Hi,
It's Breesene here.
I have a five minute recording for you to release stress.
So please take a big deep breath in with me.
Everything you have,
Take a big deep breath in.
Hold everything in tense and tight.
Scrunch up your shoulders,
Scrunch up your fears,
Tighten everything and then release it out with a big loud sigh.
The louder the better.
Believe it or not,
When you exhale with a sigh,
With a sound,
You are toning the vagus nerve.
It's our polyvagal system and when you can sigh,
When you can make a sound like that,
The vagus nervous system knows that you are safe.
So let's try that again.
Let's breathe in.
Everything tense,
Tight,
Even clenching the hands and the thighs and the toes and the nose.
And then release it with a big sigh.
Let it all go.
Spread the fingers out wide,
Spread out the toes,
Release,
Yawn,
Stretch,
Let it go.
Let's try that one more time.
Breathing in,
Tighten everything up.
Squeeze,
Squeeze,
Squeeze,
Scrunch,
Scrunch,
Scrunch,
Hold it,
Hold it,
Tension,
Tightness.
Come on.
And release.
Let it all go.
That's it.
So you've released it,
You've let it all go.
And now we're just going to allow our breathing to return to its own normal,
Natural rhythm.
We can allow the breath to flow freely.
So you might be sitting,
You might be lying down.
I want you to feel your body.
Get a sense of your body sitting or lying down.
Maybe notice where there are points of contact.
It could be the feet,
It could be the seat,
Maybe the back.
Just know and feel that sense of being supported.
You're being held and supportive in this moment.
And then take one or two hands and put them over the heart.
And just breathe.
For a few breaths.
Inhaling,
Exhaling.
Nowhere to go.
Nothing to do.
Remembering that if all you manage to do today is just breathe,
That that's enough.
And in fact,
One of my favourite mantras is breathe.
It'll be OK.
So now and again,
Throughout this day,
When you notice that tension coming in,
When you're feeling a little bit stressed,
A little bit worried,
If you can catch yourself,
We say in Belfast,
Catch yourselves on.
When we realise that's happening,
We just stop,
Put a hand on our heart and breathe.
You can take a big deep breath or just a gentle breath.
It's called conscious breathing.
Conscious breathing is when we're aware of our inhale,
We're aware of our exhale.
And as soon as you start to do that,
You're activating the parasympathetic nervous system,
Which is the rest and digest.
We're allowing the soothing hormones a chance to switch on,
Lowering our heart rate,
Lowering our blood pressure.
That's really simple,
Really easy.
Everybody can do it.
Enjoying the inhale,
Enjoying the exhale.
There's no right or wrong way to breathe.
As long as we're still breathing,
There's more right with us than wrong with us.
So thank you for having these five minutes of breathing with me.
Please come back and do this little exercise any time.
Take care of yourself and remember,
Breathe.
It'll be okay.
