Except for certain microorganisms, all living things require oxygen to live. Respiration is the process by which human beings and other living things obtain and use oxygen. It also involves the elimination of carbon dioxide, a gas produced when cells use oxygen. There are three phases : external respiration, internal respiration and cellular respiration. IN external respiration or breathing, a plant or animal takes in oxygen from its environment and releases carbon dioxide. When oxygen is carried to the cells of the organism and carbon dioxide is carried away it is called internal within the cells.
The lungs in a human being are the chief organs of breathing. They are elastic structures in the cavity and each contains millions of small air chambers or sacs. Other structures important in breathing are the chest wall and the diaphragm. The chest wall includes the ribs and the muscles between the ribs. The diaphragm is a dome shaped sheet of muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen. Air enters and leaves the body through the nose and the mouth. The pharynx (back of the nose and mouth), the larynx (voice box) and the trachea (windpipe) are the air passages that connect the nose and mouth with the lungs.
The process of breathing involves two acts: inspiration (breathing in) and expiration (breathing out). During inspiration, also called inhalation, air from atmosphere is drawn into the lungs. During expiration or exhalation, air is expelled from the lungs.
Breathing
Breathing is life-sustaining. Death will occur if you do not breathe even for 3 minutes. The pattern of breathing changes with certain diseases like asthma and bronchitis. It also changes after great physical activity when it becomes rapid and deep. If we undergo a short exercise and run a few hundred yards our lungs become fresh and fit. Several breathing exercises have been evolved a ventilate our lungs for good health. The lungs are the purifiers of our system. Simple breathing, pumps in the much needed oxygen. It pumps out the spent, toxic carbon dioxide gas.
Breathing had an intimate relation to our emotions. When angry, excited, fearful, depressed breathing takes a different pattern. It also changes during and after the sex act. Though the pattern differs with different emotions, as far as we are concerned it is almost unconscious for we do not make any effort.
Proper breathing can be instrumental in toning up our physical and mental health. It is a voluntary and we have control over it. We can change the way in which we breath by making it deep or shallow and even stop it for few moments at will. It is not so with our heart. The heart being a muscle keeps on a rhythm. It does change in disease and with emotions, intentionally, we cannot change in disease and with emotions, intentionally, we cannot change the rhythm of the heart beats but we can do so with our respiration.
Respiration changes with emotion. It was well understood by sages and yogis who had mastered how to control it. They came to the realisation that if the pattern of breathing changed with emotions, we could master our emotions by changing the pattern of breathing. This discovery was a real great boon and our Yogis worked on this idea for centuries. Thy perfected the system of “Pranayama”. Pranayama depends upon an intentional control over breathing which in turn controls our emotion. This is the thread that links us to the realm of yoga, “pranayama and meditation”. An ancient book “Hatha Yoga Pradipicka” has this to say:
“When the breath is steady or unsteady, so is the mind and with it the yogi. Hence the breath should be controlled”. As children we have played the game of breath control. Where one has to count numbers while holding the breath, to see how long we can manage to remain without breathing and complete with other children. While bathing in a river or a pool we try going under water and hold the breath as long as possible and compare it with others. In the sea the most favourite game is to pass over you or be carried with the wave to the bank of sea. We hold the breath when we are submersed. This is in our youthful days. As we grow older and become engrossed with work and display signs of worry we seem to have less time to have these simple period.
Watched a tennis player giving service. He will hold his breath before serving the ball. He does so because it gives him greater concentration and strength. A good runner in a hundred yard dash completes his run often completely out of breath. A javelin thrower or a discus thrower will hold the breath before the supreme exertion greater will be his inhalation and longer he will hold his breath.
When you go under a cold shower on a winter morning, you hold your breath in the beginning of the shower to gather more strength to fight better the on-coming cold water. When you contemplate a beautiful landscape and watch if for the first time, the breath stops in amazement and wonder for a few moments struck by the scenic beauty. You yawn, when tired and you all short of breath. Looking at a great painting created by a master there is a feeling of vibrant sensation in the body, the mouth half opens, the breath stops for a few moments. This momentary stopping of breath we call Kumbhaka in pranayama. It is the source of strength to our body and helps control our emotions.
Breath is the bridge between the body, the senses and the mind. Our aim is to strengthen this bridge. For healthy living we have to build it and make it stronger and above all develop harmony between body senses and the mind. How to develop this bridge? This has been the greatest challenge before our ancient sages. They have tried to perfect breath control to suit occasions and there by master the emotions. Today, more than ever before, this is making an impact as we try to get rid of tensions of an industrialised and materialistic world. Yoga is the only answer. Hordes felt conscious people are being drawn to yoga centres.
Modern medical science has come to the realisation that pills are no answer for a hurried and worried world. A lasting solution may be found in the 6,000-year old science of yoga. Their research on the effects of yoga, pranayama and meditation on the human body are proving positive. They see a ray of hope in their fight to conquer the gravest riddle of tension-induced or psychosomatic, diseases.
The way we breathe is often inadequate, we breathe shallowly and lazily, so the blood is seldom, sufficiently oxygenated. The implication of this is far reaching. It is not sufficiently realised that several symptoms of poor health have their root cause in the fact that the circulation of blood is slow, it is insufficiently not oxygenated. It is then that not only the internal organs, glands and nerves are insufficiently nourished. Also the excretary system does no function efficiently, the body waste products are not removed.
Why do we breathe so badly? First, we are not aware of our shallow breathing as it does not put us immediately to any discomfort of breathlessness and it has already become a habit. Second, the cramped position many assume during their working hours, slumped in the executive chairs, typists bending down on their typewriters, clerks bending over their files, we compress our diaphram lowering our lung capacity.
Third, our ribs and spine are so stiff that they do not allow the lungs to expand properly due to the limited space in the rib cage. Fourth, breathing is restricted by tight clothes, tight waist belts, tight trousers and the use of corsets to control our figure. Hampered, in this way we breathe in only an estimated one tenth of our oxygen requirement and use approximately 1/3rd of our lung capacity. The average civilized individual today is not breathing but merely avoiding suffocation.
There is a belief among the superstitious that every one of us is born with a certain count of breaths. When the number of these breaths is full one has to leave this world. Why not slow down, take a longer breath and live longer, Normally we breathe 15-16 times in a minute. By breathing 12-13 times, the count will be slow and you will go a long way. It seems logical; If you breathe slowly and deeply, health will improve. With better health you are bound to cross all your limits.