The Resting Breath — Know yourself better & be happier

Within 10 seconds of birth, we take our first breath, and we engage in this most vital activity until we conclude this life with our final intake of air. The act of breathing is always right here with us, and everything is intricately connected to the breath. There is no life without it.

Everything that is created can be directly linked back to the breath. Even the word “inspiration” refers to both the act of breathing in, as much as it does a state of being filled with peace, energy and abundance.

This is the driving force of life and all creation, and so because we’re always breathing, we’re always creating. But have you ever stopped and questioned whether you’re doing it properly and what the implications are of doing it wrong?

If breathing is directly related to and inseparable from creation, that must mean that if we change our breathing we can then change the reality we’re creating for ourselves.

This article will show you the most foundational breathing technique and why we want to consider applying it to have greater control over our reality all in under 5 minutes.

In yoga breathing exercises are referred to as Pranayama. Prana means ‘life energy’ and Yama means ‘science of’, there are many of these pranayamas but this pranayama which I call the ‘Resting Breath’ is a great place for anyone to start.

The ‘Resting Breath’ is the way we’re born breathing, but as we get older, usually by ages 3–4, we pick up habits which cloud this. Reconnecting with this breathing will allow us to harness and express more of the energy inside ourselves, much like young kids do. This energy and the expression of it is what we really are, we are that energy.

Breathing properly means we are continuously revitalising our bodies with more oxygen, and this enhances our experience of reality drastically. This breathing gives us more presence, we get more into the flow and our overall awareness of ourselves jumps up.

By doing this practice we begin catching more of the thoughts passing through the mind like waves and we’ll be able to feel more of the emotions surging through our bodies. This gives us more insight into ourselves, we peel the layers and we begin to see what was once hidden from view. We come to know who we really are through doing this, and this makes us happier and more powerful.

The goal is to change the way we breathe on a subconscious level, so all that’s required is to do this simple breathing exercise throughout the day until it becomes a subconscious habit.

There are two ways to do this breathing, we can apply it more and more as a habit as you go about your business, or you can find a nice, comfortable secluded spot, either sitting or lying down, and practice it there. Doing it consciously throughout the day will make it a subconscious habit faster and although you will get lots of benefits doing it once or twice a day, it won’t be as powerful as making it a subconscious habit. Everyone’s path and choices are different and valid but either way, we need to learn the mechanics of it.

This is what I find so great about this breathing, we don’t need to make time for it if we don’t have the extra time, we can just do it in conjunction with whatever we were going to do anyway.

We make it a habit. It’s like being polite, we start by being polite consciously until we don’t need to manage that behaviour anymore, after a while we just are polite, it becomes a part of us. We become inseparable from ‘being polite’. We can apply this to anything in life, including this pranayama.

THE MECHANICS

When learning the mechanics it helps to be seated, and when we get the hang of it if we want to do it throughout the day we can, we simply apply it to standing up, walking and various other activities.

So here it is step by step:

Step 1

Breathe in through the nose and into your stomach so that your stomach expands.

Practice doing this step for a few minutes until you get the hang of it. Try to feel the breath pushing the stomach out and then releasing. Keeping the different parts separate for now will help us put it all together at the end.

So to reiterate, breathing in through the nose and into the stomach → release (step 1)

Step 2

Once you get comfortable with step 1 try to combine it with this next step.

When your stomach has fully expanded (step 1), continue breathing in but now direct the breath up into the chest expanding that until you’ve taken in a maximum amount of air. This is step 2.

Step 3

Step 3 is the simplest. You want to release the breath smoothly and in a controlled manner. Don’t let all the air out at once. Exhale smoothly, calmly and continuously.

Putting it all together

By now you will have had lots of practice with the mechanics and you can begin to practice it in the manner that is most suited to you. It may seem like a lot of different parts at first but you will quickly learn and get used to the routine.

It’s important to keep the inhalation and exhalation smooth and continuous, like oil flowing from one container to the next. The aim is to bring a maximum amount of air into the body, so inhale to your maximum without forcing air in and making it uncomfortable.

Take your time, and keep the breath smooth!

Why do we breathe in through the nose? We want to breathe in through the nose because the sinuses catch bacteria and prevent debris from entering the body whereas the mouth doesn’t.

BEWARE

This breathing, although simple, is extremely powerful and should not be underestimated. If you’re doing any activity in which a momentary lapse of concentration could result in death or injury then I would recommend doing this much less intensely, here I recommend focusing more on the form not so much on increasing the amount you breathe in.

The important thing is to get the mechanics right and to be increasing how much air we intake linearly over time.

Want to make it more intense? Hold the breath between the inhale and exhale. But remember, keep the breath smooth and don’t do anything uncomfortable. Holding the breath will make the energy 100x more intense.

BE PATIENT

The truth is that we will all find it very hard to keep this going consistently throughout the day but if we keep bringing the mind back and focusing it on doing this breathing consciously then over time this will become a subconscious habit.

Everyone goes through this, it’s the same as meditation. We start focusing on our breath and then 5 minutes later we’re thinking about the kids and whether we’ve bought the right ingredients for tonight’s dinner. That’s simply the nature of the mind, it latches onto things and goes for a ride. We don’t always see this happen.

This takes time, so just bring it back every time your attention dissipates. There’s no need to get frustrated, every moment of frustration is a moment of concentration lost. We can never get the present moment back!

What happens after that?

Well once you’re doing this subconsciously or simply doing it on a more regular basis, we will naturally have much more energy in the body which will simply make us better performers in any day to day activity. We’ll also be more in the flow (present moment) throughout the day and at night our body will be fully oxygenated and so we’ll wake up feeling highly refreshed.

Added benefits

What we will find is that the more we do this the more we’ll be in the flow and we begin to pay greater and greater attention to ourselves, catching different thoughts we have and feeling more of our emotions.

This helps us know ourselves better, and from my own experience, the more we know who we really are, the happier we get, and the more powerful we become.

70% of your body’s waste is expelled by the lungs, and so taking more control over our breathing can not only improve our mental health, clarity, happiness and our abilities to create the life we want but it can also improve our overall health.