Breathe with me...

Ancient Hindu proverb say that we only have so many breaths in our body, all living creatures only have so many breaths in their body. When the breaths are up so is our number. Little creatures, small dogs, rabbits, guineua pigs, who breath 15 to the dozen live much shorter lives than their more deep breathing counterparts; horses, large dogs, humans.

If true, this makes the deep even full yogic breath even more important for a long and healthy life. When it comes to those of us with scoliosis it is certainly food for thought. Scoliosis, as we have seen, tends to go hand in hand with a lower volume of thoracic capacity and the chronic pain that scoliosis sufferers live with means they have a tendency to breath in short gasps, hoping to relieve that pain.

Short, chest breaths and retention of an inhale when we feel pain is a natural reflex action. But what help is it really? Long exhalation and full relaxed breath, engaging the diaphragm so that the lower belly expands on an inhale and contracts on an exhale is far more useful and trains us to lengthen our breath, thus taking longer to use up our lifetime's worth of breaths.

What more reason to practice a daily pranayama routine? It doesn't have to be complicated. It can be as simple as sitting or lying with the hands on the lower belly feeling the movement of the diaphragm under the palms of the hands, pushing against the hands on an inhale, releasing away from the hands and ensuring that the inahle and exhale are of even length. This then allows the body to get used to this pattern of breathing; eventually using it automatically even during stressful or painful times.