The Way You Breathe

and other observations on rhythm, energy and stimulation

Hi everyone. I know it’s been a while since I last wrote—this past month has been up-and-down with illness, recovery and other life occurences that have kept me from writing. I’m currently working on a new series, on a somatic guide to grief and heartbreak. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some shorter reflections and thoughts that I have been creating for social media. I hope you enjoy the change of pace and tone, and let me know in the comments if anything sparks your attention. Thank you for being here with me!

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Lights and Shadows, John Singer Sargent, 1909 | I feel like taking a breath to savour life whenever I see this.

☁️ the way you breathe

is the way you do everything. Because air is life, our breathing patterns reflect deeply held, unconscious attitudes and approaches to the world. For example, you might:¹

• feel like there’s never enough air (life), that you always need more

• experience breathing (and life) as a struggle, or something you have to constantly and actively do or monitor

• breathe so fast that you never get the chance to slow down and savour (life)

• breathe so little, as if you’re afraid to fully take in air (life)

• breathe (and live) loudly, like you have to proclaim yourself at every second

• abort or interrupt your own breathing, so you never experience a pause, rest, or an easy flow in life

• breathe too ‘deeply’ and take in much more air than you actually need, disrupting your body’s natural needs and rhythms²

All of these patterns (and any you identify in yourself) emerged as adaptive responses to situations you were in. The only issue is if you get stuck in them, and therefore can’t experience fresh possibilities from breath, or life.

For optimal health and well-being, you want to be able to breathe in a variety of different possible ways, and for your body to know how to breathe automatically to best meet your needs in any given situation. (In other words, the goal is not to consciously control your breathing, but to offer your body new possibilities and then to let it take them up as and when it wants to.)

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Pink Moon Over Water, Georgia O’Keefe, 1924.

☯️ the #1 most underrated principle in somatic work

[also happens to be a skill that makes life better in general]

is rhythm. Specifically, how to sense and synchronise with your own internal, biological rhythms in a way that feels natural and easy. Riding your biological rhythms is the hidden key to your true superpower: energy.

When you’re in tune with your own somatic rhythms, energy flows smoothly when it is needed, and is replenished automatically through rest. When you aren’t in tune with your own rhythms, energy is essentially mismatched to the situations you’re in. For example:

• you have too much energy in a situation where you need to be calm and relaxed; or too little energy when you need to get things done

• no matter how you try, you can’t access your peak energy level; or no matter how much you rest, you never feel recovered from the stresses of life

None of this has much to do with willpower, effort or beliefs. It is rather to do with the way that your nervous system and body are subconsciously allocating energy to the tasks of the day.

By recognizing and honouring your basic biorhythms, you can support your body to more effectively apportion energy where it is needed, and reduce effort where it isn’t.

We have many, many different biorhythms, but my top two to focus on are:

1. the ultradian rhythm: a 90min-2hr cycle that moves us between peak performance/recovery during the day, and between deep/dream sleep at night

2. the menstrual rhythm: the monthly hormonal cycle in a female body that affects everything from appetite to sleep quality, physical and other forms of performance, stress, mood, creativity and more.

   1. For men, I would substitute the menstrual rhythm with the circadian rhythm, as it aligns more closely with the male hormonal cycle. Women also need to align with the circadian rhythm, but we just have an extra layer to work with in the form of our menstrual cycles and/or the lunar cycle.

No matter which rhythm you choose to work with, by honouring it you gain:

• greater access to your own vitality

• faster recovery from stress

• a less volatile and more predictable energy cycle that you can effectively plan your life around

• and a sense of being deeply in sync with yourself and your environment, which is just priceless.

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Marine, Albert Marquet, 1920. | those reflections, and the disappearing horizon… ♡

🌃 why destimulation is the answer to most of your problems

*I’m being cheeky but it’s also 99% true

Destimulation (or under-stimulation) is the act of deliberately reducing input to your nervous system. It’s the opposite of overstimulation, which is what we are all suffering from. Destimulation is a key part of practices like mindfulness, meditation, deep rest, forest bathing, sound baths, somatics and more. If you’ve ever realised that you feel better after a time-out in a quiet place, being in nature, or a good night’s sleep: this is the power of destimulation in action.

Time spent with reduced input allows your system to defrag, reorganize, make connections and generally figure out better ways to do everything. When we destimulate, we are therefore training our minds and nervous systems to attend to and process input (ie. life) more efficiently.

During destimulation, your nervous system learns how to:

• move in ways that involve less effort and tension

• hold your body/posture lightly and in alignment so you feel less pain

• appropriately signal somatic needs like hunger, thirst and discomfort (without the sensations and urges being too ‘loud’ and overwhelming, or too ‘soft’ and easy to ignore)

• show up in times of stress and challenge

• process emotional and instinctive reactions so they don’t drain you or get stuck inside you

• manage energy levels so you avoid peaks and crashes

• think through, plan out or find fresh solutions to your problems

There are two key approaches to destimulation:

1. reduce input (literally)

   1. sensory: cut the noise, dim the lights, avoid the crowds

   2. kinaesthetic: practice rest, be still

   3. cognitive: not reading, watching or consuming anything with your mind³

2. immerse your attention on one thing fully (ie. focus)

   1. sensory: practice purely listening to music, or really savouring your food

   2. kinaesthetic: be ‘in your body’, feeling sensations as you move

   3. cognitive: attend to one task, thought or piece of information at a time, or follow a train of thought or topic of research towards its fullest depth and culmination

Paradoxically, using your attention in this way can be as restorative as not using it at all—hence, meditation.

Destimulation is a skill that you can practice and invite anywhere, at any time. And you probably already do, any time you let yourself ‘turn off’, drift, daydream, slow down, unwind, rest…or any time you find yourself singularly immersed in music, movement, art or an environment you love.

In sum: if you want to build capacity to be able to handle life more easily and graefully, it’s your nervous system that you need to train; and one of the ways to train it is via destimulation.

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1. All examples from actual people I know.

2. Yes, this is a thing. Like overeating, you can overbreathe too.

3. This last one is gold.