Relax, close your eyes and go in vacation to your inner paradise
Updated: Apr 3, 2018
Just take a look to this beautiful beach. Does it bring you to an state of relaxation?
Take a deep breath and go to your inner paradise!
Any moment you wish to have a break from your daily routine, job, or challenging situation, your mind has the ability to calm down yourself. Use breathing and visualization to arrive to this state.
Your breathing calms your brain
While the admonition to control breathing to calm the brain has been around for ages, only recently has science started uncovering how it works. A 2016 study accidentally stumbled upon the neural circuit in the brainstem that seems to play the key role in the breathing-brain control connection. The circuit is part of what's been called the brain’s “breathing pacemaker” because it can be adjusted by altering breathing rhythm (slow, controlled breathing decreases activity in the circuit; fast, erratic breathing increases activity), which in turn influences emotional states. Exactly how this happens is still being researched, but knowing the pathway exists is a big step forward. Simple controlled breathing exercises inhaling in 4 times, retaining your breathing in 4 times, exhaling in 4 times. You can do this for couple minutes.
The rhythm of your breathing affects memory.
A 2016 study showed for the first time that the rhythm of our breathing generates electrical activity in the brain that influences how well we remember. The biggest differences were linked to whether the study participants were inhaling or exhaling, and whether they breathed through the nose or mouth. Inhaling was linked to greater recall of fearful faces, but only when breathing through the nose. Participants were also able to remember certain objects better when inhaling. Researchers think that nasal inhalation triggers greater electrical activity in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional epicenter, which enhances recall of fearful stimuli. Inhaling also seems linked to greater activity in the hippocampus, the seat of memory.
Visualization
After some breathing exercises, you will feel calmer. When you arrive to this state. Start to visualize a place like the video above. Create your own sanctuary of peace and relaxation where you can return any time you look for calmness. Take your time, keep breathing at the same rhythm. Feel everything around this image. How the waves touch the water, how the trees are moving, how the breeze touch your face. Feel everything and feel that emotion relaxing all your body. Enjoy this moment!!
Everybody can create peace anytime, anywhere. Just follow this steps and you will be there!
Have a relaxed day!