Breathe...You're Not Breathing!

If I had a nickel for every time my former boss, Christine Patten, uttered that sentence to me, well, I probably wouldn’t need to work. In my world, stress is simply a way of life. Under stress, that most essential of activities—breathing—ends up on that ever growing list of forgotten to-do’s. The body does that breathing thing naturally for the sake of survival, so we often take it for granted. In day-to-day life, we often don’t take the time to be conscious about our breathing; so when stress hits, and the physiology gets thrown out of whack (that’s technical terminology), it can take someone else to remind us to breathe. Or at least that’s true for me.

My extracurricular activities, however, are a different story. I am a triathlete, an occasional yoga practitioner, and I sometimes think meditation’s something I should be doing (it was even on my to-do list this morning). Breathing is a key component in all of these activities, though I find it is very different in each. Or is it?

The Breath in Triathlon

As a triathlete, I’ve learned how important breathing is. It helps me push hard through the tough spots and remain upright at the finish of a race.

When I swim, I breathe in through the mouth (usually) to avoid the always unpleasant water-up-the-nose sensation. Though it seems intuitive that swimming would make us breathless because we are not getting enough air, the opposite is in fact true...sort of. The problem, in reality, is that many people do not exhale completely when they swim. There’s only so much space for air inside of us, and if we do not exhale completely some of that space is taken up by CO2, leaving less room for fresh air to come in. To avoid this on the swim, I focus on long, complete exhales through the nose to ensure I have more room for the good stuff to come in.

On the bike, I admittedly often forget about the whole breathing thing until I get to a big climb; then it’s a shallow breath in and a sharp exhale as I grunt my way up the hill.

As a runner, which was my first discipline of the three, I have learned to master the steady, even breath, at least enough so that I can tell the runners I now coach that it does get easier with practice. It just takes getting to know your body.

Yogic Breath

As far as getting to know your body goes, the practice of yoga serves to bring attention to the self—mind, body, spirit—through conscious breath. The yogic breath is a deep inhale through the nose and down to the belly with a complete exhale through the nose or mouth, depending on your teacher.

The idea is that the breath is what truly makes us alive, bringing awareness to the mind-body-spirit connection. In reality, I become more conscious of how much flexibility I have lost over the years as I struggle to get myself into poses I would easily have gone right into 10 years ago, while my mind starts wandering into such un-yogic thoughts as “Oh geez, Rach - if you can’t even breathe properly, how on EARTH are you going to get the full transcendent experience out of this practice?” I’m not breathing “properly” because I’m too worried about breathing properly, and then I get more anxious, breathe more shallowly as the frustration grows and I end up even more disconnected than when I started. Still, there are those days when I do manage to breathe deeply, freely, naturally...and I get it: the connection to everything, within, without, and I want to hold onto it even after I go back to “real life.”

Breathing Underwater

When I truly want to escape real life, I know that I can turn to scuba diving—a departure in a few ways. For one thing, it’s a whole new world down below the water and different rules apply.

Take breathing, for instance; breathing in scuba diving is a different kettle of fish altogether. Of course, you have to breathe, that’s the same no matter where you are. With scuba, it is essential to do so continuously; you have no choice. But what you do have is this weird apparatus in your mouth that dispenses dry air on demand, a truly odd experience at first. Then there’s the added pressure that you must breathe not only because your body needs air, but because holding your breath can be deadly in another respect. That is, if you hold your breath as you ascend, the air in your lungs expands so the lungs blow up like a balloon. That is, of course, until they can’t expand anymore - then: Kabloomy! Ok, so that’s clearly NOT technical terminology, and there’s a bit more science to it than that, but I think you get the point.

Of course, given my knowledge of the potential repercussions of holding my breath and the fact that my natural state is panic, I find that I often breathe in shallowly and out as LONG as possible. So I wouldn’t say my scuba breathing is anywhere near as natural as it could be. But I also recognize that it is a practice in much the same way as the yogic or meditative breath, and that again being conscious of my breath as the life force it truly is allows me to stop thinking about the pressures of deadlines and what’s for dinner.

Bringing It All Together

Though these different extracurricular activities all involve a unique focus on breathing, they do indeed have key requirements in common. That is, the breath should be as natural as possible. To be most effective, breathing deeply in and completely out is the best approach. And, most importantly: the natural, deep breath becomes possible through conscious, consistent practice.

But how do we bring conscious breathing into the every day? How do we truly practice it, and not just expect it to come together for us in those activities that bring it to the forefront and make it essential? How do we remind ourselves that breath is, in fact, essential to real life, to survival?

Take a time out, but not just when life is at its craziest. Just as with praying (for those of you who incorporate this into your spiritual reality), you can’t expect much out if it if you don’t practice it before you really need it. So, a few times a day—at your desk, at home, walking through the grocery store—take a moment to check out from the task at hand and check in with yourself. You may choose to have your eyes open or closed (though if you choose to do this in the car on your commute, please go with the former).

Become conscious of yourself, your surroundings. Ask yourself, “what is my relationship with the present moment?” It’s a great question...one that required counselling for me to learn to ask, but you can have it for free. When you ask yourself this question, truly acknowledge the present and root yourself in it.

What IS your relationship? If it’s a good one, ask yourself what you can do to hold this space as you take a few more deep, flowing, natural breaths. A little less than positive? Ask yourself what can be done to shift your space, your “present”, as you breathe. If you find there is something you can do, take 5-10 breaths as you prepare to do it; make the changes you need to. And what if you feel there’s nothing you can do? Keep breathing, acknowledge those negative feelings and thoughts, accept that there are some things you cannot change, and try to expel the negativity on your last big exhale before moving on refreshed.

As for me, I’ll continue trying to practice what I preach, knowing that I’ll not always do it perfectly, but that I’m doing the best I can.