impRAWvise 

Breathing is, as we all know, the essence of life itself. It is indeed what keeps up all alive, moving and grooving. But breathing is not only breathing in and out the air and taking in what we need, leaving out what we do not need, but it is also the key to living a fulfilling and thriving life by itself. So many times, we do take it for granted, still just because it happens by default, does not mean that we should not be taking care of our ways in which we actually breath. In this modern day and age and with our modern, busy lives, we tend to forget about breathing at all, and sometimes, we are only reminded of it, when we find no other way around the problems or struggles that we might be going through. Breathing properly and having a healthy way of breathing are contributing to the well being of our own bodies, to the healthy levels of our bodies and of course to our well being in general. If we do not breath properly, we are going to be noticed sooner or later, more subtle or not, by our amazing bodies that we do have to do something about it and start breathing right again

Today I would love to share with you two breathing practices that I have found to be super beneficial and a great thing for the body especially when we are navigating some times of chaos or uncertainty in our lives and we are just in such a need for a soothing treat for ourselves and a grounding experience as well. Of course, yoga and meditation are always helpful for moving the prana through our bodies, calm ourselves and even feel better about exactly where we are right now, those practices are also integrating breathing in as parts of the process for the same purpose of releasing tension and getting back to a state of healthy balance and flow.

The first breathing exercise that I want to talk about today is called square breathing and it is pretty easy for anyone who wants to try it out and see its benefits on themselves. The first step is to breath in for a count of four seconds lets say, so four, three, two, one, than hold the breath for another four seconds, then breath out for another count of four, three, two, one, and then standing still for four seconds and afterwards repeat this cycle a few times until your start to feel your entire body and mind relax and you find yourself in a wonderful state of peace and grace. A variation on this technique that I personally love and have found to be great with anxiety is to breath out for a longer time than you breath in, so for example you breath in for four seconds and then breath our for six or eight seconds and so on. Of course the timing can be adjusted, but just the pattern should remain.

Another great and soothing breath technique is called alternate nostril breathing. I love this practice as it is also very calming and grounding, it helps with self-doubt as well as with finding it hard to focus on one thing or making a decision about something. The main pattern here is to lets say we start with the left nostril, so we seal the right nostril, breath in through the left nostril, then we seal the left nostril, breath out through the right nostril and then, we seal the right nostril again and continue with those steps for a few cycles of breaths until we feel an inner sense of peace and calm arise. This is really helpful as well as it gets us to be connected again to our breath and become more conscious and aware, be present in the moment and let go of whatever else has been on our minds for just a few moments so that we can relax, and be able to then see things more clearly and find solutions with more ease.

Those two breathing techniques are my personal favorites, but of course there are a lot of other options that your can find in order to see which one fits our own style and personality best. I think what is really great about breathing exercises is that the effect of this re-connection and getting in touch with our breaths and with our bodies can be see pretty quickly and do not take that much time to occur. The sense of peace, awe and grace that can be felt are just a reminder of our inner nature and the most beautiful parts of our souls. We are all souls that are having a human experience so perhaps by simply learning to re-connect to our breaths we are then finding ourselves one step closer to living the lives the we have always been dreaming of, and living our lives to their fullest, always, at all times.