It will improve your life. It will change your life. It will lengthen your life. What am I talking about? Something very simple and basic. It is the first thing you did in life and it will be the last thing you do in life.
What I am talking about is breathing – specifically, breathing with the support of your diaphragm. Chances are pretty good that, if you are like the majority of the world’s population (99%), you are not breathing the right way.
Dogs do it the right way; cats do it the right way; cows do it the right way; and, horses do it the right way. In fact all mammals on earth do it the right way except for the most intelligent of the mammals –humans. We are born breathing correctly but sometime during our childhood development, we stop the practice of supported breathing and revert to shallow or upper chest breathing.
Shallow or lazy breathing is not as healthy as diaphragmatic breathing because it does not allow for the elimination of the toxins in your blood. This results in an increase in stress. It never ceases to amaze me how few articles on stress reduction mention breathing as the best thing you can do to reduce and, in many cases, alleviate stress.
The past few months have been incredibly stressful for me and yet I survived these hurtles because of something as simple as a supported breath. You will find that it is relaxing and gives you an inner peace. (I often fall asleep while having my teeth cleaned because of the breathing!)
It also is something you will have to learn to do if you want to discover your real voice because your richer, warmer, more resonant sound is dependent on that deep, supported breath.
Many people fail to achieve their New Year’s resolution. The good news about learning how to breathe with support is that once you make it a habit, it is there for life!
Wishing a wonderful, breathful Happy New Year!
If you would like to learn how to breathe correctly and discover your richer, warmer, more-mature-sounding speaking voice in the process, check out my voice training DVDs.