The latest in news, research, advice, and conversation about conscious breathing

And guess what? Breathing is no. 1!

With spring upon us, and many of you lusting to get out and swing a golf club, we thought we'd share an article written for you linksters but that has far-reaching implications for anyone involved with any kind of performance. On WorldGolf.com, writer Marc Soloman offers a piece called, "The Top 5 Things You Need to do to Play Your Best Golf." And as he begins, "One – You need to breathe on the golf course. 'Breathe? I always breathe, if I didn’t breathe, I’d be dead!' Well, there’s a difference between the breathing that many flustered people have in stressful situations and the breathing that keeps the player calm, cool and collected.

"And to many, golf is a stressful situation - especially if you have high expectations for yourself.

"When was the last time you breathed on the golf course? Well, in last week’s PGA Tournament in Houston, breathing was a big part of winner Johnson Wagner’s PLAN. As Wagner said - 'Warming up on the range, I was very nervous, but still tried to stay calm and breathe all day.'

"He won his first tournament by staying in control of his game, emotions and breathing. On the other hand, we see many Golfers on the golf course with the look as if they’re being chased by lions!

"What happens to some golfers on the golf course? Why do you stop breathing normally?"

He suggests that as you set-up over the golf ball, try to take a deep, cleansing, deep breath before you swing to clear out all the tension that your mind (he calls it "swing thoughts") are causing. As you exhale, "Feel as if you’re pushing it all out as your body relaxes before you swing."

In our book, "Perfect Breathing: Transform Your Life Once Breath at a Time," we dedicate several chapters to how breathing affects performance, including how it can increase the odds for you finding that perfect storm that sports psychologists call The Zone, the place where athletes are in total control, where every move comes effortlessly, where success is virtually guaranteed. It all begins with the breath, the one area of your life where we all have total control.

For more information, visit www.perfectbreath.com.

London's The Independent helps unravel the mysteries of sleep with a recent compelling article. Polling several experts across several fields, the general consensus on how to get a better night's rest included avoiding stimulants, alcohol or big meals before bed, lowering your bedroom temperature, trying natural sleep remedies such as Valerian root, wearing fewer, lighter or less-constricting clothing, and even simply trying boring, monotonous or distracting activities such as knitting or reading until sleep comes.

But we were most intrigued by a simple breathing exercises offered by Jane Kersal of the Triyoga Center in Primrose Hill, London. She suggests this 15-minute program, based on pranayama yoga, to aid relaxation and help you drift off to dreamland.

1. Lie on the floor on your back, with your head on a pillow. Bend both knees, feet hip-width apart, a few inches away from your buttocks. Draw your right knee in toward you with both hands cupped around the knee/shin, and as you inhale, press the knee gently away from you – feel the stretch through your shoulders and mid-back. As you exhale, gently draw the leg in towards your chest. Repeat five times, and as you exhale, place the foot back to the floor and repeat on the left side. This will open your spine, connect you to your breath and bring you deeper into your body rather than into your thoughts.

2. Keep both feet to the floor, still hipwidth apart and, as you exhale, slowly take both knees over to the right-hand side so that your hips gently turn – keep your torso flat on the floor. As you inhale, slowly bring the legs back up and exhale to the left. Every time you exhale, your legs go towards the floor, and everytime you inhale, lift your knees back up to the centre. Repeat for 10 breaths. This brings you from your thinking mind into your feeling body while at the same time gently stretching your spine and releasing tension in your shoulders and in your neck.

3. Lying on your back, position yourself near a wall, and stretch one leg so that your heel or back of your leg (if you're more flexible) makes contact with the wall. Stretch both legs up against the wall either together or hip-width apart, and allow the wall to completely take the weight of your legs. Place your palms gently on your lower belly. As you inhale, feel the breath lift the belly a little, and as you exhale, feel your belly gently release down towards the floor. Stay in this pose for three to five minutes. With each breath, feel your legs gently releasing and your spine lengthening. This pose is not only great for bringing you into a peaceful place, it's fantastic for helping tired, stressed backs and tight hamstrings. To come out of the pose, bring your legs down the wall and gently roll to your right hand side. Use your hands to gently bring you back up to a seat-ed position.

4. Finally, lie in bed on your back with your head on a pillow. Place your hands, palms up, by your sides. Feel your shoulders relax and the chest open up and breathe easily and long. As you inhale, consciously make your exhale some two to four seconds longer than your inhale (without straining). This will really help to relax you – it's a basic pranayama (yoga breathing technique) that calms and soothes the nervous system.

Click here to read the full article, and drop by PerfectBreath.com for more relaxation help.

If you are planning to be in Aberystwyth, Dyfed, UK in the next few days, be sure to stop in at the International Festival of Voice. This unique gathering of vocal coaches from around the world is in it's tenth year and provides a forum for the exchange of information and techniques from different countries and cultures. This theme of this year's convention centers on the performer's most important tool - the breath.

Voice and breathing experts from Iran, India, Poland, Germany, and even from Inuit tribes in Canada will be conducting training sessions and sharing their unique talents and knowledge. Visitors however may find the conference a bit disconcerting as the sound of attendees practicing the myriad techniques may resemble extreme anquish or toture, but mastering the breath and breathing is fundamental to a performer's development. For more information on the festival, check out their site.

News agencies around the world reported the story of Wang Jianxin, a Chinese construction worker, who was buried alive for two hours, earlier this month, in the booming eastern coastal port of Ningbo. Wang was working several feet down in a ditch and failed to see the wall of dirt behind him collapse, trapping him underground. He was able to create a small pocket of air in front of his face, which is miracle enough, but it's what happened next that is truly astounding.

Reported Fox News, "That was when the Buddhist turned to meditation to control his intake of oxygen. 'I knew it would not last, so I made myself relax and concentrated on slowing down my breathing by meditation.' Above ground, workers were scrabbling through the earth to try to bring Mr Wang to the surface alive. Construction workers and a uniformed rescue team clawed away the earth with their hands until they found Mr Wang’s helmet.

"It took two hours but finally they pulled out Mr Wang alive from the earth that could have been his muddy grave.

"Doctors were astounded, saying that a person could normally not live longer than five minutes in a similar sealed space. One local doctor said: 'It’s a miracle that he’s alive after being buried for two hours.'

"Meditation," continued the story, "has a history dating back thousands of years in China. However, it is a technique more usually associated with Buddhist monks and doctors of traditional Chinese medicine than construction workers. Mr Wang was one of the lucky ones on China’s building sites."

As we edge into spring, with its longer and warmer days, the lure of the open road and trail hit us full force. Time to dust off the trusty two-wheeler for some serious pedaling. An article in a recent edition of Bicycling magazine touted the benefits of breathing well to get the most out of your cycling forays.

Obviously strong lungs help in any sort of aerobic activity, no less so for bicycling. But as we huff up the big hills some other things come into play. As your air intake increases - rather dramatically - we breathe less through the nose (where natural filters, i.e., your nose hairs and mucuous membranes, comb out the irritants), and more through the mouth. "That means you're taking in at least 10 times as many lung irritants,
such as pollen and pollution," says Dr Alfred Munzer, past president of
the American Lung Association, in the article (which you can find reprinted at health24.com).

Dr. Munzer adds that another possible cause of coughing among cyclists – if it happens
during a ride as well as afterwards – is a condition called
exercise-induced asthma. EIA is most common among cyclists who ride in
cold, dusty or extremely humid environments. Some 40 percent who have nasal allergies – and 15 percent who don't – also have
exercise-induced asthma, which is characterised by coughing, wheezing
and a feeling of suffocation or tight chest brought on by riding and
other exertions. Some medications can be prescribed for the affliction, but there are also steps you can take before, during and after your ride. They include (quoting from the article):

1. Warm your inhaled air. If it's cold enough for tights and long-fingered gloves, try a mask, scarf or balaclava.

2. Ride regularly. Training three to five times a week teaches your bronchial tubes to widen and conduct more air, partially offsetting EIA.

3. Skip the bananas. Some riders are strangled by EIA
only after eating certain foods – a list that, besides our favorite
yellow fruit, includes shrimp, celery, peanuts, egg whites and almonds.

4. Induce EIA. If you ride through the worst six minutes
of coughing, you gradually return to normal – and you won't suffer
again as long as you keep riding. So some riders induce their EIA in a
private warm-up before joining the group.

The article also included some practical breathing advice, including this gem: "Flush carbon dioxide from your bloodstream before sprints or
hard climbs. How? Take 15 deep breaths before the effort starts.
Shortness of breath isn't caused by your lungs not getting enough
oxygen – it's caused by too much carbon dioxide in your blood. So flush
it out before the hill puts it back in." Check out the full article here.

For more information on athletic performance and breathing, visit www.perfectbreath.com.

Breakthrough findings by Israeli researchers in the new field of psychoneuroimmunology have determined that stress reduction can play a key role in preventing the recurrence of cancer.

Psychoneuroimmunology is a new interdisciplinary field of study that looks at the interaction between the psychological processes of the brain, and the nervous and immune systems. What they found in this study is that fear, stress, and anxiety before during and after cancer surgery suppress the immune system via the chemicals and hormones that accompany these emotions. These debilitating effects on the immune system inhibit its ability to prevent the cancer from metastasizing.

This new research shows that by suppressing these stress related chemicals, the immune system is better able to attack and destroy cells from the primary tumor that attempt to establish themselves in other parts of the body in the critical period just after the surgery when the chances of recurrence are high. Studies with animal models have shown that survival rates can be increased by 200-300% with this approach.

Once again this shows us just how intertwined and inter-dependent our minds, bodies, and emotions are and that learning to control our emotions can have a significant impact on our physical health. They best way we know of to gain control over our emotions and the poisonous effects of chronic exposure to the chemicals and hormones associated with fear, anxiety, and frustration are conscious breathing techniques. That is why they are often the first therapy used to help treat emotional disorders such as anger, panic and anxiety attacks, grief, and depression.

To learn more about how you can use breathing techniques to constructively manage your emotions, check out www.perfectbreath.com.

To read more about this ground-breaking study take a look at the article in Science Daily.

We're alway fascinated when the mainstream learns more about the benefits of breathing. We were happy to learn that the University of Oregon, in Eugene, OR, began offering a six-week course in meditation for its students this past January.

"Stress is the number one health concern for students in the University, and meditation is a really good self-care technique for stress," said Jude Kehoe, a health center nurse who will conduct the course, who was quoted in the online U of O student newspaper, DailyEmerald.com.

In her hour-long class, Kehoe reportedly taught students meditation techniques that the students practiced while seated in a circle of chairs. She apparently also lead the class in a short session of Qigong, a Chinese practice involving breathing patterns intended to awaken the senses, and some easy yoga stretches to help keep her charges awake through the class.

Kehoe, who has taught meditation classes in the Eugene community since 1999, according to the article, said regular meditation - even if it's only for 30 seconds to one minute a few times a day - will keep stress at bay and "teach your mind to relax quickly."

The method of meditation Kehoe teaches is mindfulness, which one practices by "sitting and focusing on your breath - and if your mind wanders, gently bringing it back to your breath."

We heartily agree. If you'd like more information and some practical tips and techniques to beat stress (school-induced or otherwise), please visit. www.perfectbreath.com

I used to belong to the large group in society who are far more afraid of speaking in public than facing death. In fact death might seem like a perfectly reasonable alternative to some. With the help of a few timeless techniques and some enlightening advice I found a way to turn that fear into positive energy that helps me every time I speak – which is a godsend - since I am a professional speaker.

Here are a few tips that can help you turn anxiety and fear into energy and excitement when you are up on the stage:

1) Prepare – There is no substitute for knowing your topic. Do whatever it takes to ensure that you know your material inside and out. That doesn’t mean that you need to memorize every word - in fact I advise against it.  It puts to much pressure on you. Instead memorize the first sentence of key portions of your speech just to prime the pump, and make sure you are clear on the key points that you want to communicate to the audience.

2) Train your butterflies – For years I had it in my mind that if I was a skilled and confident public speaker, I wouldn’t be nervous. So when, before each speech, my adrenaline would start flowing and my heart would start racing, I would start playing the short disaster films in my mind where I would completely humiliate myself in front of the audience and I would become convinced that my fears were taking control.

Finally someone clued me in to the fact that even the most experienced stage actors and speakers get the butterflies before performing, but they channel that energy into their performance and unleash it on the audience. I was told that “you don’t want to get rid of the butterflies, you want to get them to fly in formation!” Now when I feel that rush of anxiety and adrenaline before a speech, I focus on my breath and visualize a perfect performance. I welcome that energy and realize that I need it to be my best.

3) Breathe – That brings us to the most important tip: Breathe! Relying on your breath before and during your speech will make all the difference in the world. First of all, slow deep breathing is the antidote to the “fight or flight” response that causes heart palpitations, sweating, and dry mouth. It also keeps you from replaying past episodes or imagining disaster scenarios by keeping you firmly grounded in the moment.

It will also help you to add “space” to your speech. The best speakers always build time into their talk to take a few breaths and allow their previous points to sink in with the audience. Even a few empty seconds may seem like an eternity to a speaker on stage, but it keeps the audience interested and allows you to center yourself and prepare your next point.

Those of us who are not “natural” public speakers have to develop those skills and that takes practice, practice, practice. But becoming a confident public speaker is an invaluable skill regardless of your profession. The next time you are facing down the dreaded ogre of speaking try these simple techniques. Who knows, you might even enjoy it!

Science continues to prove the power of the breath. Three recent news articles demonstrate how science and medicine are relying on a greater understanding of breathing to help us determine disease and to help improve our general health and well being.

Experts in the field of Emotional Intelligence (EQ – as opposed to IQ) now believe that EQ is a better indicator for future success than IQ. The good news is that unlike IQ, we can improve our EQ by improving our emotional skills.

EQ includes skills such as emotional self-awareness, stress management, overall mood, problem solving, and interpersonal relationships. One of the critical underlying skills for increasing your EQ is breath awareness.

Breath awareness is the “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to your emotions, as changes in your breath are almost always in response to changes in your emotions. When you become aware of your breath you become aware of your emotions and that is the first and most important step in improving EQ.

When you notice a change in your breathing, it allows you to ask the question: What is going on? Why am I feeling this way? These simple questions allow you step back out of whatever emotional whirlwind you are caught up in at the moment and view the situation more objectively. This in turn helps you to focus on problem solving, consequences, and desired outcomes.

A recent study at Duke University found that our emotional and rational, or as they call them “attentional” thoughts, follow separate and parallel paths through the brain. What surprised the researchers was the fact that these two paths were inversely related, i.e. when emotions were running high, the ability to think rationally was dampened and vice versa.

They also discovered that in times of intense emotions - anger, frustration, or grief for example - that focusing on an attentional task such as conscious breathing suppressed the emotional thoughts and elevated the rational side. This is an indispensable technique that can prevent you from saying or doing things that you will later regret. It also explains why the folk wisdom “take a few deep breaths” has persisted through the ages. It works.

Developing breath awareness is easy and immediately begins to improve your emotional intelligence. For more information on breath awareness and EQ visit www.perfectbreath.com. For additional information on EQ, read this recent article in the Eagle Tribune Online.