Breath: The Missing Pillar of Health
Earlier this month I committed to 100 days of breathwork to explore its impact on my mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.
As someone who has dealt with chronic migraines for the last decade, I have frequently used breathwork and meditation as a form of pain relief and preventative self-care but I hadn’t done a deep dive. This is the first step on that journey. I’m on day 23 of exploring different types of breathwork for 45-60 minutes a day and so far the benefits have been manyfold:
I feel more relaxed and grounded.
I see a slight improvement in my memory.
I get fewer headaches.
I get brilliant insights during breathwork sessions.
Breathwork unblocks stuck energy in me and I enjoy actively feeling energy flowing and vibrating through me.
I sleep better.
It is adventurous and fun!
As part of this project I read the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor. In it Nestor argues that breath is the missing pillar of health today, that 90% of us are breathing incorrectly and that many modern maladies such as anxiety, ADHD, asthma, psoriasis and more could be reduced or reversed by changing how we inhale or exhale.
It was an interesting read. Some of the assertions were based on science and some anecdotal. He basically encourages us to take our breath seriously and optimize it by focusing on these principals:
Close your mouth: Chronic mouthbreating is terrible for our health. Most of us unconsciously breathe through our mouths most of the day and night. (Among the health issues he reported were congestion, snoring, apnea, fatigue, anxiety, high blood pressure, decrease in heart rate variability, cognitive problems, constant bathroom breaks, stomach aches, etc.)
Breathe through your nose: Slowly inhale through your nose, into your belly and exhale through your nose.
Fully exhale: Make sure you fully exhale so you can take more in. Your exhales should be longer than your inhales.
Chew: Don’t eat a soft and processed food diet. You want a diet that requires 1-2 hours of “hard” chewing a day to develop the bones of your face and jaw to develop a bigger and wider face structure that allows you to breathe easier. (He goes into a lot of detail on how orthodontics have messed our mouths up and often made them too small these days causing apnea and breathing issues).
Breathe more, on occasion: Feeding the body too much oxygen is not healthy and most of us over-breathe already. But overbreathing exercises like Tummo breathwork can be therapeutic by disrupting the system out of a funk.
More carbon dioxide: Everyone talks about our need for oxygen but what our bodies really require to function properly is more carbon dioxide. Optimal breathing isn’t about oxygen per se (which most of us overbreathers have enough of), it's about getting enough carbon dioxide to push the oxygen out of the hemoglobin (which each have room for 4 oxygen molecules) into the cells that need it.
Breathe less: To get more carbon dioxide in your body you need to breathe less. It takes some training, just like when you cut back on overeating and overdrinking. The key to optimal breathing is to practice fewer inhales and exhales in smaller volume (not necessarily breathing slower). Just take in less with each breath.
Oral posture: The proper posture for your mouth is to keep it gently shut, lips together with your tongue resting on the roof of your mouth. Also, your body's upper body posture should make a J-shape instead of an S-shape.
Curious if you are overbreathing? Indicators include breathing through your mouth during the day or night, seeing your chest rise and fall as you breathe and snoring. The fix includes breathing through your nose, into your belly, with a long exhale through your nose.
Well that's a wrap on the book. I’ll be experimenting with some of his recommendations to see how it benefits my body over the coming months, including gently tapping the mouth shut at night to get a better night’s sleep. Apparently that is a popular thing to do. Who knew?!
Let me know what resonated with you. Also, if breathwork is a part of your life, I’d love to hear how.
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