Tag: breathing

How are you breathing?

by lebureauetc, posted in Uncategorized

“How we do one things is how we do everything”

-Annie Carpenter

For this particular post, I would like to bring awareness to the breath. 

Before I go there, I would like to share a little about my current training with Annie Carpenter and her smart flow yoga program.  If you are unfamiliar, Annie Carpenter is a internationally known Yoga teacher with 40 years of experience.   She has been practicing yoga since the 70’s, performed and taught for the Martha Graham company in the 80s, and continued to learn more from the 3 modern fathers of yoga -Sri K. Pattabhi Jois – father of Ashtanga (known for repetition, flow with breath, and no props; BKS Iyengar – founder of Iyengar Yoga (known for alignment and many props), and TKV Desikachar – established the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (known for yoga therapeutics).  Annie has always been driven to learn more and be curious by asking why?  She is a life long student of anatomy, evolutionary movement, meditation, and classical philosophy.  

I’ve “known of her” for at least 10 years and have taken her classes -on and off- she offers some of her classes on an online yoga site, GLO.  I had always enjoyed her classes that I took from her.  They are always gentle, challenging, playful, insightful, and taught in a very well thought out fashion.  Her classes mostly always have a ‘theme’ and she sticks to that theme so you leave with more knowledge on that particular part of the body or movement and how it affects the whole.  It is very smart:). 

I gravitate to Annie’s teaching because not only are her sequences smart, but she encourages self inquiry rather than teaching simply the physical shape.  She states “our role as a teacher is to guide and literally point the way, providing sign posts and directions based on our own journey.  We bring awareness to tension and the release of tension, and also balancing sensations of stretch and strength. Overtime, more evolved levels of paying attention and states of consciousness may be evoked.  As a practitioner matures, she begins to understand that her physical habits are mirror images of her life habits.”  

 Annie’s ability to teach with inquiry is based on a continuum…there is never a destination, a right or a wrong,.  Instead in the present moment, there is an effort and a return to center.  Meaning, as we are all different, some of us on the same continuum will need more effort and some of us will need more return, to find our own equilibrium and balance for that particular moment (before it changes again:)) none of us, nor one moment in time is ever the same!!  I believe teaching with self inquiry is inspiring as it empowers the practitioner to feel in the present and ask themselves if what they are doing is right for them.  I hope to encourage this more and more.

That said – how are you breathing??

Fast? Slow?  Too much inhale?  Holding your breath?  Forgetting to exhale? Is it calm, loud, choppy, barely there?  How about when you are exercising, do you remember to breath or do you catch yourself gasping for air?

If we listen carefully to our breath, it can give us so much information and insight.  I find that when I am in a state of stress or feeling inner turmoil, I barely breathe.  How about you?  I also find when I am angry and upset, my breath is barely there or it is raging and emotional and its hard for me to connect to an exhale; almost as if I am holding it all inside and not able to let it go.  When I am finally able to let it go, tears flooding my eyes, I am finally able to exhale.  How about you?  Is this true for you?  On the other hand, when I’m at ease and content my breathing is also calm and easy. 

What happens then to our breathing if we are in a constant state of stress and do not know it for many years?  It could be several kinds of stress.  Maybe you are in some kind of pain, maybe you are angry, resentful?  Or maybe you had an argument, maybe you are feeling unworthy, maybe you are just doing too much and never allow you self to put your feet up and observe and be your own witness? What if this ‘state’ goes on and on and on?  Your conscious mind may not be able to feel the stress as it is subtle enough to ignore, but it is truly brewing underneath your skin and affecting how you are breathing! 

From my own experience shit hits the fan!  Yes, I just said that!  For me my ‘stress’ was a dynamic of sorts and unfortunately, during this period of my life I did not pay good attention to my breathing to help calm down my nervous system enough to allow myself to come back to a balanced state. In terms of “Annie’s continuum” I had too much effort and not enough return.”  

Even, Joseph Pilates says, “above all, learn how to breathe correctly.”  Joe knew how important breathing was “breathing is the first act in life and the last.  Our very life depends on it.”    I believe his intention with these statements is that if you are able to control your breathing correctly you are able to exercise in the right way.  For our breath nourishes all our bodily functions and cells, even when we are sleeping.  If we are not breathing we are dead.  Like everything though, it’s not what we do, it’s how we do it!  It’s easy to neglect our breath because it happens without us having to think about it.  Just like it is easy to take the people in our lives for granted! Its challenging to bring awareness to something that is a constant in our lives, like the breath and our family.

Below are some insights to consider to possibly enhance your awareness of the breath and therefore improve your breathing, your life, and all your practices including Pilates:).

Breathing is a gaseous exchange that involves many systems in the body. It’s not just the lungs affecting the respiratory system.  Like everything, we are whole person, not pieces working in isolation of one another.

For instance, our pelvic floor and our diaphragm are interconnected and work as a unique system involving many other systems in our body such as our digestive system that deals with assimilation and elimination.  If you are not breathing well, most likely your pelvic floor is not functioning optimally and you may also have issues with your digestion.  For your inhales open your lungs, contracting your diaphragm and relaxes your pelvic floor and your exhales close your lungs, relax your diaphragm, and engage your pelvic floor.  Our body depends on this dynamic between our in and out breath to create a trampoline movement in our torso between our diaphragm and our pelvic floor to function properly.  For example, if you cannot fully exhale you are not going to be able to fully release your diaphragm that is necessary to create inner space for you to lift and engage your pelvic floor muscles.   Joseph Pilates said, “ ”You must squeeze every atom of impure air from lungs until they are almost as free of air as a vacuum”.  That said, taking a full inhale is equally important as a complete exhale!  We need to soften and relax our pelvic floor muscles as much as we engage them. Effort in the inhale and the return to center is the exhale.  Is your breathing effort and return balanced?

Therefore, a balanced inhale to exhale ratio will help keep your diaphragm, pelvic floor, and even your digestive system working well.  Another benefit from breathing balanced breaths is that the nervous system will also stay more balanced.  Every inhale you take stimulates the sympathetic nervous system and every exhale you take can take you back to the parasympathetic nervous system.  When you have a balanced inhale with an exhale our nervous system resets and balances.  If your inhale/exhale ratio is imbalanced you are either in your sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system.

Even now, having better awareness of my tendencies and breathing, and knowing the importance of returning to a ‘center place,’ I still struggle at times to take full cycles of breath.  I love a thrill and it is easy for me to get ‘jacked up.’  Its a journey. In the moments when my body is challenged and I notice that my breathing does not feel easy I try to take a break!  It’s great if I can give myself 10 minutes and just lye down in a constructive rest position with my knees bent and feet flat on the floor.  I close my eyes, turn inward and visualize my breathing inside.  I benefit from placing my own hands or pillow/bolster on the particular part of my body thats bothering me and consciously breath into that place in my body.  I also have a regular practice everyday to consciously breath a minimum of 10 minutes.  I love to do it first thing in the morning when it is a new day and the atmosphere is quiet.  Deep diaphramic breathing is so healing and insightful.  It’s truly amazing how effective a simple practice of breathing with awareness for 10 minutes a day can bring me down and put me back into my parasympathetic nervous system.   I also love to practice alternate nostril breathing.

I hope you read this with inquiry and it will remind you to observe how you are breathing and how this is affecting you as a whole.

If you know me and have read my posts you know how strongly I feel about asking your own questions and feeling your own feeling. No-one else knows your body more than you do.  I strongly believe that one of my most important and biggest jobs as a teacher is to be your cheerleader and to believe in you, so you believe in yourself and be your own self advocate in whatever you dealing with.  That said,  there is always work we can do and I hope to shine a warm supportive light on those physical tendencies and areas I witness.

Check in and observe your breath.  Better yet, take some time everyday to notice and consciously breath even inhales and exhales.  You will be doing your body good and helping it in many ways.

Love,

Brooke 

COMPROMISE

by lebureauetc, posted in breathing, hypopressives

“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”

–by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

… Things have come to a pretty pass

Our romance is growing flat

For you like this and the other

While I go for this and that

Goodness knows what the end will be

Oh, I don’t know where I’m at

It looks as if we two will never be one

Something must be done

… You say either, I say either

You say neither and I say neither

Either, either, neither, neither

Let’s call the whole thing off, yes

… You like potato and I like potato

You like tomato and I like tomato

Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto

Let’s call the whole thing off

… But oh, if we call the whole thing off

Then we must part

And oh, if we ever part

Then that might break my heart

… So if you like pyjamas and I like pyjahmas

I’ll wear pyjamas and give up pyajahmas

For we know, we need each other

So we better call the calling off, off

Oh, let’s call the whole thing off, yes

… You say laughter and I say larfter

You say after and I say arfter

Laughter, larfter, after, arfter

Let’s call the whole thing off

You like vanilla and I like vanella

You saspiralla and I saspirella

Vanilla, vanella, chocolate, strawberry

Let’s call the whole thing off

… But oh, if we call the whole thing off

Then we must part

And, oh, if we ever part

Then that might break my heart

… So if you go for oysters and I go for ersters

I’ll order oysters and cancel the ersters

For we know, we need each other

So we better call the calling off, off

Let’s call the whole thing off

… Yes, you say either and you say either

You say neither and you say neither

Either, either, a-neither, a-neither

Let’s call the whole thing off, oh, yes

You like potato and you like potahto

You like tomato and you like tomahto

Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto

Let’s call the whole thing off

… But oh, if we call the whole thing off

Then we must part

And oh, if we ever part

Then that might break my heart

… So if you like pyjamas (I like pyjahmas)

I’ll wear pyjamas (you got pyjamas)

For we know, we need each other

So we better call the calling off, off

Let’s call the whole thing off

Let’s call the whole thing off (yes)

 The song is one of my favorites!!  It’s about being in LOVE, which is a constant compromise of BOTH standing your ground, and finding common ground.  

Compromise is what I hope to inspire in my teaching and practice of both Yoga and Pilates…  It’s important to “stand in our own body” and respect our own unique boundaries in our physical practice.  It’s also valuable to remember that our bodies are ever changing and what may have been possible yesterday may or may not be not possible today.   Having a flexible mindset,  by listening to All of our bodies whispers is essential as we navigate through our lives and in our workouts.  Maybe we could challenge ourselves more than we thought, or maybe our challenge is simply to negotiate different patterns of movement and be open and not be so rigid in our practice.  There is always another way, idea, solution, point of view, side  etc …to our stories and our body:)  we are ever changing dynamic beautiful beings.  

Recently I’ve stumbled upon a new practice that helps me navigate much more freely in my body and my life.  It’s a breathing postural technique called ‘hypopressives.’  Although I am not an expert I have been practicing this technique for about 3 months now and I am a true devotee.   It is a practice that serves my whole body.  It does not take much time and is well worth my effort.

Those of you who read my blog, know my struggles and the pain I’ve endured in my right side body these past several years.  My pain was very intense for a year after Pepper was born (almost 3 now).  Although, I’m doing better, I still have work to do:).  I have had an imbalance and injury in my right pelvis/hip/low back for years and chose to ignore this imbalance  for several years as I was not experiencing pain.  BIG MISTAKE.    The past 3 years I have been doing more to help this imbalance and hopefully reduce my pain.  Its a work in progress and I have found the postural breathing practice of  hypopressives to compliment my practices of Yoga and Pilates to help me on my journey back to feeling at ease. 

I learned about hypopressives after listening to a podcast, ‘The Vagina Coach’ that discusses all things women’s pelvic health.  This podcast is a wealth of information and I would recommend that anyone who has a pelvis and especially to those of you who have had a vaginal delivery to have a listen!   Hypopressives is a breathing practice performed using various simple postures. The practice creates a negative pressure in the pelvic cavity which helps the inner organs rise and return to a normal functioning position. 

Here are several benefits I have experienced so far from hypopressives – 

  • The breathing integrates postures and some gentle movement that has    increased my ability to stay present with my breathwork.  The outcomes i have desired from my breathing practice such as; connecting more to my parasympathetic nervous system, creating more inner space, helping my become more present  etc etc has expanded and I feel the result! This practice is truly helping me SLOW down and reset my nervous system.  This is huge as I have been stuck in my sympathetic nervous system for far too many years which I believe is the main source to why I have experienced so many challenges in my body.
  • The technique of hypopressives has also fine tuned my posture and helped me become more aware of ALL my sides and how they connect to my center.  I believe my inner tissues (fascia) that connects all my internal organs had been stuck in a big tangled knot for years and this technique is helping me untangle and reorganize my inner body so I can feel at ease and stand tall without feeling as if I am being pulled down.  
  • I have also experienced a  deeper awareness of what it takes and what it should feel like when you “pull in and up”…which we do a lot of in Pilates.  
  • Another great benefit is that its helping my internal abdomen release areas that have been stuck for a long time which has greatly helped my assimilation of food and my intra-abdominal pressure as a whole.  

Most importantly this practice has helped me be my own observer.  It’s not always pretty, but this self -awareness can shine a bright light on what we need to work on.

I hope reading this will ignite your curiosity to learn more and maybe practice hypopressives!  It has been such a wonderful find in a dark time for me…maybe it could be wonderful for you too?

In summary, regardless if you choose to look up and learn more about hypopressives.   I hope you can be grateful  to all your unique problems and use them to be more curious to the ‘why’ and unlock and learn more about yourself.  I have learned countless lessons that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned to the depths I understand them now if I have not gone through my challenges.  I understand this attitude on life is not for everyone and I have often resisted this attitude initially too.   When I do choose to be curious and look at the bigger picture of ‘why’ I learn so much and I am always grateful I dug a little deeper.  It takes a lot of work to live out our best lives!  

For me, teaching, practicing, and surrounding myself with like minded people who also understand that this lifestyle is a never ending compromise helps me stay on track.

Bisoux,

Brooke

Vagus Baby!

by lebureauetc, posted in gut instinct, inspirations, Uncategorized, vagus nerve

Aside from reading all of Paulo Cohleo’s books (I find his perspectives and stories to be so heartfelt.)  I do not do much reading these days, nor did I EVER before I had a newborn.  If I’m lucky, I’ll read 1-3 books a year, usually when we vacation in Hawaii. My latest book that I read, although not a Paulo Cohleo story, is called Cured, by Jeffery Rediger MD.  Jeffery Rediger researched why people have remissions from terminal illnesses.  He explains the science behind these miracles, instead of just calling them flukes of nature.  There has to be an explanation, right?  He reveals 4 pillars that played a significant role in helping one heal.  

1 – healing your nutrition; 2 – healing your immunity; 3 – healing your identity; and 4 – healing your stress response.

In todays post I will talk more to the 4th pillar of healing our stress response and how I believe this work to heal how we respond to stress could also significantly help us find and sustain more physical integrity and a sense of well-being within.

Dr Rediger discusses how stress is inevitable as we deal with stress everyday.  It’s how we respond to the stressors in our life that is important.  If we can somehow learn to be more conscious of what we do when we are stressed, maybe we can make little changes to alter our tendencies, and instead, unstick ourselves from our unconscious patterns.    These unconscious patterns, I believe, affect not only our mental and emotional state of well-being, but also our physical body.  I believe our body can suffer and can continue to suffer from the simple memory of “what happened to us” and be in pain until we can change how we respond to our stressors differently.

So how can we change our stress response?

I will start by giving you these 2 following excerpts – 

(pg. 183) Think of how Often you’ve used the phrase gut feeling for a broken heart; you had butterflies in your stomach.  You feel different emotions in different parts of your body for good reason: areas are hot beds for neural receptors. Recent research is showing that we actually have three brains: the head brain, the heart brain and they gut brain and their health and development depend on keeping them in balance and alignment. With the vagus nerve as a connecting cord, emotions flood through our system in the form of neural messages and hormones. Some signals begin in the gut or the heart and flow upstream to the head brain, while others cascade from above. In this way, our thoughts and emotions have both instant and long lasting effects on our biological systems: nervous, endocrine, immune.

(pg. 182) The vagus nerve exits the brain stem at the base of your skull deep in your neck. Press your fingers to the pulse points on your neck and you are close as you can get to your vagus nerve. From that spot under your fingers it shoots down to your heart and beyond, where it regulates heartbeat and dozen of other vital functions. If you have doubts about how deep and rapid the connection is between the mind and the body, the vagus is that literal link between the two – a thick humming power line that runs from your brain to your gut.

This idea that we have 3 brains is fascinating and even more intriguing to me is that they are all connected to our vagus nerve that regulates how we respond to what is happening.  Stress affects me in curious ways, physically I experience many things depending on my current state, but recently more irritation in my neck and right side body(probably due to all the holding and breast feeding I’ve been doing).  I also generally experience a lack of inner flow and circulation.  It is a horrible feeling to feel so stuck inside.  I can feel frozen regardless of how much physical movement I do, foods I eat, etc, etc…So to learn that the vagus nerve controls most of our body functions and our ability to rest/digest and connect to our parasympathetic nervous system was huge insight for me.  How then can I tone my vagus nerve so it’s able to help me relax and help me better respond to simple stressors?  I learned that, toning my vagus nerve to help me relax is relatively simple. However, just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean it is easy!!! So I am writing this post, to reflect on what I could do better in my efforts to fine tune the way I respond to stressors in my day to day to create more feelings of ease. 

As I mentioned above, the “gut” is a brain and integrated with both our heart and our mind with our vagus nerve.  This idea made me contemplate the connection between listening to my gut instinct and how that generally has helped me make “better decisions” – of corse when I chose to listen to it!   Studying in France, marrying my husband, Pontus, and switching careers to focus on teaching Pilates and Yoga are 3 decisions I have made that reflect my choice to listen to my GUT.  All those decisions felt really good in my whole body and I cannot always say that has been true for other experiences and decisions. As a human being, I believe we have been more programmed to listen to our mind and heart.  It’s easier to give priority to these 2 brains, especially the mind, as most times this is the logical thing to do!  The whole idea of listening with my gut requires me to trust in myself and in order to trust myself, I need to have at least a general understanding of who I am at my core.

In my youth, (no offense Mom and Dad, I love you and so grateful for you) I often felt as if I had no value.  I didn’t feel like I mattered, as I was not encouraged to have a voice and did not feel listened to.  I was never included in my parents decision process from the schools I went to, to the activities I participated in… I was the child and they were the parent and I did things because “they said so.”  Oh, how I hate that saying!  I believed my role was to be quiet, respectful, grateful, do good in school and do what my parents told me to do, including the Catholic schools I attended.  I should be grateful, no doubt, as I had a lot of opportunities other kids did not. I know my parents were doing the best they knew how, and wanted to give me the best!  However, life is life, and most of us know by now that things are not as always as they seem!  From this memory, I believe it is important to feel like you have a voice in order to feel love and have trust in yourself. 

If you think about it, “listing to our gut” requires us to trust in ourselves.   Listening more to our inner voice is just a way to be true ourselves and love our actions/decisions.   This love for self and what we do tones our vagus nerve keeping us out of our sympathetic nervous system and therefore, more easily able to deal with STRESS.  Our gut instinct should never be ignored!  It’s definitely an up and down and circular journey for me, but as always, I believe, it’s worth the effort!  For me, listening to my gut brings me back to me!  Knowing this helps me to remind myself (over and over again) to not look past my own inner knowing and self worth.  Maybe you would you would benefit from this reminder about yourself?

Along with the idea of listening to my gut instinct, I feel it’s easier for me to listen well when my gut is physically aligned more with my heart and mind.  Grounding, in general, has always been a challenge for me and something I have been trying to cultivate my whole life.  Since a very young age, I have been told several different times that I lead more with my ‘upper body.’  Growing up playing various sports, my coaches all tried to get me to run with my feet under me instead of behind me.  they would say,  “Brooke, you run with your heart.”  It is true, I did!   My lower body followed and tried to keep up!  I look back now and feel maybe I was just ‘running to please’ without ever stopping to ask if I was pleasing myself in what I was doing?  I wonder if this lack of connection between my physical upper and lower bodies translated to my lack of ability to be able to align my gut with my other 2 brains and therefore my vagus nerve?    Maybe that’s why I love how I feel now after practicing Pilates and Yoga; where these 2 disciplines encourage me to find and connect to a plumb line and work from a place of whole body integrity?   Hmm?

A strong part of me has always believed that you can change your own destiny. Believing my thoughts reflect my current state.  This belief structure works great when things are “good” In my life. The events, stuff, experiences that I believe (especially in the moment) are not “good” I have to wonder… Did I subconsciously ask for this to happen to me, what lesson is the universe trying to teach me now?

Regardless of what your beliefs are it is quite interesting to look at your life from this perspective.  Although, it’s sometimes easier to put the blame on something or someone else for things that happen that are not what you “think you desire” it can be illuminating to play with your own life pieces in an effort to make sense of what makes you YOU! 

I hope you remember to align your gut, heart, and mind, in and out of your workouts, and truly listen to what your GUT is saying.

Here are some other fun excerpt regarding the vagus nerve from Cured

(pg. 184)The vagus nerve is like a muscle the more you use it the stronger it becomes. using the vagus-stimulating it through everything from deep breathing to connecting with a friend or partner is like flexing your biceps as you lift weights, it increases its strength, flexibility, and elasticity. And just like with physical exercise, the more you use it, the better you get at using it, and the more health benefits you reap.

(pg.185)What truly tones your vagus nerve are small moments of connection –  a sort of falling in love, if you will, with the people who surround you on a day-to-day basis, everyone from your husband or wife to children to the barista you’re getting to know that your corner coffee shop.  It could even be a total stranger you meet on the street.

(pg. 189) When the parasympathetic is engaged the vagus activates face-heart connection. At the metaphorical level, it opens your heart to others, and on a literal level, both relaxes and constricts different facial muscles that help you to smile, focus, and express warmth and interest so that you can connect with the people you’re speaking with. When you’re in chronic fighter flight mode, you without even realizing it –  a flatter or forced affect. Fight or flight stiffens your body, inhibits the warmth of your gaze, limits the genuineness of your smile, and overall inhibits your ability to make connections, leading those opportunities for micro moments of love to slip by…..

Therefore a person and fight or flight will have more difficulty, therefore connecting with others, and essentially healing their own selves.