Breath

Fine Tune Your Movements – Focus Your Thoughts

What if one simple decision could improve your health and change your life for the better? Today…right now…just for a moment…direct your attention to the movement of air, filling and emptying your lungs. This continuous, gentle rhythm is not only fundamental to your existence, but holds the key to excellent health and peace of mind. When you've learned to regulate the flow of your breath, you have harnessed the power to profoundly affect your physiology on all levels.

Because it is linked to both voluntary and involuntary nerves, the act of breathing is something you can do completely consciously, or completely unconsciously. While the voluntary nervous system controls your movements, the involuntary (or autonomic) nervous system takes care of your vital systems, regulating functions like your heart beat, breathing and digestion without you having to think about them. (Just as well otherwise none of us would have made it this far!)

This autonomic nervous system is composed of two parts: The sympathetic nervous system which speeds you up and prepares you for the pressures of life; and the parasympathetic nervous system which nurtures and slows you down. Ideally these two branches work in harmony, to ensure that appropriate activity is balanced with adequate rest and recovery.

Most people notice when they first begin to observe their breathing that they unconsciously breathe through the mouth taking quick, shallow breaths from the top of the chest. Apart from weakening some important breathing muscles such as the diaphragm, deep abdominals and intercostals, this type of breathing (which is known as hyperventilation) sharply reduces the level of carbon dioxide in the blood.

Low levels of carbon dioxide cause the arteries to constrict, reducing the flow of blood throughout the body and effectively reducing the amount of oxygen to the brain. (The paradox is faster breaths actually result in less oxygen getting to the cells of the body.) The lack of oxygen then stimulates the sympathetic nervous system which leads to tension, anxiety and chronic stress related conditions such as headaches, high blood pressure, muscle and joint pain, digestive disorders, heart problems, insomnia, just to name a few!

By simply bringing your breathing under conscious control, you can potentially balance the voluntary and involuntary nervous systems. Meaning, you can use your voluntary nerves and muscles to produce rhythms of breathing that induce similar rhythms in the involuntary nervous system. For example, just by making your breathing slower, deeper, quieter, and more regular you can increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system and reduce many of the harmful physiological effects of chronic stress.

Whenever you are upset or angry your breathing will be either, irregular, noisy, fast or shallow. At these times simply telling yourself to calm down or to stop thinking is unhelpful and usually quite futile, but it is possible to start to control your breathing. In this way, your breath can act as a link between the material aspect of your being (your physical body) and the non material intelligence (your thoughts and emotions) from which all of your actions arise.

The RISE training system teaches you to breathe through your nose as often as you can (with the exception of some specific resistance training lifts). While not only preventing unnecessary dehydration, the air is filtered, warmed and humidified as it passes through the nasal passages. Because of the reduced intake area (the nostrils are smaller than the mouth) the breathing rate immediately slows, increasing parasympathetic tone (the calming branch of the nervous system) and deepening the breath.
In this way, we ensure that you undergo the minimum amount of stress necessary to create a change in your body. Most people, when exercising hard enough to illicit an adaptation response, work far more muscles than are actually needed. Observe yourself next time you are doing something difficult…How tense are your face muscles? How regular is your breathing?

So much overly vigorous exercise (a level at which the breathing becomes unconscious) is done in the name of optimising health…but does it always result in making a person more healthy? If someone is already under a lot of pressure from the circumstances of their life, how does it benefit them to add more stress to their body? In order to become fitter, stronger or more flexible you need to find your limits and go just beyond them. There is an art to finding your edge and not falling over it. RISE Personal Training teaches you how to use your breath to get the most out of every minute of your workout, without adding unnecessary tension.

So for all those people who say they “just hate exercise”, let us show you why that’s only because you haven’t learned how to breathe properly…yet!

Yoga Pranayama
Discover the transformative effects of the ancient breathing techniques that have been used for thousands of years to heal the body and calm the mind. RISE Personal Training not only teaches you these authentic yogic methods but provides a simple strategy to ensure their useful application to modern life.

Breathing for Life - reducing stress in the workplace
This informative workshop is focused on gathering energy and reducing stress. Ideally suited to those who work in a high pressure environment, this 45 minute session combines a lecture on the benefits of breathing with practical teachings. Participants learn specific techniques to raise, quiet and balance the energy of the nervous system using the power of breath.