According to the Daoist view, the nutrition provided by air through breathing is even more vital to health and longevity than that provided by food and water through digestion. In the Orient, breathing is regarded as a science. China has its Qi gong and India has pranayama.
Qi gong (pronounced chee gung) means both ‘breathing exercise’ and ‘energy control’. It has been a formal branch of Chinese medicine for over 2000 years. Qi gong, Tai qi chuan, acupressure and acupuncture are all Daoist arts designed to cultivate and balance energy enhancing physical health and mental control. Since breath and energy form a bridge between body and mind, breathing may be controlled either mentally or physically and is the only vital function that straddles the border of voluntary and involuntary control. Left unattended, breathing occurs as spontaneously and naturally as heartbeat, when controlled by mind, breathing becomes as deliberate as walking and can be made to regulate all other major functions, including pulse, blood pressure, digestion metabolism, ejaculation, hormone secretion and more. Breathing comprises the single most important element in Daoist health and longevity regimens.
The act of breathing does not only extract Qi from the air, it also drives and distributes Qi through the body’s invisible network of energy channels, called meridians. In Traditional Chinese medical theory, all illness and pain stems from blockages or dysfunction of this meridian system. Deep diaphragm breathing enhances distribution of Qi in the body and Qi leads the blood. Poor blood circulation and all its attendant ills can usually be remedied by correct breathing.
Daoist philosophy is rooted in the observation of nature. It is believed Daoist breathing techniques were adopted from observation of animals and newborn babies. Watch a dog or a cat breathe while resting, and you will notice their abdomens, not their chests, expand and contract rhythmically. The longer they remain at rest, the slower and deeper grow these abdominal contractions.
What distinguishes ordinary shallow breathing from deep abdominal breathing is the role played by the diaphragm. The diaphragm is a resilient yet flexible muscular membrane that separates the chest from the abdominal cavity. When the lungs expand they push the diaphragm downward (contraction); when the lungs contract they pull it into the chest cavity (relaxation).
Chest breathing employs the intercostal muscles between the ribs to forcibly expand the upper rib cage, thereby lowering air pressure in the chest so that air enters by suction. However, this leaves the lower lungs, which contain by far the greatest surface area, immobilized. Consequently, one must take about three times as many chest breaths in order to get the same quantity of air into the lungs as provided by a single diaphragmic breath. Clavicular breathing, which is characteristic of asthma and emphysema victims, is even less efficient than chest breathing. Breathing must be very rapid, like a panting dog, in order to get sufficient quantities of air into those narrow little top pockets of the lungs controlled by the clavicles. And with such a small surface area exposed to air, the heart must pump blood through the lungs much more rapidly than in deeper breathing.
Clavicular breathing occurs spontaneously in everyone when anxiety or stress strikes. Conversely, those who habitually breathe this way become prone to chronic anxiety. Next time you feel anxious or up-tight, you can easily prove the connection between anxiety and shallow breathing simply by observing your breathing patterns. Then take a few deep abdominal breaths, hold them in for a few seconds, and exhale long and slow. Immediately you’ll notice your anxiety melt away.
INTERESTING POINTS:
- The nose is the only organ in the entire body to other than the sexual organs and breasts that contains erectile tissue.
- Daoists measure life span not by counting birthdays but by counting breaths and heartbeats: every breath and heartbeat saved now prolongs life later.
- It takes about 150% more effort to breath through the nose than through the mouth, so obviously Mother Nature had a specific purpose in mind when designing this apparatus, otherwise she would not permit such an extravagant expenditure of energy.
- The more carbon dioxide exhaled by the respiratory system decreases the acidity of the body. Commonly, modern people suffer from mild acidosis creating an environment where bacteria love to thrive. Most bacteria cannot survive in highly oxygenated environments.
- In cold and/or dry climates, adepts should always exhales through the nose in order to replenish the heat and moisture borrowed from the turbinates during inhalation with heat and moisture from the lungs. In hot, humid climates, mouth exhalation is often preferable as a method to expel excess heat from the body.
- Studies in China show that most beginners in deep breathing increase the stretch of their diaphragms by an average 4mm after only six-twelve months of practice, which means that in less than a year they increase lung capacity by 1000-1200ml.
- Prior to practice, remove all jewellery, watches and glasses, and loosen belts and collars. Avoid any constrictions against the surface of the body, especially the waist and avoid any synthetic materials that might insulate you from the earths magnetic fields.
- Whenever possible, practice outdoors, preferably barefoot. Avoid exposure to cold breezes. Practice near abundant vegetation is very beneficial because plants enrich the air with oxygen and exude their own variety of qi.
- Timing is important. By far the best hours to practice breathing are between 3am and 7am, when positive yang energy rises most strongly in the atmosphere, and between 11pm and 1am, when cosmic yin energy switches over to yang. Do not practice within the first hour after a meal and avoid all cold drinks for at least 20-30 minutes after a session. The other benefit of practicing early in the morning is that it refreshes the system for the day ahead along with the psychological benefits of completing the daily exercise regime before giving it a chance to weigh upon the mind.
- Keep lips closed but don’t clench teeth. Tongue should be kept firmly pressed against upper palate, behind the upper teeth, throughout the exercises.
- At the core of the entire breathing process lies the mind. The mind is a slippery little devil with a very short attention span and a strong penchant for drifting aimlessly in ever shifting seas of thought and fantasy. Chinese Daoists call it a ‘playful monkey’ and Indian yogis compare it to a ‘wild horse’ that refuses to be tethered. If the mind is absent during breathing exercise, energy has no commander and strays about aimlessly, scattering and leaking instead of gathering and circulating. Try focussing on your breath or the lower abdomen.
- In principle breathing is a science, but in practice it is an art.
TAKE A DEEP BREATH NOW
