The average person breathes approximately 20,000 times per day.  This means that in one 24-hour period roughly one hundred square meters of our lung surface is exposed to approximately 8000 litres of air, and 17.5 litres of blood passing through our lungs carries the oxygen from that air to every cell in our bodies. That oxygen allows our cells to produce the energy they need to survive, maintain health, deal with the stresses of daily living, and regenerate themselves when they reach the end of the lifespan.  But what is equally important and not so well known is that, on the return journey from the cells, our blood carries seventy per cent of the body’s waste products for elimination through the lungs.  If for no other reason then to remove the toxins from our system, it pays to breathe effectively.  Yet the vast majority of people do not breathe as fully or as efficiently as they could for maximum physical well-being.  It is no wonder then that the vast array of other benefits- mental, emotional and spiritual – to be derived from the management of the breathing process have been largely ignored, at least in the West.

Catherine Dowling