The 6-2-6 breath is a yogic breathing technique that can help calm the mind, benefitting feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.
Hello. My name is Dr. Talia Marcheggiani. I’m a naturopathic doctor and mental health professional. I focus my practice on mental health and emotional wellness. I’m just at home right now with my dog, Coco, and we’d like to show you a very quick meditation that you can do.
This is a great thing to do. It’s something I teach my patients to do when they’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed out at work. It’s a great way to combat anxiety and depression as well as a really great way to dive into a meditation practice if you don’t already have your own practice.
Encouraging patients to engage in mindful activities like meditation is indeed a valuable strategy for mitigating stress and promoting mental well-being. As individuals navigate the challenges of modern life, finding effective coping mechanisms becomes increasingly crucial in combating anxiety and depression. Moreover, incorporating meditation into daily routines not only offers a reprieve from stress but also serves as a gateway to cultivating a deeper sense of mindfulness and self-awareness.
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I also find just spending 3 to 5 minutes a day to sit and focus on the breath, especially deepening the breath, is a great way to dive into meditation and establish your own meditation practice.
So all you have to do is start by either sitting in a chair with your back straight and your feet flat on the floor or in a cross-legged position. You can put your hands on your knees, but what I like to do is tell people to start with their hands on their lower abdomen. That way we can practice moving the breath into the lower abdomen, feel the abdomen rise and fall with the breath, and thereby ensure that we’re sending our breaths down into the belly as we breathe.
It’s called the 6-2-6 Breath. It’s very simple, so all you do is breathe in for a count of 6, hold the breath for a count of 2 and breathe out for the count of 6. By lengthening our inhales and exhales we’re able to stimulate the vagus nerve, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the “rest and digest” arm of the autonomic—think “automatic”—nervous system in the body. When we’re in a state of stress, overwhelm or depression, we’re usually in a sympathetic of “fight or flight” state and by calming and deepening the breath we’re also able to calm the body, establish a sense of safety within the body, and calm the mind and emotions.
So I want everyone to just close your eyes and breathe in. Start by deepening your breaths. You should feel your hands rise and fall as you breathe.
So when you’re ready let’s begin our inhale for the count of 6. So, inhale, 3, 4, 5, 6, and pause for 2, exhale 3, 4, 5, 6. Pause, 2. And inhale 3, 4, 5, 6. Pause, 2, and exhale, 3, 4, 5, 6. Pause, 2, inhale, 3, 4, 5, 6. Pause, 2, exhale, 3, 4, 5, 6. Pause, 2, inhale, 3, 4, 5, 6, pause, 2, exhale, 3, 4, 5, 6.
So you can continue doing this breath. I recommend spending 3 minutes just settling into the breath and body. You can do this while at work. You can do it at home, you can do it before bed to calm the body down, to help with a more restful sleep. I like how it helps us move out of the space of overwhelm, stress and anxiety, centre into our body and establish more possibilities for clarity and for ways to move forward in overwhelming situations.
Let me know what you think, try it yourself and leave your comments or questions below. You can also follow my blog at taliand.com.
Alternate nostril breathing is a yogic breathing practice that can help boost mental clarity and calm the mind.
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Talia Marcheggiani and I’m a naturopathic doctor with a special focus in mental health and emotional wellness and today I’d like to show you a special kind of breathing technique for balancing both the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
This breathing technique can help, if we’re feeling overwhelmed and if we’re feeling anxious, to calm the body down, and bring us out of that fight-or-flight stress response. And likewise, if we’re feeling really depleted and tired it can bring up our energy levels and give us a boost of clarity and concentration.
In Ayurvedic medicine—this is the ancient Indian medicine—it’s believed that each nostril supplies oxygen for each side of the brain: the right and left hemispheres. And we know from neuroscience that the right hemisphere of the brain is more involved in creativity and relationships and intuition, whereas the left hemisphere is more analytical and language-based and reason-based. The right side of the body is more masculine and Yang in nature and the left side is more Yin in nature. It’s believed in Ayurvedic medicine that each nostril controls oxygen to each side of the brain.
So this only takes about 3-5 minutes and I encourage you to try it just as a meditation technique if you’re beginning a meditation practice, or to calm the body or something to do before sleep where you can balance the brain and relax the body before drifting off into a sounder and better night’s sleep.
So if you take a seat on the floor or on a surface like your bed, you can sit in a cross-legged position. Or if you’re sitting in a chair have your feet flat on the floor and your back straight. So just have your shoulders back and down and keep your back in a straight, upright position. It shouldn’t feel too stiff. You should have a natural curve at the back of your spine.
Have your left arm either palm facing down or palm facing up on your left knee.
Take your right hand. You’re going to take the index fingers, the peace sign, and you’re going to place them right between your eyebrows. This is the “Third Eye”. You’re going to have your ring finger and your thumb free.
Just take a moment. You can close your eyes or you can watch what I’m doing here, but I’ll talk you through it. Now I just want you to feel your breath deepen. So send your breath to the lower abdomen. If you want you can place your hand on the lower abdomen and just feel the breath move the abdomen in and out as you breathe.
Deeper breaths have a calming and more calming effect on the body. They also stimulate the vagus nerve, which is the nerve that runs from our brain to our digestive system and is involved in calming the body down and bringing it into that rest and digest state.
When you’re ready take one deep, cleansing breath in and exhale and then block off the right nostril with your thumb. Breathe in through the left nostril. Using the ring finger close both nostrils and then release your thumb and the right nostril and exhale.
Breathe in through the right nostril… block it off…hold… and release and breathe out through the left. Now try it again. So, breathe in through the left, block it off, and exhale through the right. Inhale through the right. Block it off. Exhale through the left. Inhale again through the left. Block it off. And exhale through the right. So, if you want you can stop here and just continue on your own, but let’s continue together for another two minutes. I’ll just guide you through it. Inhale through the right nostril. Block. Exhale through the left. Inhale. Block. Exhale through the right. Inhale. Block it off. Exhale through the left. Inhale through the left. Block. And exhale through the right. Inhale. Block. And exhale.
One more cycle. Inhale. Block. Exhale. Inhale. Block. And exhale. Now place both hands on your knees, facing up or down. Keep your eyes closed and take a couple more inhales, breathing into the belly. Notice how you’re feeling; if you’re feeling a sense of calm, or an increased sense of clarity. You probably noticed that one of your nostrils was more blocked than the other one and that through doing this practice you managed to either switch which nostril was activated or clear both for better breathing.
If you want you can take a few moments here and just pay attention to your breath, or begin your meditation practice. Or, continue on your day. Thanks!
I woke up in the middle of the night to find the dragon lying in my bed. Snoring politely, he looked very small, about the size of a beagle. He was staying on his side of the bed, so I tried to get back to sleep. I’d met this beast before and knew he often brought with him ominous feelings of death and despair, but sometimes he would show up at night only to be gone in the morning. Maybe this time I wouldn’t need to worry.
The next morning, though, the dragon was still there. It rolled over and looked at me with its yellow lizard eyes. Its grey, shiny scales were smooth and glistening. I felt a sharp shiver of fear run through me. I wondered if this time he was here to stay. I worried about what he might do.
A few days ago I was faced with the challenge of moving out of the third floor of Nonna’s house. This meant that I was going to have to complete the impossible task of squeezing the entire contents of an apartment-sized room into my modest-sized childhood bedroom.
I don’t know about you but the word “gratitude” carries a fair amount of guilt and resentment for me. Being citizens of privileged countries like Canada, we’re constantly told that we should be grateful, as in, “finish your food, there are starving children in Africa!”
This realization that we have certain things that others do not often results in guilty feelings about the facts of life that we’re not responsible for (directly) and cannot change. Gratitude, at least for me, has associated feelings of injustice and helplessness. It is almost as if that by admitting I am grateful for my food, my home, my family, my friends, etc., I am acknowledging the fact that I, more than anyone else, did not earn or deserve them and brings to light the possibility that these things can be taken from me.
When we talk about meditating on or cultivating a feeling of gratitude, the opposite is usually understood. We seek to cultivate gratitude precisely for the reason that we are, in fact, not grateful and are focusing on the negative aspects of our lives, the things we are not grateful for.
However, gratitude is not about guilt-trips or comparisons. It’s simply recognizing that we are all fortunate in our own way, helping us to see the full half of our glasses.
A classmate once showed a group of students and I a powerful and engaging visualization exercise based on recognizing the things to be grateful for in our lifes. I often struggle in meditation, especially the stricter Vipassana or Zen meditations, in which we are told to calm and focus the mind. It seems that more I try to focus the more I realize I am trying, pushing to make something happen and then the more I try not to try. And try not to try not to try. Until I get lost in a vast tangle of effort. (How can we exert the effort to find effortlessness?) I found with the gratitude meditation, however, my mind calmed, focused and participated in the meditation. My mind was free to conjure up images in a Freudian pattern of free association, and I simply had to acknowledge that I was, indeed, grateful for those things.
I started by sitting quietly and focusing on my breath, calming it, deepening it and quietening it. The first thought I began with was “I am grateful for my breath.” I began to feel a sensation of blissful relaxation as I reveled in the beauty, simplicity and luxury of my breath. Without trying to sound flakey, I found myself bask in the gratefulness for it. I moved on to other body sensations, gifts and functions – “I am grateful for my lungs, for my brown hair, for a body that can meditate and relax, for this cushion, for the way I can stretch, enjoy yoga, exercise and move outside.” I let my mind wander on to the next object, maintaining mindfulness by reminding myself to acknowledge the gratitude I felt towards these things: my home, my dog, my school, country, books, nature, loving family, the sun. Whatever came up, I recognized my gratitude for having it in my life.
The most therapeutic and eye-opening part of the meditation, however, was when my mind, as most minds do, began to wander to more negative aspects of my life, things that I wasn’t necessarilygrateful for – my exams, work, stress, anxiety, family problems, school problems, uncertainty, long distance relationship, lack of money, etc. I then realized how, despite what I originally thought, I was actually grateful for these things. Negative experiences supplied the yin to my yang, they helped to balance and shape who I am and without these perceptibly negative times, I wouldn’t have faced the challenges and character-building situations that have made me who I am and led me to where I am.
Once I got the grateful ball rolling, the possibilities were endless. After a few minutes, I ended the meditation and left with a clear sense of relaxation and satisfaction for all that I have, both positive and negative.
I’ve noticed that cultivating gratitude is an important ingredient in overcoming addictions and dealing with mental illness. In the AA meeting I recently attended, I noticed a running them of gratitude and the need to thank the Higher Power on a daily basis. I once read a saying, “Image if you woke up tomorrow with just the things you thanked God for today.” Whether you are comfortable with the G word or not, I think this idea opens our minds to the many riches we may not realize we have (not just the food on our table that we should eat because of the Africans who may not have it) but the totality of our life experience.
