Breathing and Relaxation: Basis and Techniques

When Sri Swami Rama introduced to the West the Himalayan practices of meditation and relaxation, he emphasized the unheard-of role of self-directed breathing to affect one's health and well-being, even to manage pain and reduce stress.

Ordinarily, people just breathe, paying no particular attention to its function. Unless one is subject to respiratory ailments, breathing is taken for granted. The air that one breathes, of course, is principally oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen is the primary agent in combustion that fires the muscles and burns the blood's impurities. Its companion is nitrogen whose business is moderating the robust action of oxygen, at least while it’s in the body.

One soon discovers that the way and manner that one breathed played a profound role for the establishment of health or illness. In fact, the action of breathing affects and reflects the condition of our entire psycho-somatic complex. On that basis, the profile of our breathing can be considered an index to health, a thermometer of our life.

The Secret of Relaxation: Regulated Breathing

Episodic distress seems to be a part of modern living. The last place most citizens or patients look to relieve their accumulated daily tensions is within their weary selves. Yet within the dynamics of their discomfort resides a powerful resource for resolution.

To appreciate the resolution of distress and the fostering of relaxation, let us remember that our body and mind are co-partners in every personal thought, speech, or action. Each side of the partnership has a mutual influence on the other. Angry thoughts or pleasant ones, for example, are immediately reflected in physiological changes that are medically discernable. My body continually undergoes a physiological impact of what is going on in my mind. Overlooked, however, is how this dynamic interplay between mind and body involves respiration. To observe someone in a state of anger or at ease reveals specific alterations in their breathing patterns. Just as the presence of breathing allows for these mental and bodily activities, so the specific changes in breathing indicate the metabolic status of this dynamic interplay.

The easiest way to take advantage of this natural three-fold inner connection between thought, physiological response, and breath pattern for anabolic resolutions of distress and the inducement of relaxation is by simply learning to emphasize the action of regulated breathing.

Feelings of distress introduce erratic breath patterns that are consistent with one's disturbed state. The tragedy is that these erratic patterns can become chronically dysfunctional for health maintenance. Since respiration directly affects the autonomic nervous system, one can learn to intercede and override erratic breath patterns and stimulate a more healthful metabolic condition. The key is deploying the voluntary use of diaphragmatic breathing. From emotional tensions to hypertension to coronary heart disease, the rhythmic action of sustained diaphragmatic breathing produces a vital systemic effect on the body-mind complex. The calming relaxation induced by self-regulated breathing reestablishes emotional equilibrium as well. Acquiring the habit of regulated breathing enables one to control, direct, and alter mental and physiological moods, reversing the dissipation of energy from distress.

Techniques

There are many ancient yogic exercises that have a therapeutic value. Among those that induce relaxation and foster anabolic recovery are the following three exercises.

I. Diaphragmatic Breathing

1. Lie down in a supine position with a pillow or folded blanket under your head. If not, sit up comfortably with one's head, neck, and back upright.

2. Close your eyes gently and place one of your palms on the soft abdominal area between the navel and sternum.

3. With your mouth closed, exhale so that you can feel your palm press back towards your spine and as you inhale you can then feel your abdominal area expand slightly upwards. In other words, as you exhale you can feel your abdominal wall move slightly inwards; as you inhale, the abdominal movement enlarges slightly outward. This diaphragmatic movement is easily detectable when you are lying down.

After 10 or more breaths, focus your attention on the flow of your breath and mentally inspect it. If you sense the flow is jerky, smooth it out. Then after a few more breaths, if you detect that there are long pauses or halts during the breathing process, attempt to breathe more continuously, one breath following another with as little pause as possible (this flowing connection will improve with practice). Finally, allow your breathing to continue quietly. Let these three inspections guide the inception of your practice each time you begin. Over time, the quality of your breathing will become more stable.

Even Breathing

After a few days, having become accustomed to diaphragmatic breathing, you can then guide your breathing to make the exchange between exhalation and inhalation approximately even. An easy way to do this is to imagine that you are exhaling from the crown of your head down through your body to your feet and then inhale from your feet, as it were, to the crown of your head. This procedure can be duplicated while sitting on the ground or on a chair.

II. Two-to-One Breathing

For those who desire a more profound level of relaxation, gradually allow the exhalation of breath to become twice as long as the inhalation.

III. Alternate Nostril Breathing

Since emotional tensions can impair sound judgements about life as well as interfere with relaxation, the yogis shared another exercise designed for balancing one's emotional force.

1. Sit upright, close your eyes and mouth, and begin diaphragmatic breathing. Note which of your nostrils is more active, that is, breathes more easily. Let's assume your right is more active.

2. After ten breaths, then bring a hand to your nose and, using your thumb and fourth finger alternately, close your inactive nostril by gently pressing your finger against its side. Simultaneously,

exhale from your active nostril with a normal breath.

3. When you are ready to inhale, close your active nostril by pressing your finger against its side and

simultaneously release your other finger from the closed nostril and take a normal inhalation.

4. Repeat this alternating procedure twice more.

5. When you reach the end of your third inhalation, don't alternate, but immediately exhale from the same side of the nostril with a normal breath, still keeping the other nostril closed.

6. When that exhalation is over, continue as before, changing your nostrils by alternating your fingers with normal breaths.

7. Once you have completed three alternations, drop your hand.

As you become more accustomed to these practices, perform them more slowly and smoothly, learning to balance the length of your exhalation with the length of your inhalation and sustaining the focus of your attention upon the breath for the duration of the exercise.

With sufficient practice, the art of relaxation instills a tangible sense of self-control over one's vital energy and enables one to recognize the possibility of living a life stress free.