The Breathing Book: Good Health and Vitality Through Essential Breath Work

The next time you catch yourself hyperventilating notice if your mind is catapulting itself into the future, planning, rehearsing, and often imagining difficulties that haven’t yet happened (and may never happen). You might try reciting the short poem of Vietnamese monk and writer Thich Nhat Hanh as you breathe: Breathing in, I calm body and mind.

Maybe you don’t notice your breathing at all but feel chronically tired, irritated, hurried, or anxious—so much so that these feelings cast a shadow over all your daily activities.

Breathing is the most readily accessible resource you have for creating and sustaining your vital energy.

This type of breathing is the natural consequence of chest breathing and has all the symptoms of that pattern, and more.

A deep, abiding sense of ease, surrender, and relaxation will arise when you allow yourself to drink in the peace of this pause.

Given the simplicity of breathing one would think it was the easiest thing to do in the world. However, if it were truly so easy there would be few unhappy or unhealthy people in the world.

Write a letter longhand at the end of the day instead of typing it, being mindful of your breathing as you write.

Breath therapy, sometimes combined with other healing practices such as biofeedback or yoga, has been found to alleviate

All too often, we may unconsciously breathe so fast that we no longer allow for the resting pauses in the breath rhythm.