The Power Of Breath: Mindfulness And Resilience (4)

Hello everyone good morning good afternoon or a good evening thank you so much for joining our room we are here already for the first time it is a series of events dedicated mainly to mind-body connection but to various aspects of it and today this time we will dedicate to the power of breath it will be discussing breath breath work all of the different techniques the benefits in the aspect of the mind-body connection well let me start of then with a short introduction of myself my name is Diana Versailles but I am a mind-body connection coach a psychosomatic specialist and a meditation teacher so here on the platform I have a mind-body connection course that is available in in English and in Spanish on next week and there will be a release of my quantum energy course so this is a short five day course related and dedicated to working with our inner energy I find it very curious and it was very helpful for me myself so I hope you will also enjoy that in order not to miss any of the updates and the future live events I invite you guys to follow my page here on the inside timer well let's assume that in this space we all are quite familiar with the mind-body connection and basically speaking this is the inner dialogue inner communication that we all have between both of our aspects of our mind and our body and one influences the other and vice versa and we cannot separate them from each other so that is why we are always looking at them as a whole and today let's talk about mindfulness and resilience how our breath and breath work and help us to develop those later we will see the connection between breath mind and body and we will have a look at some scientific insights in how mindful breathing can positively influence our brain our bodies and not only so at the end we will have a gentle breathing practice which will be suitable also for beginners and of course I would like to thank inside timer this amazing platform that I have been using during the past seven or eight years as a meditator I find it extremely supportive effective and I love the community here so I want to thank this application and I want to thank you guys for your current or future donations so the whole team of the application all the contributors and teachers can continue their work with your help and for me personally of course it would be a great motivation to keep releasing new meditations meditation courses and hosting this weekly live events well so let's start with our today's topic and to arrive in the present moment to let ourselves enjoy this event as much as possible let's take three conscious deep breaths through the nose and releasing it through the mouth with a sigh letting go of anything that you do not need at this moment inhale in your belly and exhale let yourself be a little wilder a little freer and let's do it one more time in and out you may close your eyes if it helps feel your body feel the tension slowly leaving your body and let's do the final breath in and out well pay attention to a natural breath for a few moments finding yourself in your current surroundings and letting yourself be fully immersed in our today's online space and let me start with myself I've heard about breath work many years ago let's say maybe six years ago and I clearly heard and let's in you about the benefits of it but I never got my why why would I try that why would I start practicing it and about two years ago when I was in Thailand it was a very very supportive space for me and a very quiet me time let's say that I was discovering my inner self and building the relationship with myself and I was just curious why not to try this breathing practice that I found here on inside timer as a meditation and the description said that it would help me to ease to let go of emotions and feel free and it was very short about 10 minutes long so I was like okay 10 minutes I can do that and it was a two part breath I really loved the guidance to part breath I mean when we inhale first in the belly then in the chest and all the inhale goes through the mouth and we release it through the mouth again with a long exhale and we repeat the two-part breath in and breath out so for me as a person who have never who has never tried it before it was already quite intense and already after six or eight minutes of this quite gentle as I can see now practice I just started to cry to cry so hard and so loudly I didn't want to stop myself and I was like oh wow this is what meant was meant when you've you would release something and that you would feel at ease afterwards and that was the moment when I realized how much breath can change inside in our bodies and how much it can help with inner feelings and emotions to process them to let them go I was just amazed and after that I started to practice it more to learn more about that and to deepen my knowledge in the breath work so for now I am really happy that I can share my perspective the knowledge and experience with breath with you guys and now every day every morning breath work is with me personally I find it very energizing very inspiring if to talk about the feelings and emotions that it causes inside of me I just start my day with a breath of fire so probably some of you guys are familiar with that it's also quite an energetic practice but I did very short for about 8 to 10 minutes that is enough for me and it's a an amazing start of the day well let's move and move to the next moment of our event today so as the heading of this life event says mindfulness and resilience so let me shortly define how I see mindfulness so that is the practice of intentionally bringing our attention and awareness to the present moment which is essential in our lives today without any judgment so being fully engaged and immersed in whatever is happening right now with us and around us resilience on the other hand involves developing mental emotional and behavioral strategies to to cope with some stress to maintain a positive outlook and to continue moving forward and this is where it's a great moment to transition to our breath how breath is related to mindfulness and resilience how it can help us to build both breathing in this case is a powerful tool that not only connects our minds and bodies but also creates self-awareness can help us with emotional regulation and also heighten our ability to navigate some lives challenges with resilience of course so here lies the role of conscious breathing in mindfulness and resilience well let me start with some scientific insights because breath and breath work was started widely by scientists with different various types of experiments so this is what I like most about this aspect and mind-body connection and neuroscience because it is it is indeed a science where we can get deep knowledge proven knowledge about ourselves so mindful breathing in general is a fundamental aspect of a mindfulness practice and here are some of the most important in my view benefits of it so as in the last event we were talking about emotions and stress mindful breathing can help us to reduce stress and at the same time meanwhile change our brains so it helps us to reduce the level of cortisol the stress hormone and this in turn leads to changes in our physical brain in the brain structure in the areas which are associated with emotional regulation and stress response so with any almost let's say almost any breath breathing practice we can build our resilience and release the stress of course here we can talk about different breathing techniques which can help us with us but let's leave it for the future at the same time if we are too aware if we are already stressed or if our energy levels are heightened that we feel overwhelmed and almost anxious breathing can help us to activate the relaxation response and nowadays we know more and more about the vagus nerve about the parasympathetic nervous system which are activated if we are practicing specific breathing patterns and it promotes the feeling of calmness and reduces the flight or fight mode and response in our bodies so this is the physical relaxation in response to breathing well in if to talk about vagus nerve I can definitely recommend you guys some of the episodes of the Huberman lab podcast and he under Huberman explains it in detail and very interestingly how it is activated how we can work with that how we can use the benefits of activating the parasympathetic nervous system if we are talking about the changes in our brain breath work and mindful breathing can improve our brain plasticity so I'm pretty sure that most of you guys have already heard this term brain plasticity neuroplasticity and this is this enhances the brain's ability to reorganize to adapt and which leads to better easier coping with the stress to build a new coping mechanisms from our own experience it also leads to improving memory better learning and also enhancing overall cognitive function which is amazing so I can also continue saying that in turn this all will slow down the aging process which again is fascinating and that's amazing for me personally that nowadays we have such tools we know about them how they work how they influence us so we can not only live longer but stay younger here in our life also if I have mentioned the learning process the memory mindful breathing helps us to improve our focus and attention so when we are breathing mindfully it activates the prefrontal cortex this part of our brain which is associated with the cognitive functions so if we train this part of our brain it will be easier for us to stay present to live in the moment to improve concentration or focus which will be beneficial for our work or studies and also reducing destructions which is again extremely necessary in our modern world where we have an incredible amount of destructions which none of the previous generations had just think about the smartphone all the apps and notifications calls messages that we can we can receive not only each hour but probably every minute I would say for me my biggest destruction if to talk about something that can distract me from outside is not surprisingly my smartphone but particularly social media networks yes not only the text messages that I receive but something that I would like to stay updated with and so on and when I noticed that first it irritates me second I realize all right that's natural that's just my brain's response and I can do something about that and later I can change this pattern so I would say my relationship with social networks goes this way which is again I find healthy and natural so I try not to put a lot of pressure on myself to drastically decrease the use of it or to stop myself from using them completely but understanding why it happens helps a lot and if to talk about my internal destructions which also happen I would say most of the time I find myself thinking or developing some creative projects in my head if I'm walking or if I'm listening to podcasts if I'm watching for example YouTube videos let's say or cooking I would love to be in the present moment completely all this time but again I understand that it's pretty much not possible right and I find myself thinking about my projects my personal creative expression and what I can do better what else I want to do how I can develop that and so on it starts building and building and building till the time I understand that I'm not present at all so that is my little struggle with internal distractions again if any of you guys would like to share yours it will be very curious for me too well not only breath work and simple mindful breathing without any without following any special techniques can help us to anchor ourselves in the present it also can help us to regulate our emotions and emotional responses so when we take this sort of breath to have at least one mindful breath in and out we already activate our amygdala this other part of our brain the region linked to our emotions and with the regular practice that can lead to reducing emotional activity reactivity let's say and increased emotional resilience which means that we can better choose our reactions to some stressors or highly emotional situations and help ourselves cope better with the stress right once again a very important moment that I would like to highlight and that I want more people to get aware of that we cannot control our emotions but we can regulate our emotional response we can regulate our emotional intensity and of course choose consciously our reactions emotional reactions so I hope that it's clear the difference between controlling and regulating the emotions and this is what we dedicate a lot of time on my in my sessions when working with clients to our emotions not only to start building the new response but first of all to get to know them to get to know yourself and learning to navigate emotions to regulate them and of course overall it leads to enhanced emotional and also physical well-being so also mindful breathing activates the prefrontal cortex which I already mentioned today which is also associated with positive emotions so when practicing simply speaking mindful breathing we can activate we can access easier and we can let's say we can multiply positive emotions in our experience well if there are any questions or comments maybe you guys disagree with something maybe you see some aspect differently make sure to share your thoughts with us I would really appreciate that once again it is a space for us to all communicate together which I would really love to do but on the other hand if there is such tranquility and silence in our space today I would assume that you guys share the same view the same vision on breath and the mind-body connection I have so but if not that's completely great well as a mind-body connection coach I cannot just skip the moment that mindful breathing helps us to increase awareness of our physical bodies so it cultivates body awareness which is an essential component of mindfulness that I'm sure many people seek nowadays and many of us seek here which encourages to stay connected to our physical sensations to promoting the sense of grounding and stability and also I would like to highlight that mindful breathing can help us not only to build the mind-body connection but also to build and enhance interoception if you guys are not familiar with interoception I would like to invite you of course to my mind-body connection course on insight timer one of the final meditations is dedicated completely to building the interoception basically this is our perception of our inner self of all the parts of our being to make them let's say connected and to perceive them as whole and again if to refer to our bodies some breathing patterns and techniques will help us to improve our resilience to pain which again is amazing that we can access this tool within us so easily and we can use it anywhere anytime to help ourselves cope with physical pain for me personally that is very very important and very helpful during my period which were quite painful a few years ago and breath work really helped me to ease that in my first days so if ladies you also struggle with period pain try some of the breathing techniques gentle breathing practices mindful breath to help you release and release the tension of this sort of pain and it might not work from the first time from the first practice but if you keep building this new path new ways inside with the breath it will work out so just give yourself a few more tries another moment that I would like to pay attention to during our session dedicated to breath mind and body is that mindful breathing encourages acceptance and non-attachment this is also very surprising to me because actually attachment and difficulty to accept some aspects of life as it is which is my personal general struggle in life let's say that I'm working with I can definitely assure you guys that breath and mindful breathing can help us to ease that simply by observing our bodies breathing our sensations without trying to change that being a complete observer but not participant of the breath if we can say that we'll learn acceptance which we can later transform and apply in other aspects of our lives and again if to talk not only about observing our breaths but thoughts and emotions our breath can help us to stay grounded while seeing our thoughts or seeing our emotions which can be overwhelming if we engage in them but staying only with our breath kind of distancing ourselves from thoughts and emotions can help us to work with them better and to help ourselves so it also empowers us to choose our reactions consciously again and to to reduce ourselves from being driven only by our impulses and bold emotions and as a result here we go to resilience breath can help us slowly gradually build and enhance our resilience to life challenges if our experience from meditation from mindful breathing will be used in and applied in other aspects of our lives in our real life we can definitely find ourselves being more resilient being more grounded more confident in ourselves to cope with any unexpected situations or any challenges with steady and calm mind which again is incredibly helpful and useful in modern world anyway I really hope that you guys are able to notice this positive changes inside of you and in your life which mindful breathing brings you if you practice that regularly and if you still struggle with finding this balance with probably adopting the habit of practicing regularly or if you would like to build a stronger and deeper relationship with your body and mind you can always send me a message and I would be happy to connect with you and to guide you further all right so for now I would suggest all of us to gradually move to the final parts of our life event today and for now why don't we practice some mindful breathing together as I mentioned this practice will be suitable for the very beginners and as for a long and proper breathwork practice we would have to prepare for example what I mean is that not eating a couple of hours before the practice or finding the suitable environment to have the breathwork session and making sure that none of us have any restrictions to practice that that's why I prefer to keep it gentle and soothing let's say for these guided conscious breathing so first of all I invite you guys to find to find your place to practice for about seven minutes that we will spend together breathing here I prefer to practice this breathing exercise sitting make sure that your back your spine is straight and erect upwards make sure that you feel grounded please put both of your feet on the floor or you can sit cross-legged take a deep breath in and slowly close your eyes feel the points of contact with the ground the weight of your body the position of your torso your limbs notice any tension inside your body and in your face if it feels right add some movement to your jaw you can move your eyebrows or front to release some tension from your face move your shoulders a little bit but consciously and place all of your attention to your breath to the place where you feel your breath at the most it might be your belly area or chest maybe the part beneath your nose and notice the coolness of the air as it enters your nostrils and how the temperature of the air changes when it leaves your body try to simply be with your breath do not try to change the pace or depth of it allow your body to breathe naturally as it wants at this particular moment observe all the physical sensations that breath brings to your body it might be the movement of not only a torso or your throat but sensations in your limbs in your head in your pelvic area stay with your breath allow it to unfold right in front of you and if your focus goes away simply bring your attention back to your breath without any judgment or placing any expectations on yourself and let's gradually transition to the second part of our breathing practice which is called box breathing and with this calm state of our mind and body let's inhale together for a count of four one two three four hold the breath two three four exhale two three four and hold the breath two three four inhale two three four hold on top two three four exhale two three four hold the breath two three four you may continue the box breathing in the pace that is suitable for you listen to your body how many counts feel good for you at this moment you can adjust the pace or the counting up to six or eight counts and once again the point of box breathing is that all of the four parts of this breath cycle have to be of the same length try to see this box breathing practice with curiosity even if you're practicing it for the thousand time today try to notice what it brings to you how different you feel during holding your breath on top and let's say at the bottom of the breath when you breathe out which of these moments feels more comfortable or more pleasant what moments of this box breathing are the most challenging for you or which ones do you enjoy the most and if at some point box breathing doesn't feel good for you you can come back to natural breathing and simply observe it if all is good try to explore this breath pattern for a minute more again if you lose the pattern if you are distracted with your thoughts some noise or sounds just notice that and gently with love and compassion bring your attention back to the breathing pattern to your breath with the next inhale let go of box breathing and come back to your natural breath inhaling and exhaling with ease allowing your body to guide you and enjoy the freedom of breathing however your body wants and at this moment let's express gratitude to the process of mindful breathing to our bodies for doing such an amazing job every moment of our life without us controlling it let's become grateful for our lives all these beautiful day the opportunity to get together and create such a warm space and of course express gratitude to yourself for showing up first of all for yourself every day for staying curious about life interested in learning something new and connecting with the community here well whenever it feels comfortable for you guys you can take a slightly deeper breath in and open your eyes being fully present here and now after our mindful breath practice and thank you so much for exploring our breath together today please let me know how it felt for you whether you have noticed any changes any shifts from the beginning of our session or from the beginning of our meditation if you haven't noticed or there are no changes that is completely perfect and you can also share it with us and sue you're saying that you're trying to do mindfulness every day well that is great and I'm very proud of you and it's truly amazing and what techniques or what practices help you to stay mindful to develop mindfulness and the question to all of you guys what will you bring with you from our today's session answering this question to yourself or sharing your answer with us in the comment section will be beneficial so you will summarize for yourself first of all what these 15 minutes were for you what was the biggest insight or benefit for you of spending of spending this time together here it will help you to bring it in the rest of your day and amplify it in your daily life so if you would like to share that with us or simply take a note of it in your mind for yourself as for me I think the highlight of our life event today was not only gathering all together which I love the most about our community here and inside timer is gratitude for the life in the present moment a reminder that I try to come back to as often as possible and I want you guys to do the same to encourage you to be more present and mindful about the gift of life that we all have right now so you're saying that you're feeling very relaxed great yes me too I can definitely relate to that once again I would also like to thank inside timer for giving us this space this time to spend and enjoy together I want to thank you guys for your donations during our life event or later and it will be a big motivation for me to continue hosting the life events weekly and to produce more content for you guys I would like you also to follow my page so you will not miss the next event next Saturday the same time 12 p.

M.

Central Time so we can see each other again and explore another aspect of the mind-body connection thank you so much guys please enjoy this day enjoy your life the gift of it that we all have and enjoy the weekend I will see you next Saturday goodbye everyone