I really wanted to talk a little bit about the breath.
You may have noticed in meditation and yoga classes that teachers are always talking about the breath.
Take a deep breath in and out,
Inhale and exhale.
And you may ask,
Why are they always asking me to focus on my breath in out is kind of annoying.
Well,
I want to explain why we focus so much on the breath during these activities.
And let's just think about a scenario.
It may sound familiar to you.
So we wake up,
You know,
In the morning and we open our eyes and generally we think about what we have to do next and maybe what we're going to be doing that day.
So we make it up and maybe perhaps brush our teeth or do whatever we normally do.
But we're generally thinking about the next step.
We may go down,
Have breakfast,
Get dressed,
And thinking about the next step.
Perhaps we have kids to get ready or put a laundry on or whatever it is.
Maybe going to work,
Getting in the car.
But the whole time we're doing these things in kind of autopilot,
We're often taking very short breaths.
Perhaps we get to work,
Taking very short breaths.
Eating our lunch,
Perhaps very short breaths.
We get home,
Short breaths.
We can spend a whole day like this just taking these very short breaths.
We may spend a whole week like this,
A whole month.
And some people,
Sadly,
Spend years,
Some of us,
Just taking short,
Shallow breaths.
Do you know what happens to the body as we run around our daily lives like this?
This type of breathing is designed to keep us in a state of fight or flight.
And it connects directly with the amygdala again.
It is a primal reaction to create stress in the body,
To keep the body alert and ready to run for survival.
This is all very important stuff as it's kept humanity alive in certain situations for sure.
But whilst practicing short breaths,
We are communicating with our brains and telling our minds that we are stressed.
And the brain is wonderful and incredibly obedient.
And it produces stress hormones straight away and chemicals which release into the body and every single cell in your body tightens up and has been put into a state of stress.
Does this sound familiar?
What we practice grows.
The good news is we are in control.
Yeah,
Amazing.
We are in control.
We are in control of this tool,
Of this breath,
Our breath.
The breath in which we can communicate directly to our brains.
And by taking slow,
Deep controlled breaths,
We can tell our minds that we are okay.
We are safe.
We are at peace and at harmony.
And in turn,
The brain tells the body and all of our muscles can relax and feel good.
So let's just take three nice slow breaths together now.
Just find a comfortable position,
Just perhaps seated or standing up.
It doesn't matter.
Just wherever you're comfortable.
And perhaps just let's just find a little spot to focus on.
So maybe just looking straight ahead or down at the floor.
And just bring awareness to the breath.
Just noticing if it's short or how we can decide to lengthen the breath.
Just knowing that we can lengthen this breath is powerful.
So slowly just decide to inhale in and just noticing how the lungs rise.
Just bring awareness to the art of breathing.
And then slowly exhaling out.
And then inhaling in very slowly.
And then exhaling out.
And one more time,
Inhaling in.
Hold it here for a moment and exhaling out.
The breath is an amazing tool.
We own it.
It's ours.
And we can communicate directly with our minds through our breath.
Soothing,
Nurturing and rebalancing ourselves whenever we need to call upon it.
The breath is the first thing that we do when we arrive and the last thing that we do when we leave.
It is our best friend.
It is always with us.
Lengthening and controlling and bringing awareness to the breath is key to our wellbeing.
