Breathe Your Way To
BETTER BRAIN FUNCTION
While talking to my oldest daughter Kate (aka “Fast Kate,” who competed in the 800 m track and field finals in the 2016 Rio Olympics), we were chatting about training techniques, and one element she’s incorporating into her routine is nasal breathing. For more of Kate’s training tips, check out her episode of The Art of Living
I remember my first experience years ago with nasal breathing! It’s both energizing and calming. It taught me to focus on the moment-to-moment experience of opening my body.
After a few minutes, I experienced a wave of relaxation, openness, and pleasure. Physically, I felt looser, disentangled, calm.
Breathing through the nose encourages the body and mind to slow down until proper breath is second-nature. Because of that, nasal breathing reduces hypertension and calms stress levels. When done during a workout, nasal breathing helps prevent you from overexerting.
Join me in this 5-minute video where I guide you through the basics of nasal breathing, and awakening moves that use the technique.
If you were to search for the life force in your body—if you wanted proof of life—it would be your breath. You can breathe hard, as you do when you’re exercising, or quietly as when you sleep; you can breathe consciously or unconsciously, but your breath is a rhythm that never stops.
In a physical sense, the breath delivers oxygen, your body’s most constant requirement. But breath also is a conduit of emotions, of sexual vitality—of everything that we call spirit. In addition to keeping us alive and vital, the breath creates a connection between your outer environment and your inner self.
