While watching "the King’s Speech", I couldn't help but empathize with the way King George VI gasped and panicked throughout his breathing exercises. Although I don’t stutter, I battle allergies, which two years ago clogged my airways and generated anxiety.

I sought Western and Eastern cures.

A practical Midwesterner by birth, I believed in root causes. A New York-based yoga teacher, I knew the science of respiration and its vital exchange of oxygen and carbon monoxide. The process is so necessary that it is involuntary.

However, conscious breathing calms ragged nerves and binds all living beings.

Inhalation symbolizes femininity while exhalation represents masculinity in a constant dance of creation. Thirteenth-century poet Rumi called it “a trace of the traceless.” By Rumi’s standards, I was overly tense, a “breath breathing human being,” who couldn’t.

I visited my primary care doctor, who recommended Zyrtec. Pills had no effect.  

A friend recommended acupuncture.

The treatment felt macabre – I had needles in my face, fingers, and toes. I left the office feeling tingly with lymph recirculating.

The lasting contribution was the acupunturist’s use of high quality peppermint oil, better than Vicks. She taught me to rub a few drops onto my hands before tracing the outsides of my nose and cheekbones. Next, she suggested breathing into cupped hands, avoiding the sensitive eyes.

A greater contribution was lifestyle counseling.  While my lovely but busy doctor recommended drugs, the acupuncturist interviewed me. She asked when I was most uncomfortable: the morning. She asked what I ate in the morning: Dunkin Donuts. As soon as I imagined my phlegm-producing breakfast – two chocolate frosted donuts and a coffee with milk and sugar, I knew it triggered congestion. Recession worries compounded these respiratory problems.

“Have you been stressed out?” she asked.

“I don’t know how I’m paying rent,” I said, another Eureka moment. In addition to dust and pollen allergies, I was stressed and eating too many sweets.

Now, I practice capalabati or “skull shining” breaths, about 50 quick exhales. When I feel stuffy, I apply peppermint oil like the acupuncturist showed me. Every morning, I manage stress with yoga stretches followed by a few minutes of lying on the floor and reading uplifting poetry or essays. Later, I eat a breakfast of oatmeal and fruit washed down with water or tea.

My routine takes time, but I am medicine-free. Having removed the obstacles, I claim real estate in the form of breath.