It’s free, anyone can access it, and we all do it every day. But breathing – conscious, deep, and connected breathing – could be the key to unlocking a healthy and calm life.
When I first experienced anxiety, I was told to try deep breathing. I dismissed the practice, thinking it was too simplistic. But I’ve now come to see that deep and conscious breathing has the power to influence not only my mind, but my physical health as well.
How we became the worst breathers in the animal kingdom
James Nestor is a science journalist and the author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art. He spent several years researching the science of breathing, and whilst on that journey he discovered that modern humans have evolved to be very bad breathers.
Studies of ancient human skulls show how over time our mouths have become smaller, our teeth have become crooked, and our airways have become obstructed. Environmental factors like pollution and allergens have clogged our noses and made us mouth-breathers – something James says is extremely bad for our health. Then our posture changed, as most of us spend our days hunched over keyboards or devices, and sitting in chairs.
“We’re the only animals in the animal kingdom to have this posture … to be exposed to all of these environmental hazards and to also have this anatomical change occur in our faces so quickly. It’s a perfect storm of all those things that has made us the worst breathers in the animal kingdom,” says James.
The ancients were onto something when it came to breathing
Pranayama, one of the eight pillars of yoga, is all about controlling the breath, or ‘prana’, our vital life force. It’s a practice that is thousands of years old and science is now able to measure its benefits.
James says, “We’ve developed these machines, and people have been going out to India and studying yogis since at least the 30s, and have been finding that they’ve been able to do things that according to our medical textbooks are impossible. You’re not supposed to be able to heat your body up with breathing, you’re not supposed to be able to flutter your heart, just by breathing … And that’s what so many researchers are doing right now, looking into breathing, looking at how it affects our brains, how it affects our bodies, and so much more.”
What these researchers have found is that conscious breathing can help us sleep better, become more physically fit, and overcome panic attacks and anxiety. And you don’t have to be a yoga guru to access its benefits.
Accessing the benefits of breath through yoga
Over the last few decades in Australia, yoga has evolved from being a fringe, ‘hippy’ practice to something offered by mainstream gyms. And conscious breathing is a part of every class.
Elsa Geelan, a yoga teacher at Egg of the Universe, explains how breathing consciously helps to ground us. “We use breath through the asana practice to move prana through the body and open up into our bodies. This prana, or lifeforce as it’s also referred to, allows us to calm the nervous system and ground us into our own bodies.”
This kind of breathing also triggers our parasympathetic nervous system – that part of our autonomic nervous system that slows our heart rate and helps to bring us back to calm.
No time for yoga? Guess what: you’re still breathing!
OK, so your average, everyday breathing isn’t quite going to cut it. Remember how we are the “worst breathers in the animal kingdom”? Add the stress of modern family life and you’re probably not breathing your best breaths. As James says, “When we are stressed, we tend to breathe too much, we tend to breathe high in our chest, we tend to breathe too quickly … When the brain gets all of these messages that we’re breathing too quickly, it associates that with danger. And heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes up, breathing goes up, and cortisol goes up, adrenaline goes up.”
If you’re breathing like that you most likely need a yoga class, but you probably don’t have time to roll out your mat. Central Coast-based yoga teacher Dini Martinez says that’s OK, we can use these techniques anywhere. “It is one of the tools that is ALWAYS accessible – during the tantrum in the middle of the subway; during the early morning hours trying to get bubba to sleep when all [you want] is to rest; during the times when you think you’ve reached your limit and [parenthood] forces you to expand the frontier of patience.”
Simple exercises to start breathing your way to health
Both Elsa and Dini use breathwork off their mat, and while parenting their own children.
To begin, find somewhere you can sit calmly with your spine straight. Elsa suggests starting with an even breath, with four counts breathing in and four counts breathing out. Dini says if you find yourself in the middle of chaos, take a few deep sighs and pause after the exhale.
Dini says you can also invite the kids to join in, by talking them through a rainbow breath. “Imagine breathing in each colour of the rainbow, one by one. With each exhale let that colour spread through every cell of the body bringing love, peace, calm, and anything else that might be needed.”
Dini says, “Schedules with kids can be hectic and tight, but if you can even just take a couple of minutes it might change the experience of your entire day.”
