The Breath and the Lie

I catch myself holding my breath when I scroll.

Doomscrolling, dopamine surfing, inbox refreshing; the lungs freeze, the diaphragm locks, and suddenly I’m half alive, half in exile from my own body.

Maybe you’ve felt it too: chest tight, jaw clenched, heart moving like a stuttered drumbeat.

That’s the lie modern life sells us.

That we can run on half-breaths. That we can get away with inhaling just enough to survive, exhaling just enough to keep going, but never actually filling the temple with air.

The ancients knew better.

In Ayurveda, in the Vedas, in every whisper of the Upanishads, prana is not just “breath”.

It is life itself. It is divine current, flowing from cosmos to cell.

Patanjali said control the breath and you control the mind; the Taoists said breathe into the belly and you return to the Way; even Marcus Aurelius wrote about the shortness of breath as the measure of life. Civilizations built temples around this truth. And here we are, twenty-first century mystics in yoga pants, holding our breath while waiting for Wi-Fi to connect. Tell me that’s not tragic.

Here’s My Confession

I ghost my own breath all the time.

I sip coffee instead of oxygen.

I scroll instead of inhale.

I stay up past ten, chest shallow, lungs begging for something slower, truer.

And then I wonder why my nervous system burns like static and why I snap at the smallest things. This is not just bad habit. It’s betrayal. The body as altar, neglected by the priest who’s supposed to tend it.

Course correction: breathe.

Not as wellness trend, not as “biohack,” but as rebellion.

Sit down in the morning, spine like a mountain, and take ten slow inhales like your life depends on it.

Because it does.

Feel the belly swell, ribs expand, chest rise like dawn.

Exhale as if you’re offering everything false back to the void.

Don’t make it complicated.

No apps, no gadgets.

Just some of the oldest technology we’ve ever had: lungs.

Because here’s the secret no algorithm will tell you: every shallow breath is an act of amnesia, forgetting who you are. Every deep breath is a homecoming.

So here’s my ask, my rally, my sermon to the choir and to myself: let’s stop living half-inhaled.

Let’s trade the lie for the rhythm.

Let’s fill the temple again.

Let’s get well,

Meg