The Pleasure of Breathing

 “As easy as breathing,” it’s said. Is it really? We understand the saying, take it at face value. We see the movie scene of the newborn, swat on the butt and baby’s breathing. That doesn’t mean it will do it right. Or that it won’t stop (God forbid). The American Lung Association says we take 20,000 breaths per day. Twenty-thousand times a day we do something wrong or inefficiently---maybe.

I was shy of ten years old when I learned I was breathing wrong; terribly wrong. Half-filling my lungs without involving stomach or diaphragm. With asthma, amazing that I got air at all. A friend of my mother, a visiting physical therapist, spent one summer training me to breathe correctly. I remember him placing a book on my stomach so I'd move it up with each breath. Difficult to do it correctly, To do it efficiently; not for most of us. Especially if we’re a singer, swimmer or brass player.

Swimmer Michael Phelps is said to have a lung capacity of twelve liters; twice that of the average human. Still he requires oxygen. In most sports the typical respiratory rate is between 50 and 70 breaths per minute. In swimming, the typical respiration rate is anywhere from 16 to 30 breaths per minute. To swim one has to breathe differently. The same is true for singers and brass players who must learn to use the full body, from cheek to diaphragm, to produce quality sound.

“Breathing,” says Alexander Lowen is “easily and fully is one of the basic pleasures of being alive.” Have you known the terror of not breathing? Cast down under an ocean wave; choking on a piece of food? Contemplating a discussion with God Job says, “He would crush me with a storm, He would not let me catch my breath.” In the love song, All of Me, Legend sings “I’m underwater but I’m breathing fine.” Our breath so wrapped up in our passions and physical bodies.

As easy as falling in love I’ve heard people say. It’s really not. Maybe it’s like breathing. Breathing is delightful. Lowen says breathing has a sexual quality. Breathing involves all of me. To do it right is quite difficult. To be deprived of it; deadly.

Photo by Brian Matangelo on Unsplash