Nervous System Regulation: Buddha Belly

This somatic practice really helps you to deepen your breath, which in turn reduces stress and anxiety. In this practice, instead of focusing on the breath itself, we focus on the belly. This is especially helpful for anyone who actually feels more anxious when they focus too much on their breath alone.

Transcript

Okay, So Buddha to Spine Breath. What is Buddha's spine breath? Well, It's really just another way to get you in touch with your belly and your belly breathing. So why do we want to barely breathe? We want to learn to breathe slower and from a deeper part in our body because it activates the part of our system, Our nervous system that basically says we're not in fight, Flight or freeze. Now, We can go into fight, Flight or freeze for so many reasons. Maybe we've kind of almost been in it all our life. But either way. . . When we're feeling stressed, When we're feeling anxious, You'll know that you're going to be breathing from right up here. Reason for it is because, As I say, We're getting ready to either, You know, Fight a bear or run away from it. It's a survival part of our body. So if you know how to breathe from this deep part of your body, It is really not possible to breathe from this part of the body at the same time as feeling really stressed and feeling really tense. The two just don't go hand in hand. Like this literally will help to soothe you. And I would honestly say, If nothing else, At least for myself, If nothing else in my toolbox, Having this is absolutely my go-to. The awls. Let me go inwards and let me get back into this lower part of the body. So. Budget of spine, The reason, Again, Why it's budget of spine in this practice is especially if you actually struggle with the whole idea of like breathing and being conscious of your breath, Because you're not alone if you actually feel that feels a little bit stressful. You know, Counting in for four and then out for eight or five and three and two. And for some people, They actually just feel a bit like that's too much, At least to begin with. And for other people, The association actually with the breath. Can kind of feel too much so for some people if they've experienced maybe panic attacks, Then right now, At least when you're starting this, The breath kind of doesn't feel safe because you've experienced what it's like for your breath to feel kind of unsafe. You know, That kind of. That kind of high up you know breathing that obviously doesn't feel good so in this practice Let's forget the idea of anything being about your breath. This little practice today, Don't even think about the fact that you're breathing. This is not breathing. This is moving your stomach or what we might say is kind of moving your diaphragm. What we're going to do is we're going to place one hand where your belly button is. So anywhere around there, Belly button can be a little bit below or a little bit above wherever you feel comfortable. But I would say somewhere around your belly button. Now, I'm actually going to place two hands because I find this a little bit easier with two hands. And what you're going to do is forget about the breath because this one's not about the breath. It helps you to get into this breathing. But let's forget about it for the moment. And I want you to just literally just feel what it's like to literally just push your stomach out and make this Buddha motion with your stomach. So can you push your stomach out now? You might not fully see, Although actually you may a little bit. I'm just going to turn so you can actually see. So here's my stomach here. Can you see me pushing it out like? So this is what buddha to spine is. You can see me drawing it back in. So say you're sucking in your stomach. So you're almost imagining your belly buttons being drawn into your spine. This is why we've got Buddha to spine. So Buddha to spine. So you can see my stomach going. I speak Buddha, Buddha belly. And then you can see my stomach going. I'm moving it in. Yeah. Buddha? Just practice this so let's do it either you know practice that way or come back here with me so let's just go buddha to spine And you'll just have to experiment with what your body needs in order to make this motion. And it's OK, By the way, If to begin with, As you're doing this with me, It's like a minute movement. Totally okay. Your body just might not be used to it. But let's just keep going. Let's just see what it's like. So you're pushing that belly all the way out. You're almost imagining that you've got this. Buddha belly. Buddha's have these massive bellies. It's almost, Imagine it's really far out here. And then you're sucking everything in. It's like you're holding everything in. And you're pulling all the way in with your belly button to the spine. What's it like to just make that motion and you can make it faster. So as you can see my hand, I'm going faster here. You can literally see me pushing it in and out, In and out. Now, Naturally, I'm having to breathe to do this, But the focus isn't on that. See you next time. All the way in Don't overstretch yourself. We want to like visually use obviously butter. Spine but obviously don't overstrain yourself we don't want our hands to literally be like like coming out here and then right back and holding it in intense in the body we're just using that as the visuals but ultimately want this little movement of in out in out now this teams with starting to now get in touch with deepening the breath this is how you start to activate this point but like i say if your your stomach almost doesn't really if it's used to just be intense because this is what happens if we really struggle with anxiety the stomach will nearly always just be tense like Okay. You may experience stomach issues because of that. IBS, Things like that, That are linked with stress and anxiety. So we're just getting a little bit of movement going in the body. Practice this as many times as you need to. If you feel you want to start to become more conscious of your breath as you're doing it, Start straight away. If not, Don't worry, Because we'll do that in another practice. And keep practicing your Buddha to Spine Breath.