Hello friends,
You are so welcome here.
My name is Stella Billory,
I am a Senior Mental Health Occupational Therapist working within the NHS and I have a private practice for folks who have ADHD.
And this meditation is a practice to help people who have ADHD to gain better understanding of the benefits of deep breathing.
And in our fast-paced lives it's really easy to get caught up in a state of doing and to quickly find ourselves in fight or flight or a stress response where anxiety starts to take over.
Deep breathing is a powerful tool to shift us out of this reactive mode and reactive way of being into a state of calm and balance.
And breathing deeply can be beneficial at lots of different times.
It might be that you want to utilise this practice before going to sleep,
Or it might be that you want to utilise this practice in the middle of your day when you're starting to find yourself becoming overwhelmed.
And so we'll start in just a moment and encouraging you to either practice laying on your back with the feet extended or the soles of the feet on the floor,
Or in a seated position.
So a couple of options.
And I'd like you to bring your focus towards your torso and if it feels comfortable to do so and there's always that necessity to negotiate consent with yourself,
But if it feels all right to do so,
Bringing both of the hands with the palms resting down just around the space of the lower ribs.
And by consciously slowing down our breath we start to signal to the nervous system that we're safe.
But what is a deep breath?
When we breathe deeply we breathe from the diaphragm.
And the ribs are a good indicator for the circumference of our lungs.
So just at the bottom of the ribcage is the bottom of the lungs and below the bottom of the lungs is the diaphragm.
And it is the diaphragm that initiates or starts the breath.
So the breath isn't started by the nose or the mouth or the throat or even the lungs,
It's the diaphragm.
And the diaphragm is a sheet of muscle that divides the upper and the lower torso and if you have your hands around your lower ribs you're in the approximate place for the diaphragm.
You're in the approximate place for the diaphragm.
Whatever position you're in,
Just seeing if you can relax every other part of the body,
So shoulders are relaxed and the facial muscles are relaxed.
And if it's comfortable for you to do so,
The invitation now without really forcing the breath,
Just simply noticing as you breathe in and as you breathe out this space around the lower ribs starting to undulate,
Starting to move.
And the wonderful thing about breathing deeply,
Breathing from and with the diaphragm is that it has a physiological effect on the body and therefore on the mind.
And whether your thoughts are fleeting and very fast or furious or whether the mind is very calm as you approach this practice,
The physiological effects of breathing through the diaphragm are going to be similar.
So we use the hands as an anchor and a measure of the breath,
Without judgment,
Simply encouraging the breath to move in and out to the diaphragm,
From the diaphragm.
And you might start to notice this rising on the inhale as you breathe in through the nose,
Feeling the space around the ribs expand.
And as you breathe out,
The belly falls.
It's encouraging you to stay with the hands and this movement around the lower part of the torso.
And then let's see if we can shift the quality of the breath.
The quality of the breath.
So especially when people are new to breathing practices,
There sometimes can be a tendency to exaggerate or overcook the breath.
The breath doesn't need to be audible.
If somebody was sitting next to you or standing next to you and you were in a darkened room,
They wouldn't be able to hear you because the breath is so subtle and so sweet.
We're just dialing down the quality of the breath,
Continuing to breathe in and out through the nose to and from the diaphragm.
And we'll just take three more long,
Slow,
Nourishing rounds of breath,
Just as you are.
And on your next exhale,
Just letting go of the practice so the hands can fall away from the body.
And before we come out of the practice,
Just taking a moment to notice.
So how are you feeling?
Is there any shift or change?
I'm encouraging you to bring in this unconditional high range of breath.
And I'm also encouraging you to bring in a sense of self-regard for yourself,
Which can be really difficult to do as a neurodivergent person,
Especially when we're experiencing all the things that we experience sometimes that are not welcome,
Not being able to sleep,
Not feeling like we're in control of our emotions.
There's no judgment here.
Thank you so much for joining me,
Beautiful human.
Wishing you a beautiful day.
