Daily Tip #1 - Belly Breathing

0:00 - Introduction

Hello out there! It's Shane from MATRIX. Like many of you, I'm not at work today because the studio is closed. But that's why I decided to film these Daily Tips videos! This is the first one of what, unfortunately, might be many but at least they'll be some good information given to you. Now, it was really nice for me today, knowing that I was going to film this video, because I got to go and put my MATRIX shirt on and resume some semblance of normalcy.

0:28 - Breathing Reduces Stress

With all the changes that are going on, in your life and in the world around us, whether we're aware of it or not, your subconscious is very stressed out by this complete shift in your routine. So one of the simplest things that you can do to reduce the stress surrounding that is, to breathe. You're doing it all day long anyways, so it can help to just spend a few minutes each day making sure that we're doing it really, really well.

0:54 - How Breathing Helps

When you're stressed out, your breathing begins to shift into your upper chest, more rapid breathing. It's a shallower breathing, and it's stimulating your sympathetic nervous system. So, in these times when you're under high loads of stress, that's the natural thing that's going to happen. To start to calm down and reduce that, you want to shift your breathing from up high, down low into the belly. And I'm going to give you a few ways to practice that today.

1:20 - The Belly Breath

Very simply, the starter is to put one hand on your belly, and put one hand on your chest. And as you breathe, and think about taking just a slightly larger than normal inbreath. Not a big, full inhale because that will absolutely get you up in to your chest. Just slightly larger than normal. You want to breathe and feel the bottom hand move. And the top hand stays still. That's when you know you're getting it right. If you take just 30 seconds to a minute of doing this every now and again, it can be really, really helpful to calm your nervous system and just return an overall sense of well being to your body.

1:57 - Breath Training Trick

Now, for some of us, breathing up here is actually a chronic state. It's a very common thing that's happening across our societies. So you might need a little bit extra help to learn how to do this well. For that, what I would recommend is go grab yourself a big book. Or something else that's about this shape and that's kind of heavy. So, if you're having trouble getting the belly to move, what you can do now is lay down on your bed or on the floor. Take your book and place it right over top of your belly. This will give you some feedback so that as you're trying to breathe into the belly, you'll have this weight that you're getting to push against. If you can imagine I'm laying on the floor right now, as I took a deep breath in. I would actively try to push the book away. And that's gonna allow the breath to come all the way down into the belly and use my diaphragm muscle for proper breathing.

2:52 - How to Advance

Once you get a handle on that, that's when you can move into doing it with just your hands. And then once you go from there, you might actually start trying to change shapes and positions when you're doing your belly breathing. Not just doing it seated, but doing it while you're standing, or maybe even while you're walking around.

3:09 - Use a Timer

The last little piece I want to add today, I'm probably going to mention this throughout every single video that we do, is that I highly, highly, highly recommend that you get used to setting a timer for your work, TV watching, whatever it is that you might be doing these days. Just consider setting a timer 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes, it doesn't really matter how long it is. But when you hear that timer go off, that'll be a cue for you to stop what you're doing and take a couple of minutes to do today's drill, which is the belly breath.

3:43 - One Round Together

One final time reviewing that, go ahead and try it along with me. We'll do three breaths together. Put one hand on your belly, one hand on your chest, just a slightly larger than normal breath in. Let it go slowly. Do it again, maybe this time with the eyes closed breathing in. Let it go. And then one more time. And I bet, chances are, after just those three breaths you're probably feeling better. Just imagine what it can do for you if you're doing it more frequently throughout the day.

4:26 - Wrap Up

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed. Be sure to check back in tomorrow for our next tip.