Are you breathing? What CAN you control?

Times have been tough this year. There is no doubting that. The secondary and tertiary effects of a declared global pandemic have been social unrest, strife, and uncertainty about how and where our society is going to progress in the near future. At the micro-level, many of us are questioning whether or not we’re going back to “normal.” Are schools where our children go to be educated going to even hold classes from day-to-day? Are we going to fully enjoy the (still open) restaurants and entertainment establishments to the extent we and those business owners want? Are the businesses we are individually running, or working for, going to still exist and provide for ourselves and our families? How secure do you feel personally amidst what has all happened, and in what will happen soon?

It seems like everything is out of our control. Everything seems like they are spiraling out of control. No matter how much we try to control things, things just get worse it seems like, doesn’t it?

It is true that everything else is out of our individual control. If you are feeling anxious and weary about everything today, then you are not alone, and it is ok. What is not ok is that you are perceiving that lack of control of things as a negative. You might be missing what is important, and what you can control the most, individually. We are often told to “control what we can control.” Easier said than done, right?

Stress, whether it is physical, e.g. exercise/movement training/practice, mental, e.g. career/employment, finances, or emotional, e.g. family/loved ones, is omnipresent. We experience varying levels of stress all day, everyday. We choose to impose stress on ourselves sometimes (sometimes intentionally, like physical training and practice), and we think we experience stress from external sources, perhaps unintentionally.

In all reality, all stress is the same. Our human bodies all respond in the same exact way when we are dealing with physical, mental, or emotional stress. Remember back to when you were in class here at IMA one day when you pushed yourself to your absolute limit, and you started to physically feel hurt from all the burning in your muscles and lungs. Your brain and thinking were confused, jumbled, and all over the place from trying to remember to count rounds and repetitions to where you put your water and car keys. You even wanted to cry at the end of the session because it was so draining. All that you were experiencing were just responses to the intentional stress you were choosing to subject yourself to. We wanted those responses in order to see what, where, when, why, and how those were going to manifest in those set conditions.

By attending classes and participating in your own training and practice regimen, you are stress inoculating yourself. Believe or not, you are developing your own ability to respond better to stress by controlling the only thing you can possibly control in your human body.

Your breath has been the key.

1-repetition maximum deadlift: breathing and bracing, and executing the lift.
Lactic Tolerance, i.e. “Fran”: heavy breathing, lungs burning.
Rowing 20 minutes: steady inhale and exhale.
Couch stretch: achieving better hip extension with every exhale.

There are many more examples in class that we use, in addition to those four stressors above, to assess and improve our ability to respond to stress. How well can you maintain calm while experiencing our infinite list and combinations of stressors? How well can you make a relatively good decision or action after being exposed to a stressor?

After that maximum-weight deadlift, are you able to converse with someone else in class in a normal, calm tone, and calmly write down your result?
After “Fran,” are you able to still stay standing and breathe a controlled pattern, then write your signature legibly?
After rowing 20 minutes, are you able to get off the rower, and walk across the lawn to your car, and drive home safely?
After improving your hip extension using the couch stretch, are you able to then hit 10 heavy push jerks in a row smoothly with perfect technique without stopping?

Those above examples are theoretically what we can do, if we are able to respond to stressors like those to the best of our abilities. Understandably, those examples are next to impossible. However that does not mean that we should not strive for degrees of those kinds of stress responses.

In order to improve our stress response, we need to improve our skill of breathing.

“Belly,” “diaphragmatic,” or even “deep” breathing all just mean the same thing: breathing, i.e. inhale and exhale.

We need to normalize what “deep” breathing is. It is what it is. It is just breathing. If that starts becoming your normal way of breathing, then your ability to respond to stress will improve. Your performance in responding to the stressors you subject yourself to will improve; for example, your amount of weight lifted, or the time it takes to complete something, or the farther you can go, all improve. Your power output improves. Your fitness and overall health improve.

This breath starts and ends with the nose. It is as simple as that; we breathe in and out of our nose. We inhale through the nose, and exhale through the nose. What also needs to be mentioned is that we need to normalize what inhaling and exhaling through the nose are. We need to consider what is normal to inhale; it is through our nose. We need to consider what is normal to exhale; it is through our nose. Moving forward when we say “inhale,” or “exhale,” it is understood automatically that they are through the nose, unless otherwise specified. There are times when we can and should intentionally use our mouth to inhale and/or exhale.

The more we breathe how we are supposed to, the more we are calm. Our ability to execute our breathing skill that way in increasing levels of stress means that we are responding better to stress. This means we will be better able to make increasing levels of relatively good decisions and actions in response to stress.

Inhale, lasting four seconds, then exhale, lasting four seconds. Repeat that four more times. How much more calm and focused are you after doing that?

How much more in control of your body, mind, and emotions are you after doing that?

How well did you control your response? Imagine doing that when you encounter or experience another of those stressors or negative thoughts that we are seeing more of today in our society.

With you in control of your breath, the better you will be to detach from and respond to that stressor. By being calmer and more focused, you can better assess whatever situation you are in, and you will be better able to achieve those performance results in the gym, or make that business or career, or investment decision, or even interact with a family member or loved one in a positive way.

The secondary and tertiary effects of what you do in the, and after the moment (of stress) will be the determinants of your life path. It all starts with what you can control. It all starts with your breath. Control and master it, then you will start to feel like you do have control of what is happening around you, and even in society today.

Your breath is the way.

Many times won’t be as tough moving forward, then.