When I started singing classes, the first thing I had to learn was how to breathe.
I always thought singing classes were scales and sight reading, but not with my friend Emily. With Emily it was learning how your instrument worked. We spent most of our time experimenting to get me aware of my body sensations so that I could perform to the best of my ability. I learned to focus less on the sounds I was making and more of the feelings I was creating so that singing would be in my body and not just my head.
I started singing classes on recommendation from the therapist I was seeing for intensive trauma therapy. She was just wanting me to have something fun in my life. We were both shocked to discover it was the perfect somatic therapy for me.
Your breath is the connection between your sympathetic nervous system and your parasympathetic nervous system, and the fastest way to ground yourself in the present. Developing facility with your breath will help you uncover body sensations and build new regulation skills.
So many religions and ancient cultures have some kind of a breath practice because human beings have long recognized the power breath has to connect. Chinese medicine, Ancient Greece, Buddhism, Hopi, Inuit, Vedic, so many traditions feature specific ways of breathing in order to heal and connect. Connect mind and body, connect people, connect groups, connect to the self. There is power in sharing the same air with someone, and power in recognizing this elemental force in yourself.
At Body Loyalty, we define Breath as “Any practice that uses breathing techniques to create calm and engage the parasympathetic nervous system.” This can be a religious or cultural practice, calming breaths, yoga, singing, breathwork, meditation, somatic therapies, Tai Chi, Qigong, humming, or even just time in nature breathing fresh air. Whatever way that is accessible to you.
It’s important to find the practice that works for you because some of them won’t. Some types of breathing exercises can be really activating for neurodivergent folks and trauma survivors. Certain medical conditions like gastroperisis or COPD can require specific approaches. As you find the method that works best for you, you can still get results by just exhaling longer than you inhale and aiming for a belly breath.
Author James Nestor, in his book “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art,” writes, “Breathing properly can allow us to live longer and healthier lives. Breathing poorly, by contrast, can exacerbate and sometimes cause a laundry list of chronic diseases: asthma, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, hypertension and more. Poor breathing habits can even change the physical structure of our skeletons, depleting essential minerals and weakening our bones.”
Decades of studies link lung capacity so strongly to heart failure that declining lung function is looked to as a predictor of heart trouble.
It almost seems silly to be advocating for breath considering how quickly we die without it. I always say, when in crisis and needing some care, go through the things we need most in order of importance: breath, water, sleep, food, movement, connection. A few deep breaths are the fastest way to bring yourself some relief.
This works in part because of the nerves that run from your brain, down your neck, past your heart and lungs, and down to your abdomen. The vagus nerve is how your brain and your internal organs communicate. We know when we are hungry because the vagus nerve tells our brain what’s going on in the stomach. The vagus nerve tells our heart how hard to pump and our lungs how much to breathe. All those autonomic functions we’re not in control of are negotiated between our vagus nerve and our brain.
Breath is the only body function that happens automatically AND under our control, all because of the way those nerves work. This makes breath a powerful tool to nudge those parts of us we can’t control into cooperating with us a little better.
The sympathetic nervous system is the part of us that deals with the “fight or flight” impulse, and the parasympathetic nervous system is the “rest and digest” part. Breath can go back and forth between them. When you are mindfully choosing your breath, your consciousness can join the conversation and settle some arguments.
When panic or anxiety has your mind spinning out, some slow breaths can ground you in your body and show you you’re safe. When panic has your body sending overwhelming cues – sweaty palms, racing heart, tunnel vision – some slow breaths can reassure your body that you’re not in danger.
In Body Loyalty, a breath practice is one of the Muscles that supports your recovery needs. The Marrow that Breath supports is Quiet. In order to recover from whatever needs recovering from – injury, trauma, busyness, over stimulation, heartbreak, the wear and tear of being alive – we need Quiet. Quiet frees us from distractions and allows us to look inward to face some things and reconnect to the body sensations that will guide the rest of our choices.
This world often forces us to move so fast we don’t have time to think let alone recover. In order to heal, we have to create that space for ourselves. Some kind of regular practice of Rest and Breath can create the Quiet we need to hear our own needs.