Following Your Breath Into Serenity

Easing Into Drugless Tranquility

Have you ever noticed how you breathe when you feel relaxed?

The next time you are relaxed, take a moment to notice how your body feels. Or think about how you breathe when you first wake up in the morning or just before you fall asleep. Breathing exercises can help you relax, because they make your body feel like it does when you are already relaxed.

Deep breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress in the body. This is because when you breathe deeply it sends a message to your brain to calm down and relax. The brain then sends this message to your body.

Those things that happen when you are stressed, such as

1.  increased heart rate
2. fast breathing,
3. high blood pressure,

all decrease as you breathe deeply to relax.

	It instantly reduce your tension level through temporarily raising your blood carbon dioxide level
	The See Clearly - Hear Clearly part of the method directs your attention outside of yourself. This interrupts the common and un-useful tendency that most of us have, when we feel anxious or upset, to ruminate - to become very absorbed with our thoughts and feelings.
	Engages your attention for a few moments. When you use it regularly you momentarily interrupt your internal stress-building loop in which your stressful thoughts result in stressful feelings which, in turn, exacerbate the stressful thoughts-of negative thoughts - negative feelings - negative thoughts. This takes you out of the loop and into practical action.
	It helps fdraw your attention to te build-up of physical tension in your body - and especially in the throat, chest, and abdomen.
	It gives you something to do when you feel anxious or panicky, rather than simply remain a passive victim of your moods.
	It makes you aware of and interrupts the common (and unhelpful) tendency, in anxiety states, to hold or restrict your breath.

How to

1. Calm A Racing Brain-

2. Slow a Thumping Heart

3. and Gain Perspective

1. Mentally think or say to yourself Stop!   Maybe Snap a rubber band that is around your wrist...

2. Now breathe in through nose slowly and evenly. Pausing for just a second let the air out quite slowly through your nose.  Remember that the inhale is a moderate, rather than very deep, in-breath. The outbreath is the key to the method. Be sure to prolong it. L-e-n-g-t-h-e-n your exhale. (This helps retain carbon dioxide - your 'natural tranquilizer'.) 

3. As you let the air out let go!  Relax your muscles - release as much tension as you can. Pay particular attention to the muscles in your 

Face & jaw 

Shoulders 

Abdomen

4. ...pay attention to the natural pause that occurs at the end of the exhale. No need to think about breathing in - this will happen naturally after a second or two. Simply enjoy this moment of stillness between breathing cycles.

5. ...as the in-breath begins direct your attention outside yourself to what is happening in the outside world - `See clearly' and `Hear clearly'. Silently pay attention to what you can see and hear. Without listing or naming them.

Although the method involves five steps the whole cycle of inbreath - brief pause - outbreath takes only a few seconds.

The Deep Breath is a way of interrupting the buildup of physical stress and tension rather than a breathing technique to do over and over again. Initially one or two Deep Breaths every half hour or so may be appropriate. Then aim to reduce the need to do it except for very tense periods.