Breathe to Expand

Hello! Happy holiday season! As much as this time of year is jolly and joyful, it also comes with its fair share of stress. In the last few days, I have noticed parts of my body unconsciously clenching, holding onto tension, as my brain shifts from keeping track of client schedules to lists of Christmas presents yet to buy to “what am I going to wear to that holiday party.” So this week I’m sharing some of my favorite quick activities to relax tension patterns, and they’re so simple they can be done in bed or even seated at a desk.

Think of your abdomen like a tube. At the top is the neck, the middle is the ribcage, and the bottom of the tube is the bottom of the pelvis, between the sitting bones. The whole tube is meant to expand and contract as you inhale and exhale, but sometimes we adapt to tighten parts of this tube to create stability and power or when we feel stressed or unsafe. Particularly in modern life, when there are so many little day to day stressors, we can end up stuck, where parts of the tube no longer move with breath and stay tight and tense. Below you’ll find a short activity for releasing from the top of the tube down through the bottom. Give them a try and notice if you feel more expansion and less tension throughout the entire body. Changing how breath is moving inside the tube can change so much more than we realize.

For releasing neck tension:

For releasing ribcage tension:

For releasing pelvic floor tension: