There is a close correlation between depth of respiration and health. Our breathing is deeper when we are younger and becomes shallower with age. We observe that newborn children breathe with their abdomen, their lower belly rising and falling. The center of breathing gradually rises as children grow older. This change proceeds from what is called “abdominal breathing” to “chest breathing,” and then to “shoulder breath-ing.”
If you watch people of advanced age, or patients who are seriously ill, you will see that their shoulders rise and fall as they breathe. This indicates how shallow their respiration has become. In Korean, the shallowest respiration is called Mok-sum, or “throat breathing.” When respiration becomes shallower than this, a person dies. His or her Mok-sum, or “throat breathing,” is cut off.
Breath-work is a simple discipline that allows us to train ourselves to breathe in a certain way, essentially to keep our breathing naturally deep. As a basic principle, respiration should be deep, light, and natural. Breathing that is natural, and yet deep and light, is healthy. It may seem that breathing both deeply and lightly is contradictory}’. We associate deepness with heaviness, and connect lightness with shallowness. This principle of deepness and lightness might seem at odds with itself. How is such breathing possible?
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