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087613431 · Wysłany: Sob 10:04, 26 Mar 2011 Temat postu: Breathe Right_2107

A balanced person has a balanced breath. When breathing patterns shift, primarily in the length of the inhalation compared to the exhalation, the mind shifts. The way we think is a pattern, and our posture and breath sustain it.
To change a mind, change posture and breathing pattern. Have you noticed how people are stooping more? It's because of the little digital devices we use,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the poorly placed keyboards on a desktop and the lack of good balanced exercise.
As we sit more,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], our hamstrings tighten and as that happens our lower back becomes more vulnerable and from that we stoop.
Our head weighs around 10lbs and when it's just a little forward we are over balanced in our body posture and therefore into compensation.
Posture, breathing and mood are linked. How could we expect corporate people to be happy and productive if we are not designing the workplace to encourage good posture?
People can't be depressed and have good breathing, a straight spine and an open chest. Mind and body connect.
As mood changes breathing changes. This was most obvious in Nepal. Walking up a mountainside in the Himalayas, I noticed that my Sherpa friends arrived wherever we were going with as much energy, if not more, than they had at the bottom of it.
My friends invited me to attend their Dumji. It was brilliant, this beautiful village set on the side of a mountain, at their new monastery. Part of that festival includes sharing rice, and to bring the rice to the monastery. Each morning of the festival a group of thirty or more people, dressed in the finest traditional [link widoczny dla zalogowanych] scuttle down the 800 meter path and descend to the village to pick up a 30kg bag of rice each and carry it up to the monastery. Some carry two.
I ran down too carrying my camera as a security blanket, an excuse not to carry a bag of rice. Women and men up in the Sherpa tradition carry equal loads, and while I stood aside [link widoczny dla zalogowanych]ing both carry bags of rice up the hill, one lady, with a child in each arm and a bag of rice on her shoulders, came up to me and offered me the privilege of carrying the rice.
Without the children I could have said no, but my sexist, chauvinist male side jumped up, stowed the camera and began the 800 meter walk and 200 meter ascent to the monastery. The Sherpa people were laughing and talking carrying their bags of rice. Oh, did I forget to mention we are 4,000 meters above sea level at Phortse?
Three steps, my lungs screamed as if I was drowning. I stopped then another three steps. I stopped again, and the process continued for what seemed like 3 hours, but wasn't, until I dragged my sweat soaked body, dizzy head and exhausted lungs into the monastery courtyard, did the requisite circling of the prayer pole and took the last steps up to the inner sanctum and storage room.
It wasn't a difficult thing to do, carry that rice, but up here at this altitude there's less oxygen in each breath of air, my lungs were full, but not of the nutrients my body needed to survive. Breathing right, even in an office or at home [link widoczny dla zalogowanych]ing TV is so important to health.
Oxygen: It heals, feeds, nourishes, transports, mends, grows, stimulates and keeps us young.
Lungs: Adapt to environments, filter our gunk, absorb oxygen, dump out toxin. Lungs are the real heart of the body.
Blood: Transports oxygen in, and toxin out.
The yogic science of breath is called Pranayama and this became my devotion for five years. I witnessed Himalayan masters who could hold their breath for extraordinary periods of time and some who claimed to be able to live on breath alone. I studied with healers who claimed to be able to pass the breath of life into the bones of another human being to heal them.
In Namche Bazaar there is a Tibetan healing clinic, built and partially funded by my friends at Camp De Base, Nima and Dolma Sherpa. The Amji, Tibetan Doctor, who ran it, was Dr Sherab Barma, from Bhutan. He taught his assistant to breathe in a certain special way and then that assistant ran the Mt. Everest Marathon, breaking the previous record by 20 minutes without much training at all. The full marathon starts at an altitude over 5,000 metres, goes along the roughest rock trails in temperatures ranging from minus five to plus 30 and the assistant did it without water, food, training or special running shoes. I met him the day after and he was happily going about his work in the health clinic as if nothing had happened the day before.
I compared it to how I felt after 4 hours of walking in these mountains. I needed to know how to do what he did.
By studying with Sherab and my yoga teacher in India and learning from some not so public masters, I began to see that breath and personal balance are inseparable.
It seems the quality of our breathing practices affects our energy more than anything else and although breathing is the most natural thing on earth, and everybody does it, few people know how to breathe properly.
According to Eastern healers, poor breathing is the cause of many common western illness, both mental and physical. However, every time someone lacks the will to breathe properly our medical system labels a new disease.
We are air machines and oxygen purifies our body. It is also one of the greatest energy building systems. As long as we continue to have a good quality rhythmical intake and outgo of oxygen we will live well. The more deeply we breathe the better our energy, the stronger our immunity and the clearer we think. When oxygen can't go to the brain, we start to fade in life.
The single most important habit we can create in breathing practices is a balanced breathing rhythm. That habit can become so automatic that it continues, even when you sleep.
When we sit out of balance,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], we breathe out of balance and then we can easily starve our lungs and depress our mind.
The quality of air is also important. By having plenty of plant life around to clean the air,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], people in offices can actually raise their blood oxygen content, which in turn serves energy to the brain, and bingo, they get more inspired, more motivated, emotionally balanced.
Just this awareness has transformed the productivity of many of my clients and soothed emotional pains. All the psychology and self-help in the world cannot overcome the emotional habits caused by poor posture and bad breathing practices.
When depressed people come to me for help, the first thing I do is help them straighten their almost chronically bent forward spine. I help them learn a new posture. They get a huge realisation and suddenly, out of the blue, look much happier and breathe better.
90% of people I meet in business have bad posture and extremely poor breathing practice. That means their emotions are often imbalanced and the flow-on of that is uncountable.
The Complete breath
Deep breathing requires whole body breathing with intake through the nose, filling the abdomen, middle and then upper chest. The exhalation takes the same time as the inhalation, but goes in reverse. First, empty the upper, then middle and lower chest and complete each exhalation by squeezing your abdomen tight to expel all the air. The measure of a good deep, long breath is the level of rib expansion on the in breath and the degree of muscular contraction applied to abdomen on the out breath.
Deep breathing is a gentle breath. To get an idea of how gentle, place a feather 2 cm in front of your nostrils then do deep breathing. The breathing should not disturb the feather at all. Deep means long and soft - not loud and big. Developing deep breathing is vital and you are wise to keep practising this exercise for at least 6 weeks until it becomes a habit, even during sleep. It is a brilliant habit.
The Cleansing breath
The Cleansing Breath ventilates and cleans the lungs,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], stimulates the cells, gives a general tone to the respiratory organs and is conducive to general health. If you are a speaker or and singer you will find this breath especially restful. Be in Stillness, then, inhale a complete breath through your nose. Retain the air a few seconds. Pucker up your lips, as if for a whistle or a kiss, and then push a small amount of air out through your mouth with a squeeze of your abdomen. Stop for a moment, holding the same breath,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and then exhale a little more air. Repeat until the air is completely exhaled. Resist the temptation to breathe in until all the air is out. Make sure you use your abdominal muscles to support your lungs in exhaling the air. Breathe in through your nose and repeat. Only do one or two at first. You can get up to 10 "pushes out" with each inhalation.