While you’re currently engaged in deciphering the likely liquid-crystal display in front of you, your body (as always) is actively breathing. Your body does this in order to keep you, itself, alive. You breathe in and you breathe out. What exactly is happening? How do we get energy from the breath?
Every day the average human breathes* anywhere from 12-20 times per minute. There are 525600 minutes (see theater math) in a year and the average human lives somewhere around 62.7 years. So on average that could be anywhere from 395,461,440 to 659,102,400 theater breaths in an entire lifetime. In primitive terms: You breathe an awful lot.
With all of that in-and-ex halation it is easy to take for granted how the system works. When you breathe, oxygen is transferred from outside to inside the body.
“What exactly defines inside and outside?” Is a question that will lead to many a philosophical debate regarding the boundaries of a human. That debate is for another day.
The oxygen is taken through the blood stream to muscles in the body where it is then traded for waste. The waste is deposited in various bodily systems and taken care of from that point on.
Warning: Upcoming Logical Stretch (ULS):
So supposing that you have half of a billion breaths in your life, each time you breathe you have a chance to study and/or refine your breathing. In doing so you just might find out a bit more about yourself.
To return to the Realm of Slightly Less Loose Logic (RSLLL), you really must be careful when examining the way that your involuntary body functions. If you push too hard for knowledge it may end up hurting you. So take your time and really get a feel for yourself.
Paying attention to your breathing is a proven method in relieving stress. Science and religion alike pay special attention to understanding the way in which we breathe. Breath Prayer is a Christian prayer focus. When you start to drift away from your original intention you actively shift focus back onto the breath (Hmmm… seems like meditation is a fundamental practice).
Science too, believes in the powers of breathing. Breathing to reduce stress is a concept not all that different than Breath Prayer. Stress, in this case, can be viewed as a distraction from your original plan or “prayer.”
When a person is under stress, their breathing pattern changes. Typically, an anxious person takes small, shallow breaths, using their shoulders rather than their diaphragm to move air in and out of their lungs. This style of breathing disrupts the balance of gases in the body.
So in order to train your body out of stress all anybody needs to do is deepen and elongate their breathing. There are many ways to do this seemingly difficult task of breath training. Pranayama, aka yogic breathing, is a good place to start.
…just do what you gotta do…
to be happy.
If you’re interested in learning a whole lot more about yogic techniques A Systematic Course in the Ancient Tantric Techniques of Yoga and Kriya is a very thorough book on the topic. It gives in depth explanations of this technique and many others.
Sources:
http://www.normalbreathing.com/index-rate.php
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/hlw/whathappens.html
http://www.prohealthsys.com/resources/physical/vital_signs_table.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_crystal_display
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Breathing_to_reduce_stress
http://www.soulshepherding.org/2012/07/breath-prayers/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_monitor
http://onsager.bd.psu.edu/halmi/chem3airs05.pdf Experiment that you can try…
http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/pranayama/
Quotes taken from Wondergressive admin: Phil
Other Wondergressive Articles:
Seven Minute Workout Can Get You to Lose Weight
Smelling Calmness (And Other Things)
Wondergressive 