A Note on Breath

There is research indicating that animals who breathe slowly tend to live longer, while animals that breathe rapidly tend to live shorter lives. Elephants, whales and tortoises tend to have long lives- the breath of these animals is also slow and sustained. Contrarily, the lives of animals with rabid breath (dogs, rabbits) tend to be short. Studies from the National Institute on Aging suggests that in humans, slow breath (defined as 6 breaths per minute) can help to lower blood pressure, relieve mental stress and anxiety, increase circulation and break down salt in the body. This recent study is backed by hundreds of years of breath work and meditation. For centuries, human beings have been working with the natural rhythms of their breath to explore the mind-body connection.

Tantra and yoga and many other ancient Indian systems measure life in breath rather than in years. Perhaps you have heard old mythology suggesting that your life contains a certain number or measure of breaths, and when you run out of breaths, you reach death. Although there is no way to know how many breaths have been allotted to your life, the quality of your life can greatly be improved by dedicating attention to the quality of each of your breaths.

As you read this right now, you are breathing. It is necessarily so that if you live, you are breathing. Breath is more than a habit. It is completely embedded in your body. From the moment you exited your mother's womb, you have been breathing. So although breath is more or less involuntary, there are habits about your breath that can be changed. For example, when people are asked to turn their attention to their breath, it is the ordinary habit of most human beings to emphasize the incoming breath rather than the outgoing breath. Perhaps psychologically, human beings have an inclination to live. The incoming breath indicates life, oxygen and consumption, while the outgoing breath indicates emptiness, loss and death.

Yoga and many other philosophies emphasize a cycle of life. In order for birth and newness, there must be death and the end of the old. In your body, the clearing way for the new is represented in your exhale.

Try it. On your next exhale, fully empty your lungs. Press the air out of your body. Slightly constrict the back of your throat and exhale through your nose to slow the process of the exhale. Only once you have fully reached the bottom of your exhale, allow a new inhale to create itself from the emptiness of the old.

More than any physical shape or posture you can discover with your body, your breath is your yoga. Although there will be much more time devoted to studying breath here, I wanted to briefly share with you the meaning of my website's title. It is out of the old that the new is born. Only when you clear away what no longer serves you can you create your new potential. First, exhale. Out of the exhale, find your new breath.

Exhale. Inhale. Yoga.