“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
When I was young I often get a panic attack with any situation and I didn’t know how to take just a few deep breaths and relax and calm myself down. I didn’t realize how important our breath is until a few years back when I met a 95 years old woman who held my hand in an old-age nursing home where I was teaching mindful breathings to the group of senior citizens and asked me why no one told me in all these years of how to breathe correctly. Then the question arises in my head that this simple tool which we got it free of cost as a very first gift when we are born, and we don’t utilize it until we take our last breath out.
In our life when we’re feeling frustrated, panicked, stressed, or scared, we tend to breathe, shallow breaths, allowing minimal air to pass to our lungs. This can actually lead to a number of physical and mental problems, including dizziness, headaches, fatigue, heart palpitations, headaches, high blood pressure, and numbness and the list goes on and on.
So what is correct Breathings?
There are 5 pranas in our body: Prana, Apana, Samana, Udana and, Vyana.
When we take few deep, slow, mindful breaths through the nose and then exhale for twice as long as the inhalation immediately releases any tension we are holding from our mind and body.
Not only does this help us release tension and reduce anxiety; it also provides a solid internal focus to help ground us when we may feel overwhelmed by external circumstances.
That’s what it means to just breathe: to just breathe. To concentrate solely on the experience of nourishing our bodies with air and in doing so foster a deep sense of internal safety.
This reminds us that no matter how catastrophic things may seem, we’re alive. We’re okay. We’ll get through it. We are still here, still strong, still breathing.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, worried or scared, just breathe. Forget about everything that needs to be taken care of at that moment, and take a few deep breaths.
I’ve read it somewhere that you breathe like a dog and you live like a dog. Breathe like a turtle and you live like a turtle. But in this fast-track life when we are so busy handling our day-to-day problems we often forget to breathe at all.
Even if we go to get an injection, the nurse asks us to take a few deep breaths and relax our muscles to avoid the pain.
A very simple way to observe your breath is to close your eyes and keep your palm until where you feel your breath and then you will be able to find out whether you’re doing a shallow or deep breath.”