reproduced from the Sunday Times

LIFESTYLE: HEALTH: Susan Clark's weekly column: May 2nd, 1999

There is a theory that many of the degenerative diseases that are on the increase in the West are actually caused by insufficient oxygen reaching the body's organs and tissues. And if you stop for a moment to monitor your own breathing, you can see why this might be affecting you, too.

Ask someone to take a deep breath and, the chances are, they will lift their shoulders and push out their chest in a bid to get more air into their lungs. This is because most of us breathe from the upper regions of the lungs. We may know where our diaphragm is, but we haven't got a clue how to use it. In fact, most of us take such shallow, fast breaths that we use barely a third of our entire lung capacity.

Peggy Forell, a voice coach who teaches correct breathing techniques, does a very good impression of this. She also talks about how breathing influences the voice and how most women only use what she calls their "head" voice, instead of their more deeply resonating "chest" voice. The head voice is likely to be a more girlie, less threatening way of communicating than the more powerful chest voice (Marilyn Monroe had this head voice down to a fine art, especially with her breathy singing), and you won't ever find your true voice unless you learn how to breathe properly.

If, for example, you have to give a presentation at work and feel nervous about how your voice will sound, American-born Forell, who was raised in Australia and is now based in London, will teach you the voice techniques that she learnt when she trained as an actress and singer. If you hate the sound of your voice and want to change it, she can help, but, more importantly, if you simply want to learn how to breathe properly (and we all started life being able to do this), she can teach you.

Proper breathing not only calms and quietens the mind, it strengthens the immune system, improves concentration, increases the capacity of the lungs, refreshes both the mind and body and improves the cardiovascular system by efficiently delivering oxygen around the body. It should involve the upper lungs, which are located beneath the collarbones, the middle part of the torso, which will move as the ribcage expands, and the abdomen.

It is this abdominal breathing that will bring the maximum amount of air to the largest area of the lungs and, once you have mastered how to do it, the good news is that you won't be going back to the gasping breaths that passed for breathing in your life before.

Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Peggy Forell also teaches presentation and communication skills to corporate groups. To book, call (0) 20 8744 3022.

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