THE BREATH OF LIFE In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people’s feet Still going past me in the street. And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day? “Bed in Summer.” ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. One of the most common causes of ill-health and sleeplessness is improper breathing. Breathing is the fundamental function of life, the first at birth and the last at death, and when it is badly performed we are sure to have trouble. The great majority of people never use the whole of their lungs in breathing. By this neglect the blood is never sufficiently oxygenated to burn out all impurities. But you may say, “I am not responsible for the way I breathe; I do that “automatically,” and you would be in a degree correct. It is true that we are not conscious of the act of breathing. It would be an intolerable burden upon the mind if every breath required conscious attention. We could hardly attend to anything else. That is no reason, however, why we should not regulate our breathing for our own benefit. Breathing, though an habitual organic act, is under the indirect control of the higher centers of the nervous system. We must, as Dr. Worcester says, re-educate the lower centers to breathe, and to do this it is necessary to give conscious attention to it for a time. If we wish to replace bad breathing by good breathing, we must fix our attention regularly upon drawing the breath, practice the right sort of breathing, and impress upon the vital mechanism that this new order of breathing is to be adopted, for the way to be rid of a bad habit is to replace it with a good one. If we persevere in this course, the right method can very easily be established. By the right method is meant breathing from the diaphragm. If you will watch the act of breathing among your friends for even one day, you will discover for yourself how few do it well. The great majority breathe with the upper part of the lungs only, so that the chest visibly rises and falls in time with the inhalations and exhalations. Such persons may be unconscious of their own breathing, but they make all who observe them conscious of it. They are not only injuring themselves, but making a claim upon the attention of others that is scarcely justifiable. Quick, short breathing is one of the signs either of excitement or of depression, some pleasurable or painful emotion or sensation, but it is not a means to health. If we have this habit, we may find in it an explanation of many of the trifling ills and discomforts from which we suffer, and of not a few of the more serious ones.