Join renowned yoga teacher Doug Keller for a 3-part series offering an in-depth exploration of how healthy breathing is about receiving.
Most breath courses focus on getting more air into the lungs, concentrating on chest ‘openers’ and deep breathing exercises. And indeed, this is important, since we lose a significant amount of lung capacity as we age — as much as 40% by age 80!
But this course will give you even more. The kind of breath that nourishes our vitality is not a matter of how much air we get into our lungs, but rather of how well we are able to receive and absorb oxygen into our tissues.
Healthy breathing is about quality more than quantity.
There are many elements to achieving this, which can be incorporated into movement practices for better breathing — and these online sessions are about doing just that!
One element has to do with enhancing our body’s natural production of nitric oxide as we breathe. It’s a molecule that plays an essential role in increasing circulation by keeping our arteries supple and delivering oxygen into cells. Our immune function, body weight, circulation, mood, and sexual function can all be heavily influenced by the amount of nitric oxide in the body.
Nasal breathing can boost nitric oxide sixfold, which is one of the reasons we can absorb 18% more oxygen by breathing through the nose compared to breathing through the mouth.
However, as we get older, on average, the body’s production of nitric oxide declines by over 50% after age 40 — if we don’t pay attention to how we breathe!
Fundamental yogic breath practices — which can be combined with movement — can reverse this decline and stimulate nitric oxide production as well as optimizing the use of the diaphragm and maintaining flexibility in the rib cage, ensuring that our breathing patterns meet our body’s needs, giving the body time and space to absorb the breath.
And a neglected factor that plays a key role in opening our airways to the breath is the action of the tongue, which supports nasal breathing and plays a vital role in overcoming postural syndromes which affect our breath — principally the ‘forward head’ posture.
All of these insights and more will be explained and incorporated into practice sessions involving movement and breath in fundamental and accessible yoga asanas, as well as breath practices that can be folded into your day as a steady companion.
