22 August

We habitually ‘hold’ our breath. Breathing is in many ways the key indicator of our overall health. Modern medicine is completely silent on how to help a person breathe well. It will treat the symptoms of poor breathing. The key to breathing well is to let it happen all by itself. Much easier said than done. We have to give up the idea that we DO the breathing. Breathing is an automatic process, and a process that reflects our degree of engagement with the world around us. Breathing in physical terms is air being PUSHED into your lungs, by atmospheric pressure. Not you ‘sucking’ it in. It’s then pushed out of your body again by the elastic rebound of your body, your ribs and diaphragm and everything connected to them (which is all the rest of you). When I say people ‘hold’ their breath, it means interference in any of this automatic process. So how do you let this all work well? By not trying to do any of it. Take your attention out into what you’re doing, and keep it there. Don’t be inside your body trying to hold yourself up, or release tension, or doing ‘deep breathing’, or stretching. None of that. Just pay attention to what you’re doing, out in the world. That will give you the most profound deep breathing, and excellent health.