Page 94 - OHS, June 2020

BREAKTHROUGH STRATEGIES
BY ROBERT PATER
The Breath of Safety
Oxygen is a life-essential element that many take for granted; we only Wnote its critical lack when oxygen is diminished or entirely absent.
hat you can’t see can still dramatically affects you— critical times). Similarly, leaders might for help or harm. This certainly applies to the in- think of strategies for raising safer tangibles of safety culture (attitudes, beliefs, habits, default perceptions, decisions and off-work actions, pre-existing injuries and much actions by elevating unconscious/au-
more). It’s also pertinent to physical forces like radiation or gravity as well as to viruses and other biological organisms. It even applies to unseen, odor- and taste-less gases like oxygen. Yet oxygen is a life-essential element that many take for granted; we only note its critical lack when oxygen is diminished or entirely absent.
The rapid spread of COVID-19 illuminated this. This virus’ fatal possibility is creating hypoxia (deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues) by attacking the ability of the lungs and cir- culatory system to connect with, and then deliver, life-preserving oxygen to all cells in our body. In essence, it internally suffocates a person, even when oxygen may be abundant outside.
During COVID-19’s devastating flooding of hospitals, physi- cians were desperate to find remedies to help severely affected people recover. Some doctors found that breathing methods could greatly help—even when allopathic “cures” weren’t yet available. Dr. Sarfaraz Munshi, M.D., from London’s Queen’s Hospital ex- plained, “The idea is to get the lower part of a person’s lungs to ex- pand so that any mucus that’s collecting there can be dislodged and coughed out.” To accomplish this, they instructed patients to first sit up and take a deep breath then hold for five seconds (doing this cycle five times), and then cough into a cloth once. Then, lie on the stomach to breathe deeper than normal for ten minutes. For what it’s worth, two well-known COVID-19 sufferers, author J.K. Rowl- ing and CNN journalist Chris Cuomo both indicated this method considerably helped them.
Of course, breath is an essential and time-limited life function. Breathing is the only physiological function that anyone can con- sciously control, yet also instantly switches to automatic pilot mode when we’re not thinking of it. In this way, it’s a bridge between our conscious and unconscious functioning. When you think about it, this is exactly the same as a prime safety goal; for people to become consciously aware of changing risks, choose best decisions and ac- tions while also developing go-to, “background” safest habits, even when they’re consciously preoccupied with tasks.
Not surprisingly, numerous disciplines incorporate/transfer some kinds of breathing techniques—whether for maximizing/ heightening health, energy, relaxation, physical performance, mindfulness or personal development. What do these techniques have in common? In addition to offering moments of potential “re- lief,” they employ the conscious mind to reprogram unconscious/ habitual breathing routines. That is, intentionally taking a relatively short time to do a pattern interrupt, to change those breathing ways that we spend most of our time doing without thinking about it. It’s akin to reprogramming attentionally background activities, critical in raising all safety skills.
Remember that the weakest link breaks first (we often come up short when relying on untrained suboptimal reflexive reactions in
tomatic baseline useful defaults. Like
building in the automatic motion of
first securing seat/shoulder belt before
driving a car (some companies try to
build in this default with a “don’t insert
the key into the ignition switch until
your seat belt is fastened” rule); checking the weight and balance of an object before lifting; scanning, then clearing a path before carrying a load. So much more.
Breath control s a high-level safety skill that pretty much every- one can quickly learn. Two great and proven ways to accomplish this are: training that builds in practice of the improved methods and elevating self-monitoring, checking to notice whether I’m mostly breathing shallowly from my upper chest vs. more fully expanding diaphragm and ribcage. (For just one highly effective breathing method for relaxation and mental clearing that I’ve per- sonally used for many years, search on “4-7-8 breathing video An- drew Weil MD.”1)
Far from being weird or overly “sophisticated”, breathing meth- ods are natural and can benefit safety and health in many ways— whether helping clear the mind or aiding mental focus by reducing “monkey-mind” and distracted thinking, or even to help heal (as applied to COVID-19 symptoms and more).
In “3 B’s for Preventing Soft-Tissue Injuries,” I wrote about the tie-in between breathing methods and preventing soft-tissue inju- ries.2 Many professionals have “health” in their title, but especially when illness looms large, it becomes ever clearer that health is in- separable from injury prevention, that our roles as safety leaders have to encompass promoting and supporting overall health and well-being, beyond just preventing “accidents.”
The takeaways for leaders? First, that incredibly powerful influ- ences and forces can and do affect us, even when these are invis- ible to us. Second, that relatively small actions and modifications we make can often have significantly large impacts (for better or worse). Third, that breathing methods are incredibly useful for injury prevention, mental focus, high-grading health and much more. Consider breathing a range of such practical methods into your company—and into your own life.
Robert Pater is Managing Director and creator of MoveSMART. REFERENCES
1. https://www.drweil.com/videos-features/videos/breathing- exercises-4-7-8-breath/
2. https://ohsonline.com/Articles/2017/04/01/3-Bs-for-Preventing- Soft-Tissue-Injuries.aspx
90 Occupational Health & Safety | JUNE 2020
www.ohsonline.com
Breathing methods are incredibly useful for injury prevention, mental focus, high-grading health and much more.