even when you are running, breathing ONLY into your upper lungs generates tension and gives you a very poor return for the energy invested.

When we are nervous, impatient, angry or apprehensive, it is critical that we stay calm, centered, and relaxed. Next time your emotions try to bully your breathing, exhale and shift to low, slow and deep breathing. Your mind will be clearer, your voice deeper and your demeanor more self-assured.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Guard Your Child's Lungs

When your children and grandchildren are grown, many of their adult breathing problems will have originated with respiratory mistakes made in childhood. Because so many pulmonary problems are IRREVERSIBLE, it is crucial that we devote ourselves, as responsible adults, to PREVENTION. Prevention is far cheaper and less painful than chronic bronchitis, breathing allergies, asthma, and even lung cancer. Many toxic substances that can be temporarily irritating to adults are devastating to young lungs.

1. Keep ALL second-hand smoke and smoke-polluted materials away from children.
2. Have all filters, fireplaces, and vents checked and cleaned regularly.
3. Allow for good overall ventilation in your home (especially basements and bathrooms) and try to air things out even in winter. Appliances should vent to the OUTSIDE.
4. Be cautious with any spray or aerosol product around children – air cleaners, cleaning ingredients, pesticides, disinfectants, moth repellents, hair spray and such.
5. Ventilate well when you bring in new furniture, carpets, flooring and drapes. Research the adhesives and padding being used before you purchase. Freshly dry-cleaned clothes aren’t so swell either.
6. Vacuum often. Keep a child’s room free of anything that catches and holds dust. Keep the pets out of your child’s room since pet dander and dust mites are a lethal combination.
7. Be careful choosing the lawn and garden ingredients you use around a child’s play area.
8. Never idle your car in an attached garage.

Be well (you AND the kids). Breathe beautifully.

Insomnia, Impatience And Wasted Time

WASTED TIME is actually FOUND TIME. Such fragments actually add up to a potentially productive total by the end of your week if you prepare ahead of time.

In ADVANCE select a couple of your favorite breathing exercises that don’t require a lot of movement. Actually, deep slow steady breathing will do or you could simply begin by counting your breaths.

Since there never seems to be enough time to practice mindful breathing, meditation or contemplation, planning ahead will help you do something useful during those unscheduled disruptions of your schedule. You will be taking charge of the situation and using your time wisely.

So when the bus is late, when the elevator is slow, when you are on “hold” for days, when you are stuck in gridlock, launch one of your pre-planned breathing exercises and be grateful for the luxury of that rare bit of found time.

Otherwise, you will trigger stress chemistry that squirts into your body and your time will be worse than wasted.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

The Elegant Engineer

Mother Nature had to engineer a system that would (24/7) feed oxygen into your blood stream, remove the spent carbon dioxide as the same time, scrub, warm and moisten all incoming air, press down gently to massage your guts every few seconds and upwards to massage the lower lungs and she had to do everything within about a 12-inch stretch from nose to lungs as the crow flies.

Nature also had to compensate for the human body moving at vastly different speeds and stretching into extreme positions. The design had to compensate for the fact that some of us are quite small and some are huge (some start small and become huge) and some are two years old and some are ninety.

Some live in the desert and some live where the snows rarely melt. Some live below sea level and some at 12,000 feet. Nature had to find a way to mend broken ribs stronger than new.

The entire pulmonary system had to function either on automatic or manual, as necessary, and as life evolved, the system had to be stable and yet adapt to changing external conditions over time.

Mother Nature is determined that you Live Long and Prosper. May you be worthy of Her brilliance.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.

Deep Breathing – When?

When you sleep, you breathe deeply, slowly and beautifully. Once you awaken and you are slammed by your hectic day, your breathing begins to creep uphill into the narrow, rigid and tight upper ribcage. By dinner the stress of your day is written all over your upper body - clenched jaws, hunched shoulders, tight neck muscles and shallow erratic breathing.

Shallow inhibited breathing changes the cadence, tone, pitch or your voice and people do react subconsciously to the quality of your voice. As the day progresses, you are working harder and harder for less and less oxygen and your blood is burdened with spent fuel. It is important to break this tension cycle.

Deep slow breathing gives you maximum oxygen and cleansing power for minimal energy expended. Stop frequently, close your eyes, relax your shoulders and your jaws and lower your breathing into your lower elastic ribcage. All systems will relax automatically. It takes only a few breaths to re-boot your machine.

Be well. Breathe beautifully.