If your life is like mine, it is moving faster than ever? There's no room for daily tips, or daily suggestions in your In Box, and there's likely no room to even think or catch your breath. Here's my proposition to you for this week: to take some time to chew on this concept of daily deep breaths throughout your day - for a full week. Let the brain work it over for a second or two, and see how it fits. Instead of bombarding your brain with more stimulation every day, I want to offer you smaller nuggets, like a Spanish plate of tapas. This nugget is all about the breath's amazing gift of creation. The space to breathe more freely can really amp up the mental wattage more effectively than caffeine, with the added bonus of no inevitable crash. In fact, the more your implement deep breaths, the more alert every cell in the body is, with optimal functionality when more oxygen is brought on board while more CO2 is removed.
Do you truly want to keep pushing through the turnstile of life, constantly trying to keep up? Huffing and puffing all the way? Breathing may well be the one automatic bodily function we take for granted too much. So, let's get radical here: take a pause, pause, literally take 5 seconds to stop - everything. Wherever you are seated, just stop to see what it is like to go down this rabbit hole...
Now gently, close your eyes, relax your lower jaw, let your shoulders release to come down away from your ears. Sit up taller, make the spin a bit longer, feel the back of your neck lengthen as well. Next, take a very slow, deliberately deep breath, in through your nose, to the count of 5, hold it for 3 seconds, and release it slowly through your nose to the count of 5. It may take some repetition to see or feel the difference. Repeat as needed and see where you land!
OK! Now see how your brain can try on something new. You can take your time, IF you allow for it. My invitation to you is to remember AND consider for yourself: if you don't take these 18-60 seconds, right now, to breathe deeply right in this very instant, when are you more likely to do it? Is that too much to ask of yourself?
This is not to put ANOTHER thing on your TO DO list for today. Well, it is, sort of. But in a good way! If you make room for relaxed breathing throughout your day, I'm pretty confident you will find the end of your day looks AND feels differently. In this positive afterglow of deeper, relaxed breathing, you will likely have more peace , more space in your head, your lungs, your gut, and perhaps even more energy and clarity!
If you find any of these positive experiences show up in your physical body or your mind, it is my sincerest hope that you can hear your body's thanks, and may your mind's opening serve as a gentle memo: a little down time for some deep breathing daily DOES make a (big) difference, even if you did not notice it right away. Here's breathin' with you, Kid...
My Health As Wealth is a nutrition-based wellness coaching business. I show busy people how to create a new relationship with food: food as energy. For optimal health, we must remember that food is our most powerful resource. I help people intentionally transform their connection to food to finally escape the Diet mentality with a holistic approach: begin with where people are at, and show them how to lose weight safely using whole foods and building movement into their lives.