Digesting The Moment: A Simple Breath Practice

Welcome to this short video breath practice.

In this track, we work with a simple rhythm: inhale through the nose, swallow at the top of the breath, and exhale with a cool stream of air through the lips.

I use this practice as a way of bringing awareness to the senses and allowing experience to be digested more fully in the body.

As we breathe, we notice scent, temperature, and the feeling of air entering the nostrils. At the top of the inhale, we pause and swallow—gently inviting what we are taking in through the senses to move down into the body for processing and integration. Then we exhale slowly through the lips, allowing the nervous system to soften and settle.

This is a simple practice for presence, sensory awareness, and regulation. I especially love it in the morning, before the first sip of coffee, as a way to wake up, smell the day, and come into balance.

Transcript

Welcome i'm jocelyn this is a short breath track we're going to be inhaling swallowing and exhaling and before i go any further i just want to explain a little bit about that swallow When I work, I work very closely with all of the senses. What we see, What we hear, What we taste, What we smell, What we feel on our skin inside, Right? And then we also have things like memory and imagination that's really round that mind that we have. And when you think about the body, The human body, When we eat food, Right? When we drink something, All of that is digested below our heads, Right? It's digested down here in our stomach. And that's where that process happens. So if you take that same idea, And place it in the senses. What I see, How do I digest what I see? How do I digest what I hear? How do I digest what I taste? How do I digest what I smell, Right? When you think about that for a minute, We take information in all the time. And we're taking it in through a lot of these senses that are up here in our head. And we never actually process it down to be digested. So that is part of why we are swallowing. Wanted to do this as a video track so I could show you. So when you inhale, We're going to inhale and we're going to really take in what you smell. Like it might just be a fresh breeze. You might smell the coffee from this morning. We're going to take all of that into our inhale. We're going to allow the aromas to be present with us. And also the air, The temperature of air, How it feels going into the nostrils. You can kind of place your awareness there. So inhaling. At the top, You're going to hold and swallow. Bringing that information down to digest. Right and then on the exhale we're going to just send a cool breeze through our lips on a gentle like blowing out of candles so it'll look like that exhale will look like this So that's the beginning of this breath. We're beginning to be present with our bodies, With our senses, With the information that our senses are bringing us. We are swallowing to bring it down into our body for digestion, Right? And then we're going to blow it out with a cool stream of air. So let's do a few together. Let's inhale. Swallow. And then blow out a cool stream of air through the lip. Again, Inhaling. What do you smell during that inhale? What are the aromas? What does the air feel like going into your nose? Hold it, Swallow. And then blow it out with a cool stream of air. Now, You can continue doing this while I talk, Just inhaling and seeing whatever aromas are out and about for you to smell, To feel, Right? Swallowing at the top and then exhaling with a cool stream of air out your lips like you're blowing out a candle. So going back to that idea while you're breathing, The inhale through the nose, You can even think about allowing it to drop down, But really letting your awareness. . . Come to your nose let's do it again inhaling through your nose Swallowing. And blowing a cool stream of air out your lips. Now you can elongate that exhale for even more of a nervous system regulation. But what we're doing is we're inhaling through our nose. We are being present with our sense, Which keeps us in the present moment. We're bringing our awareness to what do we smell? How does it feel right in our body? We're here now. When we get to the top, We hold and we swallow. And really, You can put your awareness in, I am digesting what I'm experiencing. Like whatever it is, I am digesting it. I'm bringing it into my body, Bringing it down to that lower area of my body where it can be digested. And then blowing it out with a cool stream of air allows your body, If you elongate it, So you make that exhale a little longer than the inhale, Then you are also regulating your nervous system by elongating that exhale. So let's do it like six times together and know that we're just focusing on the scent, Right? But even if you're, And we could even add this, Even if you have your eyes out looking at the horizon, Right? You might have your eyes looking at the horizon or maybe looking up. You know, Maybe just looking around. Keep your head straight. Like, Don't start stretching to look. Keep your head straight up. And you might let your eyes wander. And that brings even more information to be digested. So let's do six breaths. We're going to inhale. Swallow. Cool stream of air. Inhale with your awareness on aromas, On temperature, On scent. Swallow. And then exhale a cool stream of air through your lips. And again, You can allow your eyes to wander anywhere they want. Inhaling through your nose. Awareness on what you're bringing into your body. At the top swallow. And a cool stream of air out your mouth. You can even keep that exhale as long as you want. And go about this in your own time. You don't have to follow me. Inhaling. Swallow. And blowing a cool stream of air. Two more. Inhaling through your nose. Swallow. Cool stream of air. Inhaling. Swallow. And a cool stream of air. And let that go, I invite you to close your eyes just for one minute and just check in. Just see how you feel. So close your eyes. Bring your awareness inward, And you can do a quick body scan. Just allow your awareness to go from the top of the head. Down the back of the head. Down to the neck, Even over the front of your face, The eyes, Nose, Lips. Chin. Let your awareness go over your shoulders. The front of your shoulders and the back of your shoulders. The upper spine, Mid spine. Your awareness just go down both of your arms. Your upper arms and your forearms. Your wrists and your fingers. Just check in. See how they feel. Let your awareness go all the way down the spine. Through the belly. Down to the pelvic bowl and the hips and the glutes. Down both legs, The thighs and the knees and the calves and the ankles. All ten fingers, All ten toes. How is everything feeling after just a few rounds of breath? Just check in. I use this breath. Every morning when I go outside, I go outside onto the stoop and I let my eyes go on the horizon. And I breathe in through my nose, I swallow, And I breathe out a cool stream of air. And I do it for about six to nine times as a way to wake up, To smell the day, To process the day, To digest the beginning of a new day. And it is a really simple practice. And I usually walk out with my coffee, Put my coffee down, And I do that before I take my first sip. And it just, It really brings you into balance in the moment where you are. And it brings a little calm to your nervous system. So I hope that you enjoyed that. I wanted to do this so that you could really understand why the swallowing? Why the swallowing, Right? And I wanted you to understand, Well, It's really, It may not be an actual physical thing, But if you really think about the body. At the belly, Right, And the stomach, That's where all the digestion happens. And so we have to digest experiences, Memories. We have to digest what we see in this world, What we intake through our senses. And even if we just put awareness on that swallow, Beginning to digest that, That alone. Is an absolutely worthy, Beautiful task. So yeah. So thank you so much, My friends. Thank you for joining me. Namaste.