Breath Work
BREATH WORK
Open is a great online meditation and breathwork resource. They have 10, 20, and 30 minute breathwork sessions among other offerings.
Ostara Apothecary offers seasonal breathwork online as well focused on the change in seasons and ancestral healing.
Siedeh Foxie offers periodic breathwork sessions as well as a breathwork training.
Niraj Naik of Soma Breath has excellent guided meditations. Here is one for balancing emotions and getting to a place of deep relaxation.
MINDFULNESS BASED STRESS REDUCTION (MBSR)
Stress reduces our immune resilience by decreasing lymphocytes, white blood cells that help us fight illness. Chronic, low grade stress also increases the hormone cortisol and, when left unchecked, leads to increased inflammation that then exhausts the immune system even further.
Unfortunately, we can’t wave a magic wand and make stress disappear. But we can become more mindful of how it’s showing up and how we are reacting to it in order to combat its negative effects. Mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques are associated with decreased cortisol levels and improved immune system biomarkers like cytokines.
This approach uses three key steps:
1. Do a body scan: Quietly and slowly focusing on sensations throughout the entire body, from feet to head, lets us observe where we might be physically holding stress in the body and systematically let it go. Not to mention, taking twenty minutes to relax in a calm environment is a great way to reset the nervous system from all the chronic stimulation we’re exposed to.
2. Mindful movement: Yoga often goes hand in hand with mindfulness exercises, as it can be an intentional, slow, gentle way to move the body while paying attention to the thoughts and physical feelings that come up. Noticing without judgment and staying mindful of the way the body and mind are interacting lets us embrace those same skills off the mat and stay calmer when stress hits.
3. Mindful meditation: While we often try to distract ourselves from stress or run from it, that only worsens its impacts. Instead, cultivating present moment awareness lets us acknowledge feelings of stress and move through them. Mindfulness meditation involves paying attention to your breath and when you notice your mind wandering, just return to the breath. Do it again and again. This helps rewire parts of the brain to improve awareness and stress tolerance and improve immune system markers, even when we're not actively meditating.
Thank you to Dr. Mark Hyman for this healing information.
