Abdominal Breathing

We breathe without giving it any thought. Inhale. Exhale.

What if I told you the way you breathe can affect your stress level? Would you think about it then?

Turns out abdominal breathing sends more oxygen into your blood stream. This is a good thing. The oxygen improves the lactate levels in your blood and lowers the lactic acid in your body. Lactic acid contributes to anxiety.

Try to practice abdominal breathing at least twice a day - or, whenever you find your mind dwelling on upsetting thoughts or when you experience pain.

To begin:

·         Place one hand your abdomen. When you take a deep breath in, the hand on your abdomen should rise as you inhale and fall as you exhale. You want to fill your entire lung with air.

·         After exhaling through the mouth, take a slow deep breath in through your nose and hold it.

·         Slowly exhale through your mouth. As all the air is released with relaxation, gently contract your abdominal muscles to completely evacuate the remaining air from the lungs. Remember, respiration deepens not by inhaling more air but through completely exhaling it.

·         Repeat the cycle four more times for a total of 5 deep breaths and try to breathe at a rate of one breath every 10 seconds (or 6 breaths per minute).

Once you feel comfortable practicing the technique, you may incorporate words to enhance the exercise. For example, you might say to yourself the word, relaxation (with inhalation) and stress or anger (with exhalation). The idea being to bring in the feeling/emotion you want with inhalation and release those you don't want with exhalation.

Moira

Hypnosis - Be Glad You're Not a Chicken

If the word ‘hypnosis’ conjures up images of a tourist clucking like a chicken on a Vegas stage, it’s time to reassess.

The truth of the matter is that your unconscious mind won’t consent to behavior that is unacceptable to your conscious mind - sort of makes you wonder about those clucking tourists.

A second truth – you can be your own hypnotist. So, unless you tell yourself to cluck (and you harbor a secret but conscious desire to make a fool of yourself), your safe from chickenhood. Instead, you can use self-hypnosis to relax or help achieve your personal goals.

The procedure of self-hypnosis usually begins with an induction suggesting heaviness of the eyes, deeper and deeper relaxation and a countdown from ten to zero or one hundred to zero. Stay flexible. This is about YOU. Adding your own innovations or developing your own format is fine.

Look upward. When you do so, the natural tendency is for your eyes to close. If they don’t – assume some resistance to the exercise is taking place. Explore the reasons why. After a few minutes, if your eyes aren’t heavy enough to close naturally, close them.

After you become as relaxed as you want to be, make suggestions to yourself related to your needs and goals. Visualize yourself in the act of accomplishing these goals. A golfer might visualize his perfect swing and his ball landing on the fairway. A test-taker with high anxiety might visualize herself calmly and successfully completing her exam. A smoker might see himself taking a walk after a meal instead of lighting a cigarette. Picture the details, engage the senses – the smell of fresh grass, the sound of a pencil writing on paper or the feeling of clean air filling your lungs.

Before you bring the exercise to a close, remember to suggest that each time you do the exercise you will become more deeply relaxed. Select a few keywords – “more and more relaxed” or “heavier and heavier”.

Finally, tell yourself to return to an alert state of consciousness, refreshed and fully energized. Count upward from one to three and be glad you’re not a chicken!

Moira

Types of Meditation

Do you think of meditation as a single, vaguely defined Zen-like mental exercise?

 

That’s like thinking baseball, football and golf are the same because they’re sports.

 

The truth is there are dozens upon dozens of varieties of mental training. Too often they are lumped together under the term meditation. However, each practice comes with its own instructions and specific effects on experience and brain activity.

 

Consider one-pointedness—a fully focused concentration on a single object of attention. It may be the most basic and universal of all practices. It is found in one form or another in every spiritual tradition that employs meditation.

 

Practitioners focus on one point and release the ten thousand other thoughts and desires that flit through their minds as distractions.

 

By contrast, visualization entails constructing in the mind’s eye a detailed image. In the Buddhist tradition, a meditator might imagine a deity, starting with the details and building the whole picture from top to bottom. If you’re rusty on Buddhist gods, you can visualize a pattern or mandala or even build peaceful refuge in your mind.

 

Researchers have found a clear difference in cognitive activity between the two. It’s not a bad idea to practice both and fire different parts of your brain.

Moira

Just do what feels right

When it comes to meditating, my advice is to do what feels right.

If you look online, you’ll find sites that tell you to eat before you meditate. Others tell you not to. Some sites will stress the importance of sitting in a certain position, others will tell you to find a comfortable chair.

The truth? When it comes to meditation, it doesn't matter if you eat or don't eat. It really doesn't matter if you sit up or lie down or stand on your head - you just need to quiet your body and mind in the way that works best for you.

Also, there is no 'right" time of day to meditate. The best time is when you don't think you'll fall asleep (unless the purpose of your meditating IS to fall asleep).

There is no "best" meditation. One meditation might feel perfect for you while another feels uncomfortable. There are thousands of exercises out there from visualizing for relaxation or reaching goals or preparing for surgery to very passive mantra meditations.

The key is to find the meditation that works best for you – one that quiets your mind and body. When you find it, you will feel better, happier and calmer.

Moira

Letting Go of Clutter

Self-calming activities like relaxation training or meditation should quiet the mind and body.

When you begin any kind of relaxation or meditation practice, you are lowering the noise level in your brain and body. When this happens, you might notice some ‘clutter’ in your mind. This clutter may manifest itself as wondering thoughts, pain or other sensations in your body.

Keep in mind, these distractions are not just popping up as you relax. With meditation, you are finally getting quiet enough to see what is regularly going on inside your brain and body. The bubbling of sensations and feelings is commonly known as ‘letting go’ phenomena (sometimes called discharge) and it is a good thing. You want to let go of the old, clean out the clutter, and make room for the new.

So, if you are meditating and emotions start bubbling up or you begin to feel anxious, understand that it is part of the process.

If you ever feel too uncomfortable, just stop, and try again later. The key is to be gentle with yourself. Start slowly. Gently ease yourself into the practice.

I suggest starting with visualization or relaxation exercises that keep you busier with suggestions. If you are practicing the more passive meditations like counting breaths or a mantra, only practice for twenty minutes at a time and build up to longer meditation sessions.

Some of the symptoms you may experience:

• An increase in dreams
• Emotions bubbling up to the surface
• Feelings of nausea or dizziness or other bodily sensations
• Feelings of anxiety or uneasiness as you are meditating

I hope I’m not scaring you off. This ‘letting go’ phenomena does not happen to everyone. Relaxation and meditation is so good for your mind and body, the benefits greatly outweigh the possible side-effects. If you ease into meditation and don’t get carried away with “more is better” in the beginning, you’ll be fine.

Moira

An Insight Meditation

Imagine the earth is filled with enlightened people – everyone, that is, but you.

Now, imagine all those enlightened souls are here specifically to teach you. They are acting for your benefit.

The clerk at the DMV? She was put on earth to teach you patience.

The caller who interrupts your dinner? Her job is to teach you kindness.

Your children who scream at each other over whose turn it is to sit in the front seat? Well obviously, they are teaching you to look for peace.

The co-worker who brings fresh, warm donuts to your office when he knows you’re watching your weight? He is teaching you will-power.

Inwardly thank them for their lessons. They are gifts especially for you.

Practice seeing all those around you as enlightened beings here to teach you each day for a whole week. This may change your whole perspective on life – not to mention the difficult people in your life.

Meditation and Pain Management

Amazing isn’t it? Activities we took for granted in the first blush of youth can cause us pain now that we’re older. Bending over to pick up the newspaper while turning to call to the dog trampling your neighbor’s flowers can result in some serious back pain. Some people carry stress in their necks and a quick glance over their shoulders can mean they’re limited to looking straight ahead for weeks at a time. Ouch!

And now the good news - research shows that learning to meditate can alter brain activity in the same way next-generation pain medication do.

Imagine delivering your own pain-killer whenever and how often you want – with no warning label or serious side-effects.

For many it can take less than two hours of training to see significant improvement.

Use the basic relaxation induction that I outline in previous blog posts, then:

·         Focus on the area of the pain.

·         Breathe into it. This might be difficult to do because we are trained to move away from pain, but trust me, this technique is proven to work.

·         Give the pain a color, shape and size. Any color, size or shape will do.

·         Now change the color of the pain, make it lighter - if it is red, change it to pink, if it is black, change it to grey, picture the color of the pain getting lighter and lighter.

·         Change the size of the pain - imagine it shrinking, smaller…and smaller…and smaller. Make the size grow, larger and larger and larger…then shrink it again, making it smaller…and smaller… and smaller… until it shrinks to the size of a pea.

·         See if you can make it disappear, if you can't, don't worry, it is okay to leave it the size of a pea where it is manageable.

·         Just rest in this place, noticing how the pain has changed, how it is more manageable.

·         Try to relax deeper and deeper, letting go of any remaining pain…