The Breathing Book: Good Health and Vitality Through Essential Breath Work

Relax your jaw, throat, and tongue and let your facial muscles drop as if impersonating a basset hound.

Use a cue like every time you put the phone down, or every time you see your favorite color, to pause and feel the moment between your inhalation and your exhalation.

Practice letting other people finish their sentences and allow for a pause before you speak. Observe your breathing as you listen to others.

A deep, abiding sense of ease, surrender, and relaxation will arise when you allow yourself to drink in the peace of this pause.

Chest breathers often experience a chronic, free-floating state of anxiety.

Write a letter longhand at the end of the day instead of typing it, being mindful of your breathing as you write.

If you do not allow your exhalation to be completed before rushing for the next breath, or there is no pause at the end of your exhalation it is likely that you are a hyperventilator.

Is my need to hurry real or imagined? Is this task so important that it is worth losing my peace of mind? And the clincher, Will anyone die as a result of this not getting done today? Question whether hurrying will really help you arrive at your destination

If you can be patient during the inquiries you will find that the breath will magically open to you in the same way that a knot falls open when you play with it patiently. There is very little between you and the magic of this opening.