Free Your Breath, Free your Life

G. I. Gurdjieff said that “time is breath.” And J. B. Priestly once described our time-starved situation as that of a knight who gets on his horse to go in search of time, not realizing that time is the horse he is riding. If time is indeed breath, and it is also the horse we are riding, then perhaps we can look toward our breath to discover a new, more conscious relationship to time in our lives.

For anyone who cares to look, it is certainly clear that the growing stress, anxiety, worry, and disharmony that many of us experience in this period of human history is closely associated with the fast, shallow upper-chest breathing that many of us experience in our daily lives, even when we are at rest. Such breathing is not just the result of chemical or mechanical imbalances in our body, but also stems from our increasing sensation and feeling of not having enough time and space in our lives. And this sensation comes in large part from our brain and nervous system, which is often in a state of emotional alarm. The truth is, as adaptable as we are as human beings, we are not designed for the kinds of chronically high-speed stressful lives that many of us live, and we pay a heavy price for it in terms of both our health and our happiness.

The Full Expanse of the Present Moment

If time is indeed breath, however, then there is an intelligent and healthy way out of this dilemma. The secret is in discovering a new inner attitude that can help us slow down our breathing and live in the full expanse and freedom of the present moment. Looking toward the future for some change in our lives without learning how to fully experience “the horse we are actually riding” is doomed to failure. Pushing ourselves into the future, as many of us do under the influence of our latest high-speed information technologies, undermines the rhythms and wisdom of the human organism and suffocates our breath and our life.

To open ourselves to our own inherent rhythms and wisdom, we must learn to experience through direct awareness the terrible effects that our time-conditioned life has on our health, well-being, and perception, and we must learn to open the breathing spaces of the body and find our own unconditioned breath—a breath that will most certainly reveal itself as longer and slower than our usual breath, which is now held captive to the stress-producing emotions of fear, anger, anxiety, and worry.

What is needed to help bring this about is not just work with breathing (though this is certainly necessary), but also a radical change of perception—the conscious, heartfelt experience of love, kindness, nonjudgment, and compassion, both toward ourselves and others. These feelings, which act as antidotes to the poisonous time-eating emotions that many of us experience day in and day out, can help harmonize our nervous system and bring our attention into the miracle of the present moment. They represent the felt ­appreciation for what exists here and now both in ourselves and ­others.

Copyright 2004-2011 by Dennis Lewis. This entire passage is from my book Free Your Breath, Free Your Life.

Dennis Lewis

“Smiling is science both ancient and modern. The power of a genuine smile to uplift our spirits and help heal us is profound and healing and empowering. Whether it is directed toward others or ourselves or is simply an expression of our innermost being, a genuine smile says ‘yes’ to the miracle and mystery of love and life.”–Dennis Lewis, quoted in Smile! The Secret Science of Smiling (see citation at bottom)

The next time you are feeling negative for any reason, or are experiencing pain, stress, or anxiety, think of or visualize someone who brings a smile to your face. If you are unable to do so, put a smile on your face anyway. However ludicrous it may seem to you, just “put on a smiling face.” Though it may feel unnatural at first, keep smiling for at least a two minutes and it will soon become natural—and genuine. (I’ve done it thousands of times; it works.) Once you are smiling, direct your smile inwardly into your whole body, allowing it to penetrate into all the cells, organs, tissues, and so on that your life depends on.

Now, keeping the smile on your face, rub your hands together until they are warm and put them, one on top of the other, on your navel. Sense the warmth and energy coming from your hands into your lower abdomen. Sense your breathing. Don’t attempt to control it. Notice how your belly expands or wants to expand on the in-breath and retracts or want to retract on the out-breath. As the inhalation takes place by itself, sense the air going not just through your nose but also through the smile on your face (with your mouth closed). Let the sensation, the energy, of the smile combine with the energy of your breath, and use both your intention and your attention to direct this energy down into the area that hurts or that is tense and contracted. If you are anxious, fearful, or impatient, direct the smiling breath down into your heart and the area around your navel. Be sure not to hold your breath at the end of the inhalation.

As you exhale, do so slowly and silently through pursed but relaxed lips (as though you are gently blowing on a single candle, making it flicker without actually blowing it out), and feel that any pain, discomfort, tension, anxiety, fear, or impatience is released with the exhalation. Let your next in-breath arise on its own.

As you continue this practice, sense your face frequently to be sure you are still smiling. Also, keep sensing the warmth and energy coming your hands into your navel area, letting the warmth and energy move all through your abdomen and into your spine. Each time the in-breath occurs, allow your abdomen to expand outward. On the out-breath, allow your abdomen to gently retract inward. This will help your diaphragm move through its full range of motion, which in turn will help open up all your breathing spaces.

Exhaling slowly through pursed lips ensures that the exhalation will take longer than the inhalation. This will help you relax. Don’t force your breathing in any way. The key is to keep smiling and be gentle. Practice like this for a minimum of five minutes at a time.

This is a very safe, powerful exercise that you can try any time of the day or night.

Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis. You can find more complete versions of this practice, and the science behind it, in my books The Tao of Natural Breathing and Free Your Breath, Free Your Life.

You might also wish to take a look at Smile! The Secret Science of Smiling, by Elan Sun Star, a wonderful book that, in addition to numerous beautiful smiling faces, includes a section by me on The Smiling Breath (pp. 177-81), and endorsements from people like Dr. Masaru Emoto, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, Neale Donald Walsch (“Conversations with God”), and Captain James Lovell (US Apollo 13 moon landing).

Dennis Lewis

Lewis maintains that negative emotional experiences such as anxiety, worry, and so on can be the result of excessively fast breathing–also referred to as “overbreathing.” This kind of breathing, called hyperventilation, often occurs when we take quick, shallow breaths from the top of our chest. It also frequently occurs when we breathe through our mouths. He points out that although the average text book breathing rate for people at rest is about 12 to 17 times a minute, many of us breathe even faster than this. And when we do, we will generally find ourselves anxious, irritable, apprehensive, and even fearful—all for no apparent reason. He also believes that even the breathing rate of 12-17 times a minute is often faster than it needs to be and is itself often a subtle form of chronic hyperventilation. “People who undertake qigong (chi kung), tai chi, yoga, breath therapy, or other such practices, often reduce their breathing rate to between 4-10 breaths a minute,” as well as their levels of stress and anxiety.

“It’s important to understand the role of carbon dioxide in helping to ensure the efficient utilization of oxygen in the body, which is absolutely imperative for maintaining good health. When our breathing rate is too high, that is, when we breathe too fast,” Lewis explains, “we reduce the level of carbon dioxide in our blood below its optimum level. This reduced level of carbon dioxide causes many problems. For example, it causes the arteries, including the carotid artery going to the brain, to constrict, thus reducing the flow of blood throughout the body. It also makes it more difficult for the red blood cells to release oxygen to the cells of the brain and body. When we have too little carbon dioxide, our brain and body will experience a shortage of oxygen no matter how much oxygen we may breathe into our lungs. This lack of oxygen switches on the sympathetic nervous system—our ‘fight or flight’ reflex—which makes us tense, anxious and irritable. It also reduces our ability to think clearly, and tends to put us at the mercy of obsessive thoughts and images.”

According to Lewis, however, the effects of chronic hyperventilation (a breathing rate that is too high) go far beyond mental and emotional symptoms such as anxiety and fearfulness. Lewis states that some researchers and medical doctors, including Professor Konstantin Buteyko from Russia, now believe on the basis of many studies that the overly high breathing rate of chronic hyperventilation is instrumental in some 200 medical problems and diseases, including asthma, heart disease, high blood pressure, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, memory loss, sinusitis, arthritis, panic attacks, stress, rhinitis, headaches, heartburn, and many more.

Lewis points out that although chronic hyperventilation can be the result of underlying emotional or psychological problems, it can also be the result of bad breathing habits formed in childhood. One such habit is mouth breathing, which releases huge quantities of carbon dioxide very quickly. It is very important, therefore to learn how to breathe only through your nose is the normal activities of your daily life, including when you are doing aerobics. Chronic hyperventilation can also be the result of poor posture, excessive muscular tension, poor diet, and the prevailing image of the hard, flat belly that we find in fashion and fitness magazines. To breathe naturally, says Lewis, is to breathe with our whole body, the way a baby or animal does. For this to occur, we not only need a flexible, unconstricted ribcage, but also a supple belly. Our belly needs to be able to expand on inhalation and retract on exhalation.

According to Lewis, this bellows-like movement of the belly supports the upward and downward movement of the diaphragm. When the belly expands on inhalation, the diaphragm can expand farther downward into the abdomen, which allows the lungs to expand more fully. When the belly retracts on exhalation, the diaphragm can relax farther upward helping to empty the lungs. The diaphragm’s increased downward and upward range of movement not only allows the lungs to take in and release air (including oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other gases) with fewer, slower, more-coordinated breaths, but it also helps to massage all the internal organs. This “internal massage,” says Lewis, has a healthful impact on digestion, elimination, blood flow, the immune system, and the nervous system, reducing overall stress and anxiety.

Lewis, the cofounder of a highly successful technology-related business, has been studying the breathing process for the last 30 years in a variety of disciplines. After he sold his business several years ago to a large English firm, he found himself with an abdominal pain that his doctors could neither diagnose nor cure. During this period, he met a body work practitioner who was able to alleviate the problem in several hour-long sessions. This practitioner used a technique called Chi Nei Tsang—a form of internal-organ energy massage and breathwork brought to the West by Taoist master Mantak Chia. Lewis found this approach so helpful that he went on to become a certified practitioner and worked for a couple of years in a well-known acupuncture clinic in San Francisco.

Lewis says that it was his experiences with Chi Nei Tsang that inspired him to write his first book, The Tao of Natural Breathing, and develop his audio program Natural Breathing, which bring together the meditative wisdom of the East with the scientific knowledge of the West with regard to breathing. “As I began working on ordinary people with various physical and emotional problems,” says Lewis, “I saw that many of these problems, including anxiety, were often related to their breathing. I also saw that most of us are unaware of our bad breathing habits and have little understanding of how these habits undermine our health and well-being.”

Lewis says he wrote the book and developed his audio program so that people could begin to explore this important subject for themselves. “Breathing exercises are a dime a dozen,” says Lewis, “especially advanced exercises such as breath retention, fast alternate nostril breathing, and reverse breathing. You can walk into almost any bookstore and find a variety of books and tapes promoting such exercises. What you can’t usually find in these stores, however, are books and tapes with a clear understanding of natural breathing and of how the way we breathe, including our breathing rate, relates to the various inner and outer aspects of our lives—not just to the amount of oxygen we take in, but also to our ability to ward off disease, to think clearly, to sense and feel the needs and emotions that are motivating our behavior, and so on. Until we begin to have this understanding, and until we begin to have some experience of natural breathing, many breathing exercises can actually be detrimental to our health and well-being.”

One example that Lewis gives of how breathing exercises can be detrimental to our health is the many deep breathing exercises that people often do. “Deep breathing is not the panacea it is made out to be,” says Lewis, “especially when it is forced. Many people in today’s world don’t have sufficient body awareness, diaphragmatic strength, and breathing coordination to intentionally breathe deeply without hyperventilating. People who try to breathe deeply often end up by pulling their bellies in and trying to expand their chests, which is just a very inefficient and unhealthy form of shallow breathing, which speeds up the breathing rate. Such deep-breathing exercises improperly done in this or other ways can bring about even more hyperventilation and anxiety, weaken the diaphragm, and cause disharmony in the breathing muscles. In any case, our breathing was never intended to always be deep, but rather to be spontaneously and naturally responsive to the needs of the moment.”

Esalen--View of Hot Tubs & Ocean

Though the retreat this year will explore some safe, natural, and powerful ways to open up our breathing, the underlying aim of the retreat is awakening to our real nature–being present to who and what we really are with the help of the breath.

To understand the implications of this aim it is imperative to see that so many of us live our lives in fast-forward, attempting to escape the pain, discomfort, anxiety, uncertainty, messiness, or boredom of the present moment by dwelling on something in the future that we believe will bring us meaning and happiness. When we are honest with ourselves, however, we see that the future always arrives now, which we are constantly trying to escape, and that so much of our life is spent fast-forwarding and never really being where we actually are.

The breath can be a tremendous help here, as I describe in The Tao of Natural Breathing and Free Your Breath, Free Your Life, as well as in my new book (due out in the next couple of weeks) Breathe Into Being: Awakening To Who You Really Are. For we are always being breathed now. And the breath of life that enlivens us arises from and returns to the unknown.

Perhaps you can take a moment right now to notice the miracle of your own breath–the aliveness that it brings. This noticing will help bring you back into Now, the only time that actually exists. You may notice as you pay attention that this Now is much bigger than the now that you habitually rush through. It is at least big enough to include both your out-breath and your in-breath–and much more as you begin to be called to the living experience of presence. But it takes a leap to be present to the miracle of being, a leap out of the the mindset that always thinks it knows what the next step, the future, is or should be.

Inattention is rampant not only on the Internet but in almost every area of everyday life. Many of us move through our lives so quickly (which is reflected in our fast upper chest breathing), that any real connection with ourselves, our friends, our families, and our environments is next to impossible. Inattention in one person causes problems and wasted time not only for that person but also often for numerous others. For anyone who wishes to live a more intelligent, conscious, or spiritual life, the study of attention is crucial. Our attention is what connects us with the world in and around us. Without it, we are simply sleep walkers, experiencing little more than tiny fragments of ourselves, and out of touch with the energies and rhythms of wholeness and relationship.

If you feel called to do so, you can begin the study of attention right now, right here. Allow yourself to slow down enough while reading this so that you can be attentive to your posture and how you are breathing. Without any judgment or analysis, take a kind of inner snapshot of yourself and how you feel at this moment. Be sincere in your observations. Notice any unnecessary tension or nervousness in your body/mind. Are you tense, relaxed, angry, anxious, worried, in a hurry? Is your breathing narrow and constricted, or is it free and open? As you become more attentive to what is going on inside you, you may begin to hear a voice from your heart, or from some other more-central place in yourself, giving you a new, more-complete perspective on your situation. The voice may tell you to take your time reading and simply experience what is being said. Or it may even tell you to stop reading, get off the Internet, take a walk, and just breathe. Or it may tell you to sit quietly for a few minutes and ask yourself what is really important in your life. Whatever the voice has to say, the key is to listen, to pay attention.

As you try this work as often as possible over a period of days, weeks, and months, you will begin to understand what the great spiritual masters mean when they tell us that we live mostly in dreams, with little direct contact with reality. You will also begin to understand what they mean when they tell us that self-knowledge and self-transformation begin at the very moment that we sense and feel our inattentiveness in relation to the things we are doing. It is this experience, if we allow its significance to touch the various sides of our being, that can begin to awaken us and bring us into a more honest relationship with ourselves and others.

Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis