Recently, I was asked where I breathe from. It took me a few moments to answer, considering the angle of my response: anatomical, philosophical, metaphysical? My eventual response was: my heart centre. I say this because I feel that the breath is closely related to emotions. When one is stressed, breathing may become erratic or shallow. Excited? You may find yourself breathing more rapidly. A sighing breath can have many emotions attached. And have you ever felt you can breathe more freely when you are happy and relaxed?

As with previous blog posts, I am not talking here from any learned medical perspective, just my own observations. For me, it makes sense to connect the breath with what I call the heart centre, the centre of emotions. If I were to be scientific then I’d probably locate the source of emotions to be somewhere in the brain, some neural synapse / chemical reaction causing chain reactions in the body. Whatever the medical truth may be, however, there has been research that has found that people with broken hearts CAN have an actual physical reaction causing actual pain in the “heart” – stimulation of the vagus nerve, weakening of the heart muscles…and there has been tests where a painkiller (such as that you take for a headache) has been effective in relieving a heartache!

Here’s one interesting article: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2013/february-13/why-love-literally-hurts.html

Then there’s the heart chakra. As with all things yogic, there are many different schools of thought about the significance of each chakra, but many speak of the heart chakra as being connected to the respiratory system as well as the cardiovascular system; that it governs emotions and that imbalance of the heart chakra can manifest in, amongst other physical ailments, respiratory conditions such as asthma and pneumonia.

Of course, in reality in the medical sense you don’t anatomically breathe through your heart or the area that I call the “heart centre” – it’s the movement of the diaphragm

Whatever you believe in, you may have experienced difficulty breathing deeply when you are upset, deeply saddened, or in fact have a broken heart. And for me, when I am in such a state, making the effort to breathe deeply and calmly can often assist me in feeling better.

In a workshop I attended earlier in the year, A.G. Mohan and Indra Mohan taught about breathing from the heart centre. On the inhalation, you breath from the heart centre as if it expands – like a blossom – and on the exhalation, the breath retracts to the heart centre, not as a collapse inwards but a containment. This explanation really appealed to me: the opening outwards with the intake of air so that whilst the air is being drawn in, there is a sense of the heart energy emanating outwards. The prana – life force – that is controlled by your breath, is energised and distributed throughout the body. Then, as you exhale, the energy is drawn inwards and upwards from the heart towards the crown of the head, towards the heavens. A sense of uplifting. Isn’t that a lovely imagery?

I’ve found that others relate to this as well, and “breathing through the heart” is seen as a method of stress relief, of clearing your mind, a sort of meditation.

So now, in my classes, I talk about breathing from the heart centre. Not your actual heart that pumps blood, but that place where you feel your emotions. At the very least, it gives you a point of focus for your breathing. And hopefully, you’ll feel the benefits as well! Open up your heart, let your emotions be free, breathe…