Did you know that strong emotions have an immediate effect on our breathing?
Emotions can alter many of the most important characteristics of normal breathing.
Depending on the emotion, we may breathe faster, sigh, gasp, or even stop breathing altogether.
The good news is that each of us can influence our emotional reactions through breath awareness and voluntary changes in our breathing.
We can literally use our breath to soothe our heart and the emotional discomfort we may be feeling.
Here is where developing the practices of embodied listing is so important.
Embodied listening offers us the opportunity to manage the pain associated with negative/strong emotions by becoming more aware of how we are breathing.
Daily Awareness Practice:
On a daily basis try to notice how you breathing when you are relaxed. Practice ten minutes of relaxed breathing once or twice daily.
Then notice how your breathing changes when you get upset, feel emotionally triggered. Come back to your relaxed breathing and see how that shifts the intensity of what you are feeling.
Repeat as many times as you need to throughout the day.
I’m taking deep breaths with you.
Xoxo
Liz