Your Breath: The Ultimate Master Cleanse

Changing of the seasons is fun when it comes to getting to wear forgotten favorite fall clothes and enjoying homemade treats. Snuggling up in my mom's awesome sweaters from the 70s and enjoying fresh apple pie from the farmers market (reheated in my oven so I can pretend I made it myself) provide me with end-of-year excitement. It's the little things, right?

Chilly weather also has its bite. Hand shakes and hugs loaded up with cold and flu germs, and toxins we endure from our environment are waging war against our bodies. Even if we are eating all organic greens and fresh fruits and vegetables, our bodies are in a tough battle.

It happened to me this week, or did I happen to it? Whatever the perspective, my body decided that it was cold and therefore was time to shut down. Not a big deal, one of those still-functioning "I may be sick if I let myself be" days. Body ache, tiredness, mild headache, all minor but a slight setback.

Before we reach for the master cleanse there may be a more sustainable option. If we've forgotten the functionality of our breath let's bring our attention back to it. I know, it's hard to imagine something being worthwhile unless it's bottled and sold back to us, or a handful of celebrities have caught on, but I can assure you, everyone has access to this sustainable master cleanse. It will get you health when you're sick, and will keep you healthy, relaxed, peaceful, and happy. It's right there inside you and outside you too. You breathe it in. You breathe it out. You breathe it in again. It is your breath.

Our breath is like a lonely puppy. It will be there waiting for you and probably forgive you for your absence and denial once you've re-connected with it. When we are stressed we hold our breath and our bodies tighten up. How we live and where we live are challenges for the body to maintain health. If we practice putting our attention on our breath, and take long deep breaths in stressful situations, our breath can release tension and toxins from areas where our minds and psychologies stand guard. What's happening in our breath, mind, and body are direct reflections of each other. In fact, they are all the same thing. We have a choice. We can hold our breath, live with armor around our bodies, decided minds, and experience what we think we ought to. Things will happen in our lives. We'll tighten up through the hard stuff and the other stuff will be ok. Or we can put our attention on our breath, live in firm but flexible bodies, and open minds. Things will happen in our lives and we'll breathe through them. We'll have the capacity to deal with the tough stuff and the good stuff equally. And we'll have a much easier time finding enjoyment and good health in everything. Life happens no matter how we are breathing. Using our breath gives us a tool to navigate effectively through the body and mind, and enables us to experience something different than what we predict.

In a physical yoga practice there is a huge difference between someone who is muscling their way through a pose and someone who is using the breath to move through the pose. Both people may be in the same pose (shape), but have completely different states of mind. You can see it in their energy and on their faces. Calling on our muscles alone to sustain a pose tires and stresses the mind. Using our breath allows the mind to be calm and the body to go where it can go with ease. Our breath has an intelligence that is working for our bodies and has the potential to calm our minds.

Muscling and forcing our way into something is like squeezing oil out of rock for energy, while our breath is solar power. The breath is a reusable, sustainable resource available to all of us for purposes of maintenance, repair, and reflection. The breath is something we share with everyone. When someone inhales, someone else exhales. We can think of our breath as one collective breath. It's something that is ours and also belongs to everyone else. We can live collectively as a tightly wound world with decided minds, or a flexible, healthy world with an open heart, mind, and clear breath. Our breath makes a difference. The way we breathe makes a difference.

We've all walked into a room occupied by someone who is stressed and holding their breath. Our bodies try to clench up in defense against this stressed person. We hold our breath and await the danger. When we walk into a room that's comfortable or come home to someone who we know is awaiting us with love, our breath automatically deepens. We don't have to protect and clench, we can breathe easily. We also have the power to soften the stressful person just by walking into the room and deepening our breath.

This routine is designed to help us tap into our renewable resource of the breath to release tension in the body and mind. You can try it any time to unwind and put your breath back to work for you. If you are following along the 4-week weight loss plan, this can be done after the sweaty routine from last week. Have fun and stay healthy!

 

 

Follow Tara Stiles on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tarastiles

Comments

[rpr]

You won't get more of a cleansing breath than going outside and cranking out a couple of miles.
As much as I like yoga, a run is more relaxing (and burns more calories.)
That said, yoga relaxation techniques really help when you're in the middle of your day at work, stressed out. Just closing your eyes, breathing and letting go for one minute.

[bmonaghan]

To respond to an earlier post... yes, life expectency is going up... for now. But the level of toxins we are exposed to and the consequence they have on our health are alarming. Maybe we do live longer - but how many of us will suffer more allergies, more migraines, feel more tired and exhausted, or even worse, get cancer or alzheimers - and what about our off spring and the damage we are doing to our epi-genome - the consequences of which we are only now beginning to learn. The fact is, we are pouring billions of tons of toxic chemicals into the environment. On a molecular level, our cells have become toxic waste dumps. We know the mitochonria is affected by even the lowest level of toxins - and the average person has over 100 hundred in their fat cells according to many studies! I'm all for breathing and I love what Tara Stiles has to say - but I think we need to do more than breathe. We need to start taking care of our livers which are overtaxed by drinking, in my opinion, herbal infusions or other beverages that support healthy liver functions and celluar cleansing activity.

http://www.prlog.org/10324008-dont-drink-the-water-deadly-toxins-found-in-drinking-water-across-us-the-epa-ignores-threat.html

[Angie Cordeiro - Huffpost Blogger]

Imagine One Collective Breath for Humanity each time we breathe consciously.... ;-)

[RhondaLalonde]

Hi Tara! Very enjoyable article. Fully experiencing and savoring each breath makes me feel fantastic and alive. It adds a new dimensionality to my life, yet, I can't help but notice how often I forget to do so. It seems our all consuming quest for the big fix sometimes causes the universal truths to elude us - at least temporarily! As always, thank you for bringing us back down to earth with your thoughtful reminders. :)

[seattle music]

Breathing is free.

No one is making a buck off of it -- yet. ;0)

Ahhhhh ... isn't it lovely that -- during these difficult economic times -- something so healing, so restorative, so delightful is ... free.

[lizr]

what is the 4 wk weight loss plan?

[Tara Stiles - Huffpost Blogger]

Hi Lizr. It's a yoga "workout" video series that adds on a new routine each week. We're on week 2, detox, but you can start now if you want. The videos are here :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/TaraStilesYoga#play/uploads

[Tulka2]

After he became awake to reality, the Buddha lived for years and years. Once, he was asked what was the most important thing to do so as to become enlightened. He said, "Breath".

It might be a little joke too because if there is reincarntion....? Tibetans think the inevitable end will be that the whole of creation is enlightened.

May all beings be happy; may all beings have cause to be happy.

[mjt96]

Good point about breath, body and mind all being the same thing. Interesting to think about how this perspective might apply to the nature vs. nurture argument. Genetics, our mind, psychology, surroundings, and what we make of everything may not be so disjointed as current science suspects.

[seattle music]

Lonely puppy?

That was me today ... howling.

Fetal position, breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out ... peace.

[RustNeverSleeps]

Good stuff Tara.

[marley22]

I thought I was going to find out the master cleanse for bad breath.

[Eriq]

Me too...

[Trueheart]

Me too.

[jinjinpinti]

Yes. Breath is life. It's the first thing we do when we are born and the last thing we do when we die. We can live quite a few days without water, and weeks or more without food, but we cannot live more than a few minutes without breath. Yet people just schlepp around taking shallow, little chest breaths for so much of their lives. I do Chi Yi as taught by Nancy Zi in "the Art of Breathing," and though I have long appreciated the deeper, more mindful breath, I am now eaven heathier and happier with Zi's wisdom.

[monkeyrocketsurgeon]

thanks, as always tara, you always help us back to center....

[Guitarsandmore]

Look how young she is! Good to know there are some smart people in the next generation, too. Great post Tara Stiles. The videos add a lot to your lessons.

[Tulka2]

Well....look how old you are! Many get old, but fewer get wise.

[Roses]

Breathe.

[c-lupa]

Girlfriend, the same exact thing just happened to me -- the weather change (I'm from California so the NYC cold really gets to me) and pushing myself too hard made me break down and get sick this week. Thanks for this great post--working this weekend on relaxing, meditating, and deepening my breath.

[Flokk]

So glad I'm a guy. All I have to do is hop on a bench press twice a week and I'm good.