Teacher Tuesday: Deep Breathing with Beth Donnelly Cabán
In every yoga class, we bring attention to the breath. The simple act of bringing attention to the breath, changes it, as Judith Lasater says. When we establish this as a habit in our life, breath becomes an eternal tool for calming and focusing the mind and bringing ease and relaxation to the body. Attention to breath grounds us in the present moment and brings us back to our center of being.
Judith Lasater goes on to say that “our physical and mental states are reflected in the breath. In fact, there is no more reliable measurement of stress than the rate, depth and quality of the breath. Under stressful conditions, the breath is shallow, rapid, jagged. To change these qualities and therefore, relieve stress, all you need to do is bring your attention to your breath.”
Being attentive to the rhythm, rate, pace, the qualities and sensations of our breath, and noticing how those qualities change in relation to our thoughts, emotions and actions is a lifelong exploration.
The qualities of breath are reflected in the quality of muscle tone throughout the body. We tend to separate the mind from the body from the breath when in fact they are entwined.
During pregnancy, the parent’s breath is the baby’s breath. All of the oxygen needed to sustain life comes into the system through the parent’s breath. By slowing the breath down, making it more conscious and regulated, we bring in more oxygen and vital energy and eliminate carbon dioxide and whatever metabolic waste we no longer need.
If you know some of the history of the medical system of childbirth in this country it will take your breath away. When birth moved from the home to the hospital over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, drugs became the major source of pain relief for laboring people who were separated from loved ones, confined to bed, and restricted from moving, eating, and drinking. The drugs used at the time also abolished much of the memory of the experience and left many people disassociated from their body and the birth of their baby.
Breath became an essential comfort measure that the medical establishment had not yet found a way to take away from people in labor. In the 1960’s, breathing became the cornerstone of childbirth education with a technique called the Lamaze Method.
Dr. Fernand Lamaze was a French obstetrician who popularized this “psychoprophylactic” technique of patterned breathing as a distraction from the pain of labor. Couples practiced the strict guidelines on breathing techniques for weeks before labor and it enabled partners to be present for the birth of their child.
This method of childbirth preparation prevailed in our country up until about 15-20 years ago and now the Lamaze International offers a more comprehensive education that focuses on the physiology of labor and birth with a variety of coping mechanisms that enhance relaxation. Students used to come up to me in childbirth education and yoga classes and ask me when we were going to learn the breathing technique for labor. I would observe them for a moment and then exclaim that they already knew it and were doing it perfectly!
Today, we know that conscious breathing enhances relaxation and decreases stress hormone levels. We also know that stress can trigger preterm contractions before it’s time or stall labor once it has started.
In Yoga, Pranayama practices (the breathing practices) are methods of extending or lengthening the life force energy that pervades the entire universe. Prana is manifest in our breath and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest and grow a baby). Our entire system is energized through the practice of pranayama - skeletal muscles relax, the nervous system is soothed, and the mind is drawn inward, becoming more clear and calm.
One of the basic pranayama practices we use in prenatal yoga class is called Dirgha Svasam, which can be translated from Sanskrit as simply Deep Breathing. This breathing practice allows us to use the full capacity of the lungs and to tune into the movement of the chest, the ribs, the belly and the pelvis as secondary muscles involved in respiration.
Technique: Dirgha Svasam Breath
Bring attention to the breath. Begin the practice by exhaling completely through the nose. As you inhale slowly, notice a sense of expansion in the pelvis, the belly, the rib cage and the chest. The collar bones may rise as you reach the top of the inhale. Pause for a moment, savoring a sense of fullness. Allow the exhalation to be slow and controlled. Feel the collar bones settle back down, the chest and rib cage condense, the belly hugs in and pelvic floor lifts. Feel free to bring your hands to the belly, ribs or chest to feel the rhythm of the body breathing. Visualize these parts of the body blending one into the next so the breath is one continuous, smooth ebb and flow.
This practice is the foundation for all the pranayama practices we do in yoga and can be a useful tool for energizing, calming and focusing the mind/body in labor.
Beth Donnelly teaches the Wednesday evening prenatal yoga class at Yoga Sanctuary. She is a registered nurse, doula, midwife assistant, and childbirth educator who has trained not through Lamaze International - though she has learned much from them, but through the Childbirth Education Association of Metropolitan New York (ceamny.org).