EXERCISE
Begin standing, being careful not to use the muscles in your face and neck. Inhale while tightening the muscles around your ankles, your calves, and then your thighs, sequentially engaging the legs from your feet to your hips. Maintaining the engagement in your legs, tighten the muscles around your low back, your middle back, and then your upper back. You are now at the top of the in-breath and should feel the air flowing into your lungs through your mouth or nose. As you start your out-breath, imagine your breath flowing down your back, down your butt, thighs, calves, and feet into the floor. Believe it or not, that is the BodyBreath. So simple.
With BodyBreathing you will notice that your upper body becomes lighter with each in-breath. You are standing straighter, and you are doing a diaphragmatic breath, which is the most powerful relaxation response in your body. Above all, you are practicing a yoga-based activity by integrating your mind, your body, and your breath in a single action, which has been shown to lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, reverse heart disease, and reduce stress, as well as provide many other numerous benefits. As you continue to practice BodyBreathing, the urge to FaceBreathe will wane, and a new HabitEnergy rooted in BodyBreath will take over. Most importantly, you are engaging your body the same way an infant does when he takes his first look around the room. You are breathing like a baby.
A BodyBreathe is much deeper than a FaceBreath. With BodyBreathing, the process of breathing begins in the feet and ankles and then works its way sequentially up the legs and spine, causing the diaphragm to draw down towards the feet, which increases the volume of air flowing into the lungs. A major factor that distinguishes BodyBreathing from FaceBreathing is the out-breath, or exhalation. The first thing most people do when they think of taking a breath is to inhale. In order to experience the deepest breath possible, however, one must exhale first. If you have a glass of water and it is one quarter empty, you can refill it only 25 percent, no matter how much water you pour in. If you empty the glass completely, however, you can fill it 100 percent. When you BodyBreathe, you begin with the out0-breath and you extend it all the way down to your feet. Now initiate the in-breath with the “glass” 100 percent empty, filling it from the bottom up.
BodyBreathing may be the most important foundational practice of a healthy lifestyle. There is nothing more important than the breath. It is the first thing that we do when we are born and the last thing we do before we die It is the difference between life and death. When you learn to breath in this way, it will change your life. Savor each breath because, as we have learned, it will ground you emotionally and physically and is the key to everything.
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