This is the week 2 62 Romeo relaxation technique with Janelle.
Please practice this each night before bed.
This breathing exercise can be done either seated with a straight back or you can be lying down flat with maybe knees bent or legs long,
Whatever feels appropriate and comfortable for you here.
So just take a moment and settle in.
If you're seated,
Maybe make sure your shoulders are aligned over your hips,
A nice tall spine,
Crown of the head reaching towards the sky.
Maybe feeling some grounding down into the hips.
And if you're laying down,
Maybe just bring your awareness to the weight of your body and how it's in contact and supported by whatever surface that you're resting on.
And then notice your breathing without having to change or fix the breath here in any way right now.
Just notice how your breath is entering and leaving your body one breath at a time.
You may notice the breath as it enters the nostrils,
Maybe a cool sensation on the in-breath,
Maybe the sensation of warmth on the exhale with that exchange.
Or you might notice where the breath is moving in and out of your torso.
It's probably somewhere in the upper or mid chest.
So for this exercise here,
We're going to start to incorporate a deeper breath,
Diaphragmatic breathing,
Drawing the air into the lower lobes of the lungs.
On your next exhale,
Let all the air out,
Draw the belly to the spine.
And then as you inhale,
Let the belly be soft and invite that air into the lower lobes of the lungs,
Filling full from front to back,
Side to side,
Top to bottom.
And then exhale twice as long as your inhale.
And just take a few deep brelly breaths like that.
Feel the belly rise,
Ribs expand,
Sipping air all the way up into the collarbones,
Filling full.
And maybe make that exhale twice as long as the inhale.
And as you start to get into this rhythm of your deeper breath,
We'll begin to layer in breath with sound.
In order to do this,
It's almost like you're trying to fog a mirror with the mouth closed or maybe a whisper with the lips closed.
So we're constricting the vocal cords in the back of the throat as we exhale,
Making an ocean sound like this.
So just take a few more deep breaths like that,
Inhaling,
Filling the lungs full all the way to the top.
Making those exhales twice as long as the inhale with sound.
This is called the Ujjayi breath in yoga.
It's an easy way to access the parasympathetic nervous system.
It's the body's natural response when it needs to calm itself,
Lowering blood pressure,
Calming the mind and the body,
Just with a few rounds of this breath.
So maybe take another 10 or 20 rounds of this on your own,
Inhaling full,
Exhaling twice as long on the exhale with sound.
And do this as long as you wish.
Thank you for practicing the breath with sound.
This has been shown to relax the mind and the nervous system.
Sleep well.
