Out of the Head and Onto the Mat
Breath Exercise 2 – Squaring the Breath
Find a comfortable position, this could be lying on your back or seated.
Consider placing your hands on your belly or one hand belly and one hand heart. This cue is to simply encourage a deeper sense of connection to yourself. If the hand positions feel forced or uncomfortable, place them anywhere that feels natural to you.
Begin with the Observation breath practice from last week – noticing your breath. If it is not naturally coming in and out through the nose try to nudge it that direction for the remainder of this practice. If you need to pause every now and then for a mouth breath in or out, do so.
Our goal will be to promote nasal breathing as much as comfortably possible.
When you feel ready, slowly start to draw in a deep and full inhale. When you feel full of breath and still relaxed, pause, hold the breath in. Then exhale slowly and completely without adding any force or strain. When you feel comfortably empty, pause, hold the breath out. Then return to your inhale as before. Just let this all happen for a few rounds. Once you feel a comfortable sense of rhythm add a count to each step. The number does not matter. What we aim for is creating an equal square. Could be something like 4 in, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold. The count of 4 can be increased all the way up to 16 as long as you remain relaxed and comfortable throughout. Continue with your square breathing for 3-5 min or until you feel it is time to shift. Let yourself gently return to the simple noticing of breath for a few rounds and linger in the sensations for a while. How does your body feel after the practice?
How is your emotional state now?
What’s in your headspace at the moment?
Maybe you want to journal a few observations.
I would suggest avoiding the potential tendency to draw any conclusion or even answer any questions.
Simply jot down, uncensored, what you are noticing.
The aim is to grow in our observations as we breathe through March.
Off the Mat and Into Life
This week we are going to take the act of noticing the breath into a physical activity.
Notice the breath just like last week. See how often you can take note of your breath and how it is responding. This week try to notice during an activity that is a little more physically demanding than a typical daily task. This could be during a more active asana practice on your yoga mat. Or, while walking, jogging, skiing, snow shoveling, during sex, hiking, swimming, etc. You get the idea. Once you have taken that conscious pause to focus on your breath, stay with the noticing for a short time without trying to take control.
After you have awareness of your breath’s characteristics – mouth or nose, belly or chest, deep or shallow, fast or slow.
Choose only the rate that is at a place to harness conscious control. Keeping the pace of the activity you are performing while encouraging your breath to slow down; maybe just a notch.
Again, after your activity is complete you may like to note a few observations.
Practice on and off the mat daily or most days if you can, and consider reaching out to share your experience. A new practice will be available for you next Thursday.
If you want to learn more about extending your life force through breath, follow along with Body IQ for the month of March. Each week of March I will offer a little breath practice rooted in tradition and backed by science. You will learn and get to practice how to influence the various aspects of your own physiology and how connecting to your own breath may be a personal super power.
Let’s raise our Body IQ through exploring breath and respiration. Together we can learn how each of our own bodies respond to taking a purposeful breath.