I was once in a room with a Tibetan monk who said, “If your thoughts are riding a horse, that horse is your breath.”
If your breath is slow, your thoughts are slow.
If your breath is calm, your thoughts are calm.
If your breath is a shallow mess on autopilot??
Here are some easy ways to breathe for different states of mind. With memes and kittens and animation and The Rock.
A YOGA TEACHER TAUGHT ME
When your exhale is longer than your inhale, it sends a message to your nervous system saying you are safe and it’s okay to calm down.
SUGGESTED
Do 25 to 30 exhales at first.
Gradually increase the number you do each time to 100 or more.
SCIENTISTS SAY
Yawning cools down a hard-working brain and keeps it from overheating.
Yawning also wakes you up and makes you more alert.
I saw a teacher calm a panicked, crying kid with this adorable trick:
“I’m holding a flower, smell the flower…
It’s your birthday, blow out the candles…”
The teacher did this a few times and the kid stopped crying.
And then I cried.
Of course laughing doesn’t hurt either.
