The first step in healthy breathing is to become conscious of how we actually breathe. From the perspective of the world's great spiritual traditions, our breath not only brings needed oxygen and other gases to the physical body, but it can also bring, when we are conscious of it, the finer energies needed to help nourish our higher bodies--the subtle body, causal body, or whatever term one is comfortable with.  Whatever we may believe about our soul and spirit, our breath, and how we breathe,
is intimately connected with all aspects of our being.  Anxiety, allergies, asthma, cancer, depression, concentration, depression, energy, fatigue, heart function, high blood pressure, life extension (longevity), meditation, shallow breathing, shortness of breath, memory, pain relief,relaxation, singing, sleep, sexual energy, sports performance, and weight control are ALL greatly impacted by the way we breathe.

 
                                                                                                                                                                                                         
 

The Way You Breathe Can Make You Sick...It Can Also Make You Well

As the mechanism of the body depends upon the breath for its subsistence as well as for its health, so the breath is important in sustaining the mind and keeping its work regular.   Mostly confusion, depression, or any other disorder of the mind arises from the disorder of breathing.On breath depends the capability and efficiency with which one thoroughly does one's work. Shortness of breath gives  us impatience, lack of  endurance; and irregularity of the rhythm of the breath gives us confusion and makes us inclined to be easily upset. Breath, being the life-power, it is the same life-power which gives to us strength to endure all things. One always will find that those who easily get cross, upset  quickly,
annoy easily, have something wrong with the breath.   Regular and rhythmic breathing gives health to body and mind both.   Breathing is the leading purveyor of good health. We won't
have much energy if we are not getting enough oxygen.   Most of us are shallow breathers.
   

Full Breath

The importance of the breath in the body is like the influence of the weather in the world. As the body and mind act and react on one another, so the influence of the breath takes the chief place in directing mind and body both. One who does not breathe fully, in other  words freely and deeply, can neither be well physically nor make use of his mental faculties. Very often one finds most learned and intelligent people unable to work as they wish and incapable of finishing a work which they have taken up. Sometimes a person thinks it a bodily weakness or mental weakness or lack of enthusiasm or loss of memory, not knowing that it is very often a matter of regularizing the breath. Most often people think that it is the external senses being tired or exhausted that prevents their thinking, but in reality it is the absence of right breathing, for right breathing can make the mental faculties clearer and the outer organs of the senses more capable of perceiving. This shows  that the mind can live a fuller life by what I call full breath.

Be Conscious of Every Breath

Absorbed in a thousand things of daily life we give very little thought to breath.  Therefore we keep our heart closed to all the revelation that can be received by the help of breath. We as a rule are never conscious of our breath, of its rhythm, of its development, except at the time when we are so tired that we are breathless, or when we are so excited that we feel choked up, or when something keeps the breath from flowing freely.

The Importance of Correct Breathing Cannot Be Overstated

Balance in man's life and being is maintained by the evenness of inhaling and exhaling.  The compass of man's being is as large as the reaching point of his breath. One lives a fuller life, another does not live a fuller life; because the former breathes fuller, the latter does not breathe fuller.  A person ages sooner, also, because his breathing is not  right. Very often people who have no particular illness feel tired and lifeless, because their breathing is not as it ought to be.  One can live for some time without food and water, but one cannot live without breathing. The reason is that as the physical body is made of the spirit, it needs to breathe spirit in, in order to exist. Breath therefore does not only nourish the physical body but it gives subsistence to all planes of man's existence.

The information contained herein is not intended to offer medical advice or to act in any way as a substitute for consultation and advice from a healthcare professional.