Breathe Baby, Breathe

-Mindfulness Bites-

Breathe Baby, Breathe

By Lise Villeneuve

On the day I was born, July 20th, nineteen-never-mind-the decade, I refused to breathe. Just ask my dad. The doctors tried smacking my tiny bottom to make me cry and breathe, but apparently I didn’t mind the spanking. After a little while longer, the medical team became nervous and one of the nurses tried this new technique she had apparently seen on t.v. She blew on me. I don’t know if it was the unpleasant aroma of her breath that startled me out of baby bliss, but it worked. I cried my little heart out and took my very first inhalation of air on this Earth. Don’t worry, the pace of this story will pick up and I won’t bore you with every little detail of my life. Luckily, I’ve forgotten most of it anyway.

All this to say that ever since I was born, it seems as though breathing never really came naturally to me - unless someone blew on me, but thankfully that hasn’t happened since my birth, or at least I don’t remember. I was always a shallow breather. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I was drawn to singing later in my teens. It forced me to breathe deeply, at least when I was on stage. My singing teacher would tell me he thought I was asthmatic. That was no compliment in the singing world, but I got over it. I’m a survivor.

Luckily I learned how to breathe properly when I was singing, but nobody ever told me that it would be incredibly beneficial to keep breathing deeply during the rest of the time - which was about 96 % of my life. That’s a crying shame because I missed out on the numerous benefits of deep breathing. Here are just a few: deep breathing is a natural painkiller, it reduces stress and anxiety and relaxes the body and mind, it improves blood flow, reduces inflammation in the body, improves digestion, detoxifies the body, stimulates the lymphatic system, increases energy, it improves lung and heart function, improves focus and even memory. Wow! That’s quite the list, and if you don’t believe me, here’s a great article by Ben Fishel that lists 21 benefits of deep breathing backed by scientific studies.

How much would we be willing to pay for a pill that would give us all these positive effects? Bottom line is deep breathing instantly improves our physical, emotional and mental well being, and it’s completely free! So why didn’t I know this earlier?

I must have known it intuitively. Come to think of it, maybe my great love of snorkeling has something to do with giving myself a chance to practice deep belly breathing. When my face is in the water and I look down at that mysterious world of colourful sea life, all I hear is the sound of my slow, controlled, deep breathing - in and out of the snorkel. Swoosh, Swish. Swoosh, Swish. Perhaps one of the reasons snorkeling feels so good is a result of that rush of oxygen I get. It’s an instant feel-good buzz. I suppose I could have saved a small fortune by simply learning how to breathe properly instead of having to fly to the Caribbean each year to oxygenate my brain while snorkeling. Oh well, it was fun.

Well they say you end up teaching what you most needed to learn yourself. It’s no surprise, then, that I now teach mindfulness, which includes deep belly breathing. Watch out, here comes the teacher in me. As you keep reading, take a deep breath through your nose and let your belly fill up and expand just like when you’ve eaten too much and have what my teen calls a “food baby.” Unfortunately, sexiness is not an immediate benefit of practising deep belly breathing, however, by becoming more relaxed, healthier, more focused and in a better mood, you certainly will become sexier by default.

OK. Back to deep breathing. Inhale through your nose, expand your belly, then exhale slowly out of your mouth. That’s it. You now know the secret to an improved life. Seriously, continue to breathe like this and notice how it instantly changes the way you feel. Imagine if we all breathed like this 24/7! There would likely be no need for drugs or alcohol. Mind you, the occasional glass of red wine with a side of deep belly breathing is a pretty healthy combo. So cheers to that!

Lise Villeneuve

www.lisevilleneuve.com