Well, nothing is freer than AIR.
However, the quality of air you breathe is no light matter, and needs some careful consideration.
You do have a choice in the environmental air you breathe; you choose where to live where you work. While it may not be easy to change either of these, moving to a different location or changing jobs may be necessary.
Personal circumstances are usually the deciding factor in both of these situations. Picking up your family and possessions and moving off to another part of the state or country, or finding a new job, are major steps in anyone's life. However, if you live or work in surroundings that are heavily polluted by industrial or agricultural activity, your body and the bodies of your family members could suffer needlessly.
And, no discourse on breathing would be complete without a few choice words on smoking.
The firs word that comes to mind regarding smoking is: DON'T.
Unless you have been living in an isolated, underground, communication-free vault for the past thirty years, you are well aware of the danger of smoking. Government agencies and health associations have waged extensive, expensive public awareness campaigns to drive home the message that smoking can kill you-or, at the very least, cause you great physical and economic pain and suffering.
The perils of smoking include the increased potential for lung cancer, interference with blood circulation and the absorption/retention of some vitamins and minerals, as well as a host of other maladies.
Here's why. Smoking dumps potentially lethal toxins into the body. The toxins from smoking a cigarette go directly to the blood stream without being through physiological protective mechanisms.
Unlike food that is neutralized by stomach acid or detoxified by the liver, no denaturing process tempers the direct hit of the pollutants of cigarette smoke. Noxious ingredients making up the largest portion of a lusty drag on smoldering cigarette invade the lungs then pass directly into the blood stream. Smoking puts a direct toxic hit on your body.
Respiratory toxicity from smoking or from environmental pollution imposes severe stress on the body. That stress can weaken or exhaust vulnerable organs and systems that are trying to cope with other stresses. Therefore, the additional stress of being immersed in environmental toxic waste can tip the scales to allow the development of disease.
