Breathing For Balance

A talk and guided demonstration of one of our breathing exercises that falls within the "water" category - the category that helps to bring us more into balance at any given time. A brief talk followed by a guided demonstration for you to try for yourself.

Transcript

Hello there and welcome to our talk today and a little bit of experience on using breathing as a balance. So you can use this recording just as it is or it can be if you have jumped on to one of our live events it can also be act as a reminder and talk you back through it as well. So we're really just going to focus on one breath today which is called a water or a balancing breath. For those of you that have attended different live events with me especially around the breathing in yoga body which is where I trained as a breath coach we use three different categories and within each category there's actually numerous different exercises you can use. We have the coffee first thing in the morning, We have balance which you can use throughout the day and we also have whiskey at night. So just to focus on this one so this is our water category and one of our balancing. So why balancing? It's designed to if you're feeling very lethargic to bring you up, If you're feeling very wired or bring you back down. So just to explain very quickly and very simply within our nervous system we have two arms we have our parasympathetic and we have our sympathetic. So our parasympathetic job is about rest, Is about digesting, Is about processing. Whereas our sympathetic is our stressors arousal but it's also just our arousal, It's our room for get up and go. So we do actually need both elements of these. For example if you're getting up first and thing in the morning, Got to go to work 15, 000 jobs to do before you get there you don't want to be in such a Zen and lethargic mode that you haven't got it within you to get up and go and do these things. So they say when you are in balance that you kind of shift between both of these roughly about every hour and a half to two hours throughout the day. So for this particular exercise if you can lie down, If you're in an office just close the door, Kind of lie down in your office if you can. It will give you a better ease of building up your belly breathing which is the element we're going to be using today. So once you've laid down get yourself really nice and comfortable. Think about having your head up so your chin is giving your airways a nice open airway. Relax your shoulders, Relax your jaw. If you can place your right hand onto your heart and your left hand onto your belly. The aim is to keep your right hand which is on your heart completely and utterly still and only your left hand be moving and your left hand to actually rise as you breathe in and to fall as you breathe out. So that's the right hand on your heart remaining completely and utterly still and your left hand rising with the in-breath, Falling with the exhale. So I'm just going to give you a very brief example of how you're going to hear this. I'll count you in three two one and then you will hear me say an inhale one two three four exhale four three two one and we're just going to do 12 rounds of that. So last adjustments, Relax those shoulders down, Open the airway, Close your eyes. If that's comfortable for you to do so and just remember right hand on your heart left hand on your belly. So counting you in now three two one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one belly rising one two three four falling four three two one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one belly rising one two three four falling four three two one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one last one inhale one two three four exhale four three two one and just breathe normally leaving your eyes closed just take a moment open your eyes when you feel ready to do so and that completes the breathing exercise. So I do this probably three times a day I only do that round of 12 on each one. Yep just see how it plays out for you how much you use it how it makes you feel after each one to see if you notice the differences and I hope it's been of use to you. Thank you very much.