Several times during my massage last week, my massage therapist stopped and said “I can’t tell if you’re breathing. Take a breath!”
She made me aware that when I’m focused on something, when my brain is grinding away at full speed, my breathing becomes so shallow that it’s barely perceptible.
I just linked out of Pox Americana because I realized that I had actually stopped taking in breaths. The mental process of absorbing all of the complexities — and all of the insane convolutions — of what’s going on literally took my breath away.
I’ve got to go and breathe — deep, relaxing, healing, mind-drifting breaths. I can’t make the fact that we are on the verge of triggering a world-wide murdering spree go away, but maybe I can breathe away the stress of knowing that. Certainly, a little more oxygen in my system can’t hurt.
Last month or so ago, I happened to catch a part of a special on life in the Long Island Hamptons about Oxygen Bars (they don’t serve liquor; they sell whiffs of oxygen). Right now, I wouldn’t mind a double.