The Most Important Law of Health Health in general rests on a few fundamental principles, laws if you will. One of those laws is to breathe clean, fresh air. We know that if we're breathing in carbon dioxide, that's poison. If we're breathing in polluted air, we can poison ourselves from the inside out.

So it's really important for us to breathe good air. Clean air. Good oxygen. And it's important for us to learn how to use our lungs and lung capacity.

I've talked about this quite a few times in recent sessions, but the average person by the time they've reached 50 has lost a significant percentage of lung capacity. It's actually 40%. By the time the average person turns 70, they've lost around 60% of lung capacity.

Think about how vital lungs are. It hit me just last week, how vital breathing and breathwork actually is to the sustaining of life. There are studies that tell us we can go three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. That's the general average lifespan of a person. Three minutes, three days, three weeks.

Nothing—and I mean nothing—trumps oxygen. Nothing trumps air and breathing. The activity of breathing is so fundamental to life that it's a necessity. Deep sea divers must breathe. Even the people who can hold their breath the longest still need and require breath. We all do.

Breathing Is Automatic, But We Forget The truth is that we don't have to think about breathing. It's unconscious. It's like growing hair or growing fingernails. It's like our cells replicating themselves. It happens automatically below the level of conscious thought.

But here's the thing. Have you ever forgotten to breathe? I remember a mother whose child came over in such distress that the mother listened for a moment and then said, "Breathe. You need to breathe." The child's face was red, crying, all their energy and effort was in this dramatic scene. And they forgot to breathe.

When we're in distress, when we're dealing with something, when we're uptight, we can actually forget to breathe. Not that we're forgetting to do it entirely, it's just that our attention is so focused elsewhere that breathing becomes optional. But the trouble is, it's not optional. It's three minutes.

I've seen women in labour hold their breath. They go into a high level of distress, and they forget to breathe. I've seen people who are afraid seize up and stop breathing altogether.

So I want to get this idea through to you: breathing is fundamentally important. Yet in times of stress, when we're distracted, when we're heavily focused on something, when we're shocked, when we're dealing with extreme emotions, one of the first things that can go is the regularity of our breathing.

The Power of Belly Breathing Now, as I breathe in, you'll notice something. My shoulders aren't moving. Some people, when they first start doing breathwork, breathe in and their shoulders come up to their ears. That's incorrect. Every time your shoulders move, you're shortening your diaphragm. Your lungs can't expand the way they need to.

My encouragement is to do belly breathing. Breathe in and push the stomach out. Keep the shoulders in place. Practice diaphragmatic breathing. Just think of it as belly breathing. The belly goes out the way a baby breathes. When you see a newborn sleeping, the shoulders and arms don't move. The belly does.The Power of Belly Breathing Now, as I breathe in, you'll notice something. My shoulders aren't moving. Some people, when they first start doing breathwork, breathe in and their shoulders come up to their ears. That's incorrect. Every time your shoulders move, you're shortening your diaphragm. Your lungs can't expand the way they need to.

My encouragement is to do belly breathing.