Breathing
How are you breathing as you read this? Bring your attention to air flowing in through your nostrils, past the back of your mouth, your throat, your windpipe, and into your lungs. Which parts of you get larger as you breathe in? Which parts get smaller? What about as you breathe out?
Were you able simply to observe yourself in the act of breathing, or did you find yourself changing something once you started observing? Often we have some pre-conceived notion of what 'good' breathing is. It pays to spend time simply observing, to know yourself as well as possible, before making any change.
Go back to paying attention to your breathing. Is more air flowing in your left or your right nostril? Are you expanding your belly or your chest more? Which ribs are participating in the movement, and which parts of those ribs - back, side, front?
All breathing is movement. Even if it's a tiny, shallow breath that's invisible to an observer, the movement is still discernable from within. As a principle, breathing is most efficient when the work of breathing is generalised - not constrained to one part (for example, the upper chest) but using all directions for the lungs to expand - up, down, front, back, and sideways. We don't have nerves in our lungs but we do feel their movement from the nerves we have in the fascia and muscles that surround them. Notice as you breathe which parts of your lungs are more mobile and less mobile.
Breathing is complex. When we're not paying attention, it carries on as an involuntary function. When we want, our conscious mind can take over and regulate breathing.
Breathing also operates on different levels:
It has a physiological function - to bring air into the lungs so that oxygen van be absorbed into the blood and CO2 expelled. The lungs are elastic, and the more we can expand and contract them the greater our system's capacity to do physical work.
It has a biomechanical function, because the muscles that enable expansion and contraction of the lungs - chiefly muscles of the diaphragm, the intercostals, and muscles of the back, the belly, the chest - also serve functional movements we make in life. For example, turning your head and shoulders to face the side requires a different internal organization if you do it while breathing in than while breathing out.
It has a function in emotional regulation, because of the close connection between the action of breathing and the autonomic (unconscious) nervous system. When we are fully present and 'in flow', our breathing is unimpeded. But the slightest stress can cause a change. Even the act of concentrating on a delicate task - think of threading a needle - can cause us to hold our breath. The higher the stress, the more it affects breathing, reducing mobility in face, neck, chest, back, and belly.
Particular problems arise if through habitual stress or anxiety we keep certain parts of ourself immobile over long period of time. Then we lose the knowledge of how to move in those places. This impedes our performance in movement. When it comes to breathing, that means not using our lungs fully, which can have knock-on on our whole system.
The good news is we can break long-held patterns which limit us, and re-discover a wider range of movement. Practicing the Feldenkrais Method (or other bodywork discipline with the emphasis on paying detailed attention to yourself) is a great start. The Feldenkrais Method is not specifically focused on breathing but includes breathing in its complete view of human feeling, sensing, moving and doing. Almost every lesson includes attention to how breathing influences movement, so we can re-learn how breathing can work in support of whatever action we want to take in the world.
When do you notice your breathing? Please leave a comment.