Movement & Breath
Combining body work & breath work to shift our nervous system state
What inspires you?
Take a minute.
Make a list in your mind or in your notes app.
While you make your list, check out this tune:
Alright, time’s up! I don’t know about you, but my list is quite long & at the end of it I realized all these words themselves are inspiring. Truly, words are wonderful. Particularly when we break them down and learn more about each individual part that makes a word and their origins. There is actually a term for studying the origin of words- it’s etymology.
Do you know the etymology of inspire? A mentor teacher of mine once shared with me the etymology of the word inspiration & it has stayed in the back of mind ever since I learned it. They said that inspiration comes from the Latin stem of inspirare. And, when that stem word is broken down it means:
in-: meaning ‘in’
spirare: meaning ‘to breathe’
Thus we can literally translate inspiration as ‘to breathe into’. As this word made it’s way through history, it further evolved to mean ‘infusing influence’ particularly from the divine and ‘to impart life & reason to the human soul’. But it’s beginning was literally the action of taking inhalation.1
So, I ask you now: what inspires you?
What would you want to literally inhale to give life to your soul?
What you allow to breathe into you effects you & thus it effects your voice, too. Today we will look at how to use breath to shift your nervous system state that will support you to use your voice more confidently. Additionally, we will explore how movement is a vital companion to this process in order to get out of our heads & into our bodies.
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Voice science- Breath & the nervous system
Why is breathing so important to singing? The life force behind sound is breath. Your breath is the first ingredient in creating sound and it is something our bodies know how to do. Yet, I cannot tell you how many times I was told by my voice teachers that my breathing was a problem. Either, I wasn’t taking in enough air or I didn’t know how to use the breath once I had it. My breathing was shallow, my breath was too rigid, my breath wasn’t supportive, etc. I would say 70 percent of my training told me that I didn’t know how to breathe. Yet, I was alive. Walking the earth, thinking thoughts, & sharing my voice. So actually, I did know how to breathe, but that wasn’t the story I told myself. As a result, breathing was all I could think about when I went to sing. Those thoughts kept me frozen & not free in my singing. It kept me in analysis paralysis mentally & physically rigid.
When I went on to teach students about singing, I decided that the breathing problem needed to be solved for everyone. All they needed were the right tools early on in their training & they wouldn’t get stuck like I did. This hypothesis was true & false. Yes, the sooner I introduced students to breath work, they found it easier to sing longer phrases & keep their sound consistent. However, some students used the breathing techniques as a way to stay in analysis mode & not let their authentic voices loose.
If you know better, you need to do better. Thus when I learned that breathing is the key influence on the state of our nervous system, I changed how I taught it. I began to think of breath as the fuel for a serene mind & sustainable sound. I put down the story of breathing being a problem & picked up the belief that breath was already present in every student I met & it’s my job to teach them how to nurture that valuable resource.
How do the nervous system & breath relate to each other scientifically? Through Western science we know that our nervous system has two subsystems: the central nervous system [CNS] & the autonomic nervous system [ANS]. Both of these are broken down further into more subsystems, but today we will only focus on two of the three ANS subsystems: the sympathetic nervous system [SNS] & the parasympathetic nervous system [PNS]. SNS & PNS provide opposite functions. SNS’s job is to usher us into our fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response & PNS’s job is to initiate our rest & digest response.2
Rest & digest is the preferred state to sing & vocalize from, however what initiates the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response is stress. When I was thinking of breathing a problem, I was in a constant state of too much stress. This initiated my SNS system leading to overwhelm. In order to turn off SNS & initiate PNS, I didn’t need a bunch of different breathing techniques & further analytical breakdowns on how to fix my breathing. All I needed was slow & even breathing to trigger calm & relaxed thinking that would lead me to the rest & digest state.
How do we use breath to shift our nervous system? One proven breath work strategy that will turn on PNS or the rest & digest state is the ocean breath or ujjayi breathing. In a 2001 study by Professor Luciano Bernardi at the Italian University of Pavia, it was discovered that if we can slow down our breathing to be 10 seconds long accounting for six breaths in a minute, we will deactivate SNS to turn on PNS.3 We can effectively use the ujjayi or ocean breath to achieve this timeframe, however the quality of the ujjayi breath also matters.
Ujjayi breathing can be vigorous or soft. For our purposes, we will aim for a soft & serene ujjayi breath that is even & slow. To achieve this, imagine you are fogging up a window by making a soft ‘haaah’ sound on an exhale & an inhale. Once this feels easeful, try making the sound with your mouth closed.4 With your soft ujjayi breath cultivated, now begin to add a count:
Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4
Pause 1
Exhale 4, 3, 2, 1
Pause 1
This is a ten second breath, just as Professor Bernardi described. Repeat this for at least five more rounds to achieve the shift of nervous system state. You may need more than six full rounds to shift your state, that is okay. However, six rounds of 10 second ujjayi breaths is the minimum from which to start your practice. If activating the rest & digest state isn’t enough of a benefit, this type of breath over the given period of time is also found to improve blood pressure, improve the function of the heart & lungs, & reduce stress.5 All wins in my book!
Spiritual study- Vinyasa & the nervous system
What is vinyasa? Vinyasa simply put is moving with breath. If you have attended a yoga class, you may have seen the word vinyasa in title or class description. In a vinyasa yoga class context, this can look like quickly flowing postures from one to the next without pause to create an unending sequence of movement in motion. But, if we look at the definition of moving with breath, you could also be doing vinyasa if you are mindfully breathing while you are walking or doing the simplest of movements slowly with presence. Vinyasa does not have to fast flowing & complicated, it just has to be the intentional connection of breath with movement creating steady & continuous streams of motion.
How can a yoga practice support the nervous system? In a 2010 report from the Boston University Medical Center, they shared that GABA levels and one’s overall mood are positively supported by the practice of yoga.6 GABA is a common neurotransmitter in our central nervous system & it helps to decrease brain activity. Like PNS it lowers our fight, flight, freeze, & fawn response thus helping to shift us towards the rest & digest state. When done with intention, this study suggests that a yoga practice can support the increase of GABA levels which is needed to move us towards rest & digest.
Does the vinyasa style of movement support the nervous system? I have not found a specific scientific study to support this claim. However, if we look at what was shared in this article so far:
A 10 second breath for at least six cycles can turn on PNS.
An intentional yoga practice will increase GABA levels.
Both of which shift our state from fight, flight, freeze, & fawn to rest & digest, I think we can come to the conclusion that yes, the vinyasa style which is moving with breath will support our nervous systems positively.
Scientific & spiritual middle path- Movement & breath
How can breathing & moving support our voices? It’s true, today’s practice has no vocalizing component! Yet, breath is the life force of sound. And, movement paired with breath can shift us towards the rest & digest state an ideal place to initiate singing from. Today’s practices are all about laying a foundation that is supportive to our voices in the long run. Think of this as whole body conditioning, not just targeted muscular activity.
Movement & breath guided practice
After all that reading & thinking, it’s time to start doing & embodying the practices. Start by trying out this practice once a day & observe how you feel before & after the practice. You could track your responses for a week in a journal or in the notes app. Ask yourself:
Do I feel a shift physically or do I feel the same as before the practice?
Do I feel a shift mentally or do I feel the same as before the practice?
Do I feel a shift energetically or do I feel the same as before the practice?
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Want to take a deeper dive into today’s concepts? Check out these other articles:
say, dance, play your way into singing
Welcome to The Resonant Voice! I am thrilled you have arrived here & if you are not subscribed, I would love to help you with that:
discomfort > comfort
Welcome to The Resonant Voice! I am thrilled you have arrived here & if you are not subscribed, I would love to help you with that:
Clark, Bernie. The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga- Philosophy & Practice. (United States, Wild Strawberry Production: 2019)
Clark, Bernie. The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga- Philosophy & Practice. (United States, Wild Strawberry Production: 2019)
Clark, Bernie. The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga- Philosophy & Practice. (United States, Wild Strawberry Production: 2019)
Clark, Bernie. The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga- Philosophy & Practice. (United States, Wild Strawberry Production: 2019)
Clark, Bernie. The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga- Philosophy & Practice. (United States, Wild Strawberry Production: 2019)