How An Uncommon Resource Can Ease Humanities Current Predicament

Humanity is on the cusp of either economic disaster or technological paradise, depending on which resources you’ve been plugging into.

It could well be both.

Whichever side you fall on, though, one thing is for sure and that is that the systems that once held society together are now collapsing, whether that be socially, economically, culturally, environmentally, politically, educationally, or physically.

There’s no guarantee of anything lasting forever anymore, and that’s either liberating or terrifying, depending on how you see it.

This has put humanity in a rather tricky predicament. One that suggests that if we keep going in the direction that we’re going, we’re likely to make ourselves extinct (along with millions of other species).

So, what to do?

Personally, I believe that most, if not all, of humanity’s struggles, are caused by a certain degree of separation. Whether that be separation from the natural world, each other, ourselves, and/or spirit.

But what happens when those boundaries and limitations are broken down?

That’s what this blog is all about.

An uncommon resource

The breath’s rare universal quality is that it serves all beings without the need for attention or recognition. It simply breaths through all of us without a moment’s hesitation or doubt, and without carrying any expectation, prejudice, judgement, or dogma.

It transcends every culture, tradition, gender, and race too, and it has done since the beginning of time. It quietly goes about its business in every country and through every living creature in every living moment simultaneously.

It is perhaps our greatest and most consistent reminder of life’s deepest truth: We Are All One.

Or as Rumi — the great Persian mystic poet once said, “We are all one breath-breathing, human being.”

“Oneness isn’t a characteristic of life. Life is a characteristic of Oneness.” — Neale Donald Walsch

Socially and culturally

Because the breath is universal, it connects all beings everywhere.

It’s the one tool that connects all of humanity, from Australia to Spain, France, Morocco, South Africa, Chile, Mexico, Hawaii, and Jamaica.

All 8 billion people are connected from one second to the next through each inhale and exhale.

How incredible is that?!

With this insight, suddenly the notion of being individuals living individual lives collapses, along with borders, and limitations.

And once these divides are taken away and the illusion of separation disappears, suddenly everything changes. People then see that fighting, stealing, cheating, robbing, killing, pillaging, hurting, raping, and fearing one another is a redundant thought because that would mean that they would only be fighting, stealing, cheating, robbing, killing, pillaging, hurting, raping, and fearing themselves. And what’s the point of that?

Crime suddenly becomes obsolete too. War is utterly unimaginable, and gender and racial divides stop immediately because everyone sees that we are all one interconnected, co-dependent organism that depends on one another’s health and existence for survival. And there are no divides whatsoever.

The speed at which humanity can transition from a world of competition, survival of the fittest, every man for himself, and winner takes all kinds of society to a place of compassion, inclusivity, and joy is almost instantaneous. And when it happens, there’s no turning back.

Environmentally

In this alternative reality where everyone is united, each person begins to feel the wondrous nature of the breath moving in and out of their lungs, so they feel far less inclined to pollute the air and destroy the plants, trees, and oceans that make it possible. They also begin to feel how wonderfully interconnected everything is here on this beautiful planet, so they feel far less inclined to dismiss and obliterate other species by creating mono-cultured lands that lack diversity.

The joy of being in this reality doesn’t stop there either. Plants, trees, water, rocks, insects, birds, mammals, bacteria, fungi, viruses, and everything else that makes life is also held in the same reverence too.

So, every ecosystem and every being in each ecosystem is not only seen as important but as an extension of everything else, including us.

Physically

Man, this one’s a biggie and it could take many different pathways. But for the sake of keeping it concise and honouring your time, I’ll contain myself to just three major points, starting with possibly the most important relationship we humans have with ourselves.

The heart/brain/breath connection

As we breathe in our diaphragm flattens, our lungs expand, and our heart contracts. This sends an incredibly speedy message up to the brain that then sends an incredibly speedy message back to the heart that says, “you must speed up”, so it does.

Then as we breathe out the reverse is true. Our diaphragm lifts, our lungs compress, and our heart opens up. This sends an incredibly speedy message up to the brain that then sends an incredibly speedy message back to the heart that says, “you must slow down”, so it does.

Whatever messages are sent thereafter create the thoughts that we think, the emotions that we feel, and the actions that we act out.

The body has developed this incredibly fast response mechanism because it knows that it must relay exactly what the breath is trying to communicate so the heart and brain know what’s going on as quickly as possible.

Therefore, every breath that we breathe carries a message, but we are the ones who deliver it through the way we are breathing.

From the heart, brain and breath to two powerful gases that supercharge our health.

1. Carbon Dioxide

As the breath is made up of two parts — inhale and exhale — we can’t talk about oxygen (inhaling) without talking about its partner in crime: carbon dioxide (exhaling).

Carbon dioxide is most commonly known as being the waste gas we breathe out but in so doing, it has become one of the most misunderstood and undervalued gases we humans depend upon.

This has then often discredited the role it plays in our overall health and nothing understands this more than oxygen. That’s because oxygen needs carbon dioxide to release it from our red blood cells. Otherwise, a sticky protein called haemoglobin would hold oxygen hostage and not let go. So, without carbon dioxide doing what it does best, we certainly wouldn’t experience oxygen’s life-giving energy anything like as much as we do.

Carbon dioxide doesn’t stop there: Apart from releasing oxygen from haemoglobin’s mean grip, it also helps to:

• Reduce inflammation
• Reduce the risk of infection, illness, and disease
• Boost the immune system
• Balance the nervous system
• Support growth and healing
• Aid neuroplasticity (the growth of neural networks in the brain)
• Strengthen muscle tissue
• Maintain a healthy pH balance

So, as you can see, it’s not such a waste gas after all!

Getting to know how the breath works can mean the difference between gaining access to these benefits or not. An easy way to do this is to train the body to become more oxygen efficient by taking slower, deeper breaths through the nose.

(Think about how some foods contain more nutrients so less food is needed. The same is true of the breath: when each breath contains enough oxygen, fewer breaths are needed.)

However, to become more oxygen efficient, building up a tolerance to carbon dioxide is key. After all, the body’s first impulse to breathe comes from a need to get rid of a build-up of CO² and not because we need more oxygen. That comes shortly after. So, by extending the urge to breathe out, fewer breaths are needed to be breathed in.

To understand this phenomenon, let’s look at a few other examples:

Too much food can make a person overweight, too much exercise can damage muscle tissue, and too much sun can cause skin cancer. It doesn’t seem to matter what it is but when something becomes unbalanced in life, it ultimately becomes toxic.

Too much oxygen is the same.

2. Nitric Oxide

Nitric oxide is produced by nearly every cell in the body but the easiest and most consistent way to release it is through nose breathing.

One of the nitric oxide’s most important functions is that it helps to maintain the health of our blood vessels through a process called vasodilation. Vasodilation is the art of relaxing the inner muscles of the cells to help them open. This then improves blood circulation and blood flow while also reducing inflammation, improving heart health, and lowering blood pressure.

Nitric oxide is a bronchodilator too. Bronchodilation is the art of relaxing the muscles in the lungs which in turn helps the airways (bronchi) widen. This improves blood circulation and blood flow whilst boosting oxygen levels and overall lung health.

Nitric oxide doesn’t just stop there either. It also provides an important antimicrobial function, killing viruses and bacteria in the nose and throat which helps to prevent illness and disease.

I’m sure that you can agree that in today’s world, this is extremely helpful.

*Note: NO nitric oxide is released while mouth breathing.

Closing thoughts

The breath is the first thing that we do when we’re born and it’s the last thing that we do before we die. One breath in, one breath out. Our whole life exists between these two points.

And because the breath never stops, we don’t have to think about it, plan it, organise it, prepare it, find it, buy it, grow it, convince it, persuade it, source it, or use any special equipment for it either.

We also don’t have to belong to any particular gender, race, nationality, culture, religion, tradition, caste, wealth bracket, political group, or sports team because it transcends all that.

It’s certainly not limited to any human emotions, judgements, or prejudices either. Instead, it quietly breathes through us all equally without a moment’s hesitation.

It’s the most inclusive, non-judgemental, free, and non-dogmatic tool that we all have available to everywhere all of the time. It’s also accessible to every single person in every single country in every single moment simultaneously.

Quite simply: Its simplicity is its power.

“With every breath, you are literally inhaling the history of the world” — Sam Kean

The sad truth about the biggest problems facing humanity is that they are only a few decisions (or possibly a few breaths?) away. All the questions we need to know have already been asked and all the answers have already been answered.

We know what we need to do, and we know how to do it. So, why aren’t we?

It’s an extremely complex and loaded question that’s held within the complexities of culture, tradition, history, corruption, power, trauma, fear, repression, pride, stubbornness, greed, and ignorance, some of which can be overwhelming at best and completely paralysing at worst.

However, working with the breath can be a silent revolution that changes the world from the inside out. It can be a ground-up, roots-level response to the environmental, educational, economic, social, cultural, ecological, health, and spiritual challenges that we find ourselves in. It can be a response, not a reaction and there’s a big difference between the two.

It can be a moment-to-moment choice that points us on a new path. And as these moments build-up to create new days, those days turn into weeks, those weeks turn into months, and those months turn into years. Then very soon after, massive changes can happen seemingly without much effort and that version of reality that I outlined above will be the one we are living.

My unshakeable optimism in the breath’s potential gives me hope for a new future.

But what do you think?

Are you curious to find out?

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Discover my favourite way to breathe here

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