Breathe the Correct Way

Hello again, now I want to tell you about something about breathing that I should have told you in the very beginning. It’s about how to breathe. I’ll give the procedures to check whether your breathing is in the correct way or not and then to how to make it the correct way.

PROCEDURE TO CHECK WHETHER YOU ARE BREATHING CORRECTLY

Though this can explain good breathing, note
that you needn't move your chest as shown  here.

1. Observe how you breathe. You are taking the air in through your nostrils... They travel up the length of the nose... Travel down to your lungs... Good.

2. Now observe your stomach. Are they expanding? Well and good. Congratulations. You are breathing correctly. You are one in a 1000 or rarer. You needn’t proceed.

But if your stomach is not expanding, read on...

3. Observe your chest. Are they expanding or are you lifting your chest or shoulders up? Your chest is not meant to move during this wonderful process.

(If you are impatient to read the reasons and stuff, scroll to go see the procedure to correct your breathing.)

WHY CAN’T I MOVE MY CHEST?

It’s a good question. We have our ‘Thoracic Diaphragm’ in the underside of the chest to separate chest from the abdominal cavity. These skeletal-muscles perform respiration. During inhalation, they are designed to push downwards (to the abdominal cavity). This creates suction that draws air.

When air is drawn, when you breathe the wrong way, your rib cage expands. When air is drawn, when you breathe the correct way, your stomach expands. Now ask yourself. Which can expand more – stomach or rib cage? By simple logic we can say, it’s the stomach.

So when you practice the correct way, your lungs will get more space in the underside and so it can expand and grow a lot. This helps you use the unused alveolar cells in your lungs.

Did You Know...

1. A normal adult's lungs have about 6 x 10⁹ cells of which a person who is not a Yogi normally uses only one-third of it?

2.  Deep, Slow Breathing is believed to increase your lifetime?

3. Tortoises breath in a very, very slow rate? Not only their breathing, but many bodily functions are slow. And their lifetime is 120+ years. 

PROOF

Watch a baby. It breathes the correct way because they didn't make it wrong. It is the daily situations that lead to us to breathe the wrong way. For example, when someone scares you suddenly you'll have a sudden intake of air - in the wrong way. The 'hangover' of the scary incident influences us for long time that we breathe the wrong way. Another example: When we are small kids, we climb up things like windows and remember when our Mother sees us, is frightened of our safety that she makes a cry or call us. This has the same impact of someone scaring us. And such incidents train our body to breathe the wrong way.

PROCEDURE TO CORRECT YOUR BREATHING

(You can’t correct your way of breathing which is wrongly programmed since a long time in a single session. You have to do these corrective steps whenever you can do re-program and retrain yourself.)

1. Exhale all the air from the lungs.

2. Inhale deeply through nostrils. Now feel the air going down to your lungs.

3. Visualise your lungs expanding downwards. Consciously, don’t expand your chest.

4. Give way for your stomach to expand. And you’ll see it expand practically.

5. Exhale all the air out through nostrils. Feel the air going out from your lungs.

6. Visualise the lungs contract from the underside.

7. Consciously contract your stomach.

8. Repeat steps 2-7 for as long as you wish.

NB: Do steps 2, 3, 4 simultaneously. Do steps 5, 6, 7 simultaneously.

In the beginning you'll feel as if you are getting only lesser air. OK. You'll get good at it and your lungs will grow soon. And you'll get air like never before.

Remember to do this as long as you can, whenever and wherever you can. 

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