Gentle Buteyko Breathing For Nervous System Repair

This session is designed to help calm and repair the nervous system, especially if you experience anxiety, have a sensitive nervous system, or are recovering from long COVID or ME/CFS. We'll explore gentle Buteyko breathing exercises to improve oxygen delivery and calm the mind and body.

00:00 Intro
01:01 Gentle Awareness of Breathing (5 mins)
06:46 Guided Muscle Relaxation (5 mins)
11:56 Quiet / Feather Breathing (4 mins)

Safety:
Breathwork can affect your heart rate, blood pressure, and blood pH. Please consult your doctor if you are pregnant or have serious health conditions. Listen to your body and stop if you need to. Do not listen to this recording while driving or operating machinery.

Music: Stillhet / Ström

Transcript

A very warm welcome to this guided Bottego breathing session.

And so today i'm going to guide you through the most gentle variations of the breathe light or reduced breathing exercise.

And as we go through the exercise we'll very gently reduce the amount of air that we're breathing.

This helps to improve oxygen delivery,

Calm the mind and the body and use regularly.

It can help to reset our breathing and nervous system for optimal health.

At certain points you might notice a gentle shortage of air also known as air hunger.

This is a positive sign that healing carbon dioxide is accumulating within the body.

If it feels too strong at any point then you can pause the recording,

Just take a break for 30 seconds and then continue.

Okay so when you're ready coming into a comfortable upright posture and ideally having your hips slightly higher than your knees.

Closing your mouth for optimal breathing and then just bringing a gentle smile to your face.

And this just reassures our nervous system that we're safe,

Just helps us to feel a little bit calmer.

And then we'll begin by tuning in to the feel of our body breathing.

If you're new to breathing exercises then you might find it helpful to bring one hand to rest on your chest and the palm of your other hand just above your navel.

Or if you prefer you can tune into your breathing from the inside and just rest the palms of your hands on your upper legs.

And to begin with just tuning in to the feel of your body breathing.

So just feeling the movements and sensations of your breathing within your body or underneath your hands.

And then just allowing your belly to begin to relax.

Letting your belly be soft and round.

And as you do that you might just notice that your breathing drops down a little.

Don't you start to feel more movement in your abdomen or under your lower hand?

And this means that your breathing's becoming more diaphragmatic,

More driven by the diaphragm and the diaphragm by the diaphragm that's a primary breathing muscle that sits at the bottom of the rib cage.

And this might feel a little more calming as well.

Okay so this is step one really.

Awareness of breathing so that we know how our breathing already is before we make any changes.

The next thing we'll do is we'll just make some adjustments to our posture.

So what I'd like you to do is just to come into a more upright posture.

And if you imagine that there's a piece of thread attached to the top of your head,

Gently lifting upwards creating length in the body and a sense of space in the middle of the body.

Around the region of the bottom of the rib cage and just checking that you feel balanced.

So rather than leaning backwards or forwards,

You're pretty much in a straight line at the back of the head.

Shoulder blades and buttocks are all in a line and perhaps just noticing how by sitting upright in this way our breathing just naturally becomes a little bit lighter.

Okay so this is step two.

Comfortable upright posture.

Just naturally reduces the amount of air that we're breathing.

And then just beginning to tune into the gentle flow of air just inside the tip of your nose.

Feeling the slightly cooler air as it flows into the nose and a slightly warmer air as it flows back out through the nose.

And because the nose is a really sensitive place to monitor the flow of air,

Just having our attention here just tends to soften our breathing a little.

And we can also just have an intention to gently let the breath be soft,

Quiet and gentle.

So no big breaths here.

Again we're not trying to restrict or constrain the breath,

Just having a gentle awareness of our breathing at the tip of the nose and the lightest of intention to breathe softly and quietly.

And just noticing how that affects your breathing.

So you might feel a gentle shortage of air,

A mild air hunger.

Don't worry if you don't,

The breath might not be light enough for you yet.

If it feels too strong,

Just letting your breathing go.

Letting go of any sense of doing anything with the breath.

Now if it would be helpful for you now,

You're welcome to take a little break.

But if you feel really nice,

Calm and relaxed,

Then we'll go into the next stage and we'll start to bring relaxation through the body.

And this will help to reduce the amount of air we're breathing even further.

So just allowing the mouth and the jaw to begin to soften and relax.

The tongue is relaxing,

Softening all the way up to the root of the tongue.

Just letting the whole of the lower half of the face become loose and slack.

The cheeks and the smile muscles,

The mouth and the jaw.

Allowing all the muscles down the sides of the neck to begin to lengthen and open up.

Bringing a softness into the neck.

Bringing a softness into the neck and the throat.

Letting the shoulders drop down away from the ears.

So the muscles on the tops of the shoulders are just beginning to melt and relax downwards.

There's a sense of letting go in the arms and the hands.

So just noticing if there's any gripping in the hands and just letting the fingers begin to soften.

And letting go of anything that you've been holding on to.

Allowing all the muscles in the chest to begin to soften.

Around the collarbones,

The pectoral muscles.

Letting all the little intercostal muscles between the ribs begin to soften and open up.

And the belly is softening and relaxing.

Belly soft like jelly.

Letting the pelvis soften down into the chair.

Letting go of any holding in the chest.

Letting go of any holding in the buttocks or the pelvic floor.

And releasing the upper legs if there's any clenching there.

And letting your heels drop down towards the ground as the calf muscles begin to soften and lengthen.

There's a sense of letting go in the lower legs.

Softness in the feet and the toes.

So the whole body is softening and relaxing.

And as the body relaxes,

So too does the breath.

So perhaps noticing if your breathing feels a little bit slower,

A little bit lighter than it did before.

And on each out breath,

Just allowing the whole body to soften even 1% more.

And just noticing through this relaxation,

As we breathe a little bit less air,

That might bring up a feeling of air shortage or air hunger.

If you don't feel that yet,

Then maybe just noticing if you can hear your breathing.

So what would it be like just to really quieten your breath?

So that you can no longer hear it,

So it becomes silent.

Quiet as a mouse.

And just going gently with that idea,

If you start to get a lot of air hunger or if it feels stressful,

Then just let it go.

If you still don't feel any air hunger then,

Maybe just imagining that there's a feather just underneath the tip of your nose.

And you're just gently softening and slowing your breathing,

Just by 5 or 10%,

So that feather is hardly moving.

Just until you start to feel the first sign of a shortage of air.

Again,

If your heart starts to race or you start to feel tense or stressed,

Then just let that go.

Just treating it as an experiment.

You can come back and try that again in the future.

If it feels good,

Yeah,

Maybe just continuing with that soft,

Light breathing.

Just breathing a little bit less air than what you would normally do.

Breathing slightly softer,

Slightly slower.

We're not slowing our breathing right down,

It's not one of those slow breathing exercises.

Just making a gentle adjustment.

Listening to the body for feedback.

So if there's more saliva in the mouth,

If you feel warmer or calmer,

And maybe have a little bit more mental clarity,

Then these are positive signs.

If you start to feel tense or stressed,

Or if your heart is racing,

Then just easing off,

Letting go of the breath,

Or just taking a little break.

And we'll just go for another 30 seconds.

Checking in with your posture.

Gentle smile on the face.

Just gently softening the breath.

And on each out breath,

Just allowing the whole body to relax.

Okay then,

And then you can let go of the breath.

And we just gently begin to wiggle your fingers and toes.

You can blink the eyes open,

Maybe just having a look around the space that you're in.

And just noticing how you feel.

Thank you for breathing with me today.

See you next time.

Reviews

Great guidance as always. Thanks Neil. 🙏

Lovely, gentle and conscious guidance with a lot of competence behind every word. Thank you for promoting the calmer site of breathwork! I think we need this more than ever today!

Great Neil thank you. Can I ask why I find it challenging to hold my breath with Buteyko but can hold for c2 mins with dynamic breathing. I’m a yoga therapist (also Surrey!) and have knowledge on Co2, chemoreflex etc but can’t figure out this. Thanks in advance, Lindsey

Superb practice that always brings me home. Thank you sharing this method of breathing.

Thankyou for this offering. This exercise helps me feel very relaxed and refreshed and is helpful as part of my recovery from CFS

I felt at the begging tension and need or urge to inhale deeply(as you described, a hunger for air) and my hand grappling or gripping my cheat softly harder. I also now feel a little calm inside the mind and a small spasms in the back of my head.

Thank you so much for this Session. It is really very helpful makes me feel warm, calm and relaxed. 💜

Thank you for your wonderful Buteyko-exercises, they make the start of my day since a few weeks and i feel huge improvements in regulation, calm and energy!

I found this brought up grief during the practice. Releasing! Thank you 🙏

A brilliant meditation Neil. One that really brings the mind closer to the breath. I love how you use the word ‘soften’. Thank you. 🌈

I really enjoyed that one. Very mellow and a good way to start the morning.