Breathe deep, be joy.
One thing that's currently saving me is heart breathing. It may seem unlikely that an easy breathing exercise can do amazing things for your health, (not to mention your mood!) but there's solid science from the Institute of Heart Math backing this up.
Here's how to do it:
1. Shift your attention to your chest above your heart. Putting your hand there to feel your heartbeat will help you with this at first.
2. Think of your breath flowing in and out of your heart area as though your heart can breathe, as though your chest has an orifice right over the heart. Breathe slowly and deeply. After a few breaths you may notice your chest becoming warm and expansive, your breath light and effortless.
3. As you breathe this way, think of something that makes you really happy. Try to remember a time when you felt joyful, and breathe that joy in through your heart. Or breathe in gratitude for all the good things in your life, or appreciation of an amazing sunset or a gorgeous piece of music. Both gratitude and the breath-held-in-wonder feeling of appreciation have a cascading effect of good health on your body, enhancing the good effects of heart breathing.
4. Heart breathe as often as you can during the day, especially anytime you're stressed or upset. Practice maintaining it for longer periods of time. I usually find that after I've done it once, it's easier to do again later the same day, as though my body remembers.
The more you practice heart breathing the easier it gets, (not that it's hard to start with), and the longer the beneficial state of heart coherence sticks around before fading. (Ask me about heart coherence if you want to know why this is so great for your health!)
This will lift your mood, improve concentration, and help lower stress (and blood pressure!) as well as just generally making you feel good. (The only downside is that even after I know how to do it and how good it feels, I often find myself reluctant to do it. This is probably because the body and mind both have an equilibrium they're used to, and even though heart breathing upsets it in a good way, it wants to keep to that equilibrium - so I find myself mysteriously avoiding this thing that feels good and is good for me, and have to trick myself into doing it. Weird.)
If you like being happy and feeling good and your health could use some support, try it! Hopefully the avoidance thing is only me.
Working on editing last year's Nano novel - some of you may remember Thieves Tale? This is a distant cousin it eventually evolved into. Got the first chapter revised once, needs another go or two before I won't be ashamed of it in company.
Also, I drew things today and it was joy. And finally, our cat is the cutest and best in the whole damn world.
Here's how to do it:
1. Shift your attention to your chest above your heart. Putting your hand there to feel your heartbeat will help you with this at first.
2. Think of your breath flowing in and out of your heart area as though your heart can breathe, as though your chest has an orifice right over the heart. Breathe slowly and deeply. After a few breaths you may notice your chest becoming warm and expansive, your breath light and effortless.
3. As you breathe this way, think of something that makes you really happy. Try to remember a time when you felt joyful, and breathe that joy in through your heart. Or breathe in gratitude for all the good things in your life, or appreciation of an amazing sunset or a gorgeous piece of music. Both gratitude and the breath-held-in-wonder feeling of appreciation have a cascading effect of good health on your body, enhancing the good effects of heart breathing.
4. Heart breathe as often as you can during the day, especially anytime you're stressed or upset. Practice maintaining it for longer periods of time. I usually find that after I've done it once, it's easier to do again later the same day, as though my body remembers.
The more you practice heart breathing the easier it gets, (not that it's hard to start with), and the longer the beneficial state of heart coherence sticks around before fading. (Ask me about heart coherence if you want to know why this is so great for your health!)
This will lift your mood, improve concentration, and help lower stress (and blood pressure!) as well as just generally making you feel good. (The only downside is that even after I know how to do it and how good it feels, I often find myself reluctant to do it. This is probably because the body and mind both have an equilibrium they're used to, and even though heart breathing upsets it in a good way, it wants to keep to that equilibrium - so I find myself mysteriously avoiding this thing that feels good and is good for me, and have to trick myself into doing it. Weird.)
If you like being happy and feeling good and your health could use some support, try it! Hopefully the avoidance thing is only me.
Working on editing last year's Nano novel - some of you may remember Thieves Tale? This is a distant cousin it eventually evolved into. Got the first chapter revised once, needs another go or two before I won't be ashamed of it in company.
Also, I drew things today and it was joy. And finally, our cat is the cutest and best in the whole damn world.