If we look at the frequency of the inputs we provide to our body, food intake is typically 3 times a day, water is more frequent, 8-10 times a day or even more. But breathing is round the clock, that continues even when we are sleeping. So, it would be interesting to understand the efficiency of breathing.
We inhale through nose, it travels through the passage, reaches lungs and there oxygen is absorbed into the body to join the bloodstream and further it travels to various parts of the body. Note that oxygen it is absorbed at lungs and not in the passage (nasal or throat region). If we are inhaling for 3 seconds on an average, the air we inhaled at the third second will be stopped before it reaches lungs and it will be forced to return halfway as exhalation begins. Similarly, when we exhale, the air which is carbon di-oxide primarily, does not completely get out of our body as some of it in the passage at the third second of exhalation will be forced to return due to inhalation. This suggests what we can make use of, whether inhalation or exhalation, is 2 out 3 seconds only. Thus we arrive at 66% of efficiency number. It does not look great for the thing we do throughout our life. What can be done about this?
Before we go to bed, when we are slowing down, we have few
minutes to ourselves. Whether you are sitting or lying down, completely free up
your body, avoid any smaller movements and ignore all those itches. When your
body is at still, energy demand from body drops and breathing rate slows a
little, inhale and exhale expands by a second (to 4 seconds from what we considered 3 seconds before). Now if we do the same math, 3 seconds of breathing out of 4 will be useful and efficiency is at 75%. As you know breathing also consumes some energy and when
breathing becomes slow and efficiency increases, body’s energy demand drops little
further. If you can close your eyes it will greatly help. Not just the
energy consumption from eyes is saved, but the information flow from eyes to
brain is cut-off and that means the part of the brain which processes
information from eye can take rest as well. This would lead to longer breaths
of 5-6 seconds of inhalation and exhalation. And efficiency would rise to above
90%. This is a good number and what is suggested by experts. You can further improve it if you can pause and hold breath after every
inhalation. But that would require a longer practice before you can comfortably
do it.
If you can repeat this exercise several times a day, even for small intervals, you will see your breaths begin to become deeper naturally. Deeper breathing has a bunch of benefits. Due to increased energy efficiency, there is a lesser load on your heart which results in lower blood pressure. Deeper breathing also calms and soothes nervous system. After couple of weeks of practice, you would notice a slightly calmer version of yourself. Your emotions would be in control and your brain will have lots of free capacity to do useful stuff. Pick a subject which was difficult for you to digest or get into the conversation which always troubled you in the past, you will be surprised to learn that you are doing a lot better this time. It happened to me and it would do the same thing for you or any other human being.
With few months of practice, energy levels further improve and need to sleep for longer hours will be gone. You will be much calmer. As you gain control over your breath, you will gain control over your mind. You would become aware of all your emotions, thinking patterns and deepest fears. Awareness levels of how you think, what you say or do will rise. You will get to know yourself better.
