10 Minute of Mindful Breathing - At Peace With the World Around You

This is 10 minutes of mindful breathing. There is no problem to solve here. Nothing is being asked of you. You do not have to fix your day or your mood or yourself.

For the next 10 minutes, there is nothing to fix and nowhere to be. Only your breath and the room you're sitting in and the quiet business of being alive in it. This is mindful breathing for relaxation, a slow 10 minutes to be at peace with the world around you. Hi there, and welcome to calming anxiety.

I'm Martin and every single day I put out 10 minutes like this one, that anybody who needs somewhere quiet to put themselves for just a while. Most days I meet people at their most frightened, the panic, the racing heart, the three in the morning worry, but not every day needs to be a rescue. Some days the kindest thing is simply to breathe well and let the world be as it is. This is all today is.

Settle yourself however your company, sitting, lying down on a train in a car bar, it generally doesn't matter. Just allow the shoulders to come down a little way from your ears, let your hands rest open all this or wherever they form. Close your eyes if that feels all right, if it doesn't let your gaze go soft. We're going to breathe in for four, hold, then relax out for six.

The out breath is longer than the in breath and that's the whole trick of it. In my years on the road as a paramedic, the very first thing we ever did for a frightened person before the drugs, before anything else was to slow their breathing. It works because the long out breath speaks directly to the vagus nerve. Now let's begin together in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Ready? One, two, three, four, hold, two, relax, two, three, four, five, six.

And in, two, three, four, rest, two, release, two, three, four, five, six.

There's no hold at the bottom, nothing to count carefully, nothing to get right. If you lose the rhythm, you've not failed anything. You have simply been thinking and thinking is what minds do. Come back to the out breath and let it belong in, two, three, four, hold, two, breathe out, two, three, four, five, six.

Now let the counting go. Let your body take over the rhythm on its own. The way it knows how and while it breathes for you, let them room in. The temperature of the air on your face.

The weight of you pressing down into whatever is holding you up. Sound somewhere from outside, traffic, a bird, someone else is life going on. None of it needing anything from you. This is what mindful breathing actually is.

Not emptying your head, not achieving anything. Not breathing, and body, and the world going on around you. All of it allowed. Now I'm going to say a few lines.

You don't need to repeat them or agree with them. Let them land or let them pass. In the world of clinical hypnotherapy, the words do most of their work when you stop trying to hold onto them. My breath is slow and my body is following it down.

I am at peace with the world around me, exactly as it is today.

There is nothing I must solve in these ten minutes.

My shoulders are lower than they were. My jaw is looser than it was. The world can carry on without my worrying about it.

I am allowed to rest before I have earned it.

The calm is mine. I made it with my own breath. Let that settle. Let the breath go long again, all on its own.

And if your mind has wandered off somewhere while I've been talking, good. That's the drift, that's the whole point of it. You don't have to come all the way back. I'll say them once more.

And this time, let them be something you over here, rather than something you listen to. My breath is slow and my body is following it.

I am at peace with the world around me.

Nothing to solve, nothing to fix. My shoulders alone, my jaw is loose, my hands are open.

The world can carry on without me holding it up. I am allowed to rest. Now before we go, here are the three daily caring tips. Carry these with you, always.

One. One breath at the threshold. Every time you go through a door today, the front door, the office door, the car door. Take one long out breath as you cross it.

Doors are the natural punctuation of a day and most of us charge straight through them, carrying the last room into the next one. Two. Leave one thing unfinished. Choose one small task today and deliberately do not finish it.

The washing up, the last email, the tidier. Not because it doesn't matter, but to prove to yourself that the world holds together perfectly well when you stop. Anxiety is very fond of telling us otherwise. Three.

Ten seconds of sky. At some point today, go outside or to a window and look up for ten seconds. That's all. It is the quickest way I know to be back on speaking terms with a world around you and it costs nothing at all.

Now bring your focus back to the space around you. Wiggle your fingers and toes. Take that deep breath in, hold at the top and then as you exhale stretch out your arms overhead and then open your eyes. If today's ten minutes helped, please do share it with someone who could use a quieter day and if you haven't already follow or subscribe so tomorrow finds you without you having to look for it.

A review takes you a moment but genuinely helps another anxious person find us and do come and find anchored. Three thousand sessions all searchable all downloadable for when you are out of signal and need somewhere quiet. Until tomorrow my friend in everything. Be kind.