Breathing is a vital part of our every moment of our lives. By intentionally focusing on it we have the opportunity to improve our attention span, be more present-minded, and induce feelings of serenity.
Although breathing might seem like an activity that requires little conscious attention or thought, thousands of years of meditative tradition and contemporary psychological research would argue otherwise. Deliberate breath can calm the mind, relax the body, and act as an object of focus. It’s used to draw attention back to the present moment and temporarily give us a reprieve from our busy, ever-present thoughts.
Famed professor and advocate of mindfulness Jon Kabat-Zinn calls breath “an anchor line to tether you to the present moment and to guide you back when the mind wanders.” It’s a reminder of the now; a recurring action that inspires awareness of our bodies connected to our worlds. While Kabat-Zinn is assuredly a Western researcher whose training is agnostic, he pulls much of his work from Buddhism. In the Buddhist tradition, mindfulness means to adhere, in the moment, with a clear mental focus to an object of concentration (Rosch, 2007). Breath is fundamental to this.
In all meditations, four core parts are incorporated: body, breath, mind, and intention. Many meditations will begin with focus on the breath to help you settle into the present moment. Some meditations, though, will ask for focus on the breath all the way through. The role of breath in a meditation generally reflects the type and goals of the meditation itself.
Breath features most prominently in concentrative meditation, where awareness is restricted to a single thought or object, like breath, a personal mantra, or a word. This is similar to calm abiding meditation, where calm abiding, in the Dalai Lama XIV’s words, is “a quality of mind that single-pointedly attends to its object, free of all external and internal distractions.” During this meditation, the mind only focuses on this object, often the breath, at the exclusion of all else. There are stages to this form of meditation, but ultimately the goal of prolonged calm abiding is, in the Dalai Lama’s words, “the bliss of physical and mental pliancy.”
“Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life.” - Giovanni Papini
How do you actually achieve this bliss during meditation while breathing? There are a number of techniques that practitioners use, since no one technique will be a perfect fit for everyone.
In a typical meditation, after settling into your seat and closing your eyes, you will begin to focus on your breath. There are many ways to do this:
It’s important to find a sensory method that works best for you—where do you notice your breath, and where can you focus your concentration? Broadly, your goal is to redirect your attention to your breaths instead of your thoughts. Of course, thoughts will still appear. When they do, notice them, and then gently nudge them aside, letting them drift out of your mind like clouds across the sky. And then return back to your breath. This might happen dozens of times within a single meditation.
Some meditation practices will ask you to deliberately slow your breathing before allowing it to return to a normal, steadier pace. Some practices will ask you to merely focus on your breath without altering it in any way. In a guided meditation, typically the goal is to calm your breath, subsequently calming your body. But if you’re practicing on your own, feel free to approach your breath curiously and playfully—what makes your body calm and settle? What feels comfortable? What allows you to focus on your breath best?
Breath is “an anchor line to tether you to the present moment."
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Focusing on the breath can produce enormous benefits. It’s an effective way, with practice, to refocus on the present moment and push away recurring thoughts, anxieties, and ruminations. When you’re tired, focusing on the breath can increase alertness; and when jittery or agitated, it can calm you down. Researchers have demonstrated that nonjudgmental awareness of breath can even result in a feelings of peacefulness, serenity, and pleasure (Langer, 2009).
What are some easy ways to practice breathing? Of course, meditation is the most sure-fire way to get better at this skill over the long term. Try sitting and focusing on your breath for just five, ten, or fifteen minutes per day. It’s important to pick a quiet location during a time of the day you’re alert but relaxed, if possible. The Greater Good Science Center provides some suggested steps for a mindful breathing meditation, and the magazine Mindful likewise has a five-minute breathing meditation practice for beginners.
Importantly, it’s vital that practitioners, especially those just starting out, remain kind to themselves. It’s normal and natural for our minds to wander while meditating; the important thing is that we gently return to our breath as often as we need to. It doesn’t feel natural to focus so single-mindedly on our breath, and that’s okay! Our minds are used to keeping incredibly busy, and training them otherwise takes time, attention, and energy.
Outside of Meditation
Our breath is important even outside of meditation, too, however. On casual basis, try focusing on your breath when you walk from place to place, ignoring internal or external distractors. During the workweek, just closing your eyes and taking five or ten breaths can help refocus attention and clear your mind from past or present stressors, worries, or anticipations.
While exercising, of course, breath is a core component of any physical activity. Yoga is perhaps the most obvious example of an activity emphasizing breath. In traditional yoga practices, breath manipulates the prana, or the life force energy, of each person. The prana is what connects the breath, or body, with the mind, and so breathing intrinsically affects the mental state. One of the eight limbs of yoga is pranayama, which is about controlling the energy via breath. There’s even a specific meditation derived from this idea: spinal breathing pranayama visualizes the breath and energy together travelling up and down the spine. So exercise, too, is enhanced by a thorough awareness of breath.
Outside of the meditation and yoga contexts, breath shows up almost everywhere else in our lives. Forms of exercise like weightlifting and cardio are incredibly reliant upon proper breathing techniques, and will subsequently be improved when breathing also is. You will never find a musician that underscores the role of breath while performing, and breathing techniques for musicians have been under development for hundreds of years. Breath also plays a significant role in childbirth, as well—Lamaze breathing is just the most obvious example of this. And some New Age practices, like Holotropic Breathwork, have been utilized spiritually and therapeutically to achieve psychedelic-like states.
Breath is considered an important, deliberate, practiced skill in all of these contexts. However, it also should be considered a skill outside of these contexts—embraced on its own, as a way for us to connect with the present moment and quiet our busy minds. Breathing is an intrinsic part of our lives, yet we spend so little time noticing and appreciating it. But we should—the research and the history behind it suggests we will be happier, calmer, and more aware of our present experiences when we do.
Works cited:
Dalai Lama XIV. (2003). Stages of Meditation. Boulder, CO: Snow Lion.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. (1994). Wherever You Go There You Are. New York, NY: Hyperion.
Langer, Ellen. (2009). “Mindfulness versus positive evaluation.” Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, pp. 279-294. NY: Oxford University Press.
Rosch, Eleanor. (2007). “More Than Mindfulness: When You Have a Tiger by the Tail, Let it Eat You.” Psychological Inquiry, 4, pp. 258-264. doi: 10.1080/10478400701598371
"Breath is the link between mind and body." – Dan Brule
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