March & April theme: Breath
“Breathe” surely is a word that is heard during a yoga practice more than any other. I sometimes think that people must be utterly bored of me saying “inhale and exhale” again and again. As if we would forget to do it! It is an involuntary action which does not require any prompts from our brains. Through this astounding design that human body is, we come into this world gasping for our first breath and from then on, this autonomic function takes place whether we think about it or not.
Average respiration rate is about 3.3 seconds. This equates to around twenty thousand inhales and exhales a day, possibly to 550 million or so breaths in a lifetime. To share with you even more staggering numbers, let me quote Bill Bryson’s research he had engaged in while writing “The Body Illustrated – A Guide for Occupants”.
“Every time you breathe, you exhale some25 sextillion (…) molecules of oxygen – so may that with a day’s breathing you will in all likelihood inhale at least one molecule from the breaths of every person who has ever lived. And every person who lives from now on until the sun burns out will from time to time breathe in a bit of you. At the atomic level, we are in a sense eternal.”
We pay a lot of attention to diaphragm during our practice, one of the least appreciated and underused muscles in the body. Not only does it assist the lungs in inflating and deflating properly, but it also aids the blood circulation by increasing its speed and strength. Research shows that a typical adult engages only about 10% of the full range of the diaphragm. That often leads to unnecessary stress on the cardiovascular system, increased blood pressure etc, as well as leaving us with an inefficient oxygen exchange in the lungs.
By bringing attention to the way we breathe, we can improve our respiratory health, endurance performance, the quality of our sleep, mental clarity and emotional regulation. Long practiced ancient techniques from different parts of the world, now also backed up by scientific research, have all landed on the same finding - the optimum amount of air we should be taking in at rest per minute is 5.5 litres. And the optimum breathing rate is 5.5-second inhales and 5.5 second exhales. The benefits of breathing this way are evident even if we do it for only 10 minutes a day.
While I remain grateful for every breath I and my loved ones take, I remember that more isn’t always better.
“The yogi’s life is not measured by the number of his days, but the number of his breaths”
B.K.S. Iyengar