Periodically on TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I’m DOING , we share a SPOTLIGHT conversation and feature brief chats with an individual from the community about a special topic or a unique endeavor. 

Now while we truly should strive for mental wellness all the time, May is mental health awareness month, and there’s no more obvious place to focus our energy than on something we too often take for granted… our breathing. So I’m going to take a yogic approach, drawing from the teachings of both my parents who are yoga instructors and remembering some of the daily habits of my grandparents. Breathing is essentially the most outward demonstration of our “prana”, the Sanskrit word that refers to our innate universal life force, and through “ayama” the Sanskrit word which  means to  regulate or control or lengthen, we can therefore use the practice of "pranayama" to not just consciously understand our breathing, but also optimize and even increase that life force and harmonize our mind, body, and spirit. Now whether it's deeply practicing this living science of pranayama or simply pausing briefly to become more conscious of our breathing, the benefits can be quite extensive for so many physical and mental concerns.  So it was especially terrific to have a conversation about…well… breathing with Dr. Amit Anand, who is a pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine specialist AND a master yoga teacher -  truly a breathing superhero. With an academic medicine background, training in both Mumbai at KEM and in Boston at Harvard, Amit has been a rigorous practitioner, clinical teacher, and researcher.  Fortunately for many patients and students alike, he has taken his experience and integrated this evidence based medical approach with an expertise in yoga training, meditation, breathwork, and pranayama. Amit is the founder of Pranayamarx,  leading live and online yoga workshops and pranayama courses. He is also the co-founder of Breathonance,  a science-based breathwork experience that integrates the yogic teachings of Pranayama with resonant musical rhythms. I actually caught a live demo this year and I was struck by a few things: the importance of creating space for this, how little time was actually required vs the perception of what was required, and the beautiful convergence of music, meditation, and breathing.  Now, I know that all of you know this, but the content and conversation here should not be taken as medical advice, and is for informational purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your own healthcare professional team for any medical questions. 

And so as Amit and I caught up to chat, we started with the very basic question that was in front of both of us particularly as doctors, in why we all tend to be so painfully unaware of our own breathing?

And you can visit breathonance.com to learn more about Amit's vision and the musical expertise of co-founder Clint Valladares