How Focused Breathing Helps Me Cope With Stress
By Guest Blogger, Lani Knutson
This Fall, three friends and I recorded a vocal quartet to be used in our church’s virtual worship service. By now, all singers know the COVID singing routine. First, you put your headphones on in order to listen to the piano accompaniment while recording your singing part. Then someone assembles all the recorded parts together. I have often sung with these three friends, and the song we recorded is one we have sung together before. The quality of the singing was excellent as usual, and the final product was something to be proud of. But I desperately missed one thing about collective music making during this process: breathing together.
You see, when you are singing together in person, you can listen, watch, adjust, and move as one. Singers who often make music together, like my quartet, learn to sync their breath as if they are a single instrument. Breathing together results in entrances and cut offs that are precise and beautiful. Singers spend years (decades even!) studying the breath because it plays such a crucial role in our craft. Beyond the technical side, breathing together connects you to your fellow singers in a way that is hard to quantify. For me, collective breath feels like a deep human bond at the most basic level.
Breathing is something we think about a lot in our family. Both of our sons (ages 10 and 13) have a rare form of Congenital Muscular Dystrophy called SEPN1/SELENON related myopathy which most significantly affects their respiratory system. After their genetic diagnosis six years ago, they both began using a BiPap machine to help them breathe while they sleep at night. Every six months they have a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) to check their breathing, and every two years they have a sleep study to make sure their BiPap settings are still correct.
Currently, they don’t need breathing assistance during the day, but when they get sick, we haul out a Cough Assist machine and increase the use of the BiPap. The moment they get sick with anything related to the respiratory system, we are off to the pediatrician’s office. As you can imagine, the threat of COVID-19 has been a terrifying prospect. So much so that we have completely reorganized our lives so that we are home most of the time and rarely see people in person.
For me, breath has also become an important coping skill amidst a hard year. I’ve always loved yoga but never practiced it regularly. As we moved into a new school year this Fall, knowing that it would be virtual again for our sons, I needed something to help me ground myself. The interplay of breath and yoga was exactly the self-care that I needed. Daily yoga practice helps slow down my anxious body and mind and allows me to breathe out my stress.
Additionally, my therapist has been encouraging me for months to try guided meditation to help me sleep. My anxiety has always invaded my sleep, and this has been even more true this past year. I finally tried it, and it has transformed my life. By focusing my mind and my breath in meditation for even ten minutes, I am able to fall asleep faster and stay asleep.
All this talk about breath might seem a little hippy dippy for some. I get it. It can be. Despite that feeling, I encourage you to try some focused breathing even if it is for a few minutes.
Try it with me.
Breathe in 1. . . 2. . . 3. . . 4. . . 5
Breathe out 1. . . 2. . . 3. . . 4. . . 5
Don’t give up on the first try.
Breathe in 1. . . 2. . . 3. . . 4. . . 5
Breathe out 1. . . 2. . . 3. . . 4. . . 5
Intentional breathing takes practice.
By yourself now.
Breathe in ...
