Breathing and Reiki

It's by no means necessary to incorporate breathing exercises into the practice of Reiki, but it can be tremendously beneficial. And breathing is so easy--you have nothing to lose by trying specialized, focused breathing methods!

Some facts about breathing:

· Did you know that breathing can help you break down fat deposits in your body? Actually, the entire root of "aerobic" exercise is breathing - oxygen!

· Did you know that breathing after meals can help you digest your food better? In Indian and Chinese health techniques breathing deeply after eating is practiced to help reduce stress, thereby freeing up your body's energy to focus on metabolism.

· Did you know that most of us, breathing involuntarily every day, rarely use the lower halves of our lungs? Our usual shallow breathing isn't deep enough to engage the lower lobes. So unless we focus on deep breathing, we don't utilize our lungs' full capacity!

· Did you know that cigarette smoke and other pollutants can reside in our lower lungs for long periods of time? Deep breathing helps expel resident pollution in our lungs.

· Did you know humans could lose almost ¾ of our lung tissue without any serious loss of bodily function?

· Did you know that in any given 24 hour period, we breathe approximately twenty-thousand times?

· Did you know that only our noses, and not our mouths, are equipped for filtering particles from the air we breathe?

· Did you know we can increase the efficiency of our lungs and oxygenation of our body one thousand times simply by increasing the amount of air we inhale by about 5%?

A Simple Breathing Exercise

To breathe properly, you should sit in a comfortable place so that your body is relaxed and supported. A high-backed chair is great for this. You need to relax your shoulders and straighten your spine.

Whenever you inhale, pay mind to your shoulders. Are they going up and down as you inhale/exhale? They shouldn't be-if they are, then you are performing shallow "shoulder breathing" which is more upper-lung than full-lung.

Instead, you should breathe from your diaphragm-that funny muscle that goes "plop" when you hiccup. Push it outward, straight out, and fill your lungs width-wise. It will feel like your waist is expanding and your torso is lengthening. Your diaphragm is actually being pushed down, lengthening your lungs for maximum capacity. Your lungs are pushing your sides out, allowing for more expansion width-wise. When you exhale, contract your diaphragm inward and upward and relax your sides.

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