Good morning and welcome to freedom breathing.
This brief exercise will get your mind and body primed for the day.
Set aside time every morning to do this exercise and repeat it in the evening if you wish or at any time throughout the day when you need to shake off stress or just to refresh or reboot yourself.
Begin by sitting in a comfortable chair.
It should be a chair that you can sit back and relax in but please sit up tall maybe at the edge of the seat for the first part.
Reach both hands high up towards the sky with your fingers outstretched.
Inhale and close your fists as if you're grasping energy from up above and bringing it down to you.
Bring your hands down towards your shoulders keeping your elbows tight to your body and exhale.
Take another breath in and then breathe out through your mouth with an audible sigh as if you're fogging a window.
Feel how you exhale deeply and forcefully when you make that sound.
We're going to recreate that motion but with your mouth closed so you're breathing in and out of your nose from here on out.
With your mouth closed go ahead and inhale reach up again with your fingers outstretched and quickly bring your arms down and exhale.
You're almost squeezing your ribs like a bellows pumping the sides of your body to force the air out.
Let's do it again.
Inhale reach up exhale through your nose as you bring your arms down.
Remember you're opening your hands as you reach up closing your hands as you reach down.
Now we're going to speed this up.
Gently close your eyes keeping your mouth closed the whole time inhaling and exhaling through your nose only.
Here we go up down up down in out in out go ahead and continue for about 30 seconds.
Excellent.
Keeping your eyes closed take a break for a few relaxed cleansing breaths.
You can go ahead and do this at your own pace of course don't feel that you have to keep up but I'm giving you a pace to strive for when you can.
Let's repeat the freedom breathing exercise again exactly the same as you did before but we're going to start off about the same pace that you ended with and again if you can speed up throughout that's great and if not that's fine too.
Ready and begin up down up down up down in out in out.
Excellent.
Go ahead back to your relaxed breathing.
Now just continue to relax and breathe at your own pace.
I want you to keep your eyes closed sit back in your chair and relax get comfortable as we'll be here for a few more minutes.
Now I want you to think about a moment in your life think back to a time when you were grateful extremely grateful just beaming with joy and gratitude for something or someone.
Think about how you felt in that moment recreate the scene in your mind what did you see what did you hear what were you feeling feel the way that you felt then really drink it in put yourself right into that scene as if you were reliving it all over again only this time you know better this time you know you want to appreciate it to hold on to that feeling and never let it go keep feeling how good that felt feel that gratitude and hold on to it.
Now I want you to think about something that you want to achieve but maybe you've been struggling with it what can you do differently to overcome that problem what else can you do to overcome that problem even sooner how can you make that process more fun and enjoyable now I want you to see your future self succeeding see yourself after you have accomplished what it is that you set out to accomplish feel what that feels like feel the rush of adrenaline as you celebrate throw your hands up over your head and wave them around like you just conquered Mount Everest actually in real life in your chair throw your hands up and celebrate as if you have arrived you did it smile from ear to ear and feel that joy throw your head back and yell Yahoo do that out loud let me hear you yeah okay you can relax your arms again but keep your eyes closed and keep that huge smile you've earned it plus it looks great on you it brings out your inner champion take a few deep breaths as you sit up tall keeping your eyes closed ready to enjoy this day the one that you have in front of you full of gratitude full of joy take a deep breath let it out open your eyes welcome back grab your food and mood journal and begin your plan for the day jot down any thoughts you might want to capture from this session any action actionable ideas that came to you take action on them and have a great day you
