How are you breathing right now?

I don’t mean literally ’cause the answer to that is, by grace. How is your breathing right now?

When’s the last time you took a full breath?

Today, I’m sharing 3 breathing exercises (based on years of vocal coaching insight) to help you reset and invite a clarity and calm into this gifted day. They won’t take long, and you can sit or stand.

Having a healthy breathing pattern and rhythm doesn’t change or erase circumstances but it can influence our thought life and mood while dealing with the matter.

Taking full breaths while monitoring our thoughts (without pumped-up emotions) can make a difference between choosing to explode or panic and choosing to be calm and mentally clear in the moment.

So let’s go:

1. Take a deep breath in through the nose and fan out your shoulders (instead of raising them.) Then slowly exhale through the nose and let your shoulders rest evenly, without curving inwards too much.

2. Another deep breath in through the nose, and hold it for a beat or slow count to 1. Then exhale even slower- this time, through the mouth tightening your tummy (or lower abdomen) at the same time.

3. For the third deep breath in this series, inhale through the nose for 4 counts. Hold your breath for just one beat, with tongue between the teeth slowly exhale through the mouth making a ‘thhhhhh’ sound, as if you’re about to say the word, “the.” Tighten your tummy (lower abdomen) at the same time for a beat, then let your breathing reset.

Breath is a gift, and the ability to breathe ‘on our own at will,’ without technical support or physical monitoring, isn’t something to take for granted although we tend to.

At intervals during each gifted day, do a self-check to monitor how you’re breathing, where you’re breathing from, the position you’re in or posture you’re holding and just as important, the quality of the thoughts you have. I’ll do my best to do the same.

So, how is your breathing right now, and which exercise in this post was the most refreshing today?

For stretching and breathing exercises to do at your desk, click here.

important note: These breathing exercises shared in today’s post are not intended or designed to replace or override sound medical advice. They are based on vocal coaching insight and not any other system.