Breathe like a Baby Mindfully
Breathe like a baby, to sleep like a baby or to help worry, physical pain or any other problem!
Breathe from your belly allowing the diaphragm to do what it supposed to do. It creates a vacuum allowing the air to flow in and out without thought or emotional reactivity or extra muscular effort from the upper chest, neck, or face muscles.
Infants and younger children do this naturally being experts at sustained mindfulness.
Sustained mindfulness is one definition of mindfulness meditation
They breathe using mindfulness and sleep well.
What is mindfulness? It is staying in the present, moment by moment, accepting what is, and allowing the wave like nature of reality to occur over and over and again and again, without emotional reactivity or using any thinking processes.
We have trouble sleeping because we think and emotionally react about it rather than mindfully experience it like a baby. To sleep like a baby you have to practice breathing mindfully over and over, not just when you are sleeping but any time you get a chance to change the conditioning that in now automatic that has been happening for years.
Here is another example of mindfulness. You hear music and just experience it for what it that is mindfully experiencing the music using the experiencing mode of the mind, then you emotionally react to it, and start thinking, using the thinking-doing mind. What a nice song, makes me feel good, I like, it I want to hear more, I should buy it, it reminds me of that good time. This kind of discursive thinking based emotional reactions set up thinking about the past and the future and on one level interferes and changes the original experience and thus the original reality of the music.
The same thing happens when we try to sleep or relax, our thinking based on emotionally reactivity changes the nature of the sleep experience and interferes with it leading to sleep difficulties. You can’t shut off thinking and emotionally reactivity but you can redirect the mind though systematic training to re focus on what you want it to, in this case experience sleep sensations without interference, by picking something neutral like the physical sensations of breathing.
This sounds easy in theory and is easy to explain in theory but not so easy to do and requires much practice. The formula is easy.
Think about breathing, feel the breathing, get distracted, go back to feeling the breathing, over and over.
1. Use your thinking-doing mind to focus on the breathing until
2. The experiencing mode of the mind can feel and sense the breathing until, this step develops more and more concentration, resulting in increasing calm and relaxation,
3. You are distracted by anything, which pulls you back to the thinking mode again,
4. Recognize the distraction, and go back to the feeling and sensing the breathing again, this step builds more concentration and in some ways a better concentration, as you recognize the distraction and re focus again on the breathing
5. Think about the breathing, feel the breathing sensations, get distracted, go back to feeling the breathing sensations, over and over, again and again, will develop the concentration and calm you need to be able to put thinking mode on the back burner and allow the sleep sensations to be experienced.
To make this work better learn how to use belly breathing rather upper chest shallow normal breathing.
1. Expand your lower belly, using your hand to feel the belly going up and down,
2. To get started breathe in from your nose and out from your mouth,
3. Slow down your breathing, inhale, hold it for a second of two, and let it out though your mouth,
4. As you let it out, allow any tension you feel around your face, neck, shoulders and rest of your body to soften and let it go
5. Do this over and over tying to get into a natural rhythm, close your mouth if it feels more natural,
6. Don’t suck the air in or blow it out using the upper chest or muscles around neck or face, imagine and allow the air to naturally be brought in by the vacuum caused by the belly expanding, and naturally allow it go out, again with no muscular effort from the upper chest, neck or face muscles.
7. Do this over and over, getting in a natural almost effortless rhythm
8. Don’t think about this, just feel and sense the physical sensations over and over, again and again
Combine mindful breathing with belly breathing whenever you can to help relax, calm down and to develop increasing levels of concentration. Try it at bedtime to help yourself sleep.