At the heart of Mindfulness is the Mindful Breathing. It is to tell our mind to relax and focus and to calm down the ‘monkey brain’. It can even be used several times a day, almost like pushing a ‘reset’ button. It’s the perfect way to bring us back from the peripheries to our centre, remain aligned. If one can start with this for 8 weeks initially allocating 30 minutes just to tune-in, and then continue this daily, tuning-in for 10 minutes as part of your life, – preferably morning - just being connected and aware of your breath, feeling it in the belly region, rising as you inhale and falling you as you exhale, as though surfing on the waves, its influence on your Pre-frontal Cortex is clinically researched and proven!!
It is not about breathing or being aware of your breath; it is about using the breath as an anchor to keep us in this moment, preventing our mind from going to a space in the past or planning the future. Every time a new thought comes to your mind, observe it, allow it to go to deal another time, and come back to your awareness of breath. If thoughts arise ten thousand times, ten thousand times observe it, allow it to go and come back to your awareness of breath.
This should have a tremendous positive effect in many other areas in life too – the calmness you will feel, the grounded-ness you will experience, the balance in decisions, clarity in your thoughts, your awareness of wanting to be in the here and now and to smell the roses on your window-sill than spend in imaginations planning your future garden, discernment of facts from judgments etc.
After all, even a genius playing a cello in the Philharmonic Orchestra will still spend a few minutes to tune her instrument before she begins her play!! Mindful Breathing is a way for us to tune our instruments before we play out our day!