upon application, by the Life Extension Institute.

Section V--Deep Breathing

Ordinarily breathing should be unconscious, but every day deep breathing
exercises should be employed. "A hundred deep breaths a day" is one
physician's recipe for avoiding tuberculosis. A Russian author, who
suffered a nervous breakdown, found--after trying many other aids to
health without success--that a retired life for several months in the
mountains in which simple deep-breathing exercises practised
systematically every day formed the central theme, effected a permanent
cure. Deep breathing is a great resource for people who are shut in most
of the day. If they will seize the chance, whenever it offers, to step
out-of-doors and take a dozen deep breaths, they can partly compensate
for the evils of indoor living.

In ordinary breathing only about 10 per cent. of the lung contents is
changed at each breath. In deep breathing a much larger percentage is
changed, the whole lung is forced into action, and the circulation of
the blood in the abdomen is more efficiently maintained, thus equalizing
the circulation throughout the body. The blood-pressure is also
favorably influenced, especially where increased pressure is due to
nervous or emotional causes.

[Sidenote: Breathing Exercises]

Breathing exercises should be deep, slow, rhythmic, and through the
nose, not through the mouth. A certain Oriental deep-breathing exercise
is particularly valuable to insure slowness and evenness of the breath.
It consists of pressing a finger on the side of the nose, so as to
close one nostril, breathing in through the other nostril, breathing out
of the first nostril in the same manner and then reversing the process.
Attention to the slight sound of the air, as it passes through the nose,
enables one to know whether the breathing is regular or is slightly
irregular. Such breathing exercises can be taken at the rate of three
breaths per minute, and the rate gradually reduced until it is only two
or even less per minute.

[Sidenote: Muscular Exercise]

Muscular exercises stimulate deep breathing, and, in general, the two
should go together. But deep breathing by itself is also beneficial, if
very slow. Forced _rapid_ breathing is comparatively valueless, and
indeed may be positively harmful. Oxygen is absorbed only according to
the demand for it in the body and not according to the supply.

[Sidenote: Singing]

Singing requires deep breathing, a