No One Teaches You How to BreatheAlso: how to have healthy relationships, recover from panic attacks, and throw a ball.
Breathing is the most fundamental thing each of us do. We do it constantly and subconsciously, through the day and night. Yet for the most part, we never think of it at all. It just happens. Like many things that just happen, however, there’s more to breathing than we first understand. All kinds of things have to take place for us to breathe. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls the involuntary actions of our body, including breathing. Chemoreceptors in the body detect changes in blood pH, CO2, and O2 levels. They send signals to the respiratory center in the brain to adjust breathing as necessary. Like I said, there’s a lot to it! And if you learn to pay attention, you can improve your breathing. You can enhance your oxygen intake and lower your stress. You can, in fact, breathe better. I am an especially slow learner in this regard. Just as I didn’t understand how to feel in my body (as opposed to thinking with my mind), I never really knew that breath work was a thing. I took yoga classes for three years before I understood that you’re supposed to synchronize your breath to the movement of the poses. To be clear, I’m sure various teachers explained that concept at different times along the way, but I didn’t really get it until long into the process. Just because you’re able to do something intuitively doesn’t mean you can do it well. And this has a lot of implications, at least when it comes to being a human.
Do You Know How to Throw a Ball?For another example, think about learning to throw a ball. It’s not innate in the way that breathing is, but because the learning process occurs so young, you probably don’t remember learning it. Most likely, you learned to throw by trial and error. Perhaps you got better at some point, but unless you actively played a sport that requires a lot of throwing, you may still have the same general technique you developed when you were a toddler. In other words, you know how to throw a ball, but not necessarily well. (Which is fine, because most of us don’t need to be ball-throwing experts.) Athletes who throw balls around for a living, or even those who do it as a serious hobby, spend a lot of time practicing how they throw. Coaches come along and correct their approach, “breaking down the mechanics” to start all over and teach a whole new way of something the athlete started doing when they were two years old. The same is true for running, cycling, swimming, or anything else that involves physical activity. You can learn to do it without knowing how to do it well. No One Teaches You…What else is like this? We could make a long list, starting with some core executive functions:
Then we could proceed to “recovery” skills:
We could also consider skills that are helpful in existing with others in harmony:
Really, the list could go on and on. No one teaches you how to be a human. Because our species is so adaptable, you’re able to get by. But if you learned some key skills, you’d be so much better off!
A Little Goes a Long WayOnce you realize how much there is to learn about yourself—as well as all these autonomous processes that most of us take for granted—you might feel intimidated. How could you ever master everything? Especially when you’re burdened, stressed out, and time-starved. But here’s the cool thing. My experience has been that a little knowledge goes a long way! As you learn to recognize your patterns of behavior, you can do things differently. Even though I’m a slow learner and it took me three years to learn to breathe properly during yoga, other skills came along much easier. Just like throwing a ball, I’m sure I could be much better at it with coaching and dedicated practice. But I don’t necessarily need to.
I have much more to learn, of course. But even the small learning helps. *** It doesn’t get more fundamental than breathing. In the hierarchy of “being alive,” breathing is #1. No one teaches you to breathe. But when you begin to pay attention to breathing, you feel so much better. Try it today. Try it right now. Just notice. Conversation Starters
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Friday, February 23, 2024
No One Teaches You How to Breathe
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