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In the Taoist tradition, there is an idea that food can be replaced with air … And it’s true! Not completely, of course. But reducing the amount of food consumed by regulating breathing is really real. Do you want to learn it?
If you have ever met qigong masters, you could not help but notice that they are harmoniously built, as a rule, not overweight people. At the same time, not a combat, but a relaxing, healing qigong cannot be called a powerful load on the body – smooth movements, no active cardio … How do you achieve such forms? The secret is in proper breathing!
Where to get strength?
According to the Taoist tradition, we have only three sources of vital energy qi: food, sleep and breath. We need energy to provide all the functions of the body – from heating (reaching a temperature of 36,6) to experiencing complex emotions or ensuring intellectual activity.
Accordingly, the expenditure and arrival of forces must be in balance. In addition, it is necessary to receive energy from all three sources, which will also ensure balance. If one of the sources dries up, the body begins to “get” strength from the other two.
Therefore, all nutritionists unanimously say: you need to get enough sleep! Otherwise, the body will require more food, which would help make up for the lack of resources. And we will also add: it is also necessary to breathe correctly.
Complete and incomplete breathing
Each person, if he does not have asthma, for example, usually evaluates his breathing as normal. However, like digestion or the quality of thought processes, breathing also comes in different qualities. What determines whether it will be complete or not? Here are a few factors.
The structure of the sinuses
Relatively recently, just a few centuries ago, humanity began to actively develop its culinary abilities (on a massive scale). We began to process food and make food softer, and therefore the need to chew it actively and for a long time gradually disappeared.
If our distant ancestors had to grind hard meat and root crops with their teeth, then modern man has sausage, pate, pasta, puree soup and hundreds of other dishes that do not need to be actively chewed. Due to the softening of food, the shape of our jaw has changed: it has become narrower. And as a result of these changes, the nasal passages in turn narrowed. Thus, the volume of our breathing has decreased.
Ecology
Another factor that affects the quality of breathing (and nothing can be done about it, like the shape of the skull) is ecology. There is less oxygen in the atmosphere and more harmful impurities, which means that less useful gas enters our body. And the less oxygen we receive, the less it is processed into energy.
Chest volume and lung expansion
But fortunately, we can influence this factor. The quality of our breathing depends on how relaxed and elastic the muscles of the chest are – and therefore how freely we breathe (in the truest sense of the word).
For example, if a person habitually stoops, then his shoulders seem to “fold” forward, thus blocking breathing with the tops of the lungs. If a person has a tense abdominal diaphragm, then the lower segments of the lungs will breathe at half strength.
In order for the chest to work properly and the body to receive more oxygen, and hence vitality, regular relaxation practices are necessary, for example, qigong for the spine Sing Shen Juang.
special breath
By taking care of the body and opening the chest, we can normalize breathing – due to this, the body will receive a significant percentage of energy from breathing and not require additional calories.
But how, you ask, to lose weight? How to reset what is already typed? In this case, energetic breathing practices based on breath holdings come to our aid.
For example, within the framework of women’s Taoist practices, we do breath holdings – and while holding, we perform the “abdominal vacuum” practice. Having experienced oxygen deficiency during the absence of respiratory cycles, after a delay, we take the deepest, longest breath possible. Before that, in order to make it effective, we pay attention to relaxing practices that open the chest, free the lower back and stomach. That is, we learn to breathe literally with the whole body!
Such breathing is called authentic – and corresponds to how babies breathe under the age of three months. In combination with the delays, authentic breathing effectively fills the body with oxygen, and our students are surprised to notice that they want to eat much less!
Why? Everything is very simple: because the body begins to receive a lot of Qi energy with breathing, and the amount of food necessary to maintain strength and health is reduced. After this practice, you can move on to any active exercises that affect the relief of the body (if you are faced with such a task).
Thus, full-fledged breathing can become the basis on which your movement towards health, beauty and good mood will be built.