[Music]
this next a grounding activity is called
square breathing and square breathing
can be helpful for a couple of reasons
one because our breath is connected to
both the part of our nervous system that
we can control and the part of our
nervous system that is automatic so it
helps us access that calming part of our
brain kind of in through the back door
the other thing about square breathing
is you practice it with varying lengths
of breaths then you can practice putting
yourself into a slightly
anxiety-provoking situation which is
being out of breath but you're doing it
intentionally in such a way that
something that would normally be anxiety
provoking or uncomfortable becomes
something that you can handle with
willingness so you are basically
converting something that might have
been stressful into something that is
very comfortable and that trained your
brain to believe that you have the
ability to convert something that's
stressful into something that's
beneficial for you so let me just
explain a square breathing really
quickly so with square breathing you
imagine yourself breathing a longest
square so you imagine yourself starting
at the top right corner of the square
and you my yourself breathing in for
four seconds and then you imagine
yourself holding that breath for four
seconds and then you imagine yourself
breathing out so exhaling for four
seconds and then holding that air out
for four seconds and you're back to the
top of the square and you repeat that
four times so breathe in two three four
so you're breathing in that whole time
holding it for four seconds breathing
out for four seconds you're exhaling
for four seconds and then you're staying
without breath for four more seconds so
just like that when you exhale you want
to have all the breath out that you can
have out to want to be completely out of
breath when you're done with your inhale
you want to be completely full of breath
and the other two are the process of
getting in and out now you can lengthen
the amount of time that you're doing
these inhales and exhales and holding so
you can lengthen it out to eight seconds
or 10 seconds or 16 seconds but when you
lengthen the amount of time that you're
out of breath you're gonna cause your
brain to panic for a little bit and
that's where you can kind of challenge
yourself to increase your comfort with
being out of breath so really there's
two ways to do this activity the first
way is to just stay at for seconds
breathe in for 4 seconds hold for 4
seconds breathe out for 4 seconds hold
for 4 seconds and that's just gonna be
kind of naturally calming because it's
creating a rhythm and the other way you
can do this is to challenge yourself to
lengthen the amount of time you're
holding that breath and that's gonna be
a little bit more of a mental challenge
that creates more resilience so as you
do this activity just watch yourself and
pay attention to the emotions that come
up so paying attention to your breath is
going to help you stay centered and
grounded while various emotions go
through you I hope this video was
helpful thanks for watching and take
care
hi everyone I'm excited to announce that
my udemy course change your brain is now
live so this is a two hour intensive
course that goes into the ways that you
can change your brain chemistry without
medication so these are very practical
skills that have been shown through
research to improve mental health and
combat depression anxiety and other
mental illnesses in this course I teach
the practical application of
neuroplasticity which is the emerging
field of science showing that our brains
are flexible and changeable throughout
our entire lives that our brains can
actually change their structure function
and chemistry by how we think and how we
act and this course teaches tensor boys
that you can improve your mental health
by activities that take only a couple
minutes every day so I created this
course because this is fundamental
information that I think everyone should
have access to so please take a look at
it the link is in the description it's
on udemy calm and I'm including a coupon
code if you'd like to take the course
for free just send me a private message
and I'll give you a code so check it out
thanks and take care
[Music]