How to take the perfect breath
Besoin de souffler ? Apprenez à respirer...
Besoin de souffler ? Apprenez à mieux respirer.
Outil de relaxation gratuit, peu contraignant et rapide, la respiration serait ironiquement le moyen idéal de souffler. Dans cet article de The Guardian, une « experte en souffle » nous explique pourquoi et comment nous oublions, littéralement, de prendre le temps de respirer – et donne quelque conseils pour un souffle plus apaisé.
Aimee Hartley, like most people, thought she knew how to breathe – she had, after all, been doing it all her life. She had also given it plenty of thought, having trained as a yoga teacher. But then she took a lesson with a breathing coach, who told her where she was going wrong. He pointed out she wasn’t taking the air into her lower lungs but was, she says, an “upper chest breather. He then taught me this conscious breathing and I felt my lower belly open, and I felt myself breathing a lot better after just one session. So I then became fascinated by how we breathe.”
1. to give, gave, given sth plenty of thought beaucoup réfléchir à qch / to train ici, être formé, suivre une formation / where she was going wrong ce qu'elle faisait mal / to point out faire remarquer / lower (partie) inférieur(e) / lung poumon / upper (partie) supérieur(e) / chest poitrine, thorax / belly ventre, estomac.
2. Watching her students in her yoga class, and observing people in everyday life, she started noticing that almost nobody breathes that well, by which she means in a way that makes your belly expand and your upper chest and back lift slightly, in a fluid motion. The exception, she says, is “babies, until they’re about three”. Then we forget how to breathe.
3. These are exercises that promise to help us become better breathers, which, it is claimed by practitioners, can transform our physical and mental health by improving immune function, sleep, digestion and respiratory conditions, and reducing blood pressure and anxiety (or transporting you to a higher realm of consciousness, if that is your thing).
THE BENEFITS OF DEEP BREATHING
4. There is little high-quality research to back up many of these claims, although it has become widely accepted that diaphragmatic breathing (engaging the large muscle between the chest and abdomen to take bigger, deeper lungfuls of air) can reduce feelings of stress and anxiety – and the NHS recommends this for stress relief. “If we are breathing into the diaphragm well, we can send messages to the body that we are safe,” says Hartley. Consciously slow and deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system – the “rest and digest” response that is opposite to the “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous system.
5. About 80% of the people Hartley sees in her sessions are “upper chest breathers, so that when they breathe in, their intercostal muscles [between the ribs] and their shoulder muscles are overused. Their chests puff
out and hardly anyone is breathing really well into their belly, which should be the foundation of the healthy breath.” We are all surviving, Hartley points out – we take in 23,000 breaths in a day – but she says there is room for a better breath.
MODERN LIFE AND OUR BREATH
6. It is hardly surprising, she says: “Modern life stops us breathing well.” Stress is associated with small, quick breaths which, in turn, makes us feel even more frazzled. Hartley has observed that people who live in cities, with the added problem of pollution, unconsciously take in shallower breaths. And even tight-fitting clothes, or snug bras, can affect your breathing, while “this mad desire to be skinny”, she says, has meant people holding their stomachs in – she says she has seen people reluctant to take a full breath because it gives a rounded-tummy shape.
7. Spending time online, too, has affected our breath. “When we’re engaged in technology we’re doing these subconscious breathholds a lot,” she says. It can happen when concentrating on writing an email, but also when mindlessly scrolling through social media. There are also postural issues that can hamper our respiratory system, whether you are hunched over a laptop or, head down and neck bent, looking at your phone.
8. Of all the wellness trends, one benefit appears to be that breathing cannot be commercialised in quite the same way as sleep and eating. It is free, it can be done anywhere and the effects are instant. “Breathwork is brilliant for bringing us into the present moment,” says Hartley. “We spend a lot of time mentally elsewhere, and the breath can never be in the past or future. If we focus on our breath, we’re pulled back to the present moment so there’s no overworrying or overthinking. We can just be in the here and now.”
“We take in 23,000 breath per day - but modern life stops us breathing well.”