"Inspired"...to breathe
From the ancient yogic texts to modern-day evidence-based research, we know that focused attention and engagement with our breathing can enhance our energy, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the body, regulate our emotions, increase our feelings of safety, build heart rate variability, as well as resilience in all of our body’s structures and systems.
Breathing in Yoga Therapy
One of the parts that I love about what makes Yoga Therapy unique from most other types of therapies is its focus on breathing and felt a sense of aliveness/energy levels, or what’s referred to as pranayama in yoga. Most people think of pranayama as yogic breathing practices, it’s meaningful to know that a translated version from Sanskrit is “extending(ayama) the life force(prana)”. But it wasn’t always something that I loved or was even that drawn towards while teaching, and as an asthmatic with a history of traumatic experiences...I’ve had a complicated relationship with my breath.
Since breathing is a big component of yoga, I’ve been in many classes over the past 2 decades where the teacher busts out some pranayama practice for us to do as a group. Sometimes it went well enough for me, but most often group pranayama practices would leave me feeling emotionally triggered, and that I was either doing it wrong or that there was something broken about how I breathed.
Through 2 years of Yoga Therapy School, I deepened my learning in how amazing the breath can be as a resource for us and how intimately connected our breath is with our hearts, thoughts, nervous systems and even with one another through co-regulation. Since then, I’ve been gently working on my relationship to my breath in ways that have been nourishing and have allowed me to approach her with more curiosity, kindness and self-compassion.
YOGA THERAPY IN A PANDEMIC
And right about the time Covid showed up in Canada last March, just as my Yoga Therapy Program was ending, I became even more motivated to focus on strengthening my breathing, or at least feel like I have some sense of agency in how I breathe, you know, should I find myself in a situation where each breath counts in sustaining life. (Having been hospitalized for the flu 7 yrs ago, I wanted to be as prepared as I could be if Covid were to hit my lungs.)
In the spring, just as so many were struggling with COVID globally and with George Floyd’s words: “I can't breathe” echoing in the world’s ears as black, indigenous and people of colour still continue to lose their lives in violence and neglect.. I was heartbrokenly “inspired” to learn more about how our breath can nourish our lives, particularly for people living with challenging, complicated or traumatic relationships with their breath. I am privileged in having been able to study with Robin Rothenberg from Essential Yoga Therapy and Heather Mason from the Minded Institute, both being C-IAYT Yoga Therapists and Directors of Yoga Therapy Schools working with breath in different ways. In Neil Pearson’s Pain Care Mentorship Program, I am learning from his 35 years of experience as a Physiotherapist & Yoga Therapist in how to work with breath practices and yoga to support those living with persistent pain to be able to move with more ease in their daily lives. I feel very fortunate to bring some of their amazing insights and tools to my own breath practice and the work I do with clients.
Some of the gems I’ve learned and that I share with clients in the breath assessments and practices that we do together, seem even more pertinent these days when breathing with masks, holding our breath (anybody else hold their breath when they pass another human!?) and supporting our embodied resources. Even more so, now that access to our usual ways of living and moving around may have changed dramatically this past year). Each one of the following points, I intend to expand upon in future posts....but I think it’s worthwhile becoming curious about:
-our noses! We have them for a reason-they’re how we’re meant to inhale AND exhale! Have you noticed when you breathe through your nose and when you breathe with your mouth?
-exploring how we can foster a more subtle, calm and “coherent” breathing rate to perhaps encourage more emotional, mental and physical sensations of ease and overall resilience in our bodies and minds
-singing or playing a wind instrument are great practices to support your breathing
-layering the breath with exercise and novel movement like: dancing, rolling, practicing yoga in different ways through playing with the patterns of our breath with the patterns of the body )
-paying attention and playing with breath pauses, suspensions, retentions, as well as transitions between inhales and exhales can be supportive (but not ideal for everyone!)...it’s also helpful to notice your heart rate and “gaspiness” throughout breath practices
-expanding your awareness and capacities to support breathing into the lower parts of your lungs, sometimes called: rib breathing, 360 breathing, abdominal-diaphragmatic breathing. These days I’ve been using an approach I’m calling 3D(3 diaphragms) Breathing, connecting our thoracic outlet/throat/jaw/mouth with our diaphragm and pelvic floor.
Well it already feels like I’ve gone on too many tangents for one blog post, so I’ll end it here with one of the most gorgeous and insightful quotes from a brilliant Yoga Therapist, Dr Gail Parker in her book on Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race Based Stress & Trauma:
“Enjoy your breath. Your breath is the voice of your body...Your breath has a story to tell. When you listen to your breath, you become attuned to its messages. When it speaks to you in whispers, like a soft lullaby, soothing and rocking you in its warm embrace, it calms you. When you feel agitated, breath is labored and turbulent, moving rapidly with intensity. Breath’s movements rhythmically ebb and flow like waves in the ocean. Pay attention. Each inhale and exhale tells a story of the natural ebb and flow in all of life. ...By listening to the breath, we are able to receive its blessings.” (p.182)