Sunday, October 03, 2010

"Breathe"


In November 1966 a Japanese artist exhibiting her work at a London gallery gave one member of her audience a card, written on it was one word – “Breathe”.    

I am of course talking about how Yoko Ono first met John Lennon at a preview showing of her art work, and the rest as they say is truly history.    Yoko’s little instruction/reminder to John couldn’t be more relevant for all of us in today’s hectic modern living.    Breathing is the lifeblood of our existence and the most natural thing to do in the world.     It is innate and universal.     So far so obvious!      And yet it is precisely the obviousness of it that has led to its neglect in our emotional lives.  Breathing is abundantly powerful if we learn to properly utilise it.     It can become a tool to be used anywhere anytime and can change our physical sensations in moments.      This is because breathing is connected to our thoughts and our feelings and automatically aligns itself with even the tiniest nuances of our mood.      In this respect it’s not entirely dissimilar to a seismograph machine which also is an instrument so finely attuned to detect and measure (e)motion.     

The pattern of our breathing or indeed lack of pattern, in the case of erratic breath, is telling us how we are and what’s going on for us.      Whether we take in short shallow breaths or long deeper ones we are relating to the world in such a way that our body thinks it needs to in that moment.     But in actual fact it’s also at that moment where we can help our bodies the most by remembering to make good use of our breath when we really need it.      For instance when we’re doing something strenuous or being confronted with a painful situation it’s quite likely that we will hold our breath whether we’re aware of it or not and yet what we should be doing is just the opposite.    This takes some practice as I don’t believe it’s a very instinctive thing to do but if we can train ourselves to do it we will feel the benefits and so will those around us.    

By remembering to breathe in a certain way at the right time we will be able to manage difficult experiences more effectively.    Those times where we feel we can’t take on any more information (cognitive or emotional) our breath will probably be quite brief and shallow as though even the air is a heavy burden but again that’s when we need to activate the deep breathing more so.      For example when we have too many thoughts spinning around in our head jumping from one thread to another (very common when feeling anxious) if we stop what we are currently doing, remain as still as possible, close our eyes and take in a long slow deep breath, in through the nose out through the mouth, and repeat the breathing five times it will slow down if not dissolve the busyness in our mind and help us focus.      Focusing on our breath takes the attention away from elsewhere and gives us that breathing space (even the pun is obvious) to come back into our body again - something that gets out of sync very quickly during times of intense anxiety; the out of body experience of groundlessness for instance.    Focussed breathing where we are aware of our breath immediately connects us back to the ground and to the natural world serving as a reminder that every living thing around us is also breathing.       It is useful to be reminded of this unity now and then.       

The right sort of breathing can also help minimise and speed up the recovery from a panic attack.      I will be blogging about panic attacks as a separate post but just to say here that thinking our way out of a panic attack rarely works, as it is usually excessive thinking that has brought it on in the first place, instead we can help ourselves breathe out of it by again stopping everything, being still and in this case going outside and taking the long slow deep breaths in fresh air.      To take it a small step further try lying down in the park looking up at the open sky as you breathe in and out.      Breathing out by the way is just as important as breathing in yet a little more overlooked I think.      It is on the out breath where we hold our greatest strength and as anyone who goes to Pilates classes will know that the movements which require the most muscle are always synchronised with breathing out.     Breathing out in the case of those big sighs tells us that we’ve already used our strength and it was okay, that we’re alright now and got through it whatever that may be.      What a relief to breathe.....