OUR BREATH - A Powerful Healing Tool

We all need to learn how to breathe . . . or perhaps how to breathe properly. OK. I know you are probably asking, why do I need to learn anything about breathing. Doesn't my body do that automatically? Well, yes and no!

It is true that breathing is a function of the autonomic nervous system, which means that it functions without conscious instructions from us. So why the big deal about breathing? Quite simply, breathing properly is the easiest healing tool to master.

I believe in the KIS - Keep It Simple! - approach to healing.

I am not a scientist, nor am I a medically trained expert, but I have learned to heal my body and maintain natural health. I believe that we do not have to understand how everything works in order to accept and use the techniques.

Breathing, properly that is, really is a huge deal for our body. While food feeds our physical body, the breath feeds our soul!

Our life began "officially" when our mother gave birth to us and we inhaled our very first breath. And our physical life will continue until we breathe our last conscious breath and we move on to our next experience. We call that death.

Just like most things in our life, breathing can either be conscious (deliberate) or unconscious (on automatic pilot).

I like to simplify breathing by thinking of inhaling as taking in life-giving energy (oxygen) into our body, and exhaling as ridding our body of left-over residue (carbon dioxide). But our breath also fills many other functions.

Ancient Chinese medicine teaches that our body is inherently electric, and that energy meridians direct the flow of that energy, which they called qi (or chi) throughout our body. That theory is the basis for acupuncture. Out of that theory came the development of the precursor to Tai Chi called Qi (energy in Chinese) Gong (work in Chinese), that is energy work.

The theory behind most Chinese medicine is that blockages or disruptions in the flow of our body's energy are responsible for most dis-ease in our body. Qi Gong is a system of breathing patterns combined with specific flowing movements and self-massage to restore and/or correct that energy flow. Qi Gong is often referred to as a moving meditation.

I equate our breath as the outward manifestation of our soul, inasmuch as the breath is the initial manifestation of the beginning of our life on this planet and the final manifestation at the end of our life.

When I first began to study how powerful breath work can be, my first question was, if breathing is more or less automatic, how and why could it be a big deal? The answer is that our stressful life style today, sort of living on overdrive as most of us do, puts huge demands on our autonomic nervous system. And one of the demonstrations of that overload is shallow breathing, which does not instigate relaxation and renewal of many body functions. Shallow breathing also is thought to contribute to disruptions in the flow of our body's chi or life force.

Here are a couple of very powerful yet simple and easy breathing techniques that I learned from Qi Gong:

• Always breath deeply into the abdomen. This is called abdominal breathing. Just imagine you are inflating a balloon in the lower abdomen, then exhale slowly as the balloon deflates. Repeat after one normal breath.
  


• First inflate the lower half of the lungs - hesitate a couple of seconds - then inflate the upper half of the lungs, inhaling all the way to the top of the lungs while raising the shoulders and pulling them back in order to fully inflate the lungs. Then exhale very slowly, making an audible "ahh" sound as you exhale. Repeat after one normal breath.

Those of you who know my story know that I healed myself of Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, for which there is no recognized medical treatment. One of my primary resources was learning to use Qi Gong every single day, and now, 14 years later I am totally symptom free. I still practice meditation and Qi Gong daily. Modified yoga also played a significant role in my recovery. Yoga also emphasizes the role of our breath and what it calls prana (life force).

It is important to note that whatever physical challenges our bodies develop, the effective healing tools remain the same - daily breath work, gentle exercise, meditation, and careful nutrition.

Please see my primary website, www.BettysHouseLifeAfterMS.com for details of my story.

You will find a very simple beginning meditation at this website, which may be downloaded.

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