Breath Magic: Your Nervous System Re-set

Using an understanding of how breath affects your nervous system, this combination of yogic pranayama & Buddhist body sensing will create a positive state change via your magic neurochemistry! *NOTE: If you are in an anxious state, pace yourself with the breat, be patient and kind —even if you find yourself ahead of my instructions, and don't do the holds: just emphasize the exhale being as long and slow as you can and this will be beneficial. In the end, make sure to take in the good energy!

Transcript

Hi,

This is your nervous system reset meditation.

It's good to have some kind of practice like this that you do a few times a week or maybe even every day if you're in a period where you're wanting to retrain your neurobiological intelligence,

Such that your experience of awareness and energy,

Your capacity to interact skillfully and mindfully with your experience gets better over time.

So the way we'll begin is I want you to be in whatever your comfortable meditation posture is.

Do whatever you need to do to find that posture and then if you're comfortable with it,

Close your eyes.

And with your eyes closed,

Just be aware of where you are right now,

Sitting in the place you're sitting,

Whatever it is that you're sitting on,

What your legs and feet and hips are touching,

Perhaps noticing the air against your skin and feeling the breath as it moves in and out.

You may notice sensations of breath in your belly,

In your chest,

Your throat.

You may feel the breath against your upper lip or at the tip of your nose or perhaps even inside your nostrils,

Really notice your breath moving in and out.

Good,

And become aware of your hands.

Notice where your hands are resting,

The position they're in.

Feel through the shape of your hands,

Maybe the air against your skin there as your breath moves in and out.

And then you can feel the air in your body as it moves in and out.

So feel the air in your body as it moves in and out.

And then you can feel the air in your body as it moves in and out.

And there,

As your breath moves in and out.

And as you're aware of your hands and your fingers,

Your thumbs,

Your palms and the backs of your hands,

Also be aware of your face.

You can feel your lips and maybe even your tongue.

You can feel all the way around your chin and your cheeks,

Your nose and your eyes,

Your ears,

Your forehead.

As you're aware of your face and your hands,

Also become aware of your feet.

Feel your feet and your toes,

The position they're in,

Perhaps the air against your skin.

And whatever it is your feet are resting on,

Perhaps a slight sense of pressure on whatever they're touching.

As you're aware of your feet and your toes,

Your hands and your fingers,

Your face,

Bring attention again to your breath.

Exhale all the way in front of you.

Exhale all the way empty and hold the breath out,

Just for a moment.

And then when you're ready,

Slowly start breathing in through the nose.

And let's see if we can get up to six.

Six seconds,

Which would be right around now.

Hold the breath in when you're full,

Just for a moment.

Feel again your feet and your hands and your face.

And I want you to exhale through the mouth as if blowing through a little straw.

We're gonna try and get up to 12 seconds.

So start slowly blowing a thin stream of breath out through between your lips.

We're about halfway there.

Keep blowing the breath out,

Really slow,

Controlled stream of soothing breath on the exhale.

Good,

Hold it out whenever you're empty.

And do that again.

Take a long,

Slow inhale.

Let's see if we can get up to seven this time.

Keep breathing in.

And whenever you're full,

Hold the breath.

And again,

Feel your feet,

Feel your hands,

Feel your face.

Sitting here in this moment,

We're gonna slowly breathe out as if blowing through a little straw.

Let's try and get up to 14 this time.

Go ahead.

Slowly.

We're at six,

Seven,

Eight.

Slowly blowing the breath out.

11,

12,

13.

Hold the breath out when you're empty just for a moment.

Notice whatever you're sitting on.

Perhaps notice the air against your skin.

Just right here,

Right now,

Slowly inhaling through the nose.

Let's see if we can get up to eight seconds.

And whenever you're full,

Hold the breath in.

Pause right there.

And slowly start blowing the breath out through that little straw between the lips again.

We're going for 16 seconds.

We're already at seven.

Keep blowing it out nice and slow until you're all the way empty.

Hold the breath out.

We'll do two more rounds.

Slowly start breathing in.

We're trying to get to nine seconds.

We're at five.

We're at five,

Six,

Seven,

Eight,

Nine.

Keep breathing in.

If you have more space,

Hold the breath when you're full.

Be aware of your feet and your hands and your face.

Now we're going for 18.

As you slowly start blowing the breath out through the mouth,

Take your time,

That little straw between your lips.

We're at nine,

10,

11,

12,

13.

Keep blowing it out nice and slow.

If you're not empty yet,

Keep going until you are.

We're just gonna do one more.

Hold the breath out again,

Sitting in your center.

Slowly breathing in.

We're looking for 10 seconds.

Five.

And whenever you're full,

Hold the breath in again.

Notice what you're sitting on.

Notice the air against your skin.

Notice any sounds you can hear as you start now,

Slowly blowing the breath out through that little straw between your lips.

We're wanting to get to about 20 seconds,

Really long and slow and controlled.

10 more seconds to go.

Six,

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two.

Keep blowing it out if you have more breath in there.

And then whenever you're ready,

Let your breath be natural again,

So not controlling your breath at all.

Just sitting in this moment,

Notice anything that feels good.

More than likely,

You've shifted your nervous system state into a place where you feel grounded,

Calm,

Peaceful,

Perhaps even a little blissed out.

That's the effect of the neurochemical,

Neuroendocrine system shift that we've just enacted.

If you don't feel those things,

That's okay.

Notice how you do feel.

Be aware of your body.

Be aware of your body.

And however your breath is moving in and out right now.

And if anything does feel good,

Or if nothing really feels good,

Notice if anything feels neutral or okay.

And just be with that as the breath moves in and out.

There's an amazing simile that Rick Hansen,

The author of Buddha's Brain,

Created where he talks about how our brains and our nervous systems evolved to be like Velcro for bad experiences and like Teflon for good experiences.

So we have an innate negativity bias that tends to overly focus on problems that are not necessarily good.

We focus on problems and threats and tends to kind of overlook and ignore the good stuff.

It's really good practice to tune in on what feels good,

To affect positive state changes,

And then to really anchor and soak up your sense of resources.

So notice again,

Right now,

Anything you can access that feels pleasant,

Beneficial,

Healing,

Grounding,

Anything you're grateful for,

Take a couple slow deep breaths,

Receiving,

Taking in the good.

Feel free to spend a little longer here if you're enjoying it,

If you really need it.

And I'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Reviews

This really helped calm me down and made me feel safe and relaxed.

Thanks to helpful reviews, I knew going in to this that I would not be able to keep the pace. Instead I focused on the pattern and did my best. Feel a bit softer, like a marshmallow, and more centered after my first session. Will try again!

Will re-listen…added to my favorites!
Thank you 😊

amazing! this was what I‘ve been looking for all day!

I loved this guided breathing meditation 🧘 it was a great reset for my nervous system.
I wasn’t able to achieve the longer in/out breathing but I’m going to try it again daily to see if it increases naturally with regular practice. Thanks 🙏 Muriel

Gratitude for sharing this meditation. The effects were very soothing. 🙏

I do this before I have to do a long stressful job.

This was my 1st meditation in over a year. Than you.

Absolutely loved this one. My lungs felt clean and fresh as if I had cleared out all the rubbish. Will definitely return to this one.

Amazing practice! I immediately checked out what other mediations there are and was a bit sad to see it’s only 4. You got a unique gift!

Found the exhale very challenging however I did incorporate Slow movement to get into a flow state and found this very effective. Looking forward to practicing this again. Thank you.

Some challenging breath work! So worth it. Mood shifted for the better 💚💙Thank you

My mind and body are calm and settled starting from a place of tightness and anxiety before the meditation. Thank you. 🙏

Lovely, gentle, healing, recentering way to start the day and focus inwards.

Very different but I liked it and will try it again a few times! Thank you 🙏

Will have to keep working on this one. Challenging- in a good way

This really helped, thank you so much. I paused the recording to hold the breath a little longer and go at my pace. Thank you for the reset! Just what I needed!

An easy and effective practice! Thank you for sharing this with us.

Breath work & focussing on body parts a great combo, thank you

Challenging but effective! I will definitely do this one again.