Jes­sica Wolf, my col­league in New York City, is a vet­eran Alexan­der tech­nique teacher who’s also gained con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence in help­ing stu­dents improve their breathing.

The exer­cises and learn­ing expe­ri­ences she offers have obvi­ous appli­ca­tions for patients with asthma, bron­chi­tis, emphy­sema, chronic obstruc­tive pul­monary dis­ease (COPD), and the like.  Peo­ple with GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux dis­ease), hiatal her­nia, or sleep apnea could also benefit.

She also works exten­sively with actors and singers. (She com­mutes up to New Haven where she’s on the fac­ulty of the Yale School of Drama.)

And I’m per­son­ally con­vinced that the type of work she does could help a wider group of peo­ple: indi­vid­u­als with pos­tural prob­lems, excess ten­sion, depres­sion or anx­i­ety (i.e. — everyone!).

Here’s an arti­cle she was gra­cious enough to let me repub­lish:

Breath­ing Coordination

“Breath­ing Coor­di­na­tion is breath­ing in that indi­vid­ual pat­tern which engages all the mus­cles of res­pi­ra­tion both vol­un­tary and invol­un­tary, and pro­vides the most effi­cient defla­tion and infla­tion of the lungs with the least amount of effort.”

- Carl Stough

Carl Stough

At about the time F.M. Alexan­der died (he’s the Founder of the Alexan­der Tech­nique), another man was mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence of breath­ing. Carl Stough (1926–2000), a modern-day pio­neer in the sci­ence of res­pi­ra­tion, iden­ti­fied a par­tic­u­lar coor­di­na­tion that allows the res­pi­ra­tory sys­tem to func­tion at max­i­mum effi­ciency with min­i­mum effort. Effi­ciency of breath­ing can deter­mine the qual­ity of life. He called this “breath­ing coordination.”

Stough’s spe­cial­ized knowl­edge was the result of years of musi­cal train­ing and choral con­duct­ing and work with patients with emphy­sema, a debil­i­tat­ing and irre­versible res­pi­ra­tory dis­ease. Patients with res­pi­ra­tory ill­ness spend their lives try­ing to get an ade­quate breath. But it wasn’t just the hope­lessly ill patient who had this problem.

“Breath­ing is a process which will occur of itself, but proper breath­ing requires con­sid­er­ably more attention.”

- Carl Stough

Stough observed and worked with excep­tional ath­letes from the United States Olympic Team as they pre­pared in high alti­tude for the Mex­ico City Olympics in 1968. He also taught his method to the skilled singers at the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera. Both groups had at var­i­ous times suf­fered from a loss of nat­ural breath­ing coordination.

The key to Stough’s suc­cess­ful method was the diaphragm.

The diaphragm is the pri­mary mus­cle of res­pi­ra­tion. Stough dis­cov­ered a way to rede­velop the invol­un­tary move­ment of the diaphragm, facil­i­tat­ing reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the whole res­pi­ra­tory sys­tem. As a result, air that had been trapped in the lungs of severely ill patients could be exhaled, leav­ing them with more room to breathe, some­thing pre­vi­ously thought to be impos­si­ble. When oxy­gen intake is increased every sys­tem of the body is pos­i­tively affected and can improve the health of the indi­vid­ual. This knowl­edge was then applied to patients with asthma, arthri­tis, voice prob­lems and back pain.

Carl Stough’s res­pi­ra­tory sci­ence evolved from med­ical research which he began in 1958 and con­tin­ued through 1968. The major dis­cov­er­ies Carl Stough made dur­ing these years of research are:

• The body is designed in a par­tic­u­lar way to move air out of and into the lungs (Breath­ing Coordination).
• Every sys­tem in the body depends upon oxy­gen to func­tion and to be healthy.
• Although the diaphragm is invol­un­tary, it can be rede­vel­oped and strengthened.
• Con­trary to gen­eral belief, the more impor­tant phase of breath­ing is the exhale – the move­ment of air from the lungs.
• When the diaphragm is devel­oped to its max­i­mum poten­tial, res­pi­ra­tory faults, man­i­fested as abnor­mal­i­ties of the ribcage, can be corrected.
• When the diaphragm is rede­vel­oped, the ribs are more flex­i­ble and they can swing. The neck frees up and the excur­sion of the diaphragm mas­sages the inter­nal organs.
• Proper air pres­sure from the lungs results in a nat­ural fre­quency sound. The voice res­onates when the body learns to let go.
• Envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns and stresses of daily life make breath­ing coor­di­na­tion essen­tial for main­tain­ing good health.

________________________________________________

Deepen Your Body of Knowledge

More from Jes­sica Wolf

Deep breath­ing ben­e­fits — real­ity or myth?

Another reminder that pay­ing atten­tion to your body matters