Slow,
Calm breathing is one of these things that are quite underrated,
Yet it's one of the best tools we have at our disposal to combat anxiety,
And I'm going to prove it to you.
For the rest of the day,
Give this a try.
When you're transitioning between things,
So maybe when you're going from home to work,
Or from work to the gym,
Or from the gym to home,
In all of these transitions,
Transitioning between activities,
Just take a three-minute pause,
Set yourself a timer,
And just do three minutes of slow,
Calm breathing,
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
We're going to give it a try now,
And just before we do,
Just note your body's active tension,
Note your mind's level of stress.
If you ranked yourself out of 10,
10 being very stressed,
Zero being no stress,
How would you rank yourself?
And then after this session,
After these three minutes of breathing,
We're going to rank ourselves again,
And hopefully we're going to see some improvement,
And that improvement,
When applied throughout the day,
Maybe two,
Three,
Four,
Five times,
Will show a massive reduction in anxiety,
In resting anxiety,
And thus compounding the benefits,
And sort of giving you an exponential boost in calmness.
So take a seat,
Get yourself nice and comfortable,
And take a long,
Slow breath,
In through the nose and out through the mouth.
I keep taking long and slow breaths,
In through the nose and out through the mouth,
In that fashion.
And while you're doing that,
I want you to just scan your body.
Where do you feel tension,
Or where do you feel your anxiety,
Or where do you feel pressure?
Wherever that is,
I want you to breathe into that space.
So you're going to visualize the breath coming in through your nose,
Deep into your belly,
And then moving towards that area,
Almost like the breath is healing that area.
And on the out breath,
It's releasing it.
So feel the tension,
And take a long,
Slow breath into that area.
So now I want you to check into how your mind's feeling.
What mental feelings do you have,
What moods do you have,
Do you feel the desire to get up and run,
Or to shift,
Are you thinking about the past?
Whatever you notice in your mind,
Breathe into that space as well.
So for the next few breaths,
You're going to breathe in through your nose,
And out through your mouth,
Nice and deep into your stomach,
But then,
As before,
I want you to visualize that breath connecting with the feelings of your mind,
And then just gently letting them go.
If you find your mind wandering,
If you find it drifting into anxiety,
Or into rumination,
Or into planning,
That's okay.
Just gently acknowledge it,
Return your focus to the breath,
And take a long,
Slow breath into that space.
So as you come to a close to this session,
I just want you to check into your body.
How tense are you?
Would you say that your stress levels have reduced?
If you could rank yourself out of 10,
10 being the most stressed,
0 being the least,
Where would you be now?
If this session has worked for you,
Feel free to use it in transition.
Feel free to play it again and again as you move between the different aspects of your day.
Or alternatively,
Just set a timer for a few minutes,
And just sit with slow,
Calm breaths in through the nose,
And out through the mouth,
Breathing deep into the stomach,
And then visualising that breath healing the physical and mental tensions that you're holding.
As you're breathing out,
You're letting go of them.
Have a great day.
