Tai Chi Breathing

How important can breathing be?  We all do it everyday, naturally.  We don’t have to learn it, do we?

It depends if you want to breathe efficiently, sending oxygen to every cell for maximum benefit, or just breathe to get by.

We take thousands of breaths every day.

Air is the most important thing we need to stay alive.  Breathing massages the organs.  Our brain needs oxygen  for thinking, understanding and inner peace.

It does not always happen with our normal shallow breathing.  As a newborn baby we all breathed very deeply – abdominal breathing.  But as we grow we do more chest breathing which gives us less oxygen.  It feels natural.   But to reach a calm, mediative state we need to breathe deeply. Focusing on the breath allows us to experience abdominal breathing and feel the peacefulness of chi and oxygen flowing everywhere in our body.  If you expand the abdomen during the inhalation there is more room for the lungs to expand and take in more oxygen.

But during our normal busy day we don’t take the time to breathe deeply. We just keep rushing.  Many of us breathe in polluted air.  Some of us where our clothes too tight and we can’t expand our waist to breathe deeply.  Is it worthwhile to wear clothing that we think looks great if it doesn’t allow us to breathe?  Poor breathing can also come from fear, nervousness, depression, anger and other emotions.

Practicing breathing is very beneficial.

In Tai Chi we do abdominal breathing. We also use visualization to calm down so we can breathe better.

And do you know what happens?

• Our brain and body function better.
• We feel better.
• Our digestion is better.
• We sleep better.

It is worthwhile to practice beneficial breathing.  It can make a huge difference.  Try it with Tai Chi or yoga or meditation.  It can change your life.