The Super Power of Breathing

There’s lots to be explored working with the breath, obviously. You’ve probably read James Nestor’s fascinating, best-selling book Breath. Among other things, he advocates for nose breathing, and incited a fashion for taping the lips closed during sleep.

More simply, for purposes of regulation, deep, easy breathing is one of the body’s in-built means of restoring calm. Brainscans show that a few, nice, full breaths immediately relax a stressed person.



When a new born baby breathes, their whole body moves with the respiration. Restriction of breath in the body often speaks to a reduction in a person’s capacity to allow the flow of life. When stress occurs a person will often close and tense against life (for understandable reasons). But taking a moment to have a few nice, big breaths can change this response, relax the system and allow life to continue to flow through us.

It’s possible to make a habit of automatically taking some nice, deep, easy breaths as soon as anything stressful starts to happen. 

I was taught to do this by finding some words to say over and over until this behaviour had become subconscious and automatic to me.
 For example, “Whenever things get difficult, I take some nice, big, full breaths.”
 Or, “Deep, easy breathing makes everything go better.”  Or, “I breathe deeply and easily whenever things get hard.”  If you like this sort of thing, please find the words that are right for you.