It's worth pointing out in this connection that breathing is both autonomic and volitional. Only blinking (and I think one other that I can't recall ATM) is al

It's worth pointing out in this connection that breathing is both autonomic and volitional. Only blinking (and I think one other that I can't recall ATM) is also like that. In other words, breathing is one of the only two (three?) vital autonomic processes that one can do non-optimally! You can't digest wrong, or regulate your temperature wrong, or pump your blood wrong, etc. but you can breath wrong. In some (sub-)cultures breathing is at the core of knowledge and health while in others it's barely understood, eh? (FWIW, I suspect that volitional breathing must have something to do with spoken language, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to do other than speculate.)