BREATH AND EXERCISE

There has been a lot of buzz in the fitness world about the mind-body connection. We have learned that chronic anger can hurt the heart and that chronic stress increases our vulnerability to communicable diseases. Have you noticed that the quality of our breath is very different when we are upset than it is when we are watching a good comedy? The mind-body connection is a two-way street that is reflected in the breath. Our thinking affects the way we feel and breathe. The way we feel and breathe reflects the way we think.

In body psychotherapy a distinction is made between top-down and bottom-up processing as forms of working with (exercising) our body-mind selves. The top-down approach is clear enough. We have heard about it often from self-help books and workshops. Change the way you think, and you will change the way you feel. The bottom-up approach, implied in exercise, states that if we start with the body we can change the way we feel and think. Ultimately, feeling is synonymous with the body. Who hasn’t had a feeling that didn’t have some form of somatic (body) signature? Our feelings have a somatic signature: a breathing pattern (shallow or deep), a muscular tone (hyper or hypo-tonic), and a posture (erect or slumped).

So, when we speak of the body-mind connection, breath is a potent resource because breath is one element of our physiology that straddles both the conscious and unconscious (both body and mind). Wilhelm Reich, father of modern body psychotherapy, stated, “increased breathing induces movement, increases sensitivity and decreases blocks.” What did he mean? It is natural to contract from discomfort or pain, be it physical or emotional. To contract is to reduce mobility and sensitivity to our fluid selves. Moreover, to habitually contract and hold is what Reich called body armor and blocks. So, by “blocks” he meant emotional blocks physically manifest in the musculature. In this manner, the breath is a tool that parallels and regulates feelings states and facilitates somatic awareness. Body is mind, and mind is body. They are one and the same. When we have blocks our breath, our movement, and our aliveness is limited. Breathing fully as a practice tickles the edge of these blocks and facilitates release in the musculature and free flow of energy, emotion, and movement.

     What does this breath awareness and practice look like in exercise practice? The next time you work out, play with consciously and intentionally synchronizing your breath with your movement. The colloquial for this synchrony is “being in the zone.” You can inhale or exhale when you contract or expand in your movement. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Do what feels right to you. Traditionally, however, we may use the in-breath to feel our feelings and the out-breath to express and release our worries. At first, we may just use this idea as a metaphor or intention, but after a while it will come alive in our body as our conscious connection and sensitivity to the mind-body connection increases. Exercise becomes a tool that can expand and enrich our life from moment to moment.

     Increased breathing leads to an ability to focus on sensation, increase movement, and work with feeling as a somatic phenomenon. Developing an awareness of the breath can strengthen the body-mind connection. It is a practice, just like exercise, that is a mainstay for life.

- Jean-Paul Eberle, MA Body Psychotherapy - Boulder, CO

Any questions or comments about this article will be respectfully received - jeanpaul@bodybar.com

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Additional Resources 

Hendricks, G. (1995). Conscious breathing. Bantam Books:

     New York.

Keleman, S. (1985). Emotional Anatomy. Center Press:

     Berkeley.