Body By Breath

In the hierarchy of life, breath always wins. It persists 22,000 times daily, but you get to decide whether the way you breathe is to your benefit or detriment. Breath becomes compromised by stress, disease, and the environmental trappings of progress; you can still breathe under this pressure, but it leads to poor breathing habits that slowly whittle away at your health. In Body by Breath, bestselling author Jill Miller takes you on a journey through your breathing body and presents more than 100 step-by-step techniques and practices to help you master the body-breath connection and reset your physiology. This book explores four primary types of resilience-building exercises—breathwork, movement, rolling, and non-sleep deep rest—to help you achieve • Greater power, endurance, and recovery ability • Enhanced self-regulation skills • Supercharged executive function • Relief from pain, injuries, and chronic conditions • Freedom to feel, connect, and express stored emotions Jill shares her scientifically supported methods so you can Train and modulate your body and nervous system for reduced stress, improved mobility, and whole-body resilience Discover the latest findings in breath and fascia research and get the most out of breathwork practice by including more of your body’s parts in the mix Map the vast reach of the diaphragm and feel how it intermingles with everything in your body. You’ll travel the pathways of the vagus nerve and trace miles of fascial intersections beneath your skin to unlock your body’s regenerative reservoir. If you have struggled with traditional meditation practices because remaining still spikes your anxiety and leaves you feeling agitated and fidgety, Body by Breath presents innovative alternatives designed for your unique nervous system. This inclusive approach allows you to reap the benefits of relaxation, restoration, and regeneration. Take these practices into your life and renew the way you embody breath.

In the hierarchy of life, breath always wins. It will persist 24,000 times daily, but you get to decide whether the way you breathe is to your benefit or detriment. Your breath is compromised by stress, disease, air pollution, global instability, and the environmental trappings of progress that can immobilize your body. While you can still breathe under this pressure, poor breathing habits slowly whittle away at your health. In Body by Breath, bestselling author Jill Miller takes you beyond technical movement by guiding you to an internal reservoir that builds awareness, self-knowledge, and empathy. She shares her scientifically supported methods to train and modulate your nervous system for reduced stress, improved mobility, and whole-body resilience. Jill reveals the latest findings in breath and fascia research and outlines how to get more out of breathwork practice by including more of your body’s parts in the mix. She maps the vast reach of the diaphragm and helps you feel how it intermingles with everything in your body. You’ll travel the pathways of the vagus nerve and trace miles of fascial intersections beneath your skin. Explore an inner treasure chest of tools and practices to activate a cascade of positive effects: • Greater power, endurance, and recuperative ability • Enhanced emotional self-regulation skills • Increased tolerance for the daily grind and supercharged executive function • Relief from pain, injuries, and chronic conditions • Freedom to feel, connect, and express stored emotions Body by Breath features a full step-by-step guide, including more than 100 techniques with full-color photos and sample practices that maximize your relaxation response to help you recover from the rigors of life and sport. Real-life success stories from survivors of adversity will inspire you to take these practices into your life and renew the way you embody breath.

Explores the Buddha’s own words on breathing meditation for healing, wholeness, and a deeper understanding of his teachings • Explains the complete series of steps in the Buddha’s Satipatthana Sutta for refining awareness of the breath, from posture and center of gravity to extending breath awareness beyond the nostrils, lungs, and abdomen to the entire body • Shows that stillness in meditation refers only to the mind, not to the body • Reveals breath to be a direct agent of healing for chronic tensions and an agitated mind Explaining how stillness in meditation refers not to a rigid and frozen body but to a quality of mind, Will Johnson examines the Buddha’s own words at the core of the Satipatthana Sutta: “As you breathe in, breathe in through the whole body; as you breathe out, breathe out through the whole body”--an instruction often overlooked in the majority of Buddhist schools. Exploring the Buddha’s complete series of steps for deepening awareness of the breath, he shows how to invite natural, responsive movement back into the posture of meditation by extending breath awareness beyond the nostrils, lungs, and abdomen to the entire body--a practice that unifies the breath, body, and mind into a single shared phenomenon. Showing how the flow of breath is directly affected by chronic tensions in the body and in the mind, Johnson explains that when breath starts flowing through more and more of the body, it becomes a direct agent of healing, massaging and melting any areas of tension it touches and moves through, whether physical or emotional. By breathing through the whole body in accordance with the Buddha’s instructions on breath, the body becomes much more comfortable, the mind starts resolving its addiction to thinking, and meditative practice deepens much more rapidly, allowing the teachings of the Buddha to be directly glimpsed and revealed.

A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

The forces that develop the self—somatic, emotional, mental, interpersonal, social, and spiritual—must all be considered by therapists in treating any patient. Each article in this important anthology deals in some way with these various elements. The writing is focused on the body-mind connection, exploring the practices and theories of this popular branch of psychology. Topics include the significance of family systems; dealing with trauma and shock in therapy; and the importance of breathing, offering valuable insights for the student and practitioner alike. Contributors include Marianne Bentzen, a trainer in Somatic Developmental Psychology; Peter Bernhardt, a professor of psychology; and Peter A. Levine, author of Waking the Tiger.

Use the power of breath to energize your body and focus your mind New science now confirms what traditional practitioners have known for centuries - that breathing mindfully can be key to achieving spiritual, emotional, and physical wellbeing. Breathwork offers 50 simple, step-by-step breath practices and visualizations you can do at home to balance body and mind, access inner wisdom, overcome anxiety, anger or insomnia, alleviate pain and depression, nurture self-esteem and more. Internationally renowned author and teacher Nathalia Westmacott-Brown draws a range of simple, safe, and transformational routines from a wide variety of traditions and modalities, including conscious connected breathing, pranayama, holographic breathwork, and qigong. Follow her guidance on the benefits of each exercise, how to position your body, the speed and depth of breaths, how long to spend, and how often to practise. With Breathwork, you will discover how breathing with purpose and control can help you to heal - and become the healthiest and happiest you can be.

Pain is an epidemic. It prevents you from performing at your best because it robs you of concentration, power, and peace of mind. But most pain is preventable and treatable, and healing is within your grasp. Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe have taken life “by the balls” and circumvented a dismal future of painkillers, surgeries, and hopelessness by using Jill Miller’s groundbreaking Roll Model Method. The Roll Model gives you the tools to change the course of your life in less than 5 minutes a day. You are a fully equipped self-healing organism, and this book will guide you through easy-to-perform self-massage techniques that will erase pain and improve your performance in whatever activities you pursue. The Roll Model teaches you how to improve the quality of your life no matter your size, shape, or condition. Within these pages you will find: • Inspiring stories of people just like you who have altered the course of their lives by using the Roll Model Method • Accessible explanations of how and why this system works based on the science of your body and the physiological effects of rolling • Step-by-step rolling techniques to help awaken your body’s resilience from head to toe so that you have more energy, less stress, and greater performance Whether you’re living with constant discomfort, seeking to improve your mobility, or trying to avoid medication and surgery, this book provides empowering and effective solutions for becoming your own best Roll Model.

A drug-free, side effect-free solution to common stress and mood problems—developed by two physicians The audio exercises included with this book can be accessed online at www.shambhala.com/healingpowerofthebreath. Access instructions are also provided within the book. Millions of Americans suffer from mood problems and stress-related issues like anxiety, depression, insomnia, and PTSD. Far too many of them are taking medications that have troublesome side effects, withdrawal symptoms, and disappointing success rates. In The Healing Power of the Breath, Dr. Richard P. Brown and Dr. Patricia L. Gerbarg provide a different way to treat stress: breathing. Drawn from yoga, Buddhist meditation, the Chinese practice of qigong, and other sources, their science-backed methods activate communication pathways between the mind and body to positively impact the brain and calm the stress response. Their anecdotes and easy-to-follow exercises will show you how to apply breathing techniques to help relieve: · Anxiety and depression · Trauma-related emotions and behaviors · Post-traumatic stress disorder · Insomnia · Addiction-related behaviors Complete with an audio download, this book gives you the coping tools you need to lead a calmer, more stress-free life.