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Breathing Therapy – Pt. 2
…continued
Energy is not the full story. I was doing research on mushrooms for treating cancer.
I had a Chinese doctor who turned me on to this. There is a trace element in mushrooms that has been linked to many cancer remissions. In fact mushroom has the highest concentration of this trace element of all the know food sources we have.
It is germanium sesquioxide. Sesquioxide means an oxide in which oxygen is present in the ratio of three atoms to two of another element, here germanium. [There is an germanium oxide which is not the same thing even though it is germanium.]
If I remember the univerity right, research at the University of Tokyo, has found why they think that this seems to work with cancer. This germanium form seems to clean or allow the cell to correctly receive oxygen from the blood.
One theory of cancer is that the cancer cells are inadequately receiving oxygen. When the cancer cells are correctly oxygenating, they cease to be cancer cells or go away. In this theory oxygen absorption by the cells is key.
If you are shallow breathing, you are creating an atmosphere for cancer. If you are deep breathing, you are creating more correct oxygen absorption and tending to prevent cancers from forming.
Would this be true of all cancers? Who can say? But the theory is in the ballpark of known modern science. The old oriental mushroom folk treatment for cancer may have some potential. Some swear by it. But eating some mushroom daily can not hurt you.
If you have cancer, can deep breathing cure cancer. It is not outrageous to say it may in some cases. But it is equally not outrageous to say that deep breathing can be a simple non intrusive way to supplement treatment of that malady. And also you can say you are not helping yourself if you continue shallow breathing.
Modern science seems to be most interested in how much oxygen is in the blood. Breathing therapy is concerned by how tightly that oxygen is bound to the blood.
In the case of hyperbarics if the body gets a ton of oxygen in it, but it is bound too tightly to the blood by shallow breathing that therapy has been radically limited in its potential. Maybe that is why there are great results for some and no results for others. Even though a lot of oxygen is in the blood, the cells can not get the oxygen to use it.
For those people that hyperbarics did not work, maybe deep breathing even without that oxygen chamber would work. Oxygen can heal if the body receives it in a useful way.
I believe that all healings and health are benefited or taken care of by deep breathing.
Well, how do you deep breath?
No, you do not have to become some kind of meditative guru. Although that is not a bad thing, it is not necessary for deep breathing.
When I was a boy, I found that I could do something that I called stomach breathing. Many of you I am sure did the same. You in that though are not breathing in the stomach. You are simply dropping the diaphragm down.
When I say breathing in the stomach, I am talking about diaphragmatic breathing. What happens when you drop the diaphragm, it get it out of the way of the lower lungs so that they can receive air. If you do not drop the diaphragm, the air goes into your upper lungs; that is shallow breathing.
As you do this shallow breathe, the body knows that there is not a full supply of new air in the lungs. In that situation it grabs tight to what it can get. Then your cells may be bathed in oxygen rich blood, but it is on the cellular level gasping for oxygen.
So as we used to call it, consciously start stomach breathing. Deep breathing is not what most would call taking a big breath. It is dropping the diaphragm and allowing the deep lung to exchange air.
You do not have to puff up you chest. In fact if you concentrate on puffing up your chest you are shallow breathing because you are not dropping your diaphragm. Just breath in you stomach. You chest will rise a little, but that is a side effect and not an intent.
Sometimes I have had people on the massage table and I tell them to breath in their stomach. They think they are not getting air where it needs to be. The opposite is true. If you are not stomach breathing, you are not getting air where it needs to be.
Often I have someone say they can not breath in their stomach. This may be true because the diaphragm is locked up in tension. In that case there is an answer to loosen it up. It is called reverse breathing. It is the opposite of breathing right.
In reverse breathing you consciously expand your chest on the inhale, while at the same time you contract your stomach as much as you can. You reverse that on the exhale. You expand your stomach and contract your chest as much as possible on the exhale.
Some qigong masters always start with 5 cycles of reverse breathing and then do diaphragmatic breathing for the rest of their exercise sessions. This tends to loosen up the diaphragm and allows for full practice of deep breathing.
If you are having trouble breathing in your stomach, do 5 cycles of reverse breathing. Then try 5 cycles of stomach breathing. If you are still having a problem, repeat the reverse breathing and stomach breathing. When you are able to deep breath, continue with that stomach breathing.
Do deep breathing for improved healing and health. You are standing in the checkout line in the store; check your breathing. You are sitting at your desk working; check your breathing. You are watching TV; check you breathing.
Do not beat yourself up if you find that you are shallow breathing; just deep breathe. Before you know it will become the more normal way of breathing for you. Take a few minutes every day just to consciously deep breathe without distraction. Watch what is going on.
One last thing. We are talking about inhaling and exhaling through the nose.
[The mouth is a fail safe, if you can not breath through the nose.]
Remember in the beginning God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life. Was that trying to tell us about nose breathing being the correct way to breath for life? Often not noticed, it is a truth in plain sight.
Almost all qigong systems emphasis nose breathing as the healthful type of breathing. If you nose breath for a while, then notice how you feel. Then mouth breathe for awhile, and you will note, if you consider it, that you do not feel as good.
I read an interesting account of a plague ship. It was in the days of the British ruling the waves. When the harbor saw the anchored ship in the bay with a yellow flag, they sent out a doctor. He wrote a report about his time on the ship. Having few distraction to ease his boredom, he watched the patients meticulously.
He noted something interesting about breathing. Some of the sick, while sleeping, breathed through the mouth. Others used their noses. The ones who died of the plague were mouth breathers. None of the nose breathers died.
Is that saying that nose breathing is more healthful? It certainly was not more harmful.
Start stomach breathing through the nose. As you go through your day, note how you are breathing and if you are not, return to deep breathing through the nose. Spend consciously some of your free time breathing correctly through the nose. It is a too simple healing therapy.
Here is a breathing therapy that I accidentally tried one time. One nostril was clogged from seasonal allergy. I closed off the good nostril and breathed only through the clogged nostril.
There was almost no air that could get thru. I was having to force hard in and out. I thought I was going to suffocate. But I was getting a negligible amount of air in and out. My nose was not clearing, and I was suffering, and it got a little scary. I was trying to open it by in and out air pressure.
Then I gave up and started to breathe with the clear nostril. I thought that did not work. However, in about 5 or 10 minutes, that clogged nostril opened up like I had put the drug spray up it. It was practically fully clear.
That spray up you nose works great, but it can be addictive. I had to have a pharmacist tell me how to get off it once. Breathing is not addictive; it is normal. I got the same effect with breathing, as a therapy.
I have since used that forced breathing to good effect. It works every time for me. I think one time I had to do it a second time after 20 minutes.
I am thinking that when the air is practically cut off the body know it, and it corrects the problem naturally in self defense. The body has an amazing healing ability. We just have to turn it on, or allow it to be turned on.
Try it. This strained breathing may work for you.
And as you think about it, deep breathe. It is a true healer too simple to be true.
