Breathing

Did you know the most dominant apes and monkeys are usually the kindest? They share the most food, groom others more often, break up fights, are slow to anger, and breathe in a relaxed manner. Those on the bottom of the social hierarchy are the opposite. They are stingy, combative, irritable, anxious, depressed, and they breathe shallowly. It is not easy for a submissive primate to become dominant. They have mindsets, mannerisms, and muscle tension that keep them from escaping their subordinate social strategy and the chronic stress it produces.

All of this generalizes to people. If you want to be free of negative emotion, you need to rehabilitate physical trauma in your breath, eyes, face, voice, heart, gut, spine, and brain. Program Peace will coach you to do precisely this by first retraining your breathing pattern, and then walking you through dozens of innovative and effective self-care exercises. After creating new mindsets and mannerisms, and learning to reinvigorate muscles you never knew you had, you will find yourself more confident, healthier, kinder, and reprogrammed for peace.

Breathing and politics are not usually considered relevant to one another. Is it therefore possible to engage with breathing as a force of social justice? What kinds of atmospheres can corpomaterial dynamics of breathing help envision for the possibility for individuals and social groups to live breathable lives?

It is my aspiration here to argue that politics can take place not only in terms of governance, social movements, identity politics, and biopolitics but also in terms of quotidian bodily actions—such as breathing. By working with breath as a force that is common to all living and breathing (in this chapter, human) beings yet differential in its enactments, I propose a rethinking of politics in which corpomaterial actions matter—politics not based on universalizing, homogenizing, or essentializing understandings of embodiment or subjectivity but conceptualized and enacted intersectionally in their specific situatedness and dispersal in the individual and structural dynamics of power relations. This chapter of the volume, therefore, explores the possibility of such politics in relation to the quotidian practices of breathing.

Resumo: Este artigo tem por objetivo discutir e refletir sobre a importância dos exercícios de respiração e aquecimento (estes últimos divididos em exercícios de flexibilidade e de alongamento) aliados ao conhecimento da consciência corporal para o estudo do violino e da viola, como elementos indispensáveis a uma prática livre de tensões. A temática da pesquisa poderá contribuir, em grande medida, para o bem-estar do músico, para que, assim, possa abordar o estudo de uma forma mais saudável, com um comprometimento muito além dos simples recursos da técnica instrumental. Dessa maneira, poder-se-á alcançar uma nova percepção a fim de melhor servir à arte do violino e da viola e, por conseguinte, à arte da música. Abstract: This study aims to discuss and thought on the importance of breathing and warm up exercises (the latter being divided into flexibility and stretching exercises) along the knowledge of body awareness to the practice of the violin/viola as key elements for a tension-free instrumental playing. This research can, in a large measure, benefit the musician in order to approach an instrument's practice and performance in a healthy way, committed far beyond the simple features of instrumental technique. Thus, it can achieve a new perception in order to better serve the art of violin and viola and, therefore, the art of music.

Atmen zeigt sich im Alltag einerseits in seiner medialen, sprachlichen Präsenz und anderseits als körperlich evidente Erfahrung. So bewirbt ein Deutscher Automobilhersteller sein neues Modell mit dem Slogan: «gebaut, um den Atem zu rauben» und die Titelseite einer Zeitschrift verspricht «[a]tme dich GLÜCKLICH». Währenddessen seufzen Sie vielleicht unvermittelt, atmen schnell tief ein, heben die Schultern und atmen nach einer kurzen Atempause langsam wieder aus. Bis zu 200 mal seufzen Menschen durchschnittlich an einem Tag. Um diese heterogenen, aktiven wie passiven Vorkommnisse des Atmens im Alltag sowohl auf diskursiver als auch praxeologischer Ebene in den Blick zu nehmen, ziehe ich hier den übergreifenden Ordnungsbegriff des Rhizoms heran. Dieser ermöglicht es – so argumentiere ich – die Vielfalt der Fundstücke ebenso wie das selbsttätige Atmen der forschenden Subjekte mit-einzudenken.

The present study traces back the meanings of the word prāṇá – " breath " , " breathing " , " life force " in the context of Atharvaveda. In Atharvaveda prāṇá is often associated with life and longevity, with breathing and breath, with the maintenance of life, with seeing, hearing, power and offspring. Prāṇá is the master of all living and non-living and controls the whole universe. He is the observer of everything. By wind or air, the breath prāṇá is connected to the whole universe. The disappearance of prāṇás leads to death, and on this conception are based some of the spells for eliminating enemies by drawing their breath away. On the basis of the meanings of the word prāṇá in the studied excerpts from Atharvaveda, a semantic map of the word was created. For comparison with the Bulgarian language, a semantic map of the word "дишам" – " to breath " , was also created.

Breathing is not a common subject in feminist studies. Breathing Matters introduces this phenomenon as a forceful potentiality for feminist intersectional theories, politics, and social and environmental justice.

By analyzing the material and discursive as well as the natural and cultural enactments of breath in black lung disease, phone sex work, and anxieties and panic attacks, Breathing Matters proposes a nonuniversalizing and politicized understanding of embodiment. In this approach, human bodies are conceptualized as agential actors of intersectional politics. Magdalena Górska argues that struggles for breath and for breathable lives are matters of differential forms of political practices in which vulnerable and quotidian corpomaterial and corpo-affective actions are constitutive of politics.

Set in the context of feminist poststructuralist and new materialist and postconstructionist debates, Breathing Matters offers a discussion of human embodiment and agency reconfigured in a posthumanist manner. Its interdisciplinary analytical practice demonstrates that breathing is a phenomenon that is important to study from scientific, medical, political, environmental and social perspectives.

In this article, I show how certain contemporary Italian philosophers (Giorgio Colli, Giorgio Agamben, Adriana Cavarero, and Emanuele Coccia) responded to Jacques Derrida's critique of the voice and developed a new, ultra-materialist pneumatology.

The rising crescendo of the digital lifestyle has profoundly affected the human capacity for sustained focus. Since 2000, the human attention span has dropped from 12 to 8 seconds, with decreased long-term focus as users increase digital consumption. With users not getting off their devices anytime soon, and technostress on the rise, the question arises how designers might better meet users where they are by designing more mindful interactions. Research in the field of mindfulness shows its potential to reduce stress, increase productivity, and improve overall wellbeing. Mindfulness-based design, or mindful design, focuses on creating opportunities for users to become more attentive to their present state of awareness. The opportunity for this design research is in response to what Linda Stone, technology consultant, calls “screen apnea,” or the experience of shallow breathing or breath holding while doing email, or while working or playing in front of a screen. According to Stone, 80% of people do not breathe properly when using screen devices and the implications are increased stress levels, diminished emotional well-being and attitude, as well as reduced productivity. Using the breath as the primary focus, the goal of this design research is to understand the relationship between the visual components of rhythmic visualizations—direction, hue, brightness, temperature, saturation, contrast, and imagery—and the factors that affect mindfulness through breath awareness for long-term desktop users. The extended goals of this research are to integrate the findings into the development of a web-based tool—potentially a browser extension—to enhance mindfulness and minimize digital stressors.

The benefits of pranayama for positive health are well known. Even though there are many studies published on the effectiveness of pranayama, there are very few papers, which actually have systematically studied the physiological mechanisms involved, causing the benefits of pranayama, especially with respect to the cardiac function. This article attempts to have a detailed look at the physiology behind deep breathing. The article also conjectures that voluntary, deep breathing with attention may have a role to play in faster recovery from surgeries, and prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and may be, even cancer. Detailed, controlled studies are needed to prove or disprove these conjectures.

This open access book presents five different approaches to reading breath in literature, in response to texts from a range of historical, geographical and cultural environments. Breath, for all its ubiquity in literary texts, has received little attention as a transhistorical literary device. Drawing together scholars of Medieval Romance, Early Modern Drama, Fin de Siècle Aesthetics, American Poetics and the Postcolonial Novel, this book offers the first transhistorical study of breath in literature. At the same time, it shows how the study of breath in literature can contribute to recent developments in the Medical Humanities.

This article builds upon Davina Quinlivan’s pioneering work on cinematic breathing by considering the conspicuous but often-overlooked place of breath in horror films. The author focuses specifically on the way still-breathing bodies – i.e. those of actors pretending to be deceased on screen – prick our senses and draw our attention to one of the genre’s unavoidable paradoxes. Stated simply, what all but the most metatextual or parodic horror films wish to hide – to keep concealed inside their own literal and figurative ‘basements’ – is the inherent artifice of fictional death, which has traditionally been represented by way of living actors who must mask their breathing in order to sustain the feeling of dread on which the genre is affectively reliant. Taking the title and premise of the recent U.S. theatrical release Don’t Breathe (2016) as a leaping-off point, but expanding the scope of this essay to include a representative cross section of international productions and trashy exploitation cinema, the author hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the genre’s unique respiratory tendencies as well as the risible yet significant textual ruptures that occur when bodies continue breathing after they have stopped living.

Over the past six years, a rapidly growing number of studies have shown that
respiration exerts a significant influence on sensory, affective, and cognitive processes.
At the same time, an increasing amount of experimental evidence indicates that this influence occurs via modulation of neural oscillations and their synchronization between brain areas. In this article, we review the relevant findings and discuss whether and they might inform our understanding of a variety of disorders that have been associated with abnormal patterns of respiration. We review literature on the role of respiration in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), anxiety (panic attacks), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and we conclude that the new insights
into respiratory modulation of neuronal activity may help understand the relationship between respiratory abnormalities and cognitive and affective deficits.

Petri Berndtson explores in his chapter the possible relations between
respiration and ontology. The leading question of the chapter asks if the
experience of respiration can teach us an ontology that it alone can reveal to us?
If so, what kind of ontology would this respiratory ontology be, and how would
the phenomenon of breathing redefine the question of Being? With the help of
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this question of Being will be redefined as the question concerning “inspiration and expiration of Being.” This notion of “inspiration and
expiration of Being” comes from Merleau-Ponty’s work “Eye and Mind.” In this
chapter, Berndtson’s ontological investigation of “inspiration and expiration of
Being, respiration within Being” will find help especially from Merleau-Ponty’s
and Martin Heidegger’s ontological thinking of Being. In his investigation, the
question of Being is understood as the question of ontological difference—the
question between Being and beings. This ontological difference is given a respiratory
interpretation as the difference of inspiration and expiration of Being and beings.
To clarify the respiratory dimensions of ontological difference, Berndtson includes
an examination of Zen Buddhism. In Zen, emphasis is on the breathing practice
of zazen, as well as on the notion of kū (emptiness, sky, space, and air). These
ideas from Zen will be understood ontologically within the context of ontological
difference. In addition to Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Zen, Gaston Bachelard’s
aerial poetics, as well as Luce Irigaray’s aerial and respiratory thinking, are used
to elaborate what this new respiratory ontology could be and how it would define
basic ontological questions concerning, for example, what is a thing and what is
not a thing. The basic insight of this respiratory ontology will be that it is not
object- or thing-related, but atmosphere-related.

The heart rate variability (HRV) is an indicator of the cardiac autonomic control. Two spectral components are usually recorded, viz. high frequency (0.15-0.50 Hz), which is due to vagal efferent activity and a low frequency component (0.05-0.15 Hz), due to sympathetic activity. The present study was conducted to study the HRV in two yoga practices, which have previously been reported to have opposite effects, viz , sympathetic stimulation (kapalabhati, breathing at high frequency, i.e., 2.0 Hz) and reduced sympathetic activity (nadisuddhi, alternate nostril breathing). Twelve male volunteers (age range 21 to 33 years) were assessed before and after each practice on separate days. The electrocardiogram (lead I) was digitized and off-line analysis was done. The results showed a significant increase in low frequency (LF) power and LF/HF ratio while high frequency (HF) power was significantly lower following kapalabhati. There were no significant changes following nadisuddhi. The results suggest that kapalabhati modifies the autonomic status by increasing sympathetic activity with reduced vagal activity. The study also suggests that HRV is a more useful psychophysiological measure than heart rate alone.

Changes in body posture and respiratory regime are perturbations that lead to different physical and physiological conditions of functioning in the human body. The human organism has adapted to these perturbations through very subtle adjustments of the characteristics of internal biological rhythms, mostly with the regulatory mediation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Studies of the influence of body posture and especially slow breathing on the regulation functionality of ANS have become very relevant in recent years, both in the domain of fundamental biomedical research and in the field of clinically applicable testing. From that, it was determined and generalized that in the supine position, the parasympathetic (vagal) part of ANS has a predominant influence on heart rhythm and respiration. In contrast, in the standing position, sympathetic predominance is manifested. Slow breathing at a rate of 0.1 Hz has been shown to exert a certain resonant effect on the biorhymicity of the organism (brain activity, mental functions, heart rate, blood pressure, etc.). The basic idea of this thesis was to examine the separate and joint (synergetic) influence of changes in body position (supination - standing) and breathing regime (spontaneous - slow-controlled) on the temporal variability (var), complexity (comp) and coupling (coup) of heart rhythm and respiration. Var, comp and coup are the primary features of biological oscillations for which ANS regulatory feedback is responsible. Insight into var was obtained through linear statistical parameters, into comp through correlation nonlinear parameters and multiscaling analysis (detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), multiscalating entropy (MSE)), and into coup using linear (pulse-respiratory quotient (PRQ) and spectral coherence (CohRRI-Resp)) measures and nonlinear correlation parameters (cross DFA, cross MSE). In general, we performed a multiparameter characterization of the mentioned features of biological oscillations. Our goal was to extract information on the state of responsiveness and adaptability of ANS from the obtained results. Therefore, a special protocol for experimental testing and analysis has been developed, which includes detailed definition of conditions and procedures (maneuvers) in which signal acquisition was performed, application of advanced algorithms for calculating linear and nonlinear characterizing parameters, batery for statistical comparing results and systematic physical and physiological interpretation of results. This protocol was applied to 20 healthy subjects in four physiological states: supination with spontaneous breathing (Supin), standing with spontaneous breathing (Stand), supination with slow (0.1 Hz) breathing (Supin01), and standing with slow (0.1 Hz) breathing (Stand01). Changes in RRI parameters, a decrease in CohRRI-Resp and insensitivity to changes in respiratory parameters were characteristic of Stand. In Supin01 there was a significant change in both linear and nonlinear parameters of both signals, which reflects the dominant vagal regulation of RRI and the influence of slow (0.1 Hz) breathing on respiratory parameters, with an increase in cross-DFA on short scales, without affecting CohRRI-Resp. All investigated states produced a change in the slope ratio α1 versus α2 on DFA diagrams, which can be expressed much more profound with a new measure of complexity - interfractal angle θ, which we present in our analysis as a nonlinear counterpart of the sympatho-vagal balance concept. Measures of complexity on short scales (α1 versus MSE1-4) and long scales (α2 versus MSE5-10) had a reciprocal relationship in Stand01, with a specific pattern of cardiorespiratory coupling (ρ1 versus XMSE1-4). These results support the hypothesis of a hierarchical organization of the mechanisms of the cardiorespiratory system complexity and their ascending recruitment in relation to the increasing complexity of behavioral challenges. Thus, of the four examined states, Stand01 proved to be a synergistic maneuver and perturbation that provokes a qualitatively specific regime of autonomic regulation with the most pronounced changes in heart rhythm and respiration parameters and with specific patterns of cardiorespiratory coupling. The scientific contribution of this thesis is reflected in: specification of protocol for systematic examination of cardiorespiratory oscillators and complex responsiveness of ANS, revealing a new fractal scaling measure, designing and testing new computational algorithms for performing analysis of var, comp and coup of biological oscillations and experimental indication that Supin01 might serve as an elegant rehabilitation maneuver for conditioning ANS and cardiorespiratory oscillators, with the potential of clinical application in weaning from artificial ventilation and recovery of cardiorespiratory neuro-rhythmogenic functions in the postcovid state, in a state of hypotensive intolerance after space flights and stay in microgravity, mental and physical fatigue after sport overloading and other pathophysiological conditions.

In diesem Vortrag lege ich dar,  wie mit den Methoden der Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft «Körper» als Forschungsgegenstand konzipiert werden können, Anschauungsbeispiel dafür ist eine körperliche und symbolisch wirkmächtige Grundfunktion: das Atmen. Ganz simpel ausgedrückt, interessierte mich, was passiert, wenn das Atmen, eine körperliche Grundfunktion, zum Forschungsgegenstand der Kulturwissenschaften erklärt wird?

Os capítulos nesta obra são resultados de ensaios, palestras e conferências realizados nos últimos dez anos pela autora e abordam estudos e pesquisas do NEGDS), do Departamento de Ciências Humanas e Educação (DCHE) da Universidade Federal de Sâo Carlos.

Sentir na própria carne é o método da escrita deste livro, como o descreve a autora, é uma tecitura de viandanças nas ruas da memória. Aborda afetos, palavras, corpos e experiências como provocações e como (in)conclusões. É um convite para respirar em tempos de sufocamento ético-político. E nos conta onde encontra o seu lugar de respirar: “na dimensão afetiva e ética da Utopia. É um lugar de descanso, o lugar de comunhão e religação com nossa humanidade.”.

Paco Editorial

Since the 1950s, views of Earth from above have been critiqued for provoking detachment from and decontextualization of human, terrestrial concerns. These critiques thus establish Earth’s enveloping atmosphere as the ultimate context for meaningful and grounded accounts of humanness, and outer space as a site for abstract, generalizable knowledge. But in outer space, the explanatory work done by “context” is put in question, because spacefaring humans must attend to basic and constantly shifting conditions for life that lie beyond “context” on Earth, including breathing. Attention to humans in real and speculative space environments reveals context as a naturalizing device that establishes universal nature/culture distinctions through recourse to grounding terrestrial ontologies. [objectivity, comparison, relativism, outer space, verticality, horizontality, exploration]

In recent times breathing exercises and modalities such as delivering hyperbaric oxygen are being promoted as a way of easing some of the symptoms in autism. Are these methods REALLY working? Can breathing be applied as an epigenetic tool in the treatment of autism? This article presents the mechanics underlying the art of breathing in the context of autism and explores the myths and the benefits of the same. Read More ...

Polski: Artykuł przedstawia konieczność wypracowania takiej koncepcji polityki, która będzie wyrażona zarazem w kategoriach rządzenia, ruchów społecznych, polityki tożsamości czy też biopolityki, jak i w kategoriach korpomaterialnej i afektywnej dynamiki życia codziennego. Artykuł koncentruje się na praktyce oddychania i tego, jak zostaje ono ucieleśniane w kontekście wydobycia węgla, doświadczenia stanów lękowych czy w atakach paniki. Przy użyciu „realizmu sprawczego” jako ramy teoretycznej, artykuł ma za zadanie ukazać, w jaki sposób oddychanie jest zagadnieniem intersekcjonalnym, feministycznym i politycznym.



English: This paper articulates the necessity of understanding politics not only in terms of governance, social movements, identity politics or biopolitics but also in terms of quotidian corpomaterial and a ective dynamics. The paper focuses on breathing enacted in relation to coal mining and anxieties and panic attacks. Situated within agential realist framework it argues why is breathing an intersectional and feminist political matter.

This paper describes a non-invasive human brain-actuated robotic arm experiment, which allows remote writing. In the local environment, the participant decides on an arbitrary word to transmit. A mental speller interface is then used to select the letters. A robot arm placed in the remote environment writes the word on a whiteboard in real time. A multidisciplinary framework such as the one presented here exemplifies a class of interactive applications with possible relevance in a variety of fields, such as entertainment and clinical environments.