17 March

I’m convinced most high blood pressure is a combination of two things. The inability to measure it without involving the person being measured. And bad breathing. Bad breathing raises blood pressure. Most people breathe badly. How to breathe well? Stop trying to do it. Breathing is perfectly fluid and deep and measured, if you leave it alone. But we constantly interfere with the free flow of breath, by interfering with our bodies in general. We ‘hold’ our breath. Really that holding it in a vice is the tightening of our whole bodies, which are out of balance with gravity, and so muscles grip to keep you from falling over. The illusion that we’re constantly pulled down by gravity (gravity pushes you up, it doesn’t pull you down) causes us to try to hold ourselves up, and to make effort to do things, all day, every day. It tightens our entire bodies. And raises our blood pressure.