The 5-Minute Lift

Direction: up-regulation.
If your chest is tight or your thoughts are racing, don’t use this one; use Five Minutes to Settle. Many breathing practices are meant to bring you down (down-regulation). This one goes the other way. It’s for the flat state: heavy, foggy, starting anything feels like pushing a car.
Slow breathing makes that worse. What helps is posture, deliberate movement, light, an in-breath longer than the out-breath, and one short round of brisk nasal breathing. Seated, no props, no breath-holding. Includes faster breathing: skip that section if you’re pregnant, have a heart or respiratory condition, epilepsy, or a history of panic attacks or fainting, and stop if you feel dizzy or tingly.

Transcript

Before anything else, One question which really matters. This recording brings your energy up, And that's only the right move for one of two states. If you're flat, Heavy, Foggy. If starting anything feels like pushing a car uphill. If you've been going through the motions all morning, Then this is the right one. Stay with me. But if you're buzzing, If your chest is tight, Your jaw is set, Your thoughts are going too fast, Or you can feel own heartbeat it's better to stop this recording you don't need energy you've got too much of it already the track five minutes to settle is probably a better one for you Now those two can feel similar from the inside. So take a second and actually check. Are you flat or wound up? And one more thing, If you're pregnant, Or if you have a heart or breathing condition, Or epilepsy, Or you get panic attacks, You can skip the faster breathing in the middle of this track. I'll tell you when it's coming and what to do instead. Everything else in here is fine. All right, Let's build up some charge. Keep your eyes open for this whole recording. We're waking a system up, Not settling it. If there's a window, Face it. If there's a light, Put it on. And we start with the body, Not the breath. So sit up tall, Not stiff, Just stop hanging off your spine. Feel the top of your head lift a little. Press both feet into the floor properly, Like you're about to stand up, But you don't. Hold it. And let go. Maybe roll your shoulders back twice, Slowly. And open and close your hands a few times, Heart. Make a strong fist and then spread the fingers wide. Strong fist spreading the fingers wide now your face and yes this might look a bit ridiculous but open your mouth wide open your eyes wide and stretch everything and then let it go, Nobody's watching Do it again, Open everything wide, Stretching it and letting go as if nobody's watching. Now the breath, And it's the opposite of a calming breathing technique So instead of a long out-breath, We make the in-breath the longer one We're gonna inhale through the nose, Slow and full And out through the nose, But shorter and easy, Not pushing it out Let's start in. And out, Quite short. Again in. And outer. N And out. And keep that going on your own tempo but keep the inhale long and the exhale short to around 10 of them. Bringing energy into the body on the inhale. See if you can widen the belly, The ribcage, The upper chest. Letting go on the exhale, Keeping it short and bringing in the energy again on the inhale. And we're gonna move into a faster round now. This is the one to skip if I told you to skip it. So if that's you, Carry on with the long in-breath for the next minute and rejoin me after. For everyone else, We're gonna do 25 brisk breaths through your nose. In and out about one second, Let from the belly. So not hard, Not forced, But brisk. If you do get dizzy or your hands start to tingle and it feels uncomfortable, You can stop straight away and breathe normally. So here we go. Start now on your own rhythm. In out in out in out in out in out And you can stop, Let your breathing go completely normal again. You don't have to do anything, Just sit with what's different There may be some buzz, Maybe some warmth, A bit of clarity behind the eyes You made that, Didn't come from caffeine, And nobody handed it to you. Last thing, And it's important, This charge has about 20 minutes in it. And if you sit here, It will drain and do nothing. So stand up and do the first thing that you want to do. Not the easiest one, The first one. Let's go.