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breath
November 2009 
What does it feel like to breathe?
Posted on Jul 6th, 2009
by 
Shameslaya
Shameslaya
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for July 06, 2009:
Well there are three dimensions to the breath; length, depth and smoothness....long deep smooth breaths induce calmness by sending delightful sinewaves to the thalamus...whilst short sharp staccato breaths are what I take whilst watching films with Lewis in which big bloody robots knock seven bells out of other big bloody robots....
To breathe, to me, is to live, and to live with some sort of pervasive, fluctuating emotional state which influences the dimensions of my breathing.....it has been part of my practice for years to breathe slow and deep and smooth whenever I can.....I tend to take only five breaths per minute on average and use a fifty-six second breath cycle when practising pranayama....this keeps me calm for much of the day, allows the prana vayu to lift in my chest, develops strength in my intercostals and upper back....
What that feels like is something I have no words for..it's THIS (he types whilst attending to his breath)....breathing is ostensive.....
Or, put metaphorically; breathing, when it's conscious, makes my body feel like the inside of my mouth feels after I've brushed my teeth.
Anther thing folks; never learn pranayama breathing from a book. You really really need to get taught by somebody who knows what they are talking about.
Jon x
To breathe, to me, is to live, and to live with some sort of pervasive, fluctuating emotional state which influences the dimensions of my breathing.....it has been part of my practice for years to breathe slow and deep and smooth whenever I can.....I tend to take only five breaths per minute on average and use a fifty-six second breath cycle when practising pranayama....this keeps me calm for much of the day, allows the prana vayu to lift in my chest, develops strength in my intercostals and upper back....
What that feels like is something I have no words for..it's THIS (he types whilst attending to his breath)....breathing is ostensive.....
Or, put metaphorically; breathing, when it's conscious, makes my body feel like the inside of my mouth feels after I've brushed my teeth.
Anther thing folks; never learn pranayama breathing from a book. You really really need to get taught by somebody who knows what they are talking about.
Jon x
Access: Public
Yes, but if what you have the opportunity for is only a book I say you should go for it. It isn't as if breathing should only be left to the experts. You can't go terribly far wrong unless you stop breathing altogether and then, well, it hapens to the best of us, in fact all of us, at some point…
Five breaths per minute? My goodness. Thank you for leaving extra oxygen for me.
Thanks very much for this, hommie.
I got quite into breath control about 30 years ago, when I was seriously into diving. I could do 3 minutes high exertion on a breath (got to 100ft one day - for a dare, but only once - used to do 70ft with comfort, though 40-50 was normal), or just under 7 minutes fully relaxed on the bottom of the pool. I used to practice doing 2 lengths of a 50 yard pool under water - 2 minutes to recover then do it again.
I would practice every night in bed, slowing both breath and heart rate to a minimum. I was quite fit at the time (doing a couple of hours in the pool most days, plus about 1 day a week at sea - usually for 5-8 hours at a time), with a rest pulse of just over 40, and could get it down to around 16 with some consistency, and occasionally under 10, but with very little awareness, just the very basics of breath and heartrate - not much processing power left for much else.
Just had a try, and I can just sustain about 40second breathing cycles (1.5 per minute) so way below fitness of 32 years ago. Still an interesting exercise, both of physical breath and awareness.
Even at 1.5 breaths per minute I'm using normal amounts of oxygen, just using much more of my lung capacity than usual, and keeping the air within the lung circulating (which improves gas exchange - and is one trick to holding breath for extreme periods - moving air between lungs and cheeks to keep it stirred up). To get below that I would need to slow metabolism, and I'm way out of practice in that.
I'm with Jon - a good deep breathing session really does wake up both mind and body.
Dude - like I said earlier: cheers.
I have definatley benefited from putting into practice some of what you have said above.
When I first read “…breathe 5 times a minute” I was like “na!” - but then at work today, it was quiet and I started playing around with my breath. Looking at the seconds tick by on the computer screen I breathed deep and slow and after just a short time I was so amazed at the difference to my usual work-time temprement. Challenging myself, for the sake of further discovery, I noticed I could comfortably breathe only three times a minute; real slow and real deep.
I think what you said above has helped cure a flaw in my practice of Tai Chi also…It has been helpful to look at that also from the angle you provided.
-
And Ted - that diving stuff!
Wow.
I have always wanted to try it - but at the same time I am somewhat terrified.
:P
Jeannie…pranayama….MUST be taught by a suitably qualified practitioner, not from a book….as Iyengar sez, it's a pneumatic tool…..but this isn't to say don't experiment…looks like Dave here derived benefit from slowing down without undue strain or retention…god on yer Dave…..
Ted…deep bows…did you have a practice of systematically opening out the thorax or focus on just sort of filling to capacity? Do tell.
Jon x
Hi Jon
It took years, and I worked on lifting the chest (expanding the thorax), and expanding the lungs (by taking in as much air as possible, then relaxing the diaphram and squeezing). Worked on stretching the diaphram and strengthening it too. At high school, at 15, I had the smallest lung capacity in my class - just over 1.2 litres (I was the class weakling - small and weak). By the time I got my SCUBA ticket 8 years later my lung capacity was out to just over 5 litres (and I had grown over a foot in height).
Learned lots of things along the way, and had a lot of near misses.
Mostly I just kept trying to go a little bit further. Stretch the lungs, stretch the chest, stretch the diaphram.
For a start it was making a length of the primary school pool - 15m. Then it was 2 lengths. Then it was out to the hot pools (old olympic standard - 50 yards), and try to make a length of that. Then it was a length plus - and trying to get one 10yd mark further. Eventually I could do two lengths - probably took about 3 years, of about 4 nights a week.
To get the long times I had to get control of the CO2 urge to breath, and be able to go right to the point that my vision tunnelled in to nothing, After the lights went out, I still had a few seconds of consciousness to reach the surface. Got a bit close to that limit a couple of times, and I'm still here.
Now, when I think of it, I practice square breathing - 10 seconds in, 10 sec hold, 10 s out, 10s hold.
Cheers
Ted