First technical article, first highly important technique, complete breathing!
Complete or natural breathing is THE basic breathing technique. Master this breathing and all doors to respiratory techniques will be wide open to you. Moreover, mastering this will concretely change your life as your attitude towards stress and your body posture will be profoundly changed (for the better!). That’s what we are going to see in this article.
Natural (or complete) breathing?
Complete breathing is the first respiratory movement to acquire. Or rather reacquire since it’s the movement we observe in babies:
Beware, it’s not the famous abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing. Natural breathing is based on total relaxation. Relaxation that stress, bad motor schemes or the various bodily injuries that we accumulate over the course of life reduce more and more. The consequence is that this breathing is lost, becoming increasingly forced and soliciting fewer and fewer areas of the chest.
Why work on this breathing? Because installing it means relaxing your entire respiratory chain. As we will see, the respiratory chain is linked to most of our body structures. By the diaphragm, of course, but not only. It also allows, by soliciting the entire chest, to continuously massage the abdomen and especially the smooth muscles of the viscera which accumulate tensions related to stress. Finally, another important point, this breathing gives a unity between the top and bottom of the body by involving the psoas.
This breathing also allows adults to have an optimal rhythm of oxygen supply. It will bring you closer to the recommended breathing time during cardiac coherence for example and this without you having to think about it. Indeed, by being more relaxed, the respiratory amplitude will increase without effort by enlarging your tidal volume area and the respiratory times will lengthen until you breathe around eight times per minute. The consequence is that you will naturally be calmer and less reactive to stress as the nervous system will be in balance.
Finally, this breathing will develop your ability to use your entire respiratory chain, a mandatory condition for properly performing other respiratory techniques. Indeed, all other respiratory techniques will use part of this chain or the entirety of the respiratory chain. In addition, they will benefit from the muscle relaxation work you do during the practice of natural breathing so as not to generate stress in their execution.
The basis of a profound postural change
The entire REBO2T method is based on natural breathing. Indeed, it is the structural base on which the whole postural reconditioning strategy of the method will rely. It’s only once it’s in place that one will be able to correctly execute the series of primal movements of development. This series of movements, all based on the use of the respiratory chain, will allow you to reconfigure your body so that it functions with much less imbalance and stress. These primal movements are most of the time perfectly executed in the newborn. They are then parasitized by excitement and the need for speed, which results in changing the way of moving and disconnecting from breathing. I will talk about this series of movements that I integrated as being the first stone of the reconstruction phase of the REBOOT method later.
Then, by generating movement through natural breathing, you will learn to connect the whole body in each of your gestures and to constantly use the inertia of your breathing to initiate your movements. This completely changes the way of moving and eliminates a whole host of musculoskeletal issues. It also significantly improves physical and sports performance.
Finally, this change has a significant impact on emotion management. Indeed, in the REBO2T method, emotions are very much linked to the body and in most cases, the body relies daily on emotional tensions for its postural balance. This implies that emotion is necessary for the good maintenance of the body, which generates an imbalance at the level of your psyche. Resetting the posture by natural breathing allows breaking this emotional anchoring and thus being much more neutral from this point of view.
Thus, as you can see, natural breathing is the first key to the practice.
Execution of natural breathing
The principle of this breathing is simple: to solicit the entirety of the respiratory chain while freeing the blocking points that would hinder breathing. We will therefore use the whole abdomen, the whole rib cage, and finally the scapular belt. When the breathing is well in place, one even feels that the respiratory movement comes to connect the cervical plexus.
To train in natural breathing, do the following exercise:
Lie on your back, as relaxed as possible. Pay particular attention to the lumbar region. Breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth. Later, it will be more interesting to do it only through the nose. Place one hand on your abdomen, the other on your sides. With each breath, check that your hands are pushed out at the same time and that your lumbar spine flattens on the ground. When you manage to do this, move the hand from the abdomen to the ribs. On inhalation, the ribs should « swell » after the whole abdomen. When that’s good, move the hand from the sides to the opposite clavicle. You should feel it open after the rib step. Finally, try to have complete breathing by having fluidity throughout the inhalation and exhalation. The exhalation also goes from the abdomen to the clavicles. When you are comfortable, try to create a body wave with the respiratory movement. Then try to follow this movement and let yourself be carried away by it.
And that’s it, that’s all! But it’s not necessarily easy. Often, at the beginning, we can’t get to the clavicle step. The reason is that we force the air intake too much, creating tensions that prevent the respiratory chain from being solicited in its entirety. Try to relax as you breathe in. As soon as you feel a blockage, exhale by relaxing the area, then start the inhalation again. It takes a few months to integrate this breathing naturally.
If you can find a partner, ask them to put their hands in your place so you can focus even more on your relaxation. A little trick to help you, try to aim for the pelvic floor with your inspiration. Then visualize that you are filling up like a balloon. This technical addition can help to better manage the transition from one area to another in the respiratory chain.
You can also go to this video to see its execution.
Your next natural breath
The goal is for your complete breathing to become your next natural breath. It takes about two to three months of regular practice. In the short term, your posture will be more upright, your movements more fluid, and your body will be less tense. Moreover, mentally, you will be much less subject to mood swings. In the medium term, you will be able to identify bodily tensions more easily since they will hinder your breathing, and you will be able to get rid of them before they become too ingrained.
The reason for this is quite simple. By strengthening and synchronizing the muscles of the respiratory chain, you will first modify your motor patterns. You will be able to rely on this central muscular axis and thus redistribute the forces in your body, reducing local tensions. From an emotional point of view, most emotions lodge in the deep chain. When this chain is strong, we are less disturbed by these emotions and breathing allows us to continuously cleanse them. Your body will also learn not to accept tensions lodging for a long time.
However, be careful, it’s not about breathing with the entire respiratory chain every time. Only the parts necessary for your breathing at a given time. However, these parts must be solicited in the correct order and with this relaxation.
Conclusion
Natural breathing is the first element to put in place to properly use your breathing. With this tool in place, you can really take an interest in the rest so that your breathing becomes your interface for controlling your physiology. Quite a program!
To go further, you can join the online course of the REBO2T cycle where this breathing is worked on as part of the REBO2T method curriculum.
For those who do not have the time to follow online courses, I have created a specific video training to learn the REBO2T method alone at home. The first module of the training is obviously natural breathing. You will see about an hour of exercises to put it in place correctly. You will also have a three-month program requiring only 10 minutes per day for it to become your daily breath. To get this training, click here!
That’s all for this essential breathing. Practice it diligently, you will thank yourself later!
Feel free to leave your impressions on this breathing in the comments and share this article with anyone who could benefit from complete breathing!
See you soon
Yvan