Natural Breathing

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It was once stated, "Just breathe naturally!" That sounds good and many responded with comments such as if I were not breathing naturally I would be dead so that got me to thinking, "What is natural breathing?" It's a good question because most folks "assume" they know what that means. 

I decided to do a bit of research to find out what it means and the first site I pulled up was at anxieties.com under the heading, "Natural Breathing." It is also referred to as abdominal breathing. In the article it also speaks to calming breath and then something called, "Calming Counts." 

The first and last will interest my readers more because it addresses, at least from one point, both natural breathing and a type of breathing that accesses the calming response of the body and mind to calm both out especially those monkey antics self-talk that tends to get a few folks in deep waters where the sharks swim. 

Take a look here, the article is pretty short: https://anxieties.com/136/gad-step3a

The next site is from Chintamani Yoga and although it goes into a variety of concepts they too refer to natural breathing as abdominal breathing. I like the first site because this one tends to go off into a longer explanation with an agenda toward the practice of yoga. It is a very interesting article.

Take a look here, the article: https://chintamaniyoga.com/natural-breathing-what-is-it/

This last suggestion is from a health aspect. It is on the Healthline page. It talks about the anatomy of a breath then about breathing with the diaphragm and then onto other aspects such as how the weather affects one's breathing. All very good information and you should know it makes no direct reference to either natural or abdominal breathing. 

Take a look here, the article: https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-breathe#stronger-diaphragm

In the end, the first article at least to my mind spells out the two most important concepts of breathing naturally from the abdominal area, the diaphragm and that is what one should focus on. 

Now, as to the various breathing teachings of karate such as in the kata and especially the sanchin kata that speaks to some variances of this main concept that adds in dynamic tension along with breathing from the abdomen and that is a matter for your sensei and your style or system. I suggest strongly that you read the above and then consider what is taught because in the end I sincerely don't think the types of dynamic tension muscular sanchin like breathing is really necessary. Why, you may ask? Well, that is a whole nother story and if you read my last on breathing there are links to read to get a picture of all my studies on the subject. 

Also, as a warning, when you do a search on natural breathing you will get thousands and thousands of responses and they will have some things in common but in the end it will be mostly, good and bad, that authors opinion as this article or post is "my opinion, understanding and beliefs." Enjoy!

In the end, breath naturally! You can’t go wrong if you breathe naturally in all you do. 

For reference and sources and professionals go here: Bibliography (Click the link)