Learning from Our Breath

After our weekly yoga class, a friend told me, “You’d make a great yoga teacher.”

 It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and it only takes a few words to inspire someone. My friend’s words inspired me to pursue becoming a yoga instructor.

In 2016, I traveled to Creston, B.C. every weekend in order to complete a 200-hour certification program. After classroom and hands-on work, I walked away with my certification. 

Since then, I’ve taught two or three yoga classes each week, and through yoga, I’ve learned from my breath. 

The act of breathing comes naturally to all of us. But yoga has helped me to become more conscious of my breathing, and of the quality of my breath. 

I was a chest breather. Shallow breathing was all I knew. It kept me alive, but barely. Then, I learned how to belly breathe. It was an expansive experience, one that I continue to practice daily. 

In our culture, we are taught to hold our bellies in, giving the false impression of a flat gut. Belly breathing, on the other hand, discards that false idea. Deep breaths require belly expansion. I cannot hold my gut in while filling up my lungs and torso with air. And since my lungs hold a lot of air, it takes a bit of work to fill them to capacity. But the benefits are worth the effort. 

Filling our lungs with air calms us. Unhurried deep breaths slow down our thinking as well as our heart rate. Also, since our cells run on oxygen, the more oxygen we send them, the greater the health of our cells. 

Belly breathing can release the unconscious tension we hold in particular spots throughout our bodies, such as our necks, shoulders, or jaw. A few deep breaths release the tautness even if only for a moment or two. 

Sometimes when we think we are under duress, or we’ve stopped thinking about breathing, we lose or hold our breath. Then we wonder why we feel out of breath so much of the time. 

Next time you think about your breath, take a nice, long, slow inhale and exhale through your nose. Oxygen is a free and natural way of boosting our energy and stamina. And so far, there is no shortage or monopoly on our air supply.

Why Bother?

Why bother learning from our breath? It is worth noting how we breathe. Shallow breaths keep us alive, but deeper breaths expand our lives.