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Alternative Healing: Breathing to Health
Most of us have experienced avoidable pain. This tends to manifest in forms of rock-hard shoulders, increased heart rate and severe headaches.
Often avoidable are silly accidents. We may injure ourselves in hasty movements, absent-minded behaviors, and disregard for personal limits.
What’s the answer to greater comfort and fewer injuries? Incredibly, the most effective non-medicine for healing is your own breath.
We take breathing for granted. Unconsciously we assume that if we’re
alive, we’re breathing. Often, people use less than half their lung
capacity. This allows toxins to build up in non-exchanged air. As blood
carries air to your cells, the body responds to the carbons contained
in the supply. This is the part of suffering that is easily avoidable.
The cleaner the air in you body, the better you feel. Those who enjoy
aerobic workouts know the exuberance created by increasing the available
oxygen to the entire system. A sense of emotional well-being is coupled
with physical stamina.
Effecting breathing doesn’t necessarily begin and end with exercises, however.
When we’re faced with trauma (stress, fear, worry, etc...) we hold our breath
in order to stop feeling the sensation of distress. Becoming conscious of this
tendency is the first step in healing with breath. Taking a moment to fully inflate,
exhale and continue breathing can distribute the energy stuck in the upper body.
Try it right now.
Stopping to breathe creates a window for common sense. A needed pause may enable
strategy for moving heavy objects, may employ the most judicious route on a crowded
highway, and may afford us patience when dealing with challenge.
Breathing for comfort can be simple. Breathing to heal deeply stored memories
of physical and/or emotional trauma is powerful and usually requires facilitation.
Current modalities of breath related healing include rebirthing and holotropic
breathwork. Conscious breathing techniques may be augmented with guided imagery
as well as bodywork.
When alone or in a structured format, celebrate the healing power of your own
breath.
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