Response to "Room to Breath"

In the chapter “Room to Breath,” Donna Farhi offers several exercises intended to stimulate breathing by working respiratory muscles, loosening joints, and calming the nervous system. By enhancing breathing, we enrich every cell in our being -- but many of us are stiff and tight throughout our bodies. Tension rooted in the physical or the mental/ emotional bodies, constricts the flow of this life-giving nutrient: oxygen. If we are constantly worried about something, this worry can manifest as a clenched jaw or shoulder or chest. Loosening and strengthening respiratory muscles helps to release the tension on the physical, mental, and emotional planes and return the body to a state of ease.

First of all, Farhi advises practitioners to connect with the breath by synchronizing movements with the “ebb and flow” of the breath. For example, inhale when you are stretching or opening the body, and exhale when you are twisting or contracting the body. By exaggerating your body’s movements and syncing with the inhale and exhale, you can become aware of them, slow the breath down, and return to a natural flow of breath.

Tapping is another tool that stimulates the body-mind connection to the respiratory muscles. Basically make your hand into a loose fist and think of an ape hitting his chest. This drumming on the body loosens congestion and stimulates the muscles. Try “tapping” on your chest, lower ribs, back of lungs, and lower back. You may need an assist from a partner to tap on the back.

Next, Fahri suggests opening the chest by practicing breathing into the different sides of the chest from a seated position. Sit cross-legged and lace your hands behind your back breathing into an open chest. Then lace your hands in front of your body and breath into the back. Place on hand on the floor and the other on the rib cage and breath into the side body. This practice again, stimulates and loosens any tensions in the chest region of the body relaxing and deepening the breath. To open the thoracic spine, Fahri suggests “rolls downs” and “cat-cows.”

To open the lower channels of the body, Fahri suggests pelvic and hip openers. For example, start by lying on a flat back on the floor with the knees bent. Then bring each knee to the chest. Also, extending the legs towards the ceiling with a strap and lower the legs to the sides of the body. Spinal twists, revolved belly pose, and supported bound angle all open and relax the lower regions of the body inviting a deeper breath. Fahri offers poses like shoulder clock, upper back release, and gateway pose to release the secondary muscles. To release the diaphragm, Fahri recommends using a bolster behind the back and trying different variations supporting the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical spine.

For deep relaxation, Fahri suggests a few restorative poses including “waterfall” where you lie on your back with feet up a wall, but with blankets or bolsters under the buttocks. This way the entire body is above the heart and pressure is more fully released. For those who cannot relax on their back, Fahri suggests “supported child’s pose.” In essence, child pose atop bolsters or blankets. Alternately, a supported corpse posture can aid in relaxing and opening the body. And as always, Fahri ends the chapter with a section entitled “Following the Lure” of the breath.” In this final section, Fahri guides the practitioner through a relaxation practice reminding the yogi: “As you feel yourself entering a deep state of relaxation, let go of even the effort of following the lure of the breath and become the breath itself. ‘It breathe you!’ “(144).

Farhi, Donna. The Breathing Book. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996. Print.