The Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter You

by Patrick McKeown

  Just as I was reaching the breaking point I heard about a course in personal development and jumped at the chance to enroll. During the course the instructor spoke about the importance of a still mind, and guided us through a simple meditation. After the very first session I noticed my perception was suddenly much clearer and lighter. The tension had left my head, my mind was quieter, and for the first time I caught a glimpse of stillness. As I walked home, it was as if my thoughts had been put to one side, allowing me to focus my complete attention on the sights, sounds, and smells around me. I had walked down Grafton Street in Dublin many times before, but never had I actually been there. On previous visits, my attention had been completely stuck in my head. I would walk from one end of the street to the other without remembering any aspect of the journey. It is difficult to relate to life, or be part of life, when all your attention is stuck in your mind.

  The next morning I found my mind swamped once again with internal chatter, but the unforgettable experience from the day before remained with me. This epiphany occurred in the late 1990s, and in the months that followed I made a dedicated effort to bring stillness of the mind into my life. I had many ups and downs on my initial journey to quieting my mind—there were days when my mind was out of control and I felt like I was getting nowhere—but I now regard that time spent in quiet solitude as my most productive ever.

  We are conditioned to believe that in order to be productive and successful we must be constantly doing something. This belief, which forms the basis of modern society, is quite insane. We are not human doings; we are human beings. During my workshops, students are often astonished to hear that if I were given the choice between my degree—which I worked so hard for—and learning to reduce my thought activity, I would choose the latter without hesitation.

  I do my best to make my life a meditation, and I would estimate that my thought activity has reduced by around 50 percent since I first began practicing stilling my mind. Now, my thoughts are more practical: I set my goals, decide on a course of action, and set out to achieve them. Because there is more space between my thoughts, there is room for creative ideas and solutions to enter. I bring my mind into stillness many times throughout the day by focusing on my breath or taking my attention into my inner body. Of course, negative thoughts do sometimes appear; I still get upset and angry from time to time, and I have no problem confronting and challenging another person if required, but this is part and parcel of being alive. In nature, animals will sometimes fight, but after the confrontation they will go their separate ways, living life instead of dwelling on the event for hours on end. Nature moves simultaneously with time. More often than not, we humans spend much of our lives either stuck in the past or anxiously trying to get to the future. How can we possibly expect to utilize the full power of our brains if all our attention is consumed by habitual thought?

  Since I learned to still my mind, one of the main differences to my life is that when faced with a challenge I feel less daunted and am able to recover from a setback much more quickly. By waking up to what takes place in my mind, I have a greater choice over whether I continue with the stream of thought or step out of it. In my early twenties, I never realized that I had this choice. Until I understood that I was the prisoner of my mind, I was unable to differentiate between my all-consuming thoughts and who I really was. By drastically reducing nonsense thoughts, my mind is now free to concentrate on anything of my choosing. At age forty-one, my concentration, energy, focus, and happiness have increased tenfold compared to when I was sixteen—and all I have done is learn how to stop thinking.

  My life was completely transformed by three simple techniques: breathing lightly, merging with my inner body, and bringing my attention into the present moment. Each of these practices has been instrumental in improving my quality of life, reducing unnecessary thought activity, helping to access intuitive intelligence, and enabling creativity in my work. These powerful exercises are straightforward, quick to learn, and can be easily incorporated into your way of life. Practice the following techniques regularly to begin reclaiming your mind and clearing your head.

  Follow the Breath to Enter the Zone

  This sports meditation is based on the exercise Breathe Light to Breathe Right, which was introduced on page 74. The objective is to follow the pattern of your breath and bring a feeling of relaxation throughout your body in order to quiet the mind. Following the breath involves observing the cycle of each inhalation and exhalation, and is a simple and useful method of internalizing your focus while shutting out any unnecessary thoughts.

  When first beginning your meditation practice, try to choose a place where you will not be distracted. Sitting in an upright position helps you to focus, while closing your eyes helps to direct your attention inward. With experience, observing the breath and bringing your attention into the inner body can be practiced during any situation or activity.

  Following the breath is an activity innate to humans and has been practiced since time immemorial. The breath is the bridge between the mind and the body. In order to enter the zone during any type of sports competition, the body and mind must be merged together so that you can become one with the game.

  The breath can be felt entering and leaving the body at four distinct points. The first is the area just inside the nose, the second is the area at the back of the throat, the third is movement of the chest, and the fourth is movement of the abdomen. You may find it easier to focus on one point more than others—experiment as you practice to see which feels most natural for you.

  To begin, place one hand on your chest and one hand on your abdomen, just above your navel. Follow your breath as it enters the nostrils or passes down the throat. Concentrate on the area you are breathing into—are you using your chest or your abdomen to inhale? Do you feel your chest rise and fall with each breath, or do you feel your abdomen move gently in and out? Do not change your breathing, simply observe it. At first, you might find your mind wandering—don’t worry if it does but simply bring your attention gently back to the breath.

  As you observe your breathing, continue to relax your inner body. Using mental encouragement, silently tell the muscles of your chest and abdomen to relax. As you feel your body soften, gently slow your breath. There is no need to deliberately interfere with the breathing muscles by tensing them or restricting your breathing. Instead, simply allow your breathing to become quiet and soft, using mental commands to relax your body.

  The objective here is to reduce your breathing to the point where you create a mild to moderate hunger for air. This need for air should be distinct but not so strong that your breathing accelerates, or your abdomen muscles contract, or the rhythm of your breath becomes chaotic. If you do find that your breathing becomes disturbed by the hunger for air, then take a break from the exercise for about 15 seconds and resume when your breathing is back to normal. Try this breathing practice for 10 minutes or so.

  Breathing exercises of all kinds are helpful for taking attention from the mind and into the present moment. However, the creation and maintenance of a tolerable air shortage over the course of this exercise can be instrumental in further slowing down the activity of the mind. There is nothing like the feeling of an air shortage for anchoring attention to the breath. An additional benefit to breathing lightly is the activation of the body’s relaxation response, indicated by increased production of watery saliva in the mouth. The technique and effects of reduced breathing are explored in more detail in chapter 4.

  When I first started to use this method of observing the breath during meditation, I sometimes became frustrated to find my mind wandering. This is natural. In fact, you should expect your mind to wander at first. With practice, your mind will wander less and less, the gap between thoughts will increase, and you will feel happier and more alert.

  By practicing meditation regularly, you will find that your attention no longer spends so much time in your mind, separated from life, dwelling on things you canno
t change and things that have not happened yet. Over the past fifteen years I have completed several periods of “noble silence”—a series of ten consecutive days when I wake up at five in the morning and meditate until it is time to retire to bed at eight o’clock at night. Car keys, computer, phone, and wallet are put away. Noble silence involves a silence of the tongue and mind—no talking or thinking. At the end of the ten days, my mind is razor-sharp, calm, alert, and focused.

  For those starting out in meditation, even a short period of 10 minutes observing the breath can bring about great changes in your life. Spend two weeks observing your breath as often as you can throughout the day. More important than the length of time you observe your breath during one sitting is the number of times you bring attention to your breathing throughout the day. See and feel the difference that this practice makes to your focus and concentration during sports and in your everyday life.

  Connect with the Inner Body to Enter the Zone

  Focusing on oneself involves taking attention out of the mind and merging with the miracle that is the human body. There is an intelligence that operates within our bodies, far greater than that within the mind. Every moment, thousands of functions automatically take place within the body without any direction from the mind. The intelligence of the mind is but a mere fraction of the natural intelligence that resides within the body. Consider the many vital automatic functions of the body, such as breathing, the beating of the heart, and the process of digestion—conscious thoughts are not required for these complex and tireless processes, but imagine if just one of these activities was the responsibility of the human mind. Even if the mind was only responsible for directing each breath—a relatively straightforward procedure—it is unlikely that we would last for more than an hour. The human body is a miracle and operates on such a vast innate intelligence that it is unlikely human beings will ever be able to produce comparable technology. Despite man’s best efforts to develop a robot to parallel the human body, prototypes are awkward and capable of handling only a small number of functions. The natural intelligence that resides in the human body is incredible, and we all have access to its capabilities so long as we do not allow the mind to overshadow it. Simply by taking your attention from incessant thinking and directing your senses into the inner body, you will be able to draw from the stillness and intelligence residing there.

  In the Western world we rarely focus on the inner body unless something is wrong. Seldom do we pay attention to the body when it is free from pain. Seldom do we truly experience our body as alive and feel the vibration of energy that resonates there. The body is your connection with this energy. If you have never directed your attention to your inner body before, start off slowly. If you have learned to follow and reduce your breath, you will find this relatively easy to do.

  Close your eyes and bring your attention to one of your hands. Direct your focus to the hand and feel it from within. With your eyes closed, feel the inner sensations of your hand. You may begin to notice the temperature of the air against your skin, or you may feel subtle inner bodily sensations. Stay with these sensations for a little while and quietly observe them. When you are focused on the inner bodily sensations of your hand, move your attention to include your arm. Now feel the inner bodily sensation of your hand and arm together. Do not analyze or think about it, just feel it.

  Next, bring attention to your chest and focus from within for a minute or so. You may feel the texture of your clothes against your skin, or you may feel the heat emanating from your chest. After a minute or so, bring attention to your stomach and check for any tension. If your stomach is tense, imagine it gradually relaxing. Feel the area around your abdomen gently softening as the tension dissolves away. The more active your mind, the greater the tendency that your stomach will be in a knot. Relax this area using your imagination and allow any tension to disappear.

  Now feel the energy field of both hands, both arms, your chest, and your abdomen at the same time. Keep your attention there. As long as your attention is on your body, it is not on your mind. The incessant thought activity of your mind will gradually slow down as your focus remains on your inner body.

  With a little practice, you will be able to focus your attention on your inner body from head to toe. Dispersing your attention throughout the inner body is especially helpful during physical exercise and competition, and this exercise can help you to enter the zone at will.

  Live in the Now to Enter the Zone

  By following the breath and bringing attention to the inner body, we are able to bring our attention to the present moment.

  The present moment is the only time in which life truly unfolds. You cannot re-live your life in the past, nor can you live your life in the future. When the future arrives, it is the now. Be here fully. Do not spend your entire life, as most of humanity, with all of your attention stuck in your head. How can you relate to the reality of life if you are too busy focusing on memories, worries, and what-ifs?

  A simple practice to bring your attention to the present moment is to merge with your surroundings. We connect to our surroundings in a physical way, through the five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—not by intellectual perceptions. Put aside the habit of analyzing, judging, labeling, and comparing everything you see. Instead, bring a gentle focus to your surroundings without the usual running commentary. Take your attention out of your thoughts and look around. Really look, as if you are seeing things for the very first time. As you look, begin to listen to the sounds rising and falling around you. As you look and listen, feel the weight of your body, whether you are standing, sitting, or lying. Feel the warmth or coldness of the air on your face. Feel the clothes on your back. Bring in your other senses of smell and taste. Now you are free from thought. Now you are free from internal noise and distractions. You are like a child, seeing everything for the first time. It is that simple.

  Live Your Daily Life in the Zone

  Quieting the mind should not just be limited to the time spent in formal meditation. Instead, your whole life should be a meditation. Each day, as you go about your daily affairs, bring your attention to your breathing and your inner body. As you watch TV, do not surrender all of your attention to the program, but immerse yourself in your inner body. As you walk, jog, or run, follow the natural rhythm of your breath and disperse your attention throughout your body. Scan your body for any tension that may be residing there, and bring a gentle feeling of release to tense areas to encourage relaxation. Tension of muscle groups during sports is counterproductive and consumes energy—learn to recognize areas of tension in your body and practice melting them away with the power of your mind.

  To observe complete relaxation of all muscles groups, watch a video of a cheetah gracefully running at full throttle. The leg muscles look to be completely relaxed and floppy as the animal moves effortlessly between strides. The cheetah is able to devote all of its energy to its speed through complete relaxation as it runs. Practice running with your entire body instead of just your head. Imagine running without a head. Be headless for the duration of your run. Run with every cell in the remainder of your body. Merge with the movement and become one with it. Bringing a feeling of relaxation throughout your body while you exercise allows you to go with the flow and enter the zone. The greater the proportion of your daily life that is spent unhindered by thought, the easier you will find entering the zone during competition.

  A Concentrated and Undivided Mind

  Imagine a pool player who wins ten games in a row. During each game, he is in the flow, pocketing balls easily while positioning the cue ball perfectly for the next shot. His game is effortless and spontaneous.

  Based on his success, the player decides to place a wager of five dollars that he will win the next game. No longer is he doing the activity for the experience or enjoyment of it. Now he has an ulterior motive, and his mind is divided between the wager and playing the game. Only part of his attention remains on the activity.
He has lost focus, and he loses.

  Ronan O’Gara is a former rugby union player who played for Ireland and Munster. Considered by many to be one of the best fly-halfs of his generation, he won four Triple Crowns with Ireland and two Heineken Cups with Munster. He also scored more tries for Ireland than any other fly-half in history and is the third most capped player in rugby union history.

  With such impressive repeated successes, one would expect O’Gara to have been full of self-confidence, approaching each game in his stride. However, in a compelling interview with Irish national television, he described how he wished he could have “laughed and enjoyed it more,” especially in the lead-up to games where he would be “puking, questioning everything, not sleeping, feeling low, and going for walks” to try to quell his negative inner commentary. O’Gara is not alone in this experience of pregame anxiety, and no doubt his feelings are shared by many professional athletes who, in their sense of pride and dedication to their team and country, place immense pressure upon themselves.

  This is the side of professional sports that is seldom talked about. It is brushed under the carpet and hidden from view while the world gets to see only the outward displays of power, strength, speed, and skill. After playing for over a decade at the professional level, Ronan O’Gara began to settle down only when he knew that his retirement from professional sports was imminent: “It was only in the last eighteen months that I said I’m going to start enjoying myself for whatever limited time is left.”

  Why is so much anxiety and tension created prior to a game? Prematch days for many athletes might involve hundreds of “what if” thoughts: What if I don’t feel right on the day? What if I get injured? What if I make a mistake? What if I mark the wrong guy? What if I’m not selected? What if I perform badly and get dropped from the team? As imagination runs riot, anticipation of all the possible things that could happen during the game builds so high that nervous tension and anxiety take over to the point of distraction. In reality, there are so many variables involved that it is impossible for the mind to predict what is going to happen. Not only that, but the mind is capable of creating an imaginary drama with outcomes far worse than what might actually unfold. It is essential to understand that in any situation there are many factors outside of your control, and despite your best efforts you are but a part of the larger whole. Ruminating on anything outside of our control is simply a distraction and a waste of energy. Having passion for what you do and the desire to perform to the best of your ability are all that matters. Everything else is in the hands of the universe, so there really is no point in worrying about it. Before a game or event, observe negative or recurrent thought patterns and make a conscious decision to step away from thinking about things that you have no control over.