There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. ~ James Nestor, journalist and author of ‘breath’~
Breath is the noun and breathe is the verb in this pairing. To keep them apart, especially in writing, remember that breathe has both the /ee/ sound and an e at the end.
It was only when I fell victim to hyperventilation syndrome that I really understood how difficult it was to breathe in a way so as not to damage one’s health. From the symptoms that I had my doctor could not give me a definite diagnosis. At one point he told me maybe I was hyperventilating at that one moment in time, but my symptoms were ongoing, all the time, and more severe than ‘just hyperventilating. I was almost immobile, I could not walk more than a few steps at a time. In the summer at night it was worse, I could not lie down to sleep because I could not breathe when I lay down.
More and more symptoms were appearing and I was getting really worried that I had a serious heart problem. I spent hours and hours scouring the internet, looking what my symptoms could be. If I had had a fraction of the things some of my symptoms told me I had, I would have been long dead.
During my search of the web, I discovered a very old document. It had been typed on a typewriter as opposed to a processor. I really cannot remember the name of the professor that had written it, but it was about hyperventilation syndrome. All my symptoms were mentioned. I went to my doctor and told him what I thought I had, my doctor had never heard of hyperventilation syndrome and could do nothing for me, his advice was to go and ask a physiotherapist for advice.
I made an appointment with my own physiotherapist, and in the meantime, just thought I would Google breathing therapists….. Hey, presto, I found just the one and she was in my town. I made an appointment with her, the appointment was for after the appointment I had with the physiotherapist. My physiotherapist had never heard the name hyperventilation syndrome as an actual illness, but she had many patients come to her with the same symptoms that I had and a similar theory I had. She was very very understanding and told me straight out that she did not know what to advise me other than a couple of breathing apps. She gave me a few tips on relaxation and asked me if I would get back to her, with my experience with the breathing therapist.
The breathing therapist was a very sweet lady who looked as though she was in her mid 70’s. She ushered me into her room and was thrilled when she learned that I was English. She seemed to be well up on hyperventilation syndrome and confirmed that this was what I was suffering from. She explained to me that HS occurs when we take in more air than what we expel. Notice I did not say breathe in more than we breathe out? In my case, I was taking in much more air than just by breathing it in, I was actually eating air every time I talked. I tend to talk very fast, often without pause and I was swallowing air. I was taking in excess oxygen, and not omitting enough carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and oxygen. This created a build-up of gasses causing me to be in a continuous state of hyperventilating.
When you inhale (breathe in), air enters your lungs, and oxygen from that air moves to your blood. At the same time, carbon dioxide, a waste gas, moves from your blood to the lungs and is exhaled (breathed out). This process, called gas exchange, is essential to life. ~24 Mar 2022 Google search~
Also not in my favour, I had a bad posture, which contributed to my bad breathing habit. In the few sessions that I had, I was taught a number of exercises that would help with my posture and breathing. It did help me keep my posture in check and not to breathe in or ‘eat’ more air than I was exhaling.
That was in 2017, jump to 2022 and I am in the middle of becoming a Yogi. I had done all-around, regular yoga classes more to help me meditate and use mindfulness. In the classes, there had not been an awful lot of emphasis on the way we breathe and the effects it can have on our overall health, just more like to calm us. I did a course on Kundalini yoga. It was an online course and really too much in a short time, it was not for beginners for sure. The breath of fire may have energized me a little, but I slowly started some of the symptoms of hyperventilation syndrome creeping back, so I stopped.
I knew that there must be an answer out there for learning how to breathe correctly. I found some useful tips on YouTube, breathing techniques, and types of yoga that also emphasize on your breathing.
An answer to many of my questions came to me in June 2022 when I was on my way home from a trip to England to celebrate the queen’s platinum jubilee. I was in WH Smiths at Manchester airport and my attention was brought to the bookshelf with a special offer. As if by magic my eyes were led to a book called ‘Breath‘ by James Nestor. Just by reading some quotes on the front cover, and the few paragraphs by the author printed on the back cover, I knew I had found my ‘jewel in the crown’ my very own breathing bible.
From the first sentence in the introduction, the author had me glued to the page. As I read on, all that I was reading made so much sense, and it was as if I already knew some of it, I had already experienced so much of what the author was saying.
How could doing less give us more!! That is what James Nestor tells us in his book. Breathing in less than we breathe out. The book tells of many scientific experiments that have taken place all about the way we breathe. There is nothing complicated in the reading of this book, it’s as if we already know it, because it kind of makes sense, but few of us do it. I would really advise everyone to read it, just to know where man has been going wrong for so many years and how many ailments we have come about just because we do not breathe in the right way.
In the past year, much emphasis has fallen onto breathing, there are many courses and books on the subject and how by using better breathing techniques we can improve our health and well-being and maybe prolong our life.
This breathing/learning to breathe process is essential to my becoming a better Yogi.
My Woestijn~EverShiftingSands 