Breathing air

I haven’t had an asthma attack in very many years but today on the Wellington-Picton ferry, I came close. It’s a huge beast of a boat with 3 vehicle decks in its cavernous belly. And a corresponding quantity of exhaust fumes. I usually think of my asthma as a super-power; a special sensitivity to air quality. On the deck packed tight with campervans and lorries the air quality must have been abysmal because one moment I was packing a few things into a bag and the next moment alarm bells were going off in my head “Get out! I can’t breathe”. Needless to say I hastened to the upper deck to find fresh air asap.

I sat for a while, fully focussed on the seemingly simple act of breathing (in fact it is so utterly complex that experts still do not agree on its intricate workings). Breathing just happens. That much we know. When the air is good I never have to think about it. But when an asthmatic reaction is triggered, my whole body switches into emergency mode in a split second. My heart races and my autonomous nervous system shifts into sympathetic. To come out of that state I have found the principles of AT most helpful.

An Alexander teacher will often talk about “non-doing” and '“allowing”. I observe my breath, my alert state, my sensations without judgement. I don’t try to ‘fix’ my breathing, I allow it to happen. Slowly, slowly, I return to normal breathing, I notice and release tension in my face, my shoulders, release the fear and panic of finding myself without air. (NB. Please not that this is in no way a recommendation to manage an asthma attack - it is simply my personal experience with a very mild form of the condition).

Non-doing is a wonderful principle. We almost always use too much effort, too much tension. Letting go and allowing things to happen is freeing. Not only for breathing. It is the same with so many other small everyday actions. It is often the way that when we stop trying so hard to be right; stop trying to be better; stop trying to live up to some ideal, then a shift comes about. When we get out of our own way and let go of our ideas of what is right, we are allowing our body to work in its naturally well-designed way.

I love to observe the waves of breath that come and go through me. I remember watching my youngest child breathing when she was a baby. I was fascinated by the way first the diaphragm initiated with a wave moving the belly down and out, then passing the wave up to the intercostals of the chest and back down again and so into the next wave. Breathing is a three dimensional wave of perpetual motion. It moves us. Literally. We are in a state of constant and beautiful subtle motion.

Here’s a 1 minute animation of the breathing apparatus in motion - the best one I have come across by AT teacher, Jessica Wolf. If you watch it, visualise your own diaphragm, ribs, organs and spine moving altogether one after the other.