Learn To Breath Efficiently

This short lecture will teach you how to breathe efficiently and effectively, whereby your oxygen saturation should go up and therefore your energy. Correct breathing should also make you feel relaxed and may have many other positive benefits, such as better sleep and digestion.

Transcript

One of the most important things that we can learn in our life is how to breathe correctly.

The reason for this is our breath dramatically affects our energy levels,

And of course it also has a very strong effect on the mind itself.

Breathing is something that is done naturally,

But of course,

As with everything,

There are ways to make it more efficient and a bit better.

In terms of learning how to breathe,

We can see that there are various array of techniques from a various array of cultures,

Arts,

And scientific research journals throughout the world.

Even though there is specific breathing techniques for certain illnesses and certain ailments,

In the end though,

We want to know what is the general way of breathing or the correct way of breathing most efficiently.

To find this technique,

We have to ask ourselves,

Who do we go to?

It is quite clear that throughout history,

There has been one group of people that has focused on breathing for probably about 2,

500 years.

The original breathing that came out of India was actually with the Jains,

Where Jainism taught people to simply hold their breath.

Then Buddha came along and changed the idea of Jainism and taught people to observe the breath and not interfere with it.

Much later came various other techniques when the Yogis came along and introduced pranayama.

In the end,

The ultimate goal of a Yogi was actually quite simple.

How long,

Slow,

Steady,

And soft could you make your in and out breath?

For example,

A very famous yoga master by the name of Krishnamacharya,

At 101 years old,

It was said that he actually breathed out for two minutes when he did an Om chant.

At 101 years old,

His out breath was two minutes.

This was the ultimate long-term goal in yoga.

Some people say that you should aim for a minimum of 30 seconds in and 30 seconds out,

Which means that you're taking one breath per minute.

Here we must be aware that this takes years and years and years of dedicated training.

Here,

The important thing is just to recognize what their ultimate goal was.

The other area we can go to is look at modern science and what universities such as the University of Harvard teaches,

Actually the University of Harvard Medical School teaches in the way that one should breathe correctly.

Combining them together,

We start to find that certain groups of people such as those students who came from Desikachar and Krishnamacharya,

That they really combine the idea of breathing with science and experience.

Therefore,

This breathing that is taught is based upon their teachings.

Here we must realize that all that will be covered in this little lecture is how to breathe naturally and effectively,

And really in many ways how not to breathe or what incorrect breathing is.

The first step is we want to make sure that we are doing natural breathing and not reverse breathing.

Reverse breathing is when you hold your abdomen tight and then you try to breathe.

Natural breathing is when you relax your abdomen when you take a breath in or when you take a breath out.

Reverse breathing,

Of course,

Has many problems with it.

When you are squeezing your abdomen tight and you're breathing in,

You do not allow your diaphragm to descend naturally.

It appears as though in the long term,

This type of tight abdomen breathing causes a various array of problems that may end up being related to the heart,

The eye,

The ear,

The stomach,

Or even in more serious cases,

The vagus nerve.

We must remember,

Relax the stomach.

Step one,

Relax the stomach.

This point is so important that it can be re-interrated again and again.

When you're learning to breathe properly,

Relax your stomach.

The second step is partial breathing versus complete breathing.

Partial breathing refers to when somebody is only breathing with their chest or only breathing with their abdomen.

So in some schools of breathing,

They say only breathe with your abdomen and make sure there is no movement with your chest.

This is actually techniques that are taught.

It's the same as some schools actually teach that you should hold your abdomen in when you're breathing.

The only time you should really hold your abdomen in is when you are doing some form of exercise such as lifting up something heavy.

So going back to partial breathing versus complete breathing,

Partial breathing again means you're only using your chest to breathe or you're only using your abdomen.

Now if you're only using your abdomen to breathe,

In this case your diaphragm is descending but you're not getting the proper expansion of the lungs and the chest,

Which means that you are partially using a section of your lungs.

It is the same thing with your chest.

When you're breathing with your chest,

You're not getting the scent of the abdomen,

Therefore you're only partially using your lungs.

So when you breathe,

You need to have complete breathing,

Which means you are breathing in with both the chest and the abdomen together,

Not one in isolation.

And if you were to look at any 3D animation of the way the lungs move,

This makes perfect sense.

You'll see the lungs open up by which the diaphragm descends,

Therefore they should be both movement in the chest and in the abdomen.

Now some people say look at a baby and they only move their abdomen when they breathe.

This actually is just simply not true.

If you observe a baby breathing,

You will see that both the chest and the abdomen move together.

The third step is what is known as efficient breathing.

So once we've got this idea that we should not be doing partial breathing and we should be doing chest and abdomen breathing,

We can either do what is known as bucket breathing or secondly what is known as balloon breathing.

So bucket breathing means when you breathe in and your chest moves first and then your abdomen.

Balloon breathing is when your abdomen moves first and then your chest.

So here we've got two different types of breathing that are both correct.

In yoga they say generally that you should go chest to abdomen and not abdomen to chest.

They recommend that balloon breathing,

The abdomen to chest,

Is far better for people such as singers.

So what we can do now is we can practice this where you put one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen and now you gently – all breathing training should be done slow and gently and softly because we have to remember here that the art of what becomes breathing is more slow,

More steady,

More long,

And allow this to happen very slowly,

Very gently.

Never any strain,

Never any pushing,

Never any intensity.

It's meant to be very,

Very gentle.

So hand on chest,

Hand on abdomen.

Now let's take a breath in slowly,

Out,

In,

Out.

So you'll notice that the chest and the abdomen both move.

What's important here to note is that the breathing,

Unless it is done for special reason,

The breathing is always done in the nose and out the nose and in the nose and out the nose.

You never use your mouth to breathe in and you never use your mouth to breathe out unless it's in a very specific scenario.

So most yoga techniques of which there is a fairly large array,

All they are doing is creating techniques that generally allow the breath to be longer in and longer out.

But this is something that one,

Again,

Should practice very slowly for a very long time.

And really if you want to do that,

You should find an instructor because breathing techniques are always best taught under an instructor.

But what we've taught here with the efficient breathing is just – this is just the natural way to breathe.

So when you have time and you're sitting around,

Gently breathe in,

Feel your chest move slightly,

Then your abdomen,

Then just breathe out naturally.

And then you find some time again,

Breathe in,

Feel the chest move and the abdomen move and breathe out.

So in yoga,

They always say when you are anxious and nervous and irritated,

You should make the breath out always longer.

When you feel like you need to be energized,

Then the breath in is – can give you more energy.

In the same token,

They always say that in general though,

The out breath should always be longer than the in breath.

So let's just go over this one last time here.

So what we're aiming to do is no tight abdomen,

Relax the abdomen.

Number two,

Not only chest or abdomen movement,

Both moving.

And then number three,

Where we actually practice,

We breathe in very gently and very slowly and with our own capacity,

We breathe in,

We feel the chest move and then the abdomen and then we breathe out.

And if you actually test this with an oximeter,

Which I've actually done,

You'll see when you start breathing like this,

Your oxygen saturation level goes up.

When you breathe with a tight abdomen or you breathe with only the chest by itself or with the abdomen by itself,

You will notice that your oxygen saturation is much lower.

I hope this helps you and remember,

Always gentle,

Always soft,

Always slow and this is just a simple method of basically allowing us and reminding ourselves that we breathe with the chest and the abdomen with no tension.

And the other last thing which I forgot to mention is when we do this,

Your spine should always be perfectly straight.

Reviews

Very informative, thank you 🌹🌹

thank you for this lesson