Holiday breathing

Back to the basics here. Where do you breathe? Where is your focus? Can you listen to your body? Can you create a strong base and have ease all around it?

Check in as you take a breath. Feel where it goes. Notice the expansion of your abdomen and the soft lift of your bottom ribcage. Take a few minutes to just do that. Breathe naturally. Now, gently press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and maintain it there throughout this experience. Then see if you can move your inhale around and create more space through the ribcage. Without forcing, but just by sending your mind there.

Once you've got a little more movement in the bottom ribs, check in around your jaw, collarbone and sternum. Are those areas tense and rigid, or can they release as you grow your breath? Can you keep a soft smile?

And lastly, while keeping the above two concepts in mind, see what happens when on the exhale, you make it last longer. Visualize yourself cleaning out the lungs by really finishing up the exhale. It is akin to finishing chewing the food that is in your mouth before you take another bite of food. After that concept feels taken to its limit, add the finishing touch...go from being a normal passive action of exhaling to it being an active exhale. Try that for 3 rounds and then go back to passive, normal breathing. Repeat 3 times.

Check in around your body at the end of this process. How do you feel?