Exercise: Breathing for the nervous system

I improvised this exercise with a client this week after they mentioned feeling overwhelm and stress, with instances of dissociation. This exercise comes from my history with resources including insight meditation, theatre class, and somatic psychotherapy.

I’ve observed both in my clients and myself, and this is not necessarily universal, that a marker of stretching outside your “window of tolerance” (a concept originally developed by Dr. Dan Siegel to describe the optimal zone of “arousal” for a person to function in everyday life) is the loss of the ability to focus or concentrate. Thoughts may pull in different directions and feel intrusive, the body feels under attack and unsafe, there is discomfort in stillness, and we move into hyperarousal (fight/flight) or hypoarousal (freeze). When hyper/hypoarousal occurs, we can feel as if we no longer have choice. We react rather than respond. And when it feels bad, it’s as if someone else has taken the wheel, and is making the choices for us. Here is a graphic illustrating this from the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine:

The exercise:

Find some space to lie down, preferably where distractions are limited. Close your eyes, or allow the gaze to relax on an area above you. Bring awareness to breathing. Feel the breath as it moves in through the nostrils/mouth and moves out. Some folx enjoy putting a book on their belly to help them bring attention to the in/out of the breath as the belly moves up and down. You can say to yourself, “this is an in breath” and “this is an out breath”. Stay with this for a few moments. Thoughts will arise, as they do. This is okay! We are cognitive people. When thoughts arise, you can, without judgment, note them for what they are—thoughts that come and go. And come back to the breath. “This is an in breath…” This may feel uncomfortable, and that is okay. Play with this for a bit and as you do, find the areas that make contact with whatever surface you’re lying upon. When you’re ready, we’ll start with the top of us—the scalp—and work our way down through the entire body. As you do, note any areas that feel they need attention. Any areas of tension, tangling, etc. Invite breathing into this area without judgment for why. Spend some time imagining breathing into these areas. After this body scan, and take your time—there is no rush! This time is yours. Bring awareness to the areas of rising and falling as you breathe. This may be the chest and belly. Notice the quality of breathing, rising, falling—again, without judgment. This may be hard to not judge and that’s okay. As you bring awareness to the rising and falling, see if you can’t relax a bit more into this lying down position. After several moments, when you feel the warmth of where your body makes contact with the surface, extend this breathing outward. To the shoulders, the arms, the neck, butt, thighs, legs, feet, fingers. Take some time to imagine the whole of your breathing. What if the lungs were the whole of you? As if they could extend out in every direction. Imagine the skin taking in and exhaling breath. Imagine every pore in your body breathing. Rising and falling. Now imagine under the skin, within, the fascia, muscles, bones…breathing. Imagine the spine breathing. The entirety of you as air moving in and out. Perhaps, you are rising and falling gently on the waves of this intentional breathing. And if thoughts arise, you can always come back to the breath through the nostrils/mouth and begin again.

One of the things we forget as we move through challenging times, is that we take in and give out the very breath from nature that supports us as we support it. Carbon dioxide moves out and supports the life of plants and trees, and we take in the oxygen from these beings. We are supported by the natural environments surrounding us. What is it like to intentionally imagine this exchange with our plants, outside, etc.? When I’m feeling particularly challenged, I like to take this exercise to the floor of my house right by my house plants. I imagine us supporting one another as we move through life.