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Understanding the Mind Breath Connection
Teresa Keast
Our mind and our breath are irrevocably linked. By simply understanding how the breath connects the mind and the body you can change both your mental and your physical state by consciously changing the way you breathe.
Notice how you breathe when you are stressed, fearful, angry, anxious or feeling overwhelmed.
There is a tightness in the top of your chest, your breath is shallow and rapid, causing your heart to race. During a panic attack when fearful thoughts overwhelm us this shallow rapid breathing is exacerbated leading to an interruption in the chemical balance in our bloodstream and we can feel completely out of control, weak, faint, often with numbness in our extremities. This can be terrifying.
So what can we do?
When you realise you are feeling overwhelmed by your thoughts, simply come into an awareness of your body by taking your focus to your breath.
Allow your shoulders to relax, as you start to slow your breathing down, gradually breathing a little deeper with each breath. Keep a gentle focus on the breath. and as you breathe allow your rib cage to relax and your upper back to start to open.
It is important not to force this process but rather allow the body to gradually relax and open. You can imagine you are creating a channel for the breath between your sternum (breast bone) and your spine.
With each breath you extend this channel down through the chest and gradually through the diaphragm muscle (solar plexis) area until it is comfortable to breathe into your belly and the area just below your belly. Place your hands gently on your stomach and as you breathe in fill your belly with air and your hands move away from the spine. Then gently pull your hands back toward the spine as you release the air. Your chest simply follows. Find a natural calm rhythm that is just right for your body. Breathing in this way you work with the diaphragm muscle and after just a few breathes you will notice your body and your mind calming down.
Continue breathing slowly and deeply into your belly and you will notice several things;
You come into the present moment, aware of the here and now rather than caught up in the thoughts of the past or worries about the future. Peace resides in the present moment.
You connect with a stillness within, an awareness of a quiet peaceful place inside you in which you are strong, calm and clear.
From this stillness you can step back from the thoughts that run in your mind and simply observe them. See them come into your mind and see them past through. Just quietly watching your thoughts. After a time You come to see that you are not your thoughts. You are that which watches them. As you practice this technique your thoughts start to loose their power over you and you realise you have a choice as to whether to give them attention or not. Thoughts may come into your mind but you have a choice which thoughts you hold in your mind. You can decide whether they serve you or not and whether they are indeed truthful or not.
Most of the thoughts that run in our mind are conditioned responses to the world that we have picked up along the way, as a child and young adult. Many we gathered from watching and interacting with the significant people in our lives before we could even talk. They are often ego driven and come from a defensive point of view, protecting our view of ourselves, and the world. As we come into the present moment through connecting with the breath and detaching from the thoughts that run habitually, we come into a stillness and a different experience in our mind, an expanded awareness and we sense our connection to more than just our separate self. The ego drama’s loses its power and we feel the utter joy of our whole being and our connection to more than our little self. We connect to all that is.
As you connect with this stillness within your thoughts will naturally calm down with increasing space between them. This space gives you the opportunity to listen to the voice of your soul or the higher aspects of yourself and the intuitive wisdom that is always there to guide you, give you the answer to the problem that caused the stress in the first place or help you see things from a new perspective. This is often a transforming moment.
This breathing technique opens space for the heart chakra inviting the heart qualities of compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, gratitude and unconditional love into your life.
Practice this focus on the breath when you are calm, and it will be there for you when life gets challenging. When I become aware I am feeling stressed I have a mental cue, “Teresa Breathe”, this reminds me to breathe slowly and deeply and connects me with the present moment.
The beauty of understanding the link between our mind and our breath is that we can learn to take responsibility for our state of mind and physical health moving from stressed to calm within a few breaths.
This breathing technique can be used as a natural way to move into meditation. Start by just sitting quietly breathing in this way for 5-10minutes and you will enjoy profound changes in your way of being in all aspects of your life.
It will also improve your self awareness, self confidence, and natural creativity as you breathe into the area of the body we call the Hara in yoga, this is your centre of empowerment that naturally encourages us to....
Be All That We Are and let our light shine
Namaste Teresa
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