Hi everyone.
Today I wanted to share a breath practice to calm the nervous system.
So when we are in a state of stress and overwhelm,
We tend to breathe quite shallowly.
We tend to breathe into our chest and often we're sort of holding our body.
And what we want to be able to do is to really calm everything down.
And the easiest way to do that is with our breath.
Particularly by breathing into our belly.
So when we breathe into our belly and into our diaphragm area,
If we were actually in any real danger,
We wouldn't actually be able to physically breathe in this way.
So when we breathe here,
It signals to our mind,
To our body,
That actually in this moment,
Everything is okay.
So we can use our breath to be able to do that.
To teach this,
I actually like to place a hand on my chest and a hand on my belly.
So you can just start to breathe in and out of the belly and just see if you can feel.
Your belly rising and falling.
And we want to try and keep the hand at the chest so it sort of stays there.
So we don't want the chest moving up and down.
We really want to keep the breath centered in this part of the body into the belly.
And then I'm going to introduce a breath pattern,
Which is breathing in for a count of four and out for a count of six.
So when we exhale for longer than we inhale,
This also really calms and soothes our nervous system.
So let's give it a go.
If you'd like to place your hand on your chest and on your belly so you can feel what the body's doing,
That's.
.
.
That's great to do,
But you can also just have your hands on your legs or in a relaxed position.
We also just want to have the spine up nice and straight and tall,
But relaxed so you're comfortable,
But so you can actually also really breathe easily.
So placing a hand on the chest and belly if that feels good for you.
Let's just take a normal breath in to begin.
And a breath out.
And breathe in three,
Four.
And out.
Three into the belly.
And out.
Two three Just keep going in your own time.
You might even like to close down the eyes.
At any point The breath feels strained.
You can also drop it down to a count of in for two and out for four.
Do what's right for your body in this moment.
And each time you exhale,
You might like to get a sense of the body letting go.
Letting go of any tension.
Any tightness,
Holding.
Even breathing out any worries or concerns.
Each time you breathe out,
The body softens.
And then you can just gradually allow your breath just to settle back into a natural rhythm.
If you've got your eyes closed you can open them.
Just notice if you can sense any differences within your body.
Perhaps you feel just a little bit calmer.
So this is a beautiful practice you can do anywhere.
You can even just do it for,
You know,
A minute or even just three breaths is going to help you just going in and out.
Breathing into the belly and just really giving yourself and your body and nervous system a chance to settle and slow down.
I even like to say you can do this during meetings.
Nobody needs to know you're doing it.
You don't necessarily always need to have your hand on your chest and belly.
You can just keep a calm and even breath and just extending that exhalation and breathing into your belly.
Just to bring in that sense of peace and balance back into the body.
I hope that helped.
Feel free to put any questions or comments down below and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
