What headphones taught me about breath

I have a pair of expensive over-ear headphones from a previous career. About a year ago, on a cold afternoon when I couldn't think of anything else to do, I put them on, turned the volume off, and just listened to the inside of my own ears. The headphones do an excellent job of blocking external sound. The only thing audible was me.

This was, briefly, unbearable.

What I heard

The first thing I noticed was that my breathing was much louder than I had believed it to be. Through closed ears, with the room sealed out, every inhale and exhale had texture — small irregularities, a faint catch on one side of the inhale, a soft plosive at the end of each exhale, a small click in the throat between cycles.

I had assumed I breathed quietly and smoothly. I did not. I breathed loudly and unevenly, and the unevenness was specific and reproducible. The same small catch every inhale. The same click every fourth or fifth breath.

This was confronting. I had been carrying these specific breath patterns for forty years without noticing them. The headphones made me notice them in twenty seconds.

What I almost did

I almost took the headphones off and put them away. The hearing of my own breath was uncomfortable in a way I didn't expect. Not painful. Not dramatic. Just too close, in some specific psychological way. I wasn't ready for the proximity.

I left them on for another thirty seconds. Then a minute. Then five. By the time five minutes had passed, the discomfort had become information. The catch on the inhale was not a defect; it was the small clench in my throat I carry. The click between breaths was the very small adjustment my jaw was making, all day, without my knowledge.

What this taught me

I write about listening as a practice, and most of what I write about is outward listening — to rooms, to spaces, to the small sounds of a place. The headphones taught me about the inward equivalent. The body, like a room, makes constant small sounds. Most of them are below the threshold of normal attention. With the right conditions — sealed ears, low light, no other input — they become available.

What I have come to do with this is to put on the headphones, with no audio playing, for five minutes a few times a week. I sit somewhere quiet. I listen to whatever is happening inside the headphones, which is only me. I notice what my breath is doing. I notice what my throat is doing. I notice the small click in my jaw.

Over a year, the small clench in the throat has softened. The click in the jaw has become less reliable. I haven't done anything specific about these things. The noticing has done the work.

What the body has been doing without your attention starts to change once you give it some.

If you have headphones

You don't need expensive ones; you just need ones that seal well. Closed-back over-ear headphones, or in-ear monitors that fit deeply. Put them on, with nothing playing, in a quiet room. Sit for five minutes.

The first time will be uncomfortable. This is correct. Stay for the discomfort. By the third or fourth time, the discomfort will have shifted into something more like attention — the kind of attention you can't really get any other way, because no other condition makes the body audible to itself this way.

It's a small odd practice. It's also, in my opinion, one of the more useful small odd practices I have.

This closes a small set of pieces on sound, breath, and the body. Next month I want to write about silence, which is a different and harder topic entirely.