Sometimes taking a deep breath can be refreshing, energizing and delicious. Just like a cold drink of water on a summer's day, breathing air into our lungs is always available to us and free. While we are doing a difficult yoga pose, our instructor will sometimes tell us to "Breathe through it." Holding your breath (something we tend to do when we are in pain or having difficulty) actually makes getting through the pose more difficult. When I was running yesterday, I realized all I needed to do is put one foot in front of the other and keep breathing. A deep breath costs just as much as a short, shallow one and it feels exhilarating. "Take a deep, luxurious breath," our yoga instructor advised us this week. So yesterday, when I had a very stressful day and was in the grocery store eyeing a bag of pork rinds and very tempted to buy them and eat the whole pack right there, I instead chose to breathe through it. I took a deep breath, and the urge to munch and crunch my way through the stress and anxiety left me. I saved a lot of calories, about a buck and some clogged arteries. I have come to realize I am a stress eater. While some people can't eat when they're stressed out, I eat (especially crunchy things like pork rinds or potato chips) to get through it. The bad thing is I can't even really taste the food, or appreciate it- it's just a way to cope. Now, I have found I have another tool to get me through stress and that is breathing. Some meditation exercises focus on the breath- breathing in, out, feeling the sensation of the breath entering and exiting your lungs, focusing on your chest rising and falling. When we are lying in shivasana (corpse pose) at the end of our yoga practice our instructor says "Observe how you are feeling now- relaxed and calm- and when you get stressed out during the course of your day, remember that you can always access this feeling. All you need to do is go back to your breath." Namaste.
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