Breathing ~ we barely are!

Breathing is something that we do naturally right?
~ Yes and no.

We shouldn't be taught how to breathe right?
~ Yes and no.

Why are there so many different  techniques and methods of how we should be breathing out there, surely there is only one way to breathe?


Well here is my experience and view point on breathing and the points above ;~

Well I used to struggle with breathing when running in the army, yeah you could say I was unfit, yet there were times I was fit, super fit, and yet my breathing was still poor!  (And my running technique was poor too, more about that another time!) So surely if your fit your breathing should be good, erm ............. turns out it can be a big NO!
So I found pilates and got taught how to breathe for the movements, in through the nose into the belly, exhaling through mouth as belly button and spine get closer to each other and was I breathing any better, turns out not really!
I then started Astanga Yoga classes and doing the "trying to hold the bandhas" which mainly consist of ;-
                                 " the Mūla Bandha, or root lock, is performed by tightening the muscles around the pelvic and perineum area. The Uḍḍīyāna Bandha, often described as bringing the navel to the base of the spine, is a contraction of the muscles of the lower abdominal area – this bandha is considered the most important bandha as it supports our breathing and encourages the development of strong core muscles." ~ From wiki.
So now with yoga when doing the postures, I should be holding me whatever and whatever it is called as the teacher says! Forget that! It blooming well lets go soon as I move, oh apart from the contraction of the belly inwards as I learned per pilates, as it is good for me it makes me stronger in the postures working my core, by holding my core supports me.

Still doing pilates and yoga, I discovered Transformational Breathing Technique. I went for a couple of sessions and then I went on 3 of the weekend courses. I got some release through the breath and taught myself with the aid of what is taught on the course to breathe into the belly first. So great I can now breathe into my belly easier, but I have to do this consciously with effort cos the truth is my body still does not want to start the breath from down there, I am fighting with my body and what I have already taught it is so much easier. So now I consciously practice transformational breathing technique often as I can to help my body become better, make my mind quiet (which it never does and I keep hoping it will!) and heal any emotional issues through breathing. So now I think I know more about how we should breathe and that is without any pauses, connectedley, so I apply this into yoga and pilates as I become more and more aware of how I am breathing and when I realise I am holding my breath!


I then go to a Divine Truth talk by AJ (Jesus) and Mary and I go up and ask a question about the fact I feel like I am heavily influenced by a spirit but no one else  can see it or think I have one in the woo woo spiritual healing world and it is stopping me progress with the Divine Love Path. So Jesus goes yup I can see her and yes she influencing you,  sudden realisations hit and a few more questions about my grandad and Jesus tells me just to breathe from belly it will help you connect to your feelings and release. Yay, so I am on the right track I know how to do that breathe into my belly, ok lets, oh bugger it isn't so easy............. but I trained myself to do it, just practice it will get easier I say to myself! (Also it is what I have said to others in my class too!)


So earlier this year (2013) I discover Douglas Heel with his Be Activated technique and attend the course to be a practitioner in it. So breathing is the first thing we work on, I proudly say I teach others how to breathe correctly through what I have learned, only for Doug to pull apart how pilates teachers breathe and that they teach breathing that causes the body to malfunction further than it already is!  That got me curious, as I already felt something was wrong with my pilates practice as I was suffering with neck issuesand  shoulder issues big time!
So basically holding this core and breathing the way taught in pilates further disengages the diaphragm than it already is functioning and causes you to breath laterally collaterally and hypercondriacally under the clavical (hyper-under, condria -rib cartilage.)
So Doug demonstrates how to activate the diaphragm and then with our course partner we get to have a go and ........ hmmmmm......something still did not feel right, it did not feel as easily as it looked when Doug demonstrated! So I go up and say I am still cheat breathing I have trained myself through transformational breathing to belly breath but it is an effort, and I am still doing that instead of it being naturally easy! So Doug gets me on the couch and then works on me and bam he finds the spot, getting me to hold my breath whilst he works on me, so I am holding on to my breath and listening to his instructions determined to hold it for as long as he tells me too, then I no longer can hold my breath in I gasp for air, Woohaha wait a minute oh my belly just relaxed and took the breath in naturally and easily. Oh wait wait wait Oh  WOW , seriously this is amazing  the first time my mind has shut up in ever, no trying it just went quiet, seriously now that is amazing for me everything else I have done has never ever got my mind/thoughts to shut up before and me relaxed, now this is just beautiful! So Oh WOW so this is what it feels like effortless breathing with the diaphragm working and the mind quiet, this is so much easier than all the other stuff I have learned, it is that simple to get the diaphragm to work and the belly to do the breathing first.

The diaphragm activation works by getting the electrical connections to fire up from the diaphragm to the brain to talk correctly through the neural pathways. I discovered after the course by continuing with pilates and the re-attending Doug's course again, that I had an ephiphany that I had not improved as much as I thought I had, ok my pilates teacher had noticed that my body and posture was looking so much better with me using the Be Activated techniques most days, but it was the fact whilst doing pilates I would have to keep re-activating points that were not holding, which means in my world something in pilates is not giving me benefit as the activations should hold and get  improvements with the right movements, whereas yoga there was  improvement in range so in my mind something was definately not right, but surely pilates is good for the body , well as I mentioned earlier before I met Doug I was getting neck issues and shoulder issues a lot!  Due to what I learned from pilates sessions I started to see there was a pattern it taught me to do with my muscles that I was still trying to apply that instead of what I learned on the Be Activated courses, but when you spent 6 1/2 years of learning to do this and that with your core I knew that by doing the static work on equipment was not giving me any benefit like it used too!  As I now know it was not just down to pilates but also the fact I spent most my day sat down on my bed infront of my laptop, which sitting down also starts to shut down your diaphragm, so I got one of my banana boxes and had my laptop on that and then knelt instead with my head looking up towards the screen, which stopped me from slouching into my diaphragm.

So back to the questions at the top

Breathing is something that we do naturally right?

We get taught by our environment in childhood that certain emotions are ok and others aren't and in that we learn to hold those emotions in and start to create various forms of breathing patterns that restrict the amount of lung and diaphragm function we have, nevermind being sat down most of the day at school in a slouched chair position that starts to shut down your diaphragm function further. So we still have to breathe or we will die so our body creates ways of doing so which are supposed to be short term fixes however due to our environments they end up being long term issues!


We shouldn't be taught how to breathe right?

If we have a poor functioning diaphragm then yes we should be taught to breathe, but by the the Be Activated method of activating the diaphragm. Well that is the only method I have found to get the diaphragm working quickly and easily and as it should do naturally! Whereas the way I was taught breathing in pilates and yoga are counter intuitive to doing the actual easy belly breathing, which happens when your diaphragm is activated, as they are further training you to breath wrong by holding certain muscles when your body is already in a state of poor functioning and your muscles don't know how to do their own function it creates more patterns to unravel all the time that cause us problems in our bodies in the long run. So now in yoga I don't do the breathing and holding the bandhas I use what I got taught on Doug's course which works so much better for me in the moves.

Why are there so many different  techniques and methods of how we should be breathing out there, surely there is only one way to breathe?

There are so many different techniques due to there are so many who all think differently to each other and think they have the right answer.
For me there is one primary correct way to breathe and that is the breath first goes down into the belly and then fills up the chest, as when this happens easily it means the diaphragm is contracting, drawing down into the abdomen, which is then pulling air into thew lungs to be filled up and on exhalation the diaphragm relaxes and the lungs deflate. If we are just chest breathing, laterally, collaterally and hypercondriacally we are always hyper-ventilating and our diaphragm doesn't get to contract downwards we are constantly drawing it upwards which tightens and makes it much harder to draw the air we need in, so we start to use other muscles in our back, thoracic and shoulders to try and get the air into our lungs which there is not much space for as we can not get the diaphragm to contract as it should, which in long term causes many lung diseases and also heart problems due to the tightened myofascial tissue around the diaphragm, as the heart is directly affected by the motion of the diaphragm.
Different breathing exercises can be of use to improve the bodies function in certain exercises, however pilates breathing technique makes your shoulders and neck think they are the abdominal muscles and never lets the diaphragm function correctly due to "holding in the core!"
Also when  you are trying to get to sleep with an activated diaphragm, that lets you breathe with ease, your mind just quietens with several deep belly breaths and you drift of with ease, no matter what sort of day you have had! I much prefer doing that than counting to breathe in and then hold and then breathe out, why? ~ due to I have been so naturally unconsciously good at holding my breath, especially hanging on at the diaphragm area with tightness and that sort of breath use to encourage tension and avoidance of emotions, where as I much prefer relaxation and connection to being able to feel my emotions more clearly.

---

However from previous experiences do I know everything about the way we breathe?
            Far from it, I have a technique that frees up the diaphragm easily for most people, but I am willing to keep learning and say I don't know what to do if it doesn't work, which might mean I can then go searching for more possible answers to the don't knows. I keep learning and growing keeping some tools that I have learned and others I am leaving well behind me.