How do we mindfully use the breath?

The breath is the vehicle.

It is the vehicle to the spirit, to the present moment, to peace and tranquility. But beyond this, the breath is the vehicle of our best life. We spend a great deal of time talking about the quality of our food, our water, and our air, but we neglect the quality of our breathing.

The breath is the most essential process in our existence as multi-dimensional beings. It is vital to the physical body, but it also provides us channels to access our other more subtle bodies.

This is why the sages speak to the power of the breath.

When implementing a mindful shift in your life the breath is the best place to start. Many suffer from what I liken to breath sickness. Many of our chronic conditions and illnesses have their roots in an incomplete or stifled breath pattern.

Take a moment now to tune into your breathing and be present with it. Take note of what it is doing.

According to the yogis and their take on breathwork the breath has four components:

• Inhalation (puraka)
• Internal retention (antara-khumbaka)
• Exhalation (rechaka)
• External retention (bahya-khumbaka)

As you target your breath with your fixed attention, pay close attention to the pattern your body is running on. Are the inhalations long or short? Are the retentions long? Is your exhalation complete?

Breath health is linked to the rest of our health and it is indicative of underlying wellness issues. I personally have used the breath to identify when I am stuck in an anxiety loop. As someone who has lived with Generalized Anxiety Disorder for over 15 years, the breath has been my number one ally.

We rarely take a full breath, in fact, the majority of the time we use only a third of our lungs capacity to intake oxygen. Our exhalations are also often incomplete causing us to suffer from a buildup of CO2.

Stop right now and mindfully use the breath

Stop what you are doing now and exhale as much breath as you can right now. Hold onto the lack of breath for a beat and then slowly inhale through the nose. How deep can you inhale? This can be difficult at first. Hold the breath for two beats and then exhale through your mouth even slower than you inhaled. How long can you hold the retention after the exhale?

If you continue this exercise for a period of a couple of minutes you will find that your natural rhythm of breath isn’t doing your body or mind any favors. You will also activate your nervous system and start the process of releasing stress.

This is why the anatomy of the breath is so vital to our practice in mindfulness or our simple quest to find a little peace and tranquility amongst the hustle and bustle of our lives.

3 Ways We Can Mindfully Use the Breath

I put the emphasis on USE to express just how important it is to tune and use the breath instead of simply relying on our internal autopilot. When we engage with it fully the breath can bring us into heightened states of awareness, mindfulness, or even alertness. I have attached three breathing exercises for you try out and implement simply in your daily life to find new levels of conscious awareness.

Breath Counting

Counting your breath is one of the tried and true methods of mindfulness practice. This is also the first skill one learns when approaching meditation. When I first began meditation practice in the vein of zazen breath counting was the harness that yoked me to the practice. It is as simple as it is effective. Take it slow, five to ten minutes is all you need to start with. Even one minute of this a day can be transformative.

Relaxed Breathing

This method of breathing is particularly effective in diffusing situations of acute stress or anxiety. I have used it to activate the parasympathetic nervous system to override the body’s fight or flight mechanisms. Whenever we step outside the present moment and engage in the battle with anxiety it is our best tool. This exercise only needs a minute or two for us to start to feel relief from the clutches of stress. You can also use it to achieve deep states of conscious healing in meditation.

Stimulated Breathing

Breathing can also be used inversely to amp us up! For those of us that are caffeine fiends that suffer from the adjacent anxiety effects there need to be times of detox from our favorite substance. But without our precious cup of joe, how do we get going? Whenever I need an all natural stimulation I go to this breathing exercise. Keep it simple. One my favorite ways to use this breathing exercise is to raise my arms overhead and pull them down on the exhale, raising them again on the inhale. Go at a speed that feels good for you and pay attention to how your body responds.

The breath is an incredibly underrated tool in our quest for finding wellness. Don’t ignore it!

If you are interested in additional breathing techniques check out my Pranayama Breathing article.

Having trouble tuning into the breath?