We inhale and exhale about 20,000 times a day. Each time, we set a remarkably complex chain of events in motion. A slew of muscles you don’t even know you have activate to expand your lungs. Oxygen passes from your lungs to your blood to your heart to be ferried throughout your body. That life-giving oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide, a toxic waste product, which is expelled as you exhale. Over and over. Breathing in life-giving oxygen. Breathing out toxic carbon dioxide.
Despite its essential role in our survival, despite the magic, the science and the complexity, inhaling and exhaling go largely unnoticed. Unobserved. Ignored.
This month, let’s not ignore the power and the metaphor of our breath.
Inhaling draws life-giving oxygen into our bodies and gives us the chance to inhale the scent of spring flowers or an apple pie or a toddler’s freshly-washed hair.
Exhaling expels the carbon dioxide that does our bodies no good and gives us the chance to exhale the tension of the day, worry for the future, fear of the unknown and stress of it all.
So as we head into May -- as we begin to emerge, slowly and thoughtfully from our quarantine cocoons -- it is the perfect month to remember to breathe deeply and thoughtfully and exhale with intention and release.
Welcome to Inhale • Exhale May