Learning to Breathe

I dragged myself through my days for years. My energy was low practically my whole life. At times I dragged myself to yet another doctor to ask if there wasn't anything to be done. The doctors, all good physicians, would order this test or that, or a whole battery of tests. They'd ask good questions. Nothing changed.

A few years ago I hit a crisis point. I realized I had every reason in the world to be happy, but I wasn't. And, I was chronically exhausted. Something had to be done.

I also realized that the clock was ticking. It's always ticking and I knew that if I didn't get my act together, my time would run down before I'd accomplished what I meant to in this life. This was back in the days when Elizabeth Gilbert's phenomenal book, "Eat, Pray, Love" was just out. I'm not ashamed to say that I am one of a legion of women whose life was changed by that book. Reading it, I remembered that I'd always meant to learn to meditate. Then one day, as I waited for my younger son and his friends to finish their lattes and brownies at our local coffee shop, I found the brochure of a meditation teacher who taught barely five minutes from my home.

Even I, who hated leaving home after dark for any reason (if for no other reason than it cut into my Spider Solitaire time), knew that I couldn't use the excuse of having no energy to avoid a five minute drive to a place where I could sit and learn to meditate over the course of six classes.

This, by the way, is not a post on the health benefits of meditation. That will come later. This post is about something much, much more basic. Something we all do. This post is about learning to breathe.

Can you believe that? Learning to breathe? Don't leave me yet. I realize that if you're reading this, you're breathing as you do so. However, there's breathing and there's breathing and once I learned how to breathe properly, I immediately began to have more energy. Let me write that again for emphasis, once I learned how to breather properly, I immediately began to have more energy! I couldn't make this stuff up but am going to teach it here, for all of you, who are most of us, who actually need a lesson.

Put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your chest. Breathe naturally - like you always do. Which hand moves? If it's the hand on your stomach (because your stomach inflates when you breathe), you're good to go. You're taking in big deep breaths that bring oxygen deep into your body. However, if only the hand on your chest moves, you're not breathing deeply enough. If that's the case, how do you learn to breathe more deeply? Simply by reminding yourself and repeating the process whenever you think of it. After a week or so of practice, you should be breathing deep into your belly without conscious thought. By the way, if you watch babies breathe, this is their natural way of doing so.

Not only did my energy increase when I learned to breathe, but I also became more relaxed. You may notice that when you're nervous or upset, your breathing becomes more shallow. I'm sure you've all heard to take three deep breaths when you're feeling so. It makes sense that if you continually take deep breaths, it will help you feel calmer all the time.

Sometimes the simplest solution works the best! Keep breathing...and let me know what changes you notice!