Bring your mind from other times and places,
And bring your attention to your being.
Notice your breath.
It's always good to start with what is.
Is your breath kind of agitated?
Are you holding your breath?
Is your breath shallow?
We have a lot of habits around our breath that it's good to pay attention to and to work with.
The breath is such a signal.
So if we can soothe our breath,
Breathe with these four qualities,
That's very helpful for the nervous system.
As we soften and relax,
We often have a little bit more continuity.
There's a bit more ease in the breath.
When we hold our breath,
It might be that there's danger in the moment.
Most likely,
We have a habit of holding our breath because of danger and tension and stress in the past.
We don't want to keep cueing our nervous system that we're afraid or that we're in danger.
So working with the continuity of the breath is very calming to the nervous system.
So as you're finishing your exhalation,
Let your breath start to come in.
Just as you've got enough of an in-breath,
Let your breath release.
And notice if this is a comforting practice,
If it's a bit much.
If we have a habit of holding our breath,
And all of a sudden we're paying attention to the breath,
And we're not forcing,
But we're inviting a continuity in the breath.
That can be a little disconcerting maybe.
Sometimes after many breaths,
That will kind of settle a little,
It'll start to feel more natural.
Those four qualities of our breath for ideal healthy breathing.
One is the continuity of the breath,
That we're not holding our breath,
Our breath is smooth,
It's not jerky.
Of course,
We need a pretty relaxed body for that.
And we need some breath awareness as well.
We can build these healthy habits in the breath through awareness and practice.
Breathing through the nose is another.
When we do a practice like cyclic sighing,
We're breathing out through the mouth,
But we never breathe in through the mouth.
In and out through the nose.
And then the third one is that the breath is about the same length.
As we're breathing in and we're breathing out,
We want to have some continuity working with the nostrils and that it's about the same length.
We could do that by counting.
It's a very helpful practice because it also helps our mind to focus.
Notice how long it takes you to breathe in.
Maybe a count of three,
For instance.
And then smooth turnaround,
Count your exhale.
When you reach the same count on the exhale,
Then smoothly let the breath come in.
And then release again.
The mental count of the length.
The fourth quality is diaphragmatic.
And I bring that in last because that one's a little bit harder to work with because it involves our stomach.
If you have a habit in your body of clenching,
Of tight stomach,
Tight gut,
Most people who have a tight gut also breathe through their chest.
When we diaphragmatically breathe,
There's our lower ribs.
Our diaphragm muscle flattens as we breathe in.
It brings the lungs down and opens.
And then as we breathe out,
The diaphragm muscle comes up like a mushroom and the lungs empty.
And then we breathe in,
The diaphragm muscle flattens.
When we breathe out,
The stomach tucks under the ribcage.
When we breathe in,
The diaphragm flattens in the stomach.
It looks like our stomach is rising or expanding.
If you feel comfortable,
Put a hand on your belly,
Maybe a hand on your chest and see what's moving.
So when we're breathing diaphragmatically,
On the exhale,
Our stomach softens back towards the spine.
On the inhale,
It expands out a little bit so our stomach rises.
And exhale,
It softens.
Inhale,
It expands.
And all of that is just the action of the diaphragm muscle.
Stomach doesn't have anywhere to go,
So it comes out and then it tucks back up under the ribcage when we breathe out.
We often do extended exhale breathing because if we breathe out six seconds,
It activates our relaxation response.
The parasympathetic nervous system,
Most of us are pretty stressed and it's really helpful to have that longer out breath.
We might do that with a two-to-one breathing.
So we could do that for a moment.
Inhale to a count of three,
For instance.
And exhale to a count of six.
Let your belly soften as you're breathing out.
Inhale again.
Exhale longer than the inhale.
And when we're exhaling,
We want to have that softening happening so we're not pushing.
We're not extending past what we can comfortably do.
And the one breath that seems to be really helpful for a lot of people,
It helps us to breathe out longer.
Is cyclic sighing.
I thought we could finish this breathing practice with that today.
It's a deep double inhale through the nose and then push your lips and breathe out like you're breathing through a straw.
Inhale.
Again.
And then long exhale.
Let your whole body soften as you breathe out.
I find this is really easy to go past six seconds with cyclic sign.
So we're getting lots of oxygen,
Which is good for the body.
And then a lot of softening.
Letting your whole body soften from head to toes as we breathe out.
I hope you enjoyed the practice.
You were able to relax and soften and get some more oxygen into your brain and your tissues and relax muscles that might have been holding on about something.
And it's also really helpful to notice what did that feel like in my body?
When I was breathing out and softening my stomach,
Was that kind of smooth?
Did it go well?
Was I feeling a little anxious?
One of the things that we can always bring in is some kindness and compassion for ourselves.
If we have a habit of chest breathing or holding our breath,
Or it's hard for us to soften our belly,
It's because our body has learned that that's how we could keep ourselves safe.
It's such a relief.
To let that go and to let ourselves have some peace.
Ease in our muscles and some nourishment in our breath.
Let go of worry for a little bit.
Over time,
This is such a great way to work with our day.
We do something for the nervous system every day.
It's like you brush your teeth and you eat food and you drink water.
We need to do something that really supports and nourishes our nervous system every day as well.
And breathing is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to do that.
