How many breaths have you taken today so far?
The average human will breathe anywhere from 20,000 to 28,000 times on average per day. The average person will also take in 11,000 liters of air per day.
How many breaths have you taken? How many have you counted? We all get into the habit of just letting our body function until there’s a problem, right? So most people don’t pay attention to their breath until they’re out of breath or they’re sick and they can’t breathe. But a game that I like to encourage my meditation and energy work students to do is to take the longest breaths possible. Can you take one breath in 30 seconds? Can you take one breath in a minute? How about a minute and a half? How about two minutes?
It is possible for us to control our breath. For, say, our heartbeat, or our digestion, or our fight or flight response, those are much more difficult responses in our body for us to consciously control.
But our breath, that’s one that every single one of us… We can hold our breath and we can breathe super fast at will. So how many breaths are you taking per day? Are you taking the 20,000? Are you taking the 28? Are you taking the 50,000? It’s all up to us. But one thing that I can promise you is the more you focus on your breath, the more you’re going to focus on yourself. And so much of our lives we spend our time as humans doing, not as humans being or human beings. So enjoy being human. Focus on your breath and how amazing every single one of them is and how glorious it is to take this energy into your body and feel it distribute through every single part of you.