Question on Breath

[Astral_Anima]

Hey All,

I've started a new set of practices based around mastery of body and mind. Of course this includes pranayama or breath control. However when I sit to meditate and practice pranayama I seem to be unable to relax enough to keep my breaths steady and even. It seems my nervous system is still rather f***ed up. I'm trying to figure out all of the factors that contribute to relaxation and respiratory rate (breaths per minute) and was wondering if anyone has any insights?

 

So far I'm going to spend less time online and inside and try to spend more time outside in the sun and around nature. I've decided to go on a fast to help calm my system and heal. I'm going to be picking up a punching bag for stress relief... Does anyone have any other ideas? Any techniques in general to help with breath control or relaxation? I'm trying to get down to 1-2 breaths per minute (long term goal). Are there any special diets, systems, practices, exercises, technology, visualizations, mudras, ANYTHING that can enhance my ability to relax and concentrate? If anyone has experience in this what has worked for you?

 

Thx in advance

-Astral

[johndoe2012]

You might want to check out Pietro's thread on breathing.

 

I am doing one of the exercises from Carola H. Speads "Breathing - the ABC's" also known as "Ways to Better Breathing". The exercise consists of breathing into the nose and breathing out the mouth with a straw. This is supposed to relax the diaphragm slow which in turn improves muscle tone - which then will lead to efficient breathing. I always feel much more relaxed in the belly and breathing is less forced (especially exhalation) when I have done this exercise for ten minutes.

 

This is one of her exercises, there are many more. Maybe you will it helpful.

 

Another book you can read is Unwinding the Belly. Eric23 has a thread about that. I have only done this about 5 minutes per day so I cannot testify it's effect but I feel more relaxed in the whole body.

[h.uriahr]

Hey All,

I've started a new set of practices based around mastery of body and mind. Of course this includes pranayama or breath control. However when I sit to meditate and practice pranayama I seem to be unable to relax enough to keep my breaths steady and even. It seems my nervous system is still rather f***ed up. I'm trying to figure out all of the factors that contribute to relaxation and respiratory rate (breaths per minute) and was wondering if anyone has any insights?

 

So far I'm going to spend less time online and inside and try to spend more time outside in the sun and around nature. I've decided to go on a fast to help calm my system and heal. I'm going to be picking up a punching bag for stress relief... Does anyone have any other ideas? Any techniques in general to help with breath control or relaxation? I'm trying to get down to 1-2 breaths per minute (long term goal). Are there any special diets, systems, practices, exercises, technology, visualizations, mudras, ANYTHING that can enhance my ability to relax and concentrate? If anyone has experience in this what has worked for you?

 

Thx in advance

-Astral

 

 

 

Your brain is freaking out because it thinks you don't have enough oxygen when you really do. There's breath training in swimming. I think we called it "hypoxia swimming" but I can't remember. We would use the side stroke and only turn our heads up for air on every other stroke, and then every other other stroke etc. Basically any anarobic exercise will help because your body becomes more effective at using the oxygen better.

 

After doing those swimming techniques I could perform underwater pass/fail swims with ease. How does this help you? Well it sounds like your body might be freakin out because it isn't used to the slow breathing, you'll adapt though. Practice at every free moment you have.

Edited August 10, 2010 by h.uriahr

[Sahaj Nath]

Hey All,

I've started a new set of practices based around mastery of body and mind. Of course this includes pranayama or breath control. However when I sit to meditate and practice pranayama I seem to be unable to relax enough to keep my breaths steady and even. It seems my nervous system is still rather f***ed up. I'm trying to figure out all of the factors that contribute to relaxation and respiratory rate (breaths per minute) and was wondering if anyone has any insights?

 

So far I'm going to spend less time online and inside and try to spend more time outside in the sun and around nature. I've decided to go on a fast to help calm my system and heal. I'm going to be picking up a punching bag for stress relief... Does anyone have any other ideas? Any techniques in general to help with breath control or relaxation? I'm trying to get down to 1-2 breaths per minute (long term goal). Are there any special diets, systems, practices, exercises, technology, visualizations, mudras, ANYTHING that can enhance my ability to relax and concentrate? If anyone has experience in this what has worked for you?

 

Thx in advance

-Astral

 

 

believe it or not, there are VERY FEW people on this board who can breath comfortably at 2 breaths per minute, and i don't know any who can do 1 breath. this doesn't mean they're not here, but just that i don't know them if they are (although i wouldn't be surprised to learn the taomeow or Lin Sifu were doing it.

 

my normal breath pattern is about 3 per minute, and when meditate i typically drop down to 2 breaths. i've never done 1, but it's also not a goal of mine, either. *shrugs*

 

 

my advice on this issue would be to focus on detoxing your nervous system. so yeah, that means back to the spontaneous, natural flow stuff. also, that means lots of vipassana. once you've cleansed those nerves of stress and past trauma, THEN look to see if you need any tools to help you lower your breath rate. my guess is that you won't.

[joeblast]

1 breath a minute is pretty f'n sublime It takes some time to get there, when I was focusing on longevity breathing it took me a couple months of nightly meditation to get there. I'm pretty sure my breaths arent there right now (can tell by certain phenomena) and I'm probably doing 2 a minute but with some training I'm sure I could make it happen again if I focused my training on it. Once you achieve results like that you dont need to put the same effort in to regain it, for the most part.

 

 

Here's some keys that helped me do it:

 

-Natural ab breath is more calming thus more conducive to longer breaths, so if you're doing "longevity breathing" where that's your focus, I'd totally recommend that as the "breath strategy."

 

-Relax rib cage and shoulders, esp dont use ribcage to facilitate breath. if you want longer breaths, move only the soft tissues; diaphragm, abdomen, perineum.

 

-Speaking of facilitating the breath, take notice of how much you utilize your air passageways in everyday breathing. Normally you use the air passageways a lot to buffer air pressure so that your diaphragm isnt "doing it all" - you need to toss that book out the window! A good way to learn to relax the air passageways, here's an exercise I came up with: try and find as many points on the way down the route air actually travels and see how muscular effort changes the local air pressure there - so sniff hard at the tip of your nose, pull sharply from sinuses, the back of the throat...you get the picture. Anyway, after some active exploration of this, then you have a baseline from which to operate, i.e. activity, and from there proceed to complete non-activity of all of the air passageways. Then you will place the burden of balancing pressures squarely on the diaphragm and abdomen, which is where you want to cultivate to do longer breaths anyway!

 

-As you get your breaths longer you will likely encounter herky-jerky disconnects in diaphragm movement. To get around that you need to "anchor" diaphragm movement; the way to do that is to begin diaphragm movement from the very lower back side of the diaphragm. This extends from the previous concept (placing the pressure-balancing onus squarely on the diaphragm) since when your air passageways are buffering the flow of air, you dont uncover that disconnect in the diaphragm (at least not as plainly, imho) where the diaphragm ostensibly "begins its motion from the middle." When you begin diaphragm motion from the lower rear where it overlaps with the psoas, you can allow the diaphragm to do its descending motion while at the same time the inhale propagates forwards and updwards towards the xiphoid process. This is where "inhaling at the LTT" or "sink the LTT on inhale" seems to come from. By placing your attention on these movements you can reduce all unnecessary movement - because after all, in doing longevity breathing you are looking for an energetic maxima amongst a physical minima.

Another good thing about smoothing out this diaphragmatic movement is that it seems to send calming and regulating signals up the vagus nerve - this ties into heartrate and blood pressure too here since at some point as you go deeper if you dont have that herkyjerky disconnect conquered (I call it a disconnect because it is an interruption in smooth movement) then those uneven movements will at some point perturb your heart and bp; a glass floor, so to speak. By regulating the diaphragm motion and smoothing it out enough, your heart is allowed more...room? space? Unrestricted flow? Something along those lines.

 

So keep your air passages relaxed, because the more you use them the more energy you use up, and also if you can hear your breath, that is turbulence, and all those little vortices that form (which is what turbulence is) serve to suck energy out of your breath. One other good tip is to try to calm and soften the breath until you cant hear it anymore; once you cant hear it, THEN go get a pair of earplugs and repeat until you cant hear yourself breathe with those earplugs in!

 

One other thing about the vagus nerve, there are feedback mechanisms built in there that also tie in with the olfactory nerve endings in your sinuses. The protruding olfactory bulbs measure incoming air flow kinda like a mass air meter in a car, so when airspeed is fast then that will send a signal to the brain telling the heart to pump faster. Your brain also monitors O2 levels, if they drop enough, a signal is sent to the heart to beat faster and a breathe signal is also produced.

 

So if you try to slow down too fast, it will have the opposite effect.

 

Part of what I tried to do was to execute a perfect breath for whatever cardiovascular and respiratory rate I was currently experiencing; it will change depending on your state.

 

Dont lose focus! When phenomena arise, keep your focus on that which is generating the phenomena, not the phenomena themselves. i.e. establish the resonance pattern, observe it, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. Dont think....feeeeeeeeeeeel!

[Ya Mu]

Hey All,

I've started a new set of practices based around mastery of body and mind. Of course this includes pranayama or breath control. However when I sit to meditate and practice pranayama I seem to be unable to relax enough to keep my breaths steady and even. It seems my nervous system is still rather f***ed up. I'm trying to figure out all of the factors that contribute to relaxation and respiratory rate (breaths per minute) and was wondering if anyone has any insights?

 

So far I'm going to spend less time online and inside and try to spend more time outside in the sun and around nature. I've decided to go on a fast to help calm my system and heal. I'm going to be picking up a punching bag for stress relief... Does anyone have any other ideas? Any techniques in general to help with breath control or relaxation? I'm trying to get down to 1-2 breaths per minute (long term goal). Are there any special diets, systems, practices, exercises, technology, visualizations, mudras, ANYTHING that can enhance my ability to relax and concentrate? If anyone has experience in this what has worked for you?

 

Thx in advance

-Astral

I don't know of anything that demonstrates our lack of breath depth than running or rebounding. If anyone does 3-5 miles running or 20-30 minutes rebounding they are immediately shown that they have been missing the top portion of their breathing. The running or rebounding will expand the lungs to re-gain this depth.

 

Also, one of the things I have found is key is the outbreath. Most don't expel all the air. When we do there is a natural expansion of the inbreath.

 

As far as breathing qigong exercises I don't do them. I think people should learn to breathe naturally then practice the energetics without imposing the limitations of breath control into the practice.

[joeblast]

I don't know of anything that demonstrates our lack of breath depth than running or rebounding. If anyone does 3-5 miles running or 20-30 minutes rebounding they are immediately shown that they have been missing the top portion of their breathing. The running or rebounding will expand the lungs to re-gain this depth.

 

Also, one of the things I have found is key is the outbreath. Most don't expel all the air. When we do there is a natural expansion of the inbreath.

 

As far as breathing qigong exercises I don't do them. I think people should learn to breathe naturally then practice the energetics without imposing the limitations of breath control into the practice.

Even in light of my post I still agree with this Just a different way, really. You can realize the energetics via breath control just like you can realize the breath control via energetics Although IME they are different phenomena, different things cultivated. But when you get to the bottom of it and learn both, then combining the two is quite powerful!

[Ya Mu]

I don't know of anything that demonstrates our lack of breath depth than running or rebounding. If anyone does 3-5 miles running or 20-30 minutes rebounding they are immediately shown that they have been missing the top portion of their breathing. The running or rebounding will expand the lungs to re-gain this depth.

 

Also, one of the things I have found is key is the outbreath. Most don't expel all the air. When we do there is a natural expansion of the inbreath.

 

As far as breathing qigong exercises I don't do them. I think people should learn to breathe naturally then practice the energetics without imposing the limitations of breath control into the practice.

This post on Qigong: Breath Control Versus Natural Breathing gives more detail and explanation

[Astral_Anima]

Wows guys, thx for the advice. I'll start experimenting with some of this stuff. If anyone has anything else to add, keep it coming. right now I can get to about 10-12 secs in and out (3 a min) getting down to 2 breaths a min (15secs in and out) is my immediate goal, but long term i'd like to shorten the breath even further. I will take what you guys said to mind.

[LBDaoist]

Get rid of all of your goals. Just pay attention to the breath. Begin with allowing your mind to become aware of your breath. Forget about controlling the breath. Let the breath control you. Let your body be as it will be. Just breath for 10 to 15 minutes at a time, once or twice a day for a month.