Take a breather: three easy-to-learn breathing techniques can maximize your energy

Men's Fitness, Oct, 2003 by Kevin Beck

Take a deep breath and relax is so common a mantra that most of us miss its core message: Focused, controlled breathing has the power to defuse anxiety and stress and to boost energy. In fact, the notion of breathing as therapy has ancient roots in pranayama, an aspect of yoga that means "expansion and control of cosmic power."

But, for our purposes, you don't need to know that any more than you need to recall who won the last Survivor (if you do know who, please get help). The bottom line is this: A few simple breathing exercises can take the edge off your day in a hurry. "Calm, conscious breathing facilitates optimum health by permitting your body to function at its natural pace and rhythm," says Megan McCarver, a certified massage therapist, founder of YogaEverywhere.com, and a Hatha yoga instructor in Southern California.

While breathing is normally an automatic process, like heartbeat and digestion, it is also subject to conscious manipulation (kind of like Wall Street analysis), and breathing drills can have far-flung and varied effects on the body.

"Breathing exercises facilitate more oxygen and blood flow through the entire body," says McCarver. "This lowers blood pressure, stimulates metabolism, aids digestion, and releases tension around the organs." Also, focusing on breathing--called conscious breathing--literally feeds the body with attention.

"Conscious breath immediately brings your mind's attention to the present," says McCarver. "When you can merge with the moment, you can 'go with the flow.' This process of surrendering promotes a feeling of recuperation or relaxation."

The following breathing exercises can help you borrow from pranayama to squelch the static from your everyday life. These easy-to-perform techniques not only yield an increased state of well-being from the comfort of your easy chair, but they are so unobtrusive you can do them virtually anywhere and not raise eyebrows (except for the "corpse pose").

Spend up to five minutes on each of the methods presented, and remember that regardless of your situation you're never far from a sigh of relief.

SAVASANA (CORPSE-POSE BREATHING)

When you lie on your back, your diaphragm (the "dome" of muscle beneath your ribs controlling breathing) can expand and contract optimally. If lying down isn't an option, you can do this exercise while seated with your head resting on your desk.

The exercise: Lie faceup with your palms upturned at your sides and your entire body relaxed. Inhale and exhale deeply and deliberately. Pay attention to the sequential rise and fall of your belly and chest and to the smooth sound of your breathing. Feel your abs expel each breath, then concentrate on the air rushing in to expand your lungs fully.

NADI SODHANA (ALTERNATE-NOSTRIL BREATHING)

The term means "purification of channels," and for most of us it may be necessary--surprisingly, we all spend a good portion of our day breathing in and out of just one side of our schnozz. Yogis have long believed that alternate-nostril breathing restores balance to brain function, and medical science bears this notion out. When one nostril is blocked, electrical activity in the brain increases on the same side; people with obstructed right nostrils score better on creative, or "right brain," tests, while subjects with obstructed left nostrils do better on tests of verbal (left brain) skill.

The exercise: Close your right nostril with your right thumb and inhale through your left nostril. Then, close your left nostril with your right ring finger and little finger, and at the same time remove your thumb from the right nostril and exhale through it. Next, inhale through the right nostril, then close the right nostril with your right thumb and exhale through the left nostril. Be deliberate: Each inhalation and exhalation should last four to eight seconds (a complete cycle is eight to 16 seconds).

DEERGHA SWASAM (THREE-PART BREATHING)

Drawing a "complete breath" engages the abdomen, diaphragm and chest muscles, distinctly and in that order; completing the cycle involves exhaling using the same elements in the reverse order. It may be helpful to visualize your "breathing center" rising from your navel right up to your collarbone and then down again, like a cork on a wave.

The exercise: Sit with your spine erect and your stomach relaxed. Then, all in one breath, perform the three parts of this exercise: Inhale completely at the abdomen. Continue to inhale by filling in the midsection, the area of the diaphragm, and then by filling the chest, allowing the upper chest and the shoulders to rise. Then systematically release and empty from your upper chest, your mid-chest, and finally from your belly, contracting your abs to expel the last bit of air. Aahhhh.