Clay & Air

Pillar one ยท Relaxing

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Foundational breath

3-10 minutes · Sitting or lying · Nose in, sigh out

The fastest way down, and the base every other technique here is built on. If you have not done this before, start with this one.

AnxiousAngryBreathing shallow

The basics

You have been breathing badly all day and it has been feeding the thing you are trying to fix. Sharp and shallow, high in the chest, through the mouth. That is the pattern your body reads as a threat, so it keeps you braced, and being braced makes you breathe that way again. Five things break the loop. Get them right and every other technique here works.

Nose, not mouth

In through the nose and out through the nose. The nose filters the air and slows it down; mouth breathing does the opposite and your body reads it as a stress signal.

Belly out on the way in

Put a hand flat below your navel. The belly should push into your hand on the inhale and come back in on the exhale, not your chest rising first. If the hand does not move, nothing else on this page will work properly.

Slow and low

Five seconds in, six seconds out. The exhale is the half that does the work. That is where the body lets go, so keep it the longer one.

The Ujjayi exhale

Open your mouth and breathe out like you are fogging a pane of glass. Feel the slight squeeze at the back of the throat. Now do the same thing with your mouth closed. It sounds like the ocean, quiet enough that nobody nearby will notice, and having something to hear keeps you with the breath instead of in your head.

If the air will not go low

Put your hands behind your head. It opens the front of the chest and the breath drops on its own. Do it a few times and it starts happening without the hands.

Watch

Not playing? Watch it on YouTube.

The pattern

  1. 01Breathe in through the nose in one continuous movement: belly first, then chest, then all the way up behind the eyes.
  2. 02Hold 5 to 10 seconds at the top.
  3. 03Open your mouth and sigh it all the way out. Long, and out loud.
  4. 04Anywhere you cannot make noise, use the Ujjayi exhale instead. Same length, mouth closed.
  5. 05Repeat.

The sigh is doing real work. The voice empties you faster than the breath alone, so use it wherever you can.

Belly not moving means the air stopped at your chest. Put a hand below your navel and breathe into it.

How it lands

The drop comes on the exhale, not the inhale. By the third round your shoulders are lower than you left them and the noise in your head has thinned out.

What it does

  • The base every other technique here is built on
  • Settles the fight-or-flight response
  • Slows the heart rate
  • Works anywhere, in under three minutes
  • Lowers blood pressure and brings inflammation down

If you want a hand with it

This one works on your own. Some of it lands harder with someone in the room, and that is what the workshops are for.

Workshops

The rest of this pillar