Daphne Gray-Grant

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March 9, 2010

Every little breath you take...

Do you suffer from writing apnea?

A few days before I was married, almost 21 years ago, I was walking the eight blocks from our apartment to the daily newspaper at which I worked and, at a stoplight, happened to glance downward. Yikes! I was wearing two different shoes. Not only were they different colours (one blue; one black) but the heels were of different heights. Was I possibly so stressed that I didn't even notice I was walking like a dork? Fortunately, the wedding ceremony -- and the marriage itself -- both turned out well, if I do say so myself.

Over the last little while, however, I've been living through the kind of pressure that makes organizing a wedding look as hard as eating a buttered croissant. If you've been a subscriber for awhile, you'll know that my family and I moved out of a rental house Feb. 24, and back into our longtime home, which we've been renovating for the last year.

The last 12 days -- filled with moving goods ranging from the absurdly fragile (how did we acquire so much fine pottery?) to the absurdly heavy (do we really need all these books?), dealing with workers still underfoot, endlessly scrubbing two houses and having a front yard filled with sand and a plywood path -- have been much more challenging than getting married! And while I haven't again taking to wearing mismatched shoes, the move has made me more conscious of an even worse coping mechanism.

I forget to breathe.

You may think I'm joking but I'm not. My husband noticed this tendency in me many years ago ("remember: breathe," he tells me frequently). And my trainer has done a lot of work with me on breathing more slowly and deeply.

Back in January, two subscribers wrote to tell me about something called "email apnea."  (Thanks, Susan and Naomi!) This phrase, invented by researcher Linda Stone, and borrowed from "sleep apnea" -- a medical condition in which people stop breathing for a few seconds at night, when they're asleep -- refers to our inclination to hold our breath when checking email.

Stone detected the tendency in herself and then noticed it in other people, too -- she saw they breathed shallowly or failed to breathe at all while checking email. Stone then started investigating the impact of irregular breathing and was shocked to learn the negative effect it can have on our bodies.

Frankly, I know I have writing apnea. When I write, I forget about details like sitting up straight, drinking enough water and, well, breathing. The first book I edited, a cookbook called Five-Star Food, the first book I wrote (which many of you own), 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better and every column I write, have all cost me many breaths.

Not because I'm nervous. But because I'm concentrating so hard. I've been doing this for so many years now, I'm as linked to this bad habit as Abbot is tied to Costello. And I suspect many of you forget to breathe, too.

Let me explain why this is a problem. First, when you're writing, your brain is even more important than your fingers. Brains need lots of oxygen to work properly. Breathe better and you'll think better and therefore write better.

Second, good breathing is essential to good posture. If you never breathe deeply enough to fully expand your ribcage, then your diaphragm and lungs aren't doing what they're meant to. In my case: guilty and guilty. This is a bad trap designed to give you hunched-over shoulders and a permanently aching back.

Third, irregular breathing triggers a nervous response in the body that can dump toxins into your system, weaken your immune system, raise your blood pressure and increase stress, tension and anxiety. And here you thought writing was doing that!

Most of us are born knowing how to breathe properly and deeply but we lose the habit as we age and replace it with little shallow breaths or even temporarily forgetting to breathe. Don't let this happen to you!

I now try to be conscious of my breathing all the time (well, except when I'm super-stressed by moving). I do breathing exercises throughout the day -- while I'm waiting in lineups at the bank or grocery store are excellent times. And when I'm writing, I set my timer for 25 minutes (remember the pomodoro?) and I spend the five-minute break doing stretches and breathing exercises.

Breathing. Don't forget to do it properly.

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