The Power of Breath in Healing
Breath; Foundation of Life
It is easy to take breathing for granted because it is something we do, from birth to death, mostly without thinking about it. Only in moments when for some reason our breathing is restricted do we realize how vital it is.
In my clinical work with pain, the breathing is key, as the more you breathe the less pain you feel. However, as human beings, the reflex reaction to pain is to hold the breath, which actually accentuates the pain. The rate and depth of ventilation have a profound impact on the brain’s regulation of internal balance (homeostasis). The breathing affects the body’s reaction to stress, your appetite and digestion, muscle tension, your ability to focus, and your sexual desire and performance.
In other words, breathing is essential, and the magic is that it can enhance the sensation of pleasurable things, and lessen the feeling of unpleasant things, like pain.
Meet “Tiffany”
In order to better explain the power of breath in healing let me introduce my client “Tiffany.”* She is the type of person that catches everybody’s attention when she enters a room; tall, elegant and dressed in perfectly fitting designer clothes. However, the first thing I notice as she enters my office is her tension and shallow breathing. I know from our initial phone conversation that she is struggling with debilitating back pain which has recently gotten so bad that it interferes with her ability to work as a model. She comes across as alert and quite reserved, so I step back and give her a moment to check out both the office and myself.
After the initial exchange of information, I casually point out that her high heels, although gorgeous, might contribute to her back pain. I suspect that the reasons underlying her pain are more complicated than the shoes, but that will have to wait until we have established a rapport. The initial treatments are focused on manual manipulation, and movements that I trust will give some temporary relief for her back pain.
The Role of Breath in Healing
It is not uncommon for people who are living with pain to have a shallow breathing pattern along with tension in their myofascial system. The latter is due to the fact that, as a reflex, human beings tense up and try to be still when there is pain. The physical tension along with the shallow breathing are triggers for anxiety, and in no time there is a vicious cycle of pain, tension and anxiety.
In my clinical work I continually direct the client’s attention to his or her breath. I teach every client to use their breathing as a tool to diminish pain and anxiety. Additionally, I encourage them to be aware of their breathing during their daily life, regardless of what activity they are doing. As they discover that their breathing is shallow, or even frequently held, they can make conscious choices to change how they breathe. When I refer to shallow breathing, it means that the breathing is happening primarily in the chest, and you can see the person’s rib cage move up and down. The more calming and natural way to breathe is to let the breath pass through the chest, with no movement of the ribcage, and then let the abdomen expand. It can be helpful to put a hand on your belly so you can feel the movements of expansion as you inhale and deflation while you exhale.
By focusing on breathing into the stomach, most clients usually feel calmer and less tense, and that in itself can lower the pain as well as the anxiety.
Breath and Anxiety
There are numerous great methods for breathing available, and I appreciate their usefulness for certain purposes and rituals. However, my focus here is to help you undo acquired habits that are interrupting your ability to breathe deeply, rather than learning a breathing technique
If you watch the breath of a sleeping baby, or a pet like a dog or cat, you see the act of perfect respiration. The breathing pattern is effortless, the soft belly is moving in and out with a little pause after each exhale, and there is no attempt to control it. Unfortunately, holding one’s breath, or breathing primarily into the chest, is something many start doing early in life, particularly if the environment in which they live is chronically stressful in one way or the other.
Many of you may have childhood memories of holding your breath when you were scared, or when trying to be invisible after you misbehaved, or because things were in turmoil at home. Adults, who from a young age, used shallow breathing as a coping mechanism when the environment was chaotic or unsafe, often adapted this way of breathing as “normal.” The additional anxiety-provoking events of life, like performance pressure in school, athletics, jobs and so forth, can easily reinforce the early established shallow breathing pattern. Due to how familiar it is, the breathing, anxiety and tension might for many go unnoticed, until their bodies start screaming for attention by creating pain. Now, like in Tiffany’s case, they are forced to seek help because the pain is unbearable.
Tiffany’s Journey
As Tiffany is starting to feel more comfortable with me, I gently approach the topic of her breathing. She reveals that she was a chubby kid, and from a very early age her mom told her to suck in her stomach to look thinner. If she ever forgot, and her stomach protruded, she would be reprimanded with a slap, or her mom would humiliate her by calling her “fat cat.” Over a series of sessions Tiffany recalls how she would hide, hold her breath and try to be invisible to avoid the awful punishment. Food became an issue, and at the age of 11 she decided to see how little food she could survive on. This developed into an eating disorder and at age 15 she was 5.7” and 90 pounds. Her mother loved to see how her daughter had bloomed into a “thin beauty.”
The tension that Tiffany developed in her body from a very young age, by holding her breath and trying to avoid punishment, had manifested at different times in her life as stomachache, headache and now back pain. She is 28 years old and a successful model with a very nice lifestyle, from the outside. At home, in her beautiful apartment, she is lonely, hungry and in pain.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.Anaïs Nin
We worked with Tiffany’s breathing pattern over a period of several months. As she was able to start relaxing her abdominal muscles and take deeper breaths, her physical tension started to unwind. The latter manifested as muscle twitches or spasms, itches, shakes and temporary pain in different parts of the body. The parallel emotional release brought rivers of pent up tears to the surface. All the years of holding her breath and imploding had created not only physical tension, but also emotional numbness. Over time, this numbness subsided while a profound grief emerged. She mourned all the things that she had not had, both as a child and adult.
Gradually she was also able to feel and express the long repressed anger toward her mother that had inflicted so much suffering upon her. As the emotional rollercoaster eventually tapered, she slowly cultivated a healthy relationship to food and to hunger. She was able to eat enough to feel satisfied; not too much or little, and learned to accept that it was ok to not feel empty. The abdominal breathing helped lowering her anxiety and tension, and the physical pain subsided.
Tiffany’s Healing Process Explained
Due to the fact that Tiffany’s issues started in early childhood, her neuronal networks underlying breathing, anxiety, eating and physical tension are quite ingrained in her brain. Therefore, she will have to continue to work on herself for the foreseeable future to avoid falling back into old habits. With trauma, which is what Tiffany has, there are triggers and coping mechanisms. In practice this means that if something happens that upset Tiffany, for example; a rejection from an audition, a bad job review, a fight or a breakup with a boyfriend, a snide remark from her mother and so forth, it can easily trigger her. In order to avoid the emotional pain that the trigger will cause, her brain will automatically recruit the coping mechanisms of holding the breath and starve, resulting in emotional numbing and physical tension.
Her “work” is to “keep an eye” on herself, or in other words, be aware of her actions and reactions as she maneuvers through her daily life. By being aware, she can catch a trigger right away and instead of her usual reaction, she can pause, breathe deeply, and reassure herself that right now she is ok. This change of reaction to the trigger can stop an episode of hunger, tension and pain.
The key to making changes in the brain, and thus in behavior, is repetition. Therefore, the repeated action of deep breathing, healthy eating, and absence of physical tension, will eventually lead to changes in Tiffany’s brain, which will in turn manifest as changes in habits, actions and reactions.
It is impossible to say how long it will take before her triggers are quieted, and her new behavior becomes second nature. Each person’s trauma is unique and so is the healing process. How long this process takes varies from person to person, but three common elements that need to be in place for healing to occur are; commitment to the process, using the breath as a tool to tolerate the ups and downs, and staying in the moment.
*Name and description of Tiffany’s story have been fictionalized so it cannot be traced back to any particular person.
