Breathing isn’t a learned skill. For the most part, your subconscious mind takes care of your breathing while you tend to more pressing matters. Yet, despite its automatic nature, you can consciously control your breathing- when you breath, how fast you breathe and what you breathe (to a point).
The primary purpose of breathing is to get oxygen to the cells. Cells need oxygen in order to function. They take oxygen to use in their functioning and as they function, they produce carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a waste product, that must be eliminated, so that the cells can fill with oxygen. The purpose of breathing is to bring in new oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Your blood cells can carry the largest amount of oxygen when your internal environment is slightly alkaline. Therefore, it is important to dispose of carbon dioxide as quickly as possible.
What choices do you have in the breathing category? The most obvious is the smoking choice! This is an easy one- DON’T SMOKE! Smoking dumps potentially lethal toxins into the body, which go directly to the blood stream without being processed through physiological protective mechanisms.
Choices of the type of environmental air you breathe are not so clear-cut. However, you do have some choices. You have some say in where you live and where you work. The decision to accept a job in a chemically-intense environment is a conscious choice. The decision to smoke or not to smoke cigarettes, as well as to live in an area of heavy air pollution or not, is a conscious choice. Your decisions are a matter of priorities.
Respiratory toxicity, whether it is from smoking or environmental pollution. Imposes severe stress on the body. That stress can cause an exacerbation, weakening or exhaustion of vulnerable organs and systems which are trying to cope with other stresses. This additional stress on your systems can push the body to the point of disease. If you suffer with severe respiratory allergies or other respiratory diseases, quality of life can be synonymous with quality of air.
The trick is to keep a healthful balance in the choices you make. When you make mostly correct choices, there is room for slippage on occasion. When you habitually make choices that allow your body to be in the best shape possible, your body can handle the occasional “incorrect choice”, your body is fighting an uphill battle at all times and there is little margin for error.
Your best bet for health is balance! Balance of the run-and- rest processes of your organ systems, as well as balance in the alkaline-acid internal environment of your body. Balances in your choices of the air you breathe and the food you eat. Give your body the best internal environment possible for it to do what it does best- function perfectly for survival!