Several times a day I remind myself to breathe. Whenever I do, I notice that most of the 15,000 inhalations I make each waking day are shallow sips at the life force pervading all respiring creatures. Look closer, especially during times of stress, and you will find yourself often holding your breath - just when you most need the calming, centering power of a full, deep hit of oxygen.

Most of us breathe from our upper chest. In The Art Of Breathing, Justice Toms reports that nearly 90 percent of people sitting in a doctor's waiting room exhibited "disturbed" breathing patterns. Our chronic shallow breathing utilizes only about a third of our respiratory system. As a result, most people are starved for the oxygen essential for exchanging energy in our cells.

"Many medical doctors say disturbed breathing goes along with illness - but which comes first?" Hendricks wonders. "We're not sure," answers Toms. "It could be that the disturbed breathing actually creates the situation in which there's a disturbance in other organs in the body."

Tom Goode, author of Oxygen: The Cure for Disease? calls our chronic hypoxia a "fundamental cause" of degenerative disease. Dr. Gabriel Cousens concurs. In his column, "Health Today," Cousens counsels that the "strength of our barrier to degenerative diseases, is directly proportional to the amount of oxygen saturation" in our tissues. As much as 70 percent of our body's filtered poisons are released through exhalation. By lowering oxygen levels, shallow breathing decreases the body's ability to detoxify at the cellular level.

"The way that most people breathe is killing them!" breathlessly declares the International Breath Institute. These diaphragm disciples from Denver denounce shallow breathing for causing or deepening "a battery of physical and emotional disorders, and psychosomatic symptoms."

Andrew Weil welcomes such insight. After spending a decade combing cultures for alternative healing approaches, this Harvard-trained physician found the most impressive healer in his Arizona backyard. The 82 year old osteopath "has an incredible success rate," Weil says, because he understands "the importance of breathing as an essential function of human health and illness." Weil now recommends that everyone frequently take five deep breaths as a toast to our "good health, well-being and deep connection to a life."

Health and holiness have always gone together. The word 'spirit' is derived from the Latin word spiritus, meaning "breath". In China and India, conscious control of the breath has been practiced for millennia as a way of healing and spiritual centering.

"Slower and deeper breathing facilitates better health, relaxation, calm and focus," IBI invites. This isn't hot air. Each time you remember to take a slow, deep indraught of air, you will feel fresh energy flooding your being - even as tension drains away with the slow exhalation that follows.

After years of stressed, shallow breathing, it takes attentive practice to relearn a child's inborn ability to draw in deep breaths from the lower abdomen. Remember, the object is to refresh body and soul - not to hyperventilate like a bankrupt pearl diver.

Eight good breaths per minute is about right; a dozen tops. Don't shovel air in, cautions Nancy Zi. Instead, the author of another book titled The Art of Breathing tells her voice students to simply expand their abdomen. This drops the diaphragm, pulling air like a bellows to the bottom of the lungs.

Dr. Gay Hendricks calls this deep belly-breath, "mixing an oxygen cocktail." He oxygenates unobtrusively during meetings or other stressful situations. This PhD pioneer in "centering" the body - and author of Conscious Breathing: Breathwork for Health, Stress, Release, and Personal Mastery - suggests that when confronted by a stressful situation, try grounding yourself with an extended exhale. No matter what's coming at you, keep your next breaths based in the belly. "I've found that if I breathe through my fear, suddenly the action I need to take is revealed to me very quickly," Hendricks says.

Natural full breathing is powerfully rejuvenating. Each deep "inspiration" infuses us with vitality. "Inspired" with life-energy, our emotions and internal chatter come into better balance. We feel calmer, more relaxed. Our thinking clears, and we are able once again to hear that quiet, infallible interior voice that confirms our course through life.

Breathing is the basis of feeling good. In The Breath of Life, author George Ellis points out that "Breathing exercises tone the respiratory system, and, as a consequence, the nervous and endocrine systems that are dependent upon the quality of blood. They also help the organs of digestion to function properly."

IBI researchers also cite recent studies showing that slow, full breaths decrease heart and metabolic rates, while lowering blood sugar levels, pulmonary stress and fatigue. The increased lymphatic flow and oxygen transfer to tissues also stabilizes blood pressure, decreasing the risk of strokes.

Some people who have taken control of their breathing report that they can sleep all night for the first time in years. Other deep breathers have "nearly cured" 40 years of stuttering, alleviated chronic headaches and premenstrual pain, quit smoking - and reduced high blood pressure and asthma after swallowing ineffective prescription drugs instead of adequate oxygen for too many years.

"Whoever breathes most air lives most life," Elizabeth Barrett Browning believed. To test this truism, try this exercise recommended by former defense attorney and "Yoruba priestess," Iyanla Vanzant: "Every day for 40 days, get up in the morning and take five deep breaths before you brush your teeth, go to the bathroom or utter a word."

That should work. But don't wait until you awaken to wake up. Try surrendering to your next breath right now. Put a hand on your stomach and feel it push out as you take a slow deep breath. Feel fresh energy pouring into your hara "centre" and chest. Exhale. Ahhhh. "Go ahead, make the sound," Zi urges. B - r - e - a - t - h - e.