Yeah,
Hi,
Welcome to this week's Mindful Monday meditation practice.
And yeah it is a beginning of September uh yeah so I guess summer is drawing to a close.
In certainly in the northern hemisphere to a certain extent and maybe some of us are thinking a little bit more about work or going back to work after a summer break or summer holidays.
Yeah,
And so very welcome back to these sessions.
And I'd like to pick up today and talk a little bit about breathing.
Yeah and something that we've spoken a lot about of course in the air of mindfulness.
And how we can use the breath.
We feel comfortable doing so to be more aware of at the present moment,
More aware of our bodies and yeah,
To really try and not get too distracted.
Or drawn into things that we may be thinking are coming up or drawn back to stuff that we've thought about in the past and you know it can be this tremendous anchor.
Focusing on the breath that It's always there essentially,
You know,
We're always breathing.
Always breathing in,
Always breathing out.
Yeah,
Although we may not notice it.
Very much there is the opportunity for us to do that.
And yeah there are other anchors of course we talk about in mindfulness noticing the physical connection so you know maybe our feet on the floor if we're sitting a bum on the seat noticing where our hands are resting and then maybe on the table in front of a soil,
On a lake soil or a lap.
Yes,
All of these different sort of techniques,
Anchors as we call them,
That enabled us to be more mindful,
Be more connected to the present moment.
And I was reading an article that came up on the BBC last week and I thought I'd talk a little bit about this it's not something mentioned before but this is the concept of box breathing which you may be familiar with and this is something is very much used by a lot of people to do a lot of the things that I just said allows opportunity to be more present to to become more relaxed.
It also additionally allows the opportunity to become more focused.
And it's used by a whole range of people in all different walks of life.
What I'd like to do is just talk a little bit about that and maybe guide a bit of a practice.
With a box breathing.
Practice and essentially what it involves is The technique consists of inhaling for 4 seconds.
Holding on to breath for 4 seconds and exhaling for 4 seconds.
And then doing it again.
So then holding for another four seconds before inhaling again and restarting the cycle.
And doing that kind of,
And doing that.
Yeah we'll do it for a while but essentially whatever period feels quite positive.
I think for the purposes of this session I suggest we do it four times.
So we're going to breathe in and out,
Breathe in and out.
Breathe in and out.
Breathe in and out.
So doing that each inhale and exhale four times.
Yeah,
And so.
But you know you can do that for shorter periods or longer periods and what's really interesting about that is it allows us it kind of allows us to really focus on on our breathing and you know often we can be encouraging mindfulness to notice the breath but it's actually quite hard to do that maybe Quite hard to do that if you don't normally,
Actually.
Pay any attention to our breath or we're not normally aware of that so it's kind of an artificial way to do that.
A kind of forced,
Gently forced way to increase awareness,
Focus on the breath.
And what's particularly interesting about this is I think one of the things that I was reading is one of the commentators and i'll share this article in the in the post um I'll show this article in a post next week.
In the coming week and that is around what is particularly helpful is the final hold.
And the final hold off to one exhales because what's happening there if we don't then breathe in immediately is that co2 carbon dioxide rises in the body in the lungs in the bloodstream and our bodies are uh are kind of tuned to kind of notice that and to be alarmed by that obviously you're having oxygen is varied.
Is very good and having a high percentage of carbon dioxide is less good.
So the body reacts to that,
But if we can notice that and try and be at peace with having that kind of level of carbon dioxide in our systems.
Obviously before we breathe in again fairly shortly afterwards it helps us to kind of be conscious of what can cause panic because often when we are in situations where we are stressed we're not breathing in a kind of an appropriate healthy way and naturally in those kind of stressful situations we have a higher percentage of carbon dioxide so which causes which can which adds to the stress so With box breathing,
The opportunity here is to increase that level,
CO2 level,
But in a controlled way.
And so,
You know,
When the idea,
Of course,
Is that when we notice that later,
Perhaps we're in a stressful situation with better.
Yeah,
We better,
I think.
To deal with that,
To manage that.
Yes,
I hope that makes sense.
Of course,
You know,
You can always,
If that didn't,
Of course,
This is on record so you can.
Go back and just play that but again if it's made seem a little complicated I hope That was clear.
So yeah,
I'd like to just guide a little bit of.
.
.
Process of box breathing and please feel free to join me if you'd like to.
Yeah,
So.
.
.
It's just taking a moment to settle.
Maybe learning the gaze,
Softening the gaze.
Closing your eyes as well or instead if that feels okay.
Take a few moments to settle to notice the contact points perhaps feet on the floor bum on the seat Yeah,
Well your hands are resting.
And I'm going to sort of count.
As we go through this process,
Hopefully that will be helpful in guiding.
Guiding the structure of this box breathing exercise.
So breathing in One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Breathing out.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Breathing in.
1 2 3 4 Breathing out,
1,
2,
3,
4 Breathing in.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Breathing out.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
Breathing in.
1 2 3 4 Breathing out.
1,
2,
3,
4 and hold.
It just begins to breathe normally again.
So hopefully that makes sense so breathing in counting to four in your head and breathing out counting to four and doing that four times and the final time it feels okay just holding.
The out-breath if you like,
Continuing the out-breath and not breathing in immediately if that feels comfortable and noticing how that feels but then of course as soon as you feel that you want to breathe in again,
Of course then.
Doing that.
So yeah I'm going to just.
.
.
Or guiding now,
But letting you.
The opportunity to do this in your own time,
In your own way.
I would be counting on this occasion,
But yeah.
And it's doing this moving along practicing together this process this breathing exercise,
Seeing how this goes,
How this works for you.
Yeah breathing normally breathing in your own way whatever feels comfortable.
And do this again R.
I.
P breathing in your own way,
In a relaxed fashion,
Whatever feels good And the final time now.
Ugh.
Breathing naturally,
Breathing normally.
So there you go,
A bit of box breathing which you may be familiar with and hope that was good to revisit.
If so and if not then perhaps something you can try.
People do it in the morning to sort of energize themselves.
It can be something that can be used before sleep,
Before an important phone call or presentation.
Difficult conversation.
Um yeah it's just connecting a real kind of powerful visceral way to connect with the breath and therefore enter this kind of space of being,
This space of being.
Connecting.
Uh,
When the off off off present moment really and the energy of course as we've discussed that we can we can gain we can discern from.
Having that kind of sense of the present rather.
Than this kind of energy sapping distraction that can often affect us when we're thinking about the future or the past.
Man,
Sorry if that was helpful.
Yeah,
And.
.
.
Great to be back.
Look forward to sessions over the coming weeks and hoping things are good with yours as well as they can be.
And wishing you very good weeks.
Bye for now.
