Is Breathing Really the Best Medicine?

After spending two decades as a traveling physician searching for potent herbs and other forms of traditional and modern medicine, Dr. Andrew Weil finds that the single most potent and practical tool is our breath.  Today in medical school, Dr. Andrew Weil finds that BREATHING is not included in conventional medicine.  Yet, proper breathing according to this famous physician is the key to great health. Breathing correctly begins in the belly on the inhale breath and also begins in the belly on the exhale breath. Proper breathing cures common conditions as well as more serious diseases.

Breathing is:

●FREE

●NO EQUIPMENT NECESSARY

●RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSE

Direct benefits of breathing is the ability to center our mind.  When we turn our direction away from the material to the non-material, breathing gives us a chance to shift away from our sympathetic nervous system, or “the fight or flight model” into the parasympathetic or relaxation system.   Dr. Andrew Weil says that most of us are imbalanced and overly sympathetic. Too much sympathetic means that our system is hardwired for “the fight or flight” response too much of the time.  A good indication that patients had this imbalance, he would find cold hands.

The four traits of proper breathing are a deeper, slower, quieter, and more regular breath. Different kinds of breath correlate with different states of mind.  Rapid, shallow, irregular, noisy, equals angry, afraid, or upset.  Breathing provides an alternate route, not direct route to shifting states of mind.

Some other very serious indications of an over active sympathetic nervous system include:

■high blood pressure

■slow digestion

■increase blood flow to the skin and surface of the body

■constant stimulation

■irregular heartbeat

■body responding to constant threat that never goes away

■drugs suppresses tendency of the body to rebound

Watching our breath or meditation, can help us shift from the unconscious to the conscious.    This “witness of breath” helps raise the parasympathetic nervous system where we may quiet and raise the balance energy of our nervous system.

The parasympathetic calms, soothes and repairs our system.

◆blood pressure and heart rate lower

◆goes to the root of imbalance (not immediately but overtime)

◆by providing right input to the body and mind- effect harmonizing

◆keep attention on the breath-remain neutral (there are a lot worse places to be)

◆Raising awareness and moving energy

◆bring patients out of atrial fibrilation (serious medical condition)

◆reduction or elimination of anxiety and panic disorder (can even causae agoraphobia or fear of going outside)

The universe itself is based on expansion and contraction.  The universe itself is breathing, along with the stars and the oceans, the wind and the clouds, everything is moving and breathing.  s alive and based on breathing.

We are not trying to change the breath, simply observe the breath.  Eventually, Dr. Andrew Weil believes that with simple breathing, you may reach enlightenment.