Article 2, Blue Moon Yoga Springwood: Author: Greg Brady

Understanding the story of your natural breath is a major component of body awareness (and body truthfulness) that is of prime importance of fully understanding what you are doing in a physical yoga class. You can then take these understandings out into the rest of your world enabling you to have less chance of being continually caught up in stress.

This is not about the practice of Pranayama where you deliberately manipulate your breath.

Breathing is something that we all take for granted. It is with us from birth to death. In fact it is the signature of living that most of us use. Yet we take the breath so much granted that most miss the stories that it can tell us.

Naturally there are some stories of the breath that all of us understand. If you have been running fast or exerting yourself then you are likely to be breathing hard. In these cases it is easy to understand the story between what is happening with your body and your breath. So what are some of the missed stories?

Holding your breath.

Have you been, or had the privilege of observing, a new yoga student? The student is often out of their physical comfort zone doing things that they have had little or no experience. The normal reaction to this, is to hold the breath. Interestingly the student is not aware that they are doing this.

When I’m teaching a new beginner’s class, it can be eerie to hear the total silence, except my own breath. The students’ body is basically saying “this is new, I am not sure that I trust what is happening, so I am going to protect myself”. The way that the body then protects itself is to make itself more rigid by holding the breath in. It is essentially a low-level indicator of the “fight or flight response” where potential harm is perceived by the body.

Becoming aware that you are holding your breath is a significant first step for increasing your body awareness and body truthfulness. With this new awareness the student can then ease out of the posture until they find the place that they start breathing again. From then on, and for any other posture, by keeping awareness on your breath, you can then find that delicate edge between body trust and no body trust. As you gain awareness of body experience you will stop unknowing holding your breath and then can deliberately use it when you think it is necessary. It also becomes an excellent “measure” of how your physicality improves.

The body does have its own “non-harmful agenda” which can be very different to the minds……………This is a story to be told in another discussion, as it is another very important component of understanding body awareness. However it is worth pointing out that the more you have practiced the “no pain no gain” attitude when doing any activity, the less your body will “trust” you, and the more likely you will become a couch potato. That is the way the body subtly influences you unknowingly, so you stop hurting it.

Moving and the breath.

Another significant, but far more subtle aspect of your breath, is which phase your breathing is in (i.e. inward, outward, hold pause or release pause) when you are moving. Nearly everyone breathes in when they are raising their hand above their head with a straight arm, or lifting/raising their foot with a straight leg, and breathing out when lowering the hand or foot. This is again an example of the fight or flight response where the body is responding to the potential of harm of the perceived higher-level of work being required. For many movements initially you start with the same phase of your breath.

Unfortunately, some yoga teachers actually instruct when to breathe in and out. This may be fine for beginner students to ensure they are breathing, although getting them to be aware, as stated earlier, gives the greater long term benefit to the student. However doing it at other levels is just reinforcing unnecessary habit and the body does not learn to trust fully. It also minimises your movement options, or certainly decreases the gaining of movement options. Your breath inclination could be different to the instruction at the time.

The yoga room needs to become a place of trust, initially for the mind and closely following for the body, by your right actions. This is all part of developing that inner truthfulness (Satya) that most students (in my experience) do not have initially.  This is why it is of paramount importance not to make your body have any form of pain in your yoga class (and also in your normal daily living).

As the body develops trust in how you treat it, then you can start to change your breath patterns. Where you always breathed in in a particular part of a posture, now you learn to breathe out. It is impossible to initially separate habit from trust. This helps improve the body trust further, and it (and you) can become significantly more relaxed. When you get to the stage that you do not need to think about how to change the breath pattern then it is another important step.

With awareness of this story then you can understand the mind/body relationship more by noticing which phase of the breath is dominant for particular movements for this time in your yoga practice, as it often reflects your day before the class began.

The Sigh with stretching.

There are two types of stretching which can be called: natural stretching and yoga stretching.

With natural stretching, which you may do before you get out of bed or loosing up an achy back after lots of bending over etc., as part of the stretch we generally inwardly hold our breath and release the breath in a rush. However in yoga as you develop your breath awareness, you continue to breathe while doing stretches (unless as part of your yoga practice, it is your intent to do this form of stretch, for a particular reason).

When doing stretches of the limbs, it is relatively easy to know that you are actually doing a stretch.

This is not the case when doing a stretch (which includes twists) involving the trunk and neck. Many students actually have difficulty in knowing the difference between bending and stretching, until they are made aware. It is important to know the difference as stretching is vastly superior to bending for a variety of reasons. (See previous Article 1 on: Why is it important to know the difference between a bend and a stretch in your yoga practice?).

Unlike finishing a natural stretch with a release of breath, finishing a yoga stretch will create a “sigh” (an intake of breath, larger than your normal inward breath).  So notice if you “sigh” after you have done what you think is a stretch in your practice. It is certain you achieved a stretch, otherwise you need to change what you are currently doing.

Do you do abdominal Breathing?

Many students do not understand how breathing works, and saying/asking if you are doing abdominal breathing can cause further confusion. The actual expansion of the abdomen with the inward breath and contraction with the outward breath is the visible result of our diaphragmatic muscle functioning effectively and efficiently which reflects for our whole body, minimising our energy requirements and making us automatically more physically relaxed. It is this muscle that enables us to breathe, and combined with our heart muscles, are the two most important muscles we have. No breath: you’re dead, no beat: you’re dead.

Most students (and the general population) do not abdominally breathe. If you are not breathing this way, then it is essential to learn how to do abdominal breathing for any and all activities that you do, not just for yoga. Any other form of breathing is basically an indicator or past/current stressors in your life, and relearning to breathe correctly can be a significant step towards relieving that accumulated stress held in your body.

Your Breathing Rate.

Your rate of breathing is an excellent, and one of the most important indicators, of your physical and mental health and level of stressors in your life. The rate of breath is measured as the number of breaths per minute. The rate of breath discussed here is only for adults, as both children and adolescents do naturally have faster rates of breath.

Basically the slower your breath the better off you are.

The literature shows a wide range of what is considered a “normal” breath rate, generally ranging from 12 to 15 breaths per minute. Remember that most would not be abdominally breathing. It is interesting to note that older medical texts had rates between 8 to 10 breaths per minute, and modern texts/observations showing the general rate increasing above 15 breaths per minute, which I would interpret as a sign of our western lifestyle increasing stress levels.

If your rate is above 15 then you need to take steps to slow your breath down. If it is 20+ then you have problems that need to be addressed as soon as possible. If close to or above 30 then you should already be with a doctor.

Your breath rate therefor is your best indicator of how relaxed you are and the slowness of your breath is your best indicator of your health level. Learning to abdominally breathe alone should decrease your breath rate, possibly 20% to 40% less.

In a yoga class, if you are relaxing in a prone position, your natural rate should go down to between 3 to 5 breaths per minute. If you are sitting in meditation your natural rate could go down to between 4 to 6 breaths per minute, and if you are holding or moving in postures then between 4 to 8 breaths per minute.

Out in your world, with just general activity (but not aerobic activity eg. running) the rate could be from 6 to 10 breaths per minute. To achieve this however requires many life style changes which are well known to yoga practitioners, but require continual application to be effective.

The deliberate practice of pranayama can decrease these rates further, but that requires careful long term training and supervision of an experienced teacher. Otherwise forcing your breath to change rates can be very risky and can actually cause you harm.

So how do you help yourself?

You actually only need to be able to do three things: all deceptively easy.

1. Be aware of your breath.
2. When aware of your breath, concentrate on it.
3. Remember the signs of the pattern changes of your breath.

The ability to be aware and to concentrate are foundation skills for any yoga practice, and like all skills, the only way you improve and develop is to practice, practice, practice.

If you want to learn more, please come.

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