A warm welcome to this 10-minute morning Botteko breathing session.
This is your time to relax,
Reset and prepare for a balanced and focused day ahead.
Together we'll do two rounds of gentle Botteko breathing with a short break in between.
The focus today is on breathing 10% more softly and slowly than usual,
Creating a light air hunger,
A subtle feeling of a shortage of air that helps your body improve oxygen delivery,
Balance your nervous system and boost overall well-being.
So when you're ready,
Coming into a nice comfortable upright posture,
Ideally sitting with your hips a little bit higher than your knees.
You might imagine that there's a little bit of thread attached to the top of your head,
Lifting you upwards and just bringing some length into your spine,
Creating openness in the middle of the body,
Allowing your mouth to close for optimal breathing and bringing a gentle smile to your face,
Letting your nervous system know that you are safe.
And let's connect with the breath now.
To help you become aware of your breathing,
You might find it helpful to bring the palm of one of your hands to rest on your upper chest and the other hand on your upper belly,
Just above your navel,
And letting your shoulders soften down and just beginning to slowly tune in to the feel of your body breathing,
Feeling the movements and sensations of the breath underneath your hands or from with inside the body.
We always start with awareness of breathing,
So before we make any changes to the breath,
We want to know how your breathing already is,
So that we can just make small adjustments as we go.
We're just following the breath,
Letting your body breathe naturally,
Letting go of control,
Allowing your belly to relax,
Belly soft like jelly.
Now,
Once you've got in touch with the breath,
The next thing to do is ever so gently just begin to soften and slow your breathing,
And just so your breathing is about 10% slower and 10% softer than it would normally be.
So we're just very gently applying the brakes to the breath,
But it's the smallest of reductions,
So we're looking to breathe anywhere between about 5 and 10% less air than we would normally do,
Just until you start to feel a gentle air hunger,
A mild shortage of air.
If it feels too strong,
If it's stressful or if your diaphragm starts to twitch,
Then you can just let go of the breath or take a break for 30 seconds,
Otherwise just staying with that slightly softer,
Slightly slower breath.
So it's a softer,
Slightly slower in-breath,
And then a relaxed,
Gentle,
Slightly longer out-breath.
And just listening for any signals of feedback from your body,
So we want a little bit of air hunger.
You might also find that there's some more saliva in your mouth,
Or you might feel a little bit calmer,
Maybe warmer in the body,
But if you start to feel really tense or stressed,
Or if your heart is racing,
Then that's too strong,
That's out of the sweet spot,
And then we need to ease off or take a break.
The breath should feel soft,
Quiet and gentle,
And overall the exercise should feel soothing,
Not stressful.
Okay,
That's our first round done.
We can take a break there,
You can let go of the breath,
Have a bit of a stretch and look around the room,
Just reconnect with your surroundings.
So in between each round,
It's good to have about a 30 second break,
Just to reset your intention and also to balance your nervous system as well.
Okay,
Then let's go into the second round now.
For this one,
We're going to use a slightly different technique,
And so what I'd like you to do is just to bring the top of one of your fingers to rest just underneath the tip of your nose.
So it looks a little bit like we're doing a pretend moustache with our finger,
And then just tuning in to the flow of air on the top of your finger,
And again to begin with,
For this first minute,
We're not trying to change the breath,
We just meet the breath where it's at.
So you might feel that there's some slightly cooler air flowing in through the nose on the in-breath,
And slightly warmer air on the top of the finger on the out-breath.
You can also do this without the finger and just feel the flow of air just inside the tip of the nose.
Now because the nose is so sensitive to the flow of air,
Just having your attention here in itself can reduce the amount of air that we're breathing,
And it can create some air hunger.
If you don't already feel any air hunger,
The next thing to do is to begin to soften and slow your breathing to quieten the breath,
So that you start to reduce the flow of air on the finger or inside the nose.
So we're not completely stopping the flow of air,
We're not freezing the breath,
We're just softening and reducing the flow,
So that there's a little bit less air coming in and out of the body,
And this means we start to accumulate healing carbon dioxide in the blood,
And we can feel that as a gentle air hunger.
If it feels too strong,
If it's really stressful,
Then just take a break for 30 seconds and restart.
This is a really useful tip,
It's often easier to restart than to push on if the air hunger is too strong.
So it's a softer,
Slightly slower in-breath,
And then a relaxed,
Gentle,
Slightly longer out-breath.
The benefits of Botteco breathing practices are cumulative,
So the more you practice,
The more calm,
Clarity and energy you will have.
Okay,
Then letting go of the breath,
Have a bit of a stretch and look around the room,
And just as we finish,
Notice the quality of your mind and notice how your nervous system feels.
What if you started every day like this?
If it feels good,
If it feels helpful,
Then perhaps setting an intention to return tomorrow or even later today.
Thank you so much for practicing with me today,
And I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
