Tai Chi and The Frog, A Scary Story
OK, so this isn’t all that scary but it is an interesting similarity between humans and frogs… and it could mean the difference between life and death. Yes, you heard me right… between life and death, and I’m not kidding. Are you acting like a frog? Keep reading and find out.
Ever do the boiling frog experiment in biology class? That’s the experiment where you put a frog in a pot of water and then put the pot over a low flame. If you’ve never heard of this one the frog will sit there until it dies, as long as the heat is increased very gradually.
Now we didn’t actually kill the frog, we measured the water temperature until we knew the frog would be uncomfortable, then we hit the pot so the frog would jump out. If we hadn’t hit the pot the fog would have just continued to sit there, slowing heating up until it cooked to death.
It’s a strange thing but when conditions change very slowly people are just like frogs. The only thing the frog has to do to stay alive is jump out of the pot, and often the only thing we have to do to live a longer and better quality life is to make one simple change.
Doctors tell us we loose lung capacity as we age. In other words our lungs effectively get smaller so we have to breathe harder just to get enough oxygen. This doesn’t sound like a very big deal, but if you exert yourself and, you have very low lung capacity you can wind up in the hospital, or worse.
When your body doesn’t get the oxygen it needs it starts to shut down non-essential bodily functions. When this first begins you probably don’t notice a thing. Your body is probably only partly limiting some functions to begin with because it doesn’t need to shut them down all together.
Maybe you’ve notice you become short of breath a little sooner that you used to. You’ve probably thought, “Well I’m not as active as I used to be so of course I’m a little out of breath.” There’s some truth to that, but your less active lifestyle is only a part of the story.
You see if you’re breathing incorrectly, your lung capacity is declining so slowly that by the time you notice it, it may be too late… and the change to stop or decrease this loss of lung capacity is such a little change. All you need to do is breathe like a child again. See they were right when “they” said it’s good to remain child-like though-out life.
If you’ve ever watched babies breathe you’ve probably noticed they breathe with their stomachs rather than with their chests, as adults do. Interestingly enough, they’re not the least bit concerned that their stomachs are sticking out as they breathe. Maybe being self-conscious about our stomachs is one of the reasons we switch to breathing with our chests as we become teenagers. I’m not sure why we do, but we do.
If you could slowly condition yourself to begin breathing with your stomach you’ll slow down, stop, or even reverse your own gradual loss of lung capacity. That’s all you really have to do.
In tai chi you’re taught to breathe with your stomach as you move, in fact as you progress you’ll naturally begin to breathe with your stomach rather than with your chest. I don’t know why but it’s an automatic change. I believe this is at least one of the reasons medical studies have shown that tai chi practice has a significant impact on lung capacity… as well as, I’m sure, the trend toward bigger bellies. Yea I did just make that last one up; I couldn’t resist.
Doctors claim we all loose the ability to breathe deeply over the course of our lives. This means we loose lung capacity in amounts so small they’re probably not even measurable, not to mention noticeable. Just like the frog we sit there without doing anything unless someone hits our pot.
Well I’m hitting your pot right now. Make one tiny shift and start breathing more often with your stomach. Maybe you could find a local tai chi class, a chi gong class, or who knows you could even buy my video, but above all for God’s sake, JUMP!
Your thoughts?
John
P.S. You’ll find my Tai Chi Exercises Video here: http://www.camptaichi.com/unique-benefits-of-tai-chi-in-a-surprisingly-simple-5-minute-routine. Click here and then add it to your cart. I promise it’ll make you jump. 
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Sep 11, 2009 - 01:09:17I wonder how far one could go in the correlation between oxygen intake and health? My guess would be “pretty far.” I know of a few folks who have dedicated their lives to this study, and their results agree with your post.
For myself, one of the most difficult things is to sustain an awareness of my breathing. Easy enough to become aware of it, say, in terms of practicing better breathing techniques — but when I get busy, it just becomes automatic again.
The beauty of tai chi is that I get oxygenated early in the morning, refreshing the system before I get busy. This provides a “platform” for the day from which to operate.
I don’t think the practice of proper breathing can be over-emphasized.
Walt,
I agree that the practice of proper breathing can’t be over-emphasized. When I’m working at the computer, driving, or just feeling a little stressed, I’ve developed the habit of breathing deeply into the dan tian while expanding my entire girdle area. It always feels good and usually helps root me and stabilize me very quickly. I imagine writing this blog helps me with this habit too, because I think of it often.
John