Breathe To Dance Better?

Today, my Bikram yoga teacher – Chris made an interesting comment about breathing in class (I’m surprised I even heard it half dead, sweat in my ears). He was talking about how, when doing any strenuous activity we immediately start gasping for air. Right? Isn’t that what you always do in your dance or aerobic class when you feel “out of air”? You think it calms you down but nope, on the contrary it stimulates your fight or flight response! (True. I sure wanted to flee the hell out of there!) It stimulates release of adrenaline.

Now, I’m thinking it may be ok to breathe like that in your spinning class or Tae Bo (we need adrenaline to give us that extra push). In, for example yoga and dance classes (or should I say: my dance classes) where great focus and constant self-assessment are required, you don’t need the adrenaline to break your concentration. Not if you’re looking for optimum results.

When you breathe in and out through your nose, on the other hand, the parasympathetic nervous system is stimulated and you begin to calm down. It makes sense. Just answer this question: do you think more clearly when you’re calm and relaxed or when your mind is all over the place? EXACTLY!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not an easy thing to do. I certainly did not get that right today. It takes practice. But if that helps me get through the class without the thought of killing myself AND will make my yoga practice much more efficient on top of that – I’m in!

Let it out through the nose people! (the air I mean) 🙂