Let’s Talk about Breath baby!
I can’t apologize the corny blog title because, what can I say?! I am corny and I love Salt-n-Pepa. But I wanna talk about breath baby, and you and me, let’s talk about all the good things and all the bad things that may be… about your breathing. When was the last time you thought about your breath? Maybe when you were running out of it? Like when we’re nervous, anxious, working out, laughing or shocked. We rarely think about our breath until it's hard to breathe. Then it can be panicking. Being able to check in with our breath can be the most liberating practice and connection we have with ourselves. Let me put it this way, we can live without a lot of things, not comfortably or for long, but humans can survive without food, water and human touch. We can’t however live more than a few minutes without our breath. Breath is literally life. In Sanskrit, “Prana” means breath or our primal life force. It is my belief that in this consciousness we call life, to get the most out of life we must live it to the fullest with open hearts and minds. I relate this to breath as well. To get the most out of my breath, I must breathe to the fullest with an open heart and mind. It’s a continual cycle that feeds into each other, breath and life, life and breath. When it’s our time to pass out of this earthly dimension the breath will stop. Until that fateful day, I want to breathe well to give my life, body, mind and spirit the healing power of Prana.
Have you ever noticed when you use your breath subconsciously? A sigh when you’re worried or sad, or a yawn when you’re tired. Our bodies tell us what we need through our breath. Because the breath is automatically created through the beauty of our autonomic nervous system, we don't necessarily have to be noticing our breath at all times, it just happens. And am I damn grateful for that because I have enough on my mind. The breath does so much for me, like keep me alive, so I want to do something for my breath, like give it some gratitude and attention.
An Invitation
I invite you to have a gratitude moment for your breath. As you’re sitting or standing here reading this, just notice your breath. People say “notice your breath” all the time in yoga classes and in mindfulness exercises and what I mean is, notice where your breath is in your body. In your chest? If so, upper or lower chest? In your belly or even your head? What is the quality of the breath? Is it shallow, deep, thick or heavy, are the inhales longer or the exhales? Do you have a pause between inhale and exhale? If you start paying attention to your breath do you get anxious or start to control it or lose it? These are just a few ways of starting to notice the breath and to begin the investigative process throughout your day in different situations by asking yourself, “how’s my breath right now”? If you feel safe and comfortable to start to direct the breath a little then take a deeper inhale, where does it start? In the chest? In the belly? In the throat? Are you breathing in through your nose or mouth? All these questions can help you start to understand where you can begin your breathing practice and what to focus on to help integrate the breath into your body. I want to help you be a better breath detective. Asking questions and being curious about how you breathe will make you want to know more about your breath and yourself!
Conscious Breathing
When we use our breath intentionally for speaking and singing there is a completely different way of using our bodies to support the breath than when our autonomic nervous system does it for us. We need to increase our awareness of our breathing when speaking or singing because essentially it is controlled, delayed exhalation. Let’s break down the breath for a second. You may think you just breathe in and breathe out, but there are actually little pauses in between. In yogic pranayama (breath practice) the cycles of breath are called, inhalation: puraka, pause: antara kumbhaka, exhalation: rechaka, pause: bahya kumbhaka. These four parts are the building blocks for strengthening the breath. A simple starting exercise is the block breath: inhale with a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4 and hold for four. You can gradually increase the length of each section as you become more comfortable. Now I can go into so much more detail here about how to practice each section but I’ll save that for another post or for your Pranavox session! This “box breathing” technique is also extremely helpful for stimulating the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system which promotes rest and digestion. I will post another blog about the vagus nerve in the future as it is so fascinating and very relevant to singing and breathing, so stay tuned for that! For now you can use this gif as a guide to try out this simple and effective technique for accessing your breath cycles.
Your Breath and your voice
The voice goes where the breath goes. I like to imagine the breath like the ocean tide that never stops, just going up and out then down and in. The voice is like a surfer that rides the wave of the rolling tides, it’s all about balance and connection. Most of us only use the top third of our breathing apparatus, the upper chest and collarbone area, if this is where we breathe from before we sing or speak that's where our voice goes and singing and speaking from the upper chest area is an unsupported voice that easily fatigues. The Italians put it best with the saying “Chi sa respirare sa cantare”! One who breathes well, sings well! (And speaks well!) My job as a voice and breath coach is to help bring that balance and connection back to yourself by learning how to breathe with the entire breathing apparatus. I want everyone to “SING OUT LOUISE”! And have an empowered and healthy voice!
Jalandhara Bandha Breath Exercise
I’m not just showing off my amazing double chins here, I’m practicing what is called a bandha or lock/seal in the throat chakra. This is a practice of preserving Prana. This is a more advanced practice that should be practiced only when pranayama exercises are comfortable.
Be a lover to yourself
Lastly, When starting to align breathing with singing and speaking, the most important advice I give my students is to be gentle and compassionate with yourself and HAVE FUN! We knew how to do this thing really well when we were babies and little kiddos but life usually gets in the way of our vocal expression. So imagine when you’re talking to yourself that you're talking to your best friend or loved one and laugh, be silly and curious with yourself like we were when we were kids! My closing request for you here is to give yourself a nice big hug. It might seem unnatural, but give it a go, you deserve it because you are worthy of love from yourself. wrap your arms around your upper chest in whatever way is comfortable, take a few deep breaths, maybe even a sig on the exhale and if you’re really feeling it, smile :) Thank you for reading!!
