Ilchi Lee Blog Online

In Dahn Yoga rules breathing is essential to brain health. Without the oxygen it provides, your brain cannot live for more than a few minutes. With each breath we take, oxygen is dumped into the blood supply, and much of it is eventually used by the brain. Thus, it is important for the health of our brain that we breathe well to keep our blood fully oxygenated.

If you are like a lot of people, you breathe very poorly. You breathe shallowly and use only a small portion of your lung capacity. However, you did not start out this way. When you were a baby, no one had to teach you how to breathe well. You were a natural-born breather. Have you ever watched an infant sleeping? They can teach you a lot about how to breathe well.

When a baby breathes, his or her entire chest and abdomen lifts with each breath. But as we grow older, the effects of stress and improper posture begin to compromise our breathing ability. The chest becomes tight, the abdomen becomes stiff, and we begin to use only our upper chest to breathe. This is a natural reaction to prolonged stress, which results in decreased efficiency in all the organs, including the lungs.

To improve this situation, you can begin to draw more conscious awareness to your breathing. In effect, you need to retrain yourself to breathe as you did when you were a baby. Brain scans have shown that conscious breathing, when com-pared to unconscious breathing, activates many areas of the brain in addition to oxygenating the blood. Make it a point to notice and correct your own breathing habits.

Ilchi Lee helpful tips on human breath

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