The Practice to Learn and Teach Future Generations

This is a practical hands-on article.  It is on the practice of conscious deep breathing which frees the practitioner from the slavery of the unconscious mind controlling his/her life. Our learning and teaching of this practice to future generations can transform the state of world health, happiness and harmony. It was being referred to in an article entitled What I wish I had been taught in preschool days.

Our in-built natural instincts are responsible for the creation of a divisive mindset of survival, sustenance, procreation and ego identity in every living being. Humans are no exception.

It is constantly energized by our unconscious genetic memory which randomly sneaks up into our conscious mind turning it into a slave of our insatiable instinctive appetites. In addition, it is responsible for keeping the conscious mind in a state of random wandering. Such slavery of our consciousness is the root cause of our divisiveness, mental and physical disease, attention deficit and learning disabilities.

This mindset keeps our body in a perpetual state of activity readiness driving our vital organs like the heart and lungs to circulate blood 24/7 with high glucose level under high pressure and speed leading to the origination of physical disease.

This deceptively simple practice of running of ordinarily unconscious breath consciously on a regular basis is supported by both the wisdom technology of ancient yoga and modern science of neurophysiology. It can put humanity on the road to health, happiness, harmony and oneness.

LET’S DO SOMETHING together to bring human health, harmony and oneness within our reach. Teach this practice to your friends and family, convincing them to teach it further. With this “each one teach one” strategy, infinitely diverse humanity can turn into a global family.

Ordinarily, an average human being breathes autonomically at around 15 breaths per minute. Use these videos to learn yourself and teach your friends, family and future generations to breathe slower than their autonomic rate. Here are some videos to help:

1. Conscious Deep Breathing at 6 breaths per minute for 2 minutes
2. Conscious Deep Breathing at 6 breaths per minute for 5 minutes
3. Conscious Deep Breathing at 6 breaths per minute for 10 minutes
4. Conscious Deep Breathing at 6 breaths per minute for 15 minutes
5. Conscious Deep Breathing at 6 breaths per minute for 20 minutes

I recommend that adults should learn the practice starting with 10-minute sessions gradually increasing the duration to 20-minute sessions. They should practice every day for at least one 20-minute session.

Adults should involve little children to practice with them starting with a 2-minute session and increasing the duration gradually to 5 and then 10 minutes.

Moreover, no one can overdose on deep breathing. Do your dedicated sessions regularly. Develop a habit of breath consciousness. Whenever is not too busy with other work, can breathe deep for a minute, two or more times as many times as possible. We can multitask with deep breathing while watching television, resting, driving, walking, exercising, trying to sleep at night or on waking up in the morning, etc.  Teach your future generations to do likewise. The more the breath consciousness, the better the control on your unconscious mind. Over a period of time, the practice of deep breathing will lower the rate of the autonomic breathing of the practitioner.

Components of Deep Breathing Practice

1. Posture to maximize lung capacity: either lying flat on the back or sitting up with the spine in the vertical position and neck bone in line with the spine
2. Deep diaphragmatic breathing through the nose only, keep your mouth closed
3. Keep the mind focused on the breath
4. Smooth breathing without holding in or out
5. Positive feedback, notice the belly expanding on inhalation and contracting on exhalation: putting a hand on the belly button may help

Steps in Deep Breathing Practice

1. Lie flat on the back on a firm and flat surface with a thin pillow, if desired. Relax the body, feet dangling outwards and palm facing up with arms beside the body. Or sit tall on the edge of your chair with back and neck straight without reclining backward or slouching forward. Put your hands on your knees or in your lap.
2. Establish deep diaphragmatic breathing.
3. Focus on every breath in making it complete.
4. Focus on every breath out making it complete.
5. Count the breaths in the prescribed period. Counting helps in focus. Remember to count the in-breaths or the out-breaths, not both. One in-breath and one out-breath are considered one breath.
6. Breathing through the nose only with the mouth closed.
7. Use positive feedback putting one hand on the belly if you so desire. Notice the belly rise with every in-breath and fall with every out-breath.
8. Every breath should be smooth and even with equal time for the in-breath and the out-breath. No holding of breath or out. Rhythmic smooth and even breathing all the time.
9. Cup your eyes with your hands and open the eyes with the eyes covered. Expose the eyes to the light slowly.
10. Turn on your left-hand side and sit up for a minute.
11. Get yourself up and stand slowly with sure feet.

Be Breath Aware

Cultivate the habit of being breath aware as much as possible; and deep breathe whenever you are breath aware. You can’t do that all the time, but there are quite a few opportunities in a day, be breath aware and deep breathe when watching TV, resting and relaxing, driving, before falling asleep at night, waking up in the morning, etc. The more you do it, the better it is both health wise and otherwise.

Keep a Record of Your Daily Practice

1. On a sheet of paper, make a table such as that shown below.
2. Measure your ordinary autonomic rate of breathing keeping time with the second arm of your wrist watch or timer on your phone and record it.
3. Start your deep breathing practice at a breathing rate less than half of the above autonomic rate. For your guidance at different rates of deep breathing, there are videos available at this link.

Initial Autonomic Rate of Breathing =?  Breaths per minute