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On Breathing: A Few Words About the Most Important Thing in Your Life

 

By Admin

 

Do you ever stop to think about how you are breathing? Like a lot of things, we only notice our respiration habits when there are problems. But how we breathe affects our health, our attitude, and even our lifespan. And for those with sleep apnea, breathing is even more of a concern, affecting sleep and health on a daily basis. With this in mind, here are a few thoughts and suggestions about how you can learn to discipline your breathing in the direction of better health, better sleep, and a longer life.

Personal Training and Fitness

Just about every sports training or fitness exercise involves attention to breathing. This is because how you breathe effects performance, and proper deep breaths help to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. The muscles depend on this process, as the oxygen taken in is transferred directly to the muscles as energy for movement. But even if you’re not moving, deep or complete breaths help to sustain bodily systems, encouraging everything from proper digestion to mental acuity and even slowed aging. “There is nothing more important than breathing,” says Greg Brooks, founder of the GB-Personal Training website. The most important first step, according to Brooks, is the use of the diaphragm. Due to our active lifestyles and unhealthy breathing habits, most of us have to relearn this once natural method of breathing. Brooks uses the example of infants, who breathe naturally with their bellies pushing out and in, each breath resting upon their diaphragms. “This forces the belly out and draws oxygen in as the ribcage expands,” writes Brooks. Shallow breathing, orchest breathing,” is much more common in adults. This type of breathing draws in less oxygen and strains the diaphragm as well as the upper back, neck, and shoulders. And equally as important is the stress response that it creates. Each of these shallow breaths affects the nervous system, and over prolonged periods can disrupt neural pathways and damage the body's immune system. Deep breathing is also called Diaphragmatic breathing, or Eupnea, which is the natural breathing state of all mammals. This diaphragmatic breathing is noticeable in animals in the same way that it is in humans. The chest does not rise, but the belly expands. For animals, this occurs when there is no present danger, but with humans the stress responses of daily life tend to follow us home. Breathing control can actually reduce or even eliminate those residual stress responses that can keep us awake and unrelaxed. Through a process called neuroplasticity, the chemistry of the brain is actually altered by the change in breathing patterns, creating a calming effect that can last through the night.

Physical Therapy and the Buteyko Method

The diaphragm is the muscle beneath the ribcage that contracts to fill the lungs with air. The muscles around the diaphragm and lungs — the intercostals, subcostals, scalenes, pecs, and abs— are sometimes referred to as breathing muscles or respiratory muscles. When asthma, sleep apnea, or muscle soreness is an issue, therapists will often recommend the Buteyko Method. This technique emphasizes nasal breathing in order to unblock the nasal passage and reduce the volume of exhalations, as well as breathing pauses and relaxation to develop control over symptoms. Buteyko exercises, along with other physical therapies such as the massaging of breathing muscles, can greatly reduce snoring and sleep apnea episodes. Of course, your choice of mask and/or settings may affect how you recieve air pressure during therapy. To make things easier, you can begin your breathing exercises before initiating the PAP therapy for sleep. And as you become more comfortable with the exercises, slowly incorporate them into your PAP routine.

Pranayama and Yogic Exercises

Yogic breathing exercises, called Pranayama, are performed with great emphasis on breath as the “Life Force” giving us energy every second of our lives. There are a number of breathing exercises in the yogic tradition, but most begin with slower or deeper breathing to trigger the relaxation response. This balances the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and when practiced before bed, can facilitate the shift from the beta state, our conscious state of awakeness, to the alpha and theta states of sleep onset. Yoga practice demands attention to passing thoughts as well as to breathing. It is easy to lose focus, and releasing your mind from stressful thoughts is part of the discipline. Swami Rama, the founder of the Himalayan Institute, begins one of his Yoga International lessons by saying, “You can start by attending to your breath, and then if a thought comes, attend to it, notice it, be open to it—and it will pass. Then you can come back to the breath…Pranayama teaches you to attend to what is taking place within without reacting, and this makes all the difference.”

Mindfulness and the Martial Arts

Martial arts such as tai chi, quigong, and Shaolin kung fu focus heavily on breathing techniques as a starting point for mind-body disciplines and increased awareness. The practice of Mushin, or mind without thought (no precise English translation) is sought in everyday life as a “path” of existence. In regard to breathing exercises, these traditions offer extremely disciplined methods of breath control. According to both eastern and western medical traditions, the body and mind are always trying to maintain equilibrium. During normal inhalation, blood is drawn from the heart to the lungs, naturally depleting blood flow in some areas of the extremities. The heart speeds up to compensate for this depletion by pushing harder to those areas. During exhalation, blood returns from the lungs and the heart again slows. This is the relationship between respiration, the heart, and oxygen levels in the body, including the brain. But when less oxygen is taken in with short or shallow breathing, the entire process is strained and limited. For the fighter, who counts on active bursts of energy, this balance of breath and energy is absolutely crucial. This is why practitioners of the martial arts must master breathing first before even considering the other powers to come. The philosophy of mindfulness is one of increased awareness. Breathing deeper or slower will help, but actually being aware of each breath, how it feels, how the muscles relax into a natural position; this is mindfulness. Eventually, the goal is to make proper breathing involuntary and natural, just as it was in your infancy, but with the added benefit of heightened levels of awareness. You don’t have to train in the martial arts to realize the benefits of basic breathing exercises. Just as in yoga, fitness, and the Buteyko method, it begins with a single deep breath. And the rest is up to you.

Meditation During CPAP Therapy

According to the CPAP Clinic online, “combining meditation practices with CPAP therapy is a growing trend.” While approaches vary, there is no evidence suggesting that the combination is anything but beneficial. The CPAP Clinic recommends that patients start with some basic meditations before using CPAP to sleep. But meditation is also possible during CPAP therapy, a practice that leads not only to improved health, but also to increased compliance. One study back in 2000 introduced the idea that practicing meditation and breathing techniques effectively increases levels of melatonin, a hormone that induces sleep patterns, and serotonin, a calming hormone contributing to pleasure responses and mood improvements. Both of these hormones play a crucial role in sleep onset, and for those using CPAP, can increase comfort and help sustain a deeper state of sleep. These changes in the brain can be short term or long term, depending on a patient’s effort, duration, and development of the techniques. As with every other discipline mentioned, meditation will not change your life overnight, but even the smallest amount of effort will make a difference.

Start Simple

Many of the disciplines I mention here involve much more than breathing exercises, but it is important to note that virtually all of them begin and end with a focus on breathing. At the same time, much of the scientific literature on these arts and exercises highlights the effects of breath control as their highest reward. The reason for this is that breathing is one vital bodily system that we can influence with little effort. And with sustained, disciplined effort over a significant length of time, the rewards can be invaluable. For CPAP patients, these breathing techniques can be very easily adjusted to accommodate specific therapy devices and settings. All you have to do is make conscious breathing a part of your routine. Next time you lay in bed readying yourself for therapy, close your eyes, position yourself, and breathe with your abdomen, allowing your belly to expand on inhalation and contract on exhalation. Once complete, relax and repeat. You'll be taking your first step toward mindful breathing.  

 

Sources

Breathe Simple - https://breathesimple.com/blogb/brain-change/

———. - https://breathesimple.com/blogb/neuroplasticity-and-breathing/

Conscious Lifestyle - https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/benefits-of-breathing-deeply/

———. - https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/telomeres-and-aging/

CPAP Clinic - https://www.cpapclinic.ca/cpap-sleep-apnea/2015/06/meditation-harmful-cpap-users/

GB-Personal Training - https://www.gbpersonaltraining.com/7-things-you-need-to-understand-about-breathing/

Ancient Science of Life - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4769029/

One Medical Group - https://www.onemedical.com/blogb/live-well/breathing-pranayama-techniques/

Yoga International - https://yogainternational.com/article/view/the-real-meaning-of-meditation