breathe here now
Have you ever caught yourself holding your breath?
This is actually more common than you might think. In fact, 3 out 10 people regularly hold their breath.
When you breathe, air is moving in and out of your lungs and it’s the oxygen that you inhale that nourishes your body so that your tissues have the energy you need to make you feel alive.
There are two parts of your nervous system: one is the central nervous system, which includes your brain and spinal cord, and the other is your peripheral nervous system, which includes the somatic nervous system as well as the autonomic nervous system. With your somatic nervous system, there are motor nerve fibers that come from your brain and function to receive the directions for movement + action of your skeletal muscles. On the other hand, the autonomic nervous system includes another family of systems: sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric nervous systems. Together, they function together to control the nerves of your body’s inner organs that you have no conscious control over. They make sure that important functions to your daily living are possible – these are vital tasks such as your heartbeat, your digestion, and of course– your breathing.
And so when you stop breathing, it can have direct impacts on your wellness: how you feel, how you think + focus, and your ability to tap into your capacity for joy.
But how do you recognize unhealthy breathing habits?
There are typically four types of unhealthy breathing:
Shallow - The diaphragm is constricted
Noisy - Nasal passages are blocked
Uneven - Breathing is bumpy
Paused - Ends and stops for a long period of time at the exhale
The last type is the most common since it’s the most natural way that we respond to stress. In moments of focus + concentration, you get lost in thought and forget to inhale again. It most commonly happens in moments of stress and can happen with common regular + common occurrences such as when you are asked a question or when you read an email. This is how email apnea came to be. (Think sleep apnea, but instead of losing sleep, you’re losing your breath).
For those who have experienced trauma, anxiety, and/or depression, you may benefit from paying extra attention to the breath as well. Traumatic imprints on the body can manifest as crushing symptoms in your chest. When you are anxious, your breathing may speed up. When you are depressed, your breathing may slow down. When you are doing breathwork or yoga, the conscious inhaling and exhaling builds physical relaxation and also the body memory necessary for developing a capacity to deal with physical and emotional distress because you can begin to learn to anticipate when discomfort will end.
You want your breath to be smooth, even, and quiet. Whenever there is irregular breathing, it means the rhythm in your lungs is funky, your nervous system is disrupted, and your heart gets put at greater risk. Breathing is also a stress relieving technique to reduce + manage chronic stress that is related to detrimental health conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, and anxiety (National Institute of Mental Health).
By dedicating time, energy, and attention to the breath, there are numerous benefits to your overall wellness. When you breathe, you learn to exercise your mind just like you would with your muscles at the gym. Doing so builds a greater capacity to focus. This is because when your mind is wandering, the thoughts you have are essentially traveling through time: to the past or the future. Too many thoughts in the past is attributed hand in hand with feelings of depression, while too many thoughts in the future is to be in anxiety. In moments of anxiety, there is unease about future outcomes – oftentimes having to do with situations + outcomes beyond your control. Research has shown that experts of meditation + breathwork have a greater capacity for observing these thoughts over reacting to them and that they encounter mentally stressful situations as less unpleasant in sensation.
You can recall and remember the past. You can envision and dream of the future. However, you can only breathe and live in the present right now.
Through these exercises, your mindfulness (paying conscious + present focused attention) to your breath can not only support your physical wellness, it can also play a large part in your spiritual wellness as well because you can reconnect with Him + the life force within you.
In Ezekiel 37:5-6, Ezekiel was a priest from Jerusalem who had a vision of Israel’s future destruction. God assures Him that He will not abandon his people and that He will restore them. He has a vision of a Valley of Dry Bones, which serves as a visual symbol of the rebirth to come.
Ezekiel recounts his vision saying:
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin: I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
In the Hebrew translation of the Old Testament, the breath is referred to as ruach. Ruach refers to the divine connection between our physical breath and the nearness of God through the Spirit within. This is the very breath that God used to create mankind in the Book of Genesis. By God’s breath, there is life through growth in muscle, tendons, ligaments, and our very flesh. And here, in Ezekiel, God’s spirit was promised to fill them in once again with breath and life through a process of renewal, which we now know was granted through the gift of the Holy Spirit thanks to the coming and eventual sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
In many ways, this verse is an anthem of purpose for Christian yogis. We are taught that our body is a vessel of God’s creation and so through the practice of yoga, we have direct access to His support, guidance, and protection by nature of our very bones. It’s the skeletal structure of our bones (206 to be exact!) that supports the rest of our body’s structure. By practicing yoga, we can relieve joint pressure and restore proper bone alignment.
God formed us by breathing us into existence and so it is our very breath that is proof that we are alive! In moments where we may feel distant from Him or in times of despair, we need only close our eyes and breathe to connect to the Holy Spirit —reminding ourselves that He is never far because He lives inside of each and every one of us.
If you’re ready to breathe here now, you can schedule a 1:1 complimentary consultation here.
Kim Yamasaki is a Christian wellness coach who supports her clients in cultivating space + stillness in the mind, body, and Spirit through collaborative processes of co-creation. She provides services that create space _ stillness for deeper connection: spiritual wellness coaching for burnout, home organizing, and yoga. Her methods are affirming, grounding, and nurturing – all interlaced with playful creativity. She is a native Angeleno with Japanese and Chinese roots.
This article was originally published for the “selah space” newsletter, reclaiming abundance’s care package for go-getters. “Selah space” offers content to support readers looking to break the cycle of stress + burnout by living, loving, and learning deeply to be their most calm, confident, and complete selves. In the Bible, selah means “to pause or to reflect.” It appears most heavily in the Book of Psalms and Habakkuk as musical notations at the end of verses to draw attention back to what was previously expressed.
References:
Mindfulness (season 1, episode 4). In The Mind, Explained. (2019). [Docuseries]. Vox Media.
How to Focus (season 2, episode 1). In The Mind, Explained. (2021). [Docuseries]. Vox Media.
MC Yogi. (2022). Breathe. [Yoga Class]
Yamasaki, K. (2022). 2.1 Be Still, A Cause for Pause. burnout to Breakthrough.
Kolk, V. B. der, MD. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Publishing Group.
Whitmore, A. (2022) Journey Through Breath. Alo Moves.
https://www.alomoves.com/series/journey-through-breath
Grady M. Are You Holding Your Breath? Here’s How (and Why) to Stop Pausing. Yoga International. https://yogainternational.com/article/view/are-you-holding-your-breath-heres-how-and-why-to-stop-pausing