Life-changing Skill
Breathing can be a life-changing skill on the path to Total Self Renewal. I took Ki Breathing into my life from years of Aikido practice in Japan. Few people are aware of even the basic mechanics of breathing and its effects on our mind and body. Fewer know breathing as a potent skill for peak performance, flow, and transformation.
I prepared a blog and YouTube video to get you started with Ki Breathing. I do my breathing first thing in the morning lying on my back in bed. A calm and lucid vibrant start to start the day. But get up as soon as you complete your breathing since you are relaxed and may likely go back to sleep.
Coherent Breathing
A web search for Coherent Breathing brings up more than four million hits including a free app in the App Store. Possibly overkill for what can be described as five breaths a minute. But the ultra simple technique packs a blissful, relaxing punch. Heart rate, blood pressure, blood-rate-flow, and brainwaves come into a coherent frequency.
Stephen Elliot coined the phrase “Coherent Breathing, but the breathing method has been used for millennia. It is a part of yoga, qigong, and Zen. Elliot says it virtually guarantees a meditative state. Coherent Breathing means breathing in for five seconds –pause– and breathing out for six seconds –pause– for five complete breaths a minute. Inhale and exhale through your nose and continue for five minutes, or however long you choose. I say five minutes because it takes three to five minutes to adjust to the increased breaths per second.
Sit up with a straight spine. Relax your shoulders. Let your weight drop to your abdomen. Relax.
Inhale 2 3 4 5 Exhale 2 3 4 5 6 Inhale 2 3 4 5 Exhale 2 3 4 5 6
Inhale 2 3 4 5 Exhale 2 3 4 5 6 Inhale 2 3 4 5 Exhale 2 3 4 5 6
Inhale 2 3 4 5 Exhale 2 3 4 5 6
I recorded three minutes of coherent breathing: voice & bells; just bells. At the end of the mp3 continue on at the same or your own pace.
Start with a lower count if this is too long.
Abdominal Breathing
Abdominal Breathing
When you breathe through the chest with shallow breaths as most people do the autonomic nervous system is held hostage in a sympathetic state of fight/flight. Coherent Breathing balances the autonomic fight/flight (sympathetic) versus the rest/digest (parasympathetic) systems. Inhaling increases heart rate favoring the fight/flight (sympathetic) system. Exhaling slows heart rate, favoring the rest/digest (parasympathetic) system.
“Breathe through your abdomen.” With abdominal breathing, as you inhale your abdomen expands. As you exhale your abdomen tucks in. With abdominal breathing you stimulate the vagus nerve, releasing the sympathetic state and creating a balanced autonomic nervous system.. Your nervous system is no longer locked into the sympathetic state, ready to lash out and fight.
Breathing is a life-changing skill.
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
