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Breath is a powerful force: without it, there is no life.
But what you may not know is that the quality of your breathing directly influences your quality of life.
Breathing plays a critical role in how you think, feel, rest, and recover, and it even influences posture and movement.
In this text, I use my nearly two decades as a professional sports mind-body and breathing coach to explain the powerful influence of breathing in our lives and share the same techniques that I use with professionals and that anyone can take advantage of to change their life.
Involuntary breathing vs.
conscious breathing
Breathing is usually considered automatic.
This is because it is part of our autonomic nervous system, which means that we do not have to think about it for it to occur, such as digestion or circulation.
In fact, the metabolic process of respiration, which supplies oxygen to all body tissues and removes carbon dioxide, is involuntary.
But the act of breathing, the movement pattern that drives the breath, is actually a voluntary movement that can be controlled at will.
And because of the vital role that breath plays in keeping you alive, the quality of your breath can affect virtually every other system in the body, meaning that YOU have the power to actively use your breath to positively affect your health and well-being. on many levels.
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Understand the power of breath
Intentionally changing the cadence and mechanics of your breathing gives you the ability to influence other aspects of your nervous system.
The way you breathe influences your heart rate, blood pressure, stress response, and even the state of your brain.
When you understand the power of your breath, you can take advantage of a slower, measured breathing pattern to take advantage of the parasympathetic "rest and restore" aspect of your nervous system to help you calm down, increase your concentration, go to sleep, and much more.
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Tim Thomas, a retired NHL goalkeeper, Conn Smythe award winner, and Olympian whom I had the honor to coach throughout his career, once said of his breathing: “It makes me feel like I can slow everything down… like I was simply catching discs in midair.
During games, commentators used to make similar statements about Thomas' ability to anticipate the position of the puck, saying it was as if he had a super power.
That is the power of mindful breathing.
Putting the power of breath into practice
Last year I had the privilege of starting work as a breathing and mobility advisor for the New York Yankees. Star outfielder Aaron Judge shared this about his experience training his breath: “I try to stay on the cutting edge of all things health and fitness so that my body performs at its best. However, there is one simple thing that I had overlooked, until recently, that might help me with recovery, posture, movement, and pain in general: breathing.
Judge and I started incorporating breathing exercises into his training during the offseason.
“At first, I couldn't understand how something that I already do naturally could affect my performance and my daily life.
I thought: I breathe all day, how can five or ten minutes of concentrated breathing change things?
I was wrong.
I noticed a change and a feeling of relief instantly after the first few warm-ups and sessions.
Not only did my torso and hips feel free, but I almost felt taller, which may be hard to believe, as I am 1.90 '' tall.
Consequently, Judge said of his breathing practice: "It has changed the way I prepare every day and every game I play."
The problem of faulty breathing
Unfortunately, many people are unknowingly in a faulty, shallow, upper-chest-oriented breathing pattern.
When this happens, your respiratory superpower can work against you, drawing you more into the sympathetic "fight or flight" aspect of your nervous system, contributing to feelings of agitation, anxiety and depression.
Non-optimal breathing not only has a negative impact on the way you think and feel, because it is a movement pattern, but it also affects posture and mobility and can even contribute to chronic pain, especially in the back, the neck and shoulders.
This is because the diaphragm, the main muscle of respiration, is also a fundamental muscle of the posture and of the abdominal core.
And so, as Judge has reported in his experience, breath training can significantly improve posture, movement, and pain relief, but we'll cover that in detail in the next article in the series.
Meditation: benefits for your physical and mental health
In addition to training athletes to breathe better, I also give presentations on breathing around the world, and one of the most common questions I get asked is, "How did my breathing become faulty?"
There are countless factors that can change your breathing, such as stress, illness, injury, activity, and the use of restrictive clothing or equipment. Breathing is fundamental to life, so in situations that compromise optimal breathing, the body manages to take in oxygen and stay alive. In most cases, that pattern ends up being the shallow, upper-chest oriented one that I mentioned earlier. In the context of these situations, this respiratory pattern is not defective; it's a good thing, as an adaptive emergency mechanism.
However, it becomes a problem when the temporary circumstances that were compromising your respiratory mechanics are resolved but your breathing does not return to an optimal, deeper and slower pattern.
Therefore, breathing is a voluntary action and it is essential to consider it that way.
With this in mind, you can proactively take control when necessary to reestablish and restore optimal breathing that is most useful throughout all of your life experiences.
Why should you train your breathing
I began my career in professional sports as a yoga instructor before studying strength and conditioning, breathing biomechanics, and other high-performance training modalities.
One of the fundamental practices of traditional yoga is pranayama, the practice of regulating the breath.
The word "pranayama" is Sanskrit and is believed to have originated at least 4,000 years ago.
The first part of the term, "prana", is translated as vital force in Spanish;
"Yama" translates to control.
So the breathing practices of pranayama are designed to control the life force.
I often go back to my yogi roots when I explain the importance of breath training to people who are unaware of its power, telling them, "Control your breath, control your life."
But you don't have to believe me.
“These small movements and controlled breaths had a great impact on my posture. And, mentally, I felt refreshed after each session, ready to start the day, "says Judge, highlighting the benefits for everyone:" Simply breath training is not just for athletes. It is something that everyone who works long hours at a desk or is on their feet all day, or even those who are simply interested in spending a few minutes away from everything to recharge, should do.
If you want to know more about the ways that breathing can positively influence your own posture, movement, pain relief, recovery, and mental state, be sure to read the next few articles in our series.
Next week, I'll break down how you can train your breathing as an optimal movement pattern and share some of the same positional breathing exercises that I do with Judge and other professional athletes that may work for you too.
Whether you are an elite athlete preparing for a competition or simply trying to bring out your best to perform in everyday life, learning to optimize your respiratory superpower is truly something that will change everything.
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