WGP 004: How to Breathe for an Awesome Life - Whole Guidance

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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Breath and Breathing:

I’ll explain what breath and breathing do for the body
I’ll talk about how the way you breathe determines the stress in your body and mind
Finally, I’ll give some practical tips on how to retrain yourself to breathe deeply and fully for optimal health and wellness

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Breath is life. Air is life. Oxygen (O2) is your primary nutrient. You can last a few weeks without food, a few days without water, but you can only last a few minutes without oxygen.

When we breathe in we’re breathing in life and energy. The O2 we inhale nourishes our lungs, heart, blood, and finally the rest of the body. When we breathe out, when we exhale, we remove waste products from our body such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and even fat! Okay we don’t literally breathe out fat, but it has recently been shown that as we burn fat over 80% of the leftover products from fat burning becomes CO2, which we exhale, while the rest of it turns to water that is excreted and removed from the body with all the other bodily fluids. This doesn’t mean the more you exhale the more fat you will lose. Remember this is just getting rid of the fat that has already been burned for energy. So you need to train your body first to burn the fat before you can breathe out the fat. Luckily we cannot breathe in fat otherwise I might be sniffing in that butter, lard, and extra-virgin olive oil all day every day! I cannot get enough of that good stuff.

Okay back to breathing!

Breathing supports proper cell function letting those little guys do the work they need to do in order to keep your body moving, digesting, assimilating, metabolising, detoxifying, eliminating, growing, and repairing. Correct breathing helps move cerebral spinal fluid that surrounds your brain and spinal cord in order to nourish and move waste products from the central nervous system. Breathing also balances your blood pH levels. pH measures how acidic or alkaline something is. Your body prefers a neutral baseline of pH in the middle. When your body gets too acidic or too alkaline sickness and disease are not that far behind. So correct breathing keeps your pH levels in that nice neutral zone and in proper balance.

When you inhale O2 creates an electrical charge in the body that grows your aura. Yes I said your aura your being your essence your life force, the energy that lives inside of you and also surrounds you. When you exhale you are breathing out energy out to the environment and your aura shrinks a little. So not only do you need to breathe to keep your cells alive, to keep your body functioning, to keep your pH in balance, you need to breathe to support your energetic essence, your spiritual being, your qi, your prana, your life force. This energy grows when you inhale and shrinks as you exhale. Your aura is in constant flux, always changing, continually moving and in flow and if you’re not breathing correctly you can upset the balance of your energetic fields, internal and external, causing blockages leading to sickness and disease.

The way you breathe determines the way you think, feel, look, and perform. When you breathe through your nose there are little passages that spins, moistens, cools, warms, and filters the air. This is one of your first lines of defence against toxins in the air and your environment.

Breathing through the nose with your tongue resting on the roof of the mouth behind your top teeth also connects the meridian system or energetic system of the body. The network of meridian channels are how your life force moves and flows throughout your body. With the right breathing you will allow your energy to flow effortlessly around your body to where it’s needed the most. Also, with your tongue in this resting position it activates your cervical flexor mechanism (neck muscles), which works together with your abdominal mechanism (abs) and the hip flexor mechanisms (hips) providing extra strength and stability for your entire body.

There’s also little nerve endings in the nose that are directly connected to the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), so breathing through the nose stimulates these nerve endings and activates the PNS. If you can recall from the podcast episode about stress the PNS deals with growth and sex hormones giving you proper digestion, elimination, growth, reproduction, and repair.

For athletes breathing through the nose increases stamina and endurance, reduces the need for water (as you’re no longer breathing droplets out of your mouth), it enhances recovery and healing, and there’s less strain on the heart.

Also breathing through the nose releases less CO2. Yes CO2 is a waste product, but it also has a calming affect on our body and it’s actually needed to help oxygen move out of the blood and into cells. So by breathing through your nose you’ll hold onto a bit more CO2, which helps keep you in a calm relaxed state while nourishing your brain, organs, and muscles.

Mouth breathing on the other hand doesn’t filter the air letting more toxins into your lungs, heart, and bloodstream.

Breathing from your mouth also activates the SNS that deals with your fight, flight, flee, or freeze response where your heart rate and blood pressure increase and about five sixths of your blood moves from your internal organs to your muscles and limbs. This is putting your body and mind into stress mode in order for you to deal with a perceived stress… even when there isn’t one!

Now breathing has an alkalising effect on the body, it lowers your acidity. Today the main reason people breathe through the mouth is because their bodies are too acidic so they have this feel this need to breathe in larger amounts of air, not knowing that what they’re actually trying to do is lower their acidity. The problem is while CO2 has a calming effect on the body oxygen has an energising effect and this can activate the SNS. So with your stress response switched on this can lead to even more mouth breathing as well as chest breathing and this continues to stimulate the SNS that then leads to more mouth and chest breathing. This is a vicious stress cycle.

So why are so many people more acidic today? Well the western diet today is made up mostly of two of the top acidic foods of all times: sugars and grains! Dairy can also have an acidifying effect in some people. Eating sugars and grains raises your acidity, brings about more mouth and more chest breathing, which switches on your stress response. Now this connection between breathing and food was found to be true way back in the day. There’s a book by George Catlin called Shut Your Mouth And Save Your Life (snazzy title) and this was published back in 1870. Here’s a quote from the book:

“Bread may almost as well be taken into the lungs, as cold air and wind into the stomach.”

What that means is that what you eat affects how you breathe and how much stress your body is under. So if you want to be in a more rest, digest, calm, and connect state you’re going to have to breathe through your nose and not through your mouth, but in order to stop your body wanting to get more air in and having to breathe through the mouth, you’re going to have to remove refined and processed sugars, grains, and possibly dairy from your diet.

Breathing through the mouth also causes postural issues. Because the jaw is always open people who mouth breathe tend to have a head down forward posture, which can cause neck pain and also lower back pain. As I said earlier when you breathe through the nose with your mouth closed and with the tongue resting on the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth you are anchoring the postural system. With the mouth closed and tongue in the correct resting position your neck muscles have a stronger platform to work from with much more stability.

Mouth breathers usually breathe through their chest and when you breathe in from the chest you’re not expanding your diaphragm or your belly. When you inhale through your nose and expand the diaphragm while pushing out your belly making yourself look fat what’s happening here is you’re allowing your internal organs to move. As the diaphragm expands above it pushes your internal organs downward while at the same time the ribcage expands sideways opening up more space for the organs to move around in. As your belly expands it gives way allowing your internal organs to move outward. So what’s happening here is the diaphragm is pushing the organs down, the ribcage is opening sideways, the belly is opening outwards, and this allows the organs to move into that extra space. This diaphragmatic belly breathing massages your internal organs giving them a little squeeze (a little love). This allows fluids to move more easily throughout your system. It allows venous blood (the blood that needs to go back to the heart to pickup more O2) to flow more easily meaning your body doesn’t have to use higher pressure to move the blood around.

Belly breathing also aids your lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is your sewage system and it moves toxins and waste products around the body. Lymph, however, doesn’t have a pump to move it around your body like the blood does with the heart. Lymph only moves when you move. As you belly breathe and stretch your diaphragm you are providing more movement of the lymph around your body compared to chest breathing allowing for more removal of waste.

Okay so here is a list of some common symptoms of breathing-related disorders like chronic mouth breathing from the book Breathe To Succeed by Tania Clifton-Smith:

Shortness of breath
Fatigue (extreme tiredness, weakness, exhaustion)
Muscle aches and pain
Sighing and yawning
Poor concentration
Headaches
Insomnia (inability to sleep well)
Chest pain or tightness
Feelings of panic or loss
Dizziness
Pins and needles and numbness
Gastric reflux (burning sensation in lower chest area)
Nausea
Bad breath
Bloating
Flatulence (farting)
Anxiety (I’m familiar with that one)
Electric shock feelings
Eye strain
Foggy head
Temperature changes in the body
Irritable cough
Racing heart

If you have any of these symptoms this could be because you are a mouth or chest breather.

Okay so how can you improve your breathing pattern and your ability to breathe through the nose and from your diaphragm? Well I’m going to give a few tips here.

Remember for a normal relaxed breathing pattern you want to be inhaling through the nose with your mouth closed at all times with the tongue resting on the roof or your mouth behind your top teeth. When you swallow your tongue will naturally go into that position. Don’t force or tighten your tongue to stay there. Keep it relaxed. You can exhale through your nose or the mouth.

Alright first technique is very simple because it’s just using your hands as guides. Place one hand on your chest and put the other hand on your belly. Now as you inhale through the nose the hand on the belly should move first during the first two thirds of the breath. On the last third of the inhale that’s when it’s okay for the chest hand to start moving as the chest pushes up and out. When you exhale both hands should move back to where they were. Exhale naturally.

Another way to retrain your breathing pattern is by using an empty water bottle. Fill it with a few centimetres or inches of water. Lie down on your back on a flat surface and place the water bottle on your stomach. As you inhale through your nose your goal is to move the water bottle up toward the ceiling. Remember the first two thirds of your breathe should get that water bottle moving while the last third your chest can come into play. Exhale relaxing your body naturally. Without tipping over the bottle.

Another technique you can use is one I learnt from Paul Chek a Holistic Health Practitioner and Physical Therapist. Grab a piece of string and while standing at rest exhale letting the air out of your body and tie the string around your waist over your belly button into a tight bow or knot. Now with the string around your waist every time you breathe in through your nose you want to expand your diaphragm increasing the size of your belly and you should feel the tightness of the string with every inhale. Exhale naturally. You can find more information on this technique and many other life affirming practices in Paul’s awesome book How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy!, which you can find in the Whole Guidance Book Reading Club at wholeguidance.com/brc.

A quick bonus tip for those dealing with stress and who have a racing mind with a million and one thoughts going through their heads this technique I’m about to talk about is perfect for calming you down, putting you from sympathetic mode into parasympathetic mode, from the need for speed to the flow of slow, and bringing you back into centre. This is a yoga exercise called Alternate Nostril Breathing or Nadi Shodhan Pranayam. While sitting or standing use one hand and block one nostril with your finger or thumb and breathe in through the other nostril (remember to belly breathe). Inhale for a count of between 4-8 seconds then exhale for the same count. Now alternate and block the other nostril and inhale and exhale as you did before. Aim to do 10 breathes each side. This exercise balances both hemispheres of your brain as well as your autonomic nervous system helping you ground yourself and bringing you back into this present moment. So for those stressing the freak out this technique is your new best friend. It’s free, it’s simple, and it’s effective medicine. I highly recommend it.

I will put a link to a YouTube video showing this technique in the show notes for this episode.

So breathing correctly as you can probably tell by now is really really really really important. It nourishes your body and mind, keeps the body moving and functioning properly, feeds and clears the nerves, improves waste removal, strengthens and stabilises your posture, balances your pH levels, reduces your stress, and enhances your life force energy.

Whenever someone asks me for advice on how to deal with stress or a difficult time in their life I have only two words for them: JUST BREATHE. And if they come back with a bunch of nonsense on how that’s sounds too easy or that they don’t have time to breathe I have another two words for them, but I dare not utter those words on this PG rated podcast.

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