Breathing can change your life

Breathing can change your body, your mind, in short, it can change your life. This is not a motivational phrase from a well-liked influencer. It's not that breathing will make your abs grow, the zeros in your bank account grow, or your face change. That's not the point. It is already known the benefits for our body, a conscious breathing accompanied by specific movements. It has been more than demonstrated that we can regulate, for example, our emotions, thanks to a conscious breathing. In addition, our body can change to unthinkable points.

This was the case for Katharina Schroth, born in 1894 in Dresden, Germany, who suffered from moderate scoliosis. She decided to undergo treatment with a steel brace at the age of 16 to correct the curvature of her spine. She refused to accept that her fate was disability.

Not so long ago scoliosis had no cure, and for most people it could mean spending their lives in bed or in a wheelchair. Katharina had another idea, which she called orthopedic breathing. She would stand in front of a mirror, twist her body, inhale through one lung and then the other. After a few years of doing these stretches, her spine would become straight.

When she realized that her scoliosis could be cured, she began to teach this breathing technique to others. By the age of 40, Katharina was running her own center. At that time, the hospitals had given up on these people, but Katharina had a very different way of thinking. The medical community repeatedly tried to close her center, claiming that she was not a doctor and/or therapist and that she was not qualified to treat these people. She ignored them all and continued to help many people with scoliosis for the next 50 years. Katharina died in 1985, just 5 days before her 91st birthday.

Throughout her life Katharina helped thousands of people change their bodies, and more importantly, their expectations of the quality of life they could have. Breathing, together with certain stretches, can not only change the position of our spine, it can also change our brain. It is already known that such exercises can reduce our anxiety, depression, and improve our quality of life. For this, it is not enough to do it once, you have to repeat it regularly.

On this link you can find Katharina's full story.

What you can control

You spend time trying to control your life. You may have some control, but in reality, there are few things you can control. You want everything to happen at the time and in the way that suits you, but you all know that's impossible.

If you think about it, life is a miracle, very fragile, it can end at any moment. You can spend your whole life being the most responsible, thrifty person, leading a healthy life, and you might go out in the street one day and get hit by a car. With this I am not saying that you live with your savings account at zero euros.

What you can certainly control is your breathing and its rhythm. You can put awareness in the movement of each inhalation and exhalation. In fact each new exhalation brings you closer to death, but the slower and calmer, the more likely that moment will come later.

Turtles are a good example of this, they can live for many years, and thanks, among other things, to the fact that they breathe 4 times per minute, while an adult at rest breathes between 8 and 15 times per minute.

The brain and heart need a lot of oxygen to function well. If you are suffocated, you will not be able to concentrate, you will have memory loss, and your emotions will seem uncontrollable. That is why slow, deep, conscious breathing improves your thoughts, and the quality of your thoughts. Controlled breathing is the most powerful weapon you possess.

The human has a respiratory capacity of 3.5 liters, and normally, uses half a liter. Therefore, it does not fully oxygenate the body. Exercises such as yoga or breathing meditations increase the breathing capacity and calm the mind.

If you can control your breathing, you can control your life, or at least your nerves, anxiety and stress. The more relaxed, the better. This is not a guarantee of a long life, but it is a guarantee of a happier, more peaceful life. In addition, science tie would say that you reduce the chances of developing all kinds of diseases. But these are probabilities, let's remember that we can still get hit by a bus. So, it is important to look carefully when you cross, try to live each moment with the intensity that you would live knowing that it is the last day of your life, and of course, breathe as deeply as possible.

Savasana

Savasana or corpse pose is perhaps one of the most complicated. This posture consists of simply lying down, as relaxed as possible. With a little luck some people will even fall asleep. Many people think that doing the pinafore, or putting the leg behind the head is more difficult, but in reality it is equally or almost more complicated than the more sophisticated postures.

During the practice of yoga, conscious breathing is maintained while holding a position or moving from one posture to another. This usually involves some physical exertion. The corpse pose does not involve any physical effort at all. Quite the opposite.

Savasana entails relaxing the muscles, keeping still, with eyes closed, and if possible, not getting upset with thoughts, or sudden itching. Savasana is to be relaxed without falling asleep or getting upset by what is going on around you. That is why it is a complex posture. It is relatively easy to be disturbed by any external noise, or on the contrary to fall asleep if you are deeply relaxed. Actually if you fall asleep nothing happens, and it is the best thing that can happen to you. The mind likes movement and being distracted all the time. In the moment of stillness it will probably not leave you alone and bombard you with all kinds of thoughts.

It is best to practice Savasana in times of high stress, and with little time. All you need is five to ten minutes a day, a mat, something to cover yourself with, and above all, the will to relax. It is in the midst of the storm that you should be able to find calm.