Wellness 1 Images for Better Breathing

        First in a series of images you can use for optimum health and well being.

        Everyone is breathing, or we’d all be dead, right? But are you breathing in a way that is slowly killing you, depriving your cells of oxygen so they wither and die off faster than they are meant to be replaced by new ones? If you are the typical westerner with shallow breathing, this is exactly what you are doing. When westerners came to the Hawaiian Islands, the natives called them “ha-ole”: (people) without breath, because they noticed our bellies don’t move with any regular deep inspiration and exhalation, as they are meant to. For us “taking a deep breath” is a deliberate event, not habitual practice. Yet deep breathing is one of the most powerful anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, stress management tools we have.
       So how do we get ourselves to breathe deeply on a regular basis? We can use imagery to train and condition our bodies to recover this natural practice.
       If you live near the ocean or have a clear memory of it from a vacation, you can meditate on the waves coming ashore and rolling back out to sea. This is our mother earth breathing. Simply watch the waves for several minutes with a calm still mind, and breathe along with them. Periodically say “Breathe this way all the time, body, like the waves.”
      A kinesthetic (touch) image for training the body is to put a hand on your belly and focus on the muscles that naturally push your hand out and then soften under your hand. It may be easier to begin this belly breathe training lying down, but do also practice it standing, because we are upright most of our day. When the muscles seem to have gotten a rhythm of expanding outward and then collapsing inward, say “Breathe like this all the time, body, all the way in and out”.
       Like any new behavior, this is more likely to become habit if we practice it 4-5 times a day for 2-5 minutes, for 3 weeks – or just “often”.
       Your body will thank you for this with greater calm, clearer thinking and more energy!