In our day-to-day lives, we are constantly bombarded with an enormous amount of sensory experiences that are beginning to overload our sympathetic nervous system:
- Loud noises, flashing lights, crowds, advertisements
- Anything that’s trying to gain our attention
- Begins to activate that fight-or-flight mechanism within our body
- Throws us out of balance
But what if there is a tool that you can tap into every single day, that we can use to reverse that?
- Something that happens naturally
- Something that restores balance, reduces blood pressure, and slows down the heart rate, before, during, and after a stressful event.
What if it was as simple as just breathing?
- What if you took five minutes out of your day just to focus on the breath?
Re-source: Rejuvenate
make (someone or something) look or feel younger, fresher, or more lively
Take a moment wherever you are and get comfortable.
- Allow the eyes to softly close.
- Take a moment as you’re here to feel the feet firmly planted onto the ground.
- Start to feel the spine lengthening up to the skies
- As you take a deep breath in, start to feel the shoulders softening down the back.
- Start to soften the muscles into the neck, into the face, into the jaw.
Begin to allow yourself permission to let go
- to let go of everything outside of this space.
- Let go of anything that might have happened before this very moment.
- Let go of anything that you might have to do afterwards.
- Let go of any judgments, any expectations about yourself and of this practice.
Allow the mind to settle into the heart, into the body.
- Begin to listen to the beat of your heart.
- Welcome yourself as you are at this very present moment: physically, emotionally, mentally.
Begin to bring your awareness to your breath, to the deep sensations of the breath.
- Notice the rise of your chest as you inhale,
- notice the dropping back down as you exhale.
- Notice the lengthening effect as you inhale.
- Notice the deepening effect as you exhale.
- Notice the natural spontaneous breath.
- Notice that without doing anything but just bringing your awareness to your breath, it automatically lengthens on the inhale, and automatically deepens on the exhale.
- Notice yourself maybe sitting up a little taller or standing up taller on the inhale.
- Notice yourself rooting down deeper on that exhale.
Begin to bring in a sense of peace, calmness, serenity on your inhale.
- Begin to let go tension, fear, anxiety, exhale.
- Allow your internal vision to move your breath throughout your body.
Take five deep breaths in, take five deep breaths out.
- After your personal fifth breath, on that next inhale, count how many times it takes to get to the very top of that inhale.
- To balance it out, count that same number down on your exhale.
- Whatever your number is, stay with it.
- For the next five breaths, count up, all the way to your inhale.
- Count back down all the way to your exhale.
- Five deep breaths in, five deep breaths out.
- After your personal fifth cycle of breath, allow the count to drop away.
- Allow the internal vision of the breath to drop away
Allow your awareness to empty completely of any images, thoughts, sensations, impressions, experiences.
- Take a moment here to notice smoothness of the breath, quietness of the mind, and the stillness of the physical body.
- Begin to draw a deeper breath into the belly, into the chest.
Notice within yourself, just within a matter of minutes
- Is your mind more quiet, is your breath more smooth?
- Do you feel a genuine sense of peace and calmness within yourself?
- You’re more aware of this present moment, that everything seems a little more vivid, a little more alive?
- Do you feel refreshed, recharged, rejuvenated?
- Are you ready to take on the rest of your day?
Imagine if you did this every single day.
craving and resource from “Breath — five minutes can change your life” by Stacey Schuerman – TEDxChapmanU