Gratitude and Breathing Are 'Not Things You Do, But Things That Happen': Tips for Breathing Deeply
Gratitude and breathing.
These two things, which seem completely unrelated, share one common point. That is, they are not things you do, but things that happen.
I used to feel like I 'had to be grateful' or 'should be grateful' in various situations, but after I let go of trying so hard and started receiving help from many people, I began to experience feelings of gratitude arising naturally.
Setting aside this preamble, which I'm not sure was necessary, I'd like to talk about breathing today.
You may have heard people say, 'Let's breathe deeply,' or perhaps that
'people with poor mental health have shallow breathing.'
When most people hear the words 'let's breathe deeply' during mindfulness, yoga, or Pilates, they end up forcing themselves to inhale and exhale, enduring the discomfort.
Honestly, doesn't that feel uncomfortable?
Even if you try your hardest to inhale and exhale, don't you find that you don't really feel your breathing becoming dramatically deeper???
For a long time, I felt uneasy about that instruction to 'breathe deeply.'
That was until I learned about the existence of 'respiratory muscles.'
A rush of breath came in
Once, when I was participating in a yoga class,
after doing a specific pose, it suddenly became much easier to breathe. It felt as pleasant as air freely flowing in and out of a bag that had expanded within my body.
I wondered if it was easier to breathe because something had been stretched, so I looked it up and encountered the term 'respiratory muscles.'
The lungs cannot expand or contract on their own.
The lungs are surrounded by a chamber covered by the rib cage, and air enters as this rib cage expands, and air exits as the rib cage narrows.
It is the muscles around the rib cage that cause this expansion and contraction.
Muscles that move the rib cage in this way and are involved in breathing are called 'respiratory muscles.' The diaphragm is one of the most representative respiratory muscles, but there are several others in the chest, abdomen, and back.
In other words, it is not the lungs that are breathing, but rather air is entering and exiting because the rib cage is expanding through the respiratory muscles.
Since air enters and exits according to the capacity of the lungs based on the range of motion of the rib cage, in a sense, 'breathing is just happening according to the lung's capacity.' In other words, it was only natural that my breathing wouldn't deepen even if I tried hard to inhale and exhale while my rib cage had a narrow range of motion.
Since I couldn't inhale and exhale deeply,
it was just that these respiratory muscles were stiff and locked up, preventing my rib cage from expanding.
Therefore, what is important is to loosen and relax the stiff respiratory muscles.
Especially when you loosen the diaphragm, which is a representative respiratory muscle, your breathing will become surprisingly deep.
Someone explained this clearly on YouTube, so I'm sharing it here. It takes about 30 seconds starting from 1 minute 34 seconds, so please give it a try.
Rather than trying hard, focus on relaxing
If you feel your breathing becoming shallow, instead of forcing yourself to inhale and exhale,
adjust your body so that deep breathing happens naturally.
Whether it's gratitude or breathing, rather than trying hard to do it,
why not try practicing creating an environment where it happens naturally? That was my share.