There’s a moment that happens in almost every class.
Someone is working through a pose – concentrating hard, doing all the right things – and I’ll say, quietly: don’t forget to breathe.
And they laugh. Because they’d completely stopped.
We breathe around twenty thousand times a day. It happens without permission, without effort, without a second thought. And perhaps because of that – because it’s so constant and so automatic – we assume we must be doing it well enough.
But automatic doesn’t always mean optimal.
Donna Farhi (whose writing on breath is really worth reading about), describes breathing as the most accurate metaphor we have for the way we personally approach life. I keep coming back to that. Because it suggests that the breath isn’t just something the body does – it’s something we participate in, whether we’re aware of it or not.
More than Air In and Out
The effects of how we breathe reach much further than most people realise. The obvious things – the lungs, the heart – yes. But also the skin, energy levels, concentration, the ability to think clearly under pressure. The brain alone, with its relentless activity, needs roughly a quarter of all the oxygen we inhale just to function well.
When breathing becomes habitually shallow – and for many of us, especially those carrying long-term stress, it does – the whole system feels it. Muscles fatigue more quickly. Sleep becomes less restorative. There’s a persistent tiredness that a good night’s rest doesn’t quite fix.
None of this is dramatic or catastrophic. It’s just a quiet drift away from what the body actually needs.
The Breath as a Point of Access
What makes the breath so interesting – and so useful – is that it sits in a unique position in the body. Most of what keeps us alive happens entirely without our involvement. The heart beats. Digestion works. Cells renew themselves.
But the breath can be both unconscious and conscious. You can ignore it completely, or you can choose to work with it deliberately. That’s a rare and genuinely useful thing.
When we start to pay attention to the breath – not to force it or perform it, but simply to notice it – we begin to understand our own patterns. Many of us have been breathing in the upper chest for years, the belly barely moving, the lower lungs barely involved. Some of us hold our breath when we concentrate. Some of us breathe through the mouth as a default, bypassing the nose’s natural filtration and warming systems that the body was actually designed to use.
These are habits, not fixed facts. And habits can change.
Where to Begin
The first practice is the simplest one: observation.
Before we can work with the breath, we need to actually hear it. Not judge it or fix it – just listen. This is something we do in class, and it’s something you can do anywhere: on the sofa before bed, sitting in the car before you go into work, lying awake at 3am wondering why you can’t sleep.
Try this:
• Sit comfortably or lie down in Savasana (Corpse pose). Lower your gaze or close your eyes.
• Let the breath arrive without trying to change it. Just notice what’s already happening. Is it fast or slow? Does it feel smooth, or does it catch somewhere? Are you breathing into your chest, or can you feel the belly move? Do you hold slightly at the top of the inhale before you let it go?
• You don’t need to alter anything. Just stay curious. Watch the breath the way you’d watch something interesting happening across the room.
• Stay with it for ten minutes if you can. Say quietly to yourself: I’m breathing in. I’m breathing out. That’s all.
It sounds almost too simple to be useful. But this kind of quiet attention – returning to the breath without an agenda – is genuinely one of the foundations of yoga practice. And over time, it begins to reach into the rest of life in the most ordinary ways.
You notice when you’re holding your breath during a difficult conversation. You catch the moment your shoulders creep up toward your ears. You find, almost without trying, that you’re a little calmer than you used to be.
Not transformed. Just a little more at home in your own body.
Which, in my experience, is where most good things begin.
We explore breath awareness gently in every class – no experience needed and nothing is ever forced. If you’re curious about what breathwork might feel like in practice, you’re very welcome to come along.
If you’d like to explore the practice behind the philosophy, Practice and Poses is a good next step. For the inner dimensions of the tradition, Meditation and the Chakras section of Spiritual Living go deeper.
If you’d like to explore the breath connection further, The Living Breath is a dedicated course in pranayama.