Diphragmatic Breathing

This relaxation session based on sophrology techniques, seeks to guide the person who seeks to go into his diaphragmatic breathing, characteristic of the state of rest through the description of the movement. This breathing is the breathing in which we replenish our energies and go towards our center. The practice of relaxation can be useful to recharge energy during the day and compensate for moments of increased action or stress, looking for the baby's way of breathing, mobilizing the belly.

Transcript

To the heart of your parasympathetic system.

My name is Laura Mignano.

I am here to guide you into different sophrology techniques of relaxation and visualization.

I would like to take you to the heart of your parasympathetic system of rest.

Here,

You will find some general sessions that are complementary to my one-to-one sessions,

Where I address more personalized aspects.

We are going to do a session based on diaphragmatic breathing.

So we are going to explore together the way we breathe,

The way we use the lower belly to breathe,

The ribcage and the collarbones,

Like a wave motion.

So you're going to enter the state of relaxation in order to afterwards explore the way we breathe,

When we breathe using all our breathing capacity.

I close my eyes.

I am sitting in a comfortable position,

In a place where I'm calm.

I feel safe.

I am aware of my breathing,

Of the points where I touch the floor,

Where I touch the place where I'm sitting,

The chair.

And with my eyes closed and this awareness,

I will focus my attention to my skull,

My skull bones,

My head.

And every time I focus my attention,

I realize the presence of a part of my body.

And realizing the presence,

I relax.

I realize,

For instance,

The presence of the part where my hair grows,

The scalp.

And I relax this part of my body with awareness.

As I breathe in and out,

I relax the front,

The temples.

I relax my eyes and all the muscles around.

I am aware of the shape of my jaw,

Relaxed.

My ears,

Relaxed.

My lips are relaxed,

Present,

As well as the tongue inside my mouth,

In a nice state of relaxation.

I am aware also of the back and the front of my neck,

Relaxed,

Present.

The shoulders are relaxed and present.

I focus my attention in the outer part of my arms,

My forearms,

Reaching each of my fingers in the outer part.

And I relax,

Realize the length and the shape of this part of my body.

Also,

The rib cage,

The back,

The front.

As I breathe in and out,

I relax my collarbones,

My shoulder blades.

I move my attention,

My focus,

To the inner part of my arms,

My forearms,

Till I reach my palms and the inner side of each of my fingers.

I am aware of the shape,

Of the presence,

And I relax.

Very good.

I move on and I go towards my belly,

My upper belly,

My lower belly.

I relax,

As well as my lower back.

I reach my sacrum,

My coccyx,

And sit bones.

And I relax this lower part as I breathe in and out,

Being aware of the shape of each part,

The presence.

I relax also my thighs,

Going down to my knees,

The inner part of the knees,

The outer part of the knees.

With all the little bones,

The ligaments,

I relax.

Very good.

I relax my shin and my calves,

Going down to my feet.

I am aware of the shape,

The presence of my ankles,

The plant of my feet,

The top of my feet.

And I visualize each of my toes,

And I relax one by one,

Being aware of the shape and the presence of each of my toes.

I have a general feeling of relaxation,

A nice feeling of being relaxed overall.

Very good.

I am now going to interlace my fingers.

I'm going to stretch my arms up to the crown of my head,

Stretching up,

Inhaling.

As I exhale,

I will come down,

And I will put my fingers in my front.

I can place the fingers in my front.

If I find it not comfortable,

I can imagine myself just doing that,

But not even doing it.

I just visualize my hands touching my front,

Or I do it with my hands,

With my fingers.

I place them there,

I inhale through the nose,

Exhale through the mouth,

All tensions related to my thoughts.

I can inhale,

Exhale,

And evacuate any tension of the mind.

Can be tensions that I am aware of,

Or tensions that I'm not aware of.

Doesn't matter.

Anyhow,

I do evacuate them.

I inhale,

Exhale,

I liberate.

Very good.

And next time,

I exhale through the mouth.

I will come with my fingers to the throat.

I will hold my hands,

Repito.

I will hold my hands in the throat.

I inhale through the nose,

Exhale through the mouth,

Any tension related to expression.

Inhale nose,

Exhale mouth.

I can let go any tension related to expression,

Any blockage.

Inhale nose,

Exhale mouth.

Once more,

Exhale.

As I exhale,

I let my fingers come down to the heart,

To the sternum.

And here,

I inhale,

Exhale,

Any tension related to my emotions.

And inhale,

Exhale,

And all tensions related to emotions can go away.

I let go tension.

Very good.

Through breath.

Once more.

As I exhale,

My hands come down some centimeters towards the area where my stomach is,

Just above my belly button.

And there,

I inhale,

Exhale,

Any tension related to digestion.

It's important to know that the tensions,

I might be aware of them or not.

It's not important.

Just inhaling and exhaling through the mouth with the intention of liberating,

Evacuating tension.

Tension related to digesting ideas,

Thoughts,

Situations.

When I exhale completely,

I will go down with my fingers and I will place them in my lower belly.

The lower belly is the area related to my genetic area as well as my legs,

Which means the direction of my life.

I inhale,

Exhale,

Any tension related to that aspect.

Inhale through the nose,

Exhale through the mouth.

Liberation,

Letting go,

Tension.

And next time I exhale,

My fingers come up to my belly button.

My belly button representing all my body.

I can inhale through the nose,

Exhale through the mouth.

Any tension in any place of my body,

Exhaling them and letting them go.

Once more,

I inhale through the nose,

Exhale through the mouth.

Very good.

Finally,

I inhale and exhale.

I quit the visualization with the awareness of letting go all the tensions.

I close my eyes and I visualize a nice green energy of a nice temperature coming into my body from the inhale.

And when I exhale,

I visualize this green energy of a nice temperature to me going to all the cells,

Tissues,

Organs of my body.

I inhale.

I let this energy come in.

It's a nice energy of life.

I exhale,

And this energy is going all around my body,

All over,

From the inside.

I inhale,

Coming in through my belly button,

Exhale,

Spreading all around to all the cells,

Tissues,

And organs of my body.

It's a nice energy of life,

Green of a nice temperature to me.

I inhale this energy of life.

I exhale,

And there's a diffusion,

Spreading of this energy of life within me.

Inhale,

Exhale.

Very good.

Once more,

Inhale energy of life,

Exhale this energy of life.

It's going to nourish all the tissues,

Cells,

And organs.

Very good.

And now I can quit the visualization and have some seconds of silence for integration.

I'm going to focus now on my diaphragmatic breath.

As I focus,

I realize my belly,

When I inhale,

Is coming out.

When I exhale,

It's coming in.

I feel the belly accompanying the breath,

Accompanying the lungs in the process of breathing.

As I breathe in,

The belly is having a little expansion.

As I breathe out,

The belly is having a little contraction.

And together with the belly,

There's the ribcage.

When I inhale,

The ribcage is opening lightly to the sides.

My spine is elongated all through the in and out breath.

As I inhale,

The air comes in,

Belly inflates a little bit,

Ribcage to the sides.

As I breathe out,

I squeeze the ribcage,

I squeeze the belly,

And I stay elongated.

I try to exhale as much as I can so the inhale happens very naturally.

The air comes through my mouth,

Through my nose in a very natural way when I have fully exhaled with this double motion of belly and ribcage.

When I'm breathing in a diaphragmatic way,

In a relaxed way,

I can even feel my shoulder blades coming up to the sides when I inhale and down when I exhale.

Like I open my wings when I inhale and I close my wings when I exhale,

Giving all the space to the exhale,

To the point of realising a very little pause in the end of my exhale.

Like if I want to take some energy for inhaling,

I give all the space to the inhale and to the exhale.

And this double motion is complemented by a little movement of the collarbones.

The collarbones are going to move in the inhale right after the ribcage and they're going to move a little bit down to initiate the exhale.

As I exhale,

I realise my spine keeps on being elongated through the inhale and through the exhale.

It's like a wave motion from my coccyx to my neck,

The frontal part of my body and in the back part of my body.

I inhale calm and exhale peace.

Inhale,

I feel calm.

Exhale,

I feel in peace.

With these three movements,

Breathing,

Breathing in in expansion,

Breathing out,

Squeezing in a very gentle way.

I might even realise the movement is mainly my belly,

A little bit less in the area of the ribcage and there's a very,

Very little movement in the area of the collarbones.

As I move my body,

Allowing this diaphragmatic breathing,

I feel calm when I inhale.

I feel peace when I exhale.

Very good,

Very good.

And now I give myself some seconds of silence to integrate this breathing.

Very good.

I activate to come out of this breathing technique.

The three capacities that we have,

All human beings,

And according to sophrology,

They give us well-being to all of us.

The first capacity is the capacity to trust.

I trust myself and I trust the environment.

I inhale and exhale this feeling of trusting and I activate it.

In the second place,

I'm going to inhale and exhale harmony.

Harmony between my mind,

My soul and my body,

Between the part of myself which is visible and the part of myself which is not visible.

I inhale,

Exhale harmony for all these parts of myself.

And finally,

I am going to inhale and exhale hope.

Hope,

Which is the same thing of being able to visualise a positive and serene future for myself,

Despite any current difficulty.

I inhale,

Exhale this capacity of hope and I activate it.

Very good.

And now I can slowly come out of this relaxation.

For coming out,

I'm going to focus myself on the lower part of the body,

Like my feet,

My toes.

I'm going to move to make little circles with my ankles,

Stretch my legs.

Very good.

I can stretch my arms,

Like when I wake up in the morning,

My neck to the sides.

Very good.

And very slowly,

At my own rhythm,

I will open my eyes.