Why Work with the Breath?

Breath is life and affects and has effects on everything we do. It is a most profound tool for health, growth and change to which we have constant access. The prana, life-force that flows through the breath is a vehicle for aiding us in doing whatever we need and desire to do in life with more ease, effectiveness, power and joy.

Breathing deeply is one of the most profound ways
that we can love and nurture ourselves.
It is saying "YES!!!" to life
in a language that all of our cells can understand
and to which they will respond.

To realize that you have a choice about how you experience your life, you must first realize that you have a choice about how you experience your breath.

BREATHWORK aids anxiety, fatigue, stress reduction, weight loss, quitting smoking, high blood pressure, asthma, other breathing difficulties and most importantly enhanced well-being, health and vitality.

1) PHYSICALLY it affects us as the quality of our breath affects the quality of our energy and vitality. Breath affects the heart rate, the entire circulatory system, digestive and elimination systems, immune and nervous systems. The way we breathe has a direct affect on the functioning of every organ and gland. Breathing more fully on the inhalation provides more oxygen, which is food for our cells, thus nourishing us on a cellular level. Breathing more fully on the exhalation eliminates more carbon dioxide and toxins and greatly increases the quality of our blood. Improving the quality of the physical act of breathing greatly improves the quality of our health.

2) MENTALLY it affects us. When the breath wavers, the mind is chaotic, when the breath is steady the mind is steady.

"Being conscious of the breath" is the foundation of Eastern meditation practice.

We calm the body when we calm the mind and we calm the mind with the breath. When we focus on the physical movement of the breath with our mind, our brain waves change and we move from a realm of thinking to a realm of feeling which leads us to the realm of “being”. While In this state, body, mind and spirit are in harmony and well-being is experienced.

3) EMOTIONALLY it affects us. With conscious awareness steadying the breath, the parasympathetic nervous system becomes dominant thus serenity of the emotions is more easily achieved. Certain forms of conscious breathing bring repressed emotional processes to the surface for integration. According to the latest scientific research of Emotional Intelligence and Brain Science we are able to consciously create new neuropathways in our brains. These can supersede old destructive emotional responses and behaviors. It is no accident that the lungs “embrace” the heart and that with each breath the physical and emotional heart is strengthened.

4) SPIRITUALLY it effects us since the breath, as life-force, creates a bridge between the mind and body serving as a vehicle for connection with a higher consciousness source of inspiration and energy.

Modern science is just now beginning to corroborate what Yogic and many Eastern Disciplines have known for over 5,000 years. The breath, as energy, is significant in every aspect of life and the physical body is nothing more than a crystallization around the energy pattern that underlies it.

“The very simplicity of correct breathing
keeps thousands from seriously considering it
while they spend fortunes in seeking health
through complicated and expensive procedures and medicines.”

                               Yogi Ramacharaka in “The Science of Breath”