Article by Cara Bradley | Found on Mindful.org
Cara Bradley hosts a weekly podcast series called On The Verge, short blasts of advice and essential practices and strategies to shift from “crazy busy” to living with more clarity and vitality.
Are you one of the millions that seek mindfulness practices to feel calmer and more at ease? Do you hope meditation will settle your thinking mind? In this episode Cara explains how breath training calms your nervous system and ultimately works to settle a busy mind.
Cara explains that when your body feels sluggish, your mind feels sluggish. When your body feel tense, there’s a good chance your mind will feel tense too. On the other hand, a calm body often reveals a calm mind. In other words, the state of your body reflects the state of your mind.
Welcome to On The Verge with Cara Bradley, weekly blasts of no-hype advice and essential practices to settle down, show up, and shift from crazy-busy to high-definition, high-voltage living.
I talk to a lot of people about meditation—a lot. A lot of people tell me “I’ve tried it, I know I should do it; I can’t stop my mind from thinking. I’ve got such a busy mind. What can I do? How can I do it? I can’t find the time.”
I’ve taken this all and really digested it because I feel like this mindfulness trend, this wave where everyone is now speaking about mindfulness practice, about the need to meditate, about the benefits of meditation—But I feel like most people don’t understand why. Why do I actually want to meditate. Why would I want to sit down for 15, 20, 30 minutes and follow my breath—what is that doing? I might feel a little better afterward, but really, why? And so I hope to answer some of those questions for you today. We’re also going to practice.
Why Do People Want to Meditate?
Why do we want to meditate, what does it do for us, what’s really happening, what is the purpose! Here it goes. What we’re really trying to do is to stabilize—to stabilize our nervous system. So what happens when we sit down for a few moments when we take a few deep breaths, as we’re going to do later on, is that we start to stabilize or balance our autonomic nervous system. Now you may remember some about your nervous system from biology in high school. Probably not. Some of you may be technical experts on the nervous system but I’m just going to give it to you really simply. We have these responses in our body. We’re either on heightened alert, stressed, kind of perched, right at the edge of our chair, ready for the next shoe to drop… or we’re relaxed, so relaxed that we’re sleepy, or asleep. But when we’re balanced, when those two responses are balanced, we feel clear and energized.
When we are simply humming along, sometimes heightened, sometimes relaxed, but really humming along right down the center, the midline, we feel awake and at ease. And that truly is the meaning of being mindful. Being alert to what’s happening but at ease in the moment.
But because of our conditioning in our society, we’re rarely there. We’re most of the time perched, stressed, heightened, right at the edge of our seat waiting for that next news alert, waiting for the next post that pisses you off on social media, waiting for the next confrontation. So we stay heightened, we stay stressed. We stay in this heightened state of alertness and this is very unhealthy as we all know. The stress response, a chronically stressed body, is incredibly unhealthy on all dimensions and at all levels of our system: physiologically, mentally, and emotionally. So why we meditate, why would we want to practice mindfulness meditation or some other form, is truly to stabilize and settle your nervous system, to bring your body into a more balanced state of being.
So when we balance our breathing—and the breathing is really the best gateway for doing this—balancing your breath is the entry point for settling your nervous system and ultimately calming your mind. So stabilizing our nervous system through breath, through rhythm, through movement as we teach at Verge Body Mind, helps you to come into a more stable and settled state of being. When you’re settled and stable, your mind will naturally calm down. Our mind produces thoughts, our brains produce thoughts, our nervous system has the synapses that are constantly firing such as seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting, thinking—it’s all the same stuff. Our nervous system produces these responses to our environment and produces these synapses, these little soap bubbles of experience that sometimes comes as a smell, and sometimes comes as a sight, sometimes comes as a thought. When our nervous system is agitated, naturally those synapses, those experiences are going to be agitated. When our body is agitated, our minds will be agitated. Our thinking will be more frenzied and frazzled. When our bodies are calm, when our nervous system is balanced, those neurosynapses will be more steady or be calmer, more settled.
Meditation simply means to become familiar with your state of being in this moment.
So we meditate and we can meditate, FYI, by walking in rhythm, by swimming, by gardening, by sitting down, and following your breath. Meditation simply means to become familiar with your state of being in this moment.
The Benefit of a Seated Meditation Practice
So I want to talk to you today about why you would want to do a seated meditation practice because I know many of you have tried. I talked to a lot of people who desperately want to feel better, who desperately want to slow down their busy mind so much to the point that they’ll do anything to feel more at ease and more peaceful in their everyday life. By practicing a seated meditation practice, even for five minutes as we’re going to do today, you can start to stabilize your nervous system, helping you to settle your mind and quiet the chatter.
You know how to settle your body if your heart is racing really fast. So, say something happens out of the blue: Somebody cuts you off on the highway in a way that just startles you and sends you into this stress mode where your body is on heightened alert. You know what to do, you know how to settle yourself. You calm yourself by deepening your breath. You just do it; we all do it. Babies know how to settle themselves. Children know how to go into a child’s pose and settle themselves. We instinctively know how to settle our bodies and our minds but we’ve just become so conditioned to being in this heightened state of alertness and stress that we’ve forgotten. So a seated meditation practice, it’s like lifting the heavy weights at the gym. The walk is amazing, the walk in the woods, the yoga practice, incredible, but sometimes just sitting down and following and balancing your breath for a few minutes it stabilizes you directly, immediately, and profoundly.
We instinctively know how to settle our bodies and our minds but we’ve just become so conditioned to being in this heightened state of alertness and stress that we’ve forgotten.
Today, I want to just give you a little bit more fuel, a little bit more understanding as to why you want to take those five, 10, 15, 20 minutes every day to train your brain in how to be in this alert and easy way of living more often. Even in challenging situations you can learn to access this alert, easy way of being we call “the mindful state of being” where everything you do you do better, by the way. So there’s a reason for wanting to be there because not only do your physical systems hum, your hormones balance, your body feels more at ease and brighter, but your mind is clearer. The chatter is less frenzied so that you can get underneath all those repetitive thoughts and start to connect with the wisdom that’s emerging in every single second of your life.
So we want to tune ourselves, tone ourselves, train ourselves to hum in this balanced way so that we can access that intelligence that’s underneath the mental chatter that’s underneath the busyness.
So first we need to settle the muddy waters. And that’s what a seated practice—and other practices—but the seated practice can do for you. It’s why you’d want to get up in the morning and sit down for five or 10 minutes: to stabilize your nervous system, to quiet the chatter, to settle your mind, to prepare you for an amazing day of insight, creativity, and connection.
Practice: 5 Breaths of Mindfulness
We’re going to try a very simple practice. It’s a simple seated practice, in which we’re following our breath, counting our breath, and then pausing after five breaths to sense what it feels like to be stable, to be settled, to be available for that “source intelligence,” for that deep wisdom, for the direct experience to emerge.
Begin in a seated position. Place your feet to the floor. Place your hands on your knees and sit upright in a relaxed but alert way.
For a moment, notice your body: Notice your feet on the floor, your seat on the chair, your hands on your thighs, perhaps your upper back leaning against the chair. Notice your head in space as it finds its way to alignment on top of your shoulders and your spine. Just notice your body in space, in this moment: the experience of being in your body.
Now, notice any sensations that may be arising: Notice tingling, coolness, heat, throbbing, pulsing. Coming into your body in this way brings you more into contact with the present moment; as we drop from thinking to being, we shift into a more experiential state. We’re actually living in the moment.
Shift your attention to your breath, to your experience of breathing. What does it feel like to be breathing right now?
We’re going to start counting our breath. We’ll take five breaths. By counting our breaths, it holds your mind in your breath in this moment. So for the counting, open your eyes just halfway. Find a spot on the floor in front of you. Fixing your gaze helps you to stabilize when your eyes flitter about, your mind is flittering about. So just by lightly setting your gaze at one spot, it can help anchor your mind to this moment.
We’ll begin by counting five breaths. I’ll take you along for the first round and then I’ll leave you alone for the next few rounds. So together: inhale, exhale, one. Inhale, exhale, two. Inhale, exhale, three. Inhale, exhale, four. Inhale exhale, five.
Pausing now, keep your eyes open and notice your body, notice your surroundings. Notice any sounds, sensations, smells, tastes, thoughts. Notice what it feels like to be you right now. Recognizing presence recognizing what it feels like to be alive in this moment below the chatter, beyond the thinking; you and you alone in this moment.
And now once again fix your gaze. And we’ll begin again counting five breaths. So do this on your own right now. Stay with it.
After your five breaths, once again notice—so glimpsing what it feels like to be right here in your body, in this moment, showing up fully for your experience. If a thought comes, let it come, let it go. If a smell comes, let it come, let it go. A sound? Same thing. We’re allowing life to move. Not trying to fixate or stop anything from happening yet experiencing the aliveness, the emerging aliveness, the emerging intelligence that’s arising in every single second of our lives. What does it feel like to be in your body, in this moment, right here, right now.
Repeat one more round of five breaths. Set your gaze, bring your attention back to your breath, and begin counting.
When you’re through with your five, release: release this seated position; just wiggle your arms, wiggle your toes, maybe move your spine about, lift your gaze, lift your chin and look around.
Notice your experience right now. Noticing how your body feels in this moment, how you feel, how your mind feels. Do you feel brighter, lighter, more at ease more alert? If you do, yes! Awesome. If you don’t, that’s OK, too. By settling and steadying our mind on just five breaths, we start to shift our nervous system from being in this alert or this rather perched, stressed, agitated, on-guard state to being more open and at ease and awake in the moment to everything that’s arising. As we start to settle the water, as we start to stabilize our minds, the chatter, we’re able to then discern and sense and experience a deeper level of knowing, a deeper source of information, a more natural emerging intelligence that’s arising constantly in every second.
So why do we meditate? Why do you want to? Why do you need to? Why should you? It’s to stabilize. It’s to stabilize your nervous system first through breath awareness and when you do that, when you calm your nervous system, you calm your body, which calms your mind, which opens you up to the source, to this floodgate of genius, of brilliance, of aliveness. That’s why you meditate.
Grounded in the belief we are all unique beings, we begin each new client with a meticulous bio-mechanical evaluation, assessing each joint in its relationship to the movement of the body as a whole. Our therapists are skilled at reading the unique story your body tells, and treating everything from the bottom of your foot to the top of your head.
Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Womens Health and Lymphedema.
12 Scientifically Proven Benefits of Pilates for Your Peace of Mind
/in pilates /by bodywiseArticle found on PilatesBridge
Pilates is more than just a workout. Any person who’s been doing it for at least a couple of months knows that Pilates doesn’t only sculpt your body but it also clears your mind and gives you energy and inner serenity. But what is so special about Pilates? Read more
Want To Live Longer? Here’s What You Need To Know About Longevity
/in health /by bodywiseArticle by Walter Longo, Ph.D. | Found on MindBodyGreen
As the director of the University of Southern California’s (USC) Longevity Institute and the mind behind the ProLon Fasting-Mimicking Diet, Dr. Valter Longo is one of the world’s premier experts on health and longevity. A biochemist by training, he studies the fundamental mechanisms of aging so we can truly understand what’s happening in the body—and how to slow it down. His new book, The Longevity Diet, aims to teach us all how to eat and live for a long, active life.
Most people are discouraged and often confused by nutritional news. Nutrient groups (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates), and also specific foods like eggs and coffee have all been described in scientific journals and the media as both good and bad for you. How do you decide what’s right for you and your health? In fact, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates can be considered both good and bad for you depending on type and consumption. For example, proteins are essential for normal function, yet high levels of proteins, and particularly those from red meat and other animal sources, have been associated with increased incidence of several diseases. So we need a better system to filter out the noise and extract beneficial dietary information.
This is why I formulated the “Five Pillars of Longevity.” This method is based on my own studies and also on the studies of many other laboratories and clinicians. It uses five research areas to determine whether a nutrient or combination of nutrients is good or bad for health and to identify the ideal combination of foods for optimal longevity.
I believe that many popular strategies and diets are inappropriate or only partially correct because they are based on just one or two pillars. This is important because while one nutrient may be protective against one condition or disease, it can negatively affect another, or it can protect middle-age individuals but hurt the very young or the elderly. An example: In adults age 70 and below, eating a relatively high-calorie diet will in most cases lead to weight gain and an increase in the risk for developing certain diseases. Yet in individuals over age 70, the same diet and the consequent moderate weight gain can be protective against certain diseases and overall mortality. This is why it is important to follow the advice of someone who has an in-depth understanding of the complex relationship between nutrition, aging, and disease.
The Five Pillars of Longevity create a strong foundation for dietary recommendations and a filtering system to evaluate thousands of studies related to aging and disease while also minimizing the burden of dietary change. When dietary choices are based on all of the Five Pillars, they are unlikely to be contradicted or undergo major alterations as a consequence of new findings.
1. Basic research.
Without understanding how nutrients—such as proteins and sugars—affect cellular function, aging, age-dependent damage, and regeneration, it is difficult to determine the type and quantity of nutrients needed to optimize healthy longevity. Without animal studies to determine whether a diet can in fact extend longevity, in addition to having acute effects on general health, it is difficult to translate the basic discoveries to human interventions. As I mentioned earlier, I first started working with mice and humans in Walford’s lab, but I soon discovered that a far simpler unicellular organism, yeast, could help us identify the fundamental properties of organisms. These could then be applied to humans, furnishing information related to molecular aspects of longevity—in particular, the ones linked to evolutionary principles. Using yeast, we were able to generate the differential stress resistance and sensitization theories that served as the foundation for a number of clinical trials testing the effect of fasting-mimicking diets in combination with cancer therapies. This basic research is where every one of our studies begins.
2. Epidemiology.
This is the study of the causes and important risk factors for disease and other health-related conditions in defined populations. Studying population-based risk factors is crucial to testing hypotheses generated by basic research. For example, if you hypothesize that excess sugar promotes abdominal fat storage and resistance to insulin, epidemiological research should confirm that people who consume high quantities of sugars have a high waist circumference and an increased risk for diabetes. After my initial focus on the genetics of aging, I carried out epidemiological studies related to aging and diseases, which taught me the tremendous value of understanding the health consequences of behavior in large populations.
3. Clinical studies.
Hypotheses formulated in basic and epidemiological studies eventually must be tested in randomized, controlled clinical trials. This is the gold standard to demonstrate efficacy. For example, a group of prediabetic subjects would be instructed to consume fewer sugars but otherwise maintain the same diet and calorie intake as before. The control group would be asked to maintain the same diet or reduce the intake of fat to match the calorie reduction in the reduced-sugar group. Understanding the importance of this pillar grew out of my own randomized clinical trials, and those of many others, testing the effect of a particular dietary component on risk factors for disease, such as cholesterol or fasting glucose levels, but also on a disease itself, such as cardiovascular disease.
4. Centenarian studies.
Once the data from basic, epidemiological, and clinical studies is available, there is still uncertainty about whether a specific diet or nutritional intervention is in fact safe and beneficial after long-term use, and whether it is palatable enough for people not just to adopt it but to stick with it for the rest of their lives. Studies of various centenarian populations from around the world provide long-term evidence of the safety, efficacy, and compliance associated with a particular diet (for example, a low-sugar diet). To generate data for the fourth pillar, I have studied long-lived populations in Ecuador and southern Italy and consulted the work of my colleagues focusing on other very long-lived populations in high-longevity zones around the world.
5. Studies of complex systems.
This pillar is the result of my fascination with reductionism, physics, and the need to simplify the human body’s complexity by identifying complex machines that can serve as models to teach us about the function and loss of function of human organs and systems. This last pillar can complement the others by providing reference points and useful analogies. For example, above I discuss how sugars can lead to disease. But sugars are also the most important nutrient for the human body. Sugar is to the body what gasoline is to a car—the central source of energy. So sugars are not the problem. It’s the intake of excessive quantities of sugar, in combination with proteins and certain types of fats, that contributes to disease both directly and indirectly—by activating aging-related genes, creating insulin resistance, and triggering hyperglycemia. This last pillar furthers the analysis of a human problem by taking an engineering approach to generate a relatively simple model to understand the complex interactions between food, cellular damage, and aging.
Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Womens Health and Lymphedema.
Try Exercise to Improve Memory and Thinking
/in fitness, neuroscience, the brain /by bodywiseArticle Found on NeuroscienceNews
For patients with mild cognitive impairment, don’t be surprised if your health care provider prescribes exercise rather than medication. A new guideline for medical practitioners says they should recommend twice-weekly exercise to people with mild cognitive impairment to improve memory and thinking. Read more
Your Breath is Your Brain’s Remote Control
/in the brain /by bodywiseArticle by Crystal Goh | Found on Mindful.org
We have all heard this simple saying during times of trouble: “Take a deep breath in.” Science being science, however, indicates that we may now have to update this old adage to read “Take a deep breath in it will help you be more emotionally aware but only if you inhale specifically through your nostrils and not your mouth—good luck.” Read more
Where Pilates and Physical Therapy Meet
/in pilates, rehabilitation /by bodywiseWritten by Marguerite Ogle| Article Found on VeryWell
Typically, when we think of physical rehabilitation we think of physical therapy. However, with the exceptional rise in the popularity of Pilates over the past ten years, awareness of its rehabilitative effects has increased. Doctors recommend Pilates to their clients with foot, knee, back, shoulder, neck pain and more. Physical therapists are integrating Pilates equipment and exercises into their practices, and many are trained as Pilates instructors as well.
This interesting and growing relationship between Pilates and physical therapy is what we will look at more closely in this article. Read more
10 Ways Your Mind Can Help You Heal (According To Science)
/in health, the brain /by bodywiseArticle by Jo Marchant | Found on MindBodyGreen
Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist, with a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology. In her rigorously reported new book, “Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body,” Marchant explores the fascinating research into the mind-body connection, including its ability to help us heal.
Harnessing the healing power of the mind doesn’t mean simply thinking the pain away. We can’t wish ourselves better, however much we might want that to be true.
But by harnessing pathways such as expectation, distraction, and social support we can persuade our bodies to ease off on symptoms such as pain, depression, and fatigue, as well as influence physiological functions such as the gut and immune system. Read more
Mindful Movement to Nourish Your Spine
/in posture /by bodywiseArticle by Cara Bradley | Found on Mindful.org
Many of us respond to shorter days and colder weather by spending more time at our desks, or curled up on the couch—but these habits can leave us feeling stagnant. That’s why it’s important during the winter to give your spine some extra care. This 3-minute practice offers 4 exercises to stretch and strengthen the spine. If you find yourself feeling tired with the imminent approach of winter, doing this quick practice throughout the day can refresh your energy and focus. Moving from your spine gets your blood flowing, warms you up, and creates a conscious connection to your breath.
3-Minute Mindful Movement Practice to Nourish Your Spine
1) Dynamic mountain
To start, separate your feet hip-width apart. Inhale and reach both your arms forward and overhead. As you exhale, reach your arms out to the sides and down. Repeat this movement for 3 breaths.
2) Downhill skier stretch
Inhale and reach up again. As you exhale, bend your knees slightly and place your hands on your knees like a baseball player. Take a deep breath in and out. Then, keep your knees bent as you reach your arms back behind you. Hold this for another breath in and out. As you inhale again, sweep your arms forward and up into a small backbend. Repeat for for 3 breaths.
3) Side sways
Bring your arms overhead as you inhale. Exhale and sway to your right, reaching over your head with your left hand. Inhale and come back to the center, and as you exhale, reach your right hand over to the left. Inhale and reach both of your arms up together. Repeat this for 3 breaths.
4) Standing twists
Once more, sweep your arms overhead as you breathe in. Exhale and twist to the right, reaching the left arm forward and the right arm backward. Bring both arms down to touch your legs. Inhale and bring your arms all the way up. Repeat for 3 breaths. To finish, keep your arms overhead, stretch as high as you can, and breathe into the stretch. Finally, release your arms down to your sides.
Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Womens Health and Lymphedema.
Rhythm of Breathing Affects Memory and Fear
/in Uncategorized /by bodywiseArticle Found on NeuroscienceNews
Summary: A new study reports the rhythm of your breathing can influence neural activity that enhances memory recall and emotional judgement.
Source: Northwestern University.
Breathing is not just for oxygen; it’s now linked to brain function and behavior.
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered for the first time that the rhythm of breathing creates electrical activity in the human brain that enhances emotional judgments and memory recall.
These effects on behavior depend critically on whether you inhale or exhale and whether you breathe through the nose or mouth. Read more
Cycling for Beginners: The Ultimate Guide
/in Uncategorized /by bodywiseArticle by Tori Bortman | Found on Bicycling.com
Positioned for Success
If you’re new to road biking, you may feel on your first rides as if your body is being thrown unnaturally far forward. Because your whole torso is relatively low to the ground, it might I seem as if you could go over the bar at any second. Stay relaxed and practice riding in low-traffic areas, and soon your fight-or-flight reptilian brain will learn that this position is as comfortable and as safe as any other—because it is.
There are three riding positions. The most common is neutral, in which your hands are generally on top of the hoods (which cover the brake levers) so you have access to the brakes and shifters. If the bike fits you properly, you will be able to freely turn your head to look around, not have too much pressure on your hands, and feel comfortable for extended periods of time. Viewed from the side, your torso and arms should almost form a 90-degree angle. Make an effort to keep your shoulders broad and away from your ears and your chest forward. Read more
Jumpstart Your Mindfulness Practice in 5 Breaths
/in Uncategorized /by bodywiseArticle by Cara Bradley | Found on Mindful.org
Cara Bradley hosts a weekly podcast series called On The Verge, short blasts of advice and essential practices and strategies to shift from “crazy busy” to living with more clarity and vitality.
Are you one of the millions that seek mindfulness practices to feel calmer and more at ease? Do you hope meditation will settle your thinking mind? In this episode Cara explains how breath training calms your nervous system and ultimately works to settle a busy mind.
Cara explains that when your body feels sluggish, your mind feels sluggish. When your body feel tense, there’s a good chance your mind will feel tense too. On the other hand, a calm body often reveals a calm mind. In other words, the state of your body reflects the state of your mind.
Welcome to On The Verge with Cara Bradley, weekly blasts of no-hype advice and essential practices to settle down, show up, and shift from crazy-busy to high-definition, high-voltage living.
I talk to a lot of people about meditation—a lot. A lot of people tell me “I’ve tried it, I know I should do it; I can’t stop my mind from thinking. I’ve got such a busy mind. What can I do? How can I do it? I can’t find the time.”
I’ve taken this all and really digested it because I feel like this mindfulness trend, this wave where everyone is now speaking about mindfulness practice, about the need to meditate, about the benefits of meditation—But I feel like most people don’t understand why. Why do I actually want to meditate. Why would I want to sit down for 15, 20, 30 minutes and follow my breath—what is that doing? I might feel a little better afterward, but really, why? And so I hope to answer some of those questions for you today. We’re also going to practice.
Why Do People Want to Meditate?
Why do we want to meditate, what does it do for us, what’s really happening, what is the purpose! Here it goes. What we’re really trying to do is to stabilize—to stabilize our nervous system. So what happens when we sit down for a few moments when we take a few deep breaths, as we’re going to do later on, is that we start to stabilize or balance our autonomic nervous system. Now you may remember some about your nervous system from biology in high school. Probably not. Some of you may be technical experts on the nervous system but I’m just going to give it to you really simply. We have these responses in our body. We’re either on heightened alert, stressed, kind of perched, right at the edge of our chair, ready for the next shoe to drop… or we’re relaxed, so relaxed that we’re sleepy, or asleep. But when we’re balanced, when those two responses are balanced, we feel clear and energized.
When we are simply humming along, sometimes heightened, sometimes relaxed, but really humming along right down the center, the midline, we feel awake and at ease. And that truly is the meaning of being mindful. Being alert to what’s happening but at ease in the moment.
But because of our conditioning in our society, we’re rarely there. We’re most of the time perched, stressed, heightened, right at the edge of our seat waiting for that next news alert, waiting for the next post that pisses you off on social media, waiting for the next confrontation. So we stay heightened, we stay stressed. We stay in this heightened state of alertness and this is very unhealthy as we all know. The stress response, a chronically stressed body, is incredibly unhealthy on all dimensions and at all levels of our system: physiologically, mentally, and emotionally. So why we meditate, why would we want to practice mindfulness meditation or some other form, is truly to stabilize and settle your nervous system, to bring your body into a more balanced state of being.
So when we balance our breathing—and the breathing is really the best gateway for doing this—balancing your breath is the entry point for settling your nervous system and ultimately calming your mind. So stabilizing our nervous system through breath, through rhythm, through movement as we teach at Verge Body Mind, helps you to come into a more stable and settled state of being. When you’re settled and stable, your mind will naturally calm down. Our mind produces thoughts, our brains produce thoughts, our nervous system has the synapses that are constantly firing such as seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting, thinking—it’s all the same stuff. Our nervous system produces these responses to our environment and produces these synapses, these little soap bubbles of experience that sometimes comes as a smell, and sometimes comes as a sight, sometimes comes as a thought. When our nervous system is agitated, naturally those synapses, those experiences are going to be agitated. When our body is agitated, our minds will be agitated. Our thinking will be more frenzied and frazzled. When our bodies are calm, when our nervous system is balanced, those neurosynapses will be more steady or be calmer, more settled.
So we meditate and we can meditate, FYI, by walking in rhythm, by swimming, by gardening, by sitting down, and following your breath. Meditation simply means to become familiar with your state of being in this moment.
The Benefit of a Seated Meditation Practice
So I want to talk to you today about why you would want to do a seated meditation practice because I know many of you have tried. I talked to a lot of people who desperately want to feel better, who desperately want to slow down their busy mind so much to the point that they’ll do anything to feel more at ease and more peaceful in their everyday life. By practicing a seated meditation practice, even for five minutes as we’re going to do today, you can start to stabilize your nervous system, helping you to settle your mind and quiet the chatter.
You know how to settle your body if your heart is racing really fast. So, say something happens out of the blue: Somebody cuts you off on the highway in a way that just startles you and sends you into this stress mode where your body is on heightened alert. You know what to do, you know how to settle yourself. You calm yourself by deepening your breath. You just do it; we all do it. Babies know how to settle themselves. Children know how to go into a child’s pose and settle themselves. We instinctively know how to settle our bodies and our minds but we’ve just become so conditioned to being in this heightened state of alertness and stress that we’ve forgotten. So a seated meditation practice, it’s like lifting the heavy weights at the gym. The walk is amazing, the walk in the woods, the yoga practice, incredible, but sometimes just sitting down and following and balancing your breath for a few minutes it stabilizes you directly, immediately, and profoundly.
Today, I want to just give you a little bit more fuel, a little bit more understanding as to why you want to take those five, 10, 15, 20 minutes every day to train your brain in how to be in this alert and easy way of living more often. Even in challenging situations you can learn to access this alert, easy way of being we call “the mindful state of being” where everything you do you do better, by the way. So there’s a reason for wanting to be there because not only do your physical systems hum, your hormones balance, your body feels more at ease and brighter, but your mind is clearer. The chatter is less frenzied so that you can get underneath all those repetitive thoughts and start to connect with the wisdom that’s emerging in every single second of your life.
So we want to tune ourselves, tone ourselves, train ourselves to hum in this balanced way so that we can access that intelligence that’s underneath the mental chatter that’s underneath the busyness.
So first we need to settle the muddy waters. And that’s what a seated practice—and other practices—but the seated practice can do for you. It’s why you’d want to get up in the morning and sit down for five or 10 minutes: to stabilize your nervous system, to quiet the chatter, to settle your mind, to prepare you for an amazing day of insight, creativity, and connection.
Practice: 5 Breaths of Mindfulness
We’re going to try a very simple practice. It’s a simple seated practice, in which we’re following our breath, counting our breath, and then pausing after five breaths to sense what it feels like to be stable, to be settled, to be available for that “source intelligence,” for that deep wisdom, for the direct experience to emerge.
For a moment, notice your body: Notice your feet on the floor, your seat on the chair, your hands on your thighs, perhaps your upper back leaning against the chair. Notice your head in space as it finds its way to alignment on top of your shoulders and your spine. Just notice your body in space, in this moment: the experience of being in your body.
Now, notice any sensations that may be arising: Notice tingling, coolness, heat, throbbing, pulsing. Coming into your body in this way brings you more into contact with the present moment; as we drop from thinking to being, we shift into a more experiential state. We’re actually living in the moment.
Shift your attention to your breath, to your experience of breathing. What does it feel like to be breathing right now?
We’re going to start counting our breath. We’ll take five breaths. By counting our breaths, it holds your mind in your breath in this moment. So for the counting, open your eyes just halfway. Find a spot on the floor in front of you. Fixing your gaze helps you to stabilize when your eyes flitter about, your mind is flittering about. So just by lightly setting your gaze at one spot, it can help anchor your mind to this moment.
We’ll begin by counting five breaths. I’ll take you along for the first round and then I’ll leave you alone for the next few rounds. So together: inhale, exhale, one. Inhale, exhale, two. Inhale, exhale, three. Inhale, exhale, four. Inhale exhale, five.
Pausing now, keep your eyes open and notice your body, notice your surroundings. Notice any sounds, sensations, smells, tastes, thoughts. Notice what it feels like to be you right now. Recognizing presence recognizing what it feels like to be alive in this moment below the chatter, beyond the thinking; you and you alone in this moment.
And now once again fix your gaze. And we’ll begin again counting five breaths. So do this on your own right now. Stay with it.
After your five breaths, once again notice—so glimpsing what it feels like to be right here in your body, in this moment, showing up fully for your experience. If a thought comes, let it come, let it go. If a smell comes, let it come, let it go. A sound? Same thing. We’re allowing life to move. Not trying to fixate or stop anything from happening yet experiencing the aliveness, the emerging aliveness, the emerging intelligence that’s arising in every single second of our lives. What does it feel like to be in your body, in this moment, right here, right now.
Repeat one more round of five breaths. Set your gaze, bring your attention back to your breath, and begin counting.
When you’re through with your five, release: release this seated position; just wiggle your arms, wiggle your toes, maybe move your spine about, lift your gaze, lift your chin and look around.
Notice your experience right now. Noticing how your body feels in this moment, how you feel, how your mind feels. Do you feel brighter, lighter, more at ease more alert? If you do, yes! Awesome. If you don’t, that’s OK, too. By settling and steadying our mind on just five breaths, we start to shift our nervous system from being in this alert or this rather perched, stressed, agitated, on-guard state to being more open and at ease and awake in the moment to everything that’s arising. As we start to settle the water, as we start to stabilize our minds, the chatter, we’re able to then discern and sense and experience a deeper level of knowing, a deeper source of information, a more natural emerging intelligence that’s arising constantly in every second.
So why do we meditate? Why do you want to? Why do you need to? Why should you? It’s to stabilize. It’s to stabilize your nervous system first through breath awareness and when you do that, when you calm your nervous system, you calm your body, which calms your mind, which opens you up to the source, to this floodgate of genius, of brilliance, of aliveness. That’s why you meditate.
Bodywise Physical Therapy is located in Portland, Oregon. The Bodywise approach is wholistic, individualized, and can benefit people of all fitness levels. While Bodywise has always specialized in general orthopedics, spine rehabilitation, and sports medicine, they have evolved into a truly wholistic practice integrating Hands-on treatments with Mindfulness, Pilates, Trauma Release Exercise, Womens Health and Lymphedema.