The Breathing Room
Why does smoking continue to be so damn popular in Japan when most of the developing world is slowly giving it up?
A friend told me that stress is indirectly the biggest killer and as smoking reduces stress it’s healthy. I don’t want to go into the logic of that argument too much but there is some validity in it. I have my own pet theory though. It’s to do with social obligation in the work place.
Japanese people tend to have to work long hours and the salary men and office ladies or salary women and office men if you prefer, have to spend long hours seated at their desks. There are very few socially acceptable reasons for taking a break. I remember being shocked when one of my students told me that they have to check with their team leader that it’s ok to go to the toilet and that they don’t like to take too long because their co-workers might miss them. In that kind of setting, smoking is a great way to bunk off for ten minutes and provides the necessary moral approbation: smokers need to smoke, that’s what they do!
So, perhaps smoking is less about smoking and more about not wanting to work. Picture this though, imagine a world where offices didn’t have smoking rooms. They had ‘breathing rooms’ or in other words, ‘pranayama rooms’ where office workers could safely find sanctuary for ten minutes, relax, breathe deeply and then return to their desks refreshed and reinvigorated.
Call me crazy but what’s wrong with the idea? Stress rates will go down, health will improve, workers will be happier and so do better work and there would be less sick leave. Imagine that!
“Ancient texts … tell us that someone who is troubled, restless or confused has more prana outside the body than within … Too little prana in the body can be expressed as a feeling of being stuck or restricted.”
book: The Heart of Yoga, T.K.V. Desikachar
Sounds like symptoms that can be seen in any office, in any country. Let’s face it, the strip-lit, air-conditioned, typical office block is not the most healthy of environments to spend the majority of your day. Pranayama is a way to bring about more balance in your body and mind. Of course, you’d have to have corporate pranayama instructors to teach people the breathing exercises, to get people started and to inspire them but pretty quickly that wouldn’t be necessary as the old breathers in the company could soon teach the new recruits how to breathe properly. It would foster some of that breathing room camaraderie that it seems to be so important to develop.
“Prana means breath, respiration, life, vitality, wind , energy or strength. It also connotes the soul as opposed to the body. The word is generally used in the plural to indicate vital breaths. Ayama means length, expansion, stretching or restraint . Pranayama thus connotes extension of breath and its control.”
book: Light on Yoga, B.K.S. Iyengar
Around about this time of year I like to blow my students minds by telling them that most factories and offices in Sweden close down for a month over the summer as families head off to enjoy the long summer evenings outside in nature. I’m not sure how many people in Sweden smoke but they could teach all of us a thing or two about how to live more healthily:
“Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.”
~ Swedish Proverb
