Five minute magic pt. 53 - Alternative breathing exercises / Making time and space for progress

Welcome to five-minute magic from Mindful Creative Podcast. A short bonus episode, sharing tips and insights from the book's pages of the same title. 
 
Every week I'll share one or two ideas that can give you an actionable takeaway for your creative process or work/business, or just the food for thought for the weekend ahead. 

These bonus episodes share content from the audio book, and you can find the link to the full version in the show notes.

Mindful Creative: How to understand and deal with the highs and lows of creative life, career and business

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to five minute magic from the mindful creative podcast. A short bonus episode, share and tips and insights from the pages of the book of the same title. Every week I'll be sharing one or two ideas that can give you an actionable takeaway for your creative process, your work, your business. Or just food for thought for the weekend ahead. These episodes share content from the audio book, and you can find the link to the full version in the show notes below. After the last three episodes which focused on core breathing exercises, I'm going to share with you just a little bit more information on alternative techniques and styles of breathing exercises that might be of interest to try. Whichever technique you pick or works for you, that's a simple reminder just to try to stick with it and build repetition and consistency to see a benefit.

Remember to make time and space for your progress. Remind yourself not to judge your performance, how well you're doing or how fast you're progressing, Because there's no deadline, it's not a [00:01:00] race. It's all about you. Alternative breathing exercises. There are many other techniques you can use when you're not able to set aside time for a mindfulness meditation.

Whether you're on a train platform or in a packed train carriage, you can use these techniques to bring your mind back to your baselines, or tackle a situation that appeared out of nowhere. A few of these include square breathing, also known as box breathing, and four by four breathing. This is where you breathe in slowly through your nose whilst counting to four.

You then hold your breath for another count of four and then exhale for a further count of four. Hold your breath again for a count of four and repeat the whole process for a few minutes or as long as necessary. 4 7

8 breathing, [00:02:00] also known as relaxing breathing. This is a similar technique to square breathing, but the counts are different. You inhale for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, and then exhale for a count of 8, making a whooshing noise as you do so. Then the process starts over. Deep breathing.

Also known as diaphragmatic breathing. To do deep breathing, sit up with your back straight or lie down on the floor. Place one hand on your abdomen and one on your chest. Breathe in slowly and deeply through your nose and feel your abdomen rise. Exhale slowly through your mouth and feel your abdomen fall.

Throughout, focus your attention on the rise and fall of your abdomen. Pursed lip breathing. [00:03:00] This method involves breathing in through your nose for a count of two, feeling your stomach expand, and then pursing your lips. Imagine you're going to blow on a hot cup of coffee, and gently breathing out for a count of four, or at least for longer than you breathe in.

Alternate nostril breathing. This is a technique sometimes found in yoga. Sitting up, you close your right nostril with your right thumb and breathe in through your left nostril. You then close your left nostril with your right ring finger and exhale through your right nostril. You then inhale through your right nostril, close it with your thumb and exhale through your left nostril.

You then repeat the process.

Breath counting. Here you simply breathe in gently but fully through your nose and exhale deeply through [00:04:00] your mouth, each in and out representing one breath. Mentally count each breath up to ten and then start counting from one again. If you realise that you've been distracted and lost count, then don't judge yourself for it.

Simply start again from one. You may find one technique works for you more than the others. So it's worth trying different ones and finding your best fit. The key is repetition and consistency. Learning to use mindful breathing effectively takes time and practice. You're building a strong inner muscle to help you cope with whatever comes your way.

Making time and space for progress. The important thing to remember when doing these kinds of exercises, no matter how often you do them, is that no level of [00:05:00] perfection can be attained. It doesn't exist. Your mind will always drift off, and it will always be generating thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts may be busier than others, and sometimes you might be wishing for a positive outcome that might not be there at that moment.

Mindful breathing and meditations are your ways of moving forward, and just like you might have had a bad run of creative work, or a not so good day at the gym, it's never guaranteed to work right from the start. Either way, the mind will always be churning endless thoughts about your progress, until one day, You'll let go and simply be with your thoughts and your stillness.

When you find yourself battling your thoughts and judgements, all you need to do is recognise that your mind is straying and gently return your attention to your breath and the present moment. [00:06:00] There is no deadline to meet with mindful breathing and it's not a race. This is a practice that you get to build in your own time and at your own speed.

As you continue to do so, you will begin to feel its benefits. You'll find yourself able to cope with stressful situations more effectively. You'll be able to catch your negative patterns that little bit quicker. You'll begin to make better decisions about how you react to everything in your life. You can gain the full effects of breathing exercises by doing them regularly and building them into your routine.

This might mean waking up 10 minutes earlier in the morning to do your preferred guided breathing technique. It's a small change that will start adding up over time. The mindful breathing technique should help you ground your feelings and emotions before any tricky or stressful task. You don't even have to sit and do a [00:07:00] 10 minute breathing exercise.

You can simply pause, take a breath, and bring yourself into the present moment. Think how a footballer about to take a penalty kick pauses, takes a breath, and considers where they're going to aim the ball. They might not hit the target every time, but they stand a better chance than if they blindly smack the ball as hard as possible.