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If you were to search for an activity that could be used anytime to improve your health and performance what would you choose? Such an activity should be readily available, easily employed and appropriate to any set of circumstances. After some reflection you would probably agree that breathing, one of life's natural occurrences, fits all of these requirements.

Breathing is something the body will do without prompting, it will speed up or slow down depending on the physical and emotional activity we are engaged in. Yet we can intentionally introduce breathing for our own benefit. We can accomplish many different elements for enriching our experience of life by using the tools of breath. If we work with some breathing techniques for opening the body we will be able to relate the results to what we are doing with our breathing.

For the athlete or dancer there is a natural barometer to measure how effective breathing practices are, that is there own performance. The focus of an athlete's effort and attention is to improve their overall physical performance on the playing field. We, on the other hand, have to feel our subtle changes by being aware of how we feel while working with the breath and how this plays out in our everyday experience.

If we view life in the same way as the athlete, with goals towards improving our overall performance, conscious breathing provides a natural way of accomplishing this. I am suggesting, that focusing on our breathing is a wonderful way of achieving what is beneficial for us. In the action of breathing we become more focused on the immediate. Awareness becomes more precise for dealing with the everyday activities.

Experiment with this;

Breathing deeply filling the internal space of the body with oxygen, you can feel how this also expands the rib cage open. On the exhale allow some breath out while retaining enough to allow the rib cage to maintain some of the expansion that was introduced from the in breath. Keeping this going for a period, you can feel the sense of being more expanded and how this affects our posture.

The more you do this the easier it will get. Once you've felt this pattern and are comfortable with it you can slow down that breathing pattern so it is very subtle. If you work with this you'll find that you have an excellent tool for breathing in almost any situation, while listening, or talking, while working, driving a car, walking or just resting. Explore and experiment with breathing while active.

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