Good Breath, Bad Breath

Sorry to throw you off track with the title! No, I am not talking about breath odour here.

My story today is sparked off by the sad demise of Adwaitya (the only one) a few days back. Adwaitya was a tortoise in a zoo in Calcutta, and the oldest member of the zoo, who is believed to have been anywhere between 150-250 years when he died. He's been witness to major part of the history of modern India! It is believed that this Aldabra tortoise was a pet of General Robert Clive of the East India Company sometime in the 18th century. I share the sadness too because I have met this grand old tortoise when I visited this zoo almost 10 years back! [Link]

So, what about my breath? Everything!
So how can an animal survive for so long? If you have been noticing around you, you'd see that animals with a slow breath rate such as pythons, elephants, and tortoises have long life spans. Whereas, those with a fast breathing rate- such as birds, dogs, and rabbits, live for only a few years. There are some insects that live only for 3 days! Man! Some people know how to burn themselves out fast!

Yogabound.com [Link], explains this for us-

... they realized the importance of slow breathing for increasing the human lifespan. Those who breathe in short, quick gasps are likely to have a shorter life span than those who breathe slowly, and deeply.

Rhythmic, deep, and slow respiration sublimates, and is stimulated by calm, content, states of mind. Irregular breathing disrupts the rhythms of the brain, and leads to physical, emotional, and mental blocks. These in turn, lead to inner conflicts, imbalances, personality disorders, destructive lifestyles, and disease. Pranayama establishes regular breathing patterns, breaking this negative cycle, and reversing the process.

So, you'd notice that it is important to know what a good breath cycle is. How to breathe and why? One expert quotes from the vedic scriptures to point out that a human life cycle is not counted by the years we live, but by the number of breaths we take. [Link]

It is said that a healthy human life is comprised of 946,080,000 breaths, the equivalency of 120 years. Through concentration on controlling the breath rate and prescribed nasal breathing, one can live to their full potential.

Physical and emotional imbalances can be corrected by consciously altering the breathing pattern of the nostrils, by purposely closing off one nostril and breathing through the other. In yoga, alternate nostril breathing is a common technique for centering and finding inner peace.

Further information:
Art of Living Foundation [Link]
Pranayama Institute [Link]
The Wikipedia explanation [Link]

And, while you are it digging deeper- try some mathematics to calculate how you are doing ... [Link]