Breathing to Glastonbury and back...the best way to travel

I've just come back from Glastonbury, where my wife's doing a healing voice course with Jill Purce.

During the car journeys, I listened to two CDs about breathing - the first on the way down by Pema Chodron. the American Tibetan Buddhist nun, who does a fantastic job of making the ancient Himalayan wisdom accessible to curious western minds. Hers is called Good Medicine.

And another CD by another American,this time a medic, Dr Andrew Weil.

Both speakers, erudite and passionate, just reaffirmed the very essence and vitality of the breath...and how wonderful it is to use it as a fantastically powerful resource in my life.

Pema, if that's what you call her, was talking about Tonglen meditatition, as taught to her by guru Trungpa Rinpoche. In a way it is the essence of compassion, it is about using your breath to help and heal others from any ailment or predicament you can conceive of. You breathe in the negative, claustrophobic feeling on the inhale - you make your breath hot, dark and negatively charged and on the outbreath you transform it making it light, healing, positive and abundant.

This can be used personally. One of the processes she describes is helping yourself get through a negative patch by, first clocking that other people will have definitely experienced what it is you're experiencing. And then using the breathing technique to create an empathetic contact with that negative emotion and then using Tonglen to free yourself up from it. Finally, if you have the strength for it, you can take on this feeling from fellow sufferers around the world, like this: "Ok, as I am suffering this depression right now, I am prepared to bear this suffering for everybody else who is suffering the same thing right now."

A spectacular act of compassion, if you have the strength for it.

Weil's CD was aimed at the beginner meditator, but as I am learning this seems to be a subject that I am always beginning again at - after 35 years...

What I took from this was a sequence of breathing that he said was very effective at combatting compulsive patterns. I get very resentful and have always done so, but now understand that this is just passing the blame to someone else rather than dealing with it directly. So I'll be giving this a go and blogging about it...

First you put your tongue in what Weil calls the yogic position. You touch the back of your upper front teeth with the tip of you tongue and then keeping contact with your palette move it up past the first ridge and let it rest on the hard tissue there. Your tongue is now basically tucked back with the lower surface touching the palette.

Then you breathe in to the count of four, hold your breath to the count of seven and then breathe out to the count of eight around your yogically positioned tongue. You repeat this with four or eight times, no more no less. Try it and see what happens...

A meditation that came to me naturally

The latest meditation to come upon me - focusing on the rising and falling of my abdomen - was validated by a Burmese meditation master. I read about him in the Shambala Sun May edition.

This is the basis of the Insight Meditation he teaches.

I have found it very grounding, and also a technique that is easy to practise throughout the day.

And it is a great unwinder too. If I find that my abdomen is too tight, and my breath is restricted, then to sit and relax it, really reduces stress and increases mindfulness...

A bad cold - another insight into my breath

For the past six days I've been laid up with a rotten cold...and feeling, probably unduly sorry for myself.

The worst part of it has been having a really blocked up nose - the sort you need a plumber for... It has meant the relative discomfort of mouth breathing and waking up in the middle of the night with a desiccated mouth and a sore throat.

Eucalyptus Oil rubbed into my chest and burned on an electric oil burner helped a bit.

Earlier this evening, I felt a bit cooped up and decided I needed a walk...and sure enough after 20 minutes strolling, my nose unbunged. And, yes, it was my right nostril that cleared. I had kind of predicted this, knowing that I needed physical energy; the type the yogis claim is inhaled through that side of the nose.

I'm back home now with a mostly re-blocked nose, but faintly pleased with myself that I have another small insight into my deeply fascinating breath...

And it's made me more than ever aware of how nice it is to breathe properly again, after a lifetime of mouth breathing. The last three and half years of retraining myself to breathe through my nose have been life-changing, in the sense of retuning me back into my body's natural rhythms and processes...

It's all about conscious breathing

Considering the effort of working the Buteyko method, it is slightly ironic that its main proponent in the West, Alexander Stalmatski should state that the optimum aim of a Buteyko student is a light breath into the abdomen via the nose....

But for many asthmatics this is a tall order...and the rigourous twice a day routine of what are known as control pauses and maximum pauses.

The basic Buteyko unit is the control pause. Which goes like this, you inhale gently to the count of two and exhale to the count of three. Then you hold your breath on completion of the exhale. An average control pause is about 25 seconds; goodish health 35 seconds; and above that you are hale and hearty!

Asthmatics in the training I did three years ago were lucky if they could reach ten seconds.

Professor Konstantin Buteyko discovered that control pauses recalibrated the carbon dioxide oxygen balance in the body and restored healthy breathing. He also maintained that this exercise would improve a whole host of other ailments.

Asthma, it seems, is just the body presenting symptoms of deeper underlying physical, and perhaps psychological, problems.

I'll work on a better explanation in the next week and post it here.

Meanwhile, this is how the Buteyko programme works. Twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, you find a chair where you can sit comfortably upright, together with your chart, where you log your performance, and a stop watch. First thing is to take your pulse and clock that on the sheet, then it's time for your first control pause. See above. You jot down your seconds and then set the stop watch ticking. After five minutes, it's time for your first maximum pause. You start exactly as per the control pause, but then when you are about to burst, you get up and walk briskly around the room or up and down a convenient corridor. You should be hitting a level about 20 seconds greater than your control pause. Then it's time for another five minutes relaxation and then onto your second control pause.

In total you do four control pauses and three maximum pauses - each separated by a five minute gap.

At the end of the regime you take your pulse again, which typically will have slowed by five to ten beats per minute.

Just what the purpose of the maximum pause is I'm not that clear about.... But over the forty minute period the length of my control pauses could rise by as much as 20 seconds, so the max pause has a warm-up and training effect.

My teacher, Margaret Brookes, said the measure of progress was always to look at the first control pause of the day - ideally 35 seconds or more...

Buteyko is a fantastic system - far my powerful than yoga when specifically targetted at asthma.

The Ozies, at a Queensland University, have done some pretty impressive experiments revealing the efficacy of the method...

Ultimately, it is all about conscious breathing, and conscious breathing is the gateway to conscious life.

Upside down breathing and mouth taping

After a lifetime of meditating - or just over half a lifetime - I realised that I had been breathing upside down... Up into my chest with the rising of my breath and this had been the focus of my meditation... Not that that really mattered on the meditation front, but on the health front it really did!

It was only when I came to tackle my hereditary asthma with the Buteyko method that I realised that one of the major contributary factors to this debilitating condition is wrong breathing...

Slow, shallow breaths into the abdomen, with the belly rising on the inhale and falling on the exhale...that is the way to breathe. Taking deep breaths is not that good for as it messes up the carbon dioxide/oxygen balance in your system.

The real key to my breath discovery was the use of microporous tape to tape my mouth shut at night. This was a necessary part of the Buteyko regime... And it was a life-changer for me. I had been an habitual mouth-breather - another no no for asthma sufferers. I always had a runny nose... and I had seasonal hayfever to boot.

Well, along with the Buteyko exercises, the taping changed all that and brought up a lot of deep-rooted emotional stuff that I needed to deal with...

Paradoxical breathing

I want to write about this over the weekend, along with mouth taping.

Here's Swami Rama's take on it for starters:

"Paradoxical breathing is seen in conjunction with a sudden shock or surprise. One reflexively gasps when startled, expanding the chest while tensing the abdomen. If a situation which elicits paradoxical breathing occurs frequently, either because of the presence of much stimulation from the environment or because of an excessive sensitivity to environmental cues, the body will accommodate itself to this mode of functioning, gradually offering less and less resistance to it. Then, after being accustomed to this abnormal pattern, the body risks becoming less specific in its application of this pattern. Relatively minor stresses may then also begin to initiate the same response. And if, as has been previously suggested, breathing is intimately associated with the original emotional atmosphere and can in turn reinforce or recreate it, a vicious cycle ensues. Breathing therapy becomes much more complicated than simply dealing with a set of muscular movements. It becomes a potential tool for intervention in interrupting or controlling undesired emotional response patterns."

Monday night was the night for the big experiment...

I've wanted for a while now to test out the nostril breathing on my insomnia, which is both stress and age related...

It does, though, require an empirical, and unfortunately awake, mindset, so it is hard to run it on a heavy weight experimental basis...

But the universe conspired with the ideal test ground: work related stress work me at about four in the morning this past Monday, and I start to toss and turn a bit. When I started to breath meditatively I noticed that my nose was drawing air in through the right nostril - so then I remembered the "yogic wisdom" that if you lie on the opposite side to that of the nostril you want to be open then you nose will oblige you. So I lay on my right side for a while, my left nostril opened and I passed blissfully into sleep from about five to 6.30, when I had to rouse myself for a day in London.

That's why I return time and again to Swami Rama's book. His story in brief is that he went to the US in the 1960s from India and has since past onto other shores. He founded the Himalaya Institute, dedicated to bringing yogic knowledge to the west.

Scientifically, it seems that right nostril air stimulates the sympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system - which gives us our "fight and flight" energies. Left-nostrilled air resonates with the parasympathetic part - giving us the space to "rest and digest."

The yogis, according to Swami Rama, had this down to a much finer art...more tomorrow as I am feeling a bit on the sleepy side, thanks to the left nostril intake!

Following your nose

From "The Science of Breath" by Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine and Alan Hymes (Himalayan Institute Press) page 67.

"...yoga manuals recommend that that one lie on the left side after meals, opening the right nostril and stimulating the digestive process. Traditionally, too, it is said that when individuals go to bed, they should lie on the left side for five or ten minutes, activating the right nostril to create increased body heat. As soon as they are warm and comfortable, they should turn to the right, allowing the left nostril to open. Doing so, relaxes, calms and prepares them for sleep."

But why should this be so? More tomorrow...

Your nose knows, you know

Our noses actively filter the way in which the air enters our lungs. It opens the left nostril when we need to soothe our system with introspective, reflective energies. It switches to the right when we need some stimulation and to energise our systems.

The yogis of old knew all about this....which I will write about tomorrow...

The barometer of my life

I have been fascinated by my breath since 1971 when I received Knowledge from Guru Maharaj Ji...

35 years on, I have been doing the Buteyko breath method for my asthma for over a three year period - and consistently for the past six months.

And what I have finally noticed after these long years as a student of the breath is that my emotional state, stress levels, openness to others, and general state of well being is integrally tied up with my breath...

Shortness of breath indicates stress, uptightness and shutting down, relaxed, easy breathing mirrors the exact opposite states.

So, what I have discovered is that by learning to control my breathing I have started to make inroads into my many neuroses... The better I breathe the more the past and its miasmas become irrelevant. Yet if I let my past subvert the present, I will be shallow breathing and, soon probably, wheezing.

More to follow on the wonderful science and psychology of the breath....

The mediator between the conscious and the unconscious

Often described as the crossover from our conscious to unconscious minds, breath is the path into the unknown, the undiscovered.

I have trapped myself in the cage of my cognitive mind, mistaking the petty for the pristine, fear for fortune, resentment for realisation. I am intoxicated by my own small world...

Meditation on my breath is helping me "get out more..."

Here's a good take from Kevin Griffin's book: One breath at a time. Buddhism and the Twelve Steps.

Alcoholism is a disease of faith. Alcoholics (and all addicts) often develop a cynical attitude toward life, not seeing anything to believe in. When you persistently feel the need to change you consciousness through drugs or booze, you are expressing a luck of trust in yourself, in your ability to tolerate life undiluted, to find value in your own, unadulterated experience.

This same difficulty confronts the beginning meditator. Meditation is even more unadulterated than sobriety. Intentionally stopping activity and any diversion can be intimidating. Many people say, "I could never sit still for that long - 20 minutes!" Even without drugs or booze, many of us are trying to control our consciousness with food, TV, music, reading and other daily habits. Stopping ALL activity as we do in meditation is like a new layer of sobriety: ultimate abstinence (a new X Game?). Trusting the process is frightening, whether you are an alcoholic or not...

Life-giving and freely given

Concentrating on the inhalation and exhalation is an extremely popular form of meditation. Breathing is the barometer of our lives: we breathe faster when we are excited; our breath deepens as we relax.

Breath is both life-giving and freely given – and as such a wonderfully alluring and fascinating focus point.

Kabir: the breath within the breath

One of India’s great mystic poets Kabir wrote that God ”is the breath inside the breath.” And eastern wisdom has always taught that the breath is a vehicle to the infinite within. Essentially this is a timeless message that “Within every drop there is an ocean.” And that is a wonderful inspiration to start on the path of meditation.

Breath is the bridge

Our breath is the bridge from our body to our mind, the element which reconciles our body and mind and which makes possible oneness of body and mind. Breath is aligned to both body and mind and it done alone is the tool which can bring them both together, illuminating both and bringing both peace and calm.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness