Breathing is a means of awakening and maintaining full attention in order to look carefully, long, and deeply, see the nature of all things, and arrive at liberation. - Thich Nhat Hanh, Breathe, You Are Alive!
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. - Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
By Jim Freeman
December 14, 2022
Thich Nhat Hanh
The previous chapter in this series discussed the practice and benefits of meditation. Initially, I had planned to discuss meditation and the breath in the same article because the two subjects are so intertwined. However, I quickly realized that would make for an extremely long post. Thus, I will further explore these matters with a focus on the breath and its place in the practice of mindfulness as I continue to pursue ways to improve health and performance. The personal health benefits of breath-based meditation are significant and were touched on in the last article. For further information on the impact that meditation can have on one's personal health, I strongly recommend Herbert Benson's books, The Relaxation Response, Beyond the Relaxation Response, Your Maximum Mind, Timeless Healing, and The Relaxation Revolution. Benson was a doctor at Harvard Medical School and spent over 40 years researching and teaching the importance of including a mind body approach to medicine.
During this series on mindset I have covered a range of topics including self-talk, negativity, imaging, and perception. The previously discussed areas are, of course, extremely impactful but after decades of studying ways to better performance, I have come to agree with those who believe a breath-based meditation practice should play a fundamental role in any training plan that seeks to help those hoping to consistently perform to their potential, particularly when anxious, under pressure or during times of elevated stress levels.
Those who do not know the power of rigorous and protracted meditation cannot judge of the self-conquests it makes possible. - Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
Emphasis has been placed on the breath during meditation and prayer for centuries and across a wide variety of cultures and disciplines. Nicephorus the Solitary instructs in the Philokalia (Christian monastic texts that date between the 4th and the 15th centuries), "And so, having collected your mind within you, lead it into the channel of breathing through which air reaches the heart and, together with this inhaled air, force your mind to descend into the heart and to remain there...when your mind becomes firmly established in the heart, it must not remain there silent and idle, but it should constantly repeat the prayer 'Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me!' and never cease." Abraham Abulafia, a thirteenth century mystic, taught a system of meditative practices that included syncing one's body and breath while repeating the Hebrew letters that formed the name of God. Omid Safi, a professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, wrote in a 2017 article in On Being, "This starts with a mindfulness, with an awareness of the breath. When we monitor our breath, simply observe the breath enter into the heart, and emerge from the heart, our breathing slows down. The heart rate slows down. Here is where we become whole: our body, our breath, our spirit becomes One."
If you want conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath. - Amit Ray
In Buddhism there is an entire Sutra (or discourse) on the Full Awareness of Breathing, also known as the Anapanasati Sutta, where the Buddha "shows us how to transform our fear, despair, anger and craving." (Thich Nhat Hanh, Breathe, You Are Alive!) There are sixteen exercises in the full discourse including: "Breathing in, I calm my whole body, Breathing out, I calm my whole body." (#4) and "Breathing in, I calm my mental formations. Breathing out, I calm my mental formations. (#8) This sutra contains the basic meditative instructions of the Buddha and is a fundamental plank of Buddhist teaching. Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967. In his commentary on the Anapanasati Sutta (Breath, You Are Alive!) he asserts, "We can begin to enter the present moment by becoming aware of our breath. Breathing in and breathing out, we know we are breathing in and breathing out, and we can smile to affirm that we are in control of ourselves...Full awareness of our Breathing helps our mind stop wandering in confused, never ending thoughts."
Regulate the breathing, and thereby control the mind. - B. K. S. Iyneger
Dr. Larry Widman in his excellent book, Max Out Mindset notes, "One of the great separators between average and elite performers is the ability to stay in the present moment...one definition of mindfulness is simply the ability to spend a prolonged period of time in the present moment." This lines up neatly with thoughts voiced by the Buddha thousands of years ago, "Don't get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don't get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment." I remember years ago hearing Mike Schall (currently Head Volleyball Coach at UNC-Chapel Hill) in the gym regularly inspiring players to stay present, to "keep your head where your feet are." As Thich Nhat Hanh said above, "We can begin to enter the present moment by becoming aware of our breath."
Staying present is often discussed and encouraged but doing so on a consistent basis can be extremely difficult. Performance and Movement Coach Jayne Storey writes in her essential book, Breathe Golf that psychologists "have estimated that the experience of being present ('Me, Here, Now') lasts approximately 12 seconds." She has since stated in numerous podcast interviews that the 12-second figure has now dropped to roughly 8 seconds. Adding to this conundrum is the fact that the physical and the psychological aspects of performance are typically addressed separately, often by different coaches or instructors. At times there may be some bleeding over from one area to the other but generally speaking, the two realms are distinct in how and when they are trained. This only adds to the difficulty of consistently connecting mind and body. Breath awareness is a tool that has been used for thousands of years in the East to get the head and the feet in the same place. That approach has been gaining traction in the West for the last several decades.
Breath remains the vehicle to unite body and mind and to open the gate to wisdom. - Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
Felicity Heathcote was the official psychologist to the Olympic Council of Ireland and worked with the Irish Olympic team at Barcelona in 1992. That was the first time a pyscholgist had been allowed to travel with the Irish team and not all were convinced that her ideas on Zen and its application to sport could be helpful. However, many of those who did work with Heathcote produced some of the best performances of their careers. Heathcote spent a number of years in Tokyo developing her program and her outstanding book Peak Performance: Zen and the Sporting Zone is one of the byproducts of that experience. There she states, "Breathing deeply and naturally in an unstrained way and learning to sit in stillness lead eventually to an ability to maintain a state of one-pointedness, a harmony between body and mind." Forging that harmony between body and mind is the way we remain in the present instead of having our monkey minds be miles away from our bodies while we ruminate on past struggles or future worries and outcomes.
Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as a means to take hold of your mind again. - Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness
In his "Inner Game" books, Tim Gallwey divides the mind into two parts: Self One is controlling, judgemental and self-conscious; Self Two is just the opposite: unconscious and non-judgemental. Self One features plenty of beta wave activity and is the part of the mind that needs to be quieted during performance so that Self Two can produce smooth, "effortless" movements that reflect increased alpha wave activity and appear to flow as a result. Jayne Storey describes the problem in Breathe Golf, "The more the mind tries to take control of and organize movements, the more tension arises in the body and the less fluid and accurate your motion." The key here is having a quiet mind that is free from any thought or judgement; a mind that is in a state of relaxed concentration where nothing is forced. That includes aspects of our mental game. A constant barrage of positive self-talk, technical thoughts and focus during performance will not produce the desired state of mind nor the hoped for results. That barrage will only create anxiety and tension, activate the stress response and prevent our heads from being where our feet are. Author and Performance Coach Trevor Moawad expressed in an interview with Olympic sprint champion, Michael Johnson that positive self-talk during competition can sometimes give the performer one more thing to fail at, one more thing to be distracted by, one more thing to be anxious about. Gallwey says that we can fall into a trap that finds us chasing positive feedback and as a result, we're back to letting Self One call the shots. Any time Self One gains control there is effectively a split in the mind-body connection and movement becomes stilted and tense. Once the pre-frontal cortex has been engaged, the signals being sent out to the motor-learning system are scrambled. As a result, movement ceases to be smooth and fluid. Storey presents the antidote in Breathe Golf, "By getting out of your own way, focusing on your breathing and quietening the mind, the brain-body connection can take charge of complex motion, your fast-twitch muscles fire in the right sequence and fluid motion emerges from a calmer, more collected internal state."
Breathing has evolved as a very important feature of the Relaxation Response, I believe, because it gives an anchor point within yourself to which you can attach your chosen word, sound, prayer, or phrase to break the train of everyday thinking. - Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response, in a 2019 interview with Brain World
Having an understanding of the correct way to breathe in order to produce the desired results is crucial. I regularly hear spectators and coaches instructing players to "Breathe!" However, I believe that further directives on the matter may be necessary. A shallow chest breath (typically through the mouth) will do nothing to calm our minds and bring head and feet together. In fact, that sort of shallow breathing will do the opposite...it will induce a stress response that features an increase in beta wave activity in the brain. That increase will see heightened tension, adrenaline and anxiety levels and set the monkey mind racing. Jim Loehr and Jeffrey Migdon explore these concerns in their informative book Breathe In, Breathe Out, "Research repeatedly reveals that mental calm and quiet are associated with best performance, physical and mental. A calm mind correlates with a low-range alpha brain-wave frequency. It has been shown that slow deep breathing can shift the person from hectic beta waves to calm, focused alpha waves."
When we practice zazen our mind always follows our breathing. - Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
The slow, deep breath through the nose and from the abdomen is what is taught and promoted by instructors of mindfulness regardless of their culture or discipline. In his landmark book, Zen Training Katsuki Sekida states, "Even those who have not practiced zazen (seated meditation) know that it is possible to control the mind by manipulating the breathing. Quiet breathing brings about a quiet state of mind. If, when you feel like shouting with rage, you keep your breath bated and make yourself quiet, you will find you can control your anger...In zazen, we breathe almost entirely by means of our abdominal muscles and diaphragm." In her ebook, The PRACTICE of High-Performance, Jayne Storey elaborates, "For most people...the breathing pattern tends to be fairly quick and short using only the top part of the lungs." Instead breathing should take place "from the lower abdomen, specifically the centre of gravity, known as the hara in yoga and Zazen or the t'an tien in the Chinese internal martial arts....the lower t'an tien or hara centre is considered as the 'second brain', the source of life, and the initiation point of movement." Felicity Heathcote describes it similarly in her book Peak Performance, "The seat of energy is the hara, the lower abdominal area (approximately two inches below the navel). Where the body feels strong and stable, in harmony with itself and free from distracting thoughts that intuitively one is ready for action. An important concept here is mushin - no mind, where thoughts come and go but no thoughts cling, like a mirror reflecting and letting go..."
The body performs better when the athlete lets it go than when he tries to drive it. - Bruce Lee, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Some, but certainly not all, sports pyschologists suggest that purposely accessing "the zone" is nearly impossible and should not be considered or even attempted. In her equally essential book Connected Golf, Jayne Storey explains how the zone or flow state can be allowed to occur instead of being blocked, "The meditative state, so akin to the sporting zone and flow, is encouraged by observing the breath. As the breathing deepens and slows down, analytical thinking, anxiety and nervous tension are reduced. In a performance situation, the applied meditative state helps movement to flow freely." The flow state can be accessed with the kind of training that improves one's breath awareness throughout the day. In a podcast interview, Storey comments that there is no way a samurai warrior was ever busy filling his mind with positive chatter and technical instructions before engaging in combat. Miyamoto Musashi, one of history's greatest samurai warrriors, writes in his enormously influential The Book of Five Rings, "Regarding the setting of the mind: without weakening, becoming entangled, trying to figure things out, or fearing, make the heart full of intent and the mind broad and like water. According to the situation, the mind (like water) is one that adapts to things. Water has a deep blue color. There are single drops. There are vast oceans. This should be investigated deeply."As a sidenote, I'll add that it is impossible to get into a flow state while receiving constant technical feedback and instruction just before and during a performance. That kind of instruction is generally best left for the practice field and should be limited during competition. Even during training or practice the athlete should be given plenty of time and space to learn and work things out on their own. This also should be investigated deeply.
The key to emotional control is breath control. - Jim Loehr and Jeffrey Migdow, Breathe in Breathe Out
Mark Divine, a former Navy SEAL Commander and current author, podcaster and entrepreneur, has studied Zen meditation and Eastern philosophy for decades. In his book, The Way of the SEAL, he discusses how impactful a regular breathing practice can be, "Before you can take control of your mind, you must first calm it down.The fastest way to calm your mind, along with your body, is through slow and controlled deep breathing...This settling practice helps reduce mental chatter, prevents your mind from wandering, and is generally a great boost to your self-control efforts. It will also rebalance your nervous system and reduce harmful physiological effects associated with fear and stress." Divine teaches these breathing techniques in his SEALFIT program and a number of other military training programs around the world have instituted similar methods. Such breath awareness programs give war fighters tools to maintain or regain their composure under the most stressful conditions and they do the same for those who may not have to perform under quite the same sort of pressures. However, those pressures are real enough and can be tremendously debilitating despite the fact that literal bullets are not flying.
Rickson Gracie
Sometimes when I make my routines, I get in a very special stage of meditation, and this is beautiful because I'm able to exercise and totally clean my mind and keep myself in the present moment. - Rickson Gracie
In their book, Breathe In, Breathe Out, Jim Loehr and Jeffrey Migdow relate a number of examples and case histories of people using breath work and meditation to improve health and aid in performance across an extremely broad spectrum of occupations and pursuits. Dr. Migdow used some of the different breathing methods mentioned in their book to help him successfully handle the pressures of medical school. One of the case histories cited involves Dr. Ronald Dushkin who has conducted numerous "stress management and wellness" seminars and works with business executives on how to regulate their breathing. He gives his own ideas on breath work, "I find that deep Abdominal Breathing is helpful in a number of ways. It is an effective, a very effective, stress management technique. It is just about impossible to feel stressed when doing Abdominal Breathing correctly...Directed breathing helps us to focus on what's happening in the moment, not before or later."
Breath control is the ultimate weapon. It is the simplest, cheapest, most accessible handle there is for mastering emotional control, for recharging the Ideal Performance State in response to problems, for staying in control, for becoming a peak performer. - Jim Loehr and Jeffrey Migdow, Breathe In, Breathe Out
Jayne Storey has practiced Tai chi for over 30 years and has taken principles from that discipline to create a system that effectively allows her clients to intentionally keep mind and body connected on a more frequent basis while engaging in a variety of sports. She has developed a groundbreaking Performance Practice that strengthens the mind-body connection and features two pillars: breath-based meditation and movement training derived from Tai chi principles. For our purposes, we will limit our discussion to the first pillar. She writes in Breathe Golf, "Again it's about effort, but the effort to pay attention to what's most important of all, your breathing, which has myriad benefits such as relaxing your muscles, lowering your heart rate, quietening your mind, and calming the anxiety that goes with performing under pressure." The key is to routinely practice breath awareness. Storey declares in The PRACTICE of High-Performance, "...thinking about your breathing in a pressure situation is no help at all and only adds to the clutter in the mind. But, when you develop a regular breathing practice, for instance by sitting each day in a short meditation, when you're in a tournament, and feeling anxious you have more ability to slow and deepen the breathing such that it calms down the worry-brain and allows movement to flow."
It is impossible to breathe deeply and slowly and have an agitated mind; it is impossible to breathe deeply and slowly and have a mind overcrowded with swing thoughts; it is impossible to breathe slowly and deeply and feel irritated or angry or have your nerves get the better of you on a decisive shot. - Jayne Storey, Breathe Golf
The time spent meditating has clear benefits but the increased awareness of the breath throughout the day can also pay significant dividends especially when dealing with or performing under pressure. Using slow deep nasal breaths during times of stress is how the mind and body are reunited, so to speak. This mind-body connection is where we access the flow state; it is where we find the effortless shot or swing. Calming the mind so that it can remain where the feet are allows that mind-body connection to occur. Storey writes again in Breathe Golf, "Finding time each day to practice paying attention to your breathing is the only way to become conscious of this automatic process - and it's only by making it conscious that you can use it to harness your game." In earlier articles in this series we mentioned Trevor Moawad's excellent book It Takes What It Takes and his ideas about the importance of staying neutral. Getting to neutral is a concept long taught in the East and Storey expresses in Breathe Golf how important breath awareness is during the process, "Being neutral requires that you stay with your breath so that this simple one-pointed awareness is stronger than your thoughts and stronger than your emotions. Only then can you attain neutrality, be in the present moment and let your physical movements flow." That includes not allowing musings concerning outcomes to be a distraction during play. These sorts of thoughts inevitably snap the mind-body connection and heighten tension and anxiety. Felicity Heathcote affirms in Peak Performance, "Untiring dedication to training, quieting of the mind and the letting go of any interest in gain or loss - all these help to lead to perfection of action." Loehr and Migdow espouse similar views in Breathe in, Breathe Out, "When the anxiety of trying to succeed is released, success, calm, and focus come of their own accord."
Mindful breathing is a kind of bridge that brings the body and mind together. If through mindfulness of the breath you generate harmony, depth, and calm, these will penetrate into your body and mind. In fact, whatever happens in the mind affects the body, and vice versa. - Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here
Being present is the only way to truly experience each moment of our lives. We are better parents and spouses when we are fully with our family members at dinner. We are better friends when we are entirely there in a conversation over coffee. We are better at whatever we do when we are present; when our mind and body are in the same place. In The Miracle of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh uses a simple, every day activity like washing dishes to make the point, "If while washing the dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not 'washing the dishes to wash the dishes.' What's more we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact, we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future - and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life."
I once heard Jayne Storey say in an interview, that she comes back to her breath up to 100 times day. Getting lost in thinking about our breath just for the sake of thinking about our breath is not the point. She posits that using breath awareness will aid us in controlling our thoughts and emotions and help us stay present on a more consistent basis. Pausing to take a couple of slow, deep abdominal breaths is the way to regain control of ourselves, mentally and physically. It doesn't matter if you are waiting in a long line at the post office or teeing it up on the 18th hole on the last day of The Masters. Breath awareness is the way to be present and keep our thoughts and emotions in check. Storey declares in Breathe Golf, "The most important thing - again - that you can do for your golf game and indeed your life, is to focus your attention on your breathing, first and foremost as a daily practice and then as often as you can remember throughout the day. By doing so you can reduce mental interference, gain access to the zone or flow state, control your biochemistry (nerves and anxiety), activate the mind-body connection to help deliver fluid, powerful, effortless and precise golf shots and moreover, you can maintain this exceptional level of performance under pressure."
The way to maintain your presence in the here and now is through mindfulness of breath. - Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here
Recommended Reading on Breathing, Zen, the Zone and Performance:
Breathe Golf by Jayne Storey
Connected Golf by Jayne Storey
The PRACTICE of High-Performance by Jayne Storey (eBook)
Peak Performance: Zen and the Sporting Zone by Felicity Heathcote
The Tao of the Jump Shot by John F. Mahoney
Zen Golf by Joseph Parent
The Competitve Buddha by Jerry Lynch
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
Moving Zen by C. W. Nicol
Playing in the Zone by Andrew Cooper
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
Breathe by Rickson Gracie
Recommended Reading on Zen and Buddhism:
You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
Breathe, You Are Alive! by Thich Nhat Hanh
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
Zen Training by Katsuki Sekida
Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg
The Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo
Recommended Reading on the Benefits of Nasal Breathing:
Breath by James Nestor
Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life by George Catlin
The Breathing Cure by Patrick McKeown
