Breathing for Health!  Breathing is priceless, you pay not one cent for the air you breath, and it is often one of the biggest factors in your health program!  Here are some facts:

· A full breath moves the entire body, gently rocking, stimulating and massaging all your internal parts in perfect synchronicity.

· Your skin is responsible for approximately 40% of your oxygen intake.  Tight and synthetic fiber clothing can dramatically reduce this intake of oxygen.  Nylon and spandex type fabrics are particularly restricting.

· Sometimes fatigue is simply oxygen starvation.

· Your lungs are pumps that keep all the energy circuits, or meridians, open and working.

· Your diaphragm must be free to work for you.  When working freely, it processes emotions for you, and also, through its gentle squeezing motion, assists in cleansing and stimulating your liver, pancreas, spleen stomach and the peristaltic action of the bowel.

· Full breathing also rocks the whole pelvis slightly, helping lymph drainage and blood return from the legs, rejuvenating prostate and reproductive organs.

· The skull also moves slightly with each full breath, stimulating the entire brain and its functions, as well as pumps the cerebral fluid down the spine, bringing nutrients and nerves to every vertebra.

Ready to retrain your breathing?  Read on.  Here are two exercises to help you.

1. Lie down comfortably and put one hand on your stomach, the other on your chest.  Breathe normally and notice how your hands move.  Do they both rise and fall equally and together?  Or does one hand move more than the other?  Both hands raise and fall together and equally when we are breathing fully.  To assist you to do this, think of your upper body as though it were a big balloon.  As you breathe in, the balloon expands in all directions at once.  Lift your hands slightly to encourage expansion as you breathe in.  When you breathe out, your upper body deflates in all directions at once.  Press down with both hands slightly to encourage equal deflation.

2. This second exercise can be done daily when you first get into bed at night, and when you first wake up in the morning.  One week of ding this faithfully retrains your breathing pattern for Breathing for Health.

· Bend your legs so that your knees are drawn up and your feet are hip width apart.

· Take a deep breath in and exaggerate by letting your back arch up a bit so that the pelvis goes down into the mattress.

· Breathe out and exaggerate the movements by letting your pelvis rise up and your mid back go down into the mattress.

· Each breath is gently rocking the pelvis back and forth.

· Once you have the movement, put your legs down flat on the bed, keeping the feet slightly apart.  Now do your pelvic rock.

Your “homework” is this:  Do 10 big rocks with your legs up.  Do 10 big rocks with your legs down.  Then do 10 breaths where you are just aware of your breath.  When you’ve got it, tap your heart a few times to help it remember this new healthy way of breathing.

 

Courtesy of Nani Nelson, Peaceful Healing, Nevada City, CA