Melanie Willsher, a follower of this blog, recently emailed me about an article by Denis Ouellette. In this article Ouellette seems to be describing what I experience during my breathing practice. If you are interested in your breathing have a look at the article. It can be useful to look at things in a different way and maybe Ouellette's imagery will help you in your own investigation into the breath. He describes the diaphragm as pear shaped and how on the inbreath the pear gets pushed down causing the abdomen, sides, lower back and kidney area to expand. From the words used one might think that it is the air filling the lungs that causes the diaphragm movement but (as he states elsewhere) the diaphragm is the primary muscle of respiration i.e. the movement of the diaphragm causes the lungs to fill. It is correct that as the diaphragm moves down on the inbreath the lower torso expands (belly moves out). Ouellette describes the torso between the navel and sternum as an inverted cone. After the pear has been depressed on the inbreath the air rises in the lungs causing the diameter of the cone to expand. I found the comments about the cone enlarging somewhat confused. One moment the author says the inbreath rises to open up the ribs and expand the chest and then he says that the ribs don't expand unless taking a deeper breath. My understanding is that the diaphragm moving down causes the air to come in to fill the lower lungs, the air then moves up into the upper lungs causing the lower ribs to expand laterally but without activation of the secondary muscles of respiration. These secondary muscles are activated when we take a deliberate big breath. Check out the following link for the basic facts of the biomechanics of respiration. Ouellette says the pear movement merges into the cone movement creating a continuous wave like movement of the breath. (Michael White gives a breathing practice to understand this breath wave on his website www.breathing.com)
Ouellette is concerned with optimising breathing mechanics and using breathwork as a method of self healing. Another thing that caught my eye in his article was the information that Otto Warberg won a Nobel Prize back in 1931 for determining that only oxygen-starved cells will mutate and become cancerous. The implication of this is that if we breathe well and keep our cells well oxygenated it will help us reduce the risk of cancer. As oxygen is carried to the cells by the blood I guess a healthy circulatory system is also required because no matter how well we are breathing if there is not a good blood supply to an area then the cells in that area will not be well oxygenated. Read Denis Ouellette's full article .
From Denis Ouellette's website I found my way to Michael White's website www.breathing.com and an article called Cancer Prevention and Cure? I was fascinated to learn that the heart never gets cancer. "Insufficient oxygen [to the heart] and you die and cancer or anything else is no longer an issue". To those who are undergoing treatment for cancer Mike suggests that you improve your breathing to have the best chance of success with any cancer program. Many years ago, at a Tai Chi workshop, Richard Bertschinger told us that in China hospital patients are prescribed slow walking each day (around 2 or 3 steps per minute if I remember correctly) with the exception of cancer patients who are given fast walking to flush out the toxins. This fast walking would also improve the circulation in the body and hence the oxygenation of the cells.
There are lots of articles on this website dealing with breathing and its relationship to various illnesses. Whether or not something ails us right now developing efficient and effective breathing would seem to be an intelligent thing to do to help us heal and to help us stay well. Check out with your health care provider before beginning any exercise program! While Mike White's website is a commercial site to promote his breathing programs it has a substantial amount of free material about what affects breathing and what breathing affects and it is a useful resource for those of us interested in breathing.
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