A great many individuals are disconnected from the sensations and feedback from their bodies. This absence of body awareness may be a result of life experience, such as trauma, or of living in a culture that has embraced a medical model in which body and mind are divided rather than being considered holistically. In the years that I have been teaching breathing techniques, I have witnessed many clients, students, and workshop participants marvel at the discovery of their full breath capacity. Not convinced? Here’s a fun exercise. Inhale deeply and then measure the length of your slowest possible exhalation. Now do it again, but this time, measure the duration of your exhalation as you hum a single note as slowly as possible. Did you find a difference? We can get in touch with our breath with a simple yet effective form of deep breathing called intentional breathing. Unlike other breathing techniques, the emphasis here is to allow the natural flow of the breath by inhaling from the top down and exhaling from the bottom up. Before you begin, there are a couple of things to remember:
Two things to keep in mind when practicing intentional breathing
First, this is a practice. It may feel strange, awkward, or difficult. That is to be expected when trying something that you’ve never attempted before. Be kind with yourself and see this as an exploration rather than something to be immediately mastered. Second, and more importantly, if for any reason you feel really uncomfortable or this doesn’t feel right to you, it is perfectly okay to take a break or discontinue the exercise and try again another time.
How to Practice Intentional Breathing
How Intentional Breathing Relieves Stress
This exercise is intended to activate your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) which initiates the relaxation response, depresses heart rate, blood pressure and respiration, and allows your body to engage in reparative and restorative functions. While not everyone experiences relaxation right away, most report feeling a sense of calm and a reduction in the feeling of stress after this exercise. Although most find this intentional breathing exercise to be beneficial and informative, it doesn’t always work for everyone. Some people find it difficult to remain focused on the breath when their brain is in a constant state of chatter. One of my recent course attendees, Shirley, reported that even though the exercise was soothing, she struggled to keep her overactive mind in check. Her experience isn’t uncommon. There are many strategies to work with the mind in this situation, but the one that seems to work best for most people is to attach their breath to a word or a phrase to keep the mind focused. Shirley, for example, slowly recited the words “in” with the inhalation, and “out” with the exhalation. Pretty much any word or phrase can work to help focus the mind on the sensation of the breath. The trick is to keep the word or phrase simple so that the experience is still centered on the somatic, felt, or body sense of breathing rather than the thought sense, or a word or story that describes it. Regardless of what works for you, intentional breathing takes practice. The good news is that it can be practiced virtually anywhere. The more that you practice, the easier it becomes. Particularly at the beginning, I suggest practicing intentional breathing at least a few times a day, every day, preferably in a quiet space and with all external distractions removed. You can do it whenever you find yourself sitting still for a few moments. It is much easier to learn a new skill while focusing on it, rather than trying to adopt it while multitasking. Most of my clients and students report feeling benefits from this practice right away. They feel more calm and relaxed after a few minutes of intentional breathing. Over time, you may notice a shift in your awareness of your breath, or a tendency to breathe more deeply and fully most of the time. This is the first step in defusing the stress feedback loop and teaching your brain and body to relax.
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