Breathe Your Way out of a Funk

Recharge and Get Moving with these Simple Breathing Exercises

It’s the middle of winter and everyday blends into the next. You haven’t seen the sun in weeks and the chilling weather has you longing for more time wrapped in a warm blanket.

Nothings really wrong, no crisis has come up, and you can’t put your finger on anything outside of your own mental mind-chatter that is keeping you down.

You my friend are in a funk.

You are tired of wasting your one precious life dragging your feet as you try and figure it out. You’re questioning EVERYTHING!!!

• What’s wrong with me?
• Why can’t I just focus?
• Where did I go wrong?
• Everybody thinks I’m a loser?
• Why can’t I pull myself together?

If this sounds familiar, I’m here to tell you that you are not alone. You probably know that these thoughts are a useless spiral of negativity. You realize it’s those negative thoughts that keep you trapped in the funk, but you can’t figure out how to break free from them.

You Want to Feel Better

You’re tired of feeling this way and say no more. You remember you are in control of your thoughts and decide to begin to move through the muck.

Been there my friend.

Many times.

Almost as though you can see yourself headed into a destructive cycle. You know where it’s going but you still decide to take the trip.

Then Boom! You’re in a funk and pissed off at how sluggish you’ve become.

Breathe Your Way Through

Yoga had been my go to when I needed a lift, but honestly I knew I wasn’t getting from it the same gratification as others. But it led me to the most life changing mood booster I’ve ever found.

Breathwork.

I found myself wanting to sit and breath and do nothing else.

Sometimes as little as five minutes doing focused breathwork completely changed the trajectory of my thoughts, my mood, and my day.

The benefits of breathwork are backed by science. They have been proven to help push negative thoughts away and provide more clarity into one’s life.

The best part is it only takes a couple minutes a day to have a lasting impact. You can do it from home and you don’t need any fancy equipment.

So What is Breathwork Anyway?

Breathwork is simply using your natural breath to create balance in your nervous system. Most of us, most of the time, are walking around out of balance, but by the power of breathwork we can nudge ourselves back on track. Focused breathwork deepens your breath. Increasing the oxygen levels in your brain and energizing your cells. This increases your blood flow and lowers your stress because your brain is now sending signals to your body that it is safe.

Breathwork is all about moving the energy around in your body. This is great for keeping yourself healthy both mentally and physically.

Here are 2 Breathwork Practices to help you beat the funk and get back into the groove of your life.

3 Part Breathing

Three part breathing is a calming and grounding breathing exercise. Helping you to focus your attention on the present moment and tune into the sensations in your body.

It’s a great practice to use as a transition from a hectic day into a more relaxed evening.

The 3 parts of this subtle movement are your abdomen, rib-cage, and chest. Using your inhales and exhales to create motion through these layers.

This can be done laying down on your mat, in a chair with your feet firmly planted on the floor or sitting in an easy pose or any comfortable seated position that allows for a straight spine.

If you are new to breathwork I recommend laying down as it will be easier to feel the breath moving through the stages.

The entire exercise will be done through the nose only.

1. Place your right hand on your chest, and your left hand on your belly.
2. Close your eyes
3. Begin to observe your natural breathing rhythm. Letting your hands rise and fall with the movement. Focusing only on the breath.
4. Deepening your breath on an inhale, fill up your belly first, then let the breath move up into your ribcage and finally at the top of your breath feel your right hand raise with your chest.
5. On the exhale you will reverse the movement. Letting the air first fall from your chest, then your ribcage and finally your belly as the last of the breath exits and your navel has moved back towards your spine.
6. Inhale, breath moves through the abdomen, ribcage, chest.
7. Exhale, breath leaves through the chest, ribcage, abdomen.
8. Do 10 rounds of breath this way focusing on the breath moving up and down along these three parts.

If it’s more comfortable for you, you can begin with a couple rounds of just deep belly breathing, then add the ribcage, and finally the chest though a series of breaths. Once you are up to all 3 parts in a smooth inhale and exhale repeat for about 10 rounds.

The most common mistake made in this practice is a tendency to breathe too deeply, forcing your lungs to feel like they might burst and straining yourself in the process. The air should flow in and out smoothly, and your lungs should feel comfortable, not as though you are at full capacity.

It might take some time to get down your rhythm but stick with it. In a 5 minute time span you can increase the oxygen flow to your brain.

One Minutes O Mouth Breathing

This healing breath is used to help reset your energy and your attitude. It seems simple, yet both can become very advanced as your concentration and focus grow.

You will create an O shape with your mouth for this exercise and breath in and out through the O shape.

For this one you will want to be sitting cross-legged or in a chair with your feet firmly planted on the floor, making sure your spine is straight.

1. Set a timer for 1 minute so you don’t need to think about it.
2. Close your eyes and create an O shape with your mouth.
3. Exhale out powerfully by snapping your navel towards your spine.
4. Let the inhale happen naturally.
5. The exhale is creating a pump that allows energy to move through your body, the inhale allows for air to fill the pump.
6. Do this powerful movement for one minutes.
7. When time is up close your mouth and breath natural for a couple breaths before moving.

O mouth breathing helps energize the mind and body. It is best to be done in the morning.

Before getting up from any breathwork practice be mindful of your energy. It’s not uncommon to feel light-headed and you want to keep yourself safe.

Drink plenty of water to help stabilize you. Hydrating your body so your body can move all that beautiful energy around .

Practice Patience

As you can see both these exercises take no time at all to do, but can take some time to master. Be patient with the practice. Both are safe to do several times throughout your day to keep you motivated.

You will begin to notice as your lungs capacity increases that you will have more energy. This is because you are using your breath to help cleanse your blood and oxygenate your body. Improving your stamina, aiding in digestion, and lowering inflammation.

We are still tip-toeing back into a world that we have been cut off from for a year so be patient with your own levels of comfort, anxiety and stress.

We have been a collective funk and we all will come out of it on our own time. These 2 exercises are just two more ways you can give yourself some love and tell those negative vibes to hit the highway.