Coming in late on this.

The significance of breathing is that there is a direct  link between the breath, and the mind. When we breathe slowly and deeply it has a stilling effect on the mind, and vice versa. When stressed or uptight we breathe shallow and fast, but naturally take deep slow breaths in order to calm ourselves.

This is why correct breathing is inevitably a central part of meditation methods.

The energy issue is in a sense related. When centered, in the moment, and in our natural loving state we both receive higher energy, and burn much less. When on the other hand we're angry, upset, frightened or otherwise dominated by ego we (a) block our ability to connect with that energy/remove ourselves from the realm of that energy, and (b) burn lots more while attempting to maintain what is entirely a mind made reality/state.

There's an energy price to maintaining what is our normal but not our natural state of mind.

Breathing exercises can temporarily energise us for this reason - given that they calm the mind, and while not eliminating ego activity they do greatly reduce its intensity.

Energy levels (often perceived as mood, or vibe, or state of being) steadily improve with spiritual work. It takes considerable time (at least it did for me) to build enough cumulative effect that the mind calms so we can feel it - this is the result of our getting better at meditation (accessing a centred state more easily), and of a cumulative effect where our underlying mind state becomes steadily calmer and less intense.

Instances where e.g. things of beauty like a mountain view still the mind give rise to short lived periods of calm, or ah-ha-aaaaaa moments too.

With enough self training/practice these states become our norm, and we start to experience periods of what feels like pure joy, not necessarily for any very obvious external reason, and an underlying equanimity where nothing very much fazes us.

A deep, intuitive knowing, wisdom and compassion start to emerge too - with the emergence of this people start to find that others sense it and respond very differently and much more gently to them. (when we experience aggression its usually because we're projecting a hostile vibe, or else because the other is so caught in an aggressive mind state that they cannot perceive our putting out something else)

There are physical effects too. People who have raised their vibe in this way and entered a new state of being tend to 'glow'. You can see it in a lightness that surrounds them.

The more highly realised demonstrate amazing levels of energy (which in some cases eventually may be manifested in more physical ways), and experience a fairly continuous joy of just being.

This stuff is for real, there's no 'magic' about it. What you put in (provided your methods are appropriate, and provided you do enough work - which is why its often a good idea to join a credible organisation teaching methods of becoming as opposed to dogma and beliefs for a while, if only for the moral support - and you don't grasp after progress or belonging and turn it into another reason to get uptight) is what you get out. Which is why so often we talk of the importance of practices like meditation and self enquiry. We're heavily biased to value intellectual chatter by our culture, but too much intellectual noise and the associated intensity take us in the opposite direction by intensifying mind, blocking our higher connection and giving ego space to operate within....

Hi Alan, sounds like fun.....