Most people never think consciously about their breathing in their everyday life.
You may never take the time to consider how you breathe and the effects of the way you breathe into the world.
Poor breathing has the following effects:
The brain has the incorrect levels of oxygen and does not function well
Your body becomes hypoxic (low oxygen levels) and infection spreads
You hyperventilate, take in too much oxygen and begin to panic
The quality of sleep deteriorates and you are constantly tired
You experience depression, anxiety, nightmares, anger and become intolerant and irrational
Your strength and memory begin to suffer
You were more than likely herded into bad breathing habits as a child.
You parents did not train you to breathe well and they have probably never thought about their own breathing.
At school you spent too much time slouched over desks or pushing your head towards a computer so your diaphragm was collapsed with your lungs not sufficiently expanding.
If you were trained as an athlete, dancer, classical singer, martial arts practitioner or grew up practicing yoga you were probably taught how to breathe.
Most people who are not trained in those disciplines have poor breathing habits.
Many people who were trained to breathe abandon the principles of breathing they were taught, as they get older.
For me as dancer and singer, everything was about breathing.
If you launch yourself up onto the points of your feet – as you can see in the video below of my latest performance at King St Wharf in Sydney – or have to hold a sustained a note, you must first be sure you will have enough breath to support what you are doing.
Did you know the current world record for voluntarily holding of breath (by a male) is Aleix Segura Vendrell of Barcelona at 24 minutes and 3 seconds?
Wim Hof, known as the ice man, uses a form of Tibetan breathing meditation called Tummo. He can sit in bath of ice for 112 minutes without his core temperature changing.
Indian yogis have been shown to have the ability to enter a voluntary hypometabolism state of hibernation. They meditate, slow their heart and breathing down and display lower peripheral tissue temperatures.
Mental and emotional disturbances all have their own breathing patterns that maintain those experiences.
When you change your breathing pattern, as well as your thoughts, it breaks the state of dysfunction. That change can happen fast with the right training.
When you breathe well it oxygenates your body, helping to fight infection and cancer and moves stagnated body fluids along. This is why hospitals use hyperbolic chambers to load the blood with oxygen.
Many people, however, want to hold onto their pain and suffering.
Are you living from a place of fear and would rather hold tight to the pain you know than venture into the unknown?
Here’s the thing: Life is all about the unknown. None of us know our future. We plan and execute those plans to the best of our abilities, but in reality, we must all jump into the future or hang on to the misfortunes of today.
In my practice I use hypnotherapy to assist you to reprogram your breathing to help you overcome a range of physical and mental problems.
