During this time, we have been compelled to take our health into our own hands, as most of our therapeutic services have been paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. Take a moment to reflect on how you have supported your health during this time.
How have you been coping?
Have you adapted in ways that you didn’t expect?
What about your health have you been able to support and progress?
You may have realized that you have healing skills that you didn’t know you possess. You may have wished you could do more, and are not sure what tools would be useful.
It is our most accessible skill, our most vital diagnostic tool, our most powerful emotional tuner, our whole-body regulator, and the only constant in our living experience:
Our breath.
It is interesting that COVID-19 is a virus that primarily affects the lungs. The pandemic has brought awareness to our relationship with our respiratory system, our regulator, our vitality. As well, It has brought mindfulness to what we deem important to us during this time, and brought an opportunity to reassess our core values.
Bringing attention to the quality of our breath can provide us with insight about our mental/emotional state, our physical state, how we are responding to our environment or the people around us. Simply observing what our breath is doing can be analyzed with these factors:
Pace: is it slow or quick?
Depth: is it deep or shallow?
Anatomy: Are you breathing from your chest or your stomach? is your rib cage expanding? Is it easy to take a full breath expansion in some areas of your torso but not others?
Quality: is it smooth, rattling, choppy, gasping?
Evenness: Are you exhaling more than inhaling, inhaling more than exhaling?
These observations can give us insight as to how we are responding in our lives, moment to moment.
When you are observing your breath, reflect on how the patterns you are witnessing could be affecting your body, mind, and spirit.
The Power of the Breath
Other than being the sole reason we are able to continue living, the breath impacts way more of our body than we give it credit for. The quality of our breath can influence the function of many things, including:
Energy
The breath is our energy source: energy is produced in our body by burning molecules of food, which is done by the process of oxidation (combining food molecules with oxygen). The more oxygen we have to supply, the more energy is released.
Emotional Governer and Organ Support
When our breath is balanced, we are able to support our body functions and be more emotionally level due to a gentler fluctuation of the Autonomic nervous systems. When we have higher stress or excitement, we tend to breathe erratically and build up the energy in our body- creating imbalance, overstimulation, and anxiety. An imbalance of the puts stress on our organs, which can lead to adverse effects. It is important to have an outlet for this energy through exercise or conscious breathing to rebalance during times of stress.
Brain Function
With our brain requiring 25% of our available oxygen, there’s no doubt that we need to be able to adequately supply it in order to have mental clarity, memory retention, mindfulness and overall body function.
Catching those Zzz’s
Brief interruptions in breathing during sleep can lead to poor sleep quality, insomnia, and sleep disorders. Bringing conscious awareness to the breath throughout the day can help calm the system, cool the body, and strengthen respiratory musculature.
Knowing the power of the breath and exercising awareness of how you are breathing can be extremely empowering. You can be an observer, using the information you are given to understand yourself and the world around you with more clarity. You can be the operator and decide to calm your body and mind in the moment by prompting smooth, slow breathing. You can quiet busy thoughts by meditating on the breath. You can heighten your physical endurance and energy capacity with invigorating breathing techniques. How do you think you can use the power of the breath to influence your own life?
The pandemic has had hidden blessings within the experience: we have had the opportunity to truly make time for ourselves. We have had an extended period of time to take space, to simply sit and observe. When we cultivate more space in our lives to reflect, we are able to see life more acutely; we are able to feel our bodies with greater sensation, we bring more meaning to the moments in our lives.
And moving forward, we must remember that all of these incredible abilities are accessible at any moment by using our greatest tool: the breath.