Breathe
/Last time I talked about fixing your face. And I said the next thing was fixing your breath, and your thoughts. These two steps are actually tied together. The answer to your brain IS your breath. I wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t learned to control my mind. I was a really fucked up kid. Severe emotional issues. Been to jail. Been hospitalized. When I was really young, I thought I was the hulk because, I could feel the anger start and then I would “come to” and realize I had flipped out. I hurt myself. I hurt people. No one thought I would make it. I didn’t think I would make it. Then…. I learned how to control my breathing. It changed everything.
For decades I’ve been telling people this. And I get a version of the same response. “How is taking oxygen in supposed to change anything?”. They’re usually incredulous when they say it. And I get it….. When the shrink in the hospital told me that…. I wanted to fucking kill them. Not hyperbole….. I would turn over a table and start swinging and get put in the “quiet room” again. The thought that some bullshit like breathing could do ANYTHING for my burned out husk of a life was infuriating. I hated that answer. But…. Every hospital. Every doctor. Every mentor. Every Budhhist text. Every Stoic text. Every coach. Every martial art. EVERY FUCKING ONE was like…. Kid…. You gotta control your breath. And…. When I finally listened. It all changed.
So before I tell you how to do it….. We gotta overcome the first objection.
How can this be real….. How the fuck is this supposed to work? Here are some ways. And none of them involve hippy shit.
Daily Practice: Any daily goal oriented practice can have a massive positive effect on mentality. Breathing is literally the lowest buy in activity. You will be doing it anyway. It doesn’t even need a decision to “do”. You just need to decide to “attend” to it. But setting a “daily practice” (regardless of what it is) and sticking to it has been proven to have effects on health disproportionate to actual activity and its direct benefits. A daily practice of any kind will fill this bill. Why NOT make it something this easy and beneficial.
Shifting Out Of “Fight Or Flight”: Slowing your breathing can shift the body out of Sympathetic Nervous System activation and into Parasympathetic Nervous System activation. This can impact health in a couple of ways:
It can reduce chronic SNS activation, and overall stress levels.
It can give you an answer for an acute activation of the SNS. Being able to intentionally deactivate the SNS, and activate the PNS is a potentially life saving skill for some with mental health issues. And of great benefit to anyone in a tense line of work. First responders. Military. Pro athletes. Any high stress, performance oriented, line of work can benefit from being able to choose which system is in play to which degree, and at what time. I know that I am only still alive because at the choice point…. I could breath and slow down and not just give into the current and be pulled into oblivion.
Thought control: To do this practice you have to focus on the task. And because it is a very repetitive, non skilled, no risk, task…. Your brain will try to automate it fast. And you will notice tons of other thoughts trying to steal your attention. This is a very deep practice. It sounds like “yeah…. Just focus” but it’s more than that. Just like there are two different nervous system activations you’re mastering shifting through….. There are two other systems you’re trying to master. Cognitive, and Automated. Your brain is ALWAYS trying to save operational processing space in your mind, by pushing shit off of the cognitive list and into automated list. It is one of our necessary functions. The problem with this for people struggling, are that some thoughts become automated and feel “beyond your control”. They become these super destructive, distracting things. They can create all these waves of emotions that crash over us,and just like waves, drown us. And these thoughts just hammer you. To be able to count your breath you are realistically, using focus to prevent a thought pattern (counting) from slipping into automation. And because focus requires exclusion, you’re practicing not letting automated thoughts (temporarily) access your processing space. THIS is the hidden value. Not counting breathing. Who the fuck cares about counting fucking breaths. That in itself is just pointless. But…… Being able to assert control over which list a thought is on….. That is a fucking survival skill. When an automated thought that doesn’t serve me but still tries to push into my brain….. I know that I can use focus to take it off the automated list. I can put my attention on it and reprogram it. And once reprogrammed….. Let my brain push it back into automated but in a way I designed. A way that serves me. And….. When this is not possible…. And the thought refuses be reprogrammed….. I know that when it screams for space in my head I AT LEAST have the skill to focus on... A task to use the minds natural selective attention during concentration to give me a break from the horrible thought till it passes. And it WILL pass. Bring me to the next point.
Emotional Control: Emotions are like weather, and your mind is like your house…. They pass over your house…. But they are not your house. Emotions can be amazing. And you can choose to open up the windows, or go sit out on the porch and enjoy the weather. Or….. You can go inside and ride out the blizzard. You can choose to experience them. Or…. Choose to let them pass. The problem is for us…. That our thoughts and our emotions are connected. There’s a feedback loop that happens. Thoughts can create emotions, and emotions can create thoughts. Which…. Is both the problem….. AND the answer. We can have a random thought, a memory of a bad event…. And that memory will generate an emotion. And that is fine….. It’s like weather coming. But then that emotion will generate another thought and that brings another emotion and so on and so on… until we’ve been sucked out of our house and are dying in a blizzard. So….. What the fuck do you do? When you have the thought you can’t help it. They just pop up when there’s processing space available. The emotion is tied to it so now it’s there. The weather has now happened. The next step is to control your thoughts. If the secondary thoughts and emotions don’t get a hold of you……. You can ride out a storm inside the house. But every thought that grabs you…. Drags you farther and farther out into the storm. You can’t “control” your emotions. They WILL occur. You can only not let them control you. And to do that…. You MUST be able to control your thoughts and which nervous system you’re operating in. Bad thoughts, will kick you into SNS, slam an emotion into you and start to generate more thoughts and the cycle starts. You have to recognize it, and do your breathing. This keeps you from tipping into SNS, and helps keep the secondary thoughts from taking hold. This lets you ride out the weather that is happening to your house until it passes. And it will pass. Everything changes. But that’s another discussion. Just know that it does.
So…. Those are some explanations as to WHY you should learn to control your breath. Explanations that don’t sound like some hippy woo woo bullshit.
So…. Now we’re left with the question….
How?
There are literally hundreds of different types of breathing practices. And I can only tell you about the two that I do. I think that all the practices are just variations on a theme and that all meditation, mindfulness, prayer, breath work, are ALL just trying to get to the same place. But…. These are the ones I do.
1- Emergency/Tactical:
This is the one I learned first. And the one that had the greatest impact on me. Anyone that’s ever fought or competed at a high level for us will recognize this one. Anyone that has had me help them with deep emotional trouble will recognize this. “Inhale, and swallow it”. Yeah…. That sounds stupid. Who cares. It works. Inhale as deep as you can (won’t be much as you’re in an emergency/fight/sporting event and are breathing stupid hard). Inhale as deep as you can and swallow it. Hold….. Hold as long as you can. And then….. Let it go. Do not try to slow it down. Do not try to regulate it. You waste more energy “trying” to control it. Don’t fight with it.…... LET. IT. GO. Yes….. That’s also what you are doing emotionally. Focus on the task. Shifting down the SNS. Letting go of the emotions, and thoughts. Not just the breath. But…. at that moment. None of that matters. Only the breath. After about 2-3 of those cycles….. You will feel different. Not woo woo fairy farts and rainbows feel different. Physiologically shifted. Heart rate lowered. Breath rate lowered. Stress hormones lowered. Oxygen saturation changed. This is not some bullshit “feeling” nonsense. This is real. You’ve changed something. At that point…. You can either stay at the more appropriate arousal level for the event at hand. Or….. Now that you’ve gotten yourself out of the tailspin…. Do the work that remains to slow ALL the way down.
2- Daily Practice: This one…. Is much harder for me. I KNOW a lot of the deeper benefits are in the DAILY practice. And yet….. I still struggle to get myself to do it. I maybe get in about 2-3 days a week. I started wearing mala beads from time to time as a reminder to do the work. And that helps. If they’re on my wrist I tend to get it done. But…. I don’t always wear them, as anything that wasn’t in the 80’s punk rock/hardcore scene doesn’t feel natural to me. But…. I digress….. Counting your breathing out:
There are five million different daily practices. But the one that I have always gravitated towards was “box” breathing. Counting the phases of a breath. Inhale 1 2 3- Hold 1 2 3, Exhale 1 2 3, Hold 1 2 3. That is one cycle. Now….. How long do you do this for or how many cycles? Some people count the cycles and I think that’s fucking impossible so i threw that one out the window. But, if you don’t do that…. You do gotta have some way to measure. Obvious answer…. Timer. Done. Set a timer. Do your work. There are other ways to mark time. Some people use music. Tape over= session over. I know people that have done a stick of incense. And then…. There are beads. Technically…. That’s not time it’s cycles. But whatever. I like using beads for a number of reasons.
Low tech. I always choose simple, low tech.
Successive approximation. Some people find this daily practice incredibly hard. I did/do. But you can start with literally one fucking bead. Start one bead from the end. Just do one fucking breath. And tomorrow…. Or next week. Start two beads away. After a while…. You are doing long stretches. I’m working on a small set of mala beads. 27 beads (traditionally). Takes about 6 minutes. And for me…. That’s a fucking accomplishment. 108 beads is the traditional full size mala, and that would be like 20 minutes. I’d love to be able to do that. But…… I’m just trying to get the 6 minutes solid first. Baby steps. I would likely just do the small mala more times before I got and carried a larger mala. But….. That goes back to simplicity.
Gives me something tactile to do. Another step in the process. In, hold, out, hold, take a bead, repeat. Something about it feels “right”.
Truth is….. What manner you give yourself for tracking time doesn’t really matter. As long as the way works, and feels like it’s helpful to the process, or at the very least doesn’t take away from it. Just find a way you like and do it.
And that’s the last note…. Just do the practice. Yeah….. You should set up a nice quiet place. Sit or lay comfortably so there’s not more thoughts fighting for space. Set yourself up for success. Hell….. We’ve always had a “meditation” area in the house made for this. Even then…… I STILL find it hard to do. So….. don’t hang up on perfect. Just do the damn thing. I’ve done my breathing while driving on the highway (don’t close your eyes). I’ve done it sitting in an airport on a layover (totally closed my eyes). You don’t NEED some special set up. It’s just fucking breathing. Don’t make complexity your excuse to not do it.
That’s it.
You fixed your face. Now master your breathing.