How to Breathe

[Alethea]

Lately I've been thinking about breathing.

So we train our legs and arms and shoulders and chest and core. How about your lungs? They are a muscle, just like any other, and proper use will dramatically increase their performance, thus, your performance, on pretty much any activity you care to name.

Personally, I am a big fan of yoga (surprise!). The methodical focus on breath is excellent training for proper breathing, and I can appreciate the effect of timed inhales and exhales on energy output, helping me in other health and life areas (fact: Experts say you have 40 seconds to get your breath under control in an emergency before it dramatically impacts your judgement, response time and performance).

Pilates likewise has an important breath componant, focusing more on how to time breath with the relaxation and activation of muscles. After doing pilates for a while, when I tried weight lifting I found myself automatically exhaling and inhaling at the proper times, and not holding my breath the way I used to (except for pullup practice. Damn you pullups!).

I also just stumbled across this: How to Breathe when Running. http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-267--12989-0,00.html

It makes sense that we'd have to breathe differently depending on wether we're going for endurance, power or relaxation.

Thoughts?

[67alecto]

Experts say you have 40 seconds to get your breath under control in an emergency before it dramatically impacts your judgement, response time and performance).

I found this to be the case when I was starting out running. I would always get out of breath after a block or two and would have to stop. I would get winded and simply wouldn't be able to get it under control without stopping and walking. One night, rather than wait until I got winded before breathing heavily, I did it right from the start. The change was instantaneous.

In one night, I went from being able to jog half a mile at a snail's pace and with a stitch in my side to jogging a full mile and having the issue being tired legs rather than lack of air.

[Crowbeak]

Quick breathing tip I learned from my singing instructor a couple of years ago: If you can hear yourself breathing, then you're blocking the passageway somehow. Breath as silently as possible.

[Mad Rocker]

Hmm this was a very interesting read. I'll bear it in mind...hopefully it might make running just that little bit easier to get into. I'll try to do this 'belly breathing' next time I go.

[Alethea]

How to Get a Prana High

(Or: How to Get So Much Oxygen You Can Literally Get Giddy)

So I just learned this in hot yoga today. FANTASTIC to practice deep breathing.

1. Lay on your back, legs straight, feet out to the sides, hands resting by your sides. Get comfy, close your eyes, relax.

2. Inhale and feel the breathe going down your core, right to your tailbone. Release all that breath from your your tailbone, exhaling fully. Do this a few times.

3. Inhale and feel the breathe going down your core, filling your tailbone and your abdomen. Release all that breath, exhaling fully, back down from your abdomen to your tailbone. Do this a few times. Feel how the very bottom of your diaphram is stretching fully.

4 Slowly work your way, filling your core from the bottom up. Breath to your ribs. Then your heart. Then your neck, then your eyes (k, this part I couldn't quite manage), then the top of your head.

Fun to practice. I don't think I've ever breathed that deeply.

[CokeCanNinja]

I love taking deep, slow, full breaths, so full you can feel your lungs stretch.

[LynnyLee]

Ok, after reading this I'm think looking into better allergy treatment needs to be one of my life goals.

[Alainon]

one of my favorite breathing exercises my singing tutor showed my is quite simple.

step 1: breathe in steadily for 4 seconds

Step 2: exhale for 4 seconds at a rate so that all the air in you lungs is gone

Step 3: repeat step 1

Step 4: exhale for 8 seconds this time until you have no air left

every time you exhale take another 4 seconds to let all of the air out of your body. mark how many seconds you can reach breathing out and every session attempt to add at least another 2 seconds on to that time.

this exercise promotes great breath control and really does make a big difference.

[CokeCanNinja]

one of my favorite breathing exercises my singing tutor showed my is quite simple.

step 1: breathe in steadily for 4 seconds

Step 2: exhale for 4 seconds at a rate so that all the air in you lungs is gone

Step 3: repeat step 1

Step 4: exhale for 8 seconds this time until you have no air left

every time you exhale take another 4 seconds to let all of the air out of your body. mark how many seconds you can reach breathing out and every session attempt to add at least another 2 seconds on to that time.

this exercise promotes great breath control and really does make a big difference.

I do a inhale 3 counts, exhale 6 counts, hold 4 counts, continue.