Hello and welcome.
This session is part of the 21 day breathwork challenge.
If this is the first time tuning in and you'd like to start at day one,
If you follow my profile Inge Volsink,
You can find all the available previous sessions there.
You can also find all the other tracks in the playlist,
The 21 day breathwork challenge.
Are you ready?
Let's begin.
Hi and welcome to this practice session on how to set up your breathing routine.
By now you may have noticed that sometimes it can be pretty difficult to maintain a steady routine when work starts again,
When life starts to hit you,
When all these things happen.
No matter how determined you are at the beginning of your challenge,
If you want to make it to the end and if you are interested in pursuing a consistent breathwork or meditation routine afterwards,
It's important to become aware of how you can make it much easier for yourself to form a habit and to stick to the original plan.
So this session is about habit formation and really about how you can make it as easy as possible to sit down for breathing.
In this session I will share with you the most important highlights from my course on habit formation,
So you can optimize your practice.
If you wish to dive deeper into habit formation,
Please check out my course Becoming Building Sustainable Habits.
For now,
You will just have to trust me on these simple rules.
Number one,
Pick a regular time and place where you actually have time to do this practice.
It should be realistic to practice for about 10 minutes at this particular moment.
You can have different moments when you listen to theory and when you do your practice.
Or you can do them back to back,
Your choice.
Number two,
Stack your new breathwork habit on top of something you already do daily at the time you wish to do it.
For example,
If you want to do your breathwork in the morning,
Do it after your shower,
Or after your tea,
Or after your walk,
Or after your commute to work.
After whatever it is you do in your morning on a daily basis.
Number three,
Make sure you have a daily reminder that cues you to do your breathwork.
This should not include your phone.
Reminders on a phone are rarely effective.
A good cue is related to your behavior of preference,
And it is something that can be used during the practice.
For example,
Place your headphones or your journal on the breakfast table so you can use them to play these sessions.
Place them next to your teacup if after tea is when you practice.
Place your meditation pillow somewhere you can see it when you walk out of the bedroom.
Or place another object you use in your breathwork routine that allows you to be reminded at the exact moment you wish to do it,
And helps you to move into the routine with ease.
Number four,
Make it as easy as possible to start.
Make sure everything you need is ready to use.
Optimize the start of your practice.
James Clear calls this preparing the space.
If you want to have an automatic morning breathwork practice,
You can,
Every night before you go to bed,
Place everything in order.
So all you have to do is simply walk into your cue,
Sit down,
And start.
Make sure that there are zero distractions or barriers to execute.
For example,
I always make sure my headphones are charged,
My yoga mat,
Meditation pillow,
Journal and pen are ready to go,
And my old iPhone with my meditation apps on it,
And no other apps on it that might distract me,
Is charged as well.
So I have no barriers to doing my practice in the morning.
And make sure that you do not set unrealistic expectations.
It's better to start with two minutes of listening every day for a month than to start with 30 minutes a day and quit after two weeks.
I promise you,
Simple and small is the most sustainable way to wire in a habit.
So formulate a simple version of the behavior you wish to do,
Like press play on my next breathing session and listen for a few minutes.
Number five,
Think about a way to reward yourself for practicing.
This can be a smile after your practice,
A tick on a habit tracker,
A hug,
A message to an accountability buddy,
Or a cup of delicious coffee.
Whatever it is,
It should be immediate and it should make you feel good about yourself.
If tracking your habit makes you feel bad when you miss a day,
Choose another reward.
Positive emotions wire in habits,
So do not be afraid to tell yourself you are awesome for completing your breathing session.
Number six,
Visualize the sequence of events of your practice.
Visualization is a highly effective way to teach your brain to automate a series of behaviors.
So once you have chosen your time and place,
For example in the morning,
In the living room,
The behavior you stacked it on after your morning tea,
Your reminder,
The headphones,
And the simple version of your behavior,
Play two minutes of the breathing course,
And your reward,
Telling yourself you are awesome.
Write this down as a sentence and then visualize in your mind how you will walk through the steps.
A sentence could be something like this.
After I wake up in the morning,
I walk into the living room,
I make my tea,
I have my tea,
I see my headphones and put them on and play two minutes of the breathing course.
When I'm done,
I will tell myself that I'm awesome.
Once you've written down a sentence just like that but specialized just for your situation,
Visualize several times in your mind how you will walk through these steps.
So that was a lot to process.
Take a moment to write down all the ins and outs of this habit plan before you move to the next session of this course.
I promise you it will make it much more likely to actually finish.
Thank you for listening and practicing.
You are on the path to better health and happiness.
Keep it up.
You're doing awesome.
