The Link Between Breathing and Emotions: Qi Breathing

In Qigong, breath was called Zong Qi, the Qi of the chest. And it had a lot to do with our immune system, our respiratory system, how we bring energy in. Qi is your aliveness. It's the force that keeps you alive. And in fact, in the Yellow Emperor's classic of Chinese medicine, he describes 300 different kinds of Qi. Food was a kind of qi, it was called Gu Qi. And we get energy, life force from food. But if you think about it, you can go days with that eating, but only minutes without breathing. So breath is key to the cultivation of chi. Now our life is a miracle, and so is our breath when we're born. Think about it. Your first action is to inhale. And when we die, our last act will be to exhale. Our breath unleashes the cellular energy to survive. Breath also unleashes the vital energies of life. Think about it. Inhale fully to be inspired to take in more life and exhale completely, to expire the old and no longer useful out of the body. This process refreshes the system in every moment, clearing out stagnant emotions and thoughts and taking in new possibilities with each breath. If we can't inhale completely, psychologically, we cut ourselves off from new experiences and adventure and creativity. If we can't exhale completely, we hold on to the past and are weighed down by old emotions, old hurts, old wounds. To breathe is to be alive and to breathe deeper is to delve into life more fully. Understand breathing in relationship to all of life. How do you take life in? How do you share yourself with the world around you? Science has proven that cancer, for example, is anaerobic. It does not survive in high levels of oxygen. Shortness of breath and heart disease are directly linked. The heart goes into spasm when it's deprived of oxygen. Studies have also shown that there are high correlation between blood pressure and poor breathing. Breathing well is key to sleeping well and waking up feeling refreshed. Breathing provides 99% of your energy. Without it, nothing works. So virtually every health condition and human activity is improved with slow, deep breathing. By optimizing our breath and creating the correct internal energetic balance. Physiological changes occur through increased oxygenation, breathing, coordination and nervous system balance. This affects the entire human organism and its billions of functions, including all of the subtle energies and the meridians. Your breath is a reflection of your energy and especially your emotions. If you notice that how you feel has a breathing pattern, for example, think of somebody who's sad. They don't want to exhale, we don't want to Let go. So it's a resistance to exhale, because when you're sad, you don't want to let go. You don't want to let go of that relationship, that thing, that circumstance. And so breath will reflect that. Anger is on the opposite end of the spectrum. In fact, when you're angry, people don't want to inhale. They have strong, forceful exhales. I don't want to inhale if I'm angry because I don't want to take life in. I don't want to take in somebody else's perspective. So breath is a reflection of all the emotional energies. Now, the beauty of it is that you can shift emotions by shifting your breath. So if you take slow, deep breaths, you're telling your mind and your body to go into a state of inner balance or joy or inner peace. Let's try just a little practice. I want you to put your hands on your belly. This is called deep abdominal breathing. Now, when you inhale, I want you to fill up your belly with breath. Remember, we've called this the lower reservoir. And where the breath goes, the Qi follows. So let's bring the Qi into our bellies. Inhale, expand into your lower abdomen. Slow, deep breath in through the nose, exhale out through the nose, and your belly goes back towards your spine. Inhale, expand, exhale, Belly back towards the spine. Now, this slow, deep breathing brings chi to the lower abdomen. So it's going to energize your body. Not only that, it's going to calm your mind because the energy is going to move down and you're going to feel centered and balanced. Physiologically, when you breathe into your belly, you're massaging all the internal organs. So it's great for digestion. Mentally and emotionally, we feel centered and balanced. The mind is clear. So slow, deep breathing to the belly helps us to rebalance, to feel centered and balanced and ready for whatever's next in our day. Write down in your journal the link between things in your life and your breath. What's the correlation? How does breath affect you? Do you practice deep breathing? Do you notice a connection between your emotional state, your mental state, and your breath? Notice that when you change your breath, you shift emotions and you change the energy of your mind. Sam.