Today I'm gonna introduce you to box breathing and you might already have a sense of what that is And if you do then I'm just bringing this top of mind and let's reintroduce it and if you don't then This is a really good opportunity The breath is a bit like a marionette to our nervous system Depending on how it's breathing it can kind of pull the strings to feeling anxious excited or more calm and So the reason I like box breathing To be able to work with calm and anxiety and overwhelm and stress is because we're practicing Perceived control over our breath.
So let me explain exactly what it is You might want to think of it just like it is just like the title a box so a box has four sides and This breath We're gonna be breathing in and breathing out for The same amount of counts.
So that's two sides.
The other two sides is a hold So this is where we get to have a bit more control of our breath So we breathe in let's say for the count of four This is actually a practice you can play with but let's just start here for the count of four So we breathe in for the count of four we hold for four We breathe out for the count of four and we hold for four Breathe in for four hold for four Breathe out for four Hold for four.
So that's what we're gonna be doing We're gonna practice it together and then you can practice it for as long as you want And then I'm gonna explain some variations afterwards that you can begin to play with depending on what you're looking for in In general,
So okay.
Let's do this together.
So first just get into a comfortable position and Remember what we want to do here is have a playful mindset a curious mindset we're just just seeing what we notice there's no expectations and and that way you get to Be aware of your experience really as it is So a comfortable position seated or if you'd rather lie down you're welcome to do that and We're just sitting here having an awareness of our body for a moment and the first thing I want you to do is just check in and seeing if there's any areas of your body that are Holding or tensing include your face your shoulders You can go down your back or your chest your abdomen your hips and legs and feet hands as well and if you do notice any holding or tensing seeing if you can allow that to soften or maybe Right in the beginning of this practice you do a gentle stretch to open it up if it's your shoulders Maybe you roll them or maybe you open up your back a little bit give yourself some space to just Open soften your body Okay now a couple deep breaths to begin in through your nose out through your mouth or in through your nose out through your nose Either way is okay,
And so Now we're gonna begin this box breathing So beginning to breathe in for the count of four one two three four hold one two three four breathe out one two three four now hold one two three Four now breathe in again one two three four hold one two three four breathe out one two three four now hold again one two three four Now just check in just after that very short practice just noticing how you're feeling physically What's present emotionally maybe even the quality of your attention and you can do this you can?
Ask yourself on a scale of one to ten before you do a practice like hey,
How am I feeling in general?
What's my stress level?
What's my feeling of overwhelm?
And then do the practice choose a couple minutes or choose to do ten sets of those you can think of it a little bit like a Like a workout in some way like you do curls,
But how many sets of those how many sets of ten?
Are you doing right so?
We can do like ten sets of those boxes we can do ten boxes if we want to do five boxes You know you can kind of play with it So now I want to explain some variations You might choose to do more of a rectangle at times so you might breathe in for the count of four and Breathe out for the count of six and what that sometimes does is gives a little extra boost to our parasympathetic nervous system allowing us to Cool down a little bit longer now some people Find they kind of come out of breath a little bit You know when they do that so the way you want to do the out breath is as if you're as if you're breathing out through a straw,
So you're just kind of like And that way you can control the out breath a little bit more and this is a really wonderful practice Again,
It plays on our brains ability to have a sense of perceived control over our breath and also allows us if we do get a Little bit anxious because we're like okay am I gonna run out of breath we get to play with riding the edge of what?
Psychiatrist Dan Siegel calls the window of tolerance which when we when we ride the edge of the window of tolerance Meaning like I can tolerate everything inside and then there's the edge and then I cannot tolerate anything outside that but when we ride the edge of it and We're kind of uncomfortable,
But we're still we're alright.
We're okay Then what happens is that the box grows and so our window of tolerance grows so we can also play with that So if you feel like slightly uncomfortable during this practice just kind of continue on a little bit See what you notice if you're okay,
Maybe kind of noticing your nervous system coming down and playing with that You
