Breathe-Right?

Interesting excerpt, from a golf site:

Breathing

Many golfers hold their breath during their golf swing. This creates resistance to their backswing. David was one of these golfers. From years of doing sit-ups, microfibers constricted the movement of his abdomen and chest to the point where he could only expand 1" in his abdomen and 2" in his chest when he took a deep breath. He chronically held his breath during his swing, which is common in golfers with restricted breathing ranges.

By releasing microfibers that had formed from years of sit-ups, Somax was able to expand David's range of motion while breathing to 3" in his abdomen, an increase of 300%. Somax also increased his range of motion in his chest to 4", an increase of 200%. As a result, David no longer holds his breath during his golf swing.

Increasing the range of motion during breathing has other benefits. The brain runs on just oxygen and glucose (sugar). When the breathing is restricted, the brain does not get the oxygen it needs. Golfers who increase their breathing range at Somax report a better mood and increased ability to concentrate. Young golfers report that their school grades improve and older golfers find than their memory and problem-solving ability improve as well.

Grades improve?

Old coots learn to breathe properly and....can finally find their spectacles?

The whole thing may sound *quackish* and look *quackish* on a commercial web site, but I'm inclined to believe it to an extent.

Remember, I'm a recovering mouth-breather who's profited greatly from yoga.

I'd wager that if an exhaustive study were ever performed, all sort of negative personality traits could be correlated with sub-optimal respiration.

Also from that site:

Breathing is the least understood and most unappreciated of all human activities.

We breathe an average of 20,000 times a day. Any problems we have in breathing are therefore multiplied 20,000 times every 24 hours.

Constriction in breathing can lead to sub-par mental performance, poor skin tone, fatigue, anxiety, mild depression, poor posture, pain, premature senility, poor athletic performance, osteoporosis and heart attacks.

My daily goal is to make 500 deep, abdominal breaths each day. With my harried life, I rarely get there; but when I goal-meet for say 5 days in a row, I can really feel it in my abs.

What I really need is some microchip *life coach* in my brain. If there were some counter reminding me all day of the little things I need to do, I really think it would improve my personal efficiency. Maybe the iPod could do the trick?