This is the best advice I’ve ever received and probably the best advice I’ll ever give: breathe.

Breathing, it seems to me, is the most basic, most fundamental function of life. The breath bookends our lives: the inhalation is the first and most important task at birth and the exhalation is our final farewell at death. We even communicate through the breath with a wistful sign, a frustrated harrumph, a surprised gasp, a bored yawn, a cheerful whistle, or a longing blown kiss.

It’s a wonder that something so central to life is so easily forgotten.

So breathe. When you can’t keep up with a sun salute, breathe. When you keep falling out of a balancing post, breath. When you can’t hold the pose for one second longer, breathe. And then, we can bring that breath control practice, that pranayama, into our lives off the mat. When our bosses are demanding too much, when our families drive us up the wall, when the to do list keeps growing, when the bill pile up, we breathe.

It’s amazing how much our perspective can change in the time it takes to complete one full breath cycle.

So breathe. Always breathe.