Breath as a Tide
“Sand lines my soul which is filled with the breath of the ocean.”
― A.D. Posey
What the ocean taught me about breathing
Though I live in Chicago now, I’ve spent most of my life by the ocean. That huge body of water has taught me many things, and one of them is that repetition is powerful (that is the heartbeat of the tide!) and that irregularity is natural. For instance, sometimes there is a series of small waves washing up on the shore and then suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, bam! A big wave comes crashing down.
Sometimes it’s the same with the breath. Think of a sigh as a big wave crashing after a series of smaller ones washing up.
Have you ever been in a yoga class where the teacher counts the breath for you? It might sound something like this: “Inhale: one, two, three, four. Exhale: one, two, three, four…” This can be helpful at times, but other times it can be really therapeutic to let the breath find its own rhythm and sometimes that rhythm is punctuated by inhales and exhales of varying length. I like beginning breath awareness by noticing the breath’s natural length and pace, but counting the length of the inhale and exhale can also help us focus the mind, as long as we don’t push too hard to make the breath too long or deep. Let’s try it.
Does the length of the breath matter?
The answer: sometimes. Different lengths of breath produce different experiences in the mind and body. As I mentioned above, I find it much more grounding to begin by just noticing how the breath moves without being forced to any certain length or rhythm. Often, when you pay attention to the breath, it begins to shift and change on its own.
It’s a little bit like a small child: you push too much and they get stressed. You give some freedom of expression and a sort of natural joy comes through. Your breath has its own power and timing, too. In yoga and other mindfulness-based disciplines, it is a special bridge between body and mind, subconscious and conscious, involuntary and voluntary. Think about it: you breathe without effort or control most of the time, but it’s a bodily function that you can also bring awareness and control to.
It’s a little bit like emotions: they kind of just come up in reaction to life events, but with a little focus and intention, you can pause and have more deliberate emotional responses to things. Once you can recognize and name emotions, they have less subconscious sway over you. It’s the same with the breath.
So, let’s start with describing the breath. Why? It helps you get in better touch with how it is affecting you mentally and physically. From there, it becomes easier to lengthen or deepen it, if that’s what you are aiming to do.
Finding words to describe your breath
It might be automatic to think that the deeper the breath, the better, but it really depends. If you’re trying to be still while really lengthening the breath, you might end up hyperventilating.
It’s better to just notice, rather than manipulate the breath, at first. From there, you can approach the breath with curiosity, before you try to manipulate it in any way. When I do this, I tend to think in opposites and ask questions like:
“Is it short or long? Deep or shallow?”
“Does the inhale expand just my belly, just my chest, or both?”
“Is it smooth or rough?”
“Is it loud or quiet? Heavy or light?”
“Do I have to put effort into breathing or does it feel easy?”
“Is it fast or slow? Or is the rhythm irregular?”
“Do I picture the inhale traveling upward along my spine or down as it expands my pelvic floor downward? Do I picture the exhale traveling downward along my spine, or upward as my pelvic floor contracts upward to push the air out?”
“Where do I feel the breath expand? Where do I feel it contract?”
Here’s a little audio guidance so that you don’t have to read the text above while you focus on your breath:
Being able to name what’s going on can help you bring much more awareness to your breath so that you’ll be able to relax it and lengthen it (if you want!). You can also use this approach just to check in and see how you feel; by zoning in on the quality, length, and rhythm of your breath, you can move on to seeing how it affects how you feel on other levels (emotionally, mentally, energetically). That’s the subject of another post, but here’s a little tidbit on something called the koshas to start exploring that now.
Pause: the stillness within the cycles of breath
“In music, silence is more important than sound.”
-Miles Davis
Revisit that audio clip above where we tried counting the length of the inhales and exhales. Sometimes this can help bring length and ease to the breath, but if we push the breath to change too much, it can cause strain.
Aside from just noticing how the breath flows, I also find it more relaxing to notice the pauses in the breath: those resting places where we transition from inhale to exhale and from exhale to inhale. It goes something like this: breathe in until you feel done inhaling and let that pause last for a moment or two, then breathe out until pausing feels natural. Rest there for a moment or two. Repeat.
This is a very simple practice, yet it has the potential to relax and deepen the breath. Let’s try it!
“Know that within this continuous rhythmic cycle of circles, everything is the same, and everything is changing. The breath keeps coming, and the breath keeps changing.”
-Mother’s Breath, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli
I Hope you enjoyed these brief breathing practices. I think it’s become so cliche to just parrot, “Take a deep breath,” in times of stress or heightened emotion without knowing exactly what that means. Not to mention, sometimes a big deep breath doesn’t feel relaxing in the body; it’s all about tuning in to what you are feeling in the moment so that you can find the rhythm and pace of breath that supports you in finding balance. If you know other mamas that could benefit from this practice, please pass it along!
For some additional information and practices, please visit these posts on the breath from August and September that lay the foundation for this post.
Next Friday I’ll be posting about a restorative yoga practice that ties in with the monthly theme of “Shifting” into Autumn, into a more balanced lifestyle, and into a life that not just includes, but centers around yoga. Here’s the post on the monthly theme. Starting the last Friday in October, I’ll put some of these posts behind the paywall for paid subscribers only, but if you found this post helpful and informative, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber. The posts on breath will be available to free subscribers as well, but if you’d like more guidance and support on yoga postures, yoga philosophy, and making more time in your day for yoga, for the price of a coffee (or even cheaper if you tend to get espresso drinks!) you can get a month’s worth of real yoga for real busy mamas like you:).
Thanks so much for reading and please comment if you found this helpful or if you have any questions or concerns. Jai Ma!