Everyone HAS to breathe! Of all the essential nutrients needed by human beings, oxygen is the one we must have on a moment to moment basis; we can’t live without it even for a few minutes yet this is the one nutrient we don’t associate with health.
Breath is Life
Breathing affects every area of our lives. Optimal health and wellness is supported by good breathing. A new-born baby tells the world it is alive the moment it takes it’s first breath. Breath is the current that carries vitality to all the cells.
Our lungs are the largest detoxifying organs of the body other than our skin, and often the lungs are hungry and neglected. We all know the pain of the asthmatic child at school who cannot partake in school sport; or the pain of the emphysemic patient struggling for each and every breath.
Most people when in agony,when feeling anxious, when deeply sad or angry will hold their breath: remember when you got hit on the shin with a cricket ball? or when you received bad news? Sometimes we hold our breath when we are thinking, or listening intently.
Breath Release
In breathing freely, instead of holding our breath, we allow the pain or shock to flow through the body and not get accumulated in the cells as either physical or emotional toxicity.
It is common to find depressed patients in hospitals not breathing deeply. Physiotherapists note a decrease in depression after exercise and it can be due to the fact that exercise among other things, forces us to breathe more. We feel invigorated by appropriate exercising and the accelerated breathing that goes hand in hand with it. Therapists know that when a client has had a deep insight or healing revelation their breathing becomes open and relaxed, as in those delicious ‘AHA’ moments.