Imadulation® Monthly Newsletter
 

May 2006

Topic:
Breathing

Why, you ask, do we devote an entire topic to breathing? Since the cause of many diseases can be related to lifestyle. There is one lifestyle choice you can make that requires no equipment, no cost, and only a little effort on your part, and that choice is: HOW YOU BREATHE.  

Most of us take the process of breathing for granted. Do you?

Are you aware that your breathing directly affects powerful brain centers responsible for your perception of pleasure and pain? 

The periaqueductal gray in the midbrain is an important point where many nerves join together to share information and also where opiate receptors abound. The coolest place to hang out in the brain, I’d say. It is connected the limbic system, the seat of the emotions.

What does this mean to me you may ask?

If you have interest in choosing your state of being and if you choose to have more joy and peace in your life, you may want to begin to breathe consciously now and then.

Conscious breathing gives you access to the periaqueductal gray and allows you to control the release of peptides from the brain stem. Many of these peptides are endorphins, the pleasure/happy peptide. The study of the effect of breathing on our physiology is well documented. 

Have you ever noticed when you are upset, you stop breathing or hold your breath? Have you ever tried to be upset and breathe deeply and effortlessly at the same time?

Try it!

And one of the most important functions of breathing beside helping you feel happy and blissful is to carry vital oxygen to your body, to your muscles and organs and tissues.

Let’s look at muscle tension for example. Did you know that the cause of most muscle pain is lack of oxygen flow to the muscles?

Do you know why a heart attack is painful?

Lack of oxygen to that precious organ.

Please take some time every day to breathe consciously. Ideally this will soon become a new habit, you will notice a difference and so will your friends and family .  And here’s one more benefit I want to share- conscious breathing helps you be present. That means when you breathe with awareness you are in the here and now. It connects you to your body and your emotions and your very core. If you are not sure how to breathe properly, then look at a baby or a dog. They naturally breathe in the belly.

It’s a nice meditation as well to breathe with a dog or a baby. Try it you’ll see what I mean. Ok cats will work too. But avoid breathing with dangerous animals from the wild.

Breath = Life

What would you to have more of in your life? INHALE THAT

What would you like to release from your life? EXHALE THAT

Breathing is life. The universe operates on this principle. We take in, we release.  We are filled, we are emptied. We expand, we contract. We laugh we cry. We are born we die. Our cells build up, our cells break down.

We breathe in we breathe out. 

Listen to your breathing. Choose to take in life fully with each breath. Are you troubled by anything at all? Let it go with each out - breath. You can if you really want to.  Embrace your power to do so.  

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens."

-Carl Jung

I always welcome your questions and will be happy to post the answer in the “Ask Ellen” section of the web site, and will also answer privately if you prefer. 

I wish you the best of life… abundance, health, prosperity, joy, peace, BLISS, deep satisfying breaths, and mostly love.

Imagining Your Success,

Ellen Chernoff Simon
Email: ellen@imadulation.com