Today,
I'm going to teach you a breath practice that you can do when you need to regroup.
So find your comfortable position,
Seated tall,
Either on the ground or in a chair.
Take a few nice,
Slow,
Deep breaths in through the nose,
Out through the mouth,
Allowing a little expansion with the inhale,
Chest rises,
Belly expands,
And gently exhale.
Now we're going to begin the practice with a breath of fire,
Which is actually a vigorous breath.
It's an equal inhale and equal exhale through the nose.
And as you're breathing,
You're actually breathing pretty deep,
And it should be nice and relaxed.
So we're not hyperventilating and breathing just into the top of the chest,
But actually breathing deep so that we're pushing down on the diaphragm as we inhale and releasing everything exhale.
So we'll do this for one and a half minutes,
Sitting tall and finding your own rhythm.
Now keep going.
You can go a little faster or a little slower.
Just focus on the equal inhale and the equal exhale.
We're almost there,
Sitting tall,
Continuing to focus on that balanced breath.
Equal inhale,
Equal exhale should be nice and easy.
You should feel like you could do this all day long.
Just a few more seconds here.
Make sure the breath is nice and steady,
Nice and deep.
Now take a nice deep inhale through the nose and gently exhale through the mouth and just sit for a moment,
Noticing how you feel.
And we're going to take one and a half minutes to breathe in through the nose and out through the nose really deep.
So I want you to imagine a slow stream coming in through both nostrils equally,
Tracing its way down the body,
Down to the lower belly,
Even down the legs to the feet.
And when you can't inhale anymore,
You gently,
Slowly exhale.
So we're just extending the inhale and extending the exhale to our maximum capacity.
And for this one,
It's okay if the exhale isn't quite as long as the inhale initially.
We'll work our way toward that.
Just imagine a slow,
Steady stream coming in through the nose,
Gently passing the lungs,
Going all the way to the lower belly,
And maybe even tracing down the legs to the feet.
And as you exhale,
Slowly reverse,
Trying to match the inhale and the exhale best you can.
As you practice this breath sequence over the course of a few days or a few weeks,
You'll realize it begins to get a little bit easier to match the exhales to the inhales.
Just a few more seconds here.
See if you can slow down the breath,
Play to your edge,
And then take a nice deep inhale,
Sit up really tall,
Exhale through the mouth.
So for our last minute and a half,
We're going to inhale through puckered lips.
So we put our lips together like we're going to give somebody a kiss,
And we suck in the air through the lips.
So it's a little awkward.
It's like we're sucking through a very tiny straw.
And then we exhale through the nose.
So extend this as much as you can.
You may feel the coolness to the air as it comes into the body.
And as you exhale through the nose,
You may notice the warmth,
The heat that you're releasing.
Really focus on puckering those lips and breathing in slow and steady.
All right,
Just 10 more seconds.
See if you can extend the breath a little more.
And after your next exhale,
You'll inhale through the nose really deep,
Exhale through the mouth.
Now,
Allow your breath to go back to normal,
Blink your eyes open,
And hopefully that hit the reset button for you,
And you can go about your day or evening with more grace and focus.
Wishing you all good things.
