Just notice it, not trying to alter it.
Straighten your spine, if it is not straight.
Imagine there is a big balloon inside you that when inflated reaches all the way
inside your stomach.
Keeping your eyes closed just visualize that.
As you inhale, you inhale to the bottom of the balloon, all of your breath goes
down there.
And when you exhale, it releases from the bottom of the balloon.
In essence, when you inhale, your stomach comes out.
And when you exhale, your stomach goes in.
Most of the time you are breathing into your chest. What it does is that it tells your
brain you are stressed. We have nerves that come from our brain to our body, and some
that carry information from our body to our brain. So when our muscles are tense, our
breathing is shallow, we are telling our brain that there is something that we have to be
stressed about. That is the message we are giving our brain. So, the brain is constantly
looking out – what am I missing. It works both ways.
Also, if our breath does not flow freely, it does not reach the organs, and that also
causes the organs to start malfunctioning. So not only does it prevent us from relaxing,
eventually over time it causes disease. So, it is that important. A yogic breath starts with
the abdomen and then it goes on to fill up your chest, but it is hard to do everyday, so
abdominal breathing is something we can switch to if we bring our awareness to it.
Taking downtime – We all understand the concept but not many of us take downtime.
Downtime is a time when you are not doing what you should be doing, or it is not
something on your checklist; it is something that allows you to be present in here and
now. For instance, playing with your child – it is a great downtime, because kids are
always in the here and now. There are a few interesting ways to look at it. One is the rest
time, which is ‘being’ time, where you are just lying in bed, you are awake and you are
conscious and you are just resting in your body. Then, recreation time, this is important
because we are not here just to be peaceful and stressed. Sri Aurobindo said the purpose
of life is delight, not desire. We need something in our lives to have purpose, have
meaning, we have to integrate – whether it is listening to our favourite song, singing with
it – best would be to pursue a hobby, but most of us don’t have the time for it. Make it
really simple – choose to dance, dance with your child – it is a necessity. Just as you have
the stress hormones, you also have the relaxation stuff – and when you do this, you have
all these nice hormones that get secreted. Just as you put lotion on your skin, this is really
like feeding your nervous system and it adds to your resilience, which also means that
next time you will need a much greater stressor to stress you out, because your resilience
is so much higher.
Sleep – If you sleep well, everything functions in order – you feel happy, you digest well,
you stay healthy. But how do we sleep well? We are not meant to be couch potatoes.
We need to exercise some way – whether it is running up and down the stairs if there
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