By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
I think it’s safe to say that most of us do not start the day thinking about the fact that they managed to successfully breathe all night somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 times without any conscious effort on their part. And, way too many of us when we get out of bed feel grumbly about the prospect of continuing that process if it is going to involve having to work at it harder at some point during the day. But, the point of this Point is to suggest that training ourselves to breathe can have wonderful effects on every part of our health, and not breathing well can harm us. Indeed, humans can go for weeks without food, days without water, and only a very few minutes without breath. Breath is, forgive me, our very life’s breath.
My friend Kathrine Lee once said something that was so simple and yet to me profound: “Breath was God’s very first gift to us.” He could have just “spoken” us alive, but instead He breathed, and thus, it would seem that we would do well to follow His lead and breathe life into ourselves consciously, consistently, and if need be, courageously.
We hear all kinds of imperatives with regard to breath, and sometimes they can be kind of snarky or patronizing. “Take a breath, would ya?” Or, “Let’s just all take a breath, here.” Depending on the motivation behind the imperative, being told to breathe can perhaps be annoying, but the good news is that it is nonetheless true because it works. Even with snark, breathing well always puts you into a better place.
The “need to breathe” shows up in every culture, philosophy, religion, sport, under every stethoscope, every anger management manual, and in one of my favorite worship songs, “This Is The Air I Breathe.”
“Aspire” has the idea of “breathing up,” as in panting hard to get up a hill. “Spires” are placed on tops of churches to draw our attention up. “Respiration” literally means to “breathe again,” “inspire” means to “blow upon another, to give breath” and “expire” to “breathe out, breathe one’s last.” Breathing and breath are everywhere, and learning to breathe well just makes life better.
One of my favorite Hebrew words is “Ruach Hakodesh,” which means “breath” or “spirit the holy.” Our Savior breathed on His disciples saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” in anticipation of the fulfillment of the promise that God would pour out His Spirit, literally His breath at Pentecost, which this year is being celebrated on May 24.
There are all kinds of ways to breathe that accomplish all kinds of things within us, and they bear looking into and implementing. There is box breathing, belly breathing, focus breathing, labor breathing, “blow-out-birthday-candles” breathing, pursed-lip breathing, the “psychological sigh,” which is where you fill up your lungs as far as you think you can, take one more teeny breath to top it off, and then breathe out. And at the end of the day, they all calm, restore, and help. When you are having a hard time finding things for which to be thankful, thank God for your breath. After all, it was His first gift.
