Educational Feature

The Respiratory System

Each Voice of The Body is defined within a Structure made up of the Cognitive, Symbology, and Sensory Awareness aspects. Each aspect is defined by particular elements that impart the scientific components and deeper meanings of the Voice of The Body. Review the Structure to better understand this issue's Voices of the Body.

Cognitive

Who Am I: I am your respiratory system. My function is to help you bring oxygen to your blood, and to remove carbon dioxide from it, through your breath.

Voice of the Respiratory System: My complex design is a self-sufficient, self-cleansing system with upper and lower segments that work together to circulate the air you breathe. I move the air you breathe both in and out. I assist you in converting oxygen and nutrients into energy, exchanging gases to support your metabolism.

When you inhale I am busy warming and filtering the air, and creating a masterful dance of diffusion to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide within your lungs in my rich pulmonary alveoli and capillary walls.

Your very first breath, inspiration, is the first action that initiates you into a life on Earth in a body. Expiration, my last phase, rids your body of gases you do not need.

I am made up of your lungs, soft containers elegantly woven with elastic internal fibers designed to expand to open and let air in, and to contract and push air out. Your lungs do not work alone. They are covered with pink connective tissue and shiny thin membranes. They are assisted by the diaphragm, ribcage, bones, muscles, arteries, veins, and your lymphatic and nervous systems. Together we help you to refuel, replenish, and cleanse your body and its cells.

You breathe 15 to 20 times a minute with the help of your thoracic muscles, moving over 8,000 ml of air in and out of your body. The muscles of your thorax, abdomen and diaphragm pull air rich with oxygen into your lungs with each inhalation. When you exhale, they expel air and get rid of unwanted carbon dioxide.

The respiratory center in your brain, the medulla oblongata, monitors and controls your breathing without needing your assistance. This automatic and involuntary intelligence helps me work even when you’re asleep or unconscious. However, you also have respiratory connections with your cerebral cortex, allowing you to voluntarily control and alter your breathing, and even hold and stop it at will.

Your nose, a cartilaginous extension on the front of your face with two orifices, is designed to smell. Your nostrils are designed to direct, warm, and filter air. Equipped with special nose hairs and mucous membranes in your nose, cheeks, forehead, mouth, and throat, I remove minute, irritating particles of dirt and airborne bacteria from the air you breathe. If your nose is blocked, you can also bring oxygen in and out your body by mouth.

Your voice box, the larynx, is designed with cartilaginous rings connected by ligaments and muscles. Sing and you can hear the exhaled air passing out and vibrating. The trachea, your windpipe, branches into bronchi to both of your lungs. The left and right sides of your lungs are divided into lobes, three on the right, and two on the left.

Your lungs are protected by a shiny thin membrane called the pleura. If you look more closely at the structure of your lungs you will see the bronchial tree, with parts that get progressively smaller and eventually divide the air you breathe into 30,000 separate jets that function to exchange gas. Inside the walls of the lungs are minute cavities, hundreds of millions of alveoli, clusters of grape-like air sacs whose job it is to exchange gases, and whose internal surface covers an area up to 50 times that of your body surface.

I am built to be self-sustaining, but I need your thoracic muscles to increase and decrease the size of your ribcage, and your diaphragm to act as a piston drawing air in and out. You develop strength, flexibility, agility, mobility, and stability when you breathe at different speeds and in a variety of ways to increase and decrease depth, volume and space. If you lose strength or flexibility in your abdominal muscles, intercostals or diaphragm, I can no longer work as efficiently.

Help me to push stale air out by deliberately exhaling and breathing more deeply. Begin to extend the length of your exhale to release air that gets stuck in the lower portion of your lungs when your breathing is shallow and limited to the upper lungs.

My dance of push and pull decreases pressure within your lungs, allowing air from the atmosphere to flow in, and increases pressure to push air out.

Sense me and see me at work as you inhale and exhale, watching the rise and fall of your belly, and the expansion and contraction of your ribcage. Observe a candle flame move and be blown out, notice your breath become visible on a cold day, listen to your voice as you speak and sing.

Inhale deeply and sense me filling up. Exhale fully and you will sense the movement of your diaphragm going up to push air out. My importance is evident from the strong container of your ribcage, designed to protect your heart and lungs. When you breathe quietly you use about half a liter of air with each breath. When you exert yourself I will process as much as 120 liters of air per minute.

My Gift to You: I bring you oxygen from the atmosphere to be transported by your blood cells to every part of your body even as you sleep, giving you energy and life.

Symbology

Imagine Me As: Visualize me as your breathing equipment, complete with an external and internal facemask, and two tanks of air, that filters, warms, humidifies, processes, and supports the gaseous exchange you need to breathe and swim in the oxygen rich atmosphere.

Sensory

In Nia: The Craft and Techniques you use to keep your Respiratory System healthy are:

• Sounding: Speak, hum, and tone to encourage natural breathing. Laugh and play with your voice, modulating your volume and tone to keep your respiratory system agile, flexible, and coordinated.
• The Movement Forms: Use movement and energy variety to stimulate all kinds of breathing. Notice how each of the nine forms promotes a unique kind of breathing–different speeds, volume, and intensities. Practice to develop the kind of body that can adapt and respond to all kinds of breathing needs, from fast to slow, shallow to deep, and from calm to chaotic.
• The Senses: Smell the moment. Breathe to trigger organic breathing responses that will keep your respiratory system and all of its assisting parts strong and healthy.
• The Five Sensations: Use strength, flexibility, mobility, agility, and stability to activate a variety of actions to stimulate my muscles and make your breathing strong, tender, and adaptable.
• Three Planes and Intensity Levels: Intentionally alter your range of motion so that you develop the awareness and sensitivity to support your movement with the appropriate kind of breathing, integrating breath with action.

When Dancing Through Life: Every day, consciously take time to make noise. Feel and express. Use emotional sounds to strengthen your lungs and spirit. Vary your tone to keep your diaphragm and thoracic muscles strong and flexible. Sing in the shower. Make noise while having sex. Sigh with pleasure when you eat wonderful food. Scream with delight when good things happen to you. Laugh out loud alone, and with your family and friends. Allow small and big giggles to emerge at the most unexpected times. Let your expressive sound be heard. When you work out, walk or run, do Nia or dance, use sound to integrate your breathing with your movement.

See the Nia glossary for more information. Also, see the Nia book, The Nia Technique for details on each technique.

Reference Book: The Endless Web; Fascial Anatomy and Physical Reality by RR. Louis Schultz, PhD and Rosemary Feitis

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