It’s been five months since I gave birth to my first
baby, but it’s only recently that my exercise regimen has even begun to
approach the intensity of my pre-pregnancy workouts. Fourteen months of super-gentle low-impact
exercise, along with the trauma of giving birth and months now of sleep
deprivation, have all left my body in the poorest shape in over a dozen
years.
One of the benefits of hitting a low point in
wellness, though, is it often becomes easier to see the big picture in
contrast. A few days ago, I was running
on the treadmill, and I noticed how much my ribs ached from the deeper breaths
I was compelled to take. It felt rusty;
it felt tight, like a corset wrapped around my lower ribcage. But after a few minutes, it started feeling
good.
I’ve known for years that exercise is one of the
guaranteed ways to make me feel better.
It creates an endorphin rush, the happy-hormone. But I’ve also noticed that it’s also one of
the best ways to snap me out of places of mental and emotional torture—to give
me a sense of myself and my own space again.
I thought, then, about the figurative and the anatomically literal
translation in my body: that breath represents and creates space for self.
There are, roughly, two different ways the lungs can
breathe. The first is into the chest,
where the central tendon is the fixed point, the lumbars are stabilized, and
the diaphragm’s crura pull down.
Breathing into the chest is where we go when our sympathetic nervous
system is activated—the part of us that handles stress, the fight or flight,
where we become alert enough to be ready for action. Chest-breathing uses up 75% of the lung’s
capacity.
The second way the lungs can breathe is into the
abdomen. Here, the ribs lift free from
the belly, with the crura as the fixed point, and the central tendon
descends. This kind of breath stimulates
the parasympathetic nervous system—where we rest and relax. Only 25% of the lung’s capacity is used by
abdominal breaths.
Ideally, a balance can be found between the two so
the lungs are fully engaged. Another way
to think about these two kinds of breath and why it’s good to have range of
motion for both is that the abdominal breath creates space for oneself, and the
chest breath protects it. At around the
location of the diaphragm is the solar plexus power center, or third chakra, of
the subtle body; this energy center carries information about how we relate to
the material world, how we have our power, or not. Many of our defense mechanisms, how we
protect ourselves are located here—how we resist and compete. When the sympathetic nervous system
activates, so does the third chakra; the diaphragm closes down as the body acts
to protect its core; energy is pulled in and breath becomes shallow and
sharp.
When in a more restful, parasympathetic mode, the
third chakra allows energy to flow through it and above to higher chakras; its
information about power is still used, but not in battle—breath is full and
spacious, the aura grows larger, the core expands up and out.
Ideally, a balance can be found between the two so
full lung capacity is engaged, and full range of motion is maintained—meaning
that one has a constant creation of space and the consciousness of its
limits. One can push and resist others,
and one can disengage to simply own the space around oneself in rest. The full availability of both spaces is where
full empowerment lies.
My ribs being super tight showed me that I’ve mainly
been a chest-breather, stuck in fight or flight mode long enough that the abdominal
breath muscles ached from disuse. My
breath has been, I realized, so shallow and soft that it’s almost like I felt I
had no right to the air any longer. This
was where all my space had been dis-owned, and where in relation to the world
all these weird self-esteem issues were suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
From the feel of it, I have a ways to go to regain
the air around me, my ability to oxygenate every part of my body. But as is the case with most things, change
begins with the awareness of a pattern, and flow is always closer than we
think.
