Don’t Hold Your Breath
Don’t Hold Your Breath
And the other big breathing no no...
I’m in Buenos Aries this week on one of those rare actual vacations where I’m not attempting to mix work stuff into my travels. It feels weird. It feels…normal?!?
Given the nature of this week, I thought I’d do my best to keep things short and simple. I haven’t written a single post on breathing yet - for good reason - and would like to leave you with the 2 BIG DON’Ts of the breathing world. One of these is fairly common sense and the other is something that you can prove to yourself if you’re patient!
Don’t Hold Your Breath
A lot of the time when folks are practicing something complex (like trying ever so hard to free their neck of tension), they will begin to hold their breath as they puzzle out just what the f*ck is going on. This has a nasty habit of depriving you of oxygen and creating stiffening around the ribs.
If you catch yourself holding your breath, please breathe!
Don’t Sigh
I’ve seen a lot of “wellness” and meditation coaches on the interwebs talking about the benefits of sighing to calm the parasympathetic nervous system*. There’s a huge danger to this practice and it’s one of the first things I tell a student to stop during their lessons with me (if they have a habit of it).
The first and biggest danger is that it builds dead weight into the torso and will drop the sternum into a slump. You can verify this in yourself by playing the Elevator Game I wrote about last year. Learn how dead weight in the shoulder feels when you plop it down and you’ll see it’s the exact same type of feeling in the chest when you sigh. The Elevator Game is great.
The second danger is that you are practicing bad technique for vocalisation. No one can sigh while speaking or singing. No sighs while running.
I’m going to keep it there for today. I need some mate and facturas!
If you have any questions on breathing technique, those posts will come in time. But these two tips should get you well on your way to improving things!
Get In Touch
If you’re in NYC, you may learn more about my private teaching practice at johndalto.com.
If you’d like to book any lesson time with me, you can find my booking link here.
* If you would like to torture yourself with their sickly sweet promises of feeling better, you can find them on TikTok and Instagram in hordes.**
**geez John, how do you really feel?
I’m guilty of BOTH of these habits! Especially holding my breath when “ concentrating “ on something!! I know I do it and catch myself often!! First DO of breathing- breath 😉
John, I have a question, not really in scope with this post, but a general question. Excuse my ignorance but can you enumerate the difference’s between Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method. I know very little about either one but I’m looking for some guidance to find a non pharmaceutical way of decreasing some of the pain I have in general and with my playing.